Page 1 - Intro
Page 2 - Engine Info
Page 3 - Exterior
Page 4 - Interior
Page 5 - Sound System
Page 6 - Side view of the car
Page 7 - Engine/Performance Parts
Page 9 - Full Modification List
Page 10 - Team NIO and NissanX

I dislike having to put this up here because I don't want to sound rude or anything but these days you have to cover you butt from getting sued for just about anything. Like said in the disclaimer below everything in this FAQ comes from stuff that I have done myself to my car and I know it works. Good luck and have lots and lots of fun when you turbo your Maxima!!

Disclaimer: You are free to use these instructions however you want, however, I can not be held liable for anything done to your car if something gets messed up. Everything listed in this FAQ is stuff that I have done to my own personal car myself and it works. If something gets messed up, it is solely you're fault and responsiblity. Again, I am not liable for any screw ups done to your car by you or anyone else!

Turbo Charging Your VG Maxima: FAQ

Q: Can I turbo my VG Maxima?
A: Yes, you can!

Q: How hard is it?
A: If you have some mechanical skill and knowledge its actually quite easy. I pretty much did the swap without much knowledge and just learned on the way but I have pretty good mechanical skill, which helped.

Q: How much would I be looking to spend on this project?
A: I spent somewhere between $1500-$2000. It would have been cheaper but there were some things that I bought that I didn�t need to.

Q: Can I turbo the stock engine or do I have to swap an engine?
A: You can do either. The stock VG has a compression ratio of 9:1, which actually isn�t all that bad for boost. If you turbo the stock engine the 9:1 compression will give you quicker spool times and will give you better low end power along with high end power compared to a lower compression engine.

Q: Which engines can I put into my Maxima?
A: For the engine swap you will want to use the VG30ET from an 87-89**** 300ZX Turbo or you can also get the JDM VG30ET that I believe came out of the Nissan Gloria. The 87-89 VG30ET and the JDM VG30ET are nearly identical except for the intake and the cams. The JDM engine has the Maxima style intake and is supposed to have euro cams which are good for a 10 hp increase on a forced induction engine.

Q: How much power do these engines pull?
A: If the JDM engine does have the euro cams it should pull about 215 hp. The 87-89 300ZX Turbo pulls 205 hp (all are crank horsepower figures).

Q: How do I swap a VG30ET into my Maxima?
A: Here�s the fun stuff. Once you get the engine you�ll need to pull the Maxima engine out so you can swap some stuff over. The items you�ll need to swap are:

- Oil pan (you�ll also need to get a pipe welded in for the oil return tube from the turbo)
- Alternator
- A/c
- Bracket for the alt. and a/c
- Power steering pump (since its easiest to just leave the pump on the car when removing the engine you need to remove the p/s pump off of the turbo engine)
- Coolant pipes running under the intake manifold
- Water pump
- Sensors
- Crank pulley
- Its a good idea to swap the valve covers since the rear valve cover of the Z has the oil cap right on the cover whereas the Maxima has a raised tube and the front valve cover will need to be swapped if you want to use the Maxima distributor (I did this since I wasn't sure if I could get the JDM VG30ET distributor cap and such here incase they are different from the Z31 setup)
- Distributor mounting plate (its the flat piece of aluminum that the distributor bolt bolts into). The one on the JDM VG30ET has a different angle for the bolt compared to the one on the Maxima VG30E so you will need to swap it over to keep from stripping the aluminum out with the bolt.

If using the JDM engine and you have a manual tranny you need to swap the IACV (idle air control valve) since the cars these engines came in only had an automatic. The IACV on automatics differ from the ones used on engines with a manual tranny so for the idle to work right, it needs to be swapped.

If using the Z31 engine you need to swap everything above along with:

- Intake manifold (upper and lower)
- Fuel rail (Z31 has top feed injectors from what I understand) *see �Other things you�ll need If you use the Z31 engine�

Q: What kind of things do I need to buy to get it running?
A: You�ll need to get quite a few things but if you search a little bit you can actually find everything for a good price. The things you need include:

- JWT ECU or some sort of fuel management (I bought the Apex�i S-AFC 2 and it seems to work fine)
- Custom crossover pipe to make the install easier **
- Custom intake and exhaust (can be done at your local exhaust shop for cheap or if you want to have a higher quality setup you can order mandrel bends and have someone weld it all together unless you can weld it yourself to save money)
- A blow off valve. The 300zx comes with a pop off valve which I believe is supposed to protect from over boosting if the wastegate ever fails. I would replace this with a good blow off valve. Something cheap yet effective is a 1st generation eclipse blow off valve. They are said to handle a good amount of boost without leaking and you can pick them up for 30 bucks or so.
- Aftermarket wastegate since when you move the turbo you'll have to turn the housings which won't allow you use the stock internal wastegate setup and you also won�t be able to use the stock o2 sensor housing (which contains the wastegate valve on the 84-86 T3 turbo)
- Various flanges and gaskets as needed (t3 flange for the turbo)
- Turbocharger if the one that comes with the engine is missing or bad. if you get the Z31 engine you'll definitely want to get a different turbo. The 87-89 has the T25 setup, which is pathetic, so I'd upgrade to, at the least, an 84-86 300ZX turbocharger. Ebay is a good place to get low price turbo. You�ll want one with a .63 A/R turbine wheel, which is a good size for a 3-liter V6.
- 255-lph Walbro fuel pump (very inexpensive)
- Might pick up a rising rate fuel pressure regulator (1:1 increase) but it shouldn't be necessary
- Various gauges like boost/vacuum, egt, or just whatever you want and feel like you need. I recommend at least boost, egt, and possibly fuel pressure. If you have the money to spend (300-500 dollars) I would get a wideband O2 sensor setup. The wideband O2 sensor is much more accurate than the stock O2 sensor which will help with tuning your engine and will also let you know immediately if you are going too lean. Places to get the wideband O2 sensor setup are: PLX Devices and Innovate Motorsports.

Other things you�ll need if you use the Z31 engine are:

- Larger injectors. Since you have to swap the fuel rail you need to upgrade the injectors because the Maxima�s injector won�t cut it. The Maxima�s injectors are rated at 180cc, which is way too small for a forced induction application. One route to take would be injectors off of a 90-94 300ZX N/A or the Infiniti J30.*** The injectors are side feed and high impedance so they should slip right into the Maxima�s fuel rail and the ECU should be able to use them with no problems. Another route would be the side feed 370cc injectors that came off the 90-94 300ZX Twin Turbo. If you go that route you will most likely need a different fuel computer than the Apex�i S-AFC (if you decide to use one of those). The S-AFC will only adjust fuel by +/- 50% and 370cc injectors are over 50% larger than the 180cc Maxima injectors.

** Since the route I took for the manifold required modification using large cutting wheel and a cutting torch I'm trying to figure out a way to make this work so people who don't have access to these tools can still set everything up properly. I'm looking into a custom motor mount setup and if it works I'll put an update on this site about them.
*** Many thanks to Ari for the info on the injectors and motor mounts!
**** The USDM VG30ET had a crossover point sometime in 1987. This means that some 1987 300ZX Turbos had the earlier engine with the short crank snout and some had the longer crank snout. I do not know if the older engine will work so I'll just stick with the safe side and say that you must use the later engine with the longer crank snout.

To get stuff to fit really well I had to get the turbo relocated. The best setup that I found so far is on the crossover pipe. This puts the turbo near the location of the battery. You will have to move your battery in the trunk to do this. By moving the turbo here this totally eliminated the problem of the turbo being in the way of the motor mount and being very close to possibly touching the radiator which would be very unsafe due to the temperatures these things can get to. This also allows you plenty of room to upgrade to a larger turbo. Some things I recommend on the turbo placement is to put it closer the the front of the crossover pipe (front of the car). This gets the turbo closer to the battery location which allows for more room. You will also want to get it pretty low to allow for room for a bigger turbo in the future if those are your plans. As you can see in the picture the turbo is located pretty close to the center of the crossover pipe. This didn't allow enough room for the piping to clear that cylindrical black thing on the driver's side strut tower. I recommend moving the turbo forward to take away this problem.

As you can see here, this is reason I had the turbo moved. The maxima motor mount is right in front of the turbo giving no room for the piping. The 300zx motor mount is towards the front of the engine allowing enough room for piping. Making a custom mount is much more tedious than doing the crossover pipe and also moves it further away from the radiator as explained previously. (these are the generalized locations of the mounts)

You will need to either heat wrap your crossover pipe or your wires when you do this because the wires get extremely close to the pipe and you don't want those particular wires melting.

For the original location of the turbo I just had a steel plate welded over the spot where the turbo bolted on. I didn't want to really get a manifold made since I was on a low budget so this should work well until i can get one made. Update on this. I found out it is a very bad idea to close up that spot of the manifold. Turns out the way the manifold was cast it won't allow exhaust to go into the crossover pipe when welded over. I'll have a better idea of how to fix this in the next few days.

For the custom crossover pipe a piece of mandrel bent piping was used and I had a t3 flange custom made to be welded on. John at J&H Racing did this for me and did a wonderful job. He made some walls for the t3 flange to set on to allow more room for nuts and bolts.

For the oil supply I just used steel brake line that can be had for cheap from autozone or any local parts store. It is can hold pressure much better than braided steel hose and is much, much cheaper. What i had to do is keep the stock oil line to turbo in it's place since it used a special tip and then I ran the brake line from the end of the stock line to the turbo. They have the correct fitting to go right on the fittings of the turbo and stock oil feed line. Just take both to the store and they can find the correct fittings for you. This is the location and the end fitting of the stock oil feed line for the turbo. You need this piece unless you are going to use steel braided line.

Probably one of the best things you can do for engine management is get a retune by JWT at the moment. I didn't want to spend the money to go that route so I attempted to use the Apexi S-AFC II but I'm not having much luck, at the moment, with it. What i've decided to do is having someone else burn me an eprom for the moment. I am planning on getting an eprom burner and eraser and I'm going to try programming my own ecu's. If that works well I'll let anyone that is interested know and I can get your very good ecu tunes for much cheaper than the jwt. That will probably be way in the future but I'm still going to try.

Right now I'm just running it near base power and with no aftercooler (intercooler). I plan on using an aftercooler in the future but i need to find one that will meet my needs and wants.

So far, I think i've only spent about 1100 dollars doing this swap. A lot of the work I did myself and with friends and a lot of parts I got for cheap by looking around a lot and by friends. A very good place to get parts is at J&H Racing. They have an awesome mebership deal where you pay 30 dollars a month and you get any part they get AT THEIR COST!! The only extras you pay is for tax and shipping! Check out www.jandhracing.com for awesome deals. They are very good people and are good to the customer. If you go there let them know I sent you.

I know this "write up" reads a bit choppy so if any of you has any questions at all, send me an e-mail to mtcookson@yahoo.com. I would be more than glad to help my fellow Maxima enthusiasts out!

I would like to credit Shawn (MrGone) for um... well... uh... I don't know but I'll just mention his name here.

Page 1 - Intro
Page 2 - Engine Info
Page 3 - Exterior
Page 4 - Interior
Page 5 - Sound System
Page 6 - Side view of the car
Page 7 - Engine/Performance Parts
Page 9 - Full Modification List
Page 10 - Team NIO and NissanX

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