Well what started this project was, I went a little crazy withe my 300ZX TT. Its VG engine lived a happy life for over 20 years at the 530 rear wheel horsepower level, until the E85 bug bit me. Somewhere between the 530 RWHP I started out with and the 760 RWHP I ended up with I crossed the line of reliability. The engine did not blow up in the traditional sense. What happened was, due to a less than pefect valve job a shop did, about a year after all the up grades one of the exhaust valve seats dropped. When we pulled the engine to remove the heads we decided to go ahead and remove the oil pan and block girdle and see how the bearings were doing. That’s when we discovered the girdle had mice welded itself to the block. And once we got the girtle removed we discovered every bearing was experiencing massive wear, with several on the verge of failing. Had we not had the problem with the head this engine probably would have had a catastrophic failure within the next 200 or 300 miles.

Our options were to rebuild the engine and try reinforcing the block or find a stronger engine. Pier Uberti, owner of The Boost Factory, is the best fabricator and car genius I have ever met, and a good friend for over 15 years. He’s also a big fan of the VR6 and has wanted to swap a VR6 into a Z32 for years. Trying to reinforce the VG did not sound like a good idea to me, and given I trust his judgment 100%, I decided to swap out the VG with the VR36. We started out trying to find someone who had done this swap to use as a road map but quickly discovered no one has ever done it before. Not in the US, not in Europe and not even in Australia. We were on our own. But that didn’t phase Pier, he assured me he could do it, and that was enough for me. And he figured out everything. From designing and building a new oil pan, building a new wiring harness, fabricating an adapter to use the Z32 5 speed drive line, modifying the VR’s exhaust manifold for the twin turbos, fabricating all the intake piping to utilize the Z’s twin intercooler locations and stock looking exhaust. And the list goes on and on, including building the engine and designed and built the motor mounts. He found an excellent engine with the forged crank, we used the forged rods which looked brand new, and had JE custom pistons made and used Total Seal rings. The camshafts were also in excellent shape and we decided to use them for now just to keep thing simple. The head was upgraded with new lifters, rocker arms and dual valve springs.

The EMS is the Haltech 2500 Elite, ID 2600cc port injectors, dual Walbro fuel pumps, Pulsar GT25-550 turbos. The drive line is utilizing the stock 5 speed transmission, a Uniclutch Track dual disc clutch, a carbon fiber driveshaft and a Quaife helical differential. Oh, and of course you guys fabricated that beautiful valve cover, the fuel rail and the intake manifold. Pier had to shorten the throttle body length some for fitment as we had no Idea how long, or short, it need to be when I ordered it.

The VG engine was pulled out of my Z on Feb.27 2024 and Pier surprised me by delivering to me, unannounced, just four days ago, July 1st 2026. Right now we have the boost limited to 13 pounds and running on 93 octane. I also have a 1993 300 ZXTT that’s almost stock and puts down a dyne confirmed 300 RWHP. Not only would my 3.6 Z walk away from it, it would runaway from it. My butt dyne is telling me that even with its limited boost, if it’s not putting down at least 400 hp at the wheels right now I would be shocked. I can only imagine what this thing will do with 20 or 25 pound of boost and E85.