Gerg_R31's N/a Rb26/30De

[Gerg_R31]

(this in my 2nd attempt at this build thread as the first thread I made I was not aware of a picture limit and became very messy and unorganised series of links and spelling mistakes etc)

(big thanks to N1GTR for helping me re organise this thread)

My R31 build thread and the RB30DE machining to long motor assembly details, Also there was a few things that I didn't get a photo of as somethings need both hands/ full concentration or I just plain forgot

Introduction

I bought this R31 Skyline Executive off the R31 forum for $1990

It came with, RB30E, auto, pod, extractors, 2.5" press bent exhaust, lowered, ti seats and 10 months rego

The Start Build

For a while I was restricted to P plate restrictions so I focused a bit on the cosmetic side of things

I bought;

Just Jap front bar and lip

Fibremaster side skirts

Fog lights

Lenso 17" rims from Tempe Tyres

I also rattle canned the the bumpers, and lower half of the doors in matt black, the two dark colours clashed so I used silver to split it up, then gave it numerous coats of clear. Later on I will get the entire car resprayed with the current colours and also have the car park dints and scratches removed

Converted it to manual, C**t of a job, but thanks goes to guska for wiring it up for me

I kinda got over the whole under breaking side of things so I decided to upgrade

I bought

R32 front calipers

R31 front hubs

R32 Slotted front rotors re-drilled to suit the 4 stud pattern

I took the r31 hubs into work, machined the break rotors off, and gave it a 30° chamfer. Break disc fits perfectly

Removed the old break calipers and hub, realized that the caliper bolt up pattern did not suit the r31 break caliper mounting point.

Did a search and found out garage7 already had the r31 floating hub conversion, bought the "dog bone" adapters, received them amazingly quick.

Put it all back together and then realized that one of the calipers had a stripped thread where the break line goes in.

Took it to work, drilled it out put a 10mm x1.5 heli-coil in

3rd attempt, all on, bled, then the wheel fouled the caliper. Bought some 15mm bolt on spacers. Took it back to work, used the lathe to trim down the original studs and the 14mm high nuts

4th attempt all on, lines all bled out, spacers on, all torqued down to 80ft pounds, breaks significantly better. Will up grade the break booster soon

Installed white line sway bars adjustable thicker front and thicker back

Had a stack, other driver at fault, his insurance gave me a decent pay out

The guys at Prestige Auto Repairs done one hell of a good job and at a good price;

Edited August 18, 2011 by Gerg_R31

[Gerg_R31]

RB30DE (machine work)

In Short

RB26/30DE, Torque plate honed, knife edged crank, blueprinted, balanced crank assembly, balanced pistons and rods, balanced valve train, wet flow bench porting, mis-match cam profiles 10.75:1 stainless steel +1mm vlaves, supertech springs and titanium retainers, je forged pistons, H beam steel rods, trumpet intake manifold haltech PS2000

Introduction

Naturally Aspirated RB30DE using the 3.0 Litre block and the RB26DE R33 GTR cylinder head. I was originally going to use a RB25DE VCT head, convert it to RB26 valve train and cams, but was going to try to work in the vct somehow, scrapped that idea and just bought the RB26 head

Block

The block I'm using, I pulled out of my old R31. Stripped it down, removed any crap that wasn't needed, then took it into work

Removed the rods and pistons, crank, discarded the old welsh plugs and bearings and put it in the acid bath to clean off all the sludge, oil, gunk, paint etc

Measured up the crank, it needed to be ground as it was just on bottom size.

I know we shouldn't bead blast the blocks, But I did it anyway, then with a hand linisher I machined down the tops of the welsh plug housing to prevent it fouling on the exhaust manifold

Knife edged crank counter weights to reduce the drag though the sump oil. It also took the weight of the crank from 24kgs to 23.7kg

Drilled and grub screwed the big ends, fitted crank collar and ground both big end and main journals

[Gerg_R31]

I went into Precision and measured up a couple boxes of rb30 H-beam conrods and made sure that each rod length was exactly the same length, 0 tolerance. I then bought a set of forged JE + 0.040" "RB30DE" pistons with a 10cc piston dome.

Honed out the conrod little end to fit the piston pin. Torqued up and measured the conrod big end made sure that they were all exactly on mid size (honed a couple)

Bought an Excedy heavy duty ceramic/carbon clutch kit and Extreme Chrome Moly Flywheel

Weighed all the pistons and pins, all were exactly the same weight

Weighed the Conrod big ends, few were out, got them all to match the lightest. Then weighed the total rod weight, and took the difference out of the small end

Sent the pistons off to get the top "tuff" coated for better heat absorbtion, and the pistons skirts teflon coated for less friction

Set up the crank on the digital balancer, made it dead on 0 at either end, was out a fair bit due to the knife edging. Then added the fly wheel, machined that until that was dead on 0, then added the pressure plate and once again machined that until that was 0. Reason for this is, if at any point I need to changed any part, i.e the pressure plate, I only have to rebalanced the pressure plate

Measured the pistons and calculated my piston to bore clearance to suit the motors usage.

Roughed out the block to 0.003" before finished size with the rough stones. Then Put torque plate on and torqued up the head studs. Then using finer stones brought it down to 0.0005" before finished size. Since I'm using chrome moly rings it needs a slightly more finer finish, so I used and even finer set of stones. Finishing with the plateau stones to microscopically de-burr the cross hatches

Using the machine is so much more accurate then hand honing as your can set up the spindle and stroke speeds so you can achieve a consistent 30° and 60° cross hatch angles.

Dummy assembled measured the piston to deck height, the pistons sat 0.003" lower towards the rear of the block, so when I set it up on the grinder I made sure that the rear sat 0.003" higher

Ground it so it was 0.001" deck height all around

Washed and painted

[Gerg_R31]

Cylinder Head

I purchased a RB26DETT cylinder head that came off a R33 GTR, it came complete with full intake manifold and cam covers.

I got it pretty cheap due to detonation in cylinders 1 and 6 plus 2 burnt out exhaust valves in them cylinders.

As usual I took it to work and removed the over head gear to make it easier to diagnose any issues after its been acid bathed briefly

Stripped it down completely removing the springs valves etc. Found bronze valve guides.... score I hate having to fit these f**kers

As per usual, bead blasted the head

Pressure testing the water galleries

Bead blasted the injector part of the intake manifold

Sent the head and intake manifold off for porting.

Had dry flow bench porting done to the exhaust and "wet flow bench" porting on the intake and manifold (its the same as a dry flow bench but there is a dye that is sprayed in to replicate the fuel, and they port to correct anything that may create an issue when the air and fuel are atomizing)

Also you may notice that I didn't get the ports smoothed out or "polished." If its too smooth the fuel will stick to it and it encourages the carbon to build up in both the intake and exhaust

[Gerg_R31]

See how perfect the manifold and intake ports are blended together

Since the RB26 cams are all designed to work with a turbo, I had to figure out a way to compensate. Camtech gave me a list of all their available cam grinds and with a few formulas, I worked out the best cams to suit my intended rev range and intentions for the motor. I then gave them the cams specs that I was interested in and they were ground to suit from billet castings.

10.77mm/ 0.424" Intake Lift

242° Intake Duration @ 0.050" valve lift

10.74mm/ 0.4228" Exhaust lift

252° Exhaust Duration @ 0.050" valve lift

I measured every lobe, and the lobes were all exactly identical in lift and duration, the usual quality that Camtech provides

(pictures are of both standard and Camtech intake cams)

The cam lobes fouled with the head so with a die grinder I cut away at the top of the bucket area until it cleared with enough extra clearance

I bought a set of adjustable cam gears, and a set of stainless steel 1mm over sized valves and valve springs to suit the cam.

The valve seats were cut on our new Newen CNC seat cutter. Since the machine has a single point cutter, it is unlimited in how many angles or how wide they can get. The angles I chose ;

Intake: 30° and 37° on the crown, 45° 1mm thick seat, 58° and 70° on the throat

Exhaust: radius crown and throat with a 45° 1mm thick seat

[Gerg_R31]

Assembled and measured all the clearances between the cam base circle and valve/ shim bucket, and machined the valves to suit making the valve clearances on the intake exactly 0.018" and exactly 0.015" on the exhaust. Once all the clearances were set, I back cut the intake valves adding a 1.5mm 30 angle

CC'd up the head, got 66.5cc's

Obviously too much, so I ground the head measuring after every 0.010" that was taken off, the first 0.020" took exactly 2 cc's off then it increased from there. End result, 0.080" was ground off reducing the chamber by 12cc's

Test fitted all the spark plugs and added washers until they all protruded the same distance and all faced towards the center of the two intake valves. CC'd each chamber and die ground the squish areas until each chamber matched the largest chamber of 53cc's

Weighed every peice of valve train, (valve, spring, retainer, shim, bucket) as a complete unit and weight matched every set to the lightest by removing material off the bottom of the buckets

Measured installed spring height, put the spring in a spring tester and got 60lbs seat pressure, put the standard and a 0.050" spring base washer underneath and got it up to 85lbs

The spring coil binds at 0.580" / 15mm after installed height, so after 0.080" / 2.03mm was taken out for clearance, I was left with the max spring lift of 0.500" / 12.7mm, since my cams are 0.425" / 10.8mm lift I got plenty of room

Final head wash

[Gerg_R31]

Assembly time.

Kero washed everything, assembled, measured and calculated clearances, ring gaps etc, with flexi, feeler and dial gauges etc. Pulled apart re washed, then assembled using natural thiners and non-synthetic oils and assembly/ run in lubes, roughly dialing the cams in. All the usual stuff that should be done. I took my time and finally finished it over 2 weeks of making sure everything is 100% spot on and perfect

crank clearances all on mid size, piston to valve clearance 0.130" on intake 0.0180 on exhaust

Fitted the one off carbon fibre lower timing cover made. Had 3 dash 8 fittings welded onto the sump and fitted that, one for the drain kit, 2 for a catch can a bit further down the track. Also fitted the 90 amp alternator, engine mount brackets.

Pulled out the old rb30e, dropped the RB26/30DE in

Bought spitfire coil packs, silicon hose kit, fitted the ITB intake manifold, power steering

Sent it to Liverpool exhaust, they fitted equal length 3 into 2 into 1 extractors, hi flow cat, 2.5" mandrel bent exhaust with a resonator and a straight through muffler. Fitted the carbon fibre upper timing cover and coil pack cover when I got it back

Mick at Mick Motorsports wired up the Haltech Pro Sport 2000

I've since the tune, I had a little E10 in 98 pump problem, gave the head a quick reco but with very exact details everything like last build, while the head was off I started to make up my own ram tube manifold with gizmo thermal intake manifold gaskets

Mick at Mick Motorsports is sorting out the throttle body linkages and doing the final tune with cam timing and stuff

above is the most recent picture, not everything was put on as that was more of a dummy assemble

picked up an oil cooler and oil catch can to put on when it gets back

Edited August 18, 2011 by Gerg_R31

[kitto]

I love it! That is awesome! I have a track R31, and i'm currently collecting all my parts to build up my RB26 for it. Except i'm keep one turbo hehe.

Nice detail with the engine building! I'm still pulling my hair out, as to where to go here in SA to get mine assembled.

[blk180]

Love the detail in this motor, cant wait to see what it makes power wise after the final tune.

[jamie curran]

nice build man, must say i havent seen that kinda setup before. keep the updates comin

[Silvia GTR]

P plater build of the year!

[Gerg_R31]

kitto ; ty, and im sure there are many good s.a based machinists that will do a good job

blk180 : ty again, will let everyone know with a dyno sheet

jamie curran : ty will do, though nothing new yet

Silvia GTR : this isn't a P plate build, nor is it P plate legal. Yeah I built it whilst on my P's got off my P's then put it in. so if there are any P platers reading this I'd advise against copying this till atleast their opens. with the wrong choice of words out of the way (dont stress im not always the best with my choice of words) the message did come across with good intentions so ty

[StealthX]

MOTHER OF GOD!

[fatz]

skidz?

[Humbla]

Top work there young man,you should be very proud of your self.

[PL4T]

wow! must keep the updates coming!!

[Gerg_R31]

got told the car should be right to pick up from micks around the end of next week, so hopefully ill have a few new pics, dyno sheet, and maybe a video or 2

but in the mean time i'll throw up a few drag videos of the cars mick has tunned

(1200 dato ute vs r35)

(micks 12 second N/A gemini)

[Humbla]

Omg that is amazing,he realy knows what he's doing.

[Gerg_R31]

Should we start making bets on how much it will make?

So far;

My boss 170kw

Friend 190kw

the 1st year 199kw

mechanic near work 210kw

[fatz]

400kw once you put a turbo on it