Moving swiftly across the 100,000 mi mark, engine and drive train longevity is becoming a greater concern (i drive the car pretty hard). With thoughts of forced induction in the near future; a blown engine or tranny or transfer case (i have AWD) is knocking at the door. I have recently been looking at insurance auctions for salvaged 350z/g35 and I began to wonder: provided I receive an full complete donor car everything (engine, tranny, ecu, suspension) would bolt right up and work with minimal modification, correct? I have no desire to retain my awd capability (i live in southern az) and would prefer to ditch it in favor of a 6mt/rwd. Being a decent fabricator, my concerns are primarily lying in the electronic aspect of things. I am looking for positive feedback and factual information here. If you're not contributing either, please refrain from responding. Thanks.

 

I would weight the cost of purchasing another car to buying a donor and the time and effort involved in the swap. If you do the swap, I would look into selling your awd engine and trans to help alleviate the expenditure. Also, I would go for a pre 05 6mt since the rev ups can have oil consumption problems.

 

i think there was a thread about this, someone wanting to do a AT to MT swap... as people have said.. there will always be thing that dont get done right (ie screws.. bolts.. etc... just sell the car and buy a MT

 

You would probably run into far less problems going from a RWD 5AT to a RWD 6MT... but even at that, it's no walk in the park.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were all kinds of unforeseen problems with going from an AWD setup

 

Where's the fun in that??

 

I have done auto-to-manual swaps in VWs and they are NOT fun. Each customer wanted to do the swap because they started with an auto, started getting into suspension/FI/body mods and are completely limited by the automatic transmission. They did not want to undo all of the work they'd already done and put it into another car.

Unfortunately, about 90% of the work they put into the car needed to be redone to accommodate the manual swap. They would've saved a lot of time and money if they'd just removed the mods, bought a manual and took a weekend or two to put it all back together.

Am I trying to discourage you from doing the swap? No. But when you start to think about how so many parts from the G35X are different from the G35 manual, it makes no sense to swap them all out, especially with salvaged parts that could've been damaged.

LOL, it never works that way.

 

350Z definitely wouldn't make for a good donor car for this project.

If you're insisting on doing it, getting the G35 6MT and using your car as the donor for any broken/upgraded parts would be the much better plan.

 

why would you say a 350z would not be a good donor? engine and trans are same depending on year.. there is alot of other stuff that you'd need, trans tunnel, interior parts and such. but the engine and trans should be good for the donor.. but yet, this topic has been covered many of times, so search!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Even if a lot of the hard parts are the same like engine and trans....it's the misc items that can be a pita. There could be wiring differences between the 350z and the awd g that required Nissan to use a totally different harness, or differen mount brackets, or different bolts and other hardware. I have done auto to manual swaps on mustangs and those little parts are what drives you nuts.


Only way I would attempt it is with a similar year/make donor vehicle...in your case an 04 6mt and had the entire car.

I don't seek why 100k scares you. If the car is properly maintained..thats just breaking the engine in.

 

Because there's a lot more to the swap than just engine/trans. Harness lengths, bolt locations, and all the other accessories may be similar but not 100% the same.

Plus, using a G35 donor car gives you duplicates of virtually every nut, bolt, light, interior panel, sensor and wire for you car, useful for many, many things.

 

[QUOTE=nlallen141;5217030]Moving swiftly across the 100,000 mi mark, engine and drive train longevity is becoming a greater concern (i drive the car pretty hard). With thoughts of forced induction in the near future; a blown engine or tranny or transfer case (i have AWD) is knocking at the door. I have recently been looking at insurance auctions for salvaged 350z/g35 and I began to wonder: provided I receive an full complete donor car everything (engine, tranny, ecu, suspension) QUOTE]

FWIW I am in the same boat have an 05x with 160k+ miles. A blown front U joint @159K caused a lottttt of damage. Im talking transfer case, front diff(carrier), broken front prop shaft, that knocked a football size hole in my tranny bell housing and hydralic lines for steering. Luckilly a guy named Vinnyten and his crew got me back on the road. I say all that 2 say I learned from this X perience that

1. X's upper engine oil pan is different than rwds
2. Tranny has an additional piece mounted on back that drives front prop shaft
3.ECU is different for X models
4.X's Front suspension is different that all other G/Z
5.Sedans and coupes/Z have different lengths and materials 4rear driveshaft
I dont even think exhaust is swapable without lot of effort

I want to go FI as well and was told either 1. Sell X get a G rwd or Z 2.Bring a big bag of money cause it can be done but it will cost.

GL

 

I have researched quite a bit about doing a 5at RWD to 6mt RWD, however I have found NO information about the AWD aspect of things.

I was essentially thinking the same thing but wanted to reconfirm my suspicions.

While this may be valid on a NA vehicle, forced induction on stock components makes vehicle longevity becomes a whole new ballgame (a much shorter one at that).

I think some may be confused as to what I may/may not be doing... Car is over 100k and forced induction in the near future will most likely lead to blown engine/trans. Since I will be needing replacement engine/trans the cost of buying RWD components (salvaged donor car) will be close to, if not less than the cost of rebuilding AWD components (more complex drivetrain = big $$$). I understand time is a big factor for some people, but thankfully I have been blessed with lots of it. And I can think of no better way to spend that free time than doing something I love.

Just a little FYI:
I have done a engine/trans swap before, specifically Mustang 5.0 manual into a 91 Ford Explorer 4.0 auto. So I am not too worried about the mechanical aspect of things. I am however a little weary about the electrical side of things due to the G's plethora of electrical components and sensors.

To be honest, I'm not really looking for peoples opinions here. Mainly I am looking for information on engine/transmission/suspension/ecu differences. I guess I had better start inspecting service manuals myself...

 

The Mustang to Explorer swap is a walk in the park compared to what you're talking about doing.

Just consider all the crap you have to go through to do an auto to manual swap (you said you researched) and then multiply by 2 because you're dealing with awd->rwd.

 

I dont see how this project could be vastly different from putting a vq35de/6mt into a 240 (which has been done 100000x over) since essentially my sedan will be just a rolling chassis after im through with it.

 

240's don't have a really complicated BCM.