2DR-H8N Lucas ER34

[TKUSHI_ER34]

Thought i should post in here instead of my newbie introduction haha 

 

Picked up this 1998 ER34 skyline a few weeks ago, loving it at the moment. 

SPECS: 

RB25DET NEO

109,XXXKm 

AUTO

3inch XFORCE Catback

Cusco zero coilovers 

HKS AVC6 boost controller 

splitfire coilpacks 

no name brand 17’s 

CONS:

1. Overboosting atm (haven’t installed HKS AVC6 yet ) 

2. It’s auto hahaha 

3. Yellowed/faded xenon headlight (FIXED 01/04/2019)

 

will be updating periodically as I work on this old girl   

 

 

[KiwiRS4T]

I like the look of the 4 door R34. Those wheels not to my taste though...

[TKUSHI_ER34]

13 hours ago, KiwiRS4T said:

I like the look of the 4 door R34. Those wheels not to my taste though...

The wheels are horrendous haha. Not my choice by any means 

 

will be replaced on the ASAP 

[CeJay]

looks good

[TKUSHI_ER34]

⚠️⚠️WARNING HUUUUGE UPDATE... ⚠️⚠️

 

Shit where do I even start, been very quiet due to going through a massive rebuild. 

Not long after making this topic I had a head gasket failure on the dyno, pushed water out of number 6 ?

Original plan was to clean the block and deck the head and throw some studs and a decent head gasket in it and call it a day..... didn't really turn out that way haha 

 

First thing first was to check the damage

First up was pulling the intake manifold, never undertaken this on an RB25 before. Don't think I'll ever want to again haha

 

This was spark plug #5 On the right and #6 on the left

Here we have the head gasket as you can see disintegrated on cyl6

 

 

So at this stage I was still planning on just doing a gasket change and clean and having the car back on the road within 2 weeks max. This is where things got a little out of hand. 

Ordered the headstuds and gasket, while doing so I was talked into having the head reco'd by a friend who works predominately with RB'S. 

Just went about ordering some new stem seals and springs/retainers/guides with supertech.

Head came back all freshened up with all new parts and tested, while It was away I had a friend weld on some breathers for catch can setup. Welded from the inside for a cleaner look.

After pulling off the turbo I noticed that the fins on the back of the compressor wheel were all chipped and I had some in an out shaft play, I got in contact with tao at hypergear to possibly have it upgraded and highflowed. While in conversation with a friend about my turbo situation he mentioned that he had a hypergear turbo laying around that had little to no use.

Scored this ATR43 G3 early gen for $200 

Had it looked over and was given the all clear that it's in top condition internally. So plans started to change a little at this point, planned to go external gate So I purchased this tial 44mm wastegate from EFI solutions.

 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by TKUSHI_ER34

[TKUSHI_ER34]

After speaking with some fabricators and costs. I decided to leave this idea until I buy a new hotside setup as I'm still running stock manifold and the ATR is internally gated.

While the car was apart I did the reasonable thing to do and replace the timing belt and the rest of essentials 

Ordered an N1 oil pump and some billet spline gears, water pump, all front seals, and tensioners and pulleys. 

was happy with the health of some major parts now and starting putting things back together. Hoping to have the car back soon....

 

I used a sharpening block and a bullshit amount of effort and managed to get the block to how I want it (thanks to Mitch from matouuks for the idea) so me and my best mate installed the nitto Head gasket and ARP2000 and put the head back on finally 

 

was pretty happy with progress and thought I might actually have my car back soon. (We're a fair way past my original 2 week prediction ?)

Now that the head was back on I started putting the hot side back on. Keen to see how the ATR looked, I have the housing a lick paint in high heat black as well as the manifold.

 

 

[TKUSHI_ER34]

Now that we were heading in a good direction I could start ordering little parts to plumb the ATR and clean up some clutter. 

Ordered some fittings and line and got to work 

while on the hunt for parts I came across JL design fab who does these very nice radiator mounts, so I grabbed some of them and he supplied new rubbers as well

after doing some more chatting with my tuner about power goals and use of the car i decided I needed to go FMIC. Trying to stick to some sort of budget I picked up a cheap ebay kit from empire performance online.

not the most amazing kit in the world but was overall happy with it.

Goto trimming the front bumper which I was super scared about having to cut the factory aero kit but managed to only have to trim the bumper itself without touching the type M lip

 

Next up was cutting the hole for the intake cooler pipe, I proscratinated about it for weeks as I didn't want to make a butchery of it. I left this for several weeks while I decided what to do.  

Around the same time I had a friend doing a FFP install, I avoided the idea of going FFP due to wanting the car back and lack of money. 

One thing lead to another and I ended up ordering a FFP ??

So I sold the piping that the kit came with and used that money in the form of some paint 

After racking my brain on what color to paint the covers I decided on this color by a little Australia company called DNA paints here in Victoria

Edited October 7, 2019 by TKUSHI_ER34

[TKUSHI_ER34]

Luckily my best mates girlfriend is a spray painter and she knocked these out for me in no time. I also ordered a clear cam cover in 5hthat time as I didn't want to paint the ugly factory one with all the excess gussets and rubbing.

Couldn't wait to chuck them on the car and got straight to it once I got them back

The paint is a basecoat pearl so most of the time when I take pictures of them it always looks a different shade 

My birthday happened during this time and received some gifts from friends and family 

Scored a factory boot lip from a friend a roofwing from my parents and an aeroflow catch can as well. Couldn't find a suitable place that I liked. Which drifting being the main focus of this car on track I deleted the ABS and placed the catch can there.

While waiting for my FFP to arrive, I borrowed a Friends so I could send off for fabrication for the cooler. After being screwed around for weeks I was suggest curts performance fab. He came to my house and tacked some pipes together and then went home and finished them off. 

I ordered a HKS filter from streeter which arrived just In time for curt. We decided on 3inch in and out With a 4inch intake. Originally I was going to go with a Z32 maf but considering the intake was now 4inch and speaking with my tuner he suggested a HPX slot MAF upgrade from nistune. 

And this was the end result from curt. 

Slot maf bung welded on as well as port for boost source as the ATR didn't have one in the housing. And a port for the IACV before the throttle body. 

Got the pipes back from curt and installed them. While he was doing that I started on the battery relocation (nothing to interesting just your usual boot install) just utilized a narva circuit breaker to tie it all together.

While I had my friends plenum I noticed the iacv wasn't going to fit with the oil heart exchanger. So ordered a TAARKS relocator  And the new MAF 

Also ordered some 1000cc bosch injectors and a turbosmart FPR800. I hated the look of the factory injector loom and i had to change the injector plugs anyways  I unpinned the OEM Nissan plug and rewired the entire loom from scratch.

Around this time my plenum turned up and started plumbing the oil filter relocator and doing away with the excess coolant lines from the heat exchanger. 

Currently undertook the install of the TAARKS kit this weekend passed so don't have much pics of that just yet. I accidentally pulled the wiring out of one of my knock sensors so had to order a new plug and pin from NZEFI. Once that arrives I'll get some pics of that setup 

 

Here is currently how the engine bay looks as if Sunday 

 

Cheers for reading for now. ? sorry for the massive spam

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by TKUSHI_ER34

[Looney_Head]

awesome looking build

[TKUSHI_ER34]

.

Edited October 9, 2019 by TKUSHI_ER34

[TKUSHI_ER34]

On 08/10/2019 at 1:48 PM, Looney_Head said:

awesome looking build

Thanks mate, still a ways from where the goal is but it's coming along nicely. Hopefully have it tuned during  November ?

[TKUSHI_ER34]

So the day came on Saturday finally to kick the car over,  Was shitting myself to say the least. 

 

Triple checked everything and gave it a whirl.  Started right up (Currently on stock AFM and injectors for startup)  was super happy to see no leaks from the oil relocator or fuel/ water/ oil lines. 

Buuuuuut.

 

Found a few things I needed to change

1. Timing belt over tensioned

2. Have a pretty loud tick coming from the intake side, I fear the lash may need adjusting. 

3. Tried to get a decent idle but I'm terrible with diagnostic crap, tried to reset IACV and found the adjustment was already wound all the in. Tried to relearn the TPS, back probed the tps and rotated it until it was at 0.5v and then did the whole on and off ignition  scenario i read on here. No real change and without access to nistune software to see if it's activating closed throttle flag or anyone close buy that is familiar with this stuff I'm not sure what else I can do.