shaund

First easy thing to check is the vacuum line to the fuel pressure reg. Make sure its a) there and b) giving vaccuum/boost. while idling with no load, pull the vacuum line off the reg and stick your finger over it. You should feel a bit of a suck. Ideally, a T piece and a mechanical boost gauge here goes well. If the fuel pump is suspect, check the wiring and use a multi meter and check for voltage at the pump while its idling. Make sure terminals are clean and solidly attached - a bit of CRC is a good idea too. Check the workshop manual for the expected voltage. It may be in the range of 10-14V. The best thing to do after checking the electricals would be to attach a fuel pressure gauge to the incoming fuel line just before the rail. Any good tuning shop should have a gauge on hand. All it takes is a T adaptor and some small EFI clamps. 30 minute job max if a useless apprentice does it. This will show immediately any problems with pressure. At idle you'll get a reasonable idea, but a run on a dyno would be ideal. Standard fuel pressure while not on-boost is 3bar, and fuel pressure should increase linearly with boost, ie, 0.5bar of boost, fuel pressure should be base 3.5bar. If you suspect flow isn't enough pull the pump out, get a clean bucket, fill it with say 2L of fuel, submerge your pump and pump it out into another clean bucket. Time it and compare to specs you should be able to find online for flow at whatever voltage you can drive it from (car battery with jumper leads?). Just make sure you don't get any sparks when connecting or disconnecting power. fuel will go bang with an electrical spark. Listen for noise when the pump is running. It should sound reasonably quiet and smooth. If its the original pump, it may have shagged bearings, or may have been damaged (can be rust on the outside as an indicator) by race fuels or corrosive additives. If what you mean by "not priming" is that when you go from ignition "off" to "on" and you dont hear the pump running, its likely you're already at pressure and no priming is required. If you turn the key from off to on (not start) and you hear the pump run for a few seconds and then stop, you can turn it back to off, wait a few seconds, turn it back to on and it will not prime as the system is already at pressure. What fuel pump are you using? what duty cycle are you seeing on the injectors when you're seeing the problems? Perhaps you're running out of fuel because your pump can't keep up? A factory pump isn't big enough for 740cc injectors if you hope to use them beyond about 50% (in a GTR - GTS-t is less). Good luck, and don't set yourself, your car, or your house on fire testing your pump

Hi All, Just wondering if anyone else had any experience with these. I was told by the company I bought them from that they were a drop in replacement for the OEM injectors, but it seems they aren't. I'm having trouble getting these to fit in the fuel rail. They seems awfully tight as compared to the OEM injectors. OEM's are 9.78mm OD at the rail end and the Power Enterprises are 10.47mm as measured by my verniers. The hole in the injector rail is somewhere in the region of 10.5-10.6mm. I'm guessing short of buying one of those stupidly overpriced bright coloured alloy fuel rails, all I can do is have the OEM rail machined out? Cheers! -Shaun

Hi Pal, Thanks, have you had a box rebuilt there? Cheers! -Shaun

Hi Guys, I've checked the consolidated workshop thread, and nothing there specifically listing for gearbox rebuilds. My box is a bit tired with the sychro on 4th playing up when the box gets warm - its particularly bad if I hit the track... Any recommendations would be much appreciated. Would also be great if anyone with personal experience with this could let me know, good or bad (pm with bad to avoid the negative-post-police though ), with an indication of price too. Cheers! -Shaun

get yourself a 3 or 4 jaw puller. Not specific to cam gears, but can be used on alot of things. http://www.harborfreight.com/4-piece-three...-set-40965.html <-- example of the sort of thing you want.

If it were me, I'd be looking to keep it simple.. whatever motor you've got in there right now, get a replacement wrecker motor or half cut or something. If the replacement motor you get isnt gts4, so what, swap sump across, problem solved. There should be no difference between an S1 and S2 engine. If there is, it'll be very minor, perhaps a different plug on a sensor worst case. Should be easy enough to fix. Your loom from R32 RB20 may work with R33 RB25 engine, but will very likely require modification, and swapping the ecu from the R33 RB25, but a nistune may work too. Hit up the search and see what you can find for weird and wacky conversions.

christian: If the GTS4 is anything like the GTR, you can just swap the sump across from your RB20 over to the RB25. All RB sumps are interchangeable, however be aware, on an RB26, an RB25 sump will *fit*, but you have to modify it. I put one on my spare engine just to seal the bottom up. The Sump has the front diff integrated into it, hence the requirement to swap in your case. Go find a workshop manual and have a look.

You have a few options and it depends where you want to take the car power wise. 1. look for a low genuine km half cut and do an engine transplant, swap any goodies/better parts over and sell the rest. - make sure this is tested by an independent company as a condition of purchase - you'll have to pay for the test. A good half cut can be had for $10-11k, and there are a lot of parts you can sell and recover a reasonable amount of $ from. You'll probably get a few extras like boost controller, turbo timer, cams, turbos perhaps, but I'd be looking for something thats had no mods done at all, or very few. I got a 94 GTR half cut for $11k from a guy called Ken James. I had STZ in Brisbane test it and it came up great. Cost about $500 to ship to Perth by road. I got the entire car as far as mechanicals go all the way to the rear wheel hubs. Only thing that was missing from the car was bodywork from the gearbox's rear yoke rearwards, doors windscreen, roof and seats. I ended up using most of the stuff inc the rear cradle, diff, wheel hubs gearbox, etc as it was better than mine. It also had a few extras like some atmo BOVs, ecu, and some other bits and pieces. You can do most of the work with stripping and preparing the bits from the half cut yourself if you've got say a double *garage* to do the work in and an engine crane. Then you're just up for about $500-1000 in labour for an engine swap. 2. Rebuild 2a. Bare minimum build - just fix whats wrong. If its only rings, it'll be cheap, but also do bearings - they are cheap. Your engine builder can advise 2b. Better build - As suggested already, forged pistons etc. Limited only by your budget. Go speak to a reputable engine builder, outline your budget. Go somewhere reputable for any work you do - kinda goes without saying really. This generally means some where that does this day in day out and is familiar with high performance turbo engines, preferably the RB26. Good luck... its not as dim a situation as it may seem. Save some $ and do it right if you can afford the time.

I had the same problem with mine... turned out to be the contacts inside the switch. You can check operation of the switch by using a multimeter. I had to disassemble my switch and clean up the carbon off the contacts. I also sprayed it with some silicone spray (note: not silicone sealer, but a CRC like spray). I cleaned the contacts up with a rag initially, followed by some ~1200 grit sand paper, then the silicone spray. I found that I had to drill two holes through the PCB to get to two of the screws hidden behind it (visible from the side, but inaccessible by screwdriver) to disassemble. No de-soldering required. Good luck! Cheers! -Shaun

My rails were re-inforced with ~4mm steel plate across the bottom and the outer, plus a bunch of other steel work. This was part of a fairly major rust repair - the car was farked when i brought it into the country. I can now jack my car from virtually anywhere along these rails. I usually use a trolley jack with a thick lump of rubber on it to help it grip and not damage the por-15 rust proofing paint i used on the entire underside

In my experience, alot of coolants will go brown if they have been exposed to air. When your mechanic did the coolant, did he bleed the air out of the system with the bleed bolt on the drivers side top front of the motor? its near the front of the fuel rail and has a sticker around it with some jap writing on it. At least thats how it is on the RB26.

Sorry.. quality and wheel spacers shouldn't be used in the same sentance. Thats like asking for an honest politician. I don't think you'll find anyone recommending them except perhaps for a show car where you're after a quick fix. Then quality dosent matter, purely appearance.

Depending on how bad it is, (mine was fine until the box was up to temp and then it was as though it was 90% not there), you may find that some Pro-Ma MBL8 will fix your problem. I put about 75mL in my box with new oil (Penrite transaxle 75) and after a few hundred km, i noticed it started to come back to life. 2000km later and you'd not know it was a problem on the street. However, on-track and it starts to misbehave again at higher operating temperatures. I've added some more, but I may have reached its limits of 'repair' in this case. I have an R32 GTR Its about $35-40 for a 200mL bottle. Give it a go nothing to lose. Just dont put it in an LSD or an auto box because it'll destroy it. If you have trouble tracking it down, shoot me a PM and i can put you in touch with the guy i get it from here in Perth.

Start at the beginning and work your way forward. 1. The Japanese de-registration papers 2. Invoice from the japanese seller 2. Docs to prove it was brought into the country the normal way - ie, on a boat (invoice for shipping) 3. Registration papers from NSW 4. De-registration papers from NSW (does NSW issue this?) 5. Registration papers for WA (duh) 6. REVS check - you can get this yourself for a fee - get the rego number and the VIN. I have a wad of paperwork from when I brought my car. If the guy you are buying from is the first aussie owner, he should have something similar.

+1 non-cushioned is also harsh on the driveline.... makes it alot easier to strip gears in your box

i cleaned the tank out in my 32 GTR.. .wasn't that hard. there is ample access for cleaning it out from the big hole in the top after you unscrew the white lid the fuel lines go thru. I used a high-pressure cleaner and a scrubbing brush, plus a stiff (non-wire) brush and some industrial strength degreaser for the dificult spots - was up to my shoulder with my arm in the tank cleaning it out ;P This is a tank-out job.

speak to Steve at Steve's Shed: http://www.stevesshed.com.au/?pg=contact Steve, my old man and myself had to do some pretty major structural re-engineering of my R32 GTR pre-road registration (long story)... essentially the inner chassis rails were re-inforced, doorsills were replaced with steel tube, all welded up solid as a brick shit house. There is absolutely 0 flex in the body now and it handles fantastically. My GTR is going to be up on his hoist tomorrow if you wanted to swing by and check it out. I'll be there from about 9am tomorrow morning. I'm doing rear tie-rod ends, so I don't expect it to take too long; I'll probably be out of there by mid-day. Cheers! -Shaun

last time the cops had a 'no-fines' day/week, i was driving back to perth from down south, over taking a truck doing about 30 over the limit... Instead of a fine, i got a yellow sticker... wasn't driving my skyline, but an old heap of shit. I knew everything that was wrong with it, but they stickered me for stupid things like 'no water in windscreen washer bottle' (i ran out about 20km back).. and 'power steering leak' when it was just a hose clamp that i could have done up on the side of the road... i forget the 3rd thing, but it was pretty rediculous. What they didn't find: rooted bushes all thru the front end shockies at all 4 corners were not doing a damn thing rooted engine and gearbox mounts Busted CV boot a few other incidental things meant i had the motivation to fix what needed fixing.

As some one who was badly burnt importing an R32 GTR, I personally would recommend not importing one sight-unseen, no matter how many photos you see, or descriptions of "in perfect condition" etc. Mine came in with a shagged engine, gearbox, diff, busted 4wd system, and structural rust. Took 3 years to rebuild and got a bit out of the guy in japan I bought it from.... The import agent was great... did everything he could short of refunding me his $1100 fee. The guy in japan basically needed bullying into doing the right thing. Eventually I got a small sum of money to go 'towards' the rust work, and a 1/2 cut for a replacement engine/gearbox/diffs etc. If I was doing it again, the only condition I'd import one under is if the company doing the importing did everything... you pay a fixed ammount, they bring it in, comply, rego, and any other roadworth work, and hand the keys over to you and you just drive it out of their yard and straight onto the road. I'm sure there are a few places around that do that sort of thing. So even if you do buy locally thats already rego'd..... Things to look out for include: Shagged engine, gearbox, diffs, 4wd transfer case, bushes, CVs, tierods, engine mounts, bushes (anything rubber underneath), rust. On the point of rust, mine had really bad rust in the floorpan - it'd been jacked up just about anywhere on the floor pan rear of the front wheels, and forward of the rear wheels, damging the floorpan, the rust proofing, etc... there were holes in the floor pan in every corner. We had to straighten the floorpan, replace the doorsills, and re-infoce the inner pseudo chassis rails. I've got lots of photos along the way incase anyones interested... Its a great car now, but a much larger undertaking than I was expecting to get it there. Get a proper inspection before you buy from some one who knows about the 32 GTR

if its *really* lumpy, it may be that one of your cams is out by a tooth, which IIRC, can be about 10 crank degrees or more! Given that you're harmonic balancer is back on, you can get TDC from the timing marks on the harmonic balancer, and just take the cam cover off to get things lined up. I can't remember if there is infact a 0 degrees mark on the harmonic balancer. If theres not, you can have a bit of an estimate. perhaps add some marks yourself. check the manual. Use a short straight edge to see if the dots on your cam gears are perfectly lined up, and to check the timing mark, im pretty sure you wanna look across the mark on the timing belt cover 'through' the centre of the crank shaft if you know what i mean. I also found that the plate behind the cam gears was a little cock-eyed... one cam was slight above, the other was slightly below after re-fitting the timing belt. Its quite possible that its the CAS needing adjustment, but you'll need a timing light for that anyway. I found 20 degrees on mine was with the CAS pretty much dead centre on the adjustment. a few degrees either side of that shouldn't make your idle overly lumpy though. My idle is only slightly more lumpy than factory with poncam Bs and no advance/retard on either cam. I'm yet to dial that in... need some dyno time Out of interest, did you replace your idler and tensioner bearings for the timing belt?

http://www.arduino.cc/ is your friend if you're going the PWM route and want to build in some smarts

yeah, just use lots of leverage.. go buy a cheap 1/2" breaker bar... should cost no more than $30. If your doing a GTR, drop the front driveshaft too.. gives you a little more room to work. I fail to understand why so many people think its a good idea to do those plugs up so damn tight in the first place. Its a tapered thread, you do it until its a reasonably tight... its to form a seal to stop very low pressure fluid from leaking out, not hold up the Sydney harbor bridge! Problem is, once over tightened, its hard to make it seal up without tightening it right up again.. perhaps use a little blue gasket type silicone on the threads to make sure it seals without excessive tension.

There are timing marks for both cams (dots on the black plate behind the cams) that you need to line up with the 'dots' (drilled out small marker holes) on the cam gears. Likewise on the crank, there is a drilled out 'dot' on the timing belt gear on the crank, and a notch cut out of part of the oil pump housing. Just make usre these are all lined up 100% perfectly before you take the belt off. As for the number of notches between cam gears, its just really 'tight'. I rotated one of the gears towards the other so it was easier to get the belt on, and then 'tightened' it up by rotating the cam gear back.. was only a couple of mm required to make it easier to get the belt on. Also helps if you have 1 or 2 more people there to help hold the belt in place so it dosen't slip off CAS timing is easy. Base timing is 20 degrees. Check the manual for more details, but there is a loop at the rear of the engine at the top for an inductive pickup timing light. Rotate the housing of the CAS to get your base timing right. Do it with the engine off, a bit at a time. Each mark on the harmonic balancer equates to 5 degrees BTDC, and if memory serves the mark all the way on the right side is 30 degrees. Check the manual though. I recently put poncam Bs in my 32GTR, and the power gains are well worth the expense! Good luck and have fun

The problem is that the full current supplied to the headlights is switched thru your switch on the dash. Over time the contatcts get dirty, heat up, and start melting things inside. When mine were going faulty, I found the best way to get them working (temporarily) was to roate the switch knob quickly so it 'thumped' into the end stop, 99% of the time, the lights would come on then. The proper solution for mine was to pull the switch apart, re-tension the springs, clean the terminals, and put relays in under the bonnet that now do the hard work of switching the full current to the lights. The other benefit of using relays is my lights ended up about 15-20% brigter... fatter cable, less resistance from things like the faulty switch etc all contribute to this no doubt. Cheers! -Shaun

Hi Ben, You can wire in a switch to enable RWD mode only.. search for the trick about pulling the fuse to goto 2WD. Theoretically to force 50:50 4wd, you could put a switch in on the "bleed" line (electric, not hydraulic). If you remove the kick pannel by the drivers right foot, there is a single wire with an inline plug. Disconnecting this puts your 4wd pump into a bleed mode, which theoreically should run the pump at 100% duty cycle. I've heard that some 4wd controllers hook into this line or something similar so you can dial up a certain ammount of 4wd by applying some sort of signal to this line (be it PWM, or a variable voltage). I'm not sure how safe it would be to do this though. If you're willing to risk it, by all means try. Be prepared for frequent clutch pack rebuilds best case, broken front axels/CVs etc worst case. Let us know how you go! Cheers! -Shaun