Rolls

You could just take one day off work, go to two repairers in the same day (they take photos and it is only like 15 minutes each place) then and only if required you get their assesor, also if you tell them you aren't available to drive/tow it to their assesor they will come out or even pay for it to be towed there. The places that do the repairs are all good quality from my experience (two different repairs), imo just car are pretty good, cheaper than shannons as well.

I'm talking about all the backyard builds and workshops that build them every 6 months for a customer, the proper race teams and race houses obviously have huge amounts of experience and have minimal issues. You'd be silly to generalise every single rebuilt motor, which is why I didn't intend to do so. However when you are talking the typical backyard/once every year rebuild you see and hear about on these forums, you are better to chance it with a second hand nissan motor. I even made a poll some years ago and it turned up that people were having just as bad reliability issues with rebuilt (forged) motors vs stockers. and for the cost + shipping you'd be absolutely mad not to, everyone I know who has rebuilt a motor has spent within $1k of just getting a block shipped here from RIPS in nz. If I was planning on >300kw reliable I would do absolutely this. Because they aren't professionals, that is why. They are a bunch of guys in a shed that are barely any more experienced than your neighbour at rebuilding motors, sure they might tune and fix cars all day everyday, but they do an RB30 maybe once every 2 years and everytime with different parts, they probably don't even know which ones blew up or not. Experience and number of built motors is important, RIPS, racepace etc build so many motors they have crossed the threshold where you have enoguh experience and data to know what works and what doesnt. It is easy to say it should be done 100%, but the reality is if you aren't experienced you are not capable of doing it 100%, building engines properly requires experience, simple as that. it wasn't even that bad, it was a second hand car that the previous owner had built, had piston slap and snapped a camshaft in 3 pieces after 10,000kms, didn't inspire trust in me at all so I pulled it out, sold the bottom end and put a NEO in. The owner I sold the motor two said it is still going strong, just with the piston slap rattle.

rebuilding a motor is a waste of money, I've seen more "built" motors have internal problems than stockers with the nissan seal of approval, I trust the guy at nissan that built 3 motors a day 365 days a year with a million dollar quality assurance system than the guy who does 1 motor every 6 months with different parts every time who has the claim "no warranty on performance items" (eg every second workshop out there).

With what is said I wonder what makes an engine lean one way vs another, or even lean one way at peak toque and the other at redline. I'm guessing when you are flow limited and cooking the air with a turbo too small then you need the rich + timing, but when you have the opposite you can lean it out more. Though obviously a bit more to it than that.

Thanks for the offer, I might just do that some day. I've mainly been reading the nistune forums and having a small play myself to understand the concepts, purely for my own interests, I don't plan on turning it into a business ever.

But that is the question though, if you make it really rich (10:1) you can run more timing however rich kills power, or you could run it really lean (13:1) with less timing. Different combos are going to have different results, however I think it isn't a trivial answer, one or the other will make more power. E85 does knock btw, it just sounds different so be careful.

Wondering if people have any new thoughts on this?

Why do you have to sell it so bad, also what are you going to replace the feeling of boost with? I sold mine, bought another one 6 months later as I couldn't hack it lol. Once the bug bites, you are stuck with it for life!

dont drop it anymore than that dude! just because no one is looking doesn't mean it isn't worth what you are asking!

I have a neo so there is no igniter module, the wires go straight from the ECU to the coilpacks (with built in ignitor). It can't easily short out as the end of the wire has tape on it, and the sparkplug end is stuck inside the coilpack rubber.

Here is a picture, no need for using anything fancy, just use a scrap piece of wire and it works fine!

I got a piece of electrical wire and skinned one end of it, I then made a loop of wire on that end and looped it around the sparkplug head, then I put the coil pack over the top and bolted it in Simple and costs nothing!

Booked in to have my cat replaced tomorrow and now the car feels fast again, haven't changed anything so no idea why it is working now? Cut what? I just put a spare bit of wire in there and left it, nothing to plug and play as I will just leave it there forever now.

It is really easy to just cut a piece of wire and coil one end around the sparkplug, then put the insulated end at the top and just leave it there.

Epic reply disco

Exactly, doesn't matter how it is set as long as the tuner uses this as their base. One reason though I wouldn't ever do it is it confuses people and a backyard mechanic might set it back to 15 degrees thinking he is doing the right thing and blow the motor up, if you set it full advance and tune it then this isn't so bad as you make setting base timing much easier and means if you get bad fuel it is easy to do a full retard and then put it back. Does nistune etc have a "k factor" equivalent for igntion, eg you can shift the entire map (and all subsequent cold start maps) by +- X degrees?

Went to the movies so didn't get around to dropping the exhaust however when idling in my driveway I noticed a rattle coming from the door, then I realised it was the cat that was rattling, guess what I am doing tomorrow? Project broomstick and hopefully all shall be resolved!

I turned it all the way to the left like the picture says to advance the timing. I actually am starting to think that, I will take the timing belt cover off next. It does feel laggy even in neutral.

They didn't mess the tune up, however they added a heavily richened and retarded area to the map so that if you up the boost you don't blow the motor up, this results in a lack of power and very rich performance if you use a bigger turbo or more boost than stock, hence a retune can easily net > 20kw extra

Any ideas what is up with my markings then?

Well if someone bought my car for $10k (would take 12 months to sell for that figure) and you could register it in SA I would buy it for 16, oh well, nice to dream. edit: Unless you want an R32 with basically the same running gear as what is in yours lol

Looks like the first slits are just missing, anyway I think I'm chasing the wrong problem if advancing it doesn't make it drive any better and it is smack bang on a line implying it hasn't slipped from somewhere else (would likely be inbetween two lines if that was the case). Edit: I have an r34 neo but I'm fairly sure we used either an r33 or r32 front pulley, I don't know if it goes on only one way or you can put it on so the timing marks are completely wrong, anyone remember if it is notched and only goes on one way?

Ok put a wire between the spark plug and the coilpack and used the timing gun. It is bang on the first mark and looks like this: T O || | | An orange mark, followed by a black mark followed by two slits and it is bang on the first slit, is this 15 degrees? Looking at the manual it should be 5,10,15 per slit but I only have two slits total?

Well I was feeling lazy so I just marked the timing and adjusted it and took it for a spin, ending up winding it about as far advanced as possible and it didn't ping nor did it feel any faster, idle went up maybe 50rpm max. Put it back where I marked it but now I am really baffled, surely it should ping if I move it to full advance? Once it cools down I will try dropping the exhaust, dont think the nighbours are going to like me.

Ok I bought a timing light, where is the indicator on the motor? my crank pulley has no marking or anything on it, is it on the cam gear instead? there is the indicator above the pulley but nothing on the actual pulley to indicate degrees or any coloured marking at all.