The definitive VR30 7AT swap in your Z/G Platform
Swap Info for the Jatco RE7R01A Transmission found in the Q50 Red Sport into any G/Z Car
Updated 05/21/2024
The basic premise of this swap was to have a stronger 7AT for any VQ driven vehicle looking to gain more power, without having to build the existing 7AT inside the car. The Q50 RedSport came with a 3.0L Twin Turbo VR30DDT Engine, making 400hp from the factory. There are claims of people breaching 600whp with these transmissions untouched from the factory, and plenty of people claiming to reliably hold 500+whp. For an older generation 370z or G37/Q50 equipped with the 3.7L VQ37HR engine, this is the perfect drivetrain upgrade for the majority of forced induction builds that will be seeing street use, and wanting to retain the creature comforts of an automatic transmission.
This swap is only compatible with existing 7 speed A/T cars. 5 Speed A/T cars may be able to be converted, but would require a 7 speed ECU and EFI/Transmission harness swap at bare minimum.
Any 7-Speed A/T out of a Q50/Q60 Platform with the 3.0L VR30DDTT Engine will work, it does not have to be a RedSport, but it DOES have to be a 3.0L VR Engine.
This is still a fairly new swap as far as working examples, and available information. As we discover more info and do more of these swaps, we will make more information available. We had a customer by the name of Brandon Ferguson bring in his G37 for us to do the first swap in. He was the one who brought this swap to our attention and got it on our radar, and from there it took off.
DIFFERENCES
This is a basic list of the notable differences we have found, and the solutions we came up with
Right off the bat, we discovered that all of the bellhousing bolts line up, with the exception of the 2 lower oil pan bolts. The starter is still in the factory VQ location as well. The first major difference is the crank angle sensor location. The VR engine has it’s CAS located closer to the 12:00 position. This required us building a jig to drill a clean hole for the VQ crank sensor location.
We also explored the idea of just swapping bellhousings from the VQ 7AT over to the VR 7AT. This will not work for 2 reasons. The VR transmission has a significantly larger torque converter, and because of this the bellhousing is physically longer. The input shafts are also different, so even if you wanted to frankenstein the VR transmission with a VQ bellhousing and VQ torque converter, they’re not compatible.
The VQ Bellhousing is on the left, the VR bellhousing on the right, note the height difference
The VQ torque converter on the left, the VR torque converter on the right. It appears to be approximately 40% larger which is great for heat management as well as torque capacity.
This also can become an issue if you upgrade torque converters to a performance unit, or go with a billet flex plate. We can say with 100% certainty that the Fast Intentions VQ Billet flex plate WILL NOT WORK without machining. We have a picture below from one we had to machine for a local customer. We did speak with Fast Intentions about revising the design to accommodate the VR transmission swap, but they did not seem to be very interested in making any production changes.
This particular torque converter was a performance unit, so it was physically larger than the OEM unit. We suspect the OEM VR torque converter would require a little less clearancing. We have NOT verified fitment with the LOJ billet flex plate.
There is not a physical difference that we have been able to find between the VQ transmission control module, and the VR transmission control module. The vehicle that came in had a smoked out transmission (converter stuck in lock-up) so there was a ton of clutch material in the fluid, and in the valve body/TCM assembly. The initial information we found on this swap indicated that you could swap the VQ TCM over to the VR transmission and it would be plug and play.
We were a little hesitant to toss a potentially contaminated TCM inside this low mileage VR transmission, so we opted to have the VR TCM re-programmed to the vehicle. After 2 failed attempts at re-programming, we eventually came to the conclusion that there must be some sort of CAN protocol, firmware, or software difference across the TCMs from different years. The vehicle in this case was a 2013 year model, and the donor transmission was a 2018. A lot can change in 6 production years, so we opted to clean the original VQ TCM as best as we could, and continue forward with our initial plan of swapping them out.
The VQ TCM will need to be removed from the old transmission, and swapped onto the VR valve body. All VR valve body components will need to be re-used.
Here is the jig we built to drill a clean hole in the VR bellhousing. We offer this service on an exchange basis if you’re performing this swap in your driveway and don’t have the means to duplicate this jig. The jig features 3 attachment points, 2 at the bellhousing bolts, and the 3rd at the crank angle sensor bolt on the engine block. With the jig in place, a simple hole saw with a generous amount of cutting oil will do the job just fine.
With the bellhousing re-installed on the VR transmission, we’re ready to stab it in the vehicle
The 2 remaining issues you will have to deal with are going to be driveshaft, and transmission cross-member. With the VR transmission in place, it sits further back in the body now, which means your original driveshaft is too long, and your factory cross-member no longer lines up. We do offer a shortened driveshaft for sale for this swap if you want to make this as close to a bolt-in affair as possible. We opted for an aluminum 1-piece driveshaft, not only to keep weight down, but inertia and vibrations.
For the cross-member, for demonstrative purposes we temporarily wallowed out the 4 holes that connect it to the body, as well as the 2 holes for the transmission mount. We decided to keep the VQ transmission mount, as it had less of a rear-ward offset, as compared to the VR transmission mount. We welded strengthening tabs to this crossmember for cleanliness, and a more professional “job done right” look. As of March 2023, we have started offering an off-set welded crossmember on an exchange basis. This will allow your swap to be completely bolt-in. It utilizes the VR Transmission mount, as it is more dimensionally friendly for this crossmember modification.
For all practical purposes, in a driveway/home garage setting, wallowing out the holes will be an acceptable practice if you don’t have access to a welder and metal fabrication tools.
The final issue that will have to be addressed is the differential flange. I believe this is only going to be pertinent information for G37 sedans and some coupes with the 7AT. I have found that some of the Q50s also have a 6-bolt CV style joint, which will need to be swapped out as well. For this particular vehicle, we had to swap a 370z rear differential flange to have a proper 1-piece driveshaft made. Note the circled differences of the flange design. The G37 Sedan and Coupe A/T rear differential has a locating dowel built into the pinion gear. This locating dowel is to center the flex joint when installing the driveshaft. This can simply be cut off with a die grinder, and the new 370z rear differential flange installed in it’s place.
Heat management is a major issue for any modified 7AT vehicle, so we installed one of our GRW external automatic transmission cooler kits. It features a 23-row cooler, -6an stainless steel braided hoses and fittings, and pre-cut and fabricated hoses. This is ready to swap in out of the box, and all you do is delete your factory hard tubing, and replace the fittings in your transmission with the banjo bolt to -AN fittings we provide.
At this point, you’re on the home stretch. Fill your transmission up with OE spec fluid, and check the level with the pan at it’s designated operating temperature per the factory service manual, and get to driving and enjoying it!
Please contact us with any inquiries for parts to help with your swap, including aluminum driveshafts, machined bellhousings, A/T cooler kits, and more.
We also do in-house installs at our location in Fort Worth, Texas
For all swap parts available in our catalog, please click the link below
