Cecam

I really don't like Ganadors (and clones). Ever driven a car with them? Stupid little things you can't see bugger all in. Look fugly too...

And with that rambling reply, I never did give a straight answer, so " Yeah it should look sweet once its properly polished"

You can polish a car so it looks mint in the shop, take it outside in the sun and it looks like crap (or vice a versa). Alot comes down to how time the guy is prepared to spend on it. Once its had the runs and orange peel dealt with, it will need a heavy machine cut to bring it back up, whether it then shows swirls or not depend on his follow up system, or more likely the apprentice/shop hand who will be doing the actual polishing. Swirls also vary by what pad they use, wool is be far the quickest but swirls pretty bad, foam pads are less prone to that, but have their own problems (like heat and grabbing), be interesting to see what they actually do with it, you should make a point of being there and watching, tends to improve the end result...

As I mentioned above, they will just flat it back, that is, wet sand it (actually, modern shops will dry sand it with vacuum through the head with ultra fine paper, brand of Rupes is the most common device), and then machine buff it back up. Takes about a day done right. Simple machine cutting alone, even with aggressive compounds won't remove the orange peel and will leave swirls that are a bitch to remove afterwards. Used to do it for a grooming shop which also did car painters outwork (final polishes, removing orange peel/runs/dust or crap in clearcoat etc) and can say I'll never polish another black car with new paint again... most bastard job there is...

Personally I'd be pissed if I paid $2K for that workmanship, let alone four grand. Had quite a few cars resprayed recently, final coats in the shop by a pro, with the prep and first coats in the garage, and the turn around time was more like a couple of days and good job. Little bit different for me as I know how to prep the cars and deal with runs if they occur (just flat them back and give them a good cut, thats all they will do on yours I'm sure). Most places want the car out as soon as possible, floor space is valuable, weird they deal in months and not days. Something doesn't sound right there, do they only have a part time painter or something?? Good luck on the job done right next time round...

At 10psi the cars accelerating much faster and coasts upto another 20kph higher because hes spending so much time playing with his clutch and effectively in neutral. Its just some extra momentum, once he finds the rev limitor in both 7psi and 10psi he'll (eventually) figure out its at the same speed/revs...

It will stall. Normal, don't worry about it. Your just creating a big airleak in your intake from the plumback from the cam cover to the intake after the afm. Something along those lines anyways.

A few years back, there was myself (R32 GTS), and three friends with R32 GTS25's. Plus the others with the turbo Skylines etc, I did the exhaust and pod and gained about 12kW and that was me as I saw no point in going further with an n/a. The other three decided they would stick it out with their N/a's while I went turbo. So after lightened flywheels, extractors, cams, cam gears, ecu reprogrammed and all the rest of it the end result... almost as fast my turbo Skyline I had spent nothing on... They had the response and was quite hard to keep up on really twisty roads but anywhere I could open up, or esp at the drags I would leave them behind no worries. Two of the cars are now fitted with largish turbos and ones been sold and replaced with turbo Silvia. No one I know who was dedicated to N/A has stuck with it long term, you can get good power but the car will be a complete pig to drive and a cost a heap for little return. Go with Merli's suggestion and just go turbo, as you'll go that way sooner or later anyways.

For some cars yes, for others no. My Bluebird (SR20DE) ran on normal happily, but my R32 Skyline GTS (RB20DE) pinged pretty bad on anything but premium, and thats at stock timing of 15 degrees too. I could of reduced the timing to run normal unleaded, but that defeats the purpose really as you get worse fuel eco with reduced timing (as well as reduced response)... Try it, and listen very carefully with it loaded up some hills and some detonation isn't very audiable...

I know of someone who breifly ran with a straight pipe from the turbo back. Loud as hell and doesn't sound nice at all. I wouldn't recommend it...

I should clarify that slightly, as theres no maps for whether its on boost or not, but rather how much flow the afm is reading etc, but you get the idea anyways.

It won't run rich, because it will be using the offboost ecu maps, I've known a couple of cars to drive around like this without problems, your biggest problem is low c/r, so it will be extremely gutless which no amount of tuning will cure. I can think of three off the top of my head, all were quite hopeless. Keep the factory ecu and just wind in some timing perhaps...

Why would you want to remove the headlights? I've removed the front bumper/bar on both R32 and R33's without such hassles... a couple of clips, a few bolts, easy... Intercooler as already stated is also just a few bolts and hose clamps to undo and thats it for that too.

As above I think the dump site weigh bridge go in 20kg increments (sp?), but bulk carriers like grain warehouses sometimes have accurate (1kg) scales....

And the one that everyone always seems to miss... the front shocks/springs are different. Rears are still the same thou.

Late model n/a's had the five studs fitted and the same brakes as the turbo models. Series one and early series two still had four studs. All the n/a models with five studs I've seen have been '97 and the odd '96...

Btw, car in avatar was my previous r32 GTSt which was also auto, stock exhaust with gutted cat and pod which made 128kW on same dyno at 12psi, ran 15.1 at 152kph (auto crapped itself on every 2nd to 3rd shift) so might of been slightly quicker and the 0-100 in 6.6s.

No 400m results yet, not sure I'll bother either, but have done various 0-100 lately if thats of any interest, when I got it (stock) was something terrible, about 7.2s, bypassed the boost controller (so it runs 8psi all the time, not just over 4500rpm) and that went down to 6.4s, bumped up the timing and its 6.1s. Sure it can do better but traction and launch technique is now being a problem. I'm faster with friends in the car than without... So thats still with full factory exhaust/cat/intake/etc should be a useful benchmark perhaps? Dyno'd at 160kW @ 8psi. Dyno guy was impressed, most autos on same dyno don't hit 150kw, poorer examples were around 130kW. Young guy with S2 GTS25t manual coupe with zort, pod, boost etc got 154kW, was not happy being beaten by a stocker auto

Just to clarify, you have a ecu with its own loom which runs into the engine bay to run said engine, and seperate looms for the aircon, radio, ignition and so on. So why would you need to worry about the stereo and such for just a engine loom? I've a changed few no problems? Unplug from ecu, pull through inner wing, into engine bay, reinstall new loom, bolt in new ecu, no problem? Sure it was between RB's, but same princable... I'm overlooking something obviously? Depending on what the infini auto puts out for the speed signal your speedo will need to be adjusted (theres jumpers on the back for that) but little else I would imagine...

I've investigated that box before, about four years ago, from memory its the fuel pump voltage regulator/modulator, runs the pump on low voltage at idle and cruise etc. Easy test, just unplug it

I wouldn't bother measuring the levels. Remove the thin plastic lid (it is simply siliconed in place, be careful not to cut through the lid that folds back under though) and then you'll see where the pins go from the plug in the case onto the PCB. Theres usually where the problems at, you might want a fairly grunty soldering iron as the tracks/pads/pins are all quite thick so need some decent heat to flow the solder properly. Theres bugger all on the pcb (which hides under copper sheild), you might as well resolder that for good measure. Throw the lid back on and should be fixed... Have fun...

Most AFM faults are just dry joints which are easy to repair if your handy with a soldering iron... swap it with a known good one and if that fixes it, just open up your one and it will likely be one of the pins that goes off to the socket will be bad...

Seen an RB20DET blow it oil seals before and have the same sorta effect, oil everywhere and give it a rev and it blows out of the bov. I was expecting it to have more damage but once I replaced the turbo on it (and put the 3ltrs (!) of oil it had blown out of it back in) it ran fine, didn't blow out the dipstick any more either much to my suprise. So you might be lucky and just need another turbo... or at worse you might need a new motor... Have fun...

Those air filter / ionisers have been around for years, I've seen them factory fitted into 1984 Bluebirds for example. Yours stopped working properly ages I would imagine, I think they have some filters in there you can change and might get some use from it...

666Dan, how much boost was the turbo making from off idle? I've worked on a few RB25DE's which have had RB20 turbos fitted to them and they were practically making boost when idling. Massive torque down low but runs out of top end very quick... One of those cars now runs a fairly insane turbo/setup (still high C/R for response), makes about 300 rwkw or so, that was done nearly two years ago and its still going, really needs good tuning to keep them together....