Chris32

Well since the last post I’ve had a few upgrades over the last few months! Most of this stuff happend late Feb / early March. Half tempted not to post up the turbo results as I can't be bothered with delaing with all the stock injector / afm hate! Anyhow, here it is, it all works extremley well and I couldn't be happier with the results so far I’ve been detailing them in a draft to post in one hit, enjoy Radiator Upgrade- A leaking radiator saw the stock setup replaced with a 40mm Alloy radiator purchased locally through Garage 7. I most likely could have bought the same setup off ebay, however with some horror stories floating about I thought I’d buy local and if I need any after sales support then I can get it. Happy to pay a bit extra for this, and they are great guys to deal with. Fitting it was very simple, with the shroud bolting up to all the right spots, and enough clearance to clear the stock fan setup. As it turned out, the fan had a few cracks in it, so on went the spare I have had sitting in the shed from when I had my R32. While I was at it, I removed the overflow bottle and gave it a good clean and flush to remove any old crap in it. There was a small layer of rust/dirt in the bottom which was hard to get out, but it looks nice and clean now! The stock radiator core measured 15mm in thickness, which is deceptive given the thickness of the plastic top tanks. The build quality of the alloy radiator is quite impressive given it’s a mass produced China spec item, I used a bit of plumbers tape on the temp sensor plug it has on the bottom of the tank to ensure it didn’t leak, and the drain plug had a decent rubber washer on it. All the hoses lined up perfectly, with the top hose needing around 10mm chopped off as the radiator sits a touch close to the block. I could have left it as it, however it didn’t look quite right and was an easy fix. The block was drained via the bung at the back of the block and I gave it a good 5 mins of flushing with the hose to be sure all the old coolant was out. I decided to leave the thermostat alone, as the car gets up to temp quick and I have never had any cooling issues. Turbo Upgrade – Whilst draining the cooling system and removing the old radiator, I was on a bit of a roll and the turbo sitting on the shed shelf kept reminding me it was there waiting to go in. I figured ‘why not!’ as the coolant was out already, so a few hours later I had the stock turbo sitting on the bench for comparison with the upgraded unit I had bought months ago. Interestingly enough, I’m pretty sure the stock OP6 turbo has been replaced at some stage. The stock turbo had numbers written in a white paint pen, like you’d expect from a wrecker. It’s in excellent condition however, and I’ll keep it as a spare for the time being. I actually think its a VG30 turbo looking into it, as it seems to have a steel compressor wheel and the OP6 rear housing?? Having used a small HKS turbo in my R32 build years ago (2510) I have always been a big fan of the bolt on kits HKS do for the RB20 and 25. I wanted excellent response, with a decent amount of power to bring the car up to a level it really should have left the factory in, so with that in mind I picked up a second hand HKS 2535 a few months back. Having never swapped a turbo before, and reading how these kits are sold as a straight ‘bolt on’ upgrade, I figured I’d have the new turbo on in the same time it took to remove the stocker. How wrong I was Technically, yes it ‘bolts on’. However the kit you buy that is a complete bolt on setup also consists of oil and water lines, a 90° bend outlet from the compressor cover to the intercooler pipes. The hard oil and water line fittings from the stock OP6 turbo are much larger than the GT25 series Garrett core, and would not go close to fitting, so after a bit of head scratching and talking myself out of putting the stock turbo back on, installation was left for the next day. A trip down to MTQ the next morning with both turbo’s saw me leave with an off the shelf braided oil and water line kit to suit RB25 using a Garrett core. Amazing how all this stuff is available pre-made and ready to go, I thought it was well priced at $220 too, and included all the bits and pieces required to get the turbo in. Being a second hand turbo, the guys at MTQ gave it a quick look over and gave it a clean bill of health. Apart from a few tiny nicks in the comp wheel (which I knew about when buying) it had no obvious signs of being busted, but without pulling it down to check seals etc they said it looks to be fine. Bearing play was normal for a ball bearing turbo, which was nice to know. I decided to assemble all the lines to the turbo, attach all the fittings to the block and then install it. One problem however – the oil drain off the OP6 turbo is bigger and the bolt holes don’t line up. It was a Thursday night, so I decided to push on with the installation and pickup the oil drain in the morning from MTQ Everything installed, minus the oil drain. The braided kit was a huge help, as the lines had enough length to be able to jiggle and wiggle the turbo into place. The next morning I was back at MTQ , and $50 later I had a new drain to suit the core and some oil hose to connect it to the drain in the block. Now, anyone reading this who is swapping a turbo – make sure you put the oil drain in first! It’s such a hard spot to get too with the turbo in place. Not impossible, but very difficult. Anyhow, after a good hour of messing about the drain was in, and everything was ready to put back together. The only ‘mod’ I guess you’d call it is cutting the coolant hard line that pops around the back of the block and feeding on the braided line. Cutting it with a proper pipe cutter, I added a small flare on the end with a screw driver to make sure the hose doesn’t slip off. This is secured in place with a normal worm drive hose clamp. There is enough length in the supplied hose to feed it right up to the mounting bracket before it disappears behind the block, and I added a second hose clamp for peace of mind. I was a little concerned about this at first, as it runs pretty close to the exhaust manifold and rear housing of the turbo but being braided hose it should be fine. My split dump pipe bolted up perfectly, and after double checking the wastegate operation I was happy enough that the flapper wasn’t fouling on the wastegate pipe. While it was off I had Boostworx weld up a crack that occurred after some damage from a friends driveway. I had to pick up a 90° 2-2.5” silicon bend from Autobarn for the compressor to intercooler plumbing and all the intake plumbing was put back in place, and for all intents and purposes it looks like a stock turbo. The standard heat shield required some modification to clear the braided oil line, but nothing 15 mins with a grinder didn’t fix. For the intake pipe, the previous owner had installed an Autobahn88 silicon intake pipe, so this was reused. I’ve read a few things online about these sucking shut but I can’t see it being a problem. After everything was double checked, I filled it up with Nulon Long Life Coolant at 40% concentration. First startup was a bit nerve racking! I decided to turn the engine over with the fuel pump fuse pulled to make sure the turbo bearings had oil through them before initial startup. So I cranked it and gave it 15 seconds with oil pressure to give everything the best chance of success. Having installed the radiator too, I had to complete the bleeding process while keeping an eye on the turbo to make sure there were no leaks etc. After a few minutes running and a bit of oil burning off the exhaust housing (I’d filled the bearing with oil and wiped the whole thing down with RP7 to store it before installation) the radiator was bled and the turbo seemed to be operating perfectly! A quick trip around the block and re-check, and everything was fine. I turned it off and let everything cool while I cleaned up the shed, and after half an hour I double checked all the fittings and everything was sweet. I have since had to slightly move the oil line as it was leaking a tiny bit, topped up the overflow for the radiator and re-bled - and all is now 100%. One thing I had forgotten about which was quite rewarding during the early hours of the morning was hearing the turbo spinning away for a good 15 seconds after turning it off! Driving to work the next day (taking it easy as it wasn’t tuned) I was surprised how laggy it felt. Just normal driving that would get the old turbo spooling up saw next to no boost pressure on the gauge? That night after some head scratching I found that the wastegate actuator wasn’t shutting the flapper for the gate, so off came the actuator and a few bends later it was re-installed. It now had a little bit of preload on it, and it has about 95% response of the stock turbo. For all intents and purposes it drives like a stock turbo, which is awesome. Tuning wise it was always going to be limited by the stock injectors and AFM, however I think 255rwkw is a fantastic result. Boost wise we decided on 1.1bar, being controlled by the AVCR using the stock R34 actuator. Boost tapers off from 16 to 15psi right up top, but as the graph shows this thing pulls hard right up until the limiter. Flat 12 AFR's right the way through, with a decent amount of timing seems to be the key to the power its making. On the road it feels like a jet preparing for take off, it just keeps hauling! Having a good month or so to get used to it now, it really is a joy to drive. Big thanks to Shaun at Boostworx, he’s looked after me for over 10 years now with tuning and is always happy to listen and let you have input into the tune. Given HKS’s rating of 340ps (they rate this at 1 bar) I’m sure there is another 15-20kw hiding in it with more boost and bigger injectors etc. I’d really like to get the Nistune Flex Fuel feature pack and tune it up on E85, but that will have to wait. For me to justify injectors, AFM and Nistune upgrade I’d look at a different turbo, as the gains to be had from the 2535 wouldn’t be worth the investment. However as with everything, I’m sure sometime in the not too distant future I’ll get bored of this setup and look for more kw’s Cheers to forum member and 260RS owner Flavzz for lending a hand too, thanks mate

I reckon that's a pretty good deal mate, I had both the normal and N1 water pumps in my old 32, negligible difference in temp on the hand controller between the 2, and no problems with either I've got a gates belt on the 34 at the moment, 30,000 on it so far with no dramas. Went with a standard water pump over the N1 I think the fact that it's all genuine would tie in well with your build too

Kudos Motorsport sell them new fur about 80 bucks

I've had 15mm Gktech hub centric bolt ons for nearly 2 years now. No issues, they are a nice bit of kit

Cheers I'll keep an eye out

Been searching with little luck I'm after a water temp gauge that looks similar to my Nismo triple gauges I have in my GTT http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b_pETdhA8h8/UH4xNTWKZvI/AAAAAAAAAdo/IyAEid8-r1g/s1600/plb_tbg1214-img600x450-1350351150obyykj1823%5B1%5D.jpg Anyone know of something that looks similar? Cheers

Is the radiator still available?

They are close to the exact stock size and offset of 34 GTT rims, would fit just like a stock rim

Yeah, however I'm not sure if the VR38 injectors would cope well with E85 overtime? It's a bit of a dilemma really! Nistune have the flex fuel upgrade also, so I think for now I'll stick with the stock stuff and see what they can do, then do the injectors and the Nistune flex fuel setup in one hit and have it tuned for 98 and E85

http://www.sau.com.au/forums/index.php?/topic/433590-Brake-Pads---Introduction-Special---Street%2C-Street-track%2C-Track

Been using Penrite Racing 10 for 8 oil changes so far and I can't fault it. My car runs an external oil cooler, so the oil temp is at 80° for most of the time. Highest I've seen it get to is 100° after some prolonged spirited driving, but it gets down to 80° pretty quickly and oil pressure is stable from when it first goes in to when I change it at 5000kms. Ive been tempted to go longer between changes but its not overly expensive Have used Motul, Mobil 1 in the past and the car feels happier. Tempted to try the Nulon synthetic at some stage also

Yeah figured as much, I'll see how it goes

Cool, I'm guessing I'll need to mod mine a touch to suit the 2535 Can anyone confirm is 230kw is possible using stock Neo injectors and air flow meter?

Cool thread, kinda along the lines of what I'm doing - subscribed and will share my results along the way Hoping for a close to stock response 230-240kw, which will be exactly what I'm after My setup will be - HKS 2535 turbo, hoping to run around 18psi (have turbo but not installed yet) Split dump pipe - installed on stock turbo at the moment, quite a decent length split section Nistune - installed Autobahn88 intake pipe - installed Injector wise, im either going to use a set of R35 GTR injectors, from what I've been able to work out they are 560cc and direct drop in, or a set of larger injectors if I wanted to go E85 I'm guessing the stock AFM will need to be upgraded to a Z32 or R35 GTR unit Look forward to seeing the OP's results

Yeah I'll try the SR next, however very happy with the SS for a street only pad

Reckon I saw you Saturday night at the BSM cruise, looked mint mate

Should be a straight swap, I've had two mates put 32 gtr seats in 33 gtst so the reverse swap will fit

Another round of servicing completed over the Christmas break. 130,000kms now New front pads in, went for some Intima SS. So for they are great, no noise or dust! On the to do list - front ball joints, right hand wheel bearing Rear tie rod bearings Shocks getting a bit tired also On the parts bench waiting to go on is a HKS 2535, need to source some injectors first

Replaced my worn out front QFM AR1M pads earlier in the month with some Intima SS pads (street spec) Very impressed with them, initial bite is better than the QFM, however brake dust is very minimal and zero squeal. I'm going to chuck a set on the back once I've sorted a few other things out. Won't be seeing the track, however quite a few spirited drives over the last few weeks while I've been on holiday has tested out their performance, they are great! For the money, these are the best street pads I've used

I've got red led's in my nismo dash and triple gauge cluster, they are totally red at night now

Pm'd re pads

Still got the pads?

Yep no problems at all, done almost 20,000kms on it. The other side needs doing now!

How you finding your setup after a month mate?

Interesting, surely they must have run over 91 or 95 Octane given the boost they were pumping through some of the Sierra's etc?