JimX

So I finally decided to put my HKS 2530 turbos in last week. Or rather, start the lengthy process and steep learning curve of a budget home upgrade. Once I am done, I will do a write-up of everything as best I remember for the DIY section. The factory turbos are out, but now the project is on hold while I wait for new dump pipes to arrive. So for now, this post is about the factory GTR low mount manifolds and the potential to have them ported to match the bigger turbo inlets. Or maybe an opportunity to flame an idiot for ruining his manifolds. I did some searches on here but couldn't find any information on porting them, so I did it only with some advice from wrxhoon who said to make sure I don't leave the manifold walls too thin. A bit more background about this project, after I had removed the turbos and manifolds etc: I noticed that the HKS 2530 inlet flange is bigger than the factory turbo flange, and hence the factory manifold turbo flange. The previous owner had used a bigger gasket that was the same size as the 2530's (and probably most other bigger GT turbos). This resulted in a nice exhaust soot template on the factory manifold, covering the section that the 2530's inlet port should also cover and showing my how much surface area is lost in the size difference (ie, heaps). Upon closer inspection I noticed that the manifold seems to curve out underneath to a larger space, but it has been cast to form a narrower lip to match up to the factory turbos with the smaller port. I'm not sure if this is done to help with exhaust velocity, but it seems to me that the extra volume of exhaust gas underneath is just going to create turbulence while it all tries to escape the narrower turbo flange outlet. It makes sense to me that after the collectors, the exhaust continues out as streamlined as possible and into larger spaces without bottlenecks to create turbulence and unpredictable back pressure. The size difference between the factory turbo and the GT flange sizes is very noticable (see pic, the red line is where the dividing line is between factory turbo flange and GT larger gasket size is), so I decided to get the dremel out and spend several hours over a few days making the space bigger and giving it a straight line down to where the 3 exhaust outlets meet up. I have no idea if this will help or hurt performance but I'm hoping that it will. I slipped up and scraped along the flat flange part several times accidentally, but the damage looks a lot worse than it is, I can barely feel any of the grooves I've carved and so I will either give it a quick polish to even it up, or just fill it with putty and level with a trowel before fitting, or even just leave it that way. Photos of the damage to follow later. I'm not game enough to touch the engine side ports. I will leave that one for the experts (ie, I'll never be able to afford it). But since I already had a template drawn onto the manifold by the gasket with exhaust soot, I figured it would be the simplest, easiest mod I could do to my car at this point, even though it took a long time with my little dremel. Anyone got any ideas or opinions of what I've done? Have I ruined my manifolds by reaming them out like this? If so can someone sell me a cheap pair before I re-assemble everything again?

After Duncan's post I bit the bullet and bought the set (at full retail from Hornsby Nissan for around $167), and also thanks to Sewid for putting up the part numbers he has, basically outvoting my second list of part numbers so I could confidently ask for the first list. I put the new injectors in last night without a hitch and they are working great!

Crud!!!! Any idea on which is the correct part number then? Or are they interchangeable?

It was on my old car and so a few years ago now and I can't fully remember, I think it only did it when cold but not 100% sure. It would make more sense to do it when cold anyway, because all the metal will expand as it heats up including the actuator rod, thus tightening everything up a little. Turbo blades won't rattle when running if they are hitting the housing, they spin too fast. But that is what I thought was wrong with mine as well until others in this forum told me that. I took my turbo to Garrett who found a problem with the wastegate and repaired it, then no more rattle.

I am about to put some new injectors in my GTR and want to replace all the O-rings and insulators / seals on the injectors. I've done plenty of forum searching and have found some info, but now I also need clarification on part numbers. The 2 different sets of part numbers seem quite a bit different so I'm not sure if they are the same thing or not. First set of part numbers - Injector Insulators: 16635-78A00, 16618-78A00 (assume front/rear, but don't know which is which not that it matters) Injector O-ring: 16636-V5000 I rang up Parramatta Nissan and Hornsby Nissan for the price of all the above times 6 (one per injector) and was quoted around $220 and $180 respectively in total. Second set of part numbers - Rear O-ring - 16412F - $9.50 Rear Insulator - 16603F - $13.35 Front seal - 16603G - $5.35 Total $169.20. I forget where from but the thread was a bit old anyway so prices have probably gone up since then. Both of threads said the part numbers were for a GTR so I don't know if they are the same thing with different part numbers or if someone is wrong or if there is a difference between 32-33-34 GTR's. I doubt the latter would be the case though. Even the cheapest option above is a holy hell of an amount for 18 tiny pieces of rubber. Does anyone know the exact measurements of the 3 parts so that I could enquire at a fuel injection place for some after market replacements? This is just due for convenience so that I don't have to pull an injector out before I do my running around to find the replacements. Also are the insulators just standard O-rings as well? They look like O-rings in the photos I've seen but they could be a different shape (squared off maybe) or a different type of rubber. Lastly does anyone know of a fuel injector place in Sydney that would be able to sell these things at a reasonable price? I

Second vote for the wastegate being the source of the rattle. I've had it happen to me as well.

You will probably need to convert the injectors from low to high impedance. Also not sure if the plugs are the same.

I thought that at first due to the obvious coincidence of both sensors dropping to zero, but then I thought it wouldn't be dying at idle speeds because it's not using the O2 sensor then. Also if I disable the O2 sensor in the PowerFC hand controller, it makes no difference to the running, it just uses more fuel and doesn't cruise as smoothly when disabled. A guy at work I was speaking to suggested a fuel supply problem because he's had a similar problem on his BMW. His was a faulty fuel pump, but after more discussion we also thought that it could be a faulty fuel pressure regulator, or dodgy wiring or relay for the pump, or a problem with the igniter or CAS. Any wonder why I haven't pulled anything apart yet? It'll take me weeks to go through all these one by one Another one we thought of that seems a bit too complicated to be likely but may be possible, is if there is an intermittently leaky injector that disrupts the pressure to the other injectors when it leaks. But I don't think that could bring down the whole engine as easily as a faulty reg or pump or associated wiring/hoses etc. I have a spare reg and new injectors to go in, I guess those will be the first things I change and see what happens. Just need to find new o-rings!

Slightly unrelated question - Saliya, where did you get the O-rings from, and is there a specific size and/or part number? I have the same injectors sitting on a shelf waiting to go in, I was going to re-use the old O-rings or purchase new ones of the same size but after reading your post I think I'd rather get the correct sized ones before starting this job.

I have a very similar problem, and thought I'd just reply here so that we can have any info more easily available. Confuzion seems to have sold his GTR, so hopefully we get some ideas happening for those of us who still own one The main main additional things I can think of are - - When it stalls and I try to start again, it will attempt to fire instead of just winding over like Confuzion's car did. And then it will usually not start for a lot longer than 5 seconds. - When I change the air flow meter setting in the PowerFC menus to RB25 AFM setting, it sometimes got the car up and running so I can hobble home when I couldn't start it before. But this is getting less and less reliable and I don't like using the wrong AFM map anyway even if the knock sensor reading is low. - The plugs are definitely not fouled as was my first theory when it first happened. They are a perfect light brown colour. I changed them anyway but it didn't get any better or worse. - Maybe most importantly, when the car is in "conk out mode", BOTH o2 sensor readings seem to stay stuck on zero volts and then both go back to normal if the engine starts running properly again. Maybe the unburnt fuel is causing them to drop to zero, but it seems to switch off and on so fast. I need to get the PowerFC tuned anyway so I might let the mechanic handle it. But if anyone has any ideas I could try first, please let me know!

What the hell, electric start on a bike is a bonus? I didn't think you could even get kick start bikes anymore, but I guess dirt biking is a different world I've never visited (only due to lack of money!) I commute to work on a Suzuki TL1000R that I've owned since new (6 years now), plus I use it for spare transport like at the moment until I can be stuffed replacing a leaking turbo coolant line on the GTR. The bike is generally faster except in the wet, 0-100 in around 3 seconds maybe? They are both really fun though, I wouldn't want to give either of them up. The bike has 100kw and uses a bit less fuel than a Corolla (~6L/100km), which is cheap but when you consider it's 1 litre and weighs only 197kg, it's not very efficient! Conversely the GTR weighs about 8 times as much but uses only around 3 times as much fuel. And the GTR is hardly efficient on fuel. One thing I noticed after learning to ride, it improves your road craft enormously and your idiot radar improves a lot. Even though I've crashed heaps of times (mostly while on L's) and Sydney is full of idiot drivers, so far none of my crashes have been due to another vehicle blindsiding me (knock on wood!) I don't pretend that I'm invincible but neither do I pretend that I'm going to live forever so I've accepted the risks. I feel much more vulnerable being a pedestrian though so maybe that's why I'm ok on the bike. People seem to forget that pedestrians tend to get killed more easily than anyone in road accidents, and often they are less able to get out of the way and often not at fault either. Anyone that is worried about crashing or isn't both assertive and decisive and defensive on the road shouldn't ride, and that includes people that are already riding! Those are the people more likely to crash and with worse consequences or cause other people to have accidents. I never tell someone they should take up riding, but if someone tells me they want to get a bike I tell them all the negatives I can think of, and if they are still keen, only then will I help and encourage them. I've talked at least 2 friends out of getting bikes, I know how they drive and they would be dead within weeks on a bike!

Thanks for the info guys, I'll find out if the factory item is ridiculously expensive, and when I find that it is, I'll buy the generic

Does anyone know the part number for the hose in this pic (marked in red), or if I can get an aftermarket one from Autobarn or somewhere? The hose says Nissan 54TS on it. Also are there any others that I should be aware of that I may as well replace at the same time? Heater hoses or the like? There is one more short hose on the left out of the shot that I will also replace. The 2 main large radiator hoses are fairly new but the rest have probably never been replaced.

Only 3 things needed for the car to start, fuel, air and spark so it's one of those. Air is pretty straightforward and I would even say difficult to have something wrong going on there. But maybe a faulty air flow meter or loose wiring loom. Try unplugging the AFM wire and plugging back in again in case the contacts have oxidized a bit. Fuel can usually be figured out quickly by listening for the fuel pump prime when you switch the ignition on before cranking over. If no fuel pump noise, then check the fuel pump/relay etc. Spark is a bit more difficult to test on Skylines (very easy on old cars with normal leads), but there are plenty of forum threads on how to do it. Most likely it's the battery though especially after 2 months. It can have enough charge to turn the engine over at seemingly normal speeds but not have enough juice for the spark, so just listening for slow cranking does not always work when diagnosing the battery. Try jump starting it or charging the battery for a few hours and try again. If the battery's stuffed though, charging won't help. Lead acid batteries die fairly quickly when they are sitting around not being drained or charged, that's why many motorcycle batteries have no fluid in them when you buy them, and you fill it up after you buy it.

Ok the discs arrived on Thursday, I finally got around to ripping my wheels off again today to set it all up, the longest amount of time was taken removing all the old bolts mostly with vice grips because most of them were too seized to use an allen key and they tended to round out the bolt. The new discs have the exact same dimensions as the old, same step-up to create the offset for the hat, same sized and positioned mounting holes etc. The only thing wrong is the only thing I thought might be wrong, and that is the new discs have a different inner diameter on the flange from my old ones, so the hats don't fit. But I thought that's ok, because I can just get the discs machined out the extra 2mm and keep the curved inner edge to meet the lip on the hat. I'd need an engineer and a proper workshop to do that of course. I emailed Dave to see if he could tell me if that would be a bad idea, and he said that it'd be better to just machine the lip off the hat. Of course! The lip isn't actually needed at all, and he even sent me this pic of a hat which doesn't have the lip on it at all, which these discs were seemingly designed to accommodate. So now all I need is a dremel and a careful hand. Anyway Dave Zechausen really knows his stuff. He's helped me heaps and I have no problem recommending him for great service and prices. I don't think I've ever received such help from a vendor before and I still find it difficult to believe I bought a top quality product from the other side of the world for virtually half the price of anything available locally. If I didn't already have these Brembos I think I would invest in one of the Stoptech kit upgrades, but for now these F40/50's will do nicely. Disclaimer: I am fully aware that by machining/grinding a bit off the hat I could lead to premature failure of my hat. It is a commonsense risk that I'm fully aware of without being warned of such by Dave, and I wouldn't even attempt to hold him responsible if I bugger it up and cause my brake rotors to explode somehow. I'm doing this entirely at my own risk, and anyone else in the same situation should also be aware that they can only blame themselves (or whoever did the work) if something goes wrong!

It is burned/glazed pads. If the fluid boils it will be a momentary thing and your brake pedal will go to the floor while it's boiling. It will also do this if the fluid has absorbed water and the water boils. You can take the pads out and sand the glazing off, basically when they get too hot they can form a glassy like layer on the surface (at least the ones I've seen have done so, racing compounds might be different) and then it doesn't bite into the pad properly. But if you sand it back and re-bed the pads they are usually ok. I would still replace the pads as you are going to do anyway, because once they're over heated that much I wonder if the pad material will become brittle and and start to break off. Also you may have put hot spots on your disc but you will probably not notice that for awhile. The hot spots will start accumulating more and more pad material and then you'll get a shudder under brakes. It is what most people think are warped brake rotors but it's just excess pad material accumulating in the hot spot. Changing fluid to a better grade can also help, I'm not sure what the consequences of boiled fluid are but I imagine it's not good. It will probably make the brake pedal more spongy after it cools down. I've only experienced boiled fluid in a mate's car but it had absorbed a lot of water so not really the fluid boiling. So after we nearly died after losing all brake pressure, I detoured slowly to buy brake fluid and then to my place and I changed his brake fluid. He owes me big time!

Hooray, I'm helping! (that's my photo). I have nothing useful to say I think, but I think it's funny because I was just browsing around and had to do a double take at the photo! Oh and I wanted to say thanks to T04GTR because your data helps with the project I'm currently doing. Namely, buying and fitting replacement discs and pads for my non-standard setup, which shouldn't be a project but it is!

Sure thing Angus! Oh, and I just got an email with prices for the Stoptech brackets, which are $105 each. So along with new hats all up it'd be around say US$710 including $100 postage (hats and brackets are much lighter than discs), so roughly another A$840 if I need them. That'd be more than I wanted to spend originally, but still quite cheap compared to some local shops. I think it was worth the risk because all it will really cost me is more of a delay before I can afford the bigger injectors and tune. Edit: Oh, and the reason why I've got a fair bit of faith in the Stoptech discs fitting to my hats is because their parts are designed to be mostly compatible with Brembo parts. Even if the kit on my car isn't a proper Brembo kit, I imagine that it is similar in its compatibility with Brembo and hopefully it'll all fit.

Bolts are included with the discs.

http://www.zeckhausen.com/ I'm getting the slotted left/right rotors (US$235) and titanium backing plates ($79) listed here - http://www.zeckhausen.com/StopTech/consumables.htm#Rotors Freight with insurance was US$163, so with the current good exchange rate the total cost was almost spot on A$840. Even with the expensive shipping cost that's still pretty damn cheap. There are other stores that sell Stoptech parts, the other one I was considering was http://performancenissanparts.com/ . Prices were virtually the same but it seemed to be harder to find things there, in fact I couldn't find any hats listed at all except as part of the full kits. I went with Zechausen because it has technical drawings of most things and it just seems to be a more complete and practical enthusiast store, without any fancy website bling. Obviously I can't comment on the quality of the Stoptech products yet, but from researching on the web they seem to be a good quality but inexpensive brand and have lots of resellers. The co-owner of Zechausen Racing (Dave Zeckhausen) has been nothing but friendly and helpful in the several emails he's written back to me too despite changing my order once and then asking more questions about the Stoptech brake kits. He cautioned me to make sure I was getting the right discs, so even if they don't fit I wouldn't hold him responsible at all. He also sells full Stoptech brake kits for our cars - http://www.zeckhausen.com/nissan_products.htm No GTS-t/GTT Skyline kits listed but the 240SX (180) or 300ZX kit would probably fit.

Thanks for all the info guys. Earlier today I decided to order just the 332mm AeroRotor discs from the US. The reason being that I am happy enough with my brakes the way they are (I was happy enough when I thought they were stock!), and I may as well take the chance that I can save some money if I don't have to buy new brackets and hats. If they do fit (and I'm 90% sure they will) then I'll spend the money I saved on some bigger injectors and/or a PowerFC tune which I've been meaning to do for a long time. I will report how it goes after they arrive, hopefully this turns out to be a decent but still cheap alternative to the usual RDA and DBA discs.

Well I have previously measured the pistons, and came up with 35mm and 41mm, but that'd be slightly too small because I only measured the bit after the rubber boot ends which I think taper off. By how much I don't know, but it'd be a uniform size difference I imagine which I think means it's not the F50 because I think the F50 only has 4mm difference in size (40 and 44mm, figures taken from here - http://www.stealth316.com/2-brakeupgrade.htm). The F40 has 6mm size difference though (38 and 44mm). So that's more likely to be the F40, unless I have some weird arsed caliper which is smaller than both of these?! My calipers look pretty similar to this, which seems to be the F40 by the piston size but there's just a part number and no F40 or F50 name. http://www.prosystembrakes.com/20-4862-05-06.htm I had another idea today. Everywhere I've searched seems to have the same Brembo kit for an R33 GTR, which is part number 1B2.8020A for slotted 355x32 rotors and the same or similar caliper as mine. If my caliper is the same or at least compatible (it seems to use the same pads at least) then maybe I could just buy the larger 355x32 discs and the brackets for the caliper? I have 18 inch wheels so it should all fit. The only thing there is I'd definitely need new hats, and the added cost of the brackets. But I'm already resigned to be spending well above my initial budget. If I knew the factory rotors would fit then I probably would have kept them! But I thought the pad would overhang the edge of the disc. Also I didn't know if the offset would be the same and I didn't want to risk opening the package to find out (goodbye refund if it didn't work!) I'll take my wheels off after I have dinner tonight I think, take more measurements and photos. Oh lastly I don't think I'm going to find a Brembo part number on the discs because I don't think they're Brembo discs. But I'll have a look anyway.

Grinding noise is almost definitely not pads. The noise is more of a rotating kind of grinding/sliding noise that only happens at low speeds especially around corners (like, <10kph, driveway/intersection speeds) and it comes and goes as the wheel rotates (discs not warped at all, no pedal or vehicle shudder under braking) it goes away if I put the brakes on or if I hit normal road speeds. At first I thought it might be oddly damaged CV joints or the front diff or wheel bearings, but my mechanic checked and said it was the rotor assembly and said the disc was sitting too loose on the hats. Since the bolts are a single use item and the discs nearly run out, he said to get new discs and that'd fix the noise as well. He could be wrong I guess, but I think it's the most realistic diagnosis. Vsport's price was not including hats, just the mounting bolts. I don't think $675 is overly expensive if he is using genuine Brembo discs, but that's why I'm more interested in the aftermarket AeroRotors. I couldn't find any info on the Z32 part numbers, but I'll see if I can find the offset dimensions ("annulus" measurement I think?) and measure what I have, and try to figure it out that way. And I shall exhaust all my options before I sell them first I've still got half a mil left on the rotors and half the pad left, so as long as nothing goes bang in the meantime I've got a fair bit of time left to sort this out. Edit: The guy from Vsport just got back to me, he said he's only familiar with the 190mm inner flange discs in the 332x32 size and they have fit all the Jap imports he's done so far. So it's looking good.

Beer Baron, I actually do have problems. The disc is making a strange metallic grinding noise. There's not metal being ground off though, all the adonizing is intact and no metal shavings are around. If not for that then I would do as you suggested. Also, I want to buy your nuts! Check your pm djr81, I plan to get slotted only discs. The 332x32mm discs are $675 each including mounting kit from vsport, but the guy didn't specify which part number specifically so I would have to double check that with him either way. From the Zeckhausen site though, they are approximately half price including shipping from the US, so you can understand why I'd like to get the AeroRotors in preference if I am able to! But they only have the 190mm flange diameter. It would even be worth me ditching my old hats completely and buying new ones to fit the Stoptech AeroRotor discs, it would end up being around the same price as buying the discs locally but I'd have brand new complete rotors. Unfortunately I have confirmed that Stoptech don't make a hat of the appropriate offset for the GTR. However Racebrakes in Sydney are able to build custom hats so I might check with them if it comes to that. Maybe I should just go back to standard!

Here is the pic I linked above, but I've put red circles around the "gap" I'm talking about. In this photo you can see that the hat sits pretty flush with the disc, but after I take photos of my disc, you'll see how much of a gap there is and I'm pretty sure it's a fair bit more.