R33: (s2) Step By Step Fmic Installation

[BLACK WARRIOR]

Hey guys…..

Well I finally joined the skyline forum after a few months of browsing. I must say good forum with plenty of information.

The one thing though I couldn’t find much of was a write up on Front mount intercooler installs on S2 R33 skyline. I installed my ARC Kit on Sunday and decided I would do a write up about it.

The kit is the ARC with the pipes both running down the passenger side of the car. The car a 96 S2 Nissan Skyline. Well here goes hope this helps some of you out there.

STEPS

1. Remove grill – Basically there are 5 clips holding the grill in place. They require either a common (flat blade) screwie or the use of your fingers, fingers is fine it worked for me. Should pull away after a bit of wiggling

2. Removing the front bar – Firstly remove the 10mm bolts holding inner guard on and let them hang out of the way. Then there is 2 screws on each side holding the bar to the guards. 1 bolt on both sides is located on the end of the bar, and also one under the indicators on the side of the headlight. Both of these are 10mm also. Once these are taken out there are 3 plastic style clips between the headlights that attach the front bar to the intrusion bar. Once these are taken out the headlights need to be removed so that the clips under them can be popped so the bar can be removed.

3. Removing the headlights – There are 4 nuts/ bolts to remove. 1 on top of the headlight, there are 2 down at the bottom of the headlight all 10mm and one to remove that holds the light to the guard, you will need to slightly pull the guard down on the outside to see the bolt an to be able to take it out. Once these are all removed, unclip the headlight plug, and also the indicator plug. With this all removed should be able to wiggle the headlights out. Once the headlights are out, the bar can then be slipped out and placed to the side for later trimming required.

4. Next step removing Anti intrusion bar, fairly simple. 4 x14mm bolts, the front ones have to be totally taken out but the back ones only have to be loosened off and the bar will slide off. Also place this to the side as minor modification is necessary.

5. Next step is removal of AC fan on the front of the front of the condenser and also the horns. Both will be put back in factory place with minor modification. All of this is fairly straight forward so I won’t explain it.

6. Modification to the centre bracket where the bonnet latch is. Photo will clear it up. There is a metal bracket that clips into the grill, it comes off the center support at about 90 degrees. What needs to be done is the removal of it, get 1 angle grinder and cut it straight where it comes out of the center. Buff it up and then I repainted it all black to keep it looking tidy as you can see in the photo.

7. Its now time to place the Horns and AC fan back on. The horns firstly need to be flipped so they are closer to the AC condenser. The photo shows the result of this, I also repainted the back of them gloss back once again just to tidy it all up. Basically flip the horn over on its bracket and reattach. Picture will show, easy to do and means you will still have a horn.

8. Re installing AC fan requires a bit of modification to the bottom plastic fin picture shows what is needed. Take it back to the grill this will give you all the clearance and also still keep rigidity. It bolts up to the same 3 holes it was unbolted from. Reconnect the plug and now you are ready to mount up the core.

9. For mounting the cooler, undo the bottom bolt out of the bonnet latch bracket and mount it up. Place the bolt back in and line it up, it will fit into already positioned holes, and once all straight tighten up with supplied bolts…… BIG WARNING do not over tighten as the bolts will snap heads off, happened to me on one of them and had to tech screw it to the car. Once this is positioned time for removal of stock IC

10. Removing the factory unit is a bit of a pain, firstly I loosened the hose clamps off the pipes where they enter the engine bay. Once these are removed time to take out the bracket that holds the cooler to the chassis. It’s fiddly but once it’s loose it will pop out and you will be well on your way to put on new pipes. Once cooler is out the last metal pipe its bout 20 cms long has to be taken out, its held to the guard by 2 10mm bolts, take out this pipe and your ready to bolt the new pipes in. I had a quick check in the pipes for build up and nothing in them.

11. Mounting the new piping – fairly self explanatory, long pipe runs down along bottom of cooler, and connects to the shortest 90 bend this then continues straight up as can be seen in the photos to the factory cooler pipes. The other pipe mid length with 2 bends runs straight off the left end of the cooler up to the factory piping in the engine bay. The ARC kit comes with all Hose clamps and also green rubber silicon. I didn’t like the green so I hit it with a black spray paint, it peels off but I will be getting black ones for it this weekend. Once the piping is all mounted up, kick the car over to make sure its going to run without any leaks or problems. If its all good its now time to place the intrusion bar on the car again.

12. The intrusion bar will require a little bit of modification to the bottom rail that runs across the top one wont need any for this cooler. For a 300 wide u might need to just nick the top corners out but as mines a 280mm I didn’t have to. Basically hold the bar up to the car as close to the position as possible and mark where u need to take some metal out of, don’t worry it wont affect its strength at all. We found we had to go in a 1cm and along bout 8-10cms, basically a triangle at each end of the cooler as it sat just pointing forward photo will show the general idea but will change if u have a blitz kit that runs the same but has a 20mm wider core. Once you are happy with the fit and there is sufficient space between core intrusion bar, bolt it back into place. Try an bolt it back to the same mark that the washers have indented into. Car should look like below at this stage. Now its time to reinstall bar.

13. Front Bar reinstall – on a series 2 the diffuser needs to be totally removed, an angle grinder with a buffer wheel was the best way to take off required amount. Basically after many checks on the amount needed there is basically just 5 mm of the lip left from the original diffuser, the picture shows what is remaining. It will just rest on one of the silicon hoses but doesn’t rub or anything so I am happy to leave it that way until I can come up with a way of not making it look crap cause it looks really good now. Place bar back on and secure the bar with the bolts removed to begin with. Place lights back in the car don’t forget to do up all the plugs that are in the fog lights and also all the plugs in the headlights.

So that’s a run through with pics of the full install, with 2 guys with jap instructions and my phone as a camera. Took us bout 6 hours with the right tools, and just steady pace with drinks and lunch etc. Hopefully that helps people out and gives them a bit of a heads up on what can be done with some common sense and patience, I think it looks really tops. Next mod is custom lexen pod box with ram CAI.

Thanks all for reading I will post up pics in the daylight with headlights back in and that.

Cheers

Luke

[LANFOH]

Nice Tutorial mate,

Just a note, when I did my install I actually didnt take out my headlights, radiator fan or ac. It might be different with your ARC kit. But you should be able to take off the steel support bar first with the front bar on it then un clip it for cutting once its off the car this will save you a fair bit of time.

But like I said it might be different for your kit.

Cheers

[BLACK WARRIOR]

yeh definately could have been done quicker didnt want to rush it and not havin instructions was a pain. we took em out cause i had to seal em up anyway had 2 little leaks in them. To have the clearance had to switch horns around and snip the bottom of the AC fan but thats bout it, fits up nice sounds really good to. will post up some final pics on a sunny day.........its pissin down here in syd

[BLACK WARRIOR]

Ok between the flash floods and floating houses i got a ok pic of the front of the car all finished up, the plate probly could be lifted a lil bit to aid more flow but its not a big concern to me atm. hope that looks alright

cheers

Luke

[dezz]

Mate, just wondering...

With your front bar, it appears to have the same grey plastic insert that mine does in the main intake area....I've seen some that dont appear to have ever had it, and others that still do have it (no fmic of course)

Mine has it, so i was wondering how you went about cutting it out? Is that what you're referring to when you said difuser?

It appears to be just glued to the bar or something...

[BLACK WARRIOR]

Yeh the difuser is the bit i was refering to which under the number plate, it is moulded into the bar itself. angle grinder with bufferwheel. give urself about 5 mm off the front of lip and cut the rest off the back around the top corners u need to come in on a angle to miss the top of the cooler. i ll get a close up of it if u like mate.

Edited September 7, 2006 by BLACK WARRIOR

[dezz]

Awesome tutorial - def looking for an intercooler that doesn't require me to cut the crap out of the front of my car..

hheehe

ARC or Blitz LM.

[anexiole]

very very good

so u didn't have to cut the front bar at all i gather?

[BLACK WARRIOR]

Hey yeh the diffuser in the middle of the bar only had to be taken out will get pics over the weekend, pretty easy to do

[guricha]

Hi

i want do same but cant choose intercooler kit:( can you suggest where i can buy it??? there are lot of intercoolers on ebuy for 200$ but i think they are from china and wont be for good performance

[Onthehunt]

great write up mate. just getting a hybrid for my S2 33. anyone done diy with the gt spec kit? similar to this?

[Gazee]

great write up mate. just getting a hybrid for my S2 33. anyone done diy with the gt spec kit? similar to this?

there should be instructions somewhere on here.. it'll be different with a hybrid kit because you'll have to cut a hole in the chasis.. and i think maybe the blade on the clutch fan need to be trimmed... not sure how others do it.. i had to cut mine... umm and thats about it.. very straight forward tho as long as you have the right tools...

this arc kit is really good tho.. i wish i got me one of them before i got my hybrid fmic... makes life so much easier with striaght bolt ons.. no cutting... no screwing around...

P.S. reallly good write up! was it hard to get that grill out? i found mine a pain in the ass lol

[Onthehunt]

there should be instructions somewhere on here.. it'll be different with a hybrid kit because you'll have to cut a hole in the chasis.. and i think maybe the blade on the clutch fan need to be trimmed... not sure how others do it.. i had to cut mine... umm and thats about it.. very straight forward tho as long as you have the right tools...

this arc kit is really good tho.. i wish i got me one of them before i got my hybrid fmic... makes life so much easier with striaght bolt ons.. no cutting... no screwing around...

P.S. reallly good write up! was it hard to get that grill out? i found mine a pain in the ass lol

how did you go abouts cutting the fan blade? what tools did you use? does it matter how you do it...heard you could put the fan out of whack by not doing it right. also what did u use to cut through chassis on drivers side? help please

[BLACK WARRIOR]

Hey guys been ages since i seen looked at my thread.

ARC is the only way lol, but you pay for it to haha. the bit thats inside the actual main hole is the diffuser, yeh its a pain in the arse basically leave 5-8mm from where it lips up off the bar, then cut all the rest off. not to hard a Angle grinder with buff wheel is your friend when it comes to this, to start with less is more, cause if you go to far you loose strength and it looks tacky, just take it off a bit at a time. its heaps easier with a mate, cause taking bar on an off is easier with 2.

The hybrid kit is a lot different as the enforment bar needs to be trimmed quiet a bit and also the fan and the hole in the opposite gaurd aswell. Jap brand kits are the way to go normally, they are more epensive but a lot less stuffing around.

[dkslong]

SMart man u installed the EASIEST intercooler.Well I got the gredy spec m one and u have to cut a hole on the left side for it.I wish I went this intercooler instead but I plan on doing the plenum swap.

[akiba]

great tutorial :]

time for a bigger fmic!!

[Turbotonic]

very nice mate thanku

[R33 kid]

nice one man

[SlowSkyline]

Thank mate, used this on the weekend to install my fmic and it helped out heaps!

cheers

[Kopplz R33]

so where did you buy the ARC kit? is there a site or can you get these kits at local performance or Parts shops?