I recently moved to the U.S back in late 2022. Before then, i came here to visit quite often and one of the activities i loved to do was to attend “car meets”. This is where people come together to display their cars or “builds” if the car had been customized. Customizations range from minor modifications like a set of wheels and lowering springs all the way to 2000 horsepower twin turbo Lamborghini's and nissan GTR’s. Street racers also use this opportunity to set up a race, either for fun or for money.

After i moved, these car meets became where i would usually end up after work. I became friends with people in the car community, and was itching to get and start my own build. I learned more and more about cars in general, but especially when it comes to performance. One thing about the car scene in the U.S, the communities are mostly divided by the make or brand of the cars. For example, if you drive a honda, you join the honda community.

I own a Mercedes E350 and Infiniti G37 in Nigeria. i had always wanted to buy a E63 AMG but i quickly came to realize AMG’s are actually not considered fast here, they are also very expensive to modify and tune due to the fact that AMG had already squeezed out most of the performance from the stock engine. Because of this, Mercedes is not a top performer in the car scene here in the U.S. the value for dollar is just not there. I took my time to research and evaluate which community best fits me. Nissan/infiniti is actually really huge here, there are infiniti G37’s making close to 1000whp with big turbo’s the size of an adult human head. They are one of the most diverse platforms you can find, you can turn them into a drift car, drag racer, roll racer, supercharged, single turbo, twin turbo, nitrous or just simply a naturally aspirated monster. The VQ platform has a huge cult-like following and is one of the most affordable to get into.

Let me know if you are following and if i should continue this write up guys!

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I'm loving it bro

Me landing with my parachute and Chapman in hand.

Crappie.all u need is to buy a turbo kit complete.but no where to race it in naija. U will either die by stray cows,goats,dogs,illegal police check points okada,keke,uber, pot hole,illegal army checkpoint, pot holes,drunk yahoo boi.no Road to turbo almost 1k Horsepower. And mind u even if u see road for north,u can't just slam brakes when turbo boost dey discharge..lai lai. Na only yankee

Why an Altima instead of a G?

HeavenlyBang:
Why an Altima instead of a G?

the streets are littered with G’s, the se-r is rare. Wanted to do something different and under the radar

Kindly share pix for us

king406:
the streets are littered with G’s, the se-r is rare. Wanted to do something different and under the radar

Fair enough, but then you're dealing with a FWD car at the end of the day.

No picture

I felt at home with the Nissan/infiniti community, i had already known a lot about them before moving here. However, the streets are littered with G35’s and G37’s as they are one of the most affordable to get into. Because of this, infiniti’s have a pretty bad reputation. Younger guys buy them immediately they are able to afford a car, the first thing they do is straight pipe the exhaust and take them to “takeovers”. A takeover is where a group of people find a parking lot or intersection and turn it into a drift pit. There is a young person crashing an infiniti every week.

I thought about a lot of cars, bmw 340i was one i heavily considered. The b58 engine can make upwards of 800whp on a stock engine. As a mercedes guy at heart, i couldn’t switch sides, there are so many of them and i don’t really like the bmw community.

One of the friends i had made has a G37 on nitrous, he made close to 500whp with intakes, exhaust, headers, E85 fuel and 150shot of nitrous. I was at his tuning day and this is where i made up my mind that i was staying with the VQ platform. There were so many VQ’s getting tuned on the dyno making really good power for the money. I saw somebody who was also getting tuned and his car stood out to me, it was a 2003 nissan maxima. I wasn’t really sure what i was looking at, so i waited until his car got on the dyno to see how much power he would make. At quick glance, i knew it was a VQ engine, but i didnt know which version it was. The car had a turbo kit, and it made 646whp. I went to him to find out more about it, i was surprised when i found out it was a VQ35 from a 2018 nissan maxima and his shop fabricated the entire turbo and fueling kit. The engine is a direct bolt on to older maxima’s and altima’s and i loved the idea. The only difference between the VQ37 and the VQ35 is the displacement and the VVEL system. VQ37 also has a stronger connecting rod and higher compression ratio. A manual transmission mated to a FWD VQ on a lighter chassis than the G37 sounded fun to me.

I began researching FWD VQ’s, and there wasn’t much information about them. I decided to visit his shop and all they worked on was nissan. I saw everything from VQ swapped nissan sentra’s to twin turbo G37’s. While i was looking around, a red altima se-r caught my eye. This was the first time i noticed the difference from a regular altima. It was supercharged, with a manual transmission, and i loved the look. I loved the idea of it being a “sleeper”, a platform most will look down on and there aren’t many driving around. I asked how much power it made but nobody wanted to tell me. I began looking for se-r’s for sale and quickly found out why i am just learning about the car. less than 10 results showed up in the entire country and none of them were manual transmissions, they were all automatics. I started searching almost everyday, any time a manual shows up it is either in very bad condition, on the other side of the country or the seller asking an arm and a leg.

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Am loving this

Nice one