Our 906whp stock sleeve, stock head gaskets, stock crank, stock ignition, standard ARP head studs, VQ35de was the first VQ we EVER built. We did ZERO research in what other builders were, had, or are doing. An engine is an engine. We didn't need to know what others had done because 95% of the builders still haven't achieved what we have in engineering.

(I can qualify and quantify this statement by the fact that we've had our hands in Adam Saruwatari's low 7-second 3.2L V6 NSX motor for over 6 years now)

http://www.carandmodel.com/featuredcar/4.php

If we had, wouldn't you agree that we would have upgraded the head studs to L19 or better?
Wouldn't you agree that we would have upgraded the head gaskets to HKS, or an alternative?
Wouldn't you agree that we would have upgraded the ignition to HKS, or an alternative?

ProEFI, PowerLab, and Intense teamed together to find the limitations of the stock block. Instead of reading up on what everyone else had done, and what was considered "true", we wanted to find out ourselves. On a completely bone stock motor, we bent every single rod at 540ft/tq and 600whp (perfect tune!). At that time the motor was pulled and stock bore pistons and after market rods were put in -- no machining to the block was done whatsoever.

At this time the testing of the stock sleeves was in order. The first test was with the PowerLab GT35R. We maxed the turbo out at 650whp. The next test was with the GT37R. We maxed that turbo out at just over 700whp. The final test was the 76S, which maxed out our clutch at 906whp -- sleeves still perfect! Again, all of these TESTS were with the stock block, no machine work, stock sleeves, stock head gaskets, stock ignition, stock crank. As you can see, we wanted to not only keep everything as stock as possible to be as true of a test as possible, but also to keep it cheap -- as to show everyone that with off the shelf parts, efficient off the shelf turbo system (PowerLab GT35R), and off the shelf engine management (ProEFI 48), reliable, high horsepower can be obtained by anyone!

You are correct that we learned the majority of our engineering from building 2zj-gte motors over the years -- and that's where the majority of our "expendable $$$" ended. We've also built 1400whp Viper motors, 1000whp 20b motors, and many many others. The common threads that links all of these successful motor builds are 2 things:

1. Efficient turbo systems
2. Efficient engine management (AEM at that time -- the designer of which, Jason Siebels, who quit AEM to start his own company.. ProEFI)

We took this philosophy and applied it to our first VQ build -- which still holds the world record for stock sleeve, stock crank VQ at 906whp. The SAME motor is in the world's quickest/fastest G35 coupe (11.00 @ 128mph) at only 600whp!