China Intake Pipe Kit For Your Gtr - A Review.

[Silvia GTR]

Ive seen many cars fitted with tonka parts that have had no issues, I think it is easier to bag out cheaper parts when/if they fail as no one wants to tell anyone one when they fitted a schmick mod that went balls (not in this case though) 2c

[DAS KAMU]

QUOTE (DAS KAMU @ 17 Nov 2008, 11:43 AM) *

although i do like chinese girls.......

How do you find the fit quality and performance on them? Warranty?

the fit and finish is very good

the warranty is non negotiable

performance is adequte

product trust is 100% for my model anyway

Edited November 17, 2008 by DAS KAMU

[Beer Baron]

Bit of a blanket comment there Richo.

The Cooling-Pro Alloy Radiator I ran in the GTR certainly didn't fit the picture you describe - I gave one a go and wasn't disappointed.

Well priced, dropped straight in, has run solidly in a 400awkw GTR without a hiccup for well over a year now.

And not forgetting I am very very anal when it comes to the parts that I fit to any of my cars.

yeah I know, they must be some nicely done chinese stuff out there, but my GTR is a chinese part free zone and happier for it. actually that's not true. I do have 1 chinese part on there. a just jap "D1 spec" quick release hub and it works very well, and I have one on the silvia too. it makes getting out of the race seat and past the cage a lot easier and it's lasted a few years now.

well i've never tried a cooling pro radiator so I can't rate that paricular product. but I would say 9 out of 10 of the other chinese parts i've seen or tried myself left me less than impressed. i once had a set of chinese castor rods, they were cheap but didn't last so I ended up buying cusco ones, had a set of chinese upper control arms. they were cheap, but aqain didn't last so had to change those too. my experience has been the level of fit and finish is not up to the japanse parts level nor is the durability and quite often the parts are not 100% suited to their application (ie oil cooler kits with lines that are miles too long etc). in the end I just think the price premium you pay for japanese quality parts over the cheap stuff is worth it. you pay more, but I thnk you get better 'value'.

[Beer Baron]

i should also point out that I am a complete brand whore. from my arc intercooler, to my hks turbos to my MCR keyring and ARC jacket. japanese parts, smokes, and food makes me feel warm inside....

[NYTSKY]

i should also point out that I am a complete brand whore. from my arc intercooler, to my hks turbos to my MCR keyring and ARC jacket. japanese parts, smokes, and food makes me feel warm inside....

I wasnt going to say anything

[PAV34]

60% of the time, China parts work everytime.

[DAS KAMU]

i should also point out that I am a complete brand whore. from my arc intercooler, to my hks turbos to my MCR keyring and ARC jacket. japanese parts, smokes, and food makes me feel warm inside....

+1

[The Bogan]

OK, now i dont want anyone to look into my engine bay and see my knock off inlet manifold with a Greedy sticker on it.

[Phatboy]

The only thing made in China in my GTR is me

Some parts made in China might be nearly as good as Jap ones, but some won't. What you pay for with the famous Jap brands is peace of mind that all of them will be consistently performing in terms of quality and reliability above a minimum standard, which is higher than Chinese-spec parts. IMHO, it's just not worth the hassle and potential problems later on.

[Cartman]

one Jap part i will say i would never recommend to anyone is the tomei solid lifter conversion kit(lifters and type b valve springs) for an rb25. absolute junk. but we wont go into that.. this thread isnt about that.

[Travis Trayhern]

I bought one of these for my GTR r33 and trust me all the same problems as you had on ya gtr but you didnt get all the way to having it fitted there are all the problems you said PLUS MORE!!! right so the bov return i just weled them up so it would snezze funny then with the relocation on the pw steering dont do it because its located lower than the pump will stuff it up really quick, i went and bought a uni alloy shinny one from america $40 ebay really good qualitly and thick mounted basicly where factory but fitts nice, then before you fit go get every flange faced because everyone leaks and isnt flush i found this out the hard way not a fun job when you do it 4-5 times get them all ground flat, ok so ya got it on now and fitted we go out buy some new hose clamps for the top pipes you do them up fully and abit more but they are the wrong size for the pipe yeh they seal at 1 bar but then leak at 1.5 bar trust me replace them.

or just got spent $1000 for a trust one i would if i had to do it again

Autobahn888

$400 for the kit

$40 pws tank

$25 pws hoses

$60 intercooler hose clamps

$80 machin the flanges flush

$40 alloy welding

$100 in beer

and about 10 hours work wif a few spanners lost after throwin across the shed.

[BoostdR]

I have one installed on my 4 door 33 Rb26dett, was also a pain in the butt. I have the first ever batch. The bov pipe was a waste of time, I moved the power steering tank to the front of the motor with having to change anything, the rest was just trial and error. I contacted performance wise and let him know of the issue's and what he needs to do to make this kit better. From what I can see he has done a few things but has a way to go. I also fitted R34 AFM's and have made a nice power improvement. So would I do it again?...actually, yes. For the money and the knowledge of what needs changing it would be a reasonably simply affair.

[Beer Baron]

I bought one of these for my GTR r33 and trust me all the same problems as you had on ya gtr but you didnt get all the way to having it fitted there are all the problems you said PLUS MORE!!! right so the bov return i just weled them up so it would snezze funny then with the relocation on the pw steering dont do it because its located lower than the pump will stuff it up really quick, i went and bought a uni alloy shinny one from america $40 ebay really good qualitly and thick mounted basicly where factory but fitts nice, then before you fit go get every flange faced because everyone leaks and isnt flush i found this out the hard way not a fun job when you do it 4-5 times get them all ground flat, ok so ya got it on now and fitted we go out buy some new hose clamps for the top pipes you do them up fully and abit more but they are the wrong size for the pipe yeh they seal at 1 bar but then leak at 1.5 bar trust me replace them.

or just got spent $1000 for a trust one i would if i had to do it again

Autobahn888

$400 for the kit

$40 pws tank

$25 pws hoses

$60 intercooler hose clamps

$80 machin the flanges flush

$40 alloy welding

$100 in beer

and about 10 hours work wif a few spanners lost after throwin across the shed.

this is exactly my point! the purchase price of the cheap shit china parts are low. but the hidden costs in fitting, modifying etc soon add up. and imagine if you dropped it to a workshop to fit. there would be a massive labour bill to go with it. and even after all that money spent you still have a cheaper looking autobahn88 piping kit, when for the same money, with less stress you could have bought a nice bolt-on trust kit. I did. :)

[Omurru]

I have been looking at buying one of these kits for a while, but from what you guys have said think I might steer clear!

On a side note I also have one of the cooling pro radiators in my GTR, I used some external ground leads, a high pressure cap and run straight water with the redline water wetter and it works awesome, been in there about 10 months now and seen a few track days with no issues or corrosion!

[rev210]

got the standard pipes back on now.

Paul from performance-wise has offered a full refund on the kit. He has corresponded with the factory and believes that the kit isn't designed to work with R32 GTR's.

When you look at the actual design intention closely. I have to say that it's wrong before it even starts. The Y tube is not really smoothed off inside the way its put together. I think there is a strong possibillity that you would go backwards in power with it. There isn't much thought behind the design at all. But, then again it's real cheap.

The air filters are made of chrome plastic and on the inside there are cast plastic dags that look like they may break off at some stage and go straight into the compressor setcion. And unlike say the HKS poison mushrooms I have they don't have a bell mouth inside the pod.

I notice that all the people who have put them on have had issues with both fitment and tune issues.

I would say that there is still plenty of work to do to make this a kit worth trying.

[rev210]

update.

It appears that now Performance-wise website has these no longer listed for R32. They do however list them as 'Bolt on' for R33 and R34.

Which I am sure they will be changing soon, given from above reports they actually aren't.

I am now just waiting for the refund to come through to close the chapter.

[STR8E180]

this thread could realli do with some pictures

[rev210]

If things go the wrong way on this I will post a step by step with pics and a full list of the faults with measurements and dimensions on all parts so that no one is under the false impression that this kit will work without serious modifications to it.

[Beer Baron]

well all I can say is I have bought 2 of the genuine trust full piping kits. I ran one on my 32 GTR that I had built in japan, and about to put one on my current 32. and the trust kit works beautifully. it looks great, it fits easily. no modification is required to fit it, either to the car or the piping kit. sure it costs probably double or triple the chinese copies, but if you look at how easy it is to fit, and how well designed and how well made and finished it is you'd have to say it'd be a comparative bargain at 10 times the price. and it's nice to buy the product from the people who spent the time and money developing it, and spent the money manufacturing it from quality materials and to high standards. those companies need our support to keep making good products. otherwise all we'll be left with is the cheap chinese stuff. and it's not just cheap in price....

[rev210]

Good point Beer Baron.

I've been known to dodge things together in my time but, this kit and the rest of the china bits coming out are beyond a joke. Someones not going to be laughing when eventually a motor or two is killed.

I got the kit back and was sent the new additional parts for the R32 kit , namely two bits of metal for relocating the alternator (so as not to foul the front intake pipe). The odds are really good with the obvious lack of care in other machining that the bolt holes don't line up and although I'm not going to test it I would suspect that you will need a new belt also.You some hose for the length required for relocation of the power steering pump and some clamps.

I've not been given a refund as I attempted to install the kit and I scratched and dirtied the parts piping in the process and did not have the complete packaging (plastic wrapping etc).

It wasn't a great deal of money so rather than pick on Paul at Performane-wise over a $30 profit margin, instead I thought I would catalogue the kit's shortfalls and why even if it did fit, I wouldn't go installing it.

I highly doubt anyone would go power positive with this kit and if you use the supplied airfilters you could enjoy having the turbos and engine ingest molten bits of plastic air filter.

Pics time.

First up every single one of the bolt up flanges are warped. quite nicely.

How warped are they?

I got my feeler gauges out to see.

The best was a small 0.9mm..... In the middle

The worst 2.3mm on both sides but, offset.

I initially dummied these up with goo on, assuming a flat surface. These things are cast and not really cleaned up except for being polished.

Bottom line: * Leaks on everyone of them (someone else found this). Go super power leaking technique !!!

Edited December 22, 2008 by rev210