The VQ Nissan engine family is one of the best engine designs that Nissan has ever created. This engine was introduced in the 1995 Nissan Maxima. Since then this engine has been used everywhere in Nissan’s lineup as well as their luxury car division Infiniti.
The next generation VQ powerplant, which was introduced in the 2001 Nissan Pathfinder, was tweaked to 3.5L and in that turn made more horsepower and more torque than the original VQ30DE.
This engine is seen in such Nissan and Infiniti products such as the Nissan 350Z, Altima, Maxima, Quest and Murano, Infiniti’s G35 sedan/coupe, M35 and FX35. When the VQ35DE was introduced it became well known for its smoothness of operation.
The second generation VQ series engine is designated as the VQ35HR (High Rev). This engine is mostly new with twin air intakes, a single air intake model was introduced in the 2007 Nissan Altima 3.5SE/SL sedans. It has a better power-band than the previous generation VQ35DE and it revs higher, 7500rpm’s compared to 7000rpm’s and makes more horsepower than the VQ35DE.
As you can see it is an extremely popular engine used in many Nissan vehicles. Sometimes when an engine is so successful, no large changes are made to the basic structure, why fix it if it ain’t broken. Most of the differences were suttle and specific to the car model it was installed in, in essence the tuning was tailored for the particular purpose of the vehicle model.
With the new technologies used in producing this very reliable and powerful engine, longer life and less repairs may be the end result. Time will tell. My next post will delve into the variations of this engine, as in the VQ30DE, VQ35DE and VQ35HR. Interested in Nissan engines? Check out our GotEngines.com Blog for specific information, or look at GotEngines.com main site for details on what is available in terms of Nissan replacement engines for sale.
By understanding more about the engine in your particular car, you become an educated consumer, and educated consumers always make the best decisions.
