Dirty Thirty - Two

[timmy_89]

Nice read. Car has definitely come a long way haha.

What's the plans after fixing the current problem?

[Tim_zenki]

absolutely love this!

[fricktion]

About to head overseas so the car probably won't get any attention until March next year, on lock down in the garage until I get back haha. Planning to upgrade sump and oil pump next and hopefully work out why it lost oil pressure. Next steps will be a final tune on high boost then GTR guards and bigger wheels. Hopefully some 17" BBS RS.

[fricktion]

Would love to fit a set of these on the car 17x11 and 17x9.5 wrapped in semi slicks

[fricktion]

So I obviously didn't understand the gravity of losing oil pressure at high rpm when I posted on here last although here we are 15 Months later and I'm getting close to having her up and running again.

The engine came back out and the N1 oil pump was in pieces. The bearings weren't looking too healthy either to say the least and there were some decent marks on the cylinder walls and crank. So that was a bloody expensive 700km's!

Thankfully the block, pistons and crank cleaned up pretty well and were able to be re-used. The block was decked and cylinders honed another .0005IN. The engine has just been balanced and should all go back together this week. Hoping to have it in the car and running before the end of the month.

New Parts:

ATI 750hp Damper

Nitto Oil Pump

High Capacity 6.5L Gated Sump

Rear Head Oil Drain to Sump

King Mains

King Big Ends

Wiseco Piston Rings JE Lockwire

Manley H Beam+ Conrods

Supertech Valve Springs & Titanium Retainers

GTR PS Pump

NPC Carbotic Button Clutch

NPC Lightened Billet Flywheel

[fricktion]

So as it turned out, the pistons and crank were not ok. When we went to re-assemble the engine we found some pretty nasty marks on the crank so f*ck it, let's start again from scratch and do this thing properly.

Bought a new standard crank, had the oil ways modified again and fitted a new Nitto crank collar to match the Nitto oil pump. Scrapped the Wiseco forgies and put in new Nitto/JE 87mm Forged Pistons with Manley H Beam Plus Forged Rods. Lewis Engines made up some oil restrictors, Rear Head Drain and a 6.5L High Capacity Sump. New King Bearings. New Genuine Nissan Water Pump, GTR Power Steering Pump and an ATI Super Damper.

The head has been taken apart and cleaned up again. It was already ported and polished although we've ported the inlet side further and manifolds port matched. RB26 Cams and Supertech Valve Springs with Titanium retainers and fitted the Rear Head Drain to Sump.

Bought all new gaskets genuine from Nissan, genuine Nissan bolt kits for everything from manifolds to engine mounts and driveshaft. NPC Billet flywheel and clutch were bolted up with new ARP Bolts.

There were absolutely no shortcuts and literally no expenses spared this time around. This thing has got to be right!

Finally was ready for start up and she turned over but wouldn't kick. There was no injector pulse. Ordered in a new CAS from Nissan and it fired up straight away, sounded nice and smooth but was billowing black smoke. The fuel in the car was over 12 months old so drained the tank and put some fresh stuff in but it was still blowing a ton of smoke.

We started stripping back the wiring harness and found quite a few frayed wires which were shorting on each other and I knew we had a few bad plugs in the loom already. So started searching for a new loom. The 32 RB25DE is a different loom to RB20 and Rb25 which made it impossible to find one in Aus. Every Jap spares shop in Sydney had a good laugh when I asked for a skyline loom, let alone a 25DE loom. Finally found an RB20 loom which came out of a car with low km's and had good plugs so started chopping it up and replacing the plugs. The frayed wires were replaced and soldered/insulated properly.

Finally she started up clean and got some time on the dyno.

[fricktion]

After some run in time on the dyno it started developing a very very slight miss at around 5000rpm. So some fresh Splitfire coils went in.

[fricktion]

The boost gauge started playing up so had to go back to running off wastegate pressure. Does anyone know where to get a Greddy B SPec 2 boost guage repaired? Or is it worth just buying a new one?

Making nearly 240kw on a base tune @ 9psi

[fricktion]

I've put about 450km's on the new engine now, a good run down to Woollongong through the national park and back, and a couple of trips up the Old Pacific Hwy. No real troubles, the front sway bar came loose but was easily fixed with some new bolts and locktite... Until Monday night this week I noticed a couple of drops of oil on the driveway. I was going to take it back into the shop at 500km's for a once over and fresh oil anyway. Couldn't see any leaks from the top and the dipstick was still showing full so I put a 5L oil container in the boot just in case and went for a run up to Brooklyn. On the way back I was working it pretty hard up the hill and noticed a little bit of tappet noise. Oil pressure looked good on the guages but I pulled over anyway just to double check the oil level and literally as soon as I pulled up the handbrake the oil light came on...... Not a drop of oil on the dipstick.... Ended up pouring the whole 5L container in and was only just showing, and there was a pretty good oil slick under the car by then too. So at midnight on a Monday night I put it on a flatbed and took it back to the shop.

This car absolutely f**king hates oil pressure. Fortunately this time we didn't do any damage and destroy another fresh engine but if I hadn't of noticed the tappet noise right away and it ran dry at 5500rpm we'd be back at square one.... again.

As it turned out the braided line running to the sump from the head drain was leaking. Must have been a cheap bit of braided hose and the leak worsened very quickly as it got hot. So that's been replaced now and it's full of Royal Purple again. In better news we opened up the oil filter and after 450km's it's still clean as ferk, so it seems to be running in well.

Going to put another 1000km's on the engine before bringing it back in to take the sump back off and put the inner relief spring back in the Nitto pump. Engine builder thinks we're better off running it at 120psi than the 75psi it's on now. Also, on start up oil is being directed through the oil cooler before the engine oil ways so it runs dry for a couple of seconds. Thinking about putting some sort of one way valve into the oil cooler fitting so that oil can't drain back to the sump. Has anyone solved this issue before?

[fricktion]

Once again it's been a while since I've posted here but things have been happening. Updates to come....

[Nismo 3.2ish]

I thought you necked yourself, modded cars, just gotta love em, lol

[fricktion]

Ah man tell me about it!!

As soon as I got the car home again it went back up on stands.

I picked up some some big 324mm Rotors second hand along with the dog bone adapters to run the standard caliper.

Some of the backing plate had to be grinded out although they fitted up pretty easily.

The standard brake pad is too small for the bigger rotor so I used a Mitsubushi Evo brake pad and cut it down to fit so that it covered as much surface area as possible on the rotor.

While the front of the car was up I had some new arms to go in as well. I was running cheap adjustable LCA's but the rose joints were clunky as and they kept coming loose so I replaced them with HardRace arms with pillowball joints. The difference in quality was pretty obvious right away.

[admS15]

What model evo brake pads did you use and mod?

[fricktion]

Evo 8 Pads and cut 10mm off each end.

[WantGTR]

Have you driven it with the bigger rotor? Was thinking of doing this during my brake service

[fricktion]

So after the brakes and control arms were fitted up I took the car for a test drive.....

5mins into that drive I started noticing a rattling noise as boost came on... What could have come loose? It didn't sound like the brakes or the new arms. Oh wait.....

That's bearing noise... that slu*ty sump return fitting. f**k.

I put it in fifth gear and drove straight into the workshop.

Once it was all apart again it turned out it had spun a bearing... My suicidal Rb just tried to kill itself again, after everything I'd done for it.

So fast forward a few months, another new crank and bearings and here we are keeping the dream alive. Now running 120psi Oil pressure. Removed the oil cooler so that it gets oil pressure immediately on start up and things have been good...So far....

[fricktion]

Have you driven it with the bigger rotor? Was thinking of doing this during my brake service

Yep I've done some driving on it although no real hard driving or track time. Certainly a noticeable difference in stopping time though it's definitely worthwhile. Really fills out a 17" rim too!

[fricktion]

For as long as I've been playing with this car I've wanted to fit bigger wheels but the money kept going into other things that were more urgent. So late last year I set aside a $3k budget for wheels. Hoping a set of second hand 3p Meisters or Gram Lights would come up for sale within reach of that budget.... By March this year I got impatient and ordered a new set of Rota d2ex 18x9.5 +15 and 18x10+15

There's a set of s1 meisters for sale now though that I'm wishing I bought instead ffs.

Rota's don't get a great wrap but if they're good enough for the Driftworks team they're probably good enough for me, and f**k it they look good!

Trouble is they don't fit.............

After a fair bit of shoe horning, adjusting the track out a bit and the camber in, they fit, with about 1mm to spare.

[fricktion]

The fronts are even worse...

[fricktion]

After winding the coilovers up a fair bit, adjusting the camber all the way in and adjusting the caster so that the wheel sat further back in the arch I managed to get them to fit without rubbing but it's a very temporary solution. It feels like absolute shit to drive.

The plan was to fit some GTR front guards but a set of dmax +25mm fibreglass guards came up for sale which i grabbed instead. Still not sure whether I like them though, I think I'd rather the cleaner look of the gtr guards. Test fitted them today.