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Well there were mixed results on the dyno. In some ways it was encouraging, but in other ways quite frustrating. Glenn warned me on the day that my fuel pump (single in-tank tomei 256Lph) would be a limiting factor. In hindsight I should have thought about that beforehand. In any case, it turned out the factory boost solenoid limited the boost to 17psi. Bit of a bummer to be foiled by a $40 part. I guess far worse things can happen on a dyno run. The good news - the new engine is strong and punching out good numbers even at low rpm/boost. Ended up with 320kw and more than 600Nm at 17psi. However the peak power is probably almost irrellevant compared to the difference in the torque and general engine characteristics of the 3.0 compared to the 2.6. The way it looks in the dyno curve is pretty much how it behaves on the street. Its hard to believe its the same car. Everything just happens so much earlier in the rev range. And cruising is done in entirely one gear higher (ie if at a given speed I cruised in 4th, now I idle along in 5th). Anyway, have ordered the 3 port MAC boost solenoid to run with the vipec and sorting out some kind of dual-pump surge tank setup as well, and will have another crack at it early in the new year and hopefully push the motor a bit.

well there were no easy answers to overcoming the issue of the catch can (my previous autech-style catch can did not fit with the extra deck height of the rb30 block, so had to think of some other answer). $400 for the mines cam cover baffles seemed a bit rich, and wasn't sure how much help it would be. The nismo item looked ok but might have been complicated incorporating the drain-back in my current turbo setup. So the answer was to fab up a catch can that sits near the battery. Its essentially a cylinder with circular baffles, with sections removed, and the openings offset so the vapours have a large surface area to condense on. Fittings were turned up on a lathe bought recently by a friend of mine.

LOL. I reckon the r33 GTS-t (as you sig says) would be a lot easier, just off the top of my head I can think of 4 reasons - 1) no deck height issues as it comes with a 2.5 and crossover manifold 2) has a single turbo setup already 3) has no driveshafts going through motor 4) sump adaption much simpler.

Well, got the r32 back this week, the clutch has now been converted to twin-plate, supposedly able to hold 450awkw. So plenty for the time being. it's a vast improvement over the triple (with a bent plate). However I'd be lying if I described it as "polite". To avoid juddering on takeoff it needs about 2,000 rpm. The clutch engagement is vastly improved and while still very heavy feels much more like a normal clutch. It's now neccessary to blip the throttle on the downshift to get a smooth shift, esp. from 3rd into 2nd. The main difficulty is the run-in tune - Glenn warned me I'd have to "drive around it" but I wasn't really prepared for this. Apparently it has a 5000rpm rev limit and a 12 psi boost limit, which in theory sounds ok but in practice I think the boost limit is cutting in around 3000 rpm, even earlier if its under load (up a hill or something). So it's a hard boost cut (and ignition and fuel?) just as the car is starting to gather speed, and when it hits it feels like it's going to launch you face-first through the windscreen. So accellerating up to the speed limit required rowing through 4 gears. I think also now that I've driven it a bit, the cams are making it a bit soggy and it's not really starting to come into it's own until just before the boost cut. Hopefully once the motor has loosened up a bit and it's running a normal tune, it will be easier to live with. It's already proving to be a long 1000 kms run-in. 200 down, around 800 to go.

We had to adjust the pedal out all the way at both the adjustment points and even now you basically have to floor the clutch to get a smooth shift. There is also an adjustment thingy between the booster and the master cylinder. Would've been REAL easy to dismantle etc when the engine was out (especially since I put in a new booster) but of course we had no idea that the clutch travel would be so much longer, so we left it as it was originally as a default, only to install the motor and realise we couldn't engage the gears. Bit of a bugger of a thing because fitting the rb30 decreases what is already a bloody small clearance between the clutch M/C and the inlet plenum.

Well, apparently we bent one of the clutch plates when installing the engine - apparently the problem is the gearbox spline can get hung up on the plates etc before engaging with the actual motor and damage things when we were bullying it around trying to get it to mate up properly. Bit of an expensive mistake to make but oh well. Hopefully some others on here can learn from this mistake and not attempt to install the engine with the clutch bolted to the motor and the gearbox still in the car. The full clutch assy has been sent away for the components to be checked/repaired/replaced as required.

Standard OEM manifolds with the turbo flange ported to match the turbo. Also split flange dump pipes (dodgy ebay ones that we had to hit with a hammer to make fit...) and a trust front pipe, high flow cat, HKS zorst. Genuine HKS branded 2530's with HKS wastegate actuators. Will post up dyno charts in my main build thread when I get them.

Hi As I said, I had a clutch issue and was only driving on run-in tune (it's still at the workshop getting the clutch issue looked at). However, even with a low rev limiter and low boost, it is clear that with the 3.0 block, 272/10.5mm lift cams, (JUN) and the HKS2530's, it is super responsive. It's no longer a small capacity, laggy jap turbo motor. It's just power from idle. Note I am also running OEM cast iron manifolds with the turbo side ported to match the turbo. You could possibly go even better with tubular, I dunno. But yeah as far as daily driving goes, it is a pretty torque/response-friendly solution. One thing I was surprised at was the cams - I thought it would idle funny and be doughy down bottom, but if anything it's helped. If I could do one thing differently with hindsight, it would be to go larger cams. But the 272's will do fine for now. Hope that helps Andrew

So far my RB26/30 with 272 deg/10.5mm jun cams and hks 2530's are promising and may fit your bill, time and a final tune (currently on run-in) will tell.

Hi all Just wondering what people have done about installing a catch-can in an r32 GTR with an rb30dett. I had an autech-style one (big tubular one) sitting above the cam covers but with the rb30 in there, there is no chance of getting the bonnet shut. I am on a low-boost run-in tune at the moment so hooked up the factory style setup but would need to sort something out before final tune. Any recommendations about what you've used/bought/made yourself, and in particular photos, greatly appreciated. Cheers Andrew

The cast iron bracket is pretty soft, you can cut the top lug off with a hacksaw pretty easily and neatly. As long as you get a reasonably straight cut it will bolt on and be fine.

Hey thanks for the kind words. I agree the HKS2530's are super-reponsive - especially in a slightly cammy rb30 - however I didn't fork out $$ for a balanced and forged rb30 to run mid-300's (not that there's anything wrong with that!). With the recent developments in turbos and a good tubular manifold (I am currently running OEM cast iron, lightly ported) I can probably get big increases in power without sacrificing much, if any, drivability. As far as the weight goes, I can't think of a simple way to weigh the two blocks. Even then I don't know how much it would tell you, because there is all the other crap like sump adapters and bolts, clutch, brackets etc that would add up. Also although the rb26 is shorter it has more ribbing etc so it may not work out to be hugely different.

The other issue is that if you are anything like me, doing a rb30 conversion in your shed will represent a big enough investment of time and money such that you won't want to go changing your turbo setup at the same time. If you are sticking with the OEM-style twin turbo arrangement, the big y-collector on top will be an additional pain in the ass. I got around it by grinding off the alloy boss where the twin turbo sticker sits, and putting washers in the bonnet. Again, quick and dirty but gets the car on the road (and adds that "Drift" look). If I don't go a big single in the near future, I may see if I can get the flange off the front turbo milled down by 5mm or so to lower the position of the y-pipe. http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...t&p=5375352

So we spaced the subframe down, and test fitted the long motor with the timing covers attached. The main problem is the front, top timing belt cover hitting on the bonnet. Now, this was with my old, crappy, saggy engine mounts being used, so I was pretty sure that with brand new, stiff nismo rubbers it would be higher if anything. I should point out that because the r32 GTR bonnet is alloy, and very thin, it's not really possible to cut and weld it. Even professional panel shops were saying they weren't prepared to do it for fear of blowing through or warping the metal. If anyone knows any different I'd be very interested to know. Once you have the motor test fitted, you will see that it is obvious there is a rib running down the centre of the bonnet that it hits on. Now, I'm not suggesting that chopping a rib out of the bonnet is legal, however I will point out that this area is completely covered by the underbonnet felt, so it will work as a temporary solution until you can get something better sorted out. I am currently thinking of getting a GTST bonnet (which, I think, is metal) and modifying that in an engineer-friendly way. But this will work as a short-term proposition. The ribs arnen't attached to the bonnet in any serious way, so I found it helpful to insert thin wedges of wood between the rib and the bonnet to sit it up slightly, then carefully cut through with an angle grinder. Then I got a file and smoothed off any edges so it wouldn't rub and cut through the felt.

Don't get what you mean, N1GTR - "normally"? I couldn't buy them on the internet, and didn't ask any workshops because we used steel plate that was lying around in the shed from another project... Don't imagine it would be much though?

HI there If you are getting the gates belt that is specifically designed for the rb30 conversion, then you don't need to relocate the tensioner (in fact I don't think it's long enough). In terms of the belt rubbing on the covers, I'm not sure what the issue is - I used an rb30e bottom timing belt cover and the normal rb26 top one, and it seemed fine - the belt was close but it won't rub. I also extended the bottom cover by welding on a bit of carefully folded sheet metal (this is the bit that creates a risk of rubbing IMO so as long as you do that bit carefully should be fine).

Please note that spacing the k-frame down 10mm will not solve all your problems. You will still need to hack, slash, and generally get creative to make that bonnet shut, especially if you are retaining the twin turbo setup. Also some people on here seem to be lowering their motor by modding the engine mounts - I was not keen to do this because by the time you put a 10mm sump adapter in there, there is very little clearance between the sump and the k-frame and all the power steering stuff, so I didn't want to reduce this clearance even more. Anyway, that's how I did mine, hope the pics help any fellow DIY'ers visualise what's required.

Once you have the k-frame loose, you can have a look at what is required and the constraints. Ideally, I would have made a spacer that dropped the motor down an inch or even more, to take up most of the difference in the deck height, but the problem is that the two bolts holding in the rear k-frame nuts on each side don't have heaps of spare meat on the threads. Obviously you don't want the k-frame held in with nuts that only have a couple turns on them! My recommendation is for a spacer 10mm thick. It makes enough of a difference to be worthwhile but still lets the nuts wind on fully to the threads. In terms of the dimensions of the spacers themselves, the attached pic gives an indication. I made the distance between the holes roughly 50mm and 75mm, but measure it carefully for yourselves. The holes themselves need to be 12mm thick. I made mine out of 10mm steel plate, which is of course very strong but pretty hard to work with. My mate used an oxy torch to cut it out and then grinded off the edges to make it neat. I used a 12mm high-speed steel drill bit and a centrepunch to make the holes, and they fitted up really neatly with not much lateral movement at all. Given that the issue is probably crush strength I see no reason why alloy could not be used - it would certainly be much easier to work with. But I figured steel plate is probably more engineer friendly. And in any case once it's painted matt black you really can't see it in the engine bay at all.

Hey all Some time ago I posted up looking to see if there were retail options to buy a subframe spacer to insert between the k-frame and the chassis rail in the r32 GTR to drop the motor height relative to anything else. Well there weren't, so I had to improvise. Now, as everybody knows, the deck height on the rb30 is some 38mm higher than the rb26, so in order to minimise the efforts getting the bonnet to shut, I decided to insert a spacer in between the k-frame and where it bolts to the rails. Now, dissassembling all the suspension pickup points sounds like a lot of work, but if you have the engine out already chances are you're undone the front hubs to remove the driveshafts, and also the tie rod ends. So really if you can get the ball joint off, then loosen the steering knuckle, that's all that;s really required to drop the k-frame (of course, ensure the car is supported somewhere else than the k-frame - this isn't too difficult with the engine out). The k-frame is held in by four bolts on each side (total of 8x17mm nuts). You will however need a 17mm deep socket set and extension to remove the nuts. The front set of bolts is actually a removable bracket that slots in through the rail and is visible in the engine bay.

HI mate I found that with a 10mm adapter plate, a bone-dry engine (ie assembly lube only -have you just rebuilt?) and an ancilliary oil cooler (with all the relocation lines) plus filling the oil filter, you are looking at 8 litres or more per oil change. Yeah, I know - I was pretty surprised too. Others have suggested they are at 10 litres.. Andrew

I have currently running in my rb26/30 and it's all good with no leaks. I bought special hi-temp oil hose from Enzed, which is resistant to hi temp oil on the ID, and wrapped it in heat wrap so it didn't perish from the outside. I tee'd into the block using a brass tee piece with sealant on the threads (ie going into the block) For the oil feeds and water returns I went on ebay and bought a braided line kit for my turbos (guy's name is eiji takada, all oil and water lines landed in Aus for around $158, fitted perfect, best value purchase of my whole conversion). Details in this thread: http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...t&p=5310249

Gees I hope so. Front pipes were modified at fyshwick exhaust and then trailered over to ESP for run-in tune. With 12psi boost and fairly low revs, and timing pulled out higher in rev range it makes 244 kw. The turbos will be the main bottleneck at this point, but hopefully the HKS 2530s should still be capable of taking it well into the 300's. Initial impressions of driving it is that it is very responsive - the turbos come on from nearly no revs at all. I thought the 272 deg cams might make it doughy but if anything its more punchy. The clutch shudder in 1st at takeoff is an issue though - Glen reckons we might have damaged the clutch plates when installing the engine, but after reading a few posts on here it might be that it just needs bedding in (clinging to the faint hope that I won't have to fork out $$$ to have gearbox dropped and clutch rebuilt/replaced...). Oh well I'm not going to focus on the negative. We've achieved a lot just getting the rb30 conversion on the road so if we have damaged the clutch I will chalk it up to experience and move on. Hopfully it can punch out a decent number in the end.

Hi all I have got my rb31dett on the road (in my r32 GTR) and the new motor seems strong based on run-in tune, but the HKS triple-plate clutch that I installed to cope with the extra power is shuddering badly on takeoff. The background is, we installed the clutch (using a clutch allignment tool) on the motor before installing the motor in the car. The engine assy took a bit of "pursuading" to mate to the gearbox, but no more than we have done on numerous other engine installations. Once we had it installed, the gearbox wouldn't select gears. So we adjusted out the pedal and the pedal box to their full throw and were able to select the gears. i dunno if this is relevant. The car only seems to shudder from standstill takeoff in 1st. There is no shudder in any of the other changes. When I got it back from tuning, the workshop suggested it could be a bent clutchplate which occurred when installing - that is, the spline went into the clutch but not yet into the crank, and the movement bent one of the plates. Alternatively, (and this is what I'm hoping) there is some oil or rust on one of the plates and it might "come good". Anyway, I don't have it in me to remove the engine and reinstall, and in any case if the problem was caused by our installation, then there is a risk we could repeat the issue. It's not feasible for us to remove the gearbox because we won't be able to get the car high enough. Getting a workshop to remove the gearbox isn't going to be cheap, but if that's the only option then what to do. What are other people's experience with installing triples? Have you ever had a shudder on takeoff and what was the cause of it? Any advice greatly appreciated. (Edit: the clutch was ordered from a second-hand dealer that I have bought parts from before without problem - it was said to have had very few '000 k's use, and visual inspection confirmed all plates appeared in good order etc. However I had no means of measuring straightness or anything, so it's of course possible one plate was warped or something to begin with).

Ah crap. The y-pipe off the twin dumps doesn't fit up - the extra deck height has moved the cylinder head up 30mm or so (once the spacer is accounted for) and the bottom of the exhaust fouls on the passenger footwell. So it needs to be trailered to an exhaust shop to mod the y-pipe before it can be tuned. One bloody headache after another.

So, with everything in place, the engine was filled with running-in oil (penrite 15-40 running in oil) and we set about trying to get oil pressure. There was a bit of screwing around trying to get oil into the oil cooler lines, filling the filter, etc, but eventually after cranking it for a while with the plugs out and the injectors unplugged, the oil pressure started to creep up. Between the sump adapter, the bone dry engine and the oil cooler lines I reckon it took around 8 litres. Once we fired it up the oil pressure really came up and it just kind of idled along. It was a bit rumbly with the 272 deg cams and the zorst off, but it idled well considering it's not tuned at all for this setup.