Rb20 Rebuild Complete, For Those Interested

[Viper_r32]

Hey Guys and Gals firstly let me say a merry Christmas to you all and all the best for the new year.

Well, as a few of you are aware I have had a few dramas over the past few years regarding turbo’s and Engines, and I finally decided to get my RB20DET rebuilt. So for all those who are interested here is the whole story from start to finish trying to keep it as short as I can.

This all started a few years back when I decided to get my turbo High flowed by GCG and my ECU re-chipped by Nick Danger.

Every thing at first went great, Nick had done an awesome job at the tuning and the car was making I nice dose of 210rwkw

But then 6 months later my turbo died. after lots testing by both the mechanic (who will remain Nameless) and GCG. GCG clamed the turbo died due to oil contamination. WHAT, oil contamination, how did that happen?

I have always been one of those kind of people who is very fussy when it comes to quality and looking after my stuff, keep my cds scratch free, don’t lend my stuff out to mates and always change my Oil every 3 thousand kms with Motal full synthetic, so imagine my reaction when I said OIL CONTAMINATION HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

GCG would not replace the turbo under warranty, but did offer me special consideration and offered me a rebuild at a discounted price. So after going ahead with the rebuild les than a month latter the turbo died again.

GCG clamed again in there report that the turbo died due to oil contamination. My mechanic at the time had a massive augment over the phone with GCG saying that there is no way that it could have been oil contamination. He had flushed all the oil lines and tested them for flow, and it all checked out OK. GCG still clamed Oil contamination and there was nothing else I could do but fork out the cash again for another turbo rebuild.

This time I decided that something was defiantly wrong so when my newly rebuilt turbo arrived back from GCG I kept it in its box and took my skyline off the road for a while.

After quite a few mouths worth of saving and questioning what to do I decided to take the cheep way out. Because I didn’t have any idea what was causing the problem I decided to by a cheep RB20 and swap the old motor out. In a way I was hesitant to do this as my existing motor aside from its turbo issues always ran great, even after 160thousand ks it still had almost full compression and ran like a dream. Even during the original tuning process with the first turbo, Nick was impressed with the tune and response of the engine.

But I purchased another engine anyway from an engine importer (who will also remain nameless) and decided to go to a different mechanic.

When I purchased the engine there were specific things I asked for, like a guaranty of low ks and a full compression test (this can be done on a bench flow test).

Lets just say that the engine that arrived was not what I asked for or what the papers sent with it clamed, you could tell just by looking at it that it had had a really hard life, and if it looks warn on the out side guarantied its warn on the inside.

As with most engine and half cut importers if the engine starts, then that’s all there liable for. So there was no way I could send the engine back. (Lesson if you are going to buy an engine for an engine swap, make sure you lay your eyes on it before you fork over the cash)

So things went ahead with the swap, and I decided to get the work done by a different mechanic and decided on Skyline performance, having heard great things about them

While ripping out the original engine Joe and Phill at Skyline performance noticed a few things, the first was that the sump had a fairly large ding in the bottom of it. Now the funny thing is that I had always known this ding was there, though I never thought anything of it, as it was there when I first bought the car and it had never caused any dramas before. The second was when they inspected the oil lines for the turbo, the hole size was really small. Skyline performance informed me that these should have been drilled out when the turbo was high flowed.

I had the Oil lines drilled out, but unknowing weather or not this was the definite cause of the turbo problem and if there was metal or some other contaminant in my original engine. I decided to go ahead dropping in the replacement engine.

The work Skyline performance did was great. They swapped it over in a couple of days and my ride was back on the road once more. I kept my original engine and stored it in my shed with the plans of one day giving it a full rebuild.

Well that day came a lot sooner than expected!

The replacement engine was crap, as I had a felling it would be. The valve seals were obviously warn out and black smoke poured out the back like a giant chimney. I have to admit I felt embraced to drive it.

Months when past as I tried to work out what to do, new engine? RB25? RB26? And was it worth spending that kind of money on a car that was almost 20 years old and slowly depreciating in value.

After lots of discussion with friends and family I decided to take my original RB20 block in for a rebuild, I didn’t want to spend a truck load of cash so with the advice of skyline performance + a great price I decided on Rebuilding the Engine with the Original Pistons, Rods and Crank.

This was the plan

Rebuild the original RB20DET with the Original Pistons, Rods and Crank

Strip the block and chemical clean everything

Hone the bore

Re-grind the Crank

Full Nissan Gasket kit, including all seals

Replace all the bearings with Race Bearings

New Piston Rings

N1 oil pump + Jun Collar

Have the head serviced which included: regrinding the valve surface, regrinding of the cylinder head seats, new valve seals & valve guides, light polish of inlet and exhaust ports & replacement of exhaust manifold studs.

When they pulled apart the block the inside was in great condition, the bore only required a very light hone and the Crank only required a very light polish. only a few of the main borings were lightly scored, Now all this wasn’t to surprising as I have always tried to look after my engine, but what was surprising how ever was this.

You know the big dint in the sump I mentioned earlier, well there is this oil snorkel pipe that sits in the sump and sucks up the oil to feed it through the engine, and it was squashed against the sump floor where the ding was, blocking the hole. To be honest with how much it was squished in I’m surprised it was able to suck up anything.

Between the snorkel being squashed in, the oil line not being drilled out, and the old oil pump looking like it was at the end of its life. I’m not surprised I was having turbo problems.

Skyline performance did an amazing job, I was really grateful for there attention to detail, and Quality of workman ship. They spent the time to make sure the job was done properly, and I was happy to wait. They kept me informed on each stage of the build, and allowed me the opportunity to come around and inspect each stage and take photos of what had been done.

I needed a new harmonic balancer so I bought a nice brushed aluminum one off Phil for a good Price. There was an interesting time when the Big end bearings arrived and where the wrong size, it took a few attempts to get the right ones but this was because the RB20 Crank actually comes in two sizes and mine had larger journals. But the right ones arrived in the end and the rebuild continued.

Once the engine was together I came in to take some photos, my jaw dropped when I saw it. I had asked them if they could Paint the camshaft covers but what I didn’t expect was to have the inlet manifold polished and painted silver, the camgear cover painted metallic Blue, the aircon bracket painted Silver, one of the radiator pipes painted gold, and the crank angle sensor also painted gold. (unfortunately that crank angle sensor turned out to be faulty so it has been replaced and is no longer gold)

I would like to say a big thank you to “mccready” for giving me a replacement sensor. Greatly appreciated!

When they put the block in I also asked Joe if he had any silicon hose, so for a little extra cash he put some blue hose on the inlet pipes.

The engine is running great, I’m running it in with the boost controller off right now and not revving past five grand. Joe instructed me to use a non synthetic turbo oil to let the piston rings bed in for the first thousand ks. So once that is done it will be going in for a dyno tune, new plugs, boost controller retuned and full synthetic oil

Here are some pics I hope you enjoyed the read.

Before

After

[Gus-]

well worth the read...looks awesome.

[GTRKat]

Looks awesome! Congrats and enjoy running it in!!!

[livo]

man you have to name the importer and the 1st mechanic!!!!!!! shit service should always be named....

[Scooby]

cars are fun aren't they? well done for seeing it through properly. hope it's a long time before you need the spanners again.

[Viper_r32]

cars are fun aren't they? well done for seeing it through properly. hope it's a long time before you need the spanners again.

thanks dude, Appreciate it

[TURISMO]

Its good you got in touch with Joe and Phil, sounds like they really helped you out. They did the same for me when my clutch/gearbox went and then when my engine went. I recommend these guys to everyone!!!!!

I'm confident that your problems are under control. You will have to take me for a drive and vica versa when I get my new turbo (hks2510), exhaust, and NicTune.

RB20 PRIDE

[migs]

what race bearings did you use ?

[Bullet32]

Whoa! - Way to dig up an old thread!