My Top Mount Conversion - Garrett Gt3076r Turbo

[anthonymcgrath]

hi all

for the last 6-7 months I've been working on my car - 33gtst. I've done a top mount conversion for it and fitted a Garrett GT3076R turbo, a Greddy GTR style plenum and a Q45 throttle body. I've also fitted some other bits - larger boost pipes, external wastegate, adjustable fuel pressure regulator. The ecu is a G4 link plugin and I'll be fitting an AEM UEGO wideband sensor and gauge this wkend too.

There are lots of pics on www.skylineowners.com - my thread is here...

Project GT3076R top mount turbo conversion

I've actually never done anything like this before but decided to have a go. At the end of it all I wanted to get my car up to 500bhp but know that I did the engine work and the mapping myself.

I've posted a first firing up on youtube here:

r33gtst - GT3076R top mount turbo conversion

I'd warmed it up once or twice prior to this run with the help of Richard @ Rising Sun here in the UK as tech support over the phone. In the vid its idling quite high due to numerous air leaks which I've since nipped up. also the idle valve needed adjusting. The tappyness is because the oil hasn't quite yet circulated round the engine. The gurgline at the end is because of air trapped in the radiator - I'm still trying to work that out the system. Any advice most welcome. A friend said cut a top off a bottle place it in radiator filling point and fill with water then let the engine run but not sure how that works - wont I flood the system with too much water?

I've fired it up again this evening and the tapping has gone so thats good. I'm still trying to get the air out the system but the ECT seems to climb up quite alot which I'm a bit concerned about - it was heading for 88degrees C at one point so I switched it off and thought I'll let the air naturally get out the radiator by leaving the cap off. Without the bleed valve it seems alot slower for it to get the air out.

anyhow hope you like the vid - heres a better quality pic of the bay...

next steps are fit AEM wb - I'm just gonna put it in the downpipe where the narrowband one is for the moment - the AFR might be out slightly but it should be okay to get up n down the road for the minute I think and allow the ecu to adjust the low load cells.

[NA_Goodness]

Putting the bottle in the radiator makes that the highest point, so all the air goes there. Alternatively you can put the front of the car on the hoist and lift it up so the radiator cap the highest point.

Like this:

[Proximity Motorsport]

awesome turbo choice for the rb25. Good luck with it

[usmair]

saw yr GTR transformer... awesome lol

[anthonymcgrath]

hey guys cheers

bit of a backward step today - once I put the rad cap on, the greddy plenum I fitted actually sprouted a leak underneath. It actually turned out that a couple of the bolts that hold the water pipe on underneath the plenum were threaded through. I've whipped it off today and I'm gonna take the plenum to the head shop near me to helicoil the plenum again. They can check the plenum mating face for flatness afterward too along with the other threads. and ensure they're all okay before I put it back on.

It'll also give me a chance to do a few other jobs - namely

-fit a nismo thermostat

-fit a sandwich plate for the oil filter so i can fit oil temp & pressure gauges

-change fuel filter (tho that one is easy)

-recon the starter motor.

the reason for recon'in the starter motor is I have had a battery issue since I've had the car. I've tried everything to stop it draining the battery but had no luck. A friend of mine who is has been a car spark for the last 30 years couldn't find the issue after 4 hours testing wiring. I'm hoping that if I can change the starter motor or recon it I'll fix the problem as I hear the starter motor is a common one for draining the battery - can anyone vouch for this?

other than that the car is sounding ALOT smoother. I nipped up boost pipes around the fmic and amended the idle some more and it purrs. The cylinder head sounds so much smoother than before so once I get this plenum issue sorted and the other bits I should be good to go

oh thanks for the nice works about me transformer animation too!

Edited October 16, 2010 by anthonymcgrath

[t_revz]

hey guys cheers

bit of a backward step today - once I put the rad cap on, the greddy plenum I fitted actually sprouted a leak underneath. It actually turned out that a couple of the bolts that hold the water pipe on underneath the plenum were threaded through. I've whipped it off today and I'm gonna take the plenum to the head shop near me to helicoil the plenum again. They can check the plenum mating face for flatness afterward too along with the other threads. and ensure they're all okay before I put it back on.

It'll also give me a chance to do a few other jobs - namely

-fit a nismo thermostat

-fit a sandwich plate for the oil filter so i can fit oil temp & pressure gauges

-change fuel filter (tho that one is easy)

-recon the starter motor.

the reason for recon'in the starter motor is I have had a battery issue since I've had the car. I've tried everything to stop it draining the battery but had no luck. A friend of mine who is has been a car spark for the last 30 years couldn't find the issue after 4 hours testing wiring. I'm hoping that if I can change the starter motor or recon it I'll fix the problem as I hear the starter motor is a common one for draining the battery - can anyone vouch for this?

other than that the car is sounding ALOT smoother. I nipped up boost pipes around the fmic and amended the idle some more and it purrs. The cylinder head sounds so much smoother than before so once I get this plenum issue sorted and the other bits I should be good to go

oh thanks for the nice works about me transformer animation too!

starters dont usually drain power unless stuck in which you would hear. if you havent had any starter grief then i highly doubt its going to solve your problem

[anthonymcgrath]

not had any starter grief mate no - it seems to fire up first time every time on the starter - I just figured it'd be good to whip it off while I can get to it easily and recondition its inside bits

okay while the plenum is off I decided to do coupla jobs. Thermostat for one and I've had a mocal 19row oil cooler on the car in the past so thought I'd stick it back on. It had thermostat and oil filter relocation but tbh I cant fit those bits with all the other stuff under the hood. I've decided to remove the old oil modene, fit a sandwich plate for the gauges, then a sandwich plate for the oil cooler. here's a pic or two...

no work in progress pic but whipped this bit off and fitted a nismo thermostat... easy job to do!

here's a close up pic of the fitting on my oil line.. the hose is aeroquip -8AN (1/2" ID) with this push on fitting...

I need to change this fitting for a female end as its going to bolt onto the mocal sandwich plate I've ordered..

and here's how I'm gonna run my oil lines - I prefer this to all the thermostat and oil filter reloc... its not too hard to take a filter off a gtr or anything so I'm happy with it being pretty much where it is...

I do have a Q tho... here's the greddy sandwich plate and a centre bolt. 2 different forum users very kindly sent me these bits. However there appears to be about 1mm of gap between the centre bolt and the middle of the plate so I dont think this bolt is designed for the plate. Will this be okay once its all bolted up to the block? I cant seem to get the centre bolt for the greddy plate separately Obviously I'm worried if this will be bolted up and move then oil would leak out would it not?

any thoughts most welcome guys thankyou

[XRATED]

Are you using the oil lines in the pic's??? Are the fittings a usual barb or are they pushlock (they look pushlock)?

You should never use a hose clamp on a pushlock hose/fitting. It cuts the hose on the inside and pushes the hose up either side of the clamp.

Cheers

Justin

[anthonymcgrath]

hi Justin

those lines were on the car from the start. The fittings do have a kind of double barbed thing - they look pretty much like this..

when you say dont use the hoseclamp do you mean the silver jubilee clip around the aeroquip hose? (sorry I've noticed some SAU terminology is different from UK Stuff lol).. if so they're not fastened on tight.

The car was like this for about 2 years without issue and solid oil temps - I'm just recreating what existed previously but without the oil filter reloc and the thermostat in between sandwich plate and oil cooler. Surely it'll be okay still wont it?

[hnito2]

nice build, keep it up!

[anthonymcgrath]

cheers mate

saturday I managed to get the oil cooler on & sandwich plates on the car...

blocked off these spots & ran a 3/4" heater hose I got off ebay.. so I didn't have the awkward shaped metal pipe underneath and end up blocking off two more spots...

stuck plenum back on and everything else. Topped up with coolant. Realised that I hadn't put the banjo bolt back on the block for my turbos water line. Fixed that. Retopped back up with coolant. Added oil (not to the coolant lol!) 10hrs later I was about set. Went to bed instead because the thought of firing it up and it causing me a heap of issues wouldn't have sat well with me after all that work!

next day (sunday) I got back in garage. Engine fired up right away which was good. Adjusted ign timing using timing gun and CAS unit... This video is shortly after I took it around the block just to see how its shaping up. Seems to want to move even on very low load - much more responsive than it used to be. My old erratic timing signal is also sorted now - it used to jump from 15 to 5 to 20 to 0 just on idle. Seems fixing the cylinder head has made a big difference methinks

top mount GT3076 turbo swap - second test

wired in my wideband gauge yday and got it talking to my link G4 ecu so thats cool. Next up tonight is connecting the wiring off my sender units to my gauges in my A pillar.

gotta say its nice to actually do jobs that dont involve getting covered in oil lol!

Edited November 2, 2010 by anthonymcgrath

[anthonymcgrath]

Quick update to this - its been running and on the road for a few weeks pottering to work n back just fine. However the 2 sandwich plates thing doesn't seem to be the best idea ever done despite ppl saying its fine and plenty people run cars this way. The oil seems to be leaking out from somewhere around the plates or the oil filter and I cant seem to fathom out where exactly. Fortunately it decided to do this in the garage and not at 80mph down the motorway to work.

I need to jack it up and give it a good looking over but tbh with having the lurgy in the last week, working 14hour days since oooo september and the foot of snow that landed on the country I dont think its worth me bothering with it just yet or panicking too much heh

another thing I noticed is fairly high oil pressure of about 100psi more often than not - I can understand in the first 15-20 mins of driving and it does indeed drop to about 60psi if the car is idling. If I accelerate again or pick up speed the oil pressure climbs back to about 80-90psi doing about 70-80mph. Does that sound quite high to some folks at all? I'm wondering if its down to my -8AN oil lines for my cooler being too thin possibly so I'm gonna size them up to -10AN instead and see how it goes.

[anthonymcgrath]

hey all

well I simplified my life a little from the above post, removed the oil cooler and just decided to have the oil temp sensor and oil pressor sensor fitted. Alot of this was down to me worrying about having 2 sandwich plates so now I just use an rb20 oil modene and the sandwich plate for the sensors. I have a sandwich plate which will take -8AN lines and 2 senders so down the line I might fit a small oil cooler off the modene in place of the current plate I have now.

anyway that all said it ran me back and to work numerous times for a good couple of months without issue. Then I finally got a long wkend off to take it down to cambridgeshire/UK for mapping. There was a few niggles over the day - a dodgy CAS, needing some cooler plugs and beading my intercooler pipes but once that was all done, it seemed to go quite smoothly. Martin estimates my car is making a solid 450bhp @ 1.4 bar.

a small road tuning clip - I was so impressed at this point and it was only making actuator pressure 1bar and the ign timing hadn't been altered yet either!

this video has enraged a few ppl who've seen it - ghetto dyno (jack car up, load up the wheels with the brakes as you make boost) but it was necessary as by this point we'd been out numerous times to the mways to make power and with it being a 20min trip from the workshop to said mway each time it mounts up!

just a close up of the boost gauge - love the way it rips through the boost heh!

the car is quite simply a feckin time machine now! It makes power so easily its head spinning! The turbo as I'm sure some of you will vouch just sounds like a fighter jet! Off boost on city driving its really easy and drives itself mostly. In 3rd gear on full chat it can lose traction with the power and its only just putting it down on the ground! Martin also set me up with a high/low boost button so 1bar low and 1.4bar high. I also have launch control setup too which is a hoot!

future plans - I'm looking to put some bigger top feed injectors in, a dual fed rail, a 5bar map sensor and a bosch044 pump, and I should be able to make 1.8bar of boost & 550bhp with any luck which will be truly frightening which it is now tbh! I must be mad!

Gonna need some thicker tyres, arch rolling and camber sorting on the rear methinks or I'll never lay that power down heh!

for anyone thinkin of doing this conversion