OIL IS CHEAPER! Nissan Titan 5.6L V8 VK56DE Engine Teardown. I Can't Believe This Stayed Together! 

My 2005 Titan was a beast. 225,00 miles was still going strong. Did have to replace an exhaust manifold around 175k but that was a known issues with these engines. Frame rusted out long before the drivetrain failed. Miss that girl...

I turned wrenches for 30 years and I don’t get tired of seeing how stuff self destructs. Keep up the great content!

i’m not surprised by any of this having worked for Nissan as a company for about a year now and seeing how some of their customers treat their cars, this is very on brand treatment from a Nissan owner. where I am from they either don’t care about the maintenance or they can’t afford it but most people just don’t care. It’s sad to see one of these blow up because I’ve seen one at 400,000 miles running great. Great video man keep it up.

I absolutely love my VK56DE engine. 219K and the only thing I’ve change is the starter and valve covers. That’s it!

Love my 2014 5.6 Titan. Tows and hauls everything I need to. Has 178k on it, just do maintenance it'll run forever. Great vid.

Impressive engine. I like the way it is built. Unimpressive maintenance. It deserved a better owner.

Sometimes a part will fail no matter how well an engine is maintained, BUT a poorly maintained engine will DEFINITELY have failure, it's only a matter of time. Amazing since oil isn't very expensive in comparison. Note: Don't listen to manufacturers about oil change intervals designed to only get you past warranty.

New subscriber here. I really enjoy your in-depth "autopsies" of these engines, and am amazed how complicated these DHC engines are. I am 65 years old, not a mechanic, but I did rebuild a VW aircooled 1600 engine on my 1965 VW bus many years ago, and was quite proud of myself.

Had a Titan and an Armada. The VK56 is an incredibly underrated engine. Great power and amazing sound

The most impressive thing about this teardown is that you knew where your 10 mm socket was...

I enjoyed watching this! I am not an auto mechanic and will never take a Nissan engine apart, but it was fun to see you do it. :)

Wow, it takes real abuse or neglect to break one of these engines. I wanted to thank you for making this video, I'm one of those folks who asked for the VK56 teardown in several of your videos and I am glad it happened!

My 5.6 in my Titan is a beast. It's a 2014 only 78k on it Titan SV, oil changes every 5k full synthetic. Hell I pull my 20' boat and my camp trailer no sweat. They're great vehicles. Love the vid. Keep up the good work..

I had a 2017 Titan. The engine was replaced under warranty, They told me there is a known issue that effects about 30% of them including mine. Cylinder 7 eats itself and starts scoring the cylinder. The mechanic said that he thinks it is a cooling issues because they started adding coolant passages around that cylinder. Otherwise, it is a bombproof engine since it was still running fine with seven cylinders...just a little louder.

I don't think that rod bearing "migrated " under the main bearing as you mentioned. It looked to me like the main brg shell de-laminated. This can happen when they run hot and are getting pounded as the clearance increases. Most shells are made by plating copper, white metal and sometimes other metals in layers onto a steel backing strip. The layers can come loose off the steel after oiling failure or abuse. Just my opinion. This was an interesting teardown. Thanks for all your videos in 2022 and best wishes for 2023. Happy New Year!

The VK56DE has been slowly coming onto my radar as one of the best engines ever built. They are practically bullet proof when looked after (and even somewhat when not lol), they make good power, they accept alot of power stock, lots of bolt on's, easy to super charge, and nice simple design... My only gripe is that starter being in the valley, but it aint so bad to get the intake off so thats kinda moot point i suppose... Great video...

I'm not a mechanic by an means. I just know how to take care of basic maintenance and minor repairs like brakes and such. However, even my limited experience can tell me this was a poorly maintained engine. I'm glad to see first hand that my obsession with changing my oil on time and greasing anything I can is paying off big time in the long run. Love these tear downs.

These engines are excellent. We had one that would come in that was 500k plus.

I’m certainly no mechanic but this video CLEARLY shows the importance of regular oil changes and maintenance !!! ….way cheaper than having to replace the engine. GREAT vid and great learning experience…. Thanks for sharing!

Bought a new 2012 Titan PRO-4X. Loved that truck. Put 188K on it and did oil changes ever 5K (I drove 160 miles round trip to work 12 times a month). ZERO issues with the eng, trans, transfer case and both diffs. Traded it off to get my wife a new car. Nothing wrong with it, was her turn for a new car. I run ALL my cars/trucks hard as hell so I run MOBILE 1 in them all... never had a single problem. Thanks for the tear down vid bro

Thank u, happy new year, I don't care what anyone says, I always change my synthetic engines at 5,000 miles, like u say, oil is cheaper then a new engine, I appreciate all your hard work and educational rip downs

I was at least one that requested this engine tear down so thank you for this. I learned much from it.

Definitely a well built engine. I think Titans and NV vans don't get the accolades they deserve. Everyone I know that ones one speaks highly of them.

On motorcycles I suggest changing the oil way more often because of the clutch getting material into the oil stream. The oil is cheap compared to major engine failure. Also, small 4-cylinder engines in cars (1.3 to 2.0 L) have to run a turbo has the same criteria to me in that oil changes need to be more often than manufacturers say. The oil life indicator features are horrible in that to get to 0% oil life you are running the snot of that small turboed engine to 8,000 miles or beyond. Change the oil at 50% life and engines will hold up much better. I've now watched several videos on this subject and the message is always the same - CHANGE YOUR OIL!

The VK56VHR engines tend to sludge more rapidly and wear chains and guides because of the direct injection. For truck use then, I prefer the VK56DE. I’ve also seen some weird issues and noise with cylinder scoring in the VHR only (again, probably linked to direct injection) Either way, Nissan VK engines are great!

This engine was also in the M56/Q70 5.6, IIRC. They're quite rare on the used market.

Those are super good engines bought my Titan with 60k miles and now had 219k and only thing it needed was maintenance and gaskets. Repaint it at 200k to make it look fresh again

I love when you say a part is in good shape and throw it across the shop!

I'm not a very talented wrencher, but I sure love to watch pros do their thing. This was a great video. As you said, it's incredible that this vehicle ran long enough to do even MORE damage. When I bought my first new car (a 1980 Honda Civic!), the service manager told me that regular oil and filter changes were the key to the long life of any engine. I followed that advice for the last 45 years, getting between 150,000 and 200,000 trouble-free miles from a number of our vehicles. Why anyone doesn't follow that advice is a mystery to me. (And I'm SO glad I don't have to put that motor back together again. 😁)

As commented, this is more like a racing engine the way it is built. While is doesn't use a split crankcase at the crankshaft like a Cad N*, it does have a high tolerance fit of the main caps into the block and, 6 cross-bolted main caps.

I’m excited! I own an 08 Titan and absolutely love the VK56. It’s a very underrated engine. Has not been a 5.3 I haven’t been able to drag yet. Even fairly newer 5.3s. Had no problems with 4.6s, 5.4s. The 5.0s and EcoBoost will eat its lunch. It’s got a great power band. Change the oil and it will go forever. Weak point on the first gens is the rear ends.

Really cool to see this because I replace short blocks on the newer version of this engine. Also those NVs are the best vehicle Nissan ever made. Happy new year.

I've got a frontier with the 3.8 in it. The manual says 5k oil changes in 1 spot and 7500 in another. I still change it between 3 and 4k, because as you say oil is cheaper than replacing the engine.

As an engine builder for many years, I tore down many a motor and been through many the same experiences you’ve gone through on this show and by the way, I wish I had this show when I was young but anyway, I would always tell people oil is cheap and engines aren’t ,cheap out on your oil intervals, and you will certainly be buying motors… L O L… Great show, man ….keep on rocking

I think this shows how well made Nissan engines are. I'm also surprised by your findings. If oil wasn't changed regularly then it could have been worse. I learned my lesson with oil intervals on my old Toyota. I decided to go 5,000 miles between oil changes. Only took doing that twice and I saw the results. I never will do such things again. Good content and I'll be on the look out for your next video.

Nice teardown and explanation of the possible failure. I was glad to see you helped Rainman Ray with an instrument cluster. Very cool of you.

would love to see a teardown of the vk56vd updated with direct injection and vvel in the 2nd gen titans

I have two of these. One in my Titan and one in my wife's Infiniti M56XS. That car just loves walking away from R/T Challengers on the highway 😁

Just found your channel. Great vid - just you and your commentary. No stupid background music or sound effects. All shots are in focus and the close up shots are framed well. Very well done. Got a subscriber.

I've been waiting for you to do ons of these vks. I'm a nissan fan anyway but still this probably one of the cooler tear downs. The amount of wear on the bearings plus 3 of them spun how it wasn't locked up or blown to pieces. It just goes to show nissan makes some reliable stuff, now it's not perfect by any means nothing is. Great vid keep them coming.

These 5.6 V8 are tanks and run for ever atleast from that era of non GDI, I seen the gen 1 Titan and armadas all the time 250-300k+ no bigs issues. Now the later VK56VD is what I'd like to see with the extended oil changes, we had problem child one that someone was doing 15-20k miles oil changes, and screens getting clogged of course.

Wow, so refreshing to see an engine the way it should be built. Unlike that friggin over-engineered Audi POS from a few weeks ago. That is everything an engine shouldn't be. Only thing missing here is cam phasors, well developed and reliable engine addition. One question, what is with the variable width cam lobes? Lower rotating mass? Happy New Year dude!

Great way to start the year! Been asking for this engine for awhile. Proud owner of a 2010 Pathfinder LE 4x4 V8. Besides exhaust manifold cracks, and the infamous radiator failures - it’s been a solid platform for me. 153,000 miles on mine.

When my Dad passed away I drove His car, a Hyundai Sonata, from Miami to Denver. Now He religiously changed the oil every 3k or 3 months. so I had the car prepped, oil, tranny and timing belt. and hit the road. 34 hours and 2000 miles later I checked the "fresh oil" and it was black as coal. I was dumfounded. It was all those short trips.

Those engines are pretty strong and reliable no complaints from mine

Thank you for doing this engine teardown. I own a 2006 Nissan titan with 200000 miles and other than regular maintenance I have had no failures either, however I had the dreaded heater control issue, but did get it fixed, was not cheap but other than that it is a great truck.

This teardown is very interesting. I suspect the main bearing delamated. I saw this in high heat blowup a lot in the old days. But we were building 5 to 7 engines a week and tearing down a lot of engines. Thank you for all you do with the teardown, and may you have a blessed 2023.

First they gave us lifetime transmission fluid and now, lifetime engine oil. They're even removing dipsticks, all for a new low, low price! It just doesn't get any better!

I'm always amazed by people who have knowledge of engines. Amazing people who look like they can do anything.

As a former mechanic I found your video interesting and informative, thanks!

You've posted great videos this year. Can't wait to see more in 23. Happy New Year 🥳🥳

Great video, and special thanks to you for sending a hvac instrument panel part to Rainman Ray's channel as well. He's also hosting a youtube channel with great content!

Love the channel, in a past show, I was glad to find out my Ford 5.4- 2 valve is not as bad as a 5.4-3 valve.

Hey there. I am female and have always had some interest in engines. I learned how to change my own oil at 10 yrs by my dad and can do basic Maint and checks on my car, but I quickly can get to where I have to take it in, BUT I normally do research on symptoms prior to them telling me what’s wrong so I have some defense against shysters. I gotta say I enjoyed this video. Your comments really helped and I have a better understanding of the bearding thru out. Thank you for making this. I want to tear down an engine and redo it one day, and this video shows me I am capable of doing it , with assistance from pneumatic tools and torque wrenches as well as others. Very cool indeed

I've always changed my oil at 5k intervals, used fullsynthetic oil, and do oil analysis every once in a while just to make sure my engine is still good. I never understood why people neglect their oil changes, or any other fluid.

I could have only wished to have dealt with folks like you when I was in the auto repair business; 100% feedback on ebay with 35K+ sales is utterly amazing, and says it all in a VERY tough business that is full of scumbags. Maybe I missed it, but I/us here would be interested in your back story, your business philosophy, a day in the life at the shop, others who make it possible, the tools you use... You're an interesting, intelligent cat and as such a lot of interesting, other than teardown content awaits. Thanks for your work and for running a tight ship.

I think you summarized it all well. Even cheap oil with regular service intervals is better than expensive oil on “extended intervals.” Until they make an oil that is self cleaning and doesn’t break down that will be the case.

It looks like it had run low on oil before looking at how the bearings looked. It definitely had extended OCIs. All that aside I was impressed that Nissan had the 4 bolt mains with cross bolts as well.

I had a 2005 Titan that I sold with 268k on the clock after 15 years (with much of it in the 1st 7 years of its life). Original engine that saw a lot of highway mileage but had religious oil changes every 7k with Wix or Purolator filters and synthetic oil (Castro/QS/Pennzoil - depended on the sale at Walmart). The frame was in worse shape when I sold it. The guy that bought it stripped it down, cleaned it up, replaced all the stuff that needed fixing and now tools around on his farm with it. Still going in Jan 2023. That engine l, while only putting out 305HP, still was lively for the time. Enough torque to get moving but not enough to blow the driveline up. 0-60 in about 7 seconds was pretty good in 2005 (and still better than a lot of stuff being pumped out today).

Thanks for the statement about oil change frequency. The claim that oil companies make about oil being good for 15 to 20K is no more than a sales pitch.

I have no auto engine experience at all and I'm not a mechanic. I do have an interest in watching engine teardowns and this one was a lot of fun to watch! I completely agree with you that oil is cheaper than a new engine, and I have my own car serviced every 3 months. That way I don't become breakdown lane food.

Happy New Year Eric and family! That Nissan DOHC V8 is one of the simplest designs I've ever seen. No wonder they tend to last, when well maintained.

This engine was probably not one of those that didn’t get run until it shut off considering it had three spun bearing and the whole engine wasn’t completely destroyed

I have a 2005 Titan LE off road and it's a BEAST of a truck. I absolutely love working on it it's so reliable and a breeze to do general maintenance. The only thing I've had to do was a radiator. It has diff locks, a rock guard, and beefy tires and it's fantastic off and on road. I use it to haul cars all the time and it's never let me down!

Love my 2005 Nissan Titan! 281,000 miles on it and only burns 1/2 quart of oil in 5,000 oil change! I have the long tube headers, no cats with a tune, single 3" exhaust to rear...It's my work truck pulling my trailer. I watch with interest on this break down on motor! Thanks for the video!

These are the greatest videos, they always make my week. Thank you so much man, happy new years to you and yours!

"Water pump looks pretty good. Some corrosion on the outside but don't really see any damage. I should probably keep this as a spare." followed by a massive crash in the background as he chucks it carelessly across the garage.

I've always said that the cheapest insurance for a long lasting engine is frequent oil changes. I had a friend once who drove a pickup and he one day was bragging about never changing his oil, just the filter. Two weeks later his engine failed completely, left him stranded miles from home. Way before cell phones so he had a long walk to get home.

Absolutely loved the "Only 2 Chainz...No Lie" reference at 15:44? That was very subtle and well timed!! 👍💯

Couldn't agree with you more about oil changes. Single most important thing

Thanks for this video. I've been waiting for this one. My son and I just got done rebuilding his and it was not anywhere near as bad as this one but it had its own issues. Got it all sorted out and back together with some spicy parts and she's running strong. These are some very well built engines.

This is the engine in my Infiniti QX80. I keep up with ALL oil changes and tune ups. Great video!

VK56 is the best V8 out there, I am using them for my construction business for almost 12 years lots of towing. 0 issues with the powertrain.

I understand this would have been added unnecessary work for you but it would have been cool to see a comparison of under your cargo vans valve covers to see what good maintenance looks like.

I drive an NV with this V8 in it too and I like it a lot, the 385 lp-ft of torque has never let me down.

I bought a 2007 Titan with 300,000 miles a couple years ago and it had an oil leak on the oil cooler, which is the most likely oil leak on these engines. So I got the new o ring and pulled the oil cooler off and a ball bearing dropped out. The factory Nissan service manual says the oil filter bypass is in the oil filter but there is a bypass check valve behind the oil cooler. took me forever to find a part number and it is not a fun job pulling the old check valve out. It's pressed into the oil pan above the oil cooler which is above the crossmember. I had to make a tool to leverage it out using a thread tap. The part was only $12 but it took about 4 hours to change it so basically the engine had been running without a filter for who even knows how long because the bypass check had failed. I was watching closely when he pulled the oil cooler but didn't notice that detail, but if he had a random ball bearing on the floor, that could have been a factor. My advice if you have over 200,000, it may not hurt to change the o ring behind the oil cooler when you change your oil just to make sure the check valve is still in one piece. There really is no symptoms other than the oil is dirty all the time. the pressure will still be fine as thats a different bypass check valve. Edit: I slowed down the video and it appears that the check valve is in place at 12:05 there is a pocket on the left side of the center hole and I see something shiny like a check ball so I don't think that is the problem here. On my Titan, the steel housing cracked and the ball popped out. If you have an oil leak that looks like a front main seal leak, it's probably the oil cooler o ring. Some suggest you can use the gasket from an oil filter in a pinch but the proper gasket isn't expesive. I think i paid $1.50 on Rock Auto but I wasn't in a hurry. Just look for that check valve while you are there.

It would interesting to see what's inside that oil filter.

Bought a new titan in 2004. In its life it needed a new rear differential, then exhaust manifolds (cracked) then the radiator leaked and lastly just would not pass smog (couldn’t set the monitors after lots of miles and attempts.) while it wasn’t without issues it was a good truck and I’d buy it again.

Got a 99 Taurus with 366K original bottom end original mains and rods burns practically no oil and runs great. I love the car. Oil and filter ever 3000 mile SINCE NEW, Changing oil is the LIFE of the engine!

Since I only see you take things apart but never put anything back together I feel we have a lot in common. It just never occurred to me that I might be able to monetize my ability to disassemble stuff. I'm much better looking and a little smarter, but I gotta give it to you there. I enjoy and learn from the videos!

Happy New Year!! Does the recycle place you take your unrecoverables to come to you, or do you come to them? I'd like to see what happens when you have these treasures for them.

Excellent informative video. I had a 2004 Infiniti QX56 and that endurance V8 engine was one of the best V8 engines ever. I would say that it is as good as the I-force V8 Land-Cruiser engine. I had over 220000 miles and 18 years of driving and I changed that oil and filter every 5000 miles. Never had a problem with the engine other than it started to burn oil after about 170000 miles. I would have kept the SUV if the underneath frame wasn't rusting because of all the salt they use in New Jersey roads and launching my boat in salt water didn't help either. I traded that SUV for the 2021 Nissan Armada because of that great endurance V8 engine. Plan to keep this Armada for a very long time. Just change that full synthetic oil every 5000-6000 miles. Also, I always check the dipstick to see the level and color of the oil every two to four weeks. I never let it turn very dark brown or black. If it does, change it immediately.

That was amazing to watch! Any clue how many miles that engine had on it or how that truck was being used or abused?

Just found your channel. Very informative. That 5.6 was just burnt all up inside, surprised it didn’t break or throw a rod. Oil is cheap engines not cheap.

I learned quite a bit watching your videos. Especially, that it's so much more easy to work on modern engines when they are sitting on an engine mount!

Happy New Year to you and your family. I've really enjoyed watching your channel. Great job as always and thanks for all your hard work bringing these videos to us.

Should've filmed the race and the Dyno

I love the durability on Nissan engines. Always oil related issues though. I had a VQ35DE-R to replace the one i had in my car and after installing it i heard a knock. . Upon tear down I found 2 missing rod bearings, the rest spun, all the crank bearings spun, and it broke literally every single piston between the top rings. Before I took it apart it would crank in seconds and idle fine.

I'm a 78 year old grandmother. I watched this to see what you thought about waiting a long time to change the oil. I have a 2013 Hyundai. I bought it when it was a little over a year old. It had something over 11000 miles on it. Now in Feb. 2023 it has 23,800 miles on it. I had the oil changed in Sept. 2022 and I've decided to plan on having it changed every September. I won't be putting a ton of miles on it from here on out; I won't be driving my grandson back and forth to NC State anymore; he graduated. And I won't be driving to Nashville as my sister there died. I hope I'm making the right decision having it changed once a year.

Pretty robust engine by the looks, nice break down. In my experience spun bearings come from old/low oil which lets the rod start hitting the actual bearing and not float on the oil pressure. It would have gradually taken out those bearings one by one as the oil pressure started to fail. I could smell it through my screen as you cracked those rod bolts eww…

Nice channel so far, no music, no cussing, nice teardown.

Those engines sound great with an aftermarket exhaust system.

2009 nissan titan 385,000 miles original owner been a great truck and still going as my trailer hauler for work

These engines are bulletproof when maintained. I had TWO FX45s, best vehicles ever.

I don't know how you do it, you rascal, but somehow I got sucked into watching another entire engine teardown. The previous one was a V6, but I can't remember what it was from. My favorite so far is when you said "give it to me!" but sped up to make it sound funnier. Anyway, thanks for another fun video 🙂

I drive a 2014 Honda CRV AWD with the 2.4. I have 384K on it and have done oil changes at 10k since new using O-20 synthetic. I have done basic maintenance only and I drive it daily as well as road trips. Extended oil change intervals are not an issue for this engine.

Every car I've owned has 5000 mile oil changes or every 6 months with Motorcraft Semi-synthetic and motorcraft filters (I own mostly Fords). I've never had a failure and the inside of the engine (head/camshaft under the oil fill cap) looks brand new with more than 100k miles. One went over 200k and still looked new.

All those "annual", "10,000 mile", "15,000 mile", "20.000 mile" oil changes just ruin engines. Great video!

The only oil and filters I trust to go that long is Amsoil. Amsoil filters show 99% at 20 microns, and they are advertised for 15k miles. Mobil1 filters claim 98% down to 30 microns and advertise 20k miles. That's a big difference there, and Amsoil has long guaranteed their claims. I ran Amsoil in a 2005 Toyota Corolla, bought brand new, and oil changed once a year, at 20-30k miles every year until it was totaled in 2019 at well over 300k miles (odometer stopped at 300k). I had been in the engine two years before to change the head gasket, and it was a nice clean golden color with no signs of anything. I have always liked the Amsoil and filter because it never really turns all the way black like most oils do. It just goes very dark brown, but still a little translucent. The only thing that was wrong with the engine after all that was there was a small drip out of the rear main seal. Another funny thing, the engine, I don't think really broke in until around 220k miles. I had noticed that it always burned a little oil, a quart every 5-10k miles, since brand new. Then I pulled a popup camper across the country, very hard on the engine around 220k, and after that it burned a whole lot less oil. It didn't start burning oil again until a couple years later when the rear main seal started leaking. I am not affiliated with Amsoil, just have been using their products for around 20 years.

This engine really makes me appreciate the simplicity of the Chevrolet V8's since the 1950's.