1991 GT-R

[Jjtxaz24]

What's going on guys. I've been on here for a little while and gotten help from you all but never introduced you to the GTR. 

1991 GTR with "63,000 km" on the odometer. I purchased the car this year in March from montu motors. I wanted one that was decent/good looking for a fair price. I knew that I would have to do maintenance on it. Which brings me here now. 

Heres some pics of the car as they showed it online.

overall the condition of the car was fair. I had a local appraiser check it out and value it (needed it for the loan) 

I drove it around and fixed the minor issues it had (old tires, front cv boots, a misfire that was a bad coil, and overheating issue) as of this friday I put it on jack stands in the garage and have begun some changes. 

Plan is to swap in some tomei cams, change the timing belt and accessory belts, and rebuild the stock turbos with some non ceramic guts. Never done any of this and taking off the turbos with the engine in the car was a total pain in the ass. 

Also, have rotors and pads for all 4 wheels. I will be upgrading the calipers in the front for some 350z brembos to make pads and rotors more accessible here in the states. I'll post pics of that later. 

Gonna try and clean up the engine bay as much as I can and make it look better. I'll post more pics of the progress.

stock turbos that came on the 91 GTR. Looks like they never been changed or serviced. 

Edited November 28, 2019 by Jjtxaz24
Forgot some stuff

[PranK]

Nice! I'm looking forward to updates.

[Jjtxaz24]

Have you guys installed Tomei cams before? I haven't installed them yet because I'm worried I'm gonna snap em. Thatd be a bad day and a waste of money. 

Should I follow the torque sequence from the FSM?  

Heres the instructions that came from Tomei:

[r32-25t]

those instructions are exactly what you should be doing on 

[Duncan]

2 hours ago, r32-25t said:

those instructions are exactly what you should be doing on 

Agreed. It is possible to snap a cam either removing or installing it if you are a gorilla. But if you take it incrementally it is perfectly safe.

[Jjtxaz24]

I had a few hours after getting home from work today and I knocked out the cam install, and put the cam gears on to make sure the timing was right on them. 

Tomorrow I'll be putting on the timing belt and hopefully wrapping that all up. 

I do have 3 questions:

1) The nissan cam seals seem to only slide on one way so the path of least resistance is the one I took. Is there only one way they go on? (These are the old ones, not the new ones, I already put the cam backing cover but I can take it off tomorrow if you all need a better pic) I installed them using side A, as in that is facing out towards the front of the engine and side B is the side I slid in facing the rear of the engine

Side A:

Side B:

2) the gold caps on 3 and 4 (both on intake and exhaust) seem to clear when the cam is rotated. Do I have to leave them on?

3) the spring on the tensioner pulley, one goes into the pulley itself, does the other go to the right of this bolt to make sure it has some spring on it when I tighten it down?

Appreciate the help, once I knock out the timing tomorrow I'll be working on the turbos next. 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Jjtxaz24

[Duncan]

Firstly the bad news is that side A goes into the engine, and side B faces out. Sounds like you have them the other way around.

Those caps are just baffle plates to reduce oil spraying around, you remove them first if you need to remove the cam caps. No need to touch them if you are just doing the timing belt

You should really replace the idler and tensioner bearings, and the bolt and stud respectively that hold them when you do the timing belt. The tensioner spring is actually held on the small stud you can see to the right of the tensioner in your pic, not the water pump bolt.

When you have lined the new belt up properly (tensioner held back with an alley key, nut loose) you release the allen key so the tensioner is on the spring, rotate the motor twice using the balancer and the tension will be correct (tighten the tensioner nut).

[Jjtxaz24]

36 minutes ago, Duncan said:

Firstly the bad news is that side A goes into the engine, and side B faces out. Sounds like you have them the other way around.

Those caps are just baffle plates to reduce oil spraying around, you remove them first if you need to remove the cam caps. No need to touch them if you are just doing the timing belt

You should really replace the idler and tensioner bearings, and the bolt and stud respectively that hold them when you do the timing belt. The tensioner spring is actually held on the small stud you can see to the right of the tensioner in your pic, not the water pump bolt.

When you have lined the new belt up properly (tensioner held back with an alley key, nut loose) you release the allen key so the tensioner is on the spring, rotate the motor twice using the balancer and the tension will be correct (tighten the tensioner nut).

I've already removed the stock cams and installed the tomei ones, which is when I put the new cam gaskets in place. It that really sucks lol. I'll have to undo all the cam caps and hope I dont snap one to flip the cam gaskets around and slide them in. 

I'm just gonna undo them in the reverse order I posted above in the FSM and keep my fingers crossed. 

I did purchase and replace all the timing belt hardware and timing belt. The belt is a gates racing and the idler, spring and tensioner pulley are OEM Nissan. It's just not tightened down yet cuz I wanted to make sure the cam seals were good. They're not lol. 

[Duncan]

well, sorry to bring bad news, but at least you know before it's all back together.

I'd strongly recommend you change the bolt and stud that hold the idler and tensioner at the same time. There have been instances of old bolt snapping which throws the timing belt off, and will result in piston/valve damage in the engine.

[Jjtxaz24]

38 minutes ago, Duncan said:

well, sorry to bring bad news, but at least you know before it's all back together.

I'd strongly recommend you change the bolt and stud that hold the idler and tensioner at the same time. There have been instances of old bolt snapping which throws the timing belt off, and will result in piston/valve damage in the engine.

Yeah, you're right, I'll redo it tomorrow. Gotta find a 41mm socket to tap the gasket on evenly. Ok. I'll look into those bolts. Have the part number off hand or should I just go to a local store and see if they got a high grade bolt same thread pitch and size?

 

EDIT: Nevermind found em: 

Idler bolt - 08041-07010

Tensioner stud - 13073-V500

Got em ordered so can't finish this up till next week...

Edited December 3, 2019 by Jjtxaz24

[Adz2332]

looks great, whats the wheel specs mate?

[Duncan]

actually, I seem to have the tensioner stud part (13073-V5001) but not the idler bolt.

please double check before trusting the internet!

[Duncan]

1 hour ago, Jjtxaz24 said:

Yeah, you're right, I'll redo it tomorrow. Gotta find a 41mm socket to tap the gasket on evenly. Ok. I'll look into those bolts. Have the part number off hand or should I just go to a local store and see if they got a high grade bolt same thread pitch and size?

 

EDIT: Nevermind found em: 

Idler bolt - 08041-07010

Tensioner stud - 13073-V500

Got em ordered so can't finish this up till next week...

reading out of order! good finding. missing a 1 on the tensioner stud

[r32-25t]

Did you check the valve clearances?

[Jjtxaz24]

7 hours ago, Adz2332 said:

looks great, whats the wheel specs mate?

They are 18x9.5 dont know the off set though. Not a name brand either. They seem to be an imitation wheel but unable to find the exact make or model of them. 

6 hours ago, Duncan said:

reading out of order! good finding. missing a 1 on the tensioner stud

Got it. When I searched it I was able to find the right one. 

4 hours ago, r32-25t said:

Did you check the valve clearances?

No, I did see that in the FSM. Since I have to redo the cams, I'll double check that and make sure it's good. 

These are the calipers that I will be adding to the fronts to replace the stock ones. I do have a 15mm spacer to clear the wheels and also have 82mm studs (double the size of the stock ones) to make sure I have enough threads to bolt the wheels down.

I shaved the left one down to smooth It out and make it look a bit cleaner. Theyre both done now it's just an older picture comparing the original way I got them to how I wanted the. Still have to prep them for paint and then i can throw them on the car. 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Jjtxaz24

[BK]

4 hours ago, r32-25t said:

Did you check the valve clearances?

 

44 minutes ago, Jjtxaz24 said:

No, I did see that in the FSM. Since I have to redo the cams, I'll double check that and make sure it's good. 

Valve clearance will not be all good, I'll 99% bet the valve clearance will be all over the place now.  There is no way you change to a different camshaft and they all come up within spec. No one is that lucky.

[Jjtxaz24]

14 minutes ago, BK said:

Valve clearance will not be all good, I'll 99% bet the valve clearance will be all over the place now.  There is no way you change to a different camshaft and they all come up within spec. No one is that lucky.

Well not much else I can do then. Trying not to overthink these changes too much, and overcomplicating it. It's pretty simple to do, but I did forget to check the clearances. Dont recall the FSM specifying when to do it just that it had to be done. 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Jjtxaz24

[BK]

it's done whenever anything changes in the valvetrain that will change the lifter to cam base circle gap. That is, changing a camshaft, lifter, valve, valve seat regrind - anything that will alter the clearance. Just correct your cams and check it and see what they come up at, and correct / adjust as necessary. It's a pain in the arse, and probably why I would not have bothered changing cams with stock turbos or similar.

Owning 3 GTRs I must have at least 100 different shim thicknesses left over from multiple valve clearance changes over the last 15 years.

[Jjtxaz24]

1 hour ago, BK said:

it's done whenever anything changes in the valvetrain that will change the lifter to cam base circle gap. That is, changing a camshaft, lifter, valve, valve seat regrind - anything that will alter the clearance. Just correct your cams and check it and see what they come up at, and correct / adjust as necessary. It's a pain in the arse, and probably why I would not have bothered changing cams with stock turbos or similar.

Owning 3 GTRs I must have at least 100 different shim thicknesses left over from multiple valve clearance changes over the last 15 years.

Learning as I go. Appreciate the help and knowledge ?

I'll be using this to help order the shims: https://nissan.epc-data.com/skyline/bnr32/3884-rb26dtt/engine/130/13201H/

Hopefully I don't need to replace all of them.

Is it common to replace one or two of them or usually have to replace all of them? $8.75 per shim can get pricey too.  

Edited December 3, 2019 by Jjtxaz24
Added url

[BK]

Depends, but sometimes yeah all 24 need replacing if you can't swap them around into different locations at all. Don't get genuine, stopped doing that a long time ago as it can cost a fortune. There are better options:

http://www.precisionshims.com.au/