Warpspeed

Steve, I believe the SC14 is 1400cc displacement which is about the same as an M90 but there the similarity ends. The main problems with the SC14 revolve around excessive heating of both the blower itself, and the air from internal friction of the teflon rotors. On a small engine say 1.5 Litres this is not too bad if you use the clutch and only run the blower for short bursts at stock type boost levels. Tryng to fit this blower onto a larger engine by running it faster, only makes this problem far worse. Particularly if you plan to run the blower continuously. What happens is the rotors drag inside the case and heat up. The rotors then expand which causes more frictional heat and so on. Eventually either the blower wears out and becomes noisy, or the teflon peels off the rotors. The rotors inside the M90 are not teflon coated and there is mechanical clearance between the rotors and case. The M90 can be constantly driven at high RPM without the frictional heat buildup. Provided you run an air cleaner it should last just about forever.

Well if you have your heart set on an SC14, it will certainly be easier to fit, but I still feel this blower is going to be way too small for you. But on the other hand, for $350, it is a very low cost way to learn all about supercharging. You will gain a very great deal of experience from this first blower project. Later when you get seriously bitten by the supercharger bug, you will be prepared to fork out a bit more cash for a better blower, and facing all the problems will be a lot less daunting.

Hi again Steve. Only just spotted this thread, have been busy with other things. As I said in my e-mail mounting and driving the blower is about 95% of the work, the rest is relatively easy and straightforward. Yeah, I know exactly how you feel, when you look at the size of the blower, and look in the engine bay it looks absolutely impossible. I have done this a few times myself on other engines, so here is how I would go about it. When you have decided on a likely candidate blower, try and get a look at one in the flesh, and collect some pictures of it as well. Then obtain an engineering drawing with all dimensions, maybe from a website, or the agent/manufacturer. Dont laugh, but make yourself a crude dummy blower out of wood, polystyrene, or even foam rubber. Then you can figure out where to put it, and how to mount and drive it. You will ALWAYS have to move other stuff to fit it in. Once you know roughly where it is going to go, get yourself a spare engine block from somewhere, (RB30?) and use this to fabricate the mounting brackets, and drive system away from the car. Do not try to do it on the engine in the car, because the access will be difficult and visibility poor. You need a spare engine block up on the workbench in good light, to ensure the blower rotors are exactly parallel with the crank, and the drive pulleys directly in line. I still do not own a Skyline yet, but have a spare RB26 block and crank, and dummy Whipple blower made up. With the airconditioning pump , power steering pump, and engine mount removed there will be a fair bit of room to figure out where the blower will fit. It must take pride of place FIRST, then work out how everything else is going to go back. My plan is to fit a Whipple which is long and thin, as high as possible against the engine block. The blower mounting bracket will be quite complicated, because it will incorporate a new passenger side engine mount strut, that curves beneath the blower. I do not know how an Eaton M90 compares for size, but they look fatter and shorter than a Whipple from pictures I have seen. The blower mount will also relocate the airconditioning compressor lower down next to the sump. The compressor can be removed and relocated without disconnecting the hoses, so regassing will not be required. Because I do not have a Skyline to measure from yet, I am not exactly sure what to do with the power steering pump, but here are some ideas of what MIGHT be possible. A longer drive belt will go around the crank, aircon, and blower pulleys, and an external adjustable idler will be needed on the slack side of the belt. This is to adjust belt tension, and provide more belt wrap around the crank and blower. Now to increase belt wrap the idler will be on the outside of the belt, and will therefore turn backwards. If there is enough room, it may be possible to turn the power steering pump around so that it is in front of the drive belt, and use it as an adjustable tensioner. Rotation of the power steering pump will therefore be correct. I just do not know yet if there is enough room to actually do this or what might be in the way? Another consideration might be that the original four rib airconditioner belt might be better upgraded to a six rib belt. Most superchargers come with a six rib pulley standard, and I am sure the Denso airconditioner clutch/pulley could be easily replaced with a six rib part from another car as a staight bolt on swap. The RB25 crank pulley might need to be modified or swapped for something else. This needs some further investigation.

Hi wegs. I have been thinking about this myself. My idea is to try and pick up a cheap (needs rebuild) RB26DETT, these sometimes go for $3,000. If you are lucky the valves and guides are not too bad, and you can put the whole top end onto your RB25. You can then sell your RB25DET top end + turbo complete, to one of the Commodore guys, You should be able to recoup a decent chunk of that original $3000 outlay. Likewise with the twin turbos, use them as is, rebuild them, or flog them off, and get something better. If you do the sums, it will almost certainly give you best bang for your buck over the long run. The advantages of keeping the same RB25 bottom end are the engine number stays the same, and there are no sump related problems, and its a lot less work. You may even be able to sell the complete RB26 botom end to someone else as well. Or else keep it for a long term future rebuild, and further upgrade.

Mick is right. Practice, learn how to drive properly, and have confidence in both yourself and your car. The thing is though, not all of us have the ability to be world champion drivers. Myself I think I know a little bit about vehicle dynamics, but am a hopeless driver. So the answer is get yourself a very good car, set it up properly, maintain it, and be very very cautious in the wet, no matter what you drive. One day some clown is going to cut you off, and you are going to have to save yourself. In good well maintained machinery you stand a far better chance.

No I have never driven an ATESSA equipped 4WD in the wet, but I can imagine that with a lot of power available, anything could be made to break traction and be pretty hairy if provoked. I have owned a WRX and Laser turbo 4WD, and have driven several other (not my own) full time 4WD cars. Driven sensibly, they offer a lot more safety and stability than 2WD (company) cars I have driven.

Well Dragon, make sure your next car is 4WD and has ABS, as well as good tyres with an open tread design. A lot of people think 4WD is only for traction in first gear, but there is a lot more to it than that. 4WD offers far more grip in wet and slippery conditions during cornering, braking, and acceleration, at any speed. Also there will be less tyre wear. Just one little prang can ruin your whole day, and keep you poor for a very long time.

Your not one of those Tamil tigers I suppose ?

Its Steve Vizard. Now you got two people after you, wanna try for three ?

The main disadvantage, as I see it is the RB20 cylinder head. You are going to be stuck with this, even after an increase in capacity, it will limit the final power potential. The RB25 and RB26 have a far better cylinder head design, and thus a lot more potential for development. The best bang for your buck would be an RB25DET fitted with RB26 crank, rods, and pistons. This RB26DET would then take some serious bolt on external hardware without complaint. Personally I would prefer this RB26DET combination to an RB30DET, but it depends on what you want I suppose.

The trouble is the petrol vapour permiates everything, the seats, roof lining, sound deadener, every bloody place. Leave the car locked up for a while, and the smell comes back. But it WILLl go away by itself. Just give it a bit of help, at least its summer and you can leave the windows down.

Just leave it parked in the sun with the windows open. I think you will just have to be patient, it will go away.

I believe the VL T3 turbo uses a 60 series compressor which is the largest T3 size available. Going to a T4 compressor is quite a step up, and may lead to surge problems. From memory that particular turbo has an 0.63 a/r exhaust housing which you could probably increase to either 0.75 or 0.82 a/r. These housings would bolt straight on and use the same internal wastegate and dump pipe that you already have. Changing the exhaust a/r is going to make a larger difference than changing the compressor, and is cheap power - if you can find a suitable housing. If it was me, I would try and beg, borrow, or steal a larger exhaust housing to try. If you can afford one, a GT ball bearing turbo would be far better in every way. Which size yo go for really depends on the low end response, top end power tradeoff. Whatever you end up doing remember, the biggest gains are going to be found on the exhaust side of the engine. Fit a pressure gauge to your exhaust manifold. If you have never done this you are in for quite a surprise. Anything you can do to lower the exhaust MANIFOLD pressure is going to make a large improvement. Pressures as high as twice boost pressure are not unusual on stock turbo setups. This is the key to big horsepower. You may need a monster turbo, or maybe, be a bit clever with choosing optimum exhaust wheel/ar combination will get you there without losing too much response. If it is nearly right, an optimum individual runner exhaust manifold design is important, and will sharpen up the response. If the exhaust turbine/housing is either miles too big, or miles too small, a good exhaust manifold will not make much difference over a horrible manifold.

You are definitely on the right track Hotplates. Power is proportional to airflow. The only reason boost makes more power is it forces more airflow through all the restrictions. If you can increase airflow by improving the cylinder head, and manifolding you will make more easy power than by just jacking up the boost. The mistake most people make is fitting a larger compressor and leaving the small turbine in. Suppose your existing compressor flows X amount of air through the engine at a certain specified boost. Now you do nothing else but fit a huge compressor to your existing turbo. The same airflow is going to flow at the same boost. The only exception might be that the larger compressor may drop the discharge temperature from the turbo a bit. If you run a decent intercooler, there will be no difference in power at all. On the other hand a larger exhaust turbine a/r will drop the exhaust back pressure and definitely increase power at the same boost level. Unfortunately it will also increase the boost threshold as well. But one size up is worth a try, you can always replace the original exhaust housing if you are not happy. Thirty years of playing with turbo engines tells me to first put on the DOHC head and see how it goes. Next fit a longer duration exhaust cam (with stock inlet cam). Last thing fit a larger turbo if you can afford to lose a bit of bottom end response. If you do all of this, you can easily get something like 50% more power AT THE SAME BOOST LEVEL. Then, you can sneak up the boost a bit, and it will absolutely fly,

Yeah, me too. I would be selling the stock turbo to someone else, and getting myself a new or slightly used Garrett or HKS ball bearing turbo.

I can confirm, FRISKI is correct. R33 GTR cooler has 22 tubes plus top and bottom plates, which are not air tubes.

Th wires can go either way around, no problems.

Yeah I thought a Stagea with an RB26 would make a rather interesting sleeper. Practical too. But OH it is so F****N ugly. It is a real two bagger. With a brown paper bag over the car, and another on you own head, how could you drive it ?

The Injectors I have are the same as Joes mate. They are purple, straight feed, and exactly13 ohms. So it seems the series 4 injectors can be either red or purple. I have often wondered if red and purple are actually the same colour as seen by different people

The RB26DETT has oil squirters under the pistons. I believe that all the RB blocks are pretty much the same as to where all the oil galleries are located in the block casting. I have heard of squirters being fitted to RB30s, but have never actually seen one that has been done. It would require machining a flat area inside the block casting, and drilling and tapping holes into the main oil galleries. Each squirter is held by a banjo bolt, and a dowel pin to stop it rotating on the banjo bolt. The pistons also require part of the skirt removed so that it will not destroy the squirter at the bottom of the piston stroke. Have a look at a GTR piston to get the general idea. The banjo bolts are special in that they have an internal spring loaded ball. Oil pressure opens the ball to make the squirter squirt. But when the engine stops, the ball and spring prevents all the oil in the engine oil passages from draining back into the sump.

The injectors I have are 550cc high impedance, purple in colour. These are straight feed for use with RB26. I believe they are series 4 or 5 (not sure) 13B turbo injectors. The plugs I used are from a Mazda/Ford B6 engine, and are a perfect fit.

Mazda rotary injector plugs are the same as Mazda 323 and Laser injector plugs. These may be easier and cheaper to find.

No no no, you have been a very bad boy this year. Keep yourself nice, maybe next year Santa will remember.

Have to agree antiroll bars are a good mod. They make cornering flatter, BUT if you go too stiff the car will break away sooner in the wet.

If this is a factory car, what the hell is a "racing brain ECU". No this is something someone has built up. GTS-4 + RB25DET, me thinks.