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
, 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. The team at Cosworth made it happen without much drama: Tyler, Lew, Colin, Magnus, Lyon, Donny, Ian, and my bad self. This was the first time I took over calibration duties on the Cosworth dyno cell #2. With the extensive Pi datalogging equipment it was almost too easy. JESUS, chassis dynos are stone age. Now I know why the dyno guys used to laugh when we talked about chassis dynos. I did some calibration work at TRD many moons ago for the Ultimate Celica so I was familiar with working on a professional engine dyno setup, but the Cosworth cells with climate control are sick. Anyhow, look out for a future issue of some Sourceinterlink publication to see the results of the Top Shop competition. I don’t think we did that well since the turbo engines rocked, but oh well. We were just building an engine for development and decided to hop on the competition anyway. It wasn’t a purpose built dyno queen VQ and it basically used all off the shelf parts (or soon to be off the shelf).
At XS, they are building Andy’s Z33 from the ground up. I think the build is being featured in Import Tuner over several issues. They are working with
and Top Secret on the aero (widebody action), Ark Design with the electronics and brakes,
with the engine,
HKS with the GT-RS twin turbo system
, and a few other companies. Wheels have not been determined yet. The thing about this car is that it will be daily driven, at the shows, and there are even talks of street class time attacking. It should be one bad ass Z33.
The Cosworth VQ rotating assembly is over 1.54 pounds lighter than the factory rotating assembly yet it is much stronger. This is with the Cosworth modified factory crank, but the long stroke crank is even lighter. I cannot post pics of the crank until its release but it is dope.
I wish every forged piston looked this good. Every Cosworth piston has polished tops. I’m not talking about polished in East LA here; I’m talking about some overpaid British guy who polishes and deburrs F1, Le Mans, and Super GT pistons too.
The Cosworth VQ35DE CNC ported cylinder head’s intake port flows 408cfm. For your reference, a purpose built Champ Car XFE cylinder head’s intake port flows 410cfm. The Cosworth heads rock (Lyon and Steve kick ass) and I will use them on every single VQ I build.
Anyhow, more on VQs later. It’s time for bed…