VQ Crazy

 

Recently all around me have been Nissan VQs. There's the Cosworth Castrol Top Shop engine that I have been coordinating and tuning at Cosworth, then over at XS they are building a Z33 for my buddy Andy who owns Ark Design, so as a I built that engine on my own time, then I have been writing reports at Cosworth on VQ35DE camshafts like a madman, then I have been working on the Cosworth VQ35 long stroke crankshaft, my daily driver Maxima has a VQ30, I've been driving my mom's G35 which has a VQ35, etc. VQs kick ass.

 

The Cosworth Top Shop engine made 4xxbhp (buy the magazines) normally aspirated which impressed me. Th...

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Deck Preparation

I really wonder why people don't understand how critical the condition of the sealing surfaces of the deck of a block and the fire face of the cylinder head is to head gasket sealing. Old school engines used paper gaskets so you could get away with some flaws, but modern engines use metal head gaskets which require the block/head is 1)absolutely flat and 2)is free of flaws or defects. As you can imagine, metal doesn't flex and fill defects like a paper gasket can. When I say free of flaws, I mean no scratches, nicks, and dents either. The more cylinder pressure there is (aka boost and horsepower) in an engine, the more critical flatness, surface roughness average, and perfection of t...

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Should You Change Your SR20DET Head Gasket?

SR20DET swaps in S13/14 240SX's are quite popular here in America. One of the questions I frequently get is, "Do you think I should change my head gasket before I swap the SR in?" I always recommend changing it because it's fairly easy when the engine is sitting on a stand or even on the floor (don't crush the steel pan people!). The paper gasket is fine for 205hp and probably even ok for 280hp, but in reality it's detonation that usually destroys the stock paper head gasket. Since there are so many cheap asses that use the OEM ECUs on 91 octane in the SR20 swap world, it's even more reason to change the head gasket. Yes, the stock ECU can handle 91 octane because it can default to ...

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The World's Gayest Head

So I was checking out a 2007 Ford Mustang GT heads last week and I must say that they are the The World's Lamest Heads; at least for a "performance" vehicle. I'm sure there are heads that are more lame, but the Mustang GT is supposed to be a muscle car. This is 2007 the last time I checked. Looking at these heads I thought I was in 1984.

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