R33 GTR - Daily for 7 years and counting

[jimnastic]

May 2016 - I wanted a way of monitoring boost pressure that was better than the fairly inaccurate stock gauge, but I like to keep everything looking as stock as possible, so sticking a gauge on top of the dash wasn't an option. I decided on switching out the old Greddy boost controller with a HKS EVC-S, as it displays boost on an LCD, and it's much smaller than the Greddy, but I just had to work out a stealthy spot to mount it

The JVC head unit I have in the car doesn't have a CD player, so I pulled it apart to see if there would be any room inside to fit the controller behind the face plate. A few minor modifications with a dremel, and this is the result (excuse the dust). I also removed the clear plastic that covers the LCD on the head unit face plate, and removed all of the logos that were on there, just leaving the model number. Makes it look a lot cleaner

With the face plate closed, you'd never know it's there

Also got this carbon fiber air guide, mostly just to cover everything up around the bonnet latch to make it look less cluttered

Edited March 13, 2017 by jimnastic

[GH05T]

haha i like that head unit mod man.

[jimnastic]

June 2016 - I had a feeling that the fuel pump might be going bad, and now with the wideband fitted, I could see that AFRs weren't quite what I expected them to be. Swapped the stock one out for a Walbro GSS342, and immediately noticed a difference, the car was easier to start and didn't feel as flat anymore through the revs

Also swapped the Power FC out for an R32 Nistune ECU, as I really wanted the data logging options that the Nistune has, plus various other reasons that I can no longer remember. It was a good move though, the Nistune software is a lot nicer to use than the tiny PFC hand controller

[jimnastic]

July 2016 - Two things for this month, one minor and one major

The minor one: Inspired by this blog post, I fitted an S15 boot brace, which required 4 x 16mm spacers and 4 x M10 50mm fine thread bolts to fit. I personally couldn't feel the difference that others have claimed it makes, but it does look kinda cool I guess lol

The major one: A brand new pair of -9's with ceramic coated exhaust housings, because new turbos good, old turbos bad, that's as far as my reasoning went

 

[Anfanee]

That head unit mod is flat out ingenious. 

[jimnastic]

August 2016 - Had the car off the road for a few weeks while I slowly made my way through swapping the turbos. Having never stripped down this side of the engine before, I didn't want to rush it, and it gave me an opportunity to give every bit a good clean as things went back together. The whole process was made a lot longer when I found a leaking copper washer after putting everything back together, which meant pretty much pulling the whole thing apart again just to change one washer.

All the time and money was worth it when I took it for the first drive and heard the sound they make!

 

 

Edited March 16, 2017 by jimnastic

[jimnastic]

September 2016 - Fiiiiiinally got around to replaced the stock shocks. I went with a set of Bilstein B6 shocks (front B46-2107 & rear B46-2108) and man do they make a difference. Also gave one of the calipers a quick and dirty coat of clear coat just to get an idea of how much better they'd look. It's 6 months later now and I still haven't done the others, I'm tossing up if I should redo them in black or go another colour

[JDM33R]

Love this!!!

I use my R33 gtr as a daily also. Engine was rebuilt at 100,000km in 2013 (cheating a little) and now has 180,000km.

What a genius head unit mod!!

 

Keep it coming.

[jimnastic]

Haha looks like the head unit mod is a hit. I've done a few other things like that but I wasn't sure if they were worth posting. When I'm done catching up on the old stuff, I might do a few posts documenting all of that stuff

Mine is currently on around 175000km and still going strong. A rebuild isn't in the budget yet, but it's definitely part of the plan one day!

[jimnastic]

October 2016 - I suspected the injectors may not be quite as good as they were 170000km and 21 years ago, so let's upgrade them too. Got a set of Bosch EV14 1000cc injectors and a ballast delete plug from NZEFI. This was an easy swap as they fit into the stock rail and wiring harness, then I just punched the right settings into the ECU, did some data logging and fine tuning, and it's all good. Idle was noticably improved, and the car felt a lot smoother to drive around

A bonus to doing this was that I could now completely remove the bracket that the ballast and the stock boost solenoid are attached too, and there was just enough room to tuck the delete plug under the fuse box. Two other new additions are a hard pipe kit, as during the turbo install I found one of the rubber pipes was starting to split, and I also found some adhesive backed foam to go on the air box snorkel

[r32-25t]

How do you listen to the radio after the boost controller mod?

[WHITEBEAST]

The stock boost gauge/temp/oil gauge can be replaced with new ones without to much difference to looks. They are mirror image when ACC are off (I'd buy black ones next time).

Edited March 17, 2017 by WHITEBEAST

[Count Grantleyish]

12 hours ago, r32-25t said:

How do you listen to the radio after the boost controller mod?

Why would you want to listen to tunes when you've got Nissan's finest motor out front  

[r32-25t]

Cause I'm old

[Count Grantleyish]

On 3/17/2017 at 11:26 AM, jimnastic said:

October 2016 - I suspected the injectors may not be quite as good as they were 170000km and 21 years ago, so let's upgrade them too. Got a set of Bosch EV14 1000cc injectors and a ballast delete plug from NZEFI. This was an easy swap as they fit into the stock rail and wiring harness, then I just punched the right settings into the ECU, did some data logging and fine tuning, and it's all good. Idle was noticably improved, and the car felt a lot smoother to drive around

A bonus to doing this was that I could now completely remove the bracket that the ballast and the stock boost solenoid are attached too, and there was just enough room to tuck the delete plug under the fuse box. Two other new additions are a hard pipe kit, as during the turbo install I found one of the rubber pipes was starting to split, and I also found some adhesive backed foam to go on the air box snorkel

One question, What do you control the boost with?

Stock solenoid or MAC valve? 

I'm liking the resistor delete mod. 

[jimnastic]

On 3/17/2017 at 10:20 PM, r32-25t said:

How do you listen to the radio after the boost controller mod?

It still works while the face plate is down. I find that the stock gauge is sort of good enough most of the time, and I only need to look at the controller if I want a more specific number, so I usually leave the face plate up

10 hours ago, Count Grantleyish said:

One question, What do you control the boost with?

Stock solenoid or MAC valve? 

I'm liking the resistor delete mod. 

When I had the turbos out, I mounted the HKS solenoid under the air box. I extended the wires and ran them with all the stock wiring under the rail in front of the radiator, and through the quarter panel. I made a point of hiding everything as much as possible, so there's no hint that anything has been modified

[jimnastic]

I found a picture from when I had the quarter panel off to do the wiring. I changed the headlight bolts hidden in the front bar to wing bolts at some stage, so when I need to take the headlights out, I can just remove the front indicators and stick my arm the bar and undo them by hand. Now I can have both headlights out in about 5 minutes 

[jimnastic]

November 2016 - When I did the timing belt a few years ago, I didn't do the water pump for some reason, so you can imagine my surprise when it started leaking. So I stripped the front of the engine down and replaced:

-Water pump (21010-24U27)

-Timing belt (13028-5L327)

-Aux belts (?)

-Idler & tensioner bearings (?)

-Cam seals (13042-16V00 x 2)

-Crank seal (13510-10Y10)

-CAS seal (13568-05U00)

While on the subject, I got the A/C tensioner pulley bearing replaced a few years ago, and the bearing place told me it's a 6301 (size? part #?) bearing, which cost me a total of maybe $5 to replace, compared to $100+ for a new pulley

Also while everything was off, I painted the engine covers as well. I used VHT metallic engine paint, which uses a silver metallic base coat, and then a red top coat. It came out pretty well, but if I were to do it again, I'd do more layers of red, or just get them powder coated

I

One more thing, I found that the rubber bonnet stops can be replaced with ones from a Nissan Patrol. I don't have a picture of them installed, but the part number is 90878-2L700

[Count Grantleyish]

When I had the turbos out, I mounted the HKS solenoid under the air box. I extended the wires and ran them with all the stock wiring under the rail in front of the radiator, and through the quarter panel. I made a point of hiding everything as much as possible, so there's no hint that anything has been modified

Ah, didn't see the HKS boost control. Assumed you ran with MAC valve, my bad.

EVC 4/5 yeah?

[jimnastic]

EVC-S