After talking to a couple Maxima guys its apparent no tuning option exits for the 02 maxima ECU thats worth a damn in racing. No offense to the UTEC users, its a great street system but I needed more functionality in a purpose built track car.

We need a way we can control HP, timing, fuel, cams, and wheel spin without running a stand alone ECU. UpRev has that functionality, but that means switching to the +04 CANbus supported ECU. UpRev can shut off any DTC, so choosing which sensors to keep, and which to remove is relatively simple.

My B15 has all of its wiring intact - all its harnesses, relays, fuses, etc. It takes a little work to get a VQ35 with an '02 Maxima ECU to work in a B15 SE-R, but its not hard by any means.

That was the old way..

Justin and I are going to remove every fuse box, harness and relay box in the car. Everything. Then we are going to replace it with just the bare essentials from a 350Z. Gauge cluster and ECU. We'll run wiring for the fuel pump, headlights, tail lights, wipers and starter to a box in the center of the dash. The ECU will control/monitor only these functions (I'm thinking off the top of my head) - cam pos sensors, crank angle, VTC, magnet retarder actuator, evt, coils and amplifier, injectors, knock, water temp, MAF, IAT, TB & pedal, wheel sensor (through can line), wideband or 02 and fuel level.

The toughest task I think will be the wheel speed sensor - the signal is sent from with the ABS box or TCS over the can wire. None of which my motor will have.

If anyone has any insight into how to get a maxima tranny to relay speed to a 350Z ECU, please let me know.

We're going to hit the junk yards and see what we can dig up. We're looking for an 05 6spd ECU, harness, and gauge cluster..for starters. Tonight we removed the dash, heater core, sound deadening, everything but the fuse box.

Next is all the harnesses. We'll also go to Forged Perf and see if we can borrow a Z head to test fit. Mark seems to think it will fit perfectly - maybe a couple of the inside timing cover bolts might not line up. But the LIM should bolt up.

Should be fun..

We ordered new rings, bearings, orings, etc from Dave B at South Pt in Austin. We'll modify the water passage for HR HG. Adding the HR head bolts, HR Oil Pump.  And we got in the 2row Infiniti I30 radiator, which is exactly the same width as the B15, just 2" higher. Now we have the inlet/outlets on the correct sides unlike the B15 radiator.  We also have HR valve springs, retainers and 350Z lower Tstat, all of which we may not need with the newer heads with EVT.   The only part we are missing from the motor build are the ARP rod bolts and OEM thrust washers. 

Yesterday




Today

Posted By Big J on 02-23-2010 08:31 AM
Depending on how we like the VQ setup, we may or may not put one together with the RevUp parts. First goal is to get the car together, get the new suspension under the car (i.e., not Ksport), and get the car on the scales for an event event at Road Atlanta in Mid March.

???

 

Posted By Big J on 02-25-2010 06:23 AM
We discontinued our affiliation and sponsorship w/ Ksport and picked up another suspension sponsor. We'll talk about it more later.

411 bump...lol
saw your comments on B15U in the GB thread...so what happened? very curious about the the new sponsor...
 

we abandoned the HR heads in the more realistic hops of just getting it running in time to make at least a few races this year.

But, we have access to all the HR stuff, it looks good as far as it actually working......... probably won't do it unless we need to build another motor, but that ain't happening. The VQ was a stop gap until we could do a little more QR development and come up with some thing that can make 230-240hp NA and stay together on the track.

I tapped some connections and got the block machined, assembled, balanced and blueprinted w/ a 3 day turn around. The shop we use doesn't flinch at anything making less than 4 digit HP. A lot of the stuff they build is never dyno tested simply because it would break the dyno. They do all the builds for a company that twin turbos Lambos and Ferrari's and the local shops that do VQ motors, as well as 3000-4000hp outlaw cars. So the bottom end is second to none. I'll have to dig up the build sheet.

So far the motor is 11:1 compression,  020 over w/ torque plates, RevUp factory cams, revup springs and retainers, revup oil pump, HR head gaskets  and bolts and JWT cooling system mods, ACL main bearings, factory rod bearings, micropolished and balanced crank, factory rods, ARP rod bolts, NWP Enginering Phenolic manifold spacers.
 

This is the shop car, 3800-4000hp. world record outlaw car, 5 sec 1/4, 2 108mm turbos

I usually use JE for pistons so I gave them a call. Best they could do was 2-3 weeks turn around on a custom set so they gave me contact info for a person @ wiseco since both companies are under the parent company PMI. Wiseco helped us out and got some 11:1 off the shelf piston out to us ASAP.

 

At first we had the motor about 1" lower than it is in this picture..... but the oil pan was kinda low to the ground, so we brought it up about 3/4 of an inch...... if only we had a dry sump set up we could go lower

In the quest to get the CoG down I pulled off an old Big J trick and fabbed up some alternator brackets to mount the alternator lower.

We picked up BC Racing Suspension North America as a sponsor for the 2010 season. Really nice parts, great company to deal with, will do custom valving and spring rates w a 4 week turn around. We went with 10k springs all the way around and have some 9k also if need be. The valving is suposted to be good for 10k +/- 2k on the spring rates.

Should be topping these off with some Ground Control caster/camber plates.

Wiring should be done soon, mainly just common grounds and power feeds left. ECM and power feeds to injectors, coils, and a few other sensors are on a switch and relay, and the fuel pump is on another. It's almost like a real race car now.