GTSBoy

Good. I was worried we were still talking about the block. Yes, larger baffled sump is a good idea. Do not touch the pump unless you're going on a whole build saga. Read the oil control thread on here - at least the last 100 pages or so. We drew some reasonable things together in there. The short version is that venting the sump is more important than almost anything else you do.

Perhaps just get a proper mechanic who is good with Nissan autos (they were more or less the same across all the RWD, FWD, 4WD cars at that time, even if they were actually different boxes) to give it a good going over. He might be able to plug in a Consult or other scan tool and find out if it's got some fault codes. Otherwise, my approach to the problem if not liking the way the auto was workign behind my RB20 turbo, was to drop it on the workshop floor and put in the manual box that it really needed. That solved all the auto problems.

15000? ish? Something like that anyway. It wasn;t so much a wear as a tear that then spread. Might have lasted a lot longer if not bothered by just one incident, whatever it was. I took a punt. They are really comfortable and do a good job of holding. My daughter HATED it when I first put them in, and probably still does now. She has sensory issues and hates the way they are all up your business. I'm 197cm and 95kg. Not fat or particularly wide, and the XL size seat is the rigth fit. If I was any fatter it would start to get too snug. Any skinnier and you'd possibly want the smaller width.

The NA 2.5 has very little torque. You won't feel much. Those trannies are also a million years old now and it could well be f**ked. First generation electronically controlled autos will often refuse to kick down, ete, etc, depending on what's wrong with them.

Yes, but no but yes but no. Those "it's fine up to 500HP" rules and everything else like it were all determined back when the cars were 10 years old. As they are now 30 years old.....what do you reckon the chances of something shitting the bed are? I'd say they are much higher now than they used to be. You might be lucky. You might be unlucky. Spin the wheel and find out. Yeah, nah. It's actually exactly the opposite. Making boost early and having heaps of torque able to be generated right in the middle of the rev range will do more to damage an engine than having to rev it high to make the power. Think about the load on the conrods, bearings, etc, to make 400HP at 4000 rpm, vs 400 HP at 6500 rpm. So someone has already "let the Nissan out" which is how we describe the increased chance of a fiddled with engine to have had something done wrongly. Many more engines that have been opened die than stock ones do - even if you into consideration how they are treated wrt power levels and the like. Again, not saying that yours will definitely have been put back together by a moron. But the possibility does exist. It's still a lottery. Spin the wheel. What weakspots?

I bought my Bride reps from Crank Motorsport. He is, um, a trifle disorganised. I would have to look back at the e-mails to make sure I got it right, but I think he sent me normal fabric ones when I ordered the "Alcantara" ones. So he had to pay for shipping 3x and I'm sure that f**ked him off big time. And asking technical questions where nuanced English is required is a no go. It's simple English only. And....should I have bought the Alcantara ones? Well, as it turns out, they are great, feel great, etc, but the fabris wore through on the point of the waist bolster in <2 years. Must have caught a rip from a rivet on jeans or shorts, or something like that. So now I have to patch it somehow. A bit shit. My fault, ultimately, because it is Chinesium Faux Alcantara, not the real thing, and it turns ot that it has the tear resistance of a soggy tissue. But the seats and the reails are great. I probably should have gotten the R34 style ones, and now that they price is up in that ridiculous sort of number, I could have sold them for a profit!

Another recco is to just let it rest for a while and go back and reconnect later.

The R32 suffers from an instrument binnacle that is uncomfortably close to the design of a VN Commodore's. But beyond that, the layout of the rest of everything, and the materials (ie the vinyl coverings on dash, armrest, etc) are acceptable, and the patterns on the fabrics are not as blergh as those in the R33. And R33 seats are....quite unattractive. I know it's only small details there, but I reckon the R33 got worse than the 32. But the big blergh is the overall shape of the dash on the R33. It's just has that whole Maxima/Pulsar sort of look to it. Nothing special at all. Generic Nissan sedan. Whereas, at least the R32 dash/binnacle was different. Less a wide expanse of boringly curved plastic. More a "cockpit" sort of look, even if nowhere near to the degree that the A90 Supras got. R34 seats look good on their own, until you realise that they are indistinguishable from the shape and fabric on 70 other Japanese cars. And the foam bolsters on them suffer even worse than the earlier cars. Other than that I don't really have an opinion the rest of the R34 interior. I took the bits of the R34 I wanted (brakes and engine) and added them to the best external appearance Skyline in the modern era (the 32). So nyerr!

Well, the NA RB25 is nothing special in terms of the amount of power it makes stock, nor with any easy mods like extractors & exhaust, opening up the intake tract, etc, etc. And just like any small capacity NA engine, getting lots of power out of them takes a fair bit of money and, depending on how far you go with big cams and high compression and so on, quite grumpy to drive. So, boost is the answer. Many many many of them have had a turbo added. This is easy enough. Same as for any engine. Need the things you need to bolt on the turbo of choice, fuel system and management upgrades, clutch, stronger gearbox ( you do not want to run a boost RB25 through the NA box), diff, brakes, etc, etc, same as you would for most other NA+T things. Some much smaller number have had a supercharger added instead. These are good and cool, but have nowhere near the potential of the turbo route. All the same required upgrades apply. So, potential? Anywhere from not much to quite a lot, depending on how much effort and expense you want to go to. Is there value in the effort and expense? Objectively, no, there is not. If you're gaining enjoyment and don't mind blowing a lot of money on the project, then that's where the value is. Parts? Nissan dealers for some. Many many on-line vendors who do Japanese manufacturer spares (buy buying them from disposals at dealers around the world, direct from manufacturers, increasingly from Chinese knockoffs, etc) and warehousing them in Dubai or similar places. Amayama, Partsouk, etc etc. There are quite a few. Some local to Australia, some local to Europe, some local to the US. You can upgrade literally everything. For an NA, unless you're going to boost it, there's little point going past a nice exhaust, as I said above. After that (well, actually probably even before that) you should concentrate on making it handle the best it can, good brake components, light wheels and tyres, and just make it something to enjoy throwing through the curves. You'll never, ever win any drag races, so it needs to be taken as a nice point-to-point car. Throw in some Recaros or Brides, nice Momo wheel and gearknob, so it's pleasant to be in (because god knows, the inside of an R33 is not a pretty place!!) and away you go.

I remember a Wheels mag article from, I dunno when....late 80s, early 90s, or something, about a BMW engine which was claimed to be able to produce cleaner tailpipe emissions than the air it was typically breathing in on Autobahns, city streets, etc etc, in a lot of the really filthy (at the time) Euro and US cities.. All courtesy of the engine management and the plentitude of cats they had on it, of course. Classic marketing spin, naturally, because you sure as shit can't breathe what's coming out the back. But whatever.

I put the charger in the engine bay and run the power cord down through one of the holes in the undertray, or at the back end of the engine bay, any time I need a car to be on a charger outside. In fact, I bring the extension cord up through into the engine bay so that it's not dragging around where it could get wet, or easily unplugged.

Most proper RB26 builds here in Oz are costing multiples of that number. And yes, I know you're talking Euros. Here' the dollars being spent are largely associated with amphetamines.

Yeah, I understand that TÜV is a bitch, but.... cost is not an issue when talking about putting a massive NA (or possibly large + turbo'd) V engine into a Skyline. We do it because it is fun. If mine was a project car and not a daily, I'd be finding some massive engine to put in it. Possibly one of the Toyota V12s that they make into monsters in New Zealand. Engineering is not cheap and easy here either (although definitely easier and cheaper than in Der Vaterland). But anything is possible, and 7L is better than ~2.5L, by about 200%.

Well, if it wasn't a GTR I'd say that killing an RB is a perfect opportunity to put in a proper engine. In your case, proximity to Brabus and AMG V12s would be a no brainer for any RWD Skyline engine death event. In my case, because my car is my daily, anything that I do wrong that means I have to do it again is both an absolute pain in the arse (simply having to do it again), and also a doubling of the pain associated with having the car off the road to work on it. I would class a botched head gasket install as not being "engine death causing". More a case of "f**k it's still leaking!"

There are certain tasks, like replacing head gaskets, where it is very much best to already know what you are doing, and if you are not already an expert, then the next best thing is to have an expert around to help it get done. Little annoying checks and steps that are easy to forget or not interpret the results of properly, etc etc. It is hard to convey that to someone as a lesson prior to taking on a job, because there can be a whole list of "if you see this then it means that", or "if this is what you find then you will need to do these other 4 steps first". All the little bits of knowledge around sealant choice (ie, sealant at all? or no sealant? sealant only in certain parts of the gasket? sealant for this type of gasket but not that type of gasket? etc etc) cleanliness checks and methods, surface straightness and finish checks and methods, etc etc, all combine to mean that people who have done many of the same type of job will struggle less to get a good result than someone who hasn't done it before. I've been around this stuff since forever. But I will still consult with my expert(s) before taking on the big stuff with higher risk profile.

Can you at least move to a location without so many ladders, black cats and mirrors precariously propped up ready to be knocked down? Or buy yourself a 1 ton bulker bag of salt to drag around with you. Just, you know, sling it over your shoulder?

Meh, what's the worst that can happen? If is is supposed to have a washer, and: the spring retainer seals reasonably well on the surface, maybe just allowing a little bleed of oil out, and the spring does not coil bind when compressed that little extra bit, then the end result will be slightly higher relief pressure setpoint, and no other noticeable effects.

There are professional butt-monkeys too. Just from lack of familiarity in Europe and the US there are plenty of mechanics who do things the wrong way on RBs. Even here in Oz, where we've been playing with RBs since 1986, there are still examples of the not-quite-bright-enough mechanic doing the wrong thing and causing simple jobs to go wrong.

A changed head gasket is an opportunity for whoever the butt-monkey was that did the job to mess it up. And there is far more than one way for a head gasket failure to manifest. Besides which, I did not say "head gasket failure". I just said that the coolant could be coming from there. If the gasket was not installed properly there might be a leak path from a coolant gallery to the outside and no mixing of fluids inside. Anywhere that a hose joins a hard pipe is a big opportunity for a leak. If the rubber is old then it will be brittle and it is only a matter of time before that will leak, and the same with every other bit of rubber on the car. Paranoia will eventually drive you to take the whole thing apart so you can find and replace all such. It's not easy with the plenum in place.

Which are almost all nonsense. Ignore. Obviously enough, if it is not a porous block, then any such thing is a waste of time. External block surface? Would be a waste of time, if the block was actually porous. It would need to go on the inside, which is inaccessible, and even if the block was open deck so that that area was acessible, it would be unlikely to work. But seeing as this is all nonsense, stop worrying about it. If the coolant is coming from the side of the block it is 10:1 odds that it is either a welch plug, or it is coming from the head gasket. Maybe from one of the coolant lines feeding the turbo, or even the heater. Liquids that leak from up high can travel sideways along casting surfaces or pipes, etc on the engine before finding a spot from which to drop.

Welcome Jan, It's very likely that you are in over your head. You'll just have to learn to swim hard and fast! These old rust buckets have more ways to bankrupt us than almost any other car. But hopefully there's nothing wrong that ruins the whole show! We can help a fair bit. There's plenty here who've been fixing these things for >25 years. cheers

It's why I call it vagazzelling. Only a dumb kunt could do it.

You might as well just vagazzle it, like the dumb bitches on Just Rolled In.

I thought not. R32s certainly weren't. R33s definitely could have been, but I thought they had much the same gear in them as the 32s. I could be wrong. I had my r32 converted to R143A before I put the Neo motor (and its R34 compressor) into it. So I didn't even really consider the original refrigerant for the 34's compressor. Seeing as the very idea of "conversion" means that it doesn't really matter anyway. What it would really come down to, in the car in question, is what ports are on the lines and if they are R12 or R143A ports. And the little bit of work required to convert them and clean the system out of the old juice.

CF wrap bro. C'mon!