R31 Skyline Ti Turbo Build Thread

[Mex Bro]

Hey SAU! 

Starting a build thread to track the progress of the car as previous owners have reached out to me wanting to know more about it. I also want to show everyone the car and also be able to look back at a later stage. 

This is my R31 Skyline Ti that's turboed making around 300whp. It has been in Tassie for a while and has had a lot of owners and history. I sold it as I lived in Victoria at the time so I couldn't drive it and wasn't motivated to fly back on weekends fixing fix the sloppy RB20 box with no reverse along with various other small things. It came up for sale for close to what I sold it for with nearly everything fixed up. My plans with it is to replace the 3582 with a 3076, plumb up the screamer, make it more streetable and less of a defect magnet (take out the extended LCA's, plumb up the screamer pipe, get a radio and heater in it).

A little backstory, I work in Townsville but am from Launceston, the goal is to move it up here and have it as my fun car. 

the car had the following upon purchase. 

rb20det box
pintara LSD 
s13 front end 
s13 turbo brakes
s13 coilovers
cut and shut knuckles
extended LCA's
15x8 +0 D shapes
Bosch 044 pump
750cc injectors 
decomp gasket 
head studs 
thick alloy rad
GT3582 .82 externally gated 
Haltech E6X
front mount 
 

My goals with the car was to have a fun street car that I could regularly take to the new track being built south of Townsville to use in track events with the odd drag day and skid pan day. 

I set out to purchase bits and pieces for the car that i felt it required, these include: 
GKtech steel lug nuts (the car was missing a few and the ones on there were cheap aluminium ones)
Gktech adjustable tie rod ends
Mishimoto oil air separator
Autostadia Modena 16x8 and 16x7 wheels
AC kit for the car - Gets super gross in NQ over the summer.  
Recaro SR1 Seat out of an Isuzu Irmscher R - The Ti seats are very plush but you sit really high. 
R32 steering wheel - mostly to maintain the OEM look as I felt a cop seeing a deep dish nardi would raise eyebrows in a car that already is infamous for hooning. 
Defi Display unit

The SR1 Recaro - Definitely needs a clean

I plan to replace the gauges with the defi and have a head unit in there. 

Had some plush blue floor mats made to match the interior. 

 

 

 

The first step was to get everything mod plated, so it's a little more street legal and QLD has demerits and fines for defects up here. 

this required the me to remove the E6X for a stock VLT ecu, which I picked up for $200, stock LCA's, a smaller turbo, smaller wheels as they were too wide, a cat and a muffler put in, and getting the external gate plumbed up among a small amount of other bits and pieces 

Here is a pic of the car the previous owner sent me - 5 years ago to the day!

My current plans for the car once it's mod plated include:

Kinugawa GT3076 .82 - I feel this will be the best for response maintaining ~300whp 
RB25 Gearbox - For peace of mind knowing it will hold up at the power levels compared to the 20det box
R33 GTST Calipers spaced onto 330mm GTR front rotors and R31 Rotors spaced onto a 299mm EL Falcon rear rotor with braided lines
5 stud conversion 
R33 booster and BM44 BMC
stock LCA's - I don't need that much wheel track/lock on a car that will only see a rare skid pan day.
oil cooler 
Wire speakers and a head unit in - It's primarily a street car I want it to be comfy. 

I'm hoping to have the car mostly completed over xmas leave, Ideally if the borders are open I'd love to drive it back up to Townsville instead of spending $2500 to ship it. 

Will post updates as I get them, the progress on the car is slow as Skyline parts are super expensive and I have 5 vehicles in total between cars and bikes so I'm spread thin aha. 

I would love to hear any suggestions on the build and finally thanks for taking the time to read!
 

 

[Mex Bro]

Apologies for creating 5 clone threads, kept saying error so I went back to try and get it to work!

 

Here are the wheels I picked up for the car

[Beksr31silo]

Nice job man! Really sounds like a plan. Ive just turboed my r31 silo and plan to chuck a rb25 box just like your doin, decent strong box for 200kw 😁. Next step for me is getting it road legal, need engineers cert here in vic, lucky in qld you can just grab a mod plate. keen to see more pics or an update on progress of the 31 on its way back to street legal!

[Mex Bro]

On 4/21/2021 at 5:20 PM, Beksr31silo said:

Nice job man! Really sounds like a plan. Ive just turboed my r31 silo and plan to chuck a rb25 box just like your doin, decent strong box for 200kw 😁. Next step for me is getting it road legal, need engineers cert here in vic, lucky in qld you can just grab a mod plate. keen to see more pics or an update on progress of the 31 on its way back to street legal!

got pictures mate? sounds good!! 

[Mex Bro]

An update to the build, it has been a while since my last post. 

Progress on the car has been limited to my mate doing stuff to the car in his spare time. I have about 5 weeks in the year to work on the car myself. 

I have spent the past week or so working on the car, it has gone backwards in a sense. 

since my last post I have mostly found stuff I need for the stock conversion. 

- The car now sits on R31 LCA's with N12 Pulsar Tie rods, held onto the knuckle with Gktech Adjustable tie rod ends. 
- I have since ordered Gktech tension rods as the ones in the car had crusty and worn out rose joints
- I have sourced some R31 Ti stock wheels and sold the D shapes as they weren't legal. 
- instead of buying a GT3076, I ordered an anti surge housing for my GT35, ended up being far more economical. 
- instead of using the recaro, I purchased a pair of R32 GTR seats, They look far nicer in my opinion. 
- I replaced the cut and shut s13 knuckles for uncut ones. 
- Mishimoto catch can has been purchased
- Sub and amp has been purchased 

 

Some things did not go to plan, I purchased a VLT ECU and a stock RB25 turbo, in the process of trying to clock the near 30 year old turbo I broke the exhaust turbine, this ended up being beneficial because now the car will make no boost for the mod plate. Now the car uses a stock R31 ECU and NA injectors.  The high mount manifold is retained with a Nissan 6 bolt to V Band adapter for the dump pipe. 

Me and the mate who is working on the car went halves in a TIG welder, so he is doing the exhaust up for me, we discovered that the exhaust was held on with one hangar at the rear and nothing past the diff (held on by the turbo V Band), we have since addressed this as well as adding in another muffler and an exhaust tip, as somewhere down the track the old blast pipes were sawed off the car. 

This is my first time properly building a car, the frustrating part was getting half way through an install and then needing a certain part which could only be purchased online, so the car sat in limbo until such part arrived. 

Lots of other little things that don't really need to be mentioned have been fixed, this car was built with ebay parts 10 years ago, and the past decade of neglect from it being thrashed hasn't helped. 

The car doesn't need too much left to be ready for the roadworthy, it only needs the following: 
 

- Handbrake installed
- Injector seal kit installed onto the n/a injectors 
- speedo drive installed into the 20det box
- catch can installed 
- loom and ECU installed 
- tension rods installed 
 

The local mod plater in launceston is unhelpful to put it nicely, I like being charged $300 for the car to be looked over and told I need "ADR Coilovers" (Which don't exist by the way) all whilst being spoken to like I'm a bogan with a rats tail and ugg boots. So suggestions on where to get it mod plated in Tasmania would be super useful, I would travel statewide. 

The current plan for the car once it's mod plated include: 

- 5 stud conversion front and rear
- EL rear brake conversion
- Panhard rod correction kit
- Adjustable rear trailing arms 
- Front strut brace 
- rear adjustable trailing arms 
- new dump made up so the 3582 can go back on 
- head unit + stereo 
- trim pieces fixed 
- SR20 Throttle body conversion (TPS works with the Haltech) 
- paint the boot in some sorts of bed liner as the boot trim is long gone 
- 33 Front brakes with GTR rotors
- 33 booster 
- 25DET box (the 20 box is really nice but I want to get a 25 box whilst you can still buy them brand new from Nissan) 
- S13 Rack conversion - new injectors and fuel rail 
- possibly external oil cooler 
-  bigger sway bars and new bushings to suit 
- Venations!! 
Probably more I forgot but that's off the top of my head. 

 

 

Here are some pics. Apologies I don't post super often. I try to keep the fourms alive!! 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Mex Bro

[robbo_rb180]

Bring it up modified plenty of shops up here would mod plate it if it's super clean and done properly 

[Mex Bro]

On 5/3/2021 at 10:21 PM, robbo_rb180 said:

Bring it up modified plenty of shops up here would mod plate it if it's super clean and done properly 

If I struggle to get it mod plated in Tasmania at other shops that's what I will do I think. also better to be able to use the car more than like once every month in the year haha 

[robbo_rb180]

if you haven't seen/heard there is a sprint round at DriveIT next weekend and a hill climb up mt stuart on the 30th if your keen for some motorsport

https://www.facebook.com/MarqueSportsCarRegisterNQ

https://www.facebook.com/Townsvillecityautosportsclub

[Mex Bro]

Hey again 

Quick update to the build 

The car is set to be mod plated next monday! (Yay), finally the car can be on Special Interest rego and it won't cost me money to be on jack stands ahahaa

for anyone that was interested to get the car into a legal state for the mod plate I had to use: 

 

Stock/VLT ECU
NA/Brown top injectors 
stock turbo
coilovers with no top adjustment (camber etc) 
stock wheels 
stock LCA's 
get a bunch of other little stuff done such as the speedo, handbrake. 

 

I'm very excited to actually properly start the build following this. 

 

Here is some pics/stuff I have bought for the car recently. 

I bought some venations for the car, I think they look alright lol 

I got a blue Ti dash mat, quite suits the whole 80s feel

I got some HR31 electronic mirrors and the button for them, 100% a novelty but it's cool lol. 

 

As things go, I never expected it to end up this way but it snowballs. I'm now anticipating to buy a new 25 box (already have a modded driveshaft for it). I then started thinking well why am I using a 15 year old ECU when the Elite series has so much more protection and other stuff, like flex fuel, throttle by wire, so I'm expecting to buy an Elite 1500 for the car. I then decided well I'm going to be buying a new ECU and well why not make the most of it... 220kw isnt that much anyway. So i'm going to build the bottom end and paint the bay whilst the engine is out. 

I am currently doing my research but 350-400KW would be pretty mental I believe. I will research what is involved and keep you guys updated. 

 

I will post more after the car is on SI rego, that's when the fun can really begin. 

[Beksr31silo]

On 5/3/2021 at 8:10 PM, Mex Bro said:

got pictures mate? sounds good!! 

Hey man its been a very long time since i've been on the thread sorry man. Really good to see your car getting along, sounds like a lot of effort and love has been put into it. Currently my car is regoed in victoria as a non turbo from before the conversion lol, so that front mount might cause a bit of suspicion. All the work to the motor was carried out by rajab racing down here in melb, and its a bloody ripper of an engine. Has the beautiful iconic turbo dose. Still currently running the factory 5 speed gearbox so we'll see how long that holds up. Currently only making about 140kw on pretty low boost, once a stronger gearbox and possibly internals are bought and installed im hoping for around the 200-250kw mark. Car goes hard for what it is, extremely fun to drive. Here are some photos, will post some more exterior and interior ones soon if you like. Only exterior change is installed black ti wheels because they look much better than the silo wheels on the white car. 

[Mex Bro]

On 10/27/2021 at 11:53 AM, Beksr31silo said:

Hey man its been a very long time since i've been on the thread sorry man. Really good to see your car getting along, sounds like a lot of effort and love has been put into it. Currently my car is regoed in victoria as a non turbo from before the conversion lol, so that front mount might cause a bit of suspicion. All the work to the motor was carried out by rajab racing down here in melb, and its a bloody ripper of an engine. Has the beautiful iconic turbo dose. Still currently running the factory 5 speed gearbox so we'll see how long that holds up. Currently only making about 140kw on pretty low boost, once a stronger gearbox and possibly internals are bought and installed im hoping for around the 200-250kw mark. Car goes hard for what it is, extremely fun to drive. Here are some photos, will post some more exterior and interior ones soon if you like. Only exterior change is installed black ti wheels because they look much better than the silo wheels on the white car. 

Looks good man! And thanks yeah it has definitely snowballed lol. Any other plans for your car? 

[-Johnno-]

Looks good.  The old girl has come a long way from when you first picked her up.

[Beksr31silo]

On 11/7/2021 at 10:12 PM, Mex Bro said:

Looks good man! And thanks yeah it has definitely snowballed lol. Any other plans for your car? 

Thanks bro! at the moment im decently satisfied with how the car is, but soon hopefully thinking of some adjustable coils and lower it a bit more. Possibly a set of period correct 114.3 x 4 wheels for a sexy 80s era look. Clean up the engine bay hopefully, put in a new aluminium radiator and all that other stuff to make it look less crowded and more shiny. Want to keep the interior and exterior looking as stock as possible, no fancy body kits and probably stock steering wheel, seats etc. Love seeing 31 turbo builds man keep up the great work legend!

[JohnnyR31Silo]

On 03/05/2021 at 8:45 PM, Mex Bro said:

An update to the build, it has been a while since my last post. 

Progress on the car has been limited to my mate doing stuff to the car in his spare time. I have about 5 weeks in the year to work on the car myself. 

I have spent the past week or so working on the car, it has gone backwards in a sense. 

since my last post I have mostly found stuff I need for the stock conversion. 

- The car now sits on R31 LCA's with N12 Pulsar Tie rods, held onto the knuckle with Gktech Adjustable tie rod ends. 
- I have since ordered Gktech tension rods as the ones in the car had crusty and worn out rose joints
- I have sourced some R31 Ti stock wheels and sold the D shapes as they weren't legal. 
- instead of buying a GT3076, I ordered an anti surge housing for my GT35, ended up being far more economical. 
- instead of using the recaro, I purchased a pair of R32 GTR seats, They look far nicer in my opinion. 
- I replaced the cut and shut s13 knuckles for uncut ones. 
- Mishimoto catch can has been purchased
- Sub and amp has been purchased 

 

Some things did not go to plan, I purchased a VLT ECU and a stock RB25 turbo, in the process of trying to clock the near 30 year old turbo I broke the exhaust turbine, this ended up being beneficial because now the car will make no boost for the mod plate. Now the car uses a stock R31 ECU and NA injectors.  The high mount manifold is retained with a Nissan 6 bolt to V Band adapter for the dump pipe. 

Me and the mate who is working on the car went halves in a TIG welder, so he is doing the exhaust up for me, we discovered that the exhaust was held on with one hangar at the rear and nothing past the diff (held on by the turbo V Band), we have since addressed this as well as adding in another muffler and an exhaust tip, as somewhere down the track the old blast pipes were sawed off the car. 

This is my first time properly building a car, the frustrating part was getting half way through an install and then needing a certain part which could only be purchased online, so the car sat in limbo until such part arrived. 

Lots of other little things that don't really need to be mentioned have been fixed, this car was built with ebay parts 10 years ago, and the past decade of neglect from it being thrashed hasn't helped. 

The car doesn't need too much left to be ready for the roadworthy, it only needs the following: 
 

- Handbrake installed
- Injector seal kit installed onto the n/a injectors 
- speedo drive installed into the 20det box
- catch can installed 
- loom and ECU installed 
- tension rods installed 
 

The local mod plater in launceston is unhelpful to put it nicely, I like being charged $300 for the car to be looked over and told I need "ADR Coilovers" (Which don't exist by the way) all whilst being spoken to like I'm a bogan with a rats tail and ugg boots. So suggestions on where to get it mod plated in Tasmania would be super useful, I would travel statewide. 

The current plan for the car once it's mod plated include: 

- 5 stud conversion front and rear
- EL rear brake conversion
- Panhard rod correction kit
- Adjustable rear trailing arms 
- Front strut brace 
- rear adjustable trailing arms 
- new dump made up so the 3582 can go back on 
- head unit + stereo 
- trim pieces fixed 
- SR20 Throttle body conversion (TPS works with the Haltech) 
- paint the boot in some sorts of bed liner as the boot trim is long gone 
- 33 Front brakes with GTR rotors
- 33 booster 
- 25DET box (the 20 box is really nice but I want to get a 25 box whilst you can still buy them brand new from Nissan) 
- S13 Rack conversion - new injectors and fuel rail 
- possibly external oil cooler 
-  bigger sway bars and new bushings to suit 
- Venations!! 
Probably more I forgot but that's off the top of my head. 

 

 

Here are some pics. Apologies I don't post super often. I try to keep the fourms alive!! 

Hey mate I seen that you said you can buy the rb25det gearbox from Nissan, do you have a part number because I just off the phone with them no go.. 

[JohnnyR31Silo]

On 21/04/2021 at 5:20 PM, Beksr31silo said:

Nice job man! Really sounds like a plan. Ive just turboed my r31 silo and plan to chuck a rb25 box just like your doin, decent strong box for 200kw 😁. Next step for me is getting it road legal, need engineers cert here in vic, lucky in qld you can just grab a mod plate. keen to see more pics or an update on progress of the 31 on its way back to street legal!

Hey man I’m from Melbourne as well, what turbo did you end up getting? And how much did it cost you to get it all done? Because I’m wanting to do the same with mine

as well have you got the stock transmission or? How’s the car holding up cheers 

[GTSBoy]

On 2/8/2022 at 11:09 AM, JohnnyR31Silo said:

Hey mate I seen that you said you can buy the rb25det gearbox from Nissan, do you have a part number because I just off the phone with them no go.. 

I told you. $4k. There are numerous sources (ie JustJap, Amayama, etc) for R34 gearboxes, at ~$4k. You can't typically buy from Nissan because Nissan don't want to sell them.

[BK]

As above, Just Jap $3999

https://justjap.com/products/genuine-nissan-gearbox-nissan-skyline-r34-gtt-rb25det

JDM garage $3850

https://www.jdmgarage.com.au/shop/transmission-and-drivetrain/gearboxes-and-accessories/rb25det-manual-gearbox-r34-gtt-r33-gtst-32010-aa520-4/

Probably Kudos motorsport too

[Mex Bro]

just an ebay GT3582 with a Kinugawa compressor housing. See above for RB25 gearbox links. I got mine 2nd hand

[Beksr31silo]

On 2/8/2022 at 2:18 PM, JohnnyR31Silo said:

Hey man I’m from Melbourne as well, what turbo did you end up getting? And how much did it cost you to get it all done? Because I’m wanting to do the same with mine

as well have you got the stock transmission or? How’s the car holding up cheers 

Bit of a late reply but recently been hopping back on the thread. Been about 6-7 months and the car is holding up beautifully running the stock gearbox and clutch from who knows how old lol. Car is currently only at 136kw but feels wayy faster and sounds amazing, all work was done by rajab racing, with a garret t3 turbo (can't remember the exact specs gotta check the mod list he gave). Got charged about 9-10k for everything including parts and labour, forward facing plenum turbo manifold etc.. Would definitely recommend goin down to rajab if your keen, does a beautiful clean job without damaging anything else (all interior electricals still work mint). He owns a 31 GTS2 that he's also turboed so he knows what hes doin. Back then he told me he could chuck in a 25det box for 3k, but prices recently have probably changed 😪 Hope your car is also running mint man!

PS: The car is regoed in Victoria since the time it was stock, had no troubles so far just don't dose it in front of hwp