CLEM0

Thank you mate. I'll grab an ARP bolt. Hopefully i'm right assuming the bolt keeps the balancer on- not the key! If that's the case, i'll just crank it tight and hope for the best. Any good methods for flywheel locking with engine in car?

I did but that's a bit risky with the stock bolt!

Thanks for the advice all. I'm aware any way I fix this it's going to be bunky. As long as it lasts me until something else in the engine goes, then i'll be happy. I just paid nearly $20k for the car but I always planned to rebuild anyway, but not within a month of owning it!- I've had old cars before, they don't last forever. I'm going to MIG weld the woodruff slot, file it down and get it as close as possible to a tight fit with the key. I'll put some loctite 660 (made for keyways) to fill any air gaps, grab a new balancer and put some antiseize on the crank bolt, and torque to 200-250nm. Anyone know a good method of locking the crank? If anyone has any better ideas, i'd love to know. I'm pretty certain after some reading that the crank bolt is the reason the balancer stays tight- NOT the actual key. The key is simply for alignment purposes I don't care about the timing marks, just want to make sure everything stays put!

That's what i'm thinking of doing. Going to patch up the keyway with weld bead, die grinder it smooth until the key fits well- loctite 660 as a means of removing any air gaps that can become dangerous under vibration, new balancer, new bolt, and torque the bolt to double factory specifications, probably with an ARP bolt. The way I see it, is I now need a new crank when I decide to rebuild, so I might as well give this a good shot. I only just bought the car too! Man I wish these things were 5-10k still, shame I paid almost double, otherwise i'd have the engine out going forged right now if it was 10k! Wouldn't even fret the crank damage- i'd buy a new one haha! I still can't figure out if the woodruff key actually does anything, or if the crank bolt high torque grips the balancer. The woodruff key is mild steel so surely it can't take any rotational force- especially 400+ whp at 7k+ RPM, it must be the crank bolt. I'm not sure

Well I guess that throws the theory that the key doesn't have pressure on it- what repair method did you use? And did you tighten the bolt to correct spec?

Thanks for the reply mate- I figured that'd be the case- will try it with crank in car. I don't think oil pump is going to be an issue as the balancer and the crank pulley are actually on seperate woodruff keys. The crank pulley is solid and doesn't seem to have any issues with the woodruff key, so I'm not sure if that'd affect the oil drive gear in any way. I have no oil pressure issues. I am still curious if they key serves any purpose other than alignment- it doesn't seem like it could support any rotational force (aka why it died in the first place)

Hello, I'm in the process of degreeing my cams, and upon removing the balancer for timing checks I noticed the woodruff key fell out straight away- and the slot looks minced! This is the keyway for balancer, not crank pulley. How can I fix this? Does the key actually do anything besides align the timing marks for the balancer? I have a MIG welder, loctite 660 and JB Weld readily available, as well as air tools to grind away etc...Can I just not run one and overtorque the crank bolt? Or should it be fixed? I want to ideally fix in the car, because if it comes out for machining i'll rebuild the whole engine and just buy a new crank- which I don't want to do (yet) as i've just paid Covid tax for the car, which sent me broke... and its full of issues lol! Cheers!

Yeah I heard that too- but these seem fairly big for what most run. Probably going to get some stock cams for now- runs like a dog off boost and isn't fun, 120psi across all 6, shitty idle etc Likely they are 0* right now- no adjustable cam gears so I think for street use stock is fine.

They certainly don't seem current- but I can't find any specs to degree them in!

Hello. I have recently bought an RB25. It claimed to have poncams but no specs were available. Removed covers to find both intake and exhaust are 264/264 with 8.5mm lift. Looking to degree the cams- but I can't find any info on a 264 intake and exhaust. Are these real cams? Or knockoff? Never heard of fake camshafts but there is fake turbos so it's arguably easier to fake cams... Cheers!

Will do tonight. Cheers

Thanks for the explanation mate. I guess that makes sense. I'll give the car another comp test with a better tester. I think it'll be below 140 regardless. It makes mid to high 20's under full boost/max power around 6.5k rpm. I don't know exactly because i'm focussed on not crashing at that time, but a glance showed that. Low knock on apexi. I don't have datlogit cable or whatever its called sadly. Under high revs, low load its around 35+ * of timing (4-5k no boost). Tuner said car made bugger all power with any sort of normal timing. Any way to share map from apexi power fc without the cable to upload the map?

Was 125-128 across all 6. Not amazing numbers but very consistent, and was using a really cheap compression tester for these readings, which doesn't usually give accurate 'high' readings according to most, and they use them to check conistency more than anything. Why would low comp allow it to tolerate high timing? And why would it actually mean it won't make power without this timing? I know it'd make overall less power than one with say 150PSI across all 6, but surely that doesn't mean it needs damn near 30* for power

Ha. Learn something new every day I guess. Thanks for the info. I'll look into it. I really do think the injectors aren't the issue here, especially considering the concerning timing is at max power- but at this point i'll try anything because it literally makes 0 sense why this engine needs this timing for power. Honestly it is beyond me all the major culprits are accounted for aside from fuel, but this car used to run extremely rich so I doubt they're struggling. Going to check coilpacks tomorrow too, as well as fuel pressure and injectors. They're new-ish Splitfires so I doubt they're bad- but again, nothing makes sense with this car! It took me 6 months of going carless to find the right R33. I've wanted one for so long, saved up a shit tonne for it, and this is how I get re-paid! 😂Loving it so far. Done 400km in the car and been on stands more than the road

Thanks Mate. I'm just assuming 740cc for the simple fact that the injector duty is 60% max and they look like the Nismo reds haha. I'll pop them out tomorrow to confirm and i'll give them a clean. Why are these classic Nismo 740 issues? Are they notoriously poor quality or just too big for the power?

I don't know exactly the power and timing, but 15PSI on a GT3582 is about 400-450whp on most R33 setups with a safe tune. Mine made this but it needed 28* of timing I believe, as well as the fact the ECU is 2* retarded of the actual engine, so somewhere around high 20's to 30* of timing to make normal RB power

Injectors are I believe 740cc side feeds. Will need to pull to check. Stock fuel rail, FPR 800 with no gauge for pressure. I have a wideband from my old car but haven't got the bung I ordered from eBay yet to put it in. Car ran 11.5:1 on full boost according to tuner. No clue how he measured this....

It's 2am. Just realised I measured this in inches. 0.020 inches in 0.5mm, and 0.025 is roughly 0.6mm. Plug gap is fine. No idea what to do. Nothing makes sense with this issue and not even mechanics who build RB engines for their job can figure out what is going on. It literally just doesn't make sense whatsoever.

Sorry if I wasn't clear- had the car just over a week. Previous owner had for 7-8 years give or take. I would never let a car run like this for more than 8 days, let alone 8 years

Damn... every other forum I used to get clowned for not giving enough detail, now too much- can't get shit right 😂😢 Anyway- Idle sounds choppy, did so both before and after retune, car struggles/won't start cold unless given throttle, misfires/shoots flames under light load (2-3.5k RPM). Does this randomly, which is now made worse since retune. Drives fine, feels like about 400whp, goes hard. Only shows issues when approaching rev limit, about 500-800 RPM before redline it'll backfire hard occasionally, so I decided to stay well away from higher RPM until I can fix this. The car actually runs and drives fine when warm besides isssues mentioned persisting. Cruises well, doesn't stall. Idle still not amazing when warm but very hardly noticable choppy sound, retune set idle to 950RPM instead of 650 which improved it decently. Was really only bad when cold. The main reason i'm going through all of this literally the timing numbers. The car makes shit all power under regular safe timing maps, so now they're far too high and that is what i'm struggling to figure out- why? The tuner only set them so high as he simply believed the ECU was faulty, as it runs very solid at stupidly high advance, and makes normal power for the boost and setup.

So if anyone is still able to help, I really thought I figured it out but I'm stumped again. - Thanks for all the helpful responses, I took them on board and checked it all today. - I have checked all timing on the car. Intake and exhaust camshaft markings line up. When these line up, so does the harmonic balancer, with the marking point (more of a shaved section than a point) on the timing cover corresponds very closely to the 4th marking, AKA 15* degrees on the balancer. (0,5,10,15...) Hard to say it's 100% perfect but it's very damn close as far as I can tell. - The engine is also at TDC at this point. Marked a thin metal rod with a permanent marker, and got it as close as possible to TDC by visually watching for the point the marking was neither going down when the crank was rotated clockwise or counter-clockwise. It all lines up. - Literally all the timing points assessed line up (not perfectly as it's all judged by eye so leave some room for error) but it's all close enough to not be an issue. - The timing of the ECU and the CAS is within 2*. This was tested at idle, and verified under of around 2000RPM. Used a timing light with the signal directly attached to plug #1 with a lead, not the crappy wiring harness/coil-plug loom. As far as timing goes - it's fine. (Only thing I didn't check is crankshaft marking under timing cover as this is a big job, ran out of time) - THE ONLY ISSUE I CAN THINK OF NOW- I have a receipt from previous owner for a very recent plug change, done within the last few thousand kilometres. They are 6 x new NGK BKR6E - great, or so I thought. Pulled them today, turns out they're gapped at 0.20 to 0.25mm!!! I have no idea who would use such a stupidly low gap. Anyway; would this have any effect on the ignition timing? I know it'll affect car performance overall, but will it mean that to make power I need seriously advanced timing, as the spark is not strong enough until the mixture in the cylinder is pushed right to the top, right up to the spark plug? (advanced timing) - It's the only major issue I can find on the whole car. I verified timing several times as I simply didn't believe it all lined up. I was sure this was this problem. From the tests I have conducted today, I can pretty happily eliminate timing from the equation, for now at least... -If I still can't find solution this will be my last resort before either a new engine goes in or I give up for now. Thanks again for all the help in this thread all, hopefully someone can guide me from here!

So if anyone is still able to help, I really thought I figured it out but I'm stumped again. - Thanks for all the helpful responses, I took them on board and checked it all today. - I have checked all timing on the car. Intake and exhaust camshaft markings line up. When these line up, so does the harmonic balancer, with the marking point (more of a shaved section than a point) on the timing cover corresponds very closely to the 4th marking, AKA 15* degrees on the balancer. (0,5,10,15...) Hard to say it's 100% perfect but it's very damn close as far as I can tell. - The engine is also at TDC at this point. Marked a thin metal rod with a permanent marker, and got it as close as possible to TDC by visually watching for the point the marking was neither going down when the crank was rotated clockwise or counter-clockwise. It all lines up. - Literally all the timing points assessed line up (not perfectly as it's all judged by eye so leave some room for error) but it's all close enough to not be an issue. - The timing of the ECU and the CAS is within 2*. This was tested at idle, and verified under of around 2000RPM. Used a timing light with the signal directly attached to plug #1 with a lead, not the crappy wiring harness/coil-plug loom. As far as timing goes - it's fine. (Only thing I didn't check is crankshaft marking under timing cover as this is a big job, ran out of time) - THE ONLY ISSUE I CAN THINK OF NOW- I have a receipt from previous owner for a very recent plug change, done within the last few thousand kilometres. They are 6 x new NGK BKR6E - great, or so I thought. Pulled them today, turns out they're gapped at 0.20 to 0.25mm!!! I have no idea who would use such a stupidly low gap. Anyway; would this have any effect on the ignition timing? I know it'll affect car performance overall, but will it mean that to make power I need seriously advanced timing, as the spark is not strong enough until the mixture in the cylinder is pushed right to the top, right up to the spark plug? (advanced timing) - It's the only major issue I can find on the whole car. I verified timing several times as I simply didn't believe it all lined up. I was sure this was this problem. From the tests I have conducted today, I can pretty happily eliminate timing from the equation, for now at least... -If I still can't find solution this will be my last resort before either a new engine goes in or I give up for now. Thanks again for all the help in this thread all, hopefully someone can guide me from here!

I think this is the issue then. Let's hope it hasn't been at 28* full load for almost a decade or this engine is on borrowed time!

Can't find a similar PFC setting, going to have to verify timing and then retune it seems.

Yep I think at such advanced timing knock would be very high. There must be a mechanical issue. It has had similar timing for almost a decade so fingers crossed there is indeed a timing issue because if not i'm shocked this engine survived 370-400rwhp for so long!