Work Log: R33 GT-R

[PurpleStreak]

Thanks guys! I’m really trying to fast-track it now, losing valuable summer driving time!

It didn’t help that I accidentally ordered the wrong oil feed fittings (convex seat instead of concave) which meant I had to wait another 10 or so days for the new fittings to arrive. What I ended up getting were aluminum concave seat to AN adapters. Threaded into the stock tee, they don’t so much seal against the flare so a shoulder gasket is still required. Oh well, at least this matches the other fittings! It sits much closer to the block and fouling with the dump tube appeared to be no longer an issue. In the end, the overall routing of the braided lines is tolerable, however it would have been nice if the kit had included some long radius elbows; this would be handy for the fittings coming off the bearing housings.




After this, everything started to fall in place. I would love to say a few words to the guy who chose to run the AC line so close to the front turbo. It is impossible to get the turbo to sit low/ far enough away so that the manifold can be placed on the studs and torqued. So, I had to bolt and partially torque the manifold to the turbo, and then install the manifold to the head. It’s far more cramped than the rear, but still doable. After the manifold nuts were torqued, the same goes for the turbo to manifold nuts and doing up the lock plate claws as much as possible. Once I finished this, I could then reinstall the rear compressor suction pipe.




The rear turbo oil drain hose and the turbo supports went on next. I really should have installed the hose on the turbo drain fitting outside the car; there is very little room to slip the hose on and tighten the clamps. There’s a bit of a kink in the hose, but that’s because the hose won’t go any further up the turbo drain fitting due to its proximity to the compressor housing. It’s still not a huge restriction regardless. I could not do it with the heat shielding on, so I slit it open and tied it on after the hose was fully secured in its final position. The turbo supports were no problem at all; the curved bracket goes on the rear turbo, and the straighter bracket goes on the front turbo.



The heat shields went on next. I cut off a section of the rear heat shield so it would slip on much easier; this is due to the proximity of the bracket for the coolant and air tubing. I also sanded them lightly to clean up some of the surface rust. Some of the bolts for the shield sheared off during removal, but enough remain for adequate fastening. I also secured some heat sleeve around the O2 sensor butt connectors to keep them from melting.




Next came the bracket for the coolant/air tubing, installing the coolant return tee fitting and its associated lines, and the stock air tube for the actuator. I prefer this look to that of the previous owner’s red hoses, which I scrapped. (EDIT: This is actually incorrect routing for thsi setup; please see later sections)



I then installed the Z32 MAF pigtails. For some reason, one of the stock connectors had been replaced! Oh well. The wiring sequence is the same; this is what I came up with for the R33 GTR from my googling. Should be no issue.





Next came the installation of the Trust suction piping. Pretty straight forward. First you ensure that the stock neck going through the sheetmetal into the intercooler piping is removed. Then on goes the front turbo suction (bolted) and stock recirc valve Y-pipe.



The stock hose goes between the Trust front turbo suction pipe and the recirc Y-pipe. The included silicone elbow can be placed on the other outlet of the Y-pipe for placement of the Trust rear turbo suction pipe.



The Trust front outlet pipe (flanged) and the rear turbo suction pipe (coupling) can be installed.



Next, the Y-pipe going into the intercooler can be placed with all its couplings. The last part that remains is the Trust connecting pipe going from the stock rear compressor outlet to the Trust Y-pipe. This was bit of a squeeze for me but worked in the end.



With all the couplings tight, the Y-pipe can be secured to the intercooler piping with the stock hose clamp.



Then the Z32 MAFs can be installed with the Airinx filters. There were some brackets included with the kit but I cannot find any holes that will properly line up with the filter bolts. I’m not a big fan of the foam filters as they let in a lot more dirt than a dry mesh type filter. I will be going with some Z32 MAF pod filter adapters in the future.

http://www.mkiv.com/techarticles/filters_test/2/

PS Does anybody know how to take these connectors off?? (EDIT: Pull out the metal clips from the connector body) Also, there is a air hose that goes into the stock recirculation hose fitting (that connects the recirc Y-pipe to the rear turbo suction). The Trust kit has no means to connect this fitting. Does anybody know what this hose is for?

I then bolted on the downpipe, I used the crappy gaskets from the original eBay pipe I had purchased, with tons of copper gasket maker to boot. The downpipe fits well, although I had to make some adjustments to the hanger that goes on the flange between the downpipe and cat.




All that’s left is gauges, fuel injectors, and fuel pump, and fresh fluids, and she can be fired up!

[NismoS-tune]

Did you modify your front turbo oil drain hose of firings at all? I've been fighting those for years but haven't had much luck finding a hose/fitting combo that won't be kinked. I guess I could hear as bend The fittings to fit better.

[PurpleStreak]

Did you modify your front turbo oil drain hose of firings at all? I've been fighting those for years but haven't had much luck finding a hose/fitting combo that won't be kinked. I guess I could hear as bend The fittings to fit better.

I'm sure theres a combo out there that works; I didn't really chase that since I had enough fun with oil and coolant braided lines..I'm not too worried as it only kinked slightly for me and doesn't appear to completely close off the drain. Only time will tell though!

What have you got instead of the Pulsar for this year?? Import or domestic?

[PurpleStreak]

I had some assistance from some buddies for installing the Deatschewerks 800cc injectors, some of the gauges and Aeromotive Stealth 340 fuel pump. The R33 GTR engine manual came in handy for the fuel injectors and fuel pump.

The fuel injectors are refreshingly simple to change. All the connectors that are in the way need to be unplugged, the breather hose off the cam cover needs to be moved out of the way, the brittle hoses connecting to the fuel rail line and coming off the fuel pressure regulator need to be removed. Then the two bolts holding the fuel rail are removed, which allows the fuel rail to come out. Some O-rings were stuck in the head; these were removed separately.

The Deatschewerks injectors already comes with the correct O-rings and insulators installed on the injector; so it was just a simple swap onto the fuel rail, after making sure both O-rings were greased up with some motor oil. Reinstallation was simply reversing the removal steps, taking care to alternate the tightening of each fuel rail bolt to properly seat the injector O-rings in the head.

I was a little nervous about the fuel pump, but it wasn’t bad over all.

First, the boot finisher plate and strut bar needs to be removed, along with whatever the thing is that sits over the inspection cover. The manual says remove the rear amp, but it wasnt necessary ( maybe it is for the level gauge).




The inspection cover can then be removed, revealing the fuel sender unit and lock ring. The hose on the left is the ‘jet pump’ fuel hose; no idea what that is. The directional arrows on the nipples indicate the fuel supply line from the pump and the fuel return line from the regulator. The two connectors are for the fuel pump and level gauge.



We used a punch and hammer to loosen the lock ring, but this does damage the ring. Once the lock ring comes off, the fuel sender unit can be lifted up out of the tank.



The in-tank connector to the level gauge needs to be disconnected from the connector to the fuel sender unit, and the fuel pump assembly can be removed. It is supposed to be hanging in the bracket in the tank, but mine was perched at an awkward angle so it came out easily. The goal will be to affix the new pump in the jacket that the stock pump sits in. There shouldn’t be any issues with alignment of the pick-up since it is also held by the whole bracket.



To get the pump out, the clips on either side of the bracket holding the rubber jacket need to be removed. The line from the fuel sock to the pump needs to be taken off as well. The pump can then be turned and removed from the bracket.



After removing the clamp on the jacket, attempts to remove the pump from the jacket were futile, so we cut the jacket. This was ok since the jacket was too big for the smaller Aeromotive pump anyway, so it had to be cut down slightly regardless.




With the stock pump removed, the Aeromotive pump can have the include sleeve put on and placed in the jacket. The jacket can then be trimmed down to size.




Then, a hose clamp is used instead of the stock clamp to hold the pump in the jacket. Due to the smaller diameter of the jacket, the holes on the jacket tabs do not line up with the brackets, however they will fit when stretched. The overall fit looks bad but im satisfied as long as it works and stays put.



The hose for the fuel sock can then be fitted and fastened. Something I missed documenting was removing the stock white nipple for the fuel sock hose and affixing it to the new pump with an internal teeth lock washer. Also, the stock hose connecting the pump to the fuel sender unit can be reinstalled. I elected to not use the inline filter (that’s the only thing I got after searching the part number) as I don’t know its condition, plus it doesn’t make sense to me especially with a more accessible downstream fuel filter in the engine bay.



The Aeromotive connector wiring can be soldered to the stock fuel pump connector wiring. As per the picture, the red/black wire is positive and black is negative. All connections were protected by heat shrink.



The connectors can be hooked up and the whole fuel pump assembly can be lowered in place. If you look in the tank, you should be able to see the bracket with two slots, the passenger side slot is open on the passenger side, and the driver side slot is closed. This matches the tabs and shape of the bracket. After a few tries, the pump stayed put in a reasonable fashion, similar to how it was found.



With this, the seal packing can be installed in the hole. The two connectors for the fuel pump and level gauge can be installed in the bottom of the sender unit, along with the fuel supply hose from the pump. The sender unit is then placed level in the hole. There are alignment marks for it, but again I’m not sure if a few degrees would make a difference, as long as the unit is not pulling on the pump or connectors. The lock ring can then be reinstalled; it took a few tries and cuts to get it screwed on, but after it was, it was punched into a tight position. All the hoses can then be hooked back on.



All the stuff that was removed in the boot can be reinstalled. I also elected to install a new fuel filter.

[NismoS-tune]

I'm sure theres a combo out there that works; I didn't really chase that since I had enough fun with oil and coolant braided lines..I'm not too worried as it only kinked slightly for me and doesn't appear to completely close off the drain. Only time will tell though!

What have you got instead of the Pulsar for this year?? Import or domestic?

Bought a 2010 Subaru Impreza WRX. I needed something good on gas and worry free (5 years warranty). Black pearl of course

No word on my engine update (inquired early last week but nothing) so I doubt the GTR will be road ready this year (yay another year on blocks) so my wife approved something fun in the mean time. It's growing on me already, might get an STI in the near future and part from the garage queen, it's been 3 years and 4500km at huge costs, it is begining to look like I'd be smart to pull the plug and buy something newer and warranted. So yeah, currently thinking 2013 STI, 2013 GT500, 2012 (0r 13) ZL1 Camaro, 2012 GTR or sit 2 years off the sportscar scene, save up big bucjs and get a 2003-06 Ford GT, oldschool 911/930 or a Ford GT40 kit car project...

I'm currently in the process of permanently moving to Red Deer (our house there needs attention lol) where my family is and sell my house in McMurray so I need to focus on that first.

[PurpleStreak]

Oh, are you still going to being working up here? Too bad I'll never get to see your 32 running The new WRX is a great car for sure! If I were you, since you have the resources, I'd tough it out for a couple of years and get the GT!! The WRX will hold you over till then I'm sure

[NismoS-tune]

Oh, are you still going to being working up here? Too bad I'll never get to see your 32 running The new WRX is a great car for sure! If I were you, since you have the resources, I'd tough it out for a couple of years and get the GT!! The WRX will hold you over till then I'm sure

Sadly, even all the rediculous money they pay me up here isn't enough to over power the fact that my wife hates fort McMurray and moved to Red Deer. My daughter and her mean the world to me so I'm taking the HUGE paycut and officially moving soon.... I can't afford all 4 vehicles and 2 houses on the crap in come down there which is why I have to part out or sell as running asap.

I'll be sure to post videos if I get it running by the end of summer Maybe bring it up for a weekend if I'm still up here (housing market is slow right now...) which can all be done for less than I put into the gtr.

The GT is my dream car so that's the first choice if I have the cash for one. Then it's fast track towards a twin turbo kit (stock engine/tranny good for 1000whp).

[PurpleStreak]

Over the past few days, the gauges were hooked up, the oil cooler was mounted (back in the old position unfortunately, its just not in a good position for any different orientations and I'm not sure which hose is which..), and oil and coolant were filled. Finally the R32 GTR ECU with Nistune installed (courtesy of Autodream) was installed with one bolt. Here are some shots of the PLX gauge, its really quite functional but the daisy chain module system appears cumbersome. But I'll definetely be hooking up more sensors to it in the future!



A few cranks were required to prime the fuel system after which she fired up! We used a base tune I obtained from slavg87 to get it running, it ran pig rich but works! No leaks either; other than the usual WD40 smoke from the hot bits. With the initial run in established, it was time to get the car ready to hit the road!

Home stretch now..over the last couple of days, I bolted on the rear strut bar, boot finisher and all carpet. I noticed some pitting in the spare tire well, I'll have to take care of that sometime.
Up front, I extended the wiring for the turn signals so it wouldnt require headlight removal. And since I had scrapped the ugly homemade oil cooler ducting, I could bolt up the oil cooler to the headlight again. Its much less flimsy now. Then the bumper and underbody items went on.

I hit the road, the base tune worked after we messed with the AFRs for a bit. Car was in a very driveable stage yesterday, with off boost operation very crisp. Once boost was allowed to build, the car went below 10 AFR, which meant the car just bogged down and led to some amusing BOV flatulence.. We will try again with the stock map from scratch, as for soem reason we couldnt edit the values in these section of the map.

[PurpleStreak]

We were having issues with resizing injectors and changing MAF. When we try to change the MAF, we pick 'halve values' as per the Nistune manual -

Halve values is only used for BNR32 GTR ECUs where they have two MAF inputs and the VQ map used is
actually halved. Select this when upgrading MAF on a BNR32 GTR

This makes the car tremondously lean. We were not able to change the MAF and resize injectors at the same time, as the car wouldnt even start. In the end, I think we just resized injectors and changed the MAF without halving the values to get it running.
Now that we know about the burn function, we were able to get the car running well. Boosting all the way up to redline yields AFRs around 11.5-12. But now, the car wont boost beyond 0.65 bar. Issue with the controller? Possibly..

[NismoS-tune]

The Wastegate springs are set at 1 bar on those turbos. I have the same ones and no boost controller, I make 1 bar. Sounds like you have a boost leak. I had a similar problem 3-4 years ago when I found bad throttle body seals, hole in my intercooler and an open vacuum line (so there was quite a bit of leaking going on).

11.5 AFR is pretty good. If you used the tuner I go to, you'd be dipping in the low low 10s.

[PurpleStreak]

Turns out I had hooked it up wrong. I had used the stock lines that went to the boost solenoid, which meant my boost controller wasnt intercepting the signal to the actuators and ended up controlling the pressure in the plugged line I was questioning earlier.



The diagram above has the colors switched on just the hoses going to and from the solenoid, but everything else is accurate. With this correction, it matches up with the RB26 system diagram.



I don't understand how the boost controller was working the way it came from Japan. But it turns out the setup was best the way I had it after removing the solenoid. So I had to remove some of the intake piping and disconnect and plug the stock actuator hose, and install the previous red M's hose again lol.

EDIT: Turns out the way it came from in Japan would allow the system to work in actuator mode. The stock solenoid would only slowdown the response of the system overall. In actuator mode, the controller would work jsut like the stock solenoid, only bleeding pressure to the actuators when the boost limit is reached.

And for whatever reason, the restrictor was still in place So out that came as well.





Once this was done, the car boosted to 1 bar.

Asides from all this, the car works ok, asides from the following problems:

• Sporadic tune failure - Car leans out suddenly at idle and stalls and doesnt start until the tune is reflashed..Hasnt occured since yesterday, gives a 'part of BIN file is corrupt' message or something to that effect
• Inconsistent boost build up - The car boosts well in lower gears, but in higher gear, it does not always hit 1 bar..Probably a leak after all..We will be pressure testing the charge side shortly.
• Blue smoke of death - Either the turbo seals are passing, or the Nismo separator is not doing its job. Blue smoke comes out of the exhaust during WOT runs. The typical oil in the rear compressor suction is also present. I will be checking the front compressor suction for oil, and opening the separator to atmosphere (w/ breather filter) instead of recirculating it to see if this is the source of the problem.
• Oil leak - Overnight a small amount of oil has accumulated under the car. I suspect it is one or more of the AN adapters that are leaking when the car is up to temperature.

[NismoS-tune]

As for possibly missing out on see my 32, I wouldn't worry too much, this car of yours will be as fast or fast and just as nice/nicer. R32<R33. So don't worry too much. If it parts out there's no worry right?

Good to hear it was your boost control plumbing. Lucky it didn't go the other way! A few months ago I replaced my clutch line in the pulsar and accidently disconnected my line going to the wastegate. The car made 24 pounds pretty quick. Knowing something was wrong, I stopped and found the problem. Lucky you didn't over boost!!

as for the BSOD (blue smoke), I doubt it's related to your nismo separator. Not using a separator doesn't do that so why would something that baffles/filters better do it? Just curious, what size of turbo oil feed restrictors are you using? Oil in the intake pipes, are you still recirculating a bov? sometimes old oil takes time to exit some of those pipes and still show up for a little while after deleting some oil breather hoses.

What ecu are you using again?

As for your boost build up issues, is it surging? I still suspect a leak though I recall having boost problems at the top end due to surge. Oh wait, you don't have stock pipes, nm.

Turns out I had hooked it up wrong. I had used the stock lines that went to the boost solenoid, which meant my boost controller wasnt intercepting the signal to the actuators and ended up controlling the pressure in the plugged line I was questioning earlier.



The diagram above has the colors switched on just the hoses going to and from the solenoid, but everything else is accurate. With this correction, it matches up with the RB26 system diagram.



I don't understand how the boost controller was working the way it came from Japan. But it turns out the setup was best the way I had it after removing the solenoid. So I had to remove some of the intake piping and disconnect and plug the stock actuator hose, and install the previous red M's hose again lol.

And for whatever reason, the restrictor was still in place So out that came as well.





Once this was done, the car boosted to 1 bar.

Asides from all this, the car works ok, asides from the following problems:

• Sporadic tune failure - Car leans out suddenly at idle and stalls and doesnt start until the tune is reflashed..Hasnt occured since yesterday, gives a 'part of BIN file is corrupt' message or something to that effect
• Inconsistent boost build up - The car boosts well in lower gears, but in higher gear, it does not always hit 1 bar..Probably a leak after all..We will be pressure testing the charge side shortly.
• Blue smoke of death - Either the turbo seals are passing, or the Nismo separator is not doing its job. Blue smoke comes out of the exhaust during WOT runs. The typical oil in the rear compressor suction is also present. I will be checking the front compressor suction for oil, and opening the separator to atmosphere (w/ breather filter) instead of recirculating it to see if this is the source of the problem.
• Coolant leak - Overnight a small amount of what is presumably coolant has accumulated under the car. I suspect it is one or more of the AN adapters that are leaking when the car is up to temperature.

[PurpleStreak]

Yeah no worries!
I agree on the separator not causing it, its better than what was there before! It just seems more apparent because of the location of the recircualtion and the layout of the Greddy suction pipe (There is oil sprayed on the MAF coupler!). But, is it common for the turbo seal to pass oil into both the compressor and the turbine? Yes I'm still using the stock BOVs and recirc lines. I am running 0.8mm restrictors going into each turbo, in addition to whatever size the restrictor in the stock banjo bolt on the block is. I am running Nistune right now.
I didnt notice any surging during the runs either..

What is everyone's opinion on runnign the car with these leaky turbos, for the long term? Any long term implications of burning oil besides reduced detonation threshold?

I wouldn't be up for going through reinstalling twins again if i had to replace the turbos; I'd much rather install some cheapo manifold and single to satisfy my 500 hp goal..and get the good stuff if I go with the built engine route in the future..

[cory]

IMO leaky turbos ain't a good thing...listen for the turbo squealing on boost If they do that I would change them before they do damage

[cortexx]

You would be better off getting a decent pair of N1 turbos and swapping them out . Buying a cheap chinese manifold and turbo is essentially like going to the effort of ressurecting an original Samurai warrior - and then buying him a plastic katana from walmart - dont do it