GTRNUR

Great idea. I'll try and be there for the cruise as well.

You have a pm.

Thanks for the feedback. The satisfaction I've gotten from building this engine and overcoming all the hurdles has been a great experience for me. Every time I drive the car it puts a smile on my face. Im sure that you will have the same experience from your 26/30 R34 build. You have a different set of hurdles to overcome to achieve the end result, but still once your behind the wheel its all worthwhile. If I were to have gone RB30 though I would have definatly gone down the Nitto 3.2 stroker crank path as well. The extra displacement makes a huge difference. Imagine an 800hp rated turbo starting to make boost at 1800 rpm and be at full boost at around 4k.

Glad you found it interesting. The lead dyno operator with the most skyline experience at the dyno shop I use resigned last week, so I am back to making finishing tuning changes on the street for a bit till I can warrant the time off work again. The workshop is also moving and they have to build a new dyno room which will take a month as they are also using their equipment at a local car show inside the next 2 weeks. A car show that I have entered to do a dyno run in, provided that they bring the AWD rig along and not just 2 rollers. Since its a competition though there wont be any tuning changes. Only power runs, so I need to finish optimising best I can. Advantages: Retains an RB26 block so no gearbox mods are required to accomodate the sump adapter plate height changes where the bell housing doesnt line up to the holes in the AWD sump. Height increase is only 20mm, so only the power steering pump mount and the induction hoses required lengthening. The plumb back pipe needed a little massaging to allow it to clear the front HKS wastegate actuator nipple. An extended front pipe is also needed, same as you would with an RB30. The intake plenum clears the clutch master cylinder while still retaining the booster. No spacers are used under the cross member. No bonnet clearance issue. Stock bonnet, stock clearances and no massaging or cutting away of the bonnet framework. The crankshaft has an 87mm stroke with the same journel offset as a Nitto RB30 90mm crank, so strength is retained. Retains piston oil squirters. 19mm rod journals, 22mm gudgens. Sleeved block retains cylinder wall thickness for larger bore sizes compared to boring a standard Rb30 to the same bore size without sleeving. Piston design makes the engine non-cam interference, like a 2jz. When the timiing belt covers are on and the factory breather system is retained the engine would pass for stock the the average person. The only thing that gives it away is the hose extension on the drivers side. The passenger side is hidden by the intake snorkel. I think that watching the RB30/26 R34 build thats going on in this projects section will give us all a better idea of why everyone doesnt have an RB30 in their GTR. Yes it can be done. It just isn't that easy for mere mortals to achieve. Not that Im trying to market my engine (yet), but my engine design really is easy to put together and it fits close to stock. Actual displacement is 3140cc. This spools a pair of GTRS's to 1.7kg/cm at 4500 rpm. Only a sleeved RB30 block with a custom 89mm bore will get yo more displacement, unless you shell out for a stroker crank for the RB30.

The weather wasnt really the problem, it was just icing on the cake. The real issue was the runway surface. Check out the picture. I wasn't kidding when I said it was like driving on a dirt road! Seeing the MaxxG stunt plane in action was worth the look though.

Don't take this the wrong way Rob but you seem to have some have some theories that conflict with a lot of what I have said. Not that I mind because everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It is also easy to be misunderstood or taken out of context when every minute detail of an explanation is not mentioned, or when only sections of a thread (and not the whole contents) are read. I'll say this about my AFR meter comment. If the car is hot and is started, and the exhaust temp is higher than about 300 degrees (as it would be when its hot), and then it is stopped and then immediatly re-started again you CAN use AFR meter information to determine if cranking and post start enrichment values are close. But it takes experience and an understanding of the engine you are tuning to know what is needed. You rely on your ears and the tacho just as much as what you see on the AFR meter. I admit that I was in stunned disbelief when I was told of the 45 degrees cranking ignition values in RB's as well. That particular piece of wisdom was from an EFI specialist (and trainer of other well known Australian tuners). I was then told that piece of knoweledge came from scoping out a standard car, as this is something he commonly does with development of new EFI systems. The man is an encyclopedia of all engine knowledge and has tuned virtualy every make of production engine in standard and radically modified forms as well as motorsport up to F1 level. I never post information that I am not 100% sure of. I draw on my own personal experiences and also from knowledge attained from the formal EFI tuning training I have undergone. There are always circumstances where something is 100% true in some situations and 100% incorrect in other situations. As I have said, not all or maybe even none of what I have suggested may relate to a Nistune as they are not one of the ECU's I have ever tuned. But the basics are still correct, so with a timing light, AFR meter, your nose, ears and eyes it does still apply. Engines are still engines. Fuel, air, spark, bang.

One other idea is to unplug the coolant temp sensor, which is the 2 wire sensor on the pipe that is connected to your top radiator hose. With after market ecu's this will send the ecu to an off-scale temperature, so it thinks it is starting in a sub zero climate. If it works, and starts, then plug it back in again once its running again. Never tried that with a nistune or even a stock ecu for that matter though...

If you happen to still be there and are stuck, try unplugging your coil pack loom. Then crank it for 5 seconds, then plug it in again and try to start it again. In theory this may wet your intake manifold enough to get it to start, that is provided the issue is that your still staving for fuel when its hot. Or get a can of aerostart and spray it into your intake when someone else is cranking. It will take a bit to get that to work though as it really needs to go into the engine at the throttle body. I don't know if it will even work to be honest. Ive never tried it.

Wings and Wheels was a pretty good weekend all in all. The Lamborghini's didnt show up though. The general concensis is that they were on the side of the road in a cloud of steam 1/2 way to Townsville. A Ferrari 430 showed, but didnt go on the airstrip. Which was understandable... as the airstrip surface had been recently re-laid. While it was dead flat, the new stone hadn't yet been pressed into the surface so it was more or less like driving on a dirt road. Then it started to rain just as we pulled onto the airstrip! There 600hp viper that was there didnt get any traction at all in any gear. The euro car club and myself had a go though. The quickest car was the 997 turbo, but the driver said the car was all over the place with the stability control fighting to keep traction. In the video it is the car in front of me. He didnt know his speed though as he was too busy fighting for control. My run was just as pointless. I launched at 3000 rpm and immediatly lost traction reving to 7500. Changed to 2nd, lost traction again and then noticed the boost had dropped to 0.8 bar. I thought I had partially blown off an intake hose, but the boost controller had just shut down because of a spike caused by how quickly the engine rev'd up. So I continued accelerating through 4th and a little in 5th to about 1/3'rd track and then rolled to the end. I managed 203km/h before backing off. Today I remembered I could do a recall on the settings for the last maximum boost achieved, and it had actually spiked to 2.3 bar for a moment in 1st gear, which explained the controller shutdown. The we were offered a 2nd pass on the runway this afternoon. I opted to pass so I could film and not risk more stone chips. I got a ride in a police car which was positioned at the 1000M mark where they setup a Lidar system to monitor the car speeds. The best speed captured was 193 my mates M3. That speed was at 1000M minus the range of a Lidar, not at the 1000M mark. They didnt get an accurate speed on the 997 turbo due to the angle from the road side. Here's the video of my run anyway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvwnWA9F_r8

You can use paint cut and polish to remove the water marks. If they are really stubborn you can also try some of that CLR Clear stuff on a rag(diluted), and then polish it afterwards. I had water marks over most of my car and ended up having to 2000 grit wet sand and then PPG system one cut and polished the whole car. It works on glass too. Taking it to a car detailer would have been a lot easier...

One more thing. Is this a built engine that has been apart before? If so its possible that the wrong alignment dowels have been used in the throttle bodies to align the plenum and base plate. There are two length dowels in the engine that will fit the throttle bodies. Using the slightly longer dowels that belong under the throttle assembly(that the throttle cable connects too) in the throttle bodies will prevent propper compression of the gasket, because they bottom out in the alighment hole. So you get a leak.

Actually thats not quite true. Engines that benfit from single throttle intakes are the ones that have massive cams and as a result a poor vacuum at idle and at low engine speeds. My RB315 with stock cams pulls -20mm more vacuum than a stock RB26 at idle with stock cams. More displacement directly increases low speed vacuuum, and as a result makes the engine easier to tune. The other side effect of and engine with a poor vacuum is that your brake and clutch booster doesnt work all that well if you are driving sedately. Because the engine will only pull a good vacuum level on a gear shift from a high rpm. So if your 3lt is running 272 or larger cams, then yes you will make the engine easier to tune and nicer to drive with a single throttle plenum. If you are running 260 or less cams, then there is no tuning or drivability benefit. Instead, the engine will actually have slightly less throttle response, because there isn't a plenum full of filtered air at atmospheric pressure directly on the other side of the butterflies only a few inches from the intake valves. Granted we are only talking a tiny difference in throttle response, but it is there. Have you pressure tested the entire intake system yet to identify the leak? I have tested my intake system at over 35psi and the stock throttle shaft seals don't leak. Once its pumped up the only way air can escape is to blow past the piston rings on the cylinders that have open intake valves. I am pretty sure the xs-engineering seals arent available any more either. I contacted them once a few years ago when I had a shaft seal leak on my R33 GTR. It used to make a whistling noise at idle. I ended up spraying it with some INOX when testing for leaks and the sound went away forever, and so did the leak. I guess the INOX somehow helped the seal seal again, possibly made it expand a little.

Electric heaters are practical for race cars, but this is a street car. Having to plug the car into a power point for a 1/2 hour every time I drive it would be as annoying as idling it in the driveway is.

It would be a seperate closed coolant system circuit from the engine. Engines cooling system works just fine when its up to temp and shouldnt be messed with, as does the engines oil cooling system. Oil temps have never been higher than 85 degrees. Im not sure you quite follow what I mean by convection pumping. Have you ever shutdown a gtr and listened to the cooling system work when the engine isnt running? Coolant flows into the turbo's, boils, and then blows out as steam to the return line to the top radiator hose outlet. Because the turbo's are below the highest point of the cooling system, gravity again causes coolant to flow into the turbo's again, and the cycle repeats. The heat exchanger will work as a condensor while heating the oil as the goal isnt to heat the oil beyond 100 degrees. Granted the efficency of the heat exchange AS A CONDENSOR will drop off as the optimal temperature is reached. The line from the heater coil will probably have to be a hard line so it will survive the heat long term. It may also need to be thermally insulated to keep the heat in more, but experimentation will quickly identify that. Even if the whole system gets that hot that is boiling and full of steam, it will still heat the oil and then eventually shut itself off when 80 degrees is reached. Excess pressure would be vented to a seperate overflow container the same as a radiator.

After much thought and a much needed break from working on the "other car".... I have had a idea. Its a little out there, but so are some of my other idea's. Typically the exhaust manifold of a car reaches over 100 degrees inside of 10 second of running, and a front pipe would be well over 400 degrees after about a minute of driving. Some cars use exhaust heat to warm manifolds and provide heat for the car's interior. I figure that while the temps involved are way too high for oil to heat directly, an indirect approach if properly controlled could work. So here's the idea... Steam to Oil Heat Exchanger. Obtain a water-oil heat exchanger from an RB26. Mount it on an external filter style plate, so that there is a means of getting oil in and out of the heat exchanger easily with AN fittings. This unit would then be plumbed into the return line to the tank, before any engine thermostat and coolers. Exhaust heat coil. Next, I would get some 3/8" copper tube and wrap it around the front pipe a few time before the CAT (directly after the turbo's). The pipes would then extend up a little and be terminated with braised/silver soldered on AN fittings. The front pipe could then be header insulation wrapped to help keep the heat in. Coolant resivour. A small coolant resivour tank would be needed, and would be mounted about the same height as the engine (say near the ABS booster). The tank would hold about 200ml of water, so a greddy style radiator header/air extraction tank would be about perfect, as it has a radiator cap which would help release pressure. It also provides a means of the system replentishing its water supply when it cools down, same principal as a radiator/engines cooling system does due to thermal contraction when cooling. Electric control of the heat transfer. An electricly operated solenoid would be connected to the bottom most outlet on the tank as a means of controlling coolant flow. The solenoid would be controlled by a thermal switch to turn it off at 80 degrees oil temp. The solenoid outlet would then be connected to one side of the heater coil around the front pipe. The "out" side of the heater coil would connect to the coolant in side of the heat exchanger, and finally the coolant out side of the heat exchanger returns to the header tank. Convection steam pumping. The theory is that when the solenoid is on, gravity feed and convection pumping will provide the flow. The water falls to the heater coil where it will boil virtually instantly. Then as steam builts it will shoot up to the heat exchanger where it will heat the oil, and condense as it returns to the header tank. This is basically the same approach as is used to cool the bearing housings on water cooled turbo's. I figure that when it is operating the steam temperatures will be pretty extreme, approaching 250 degrees, but this won't burn the oil. Once the solenoid turns off, the heater coil will boil dry eventually and convection pumping will stop. The system will still have some pressure in it maintained by the header tank spring loaded cap, but no pumping will occur anymore. Since the heater coil and oil heat exchanger are sufficently isolated no more heat will transfer to the oil. The copper will handle the exhaust temps fine as it softens with heat, and will not melt at the peak temps of about 700 degrees that the front pipe occasionally sees. Does this sound practical and reasonable? Thoughts... opinions.. suggestions? Fire away.

You could also pressure test the entire intake from the intercooler inlet pipe to identify the leak under pressure. Or when the car is idling, spray brake cleaner around the butterfly shaft ends and listen for a change in engine speed. It will be very obvious when you find it. If you dont find a throttle leak (or gasket leak in that area), move onto either a pressure test, or block off all the hoses that are vacuum related such as brake/clutch boosters, charcoal canister etc until you can stall the engine or get the idle to drop.

More important than the belt is buying a bolt for the idler and a new stud for the tensioner. Then use service manual data and a torque wrench when installing and tightning them up. Over tightening combined with heat cycling can cause the bolts to break, and then you learn the hard way what an interference engine is all about.

I honestly dont have a clue about the Nistune. I would be listening very closely to what Trent (Status) says about fuel temp compensations. For all I know the ignition settings you are looking at may be corrections applied to a base figure that you havent found or can't change, they might not be the actual values that represent delivered ignition advance when cranking. What I said before still stands though, and for hot starts especially. 40-45 degrees ignition advance when cranking (RPM below 300). Then when it fires it switches to the ignition base map value between 15-20 degrees from 300Rpm to 950 at idle. An RB will still start with 10 degrees ignition when its cold, but it is a lot harder to get it to start when its hot and heat soaked with that same ignition advance. You could check your cranking ignition values by measuring and marking additional timing marks on your balancer with a white paint pen or liquid paper, and checking the ignition with a timing light with the injectors all unplugged. Have someone else crank the engine while you watch the strobe on the balancer. Also having a wideband AFR meter plugged into your exhaust will give you some idea as to if it is fuel or not. When it does start (or tries to start) if it is immediately lean you would be inclined to think that its not enough fuel. Which could be temp compensation for the current engine temps affecting cranking values, or the cranking fuel values directly. Typically an engine responds well after starting with an AFR in the high 13's. As you can see its getting complicated at this point and requires some tools you may not have. So if any of this is beyond your understanding or capability, having a professional look at the car is your best bet to a fast solution.

That means your in custom piston terrirory if you want to lower the CR. Its easy enough to sort out though. Just order an RB26 design with the appropriately sized dome to match the CR you want. The spreadsheet above will calculate that for you. Quantum Racing are the people to contact. Steve Brown Sales Representative Quantum Racing Industries Unit 15, 157 North Road Woodridge, QLD. 4114 Australia Ph: +61 (7) 3290-5911 Fax: +61 (7) 3290-5933 Web: www.qri.biz The alternative and less desirable solution would be to run a 2mm gasket along with deleting one of the quench pads in the head. That would achieve a 9.0-9.2:1 CR, but also creates a slower and less efficent burn in the combustion chamber, along with a poor burn zone in the remaining quench pad area. Fine for high boost, but not good for response or economy.

At a glance you can tell if the pistons are flat tops or domes. If they are dished they are probably RB30ET pistons, and are not suitable for your application. I've attached a copy of a spreadsheet that will get you 1/2 way there with the calculations. You need to fill in all the red values to produce valid data. GTR engine-calc.xls

The average head after machining comes out between 62-63cc. Call that 63. An RB30 with the typical RB3025 CP flat tops and a 0 deck and a 1.2mm head gasket has a CR of 8.2:1. 5cc domes gets you 8.8:1. 14cc domes (RB26 size), gets you 10:1. What pistons have you bought for this project? You either have the wrong pistons and have over-trimmed the deck of the block to achieve a 0 deck, or your maths is a little wonkey... If you can give me all your dimensions I can plug them into my engine calculator and give you some options if you like?

Your better off not skimming the tops off pistons to achieve the desired deck. You compromise the piston strength and risk upsetting the balance. The last engine saw this done to ended badly with the crown giving way at 8000 RPM. This was followed by the rod seperating from the piston so it could make some holes in the block. It destroyed everything bar the intake and exhaust manifolds. If you have only had the top of the block leveled to the centerline of the crank, the top of the block will have only been shaved a 5 thou at most. This means that with a 32mm compression height flat top RB30 piston, the crowns will be at most 5 thou positive which is perfectly acceptable. Don't be afraid to run a positive deck. The closer your crowns are to the quench pads on the head the better the efficiency of the engine. You can safely go as close as about 36 thou, provided you measure everything very very carefully and your main and rod clearences aren't more than about 2.5 thou.

VW enthusiests in the US have been using draw water/meth systems for years. Part of the reason is that many of them are using pull through turbo carburator setups. The general concensis is that provided the vaporisation is good, turbine damage is minimal. There is plenty of informaiton on www.shoptalkforums.com. They aren't injecting a lot of water/meth though, as the typical turbo setup in a VW is rarely more than 300hp. Mind you that power in a 780kg car is plenty of power. Its usually through a 45-55 sized idle jet with a washer bottle pump supplying the flow, injected into the center of the pod filter or ahead of the carb aux venturis. The advantage is that they are able to run 20lb boost on 8:1 CR engines with no intercooling, yet still run a mechanical advance distributor with a full ignition advance of 30-32 degrees. They run their crappy 91 octane fuel as well. So as has been said, there is little point in injecting unless your tuning to take advantage of the raised effective octane rating. The only benefit is the steam cleaning the combustion chambers. Without tuning for it, you will actually lose power as the flame front of the burn in the combustion chamber is slower. Same effect as putting C16 into a car tuned for 91 octane. Good to see someone having a go though. If everyone just did the same as everyone else the world would be pretty boring.

I got mine from RHD Japan. Be sure you get the correct one to suit your car if it is a 1999 and has the sharp screen, or a 2000+ and has a Toshiba screen. My recomemndation is to bite the bullet and upgrade the screen at the same time. The Toshiba screen is a huge step up on the old sharp screen. The contrast ratio is far better, not to mention the fact the old sharp screens are just that... old.

No. The intake and exhaust manifold stud paterns are different. The ports on the manifolds don't line up either. You can put the crank, rods and pistons from an RB26 in an RB25 block though. From the outside it will look like a 25, but will be a 26 with VCT.