Gav

How old is the motor in the car now? If it's original, then assume at some stage you will need to rebuild it anyway. If that's the case, just keep the oil slightly overfilled for the track and install an oil catch can allowing for easy oil draining/recovery. When you rebuild the engine that's the time to address the oiling issues properly. If the engine is newish, then the above is really a compromise and it's up to you with regards to how hard you drive the car, corner and rev it etc. I've blown more than my fair share of RB engines - drop me a PM if you want my thoughts on your situation. Cheers Gav

Lag time of 0.65ms accorsing to the RHD site: Will obviously be low impedence also (i.e. no different to what you are replacing).

Apologies if this is in one of the preceding pages (or on another thread). Was reading the latest HP magazine about Donnan making a methanol/U98 blend in lieu of E85 and he reported very good results. There are a couple of points in the article that seem too good to be true: * The methanol by the nature that it is blended with U98 is not "corrosive" as per straight methanol as used in drag cars. * The methanol was easy and cheap (~$1.00/L) to obtain. * Similar flow rates to normal U98 means that existing fuel hardware may be suitable, although a retune is required to gain the maximum benefits. Anyone have experience with this?

It's probably at (or past) the upper limit of the efficiency of these turbos. Engine in this configuation would be no problems for a daily driver as there is plenty or torque. In fact around town I'm lazy and normally only use 1st, 3rd and 5th gears. I have shorter GTS4 diff centers, however, so that makes a difference also.

Presently at 570 rwhp (425 rwkw). HKS2.8L, 272 Step 2 cams, oversize valves, heaps of head porting and around 1.8 bar of boost on my dash 5's. On 98 pump fuel that's about the limit of what you can expect from these terbs. (Hell responsive 'tho! )

My money is on a dodgy coil. Sometimes a newer (i.e. stronger) ignitor will mask a bad coil for a while. Borrow a set of known good coils and see if that makes a difference. If you are still using the original OEM coils it may be time for an upgrade anyway.

Some questions: How have you diagnosed that the ignitor is "dead"? Have you substituted a set of known working coils with you ignitor? While you are at it, substitute a known good harness also. Double check the earthing eyelet is both well connected to the harness and is cleanly ground? I assume you're not running an HKS Twin Spark (or other CDI pack)? Finally, I don't pay heed to the Nissan manual's method of diagnosing by measuring resistance - I've had failed coils return exactly the same readings as good coils. PS - there should be some warranty on the ignitor from Nissan.

All co-incides when he clipped the ripple strip on the S bend. May have unsettled the car to lose traction, but looks like it may have caused the driver to give the accelerator an unintentional jab at that time. Boost obviously comes on really hard, so balancing the grip and torque in the wet would no mean feat.

I believe that this is a gross over simplification. Garrett have been in the business of turbines and gas cooling since the 1930's. This is their core business and it absurd to argue that Garrett cannot produce a better product than HKS. Take for example the 2860R-5. These were released much later than the HKS 2530 units which on paper have the same size turbine and compressor wheels. What IS different is the geometry of the wheels (and probably the housings also?). I for one, firmly believe that the Garrett product in this case is superior to the HKS product. My car reads like an HKS catalogue, however I chose Garrett units here on the advice of many track oriented GT-R users. I stand by my choice for these turbos being better than the HKS units in this application.

Richard, unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me when I picked up the manifolds today and dropped them off to the welder. The cracks were exactly along the welds that you show in the top picture. These are MUCH better than the welds on my Tomei manifolds and as shown in your bottom picture penetrate right through the thickness of the wall to the inside. MINE DON'T The welder will simply reweld and these and is confident that it will hold. The failure is from expansion/contraction due to heating - it is obvious from the colour change that this is the hottest part of the whole exhaust system here. A little disappointing from Tomei in my opinion.

Bloody hard to see from underneath, but it looks like on the flange weld. Will know when I get them off in a day or so. Other possibility is that I transferred some force through the exhaust when I straddled the ripple strip recently at Barbagallo's

I read this post the other week and thought to myself that I'm glad I had the Tomei Manifolds. Then during a routine check under the car last weekend I found a crack (shown up by a trail of carbon)! I'm expecting that it should be possible to reweld, however I don't want the cracks to return so I may get some gussets or tabs welded on at the same time. Hard to see the extent and exactly what caused it, however I'll post up some pics once I get them off over the next couple of days - stay tuned

Thanks - puts to bed a long running saga.

Good detective work! It troubles me, however, that the claimed stroke length is a weird length at 76mm (RB26 std = 73.7, HKS2.8 = 77.7). Why would HKS go to the trouble making a special crank when a kit can be made up using a standard RB26 crank? I remember you need to "relieve" the bottom lip of the bore slightly for the standard RB26 rods to clear, but this is an easy and straightforward job for the engine builder to do. It would be interesting also to see if they used the special Tomei pistons or 4AGZE items.

Glad he has a "ridgie-didge" crank in there. The reason I posted is that I ended up getting back most of what I paid for this, but it certainly wasn't a genuine part. As I said, we took pictures at the time and had a LOT of discussions with HKS Japan over the matter via the HKS dealer in WA (they didn't supply the crank by BTW). The consensus from HKS was ironically that the crank (and the one you showed from the auction) probably WAS from Hong Kong. The box was marked up as HKS in my case also. When you compare the real deal with what I had (and your auction photos), you can see the difference in quality immediately. Back on topic, my engine specs are pretty close to what you are piecing together. If you want to chat off line regarding what I would have done different in the light of 20/20 hindsight, freel free to drop me a PM. Keep up the good work both on the engineering and the write-up.

I run an HKS 2.8 kit also, the problem is not with the kit but rather the particular crank shown in the picture. I had the same crank supplied to me once (perhaps the exact same one?). The crank had excessive balance drilling on arrival and the oil galleries didn't line up with the oil grooves for the bearings. The mis-match was too far out for my builder's liking. See pic below: Upon checking with HKS Japan, it was found that it wasn't an HKS crank. In fact they have never heard of the "HKSA" stamp. Below is the picture of the crank I was first sold (HKSA) against the genuine HKS Step 2 crank I installed: And a close-up of the stamps:

I only just saw this thread - hence the delay in asking the question. Is "Daz's" car still running with this crank? I ask because I'm almost 100% certain that I know this particular crank and if so some of the oil galleries in don't line up with the bearings. I would be worried about bearing failure under high revs and load.

I'm betting that they put them on the wrong way around! It's hard to describe, but the arms are an "H" shape. When installed correctly, the H shape should not symetrical. If they are installed incorrectly, the change in body length due to the adhustment doesn't pull at right angles to the direction of camber. Anyway - take your wheel off and post a picture and I'll tell you if they are installed properly :-)

Factory Ford LPG six gives amazing economy (in terms of cost per distance) if you don't need a 4WD. A compromise is the RTV ute (good ground clearance and a rear diff lock). Add a lockable canopy and you can take heaps of gear.

Yes, the RB26 will mate up to the Jatco 4 speed auto. Be aware that this is a large sized gearbox and the tunnel clearance in the S15 may be a bit tight.