well, fx is down, been driving my winter wheels past few weeks & will be driving it till my fx is resurrected from this surgery... haven't taken the fx apart yet, just getting the motor & tranny together & ready to install. I should have done a lot of the prep work in advance but I haven't even touched this thing until now.
also now starting to heavily research what's involved in this swap in more detail, up until now I haven't really got very deep & detailed with my research, just skimmed the surface & dove in by buying it, but trust me a swap like this takes a whole lot of R&D, with a whole lot of research before there can even be any developments at all.
first of all let me say that this is an extremely complicated swap, so much so that it has never been done before except for a few professional race teams with huge budgets & by sacrificing a few systems & some functionality along the way too. even factory Nissan techs are saying that it is a monumental task to consider even with full factory support
GTM initiated a swap like this & posted that they were doing it with pictures of the motor & everything, twin turbo's & all, but stopped posting about it shortly after & a year later has no further developments or even answers anyone about it anymore for whatever that's worth, maybe the customer ran out of funds? several have attempted it but bailed after hitting too many stumbling blocks, & there are more than a few guys out there with a whole bunch of parts & vehicles in pieces but nothing done & actually running yet as far as I've been able to find. of course right now I fall into the same category of having the parts & soon to be dissembled vehicle & a lot of hope
one guy from nissansport magazine did a swap like this is a race car & they worked with an ASE Master and Nissan Senior tech & they even had factory support & it was still a challenge, they still had check engine lights & some systems not functioning but being a race car they can deal with that. there are others who have cut up there harnesses & realized too late that there in way over there heads...
many enthusiasts have explored this option but no one has succeeded yet... after finding all the disappointing info out there about this, & the lack of much real helpful information in general it looks to be a real challenge, the pro's that have gained knowledge by doing stuff like this are not the type that want to even share information, it's no wonder many are also pretty scared off by the thought of this, I think that's what I like about the thought of doing this now, & I know it will be a nice feeling of accomplishment when I do pull this off, I think I like the challenge, I mean how fun would life be without challenges? this should be fun to pull off I think, I've never been the one to just go for the easy way out
at this point I'm learning all the in's & outs of the Nissan control systems, learning about all the differences between the 03 systems & the newer controls too & as much as I can about how everything really works in detail. the electronics here are pretty wild & amazing & at the same time pretty complicated. I have a few different ways I can go with trying to get this to work but my preferred way & my primary focus & goal so far is on trying to get it to run on the HR ecu, keeping all systems intact & have it run just like it thinks it's still in a g35x & have all systems working like factory. I don't know for sure that I can do this 100% though. one big factor is I don't have & can't get my own consult III, & there are so many things that only a consult III can do in these systems... this is not something I can just buy at all, & no matter what I'm going to have to find at least someone with access to a consult III, but I will have limited availability to it at best.
usually I don't have a plan b, because a plan b is just an indication that your considering you may fail at your main plan & I'd rather go in just not even thinking about not being able to do it, but on something this involved & this complicated & the potential of just getting to some serious roadblocks & considering the stakes involved are my driving my fx ever again I need at least a plan b here, & even have a c & d if need be... I may not know exactly how I'm going to pull this off but I do know that one way or another I will wind up driving my fx for the next 3-4 years with this HR drive train powering it, this much I'm at least fairly sure of
plan b, if I can't pull off getting it to run factory style would be to get it to run on the original DE ecu from my fx. I think I have a much better chance of success with this method & there are a lot of reasons why this would be easier, but it will take a few compromises I wouldn't look forward to accepting & also have it's own set of stumbling points too. one main thing is I would probably have to go back to a single throttle body, & Will involve a custom intake manifold setup. also I will loose the native ecu control of the intake & exhaust cams variable timing. this variable cam timing is part of the magic of these HR motors, & is the main reason why the HR has such a better torque & HP curves all through the mid range & better low range, while also being better on the top end too, variable valve timing is a nice thing that I'd hate to sacrifice, but of course this would work just as well as the DE did without it too if I had to fall back on plan b.
all that being said, the more I study the factory service manuals for the fx35 & the g35x the more comfortable I'm getting with the systems & the more sense it's all making as to how it works & what it needs to work too & it's starting to look not so difficult really. the truth is the FSM's are the very same thing that even the top Nissan techs use, & theoretically these manual's, combined with a consult III should be enough to do what needs to be done or figure out what needs to be figured out.
when the tech team that did the race car swap tried to get more advanced information from Nissan corporate they were not much help. they were told info like that can only come from japan & there is just no access to it. part of this is about privacy & protecting there intellectual property from the competition too according to these techs. researching something like this would be so much easier if stuff like all the PID's used in communication were published & documented & the communication language & instruction architecture was documented & full wiring & pinnouts were available, but the truth is Nissan has no reason to want this much proprietary info not be classified. the information that is available is enough to service & repair any factory vehicle in factory aplication, with procedures that involve diagnosing trouble & replacing defective parts, but they have no interest in helping anyone use any of there components or parts of there design & products in ways that they didn't intend nor to help anyone backward engineer there designs or disclose much of the inner workings.
well that's the latest update, def gonna be fun, can't wait to drive my fx again hopefully come springtime, I miss it already :tonguey: