joshuaho96

Sure, but why assume that will be the case forever? And why assume you'll be able to do an oil change to swap back to a stock drain bolt before that happens? And does it even matter when I change the oil at fairly short intervals? Life can be funny sometimes and unexpected things can happen. Like breaking a collarbone so you can't do any work on your car for a few months but the oil change is due so you have to take it to somewhere and hope they don't do something stupid like stacking the new drain plug washer on top of the old one.

I'm not doubting it does something, there's clearly a reason why Nissan bothered with it on the transmission/diff/transfer case but it's more just the effort of finding a drain plug that isn't going to have some unexpected design problem that makes me lazy. For example even the Nismo branded ones here spec way less than the factory 20 N-m. They say only torque to 10 N-m. That is getting absolutely trashed the moment you take it to any mechanic who isn't familiar with the specific requirements and assumes it should be torqued to factory spec.

I have to say, I was briefly considering getting a magnetic drain plug but never could be bothered out of laziness/cheapness and now I'm very glad I didn't.

You're just describing how type certification works. Personally I would be shocked to discover that catalytic converter is not in the stock mounting position. Is there a bracket on the transfer case holding the catalytic converter and front pipe together? If so, it should be in stock position.

What I don't understand here is that it mentions using a sealant. So either way you're ruining the inside of the tire and making a huge mess to clean up. Why not just do that, air it back up to spec, then take it all off and put it back in the car? Also, why not just include a plug kit that's not garbage?

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.4271/2005-01-3825 Heat causes positive pressure in the tank, a slight vacuum in the tank is normally caused by evap purge during normal driving. If the tank is cooled it can also cause a vacuum that pulls air into the system. The linked paper is quite interesting to learn the state of the art for evap fuel control, modern systems the tank is 100% sealed and the tank is reinforced to handle higher than normal pressure/vacuum. It only opens the vent/charcoal canister when you press the button to open the refuel door or when the engine is running. After some reading of systems like the W220 S-Class there's a check valve on the tank vent, but the primary reason it's there is because otherwise the intake manifold would be pulling vacuum on the tank: https://w220.wiki/EVAP_system There might be limited vacuum relief via the charcoal canister, but I don't know how sensitive the check valve is.

Somehow we've reenacted this video completely seriously:

Nistune is pretty easy if all you want to do is change the injectors. TIM + latency change will do it. But I am very skeptical your mechanic has actually diagnosed the issue. As others have said flow/function test your injectors.

I have personally seen a Tomei USA RB26 cam that didn't even fit the head. Kind of nuts to me that it was even possible for that to happen but such is life. There's two UP Garages in the US. One is a US branch of the Japanese company which sells things they brought over at tremendous markup. The other is University Place Garage/Fairlady Motors which is a shop best known for putting VCAM in RBs and trying to convince people to stop putting in 800hp of turbo on a 2.5L motor.

I saw some online elsewhere: https://www.transmissionpartsusa.com/product_p/67393c.htm?gQT=2 No idea if it's real, how trustworthy they are, etc.

If you really don't want to touch anything you can try to trigger off the timing loop just to see if it's sparking semi-regularly. Don't trust it for actual timing measurements.

Pretty sure that's fine. 2 kg/cm^2 on the gauge is what I see on an RB26. Honestly, 10W60 doesn't seem to move the needle that much as far as oil pressure goes on a stock pump + sump except at cold start where it looks like it's pretty much pegging the oil pressure gauge.

Easy way to verify is just use an old style mechanical gauge and go for a drive. Then you can be 100% confident if the gauge reads one thing but your sensor reads something else. Just be super careful to not pinch the hose or anything, you don't want a bunch of hot engine oil spraying all over or a leak that empties your sump.

Also, at that point if the engine support stand slips I hope you can bench press 200+kg of RB26. Considering the oil pan has to be RTVed on as well which has like a 15 minute working time between the first drop coming out of the tube to fully torqued to spec I would probably never attempt pulling the oil pan unless the engine is on a proper stand.

If it's magnetic what is stopping you from using a magnet on a thin wire from fishing it out?

Should work if it came out of a GTST.

ChatGPT is trash and lies about things I would not expect it to lie about considering many things it's wrong about are very easily verified with google. The S3 R33 GTR shares its steering wheel with R33 GTSTs of the same production year. Part number is 48430-26U17. I'm guessing you have to get it from a car that came with HICAS though, the ER33 is 48430-26U18, but the HR33 diagrams note that part number is still leather vs 48430-26U13 which is not leather-wrapped. They all use the same airbags, so if you need another one you can get it off basically any same year R33 or Stagea.

Get a timing light on it and verify it's sparking reliably at a sane ignition timing. Use a COP extension lead to be 100% sure about timing instead of hoping that the timing loop on the back of the engine is accurate. Make sure it's actually injecting fuel. MAF is not used on the stock ECUs for initial cranking.

RE5R01A is the transmission. Didn't realize they had a 5 speed for the NA cars but for some reason the turbo engines stuck to 4 speeds. Looks like the solenoid block is still available from Nissan directly at a somewhat reasonable price: 31940-60X01 https://www.amayama.com/en/genuine-catalogs/epc/nissan-japan/skyline/er33/6568-rb25de/trans/317 I would move sooner on this than later. The moment the de minimis exception for Japan goes away expect to be paying 25% tariffs even for stuff like this.

Is this preventable by priming the system with external oil pressure? I've seen the speed academy folks hook up an external oil priming system to the oil pressure sensor port with an air compressor to check for oil leaks before putting an engine back in a car. Something like this: https://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/23550/10002/-1?gPromoCode=SPRINGINTOSPEED_APR25_5Off&gQT=1

The quickjack pinch weld blocks are 12.7mm deep. I use some generic amazon/alibaba special jack stand pads which are 20mm deep which is far more than you need on these cars: https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Sparta-Adapter-Universal-Protector/dp/B07N691QNG I'm not sure what your lift looks like but presumably these will work too: https://www.amazon.com/HXXF-Adapter-Universal-Slotted-Protector/dp/B07X7MYGYF

I have a VALCON if anyone wants it, I have no idea why you'd want to have VVT specifically broken out of the ECU as opposed to running it off the FCON/whatever standalone you have.

AFAIK I've seen other people recommend using the back of the balance tube as well. Andre Simon from HPA at least. I can't imagine it being that far off from ideal even if it was only used to drive a boost gauge from the factory.

Isn't there a fitting on the back of the balance tube? That's what the OEM boost gauge uses.

Most hardlines are available new still. But unless they're rusted to the point of needing replacement you can just zinc or cadmium plate them to keep them going for decades to come. Regarding the turbo drains it really depends. Braided lines might be better if it's a straighter path than OEM but I would not assume braided teflon lines will never leak. Teflon is a very durable material but you can still abrade, erode, or otherwise compromise its integrity. The return hoses on the bright side are not that hard to access relative to a full turbo removal so if things go wrong you can always put it back to stock. You can very easily drive yourself insane analyzing every little change, or maybe that's just me.