First let me say Hi all, this is my first post on the forums - I have been lurking for awhile reading up on info needed for my swap.
This is a question very similar to mine, I also have a partial answer for you my friend.
I found a guy selling an rb25 swapped into an s13 (I am from california so we don't have the luxury of decently priced skylines out here, I am very envious of you guys ) he didn't finish the project for some reason but it was almost complete. It just needed a turbo/cold & hot piping to get it running. I cannot figure out for the life of me why he wouldn't just finish it up and sell it for a nice price rather then selling it incomplete for so cheap; this caused several redflags to be raised in my mind. I soon found out that the motor is from a late model stagea (s2 non neo motor but neo wiring AWD auto) it has the grey ecu pins similar to the r34. This immediately caused me to get discouraged because we don't have stageas over here and thus the local aftermarker support is probably nil.
Now with the background out of the way here is the answer to your question:
He had the stagea rb25 maited to an rb20 transmission and I have read that these bolt right up, I am assuming you have an rb20 transmission already in your car so unless the rb25 motor mounts a bit forward or backward you should be able to retain everything from the transmission back, and if it does mount forward or back a bit then perhaps you could just modify your driveshaft, I am not sure exactly the best way to go about that but its worth looking into. this would solve the problem with excess weight due to the the AWD transmission only being used for RWD, and also you can save money by not having to buy an rwd rb25 transmission (assuming you are staying around the low 400 rwd hp range, the rb20 transmission should hold up).
Now here is my question:
What is the difference in tuneability between the awd stagea ECU and a 5 speed late model s2 rb25 (I guess that would be an R34 rb25 ecu). Can I use the auto ecu in my 5 speed swap and run it stock without a stand alone? are the pinouts on the auto late model stagea the same as an R34 rwd ecu? I am on a budget build so I am looking for the minimum that would get the car running, and I will move onto a stand alone sometime next year. Any recommendations for when I do move on to tune the car?
Any input is much appreciated, thanks!
Travis
