Dr. Marus or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the RB26DETT

[amnash]

hey i like how the fire extinguisher is mounted there was wondering how to mount mine. what size/type is that???

[Rush_in]

^ I hope you meant that in the nicest of ways lol!

But of course! very nice job

[bourquetc]

Loven the detail u put in everything! great work man

[Woodly]

Lol wow....that's quite a thought. This car is awesome though!

[MarusGTR]

^ I hope you meant that in the nicest of ways lol!

[Rush_in]

the last photo looks like she was gonna rape a small child in a middle of the night while you ware a sleep

[MarusGTR]

The storm - Part 4: Gotta buy a calendar

Now that I had one more week to complete my preparations for the time attack, I had enough time to tie up some loose ends. First, I had noticed a flaw in the EBC pads; all their backing plates have a universally molded base for a wear indicator (which they don't use). Even AMS had the manufacturing foresight of having two sets of bases, one for wear indicators (which they did use) and one without.

Why is this a problem? Well a wear indicator is usually mended to the protrusion at the bottom of the pad bases. Since all the EBC pads have these protrusions and that the 296mm GTR brakes are a tight setup, the protrusions would, under wear, eventually reach the AMS rotor floating hat and lock up the rotor or destroy a caliper and/or the car and a school bus full of children in the collateral damage.

So I took the pads off again to grind the bases down.



But this is where it hit me. These pads were thicker than the AMS pads they had replaced. And I had flushed the system to the brim with the AMS pads...

See where I'm going with this?

You're correct! I'm an idiot that didn't account for fluid displacement in the reservoir when I swapped the pads and ended up screwing up the BMC paint in the process.

Well at least that's a major problem that resolved itself by default.

With the pads back in place I then got excited to the prospect of changing my shifter for a no-name short throw. I wasn't looking to having an inch of shaft to play with (ha) like I've seen been done on countless occasions, but to refresh the assembly as sometimes gear changes felt a little too meaty. And in actuality, the cheap kit had its perk; being a two piece shaft I had gotten a custom upper shaft machined for my setup with a slightly longer length than OEM. So the throw angle would of been reduced but actual longer shifter would make the throw more reasonable.

First, that circlip ring SOB. Really, it's a SOB with a mind of its own.



So with the old shifter removed I then put it on the shelf next to the new kit. And then I dropped my head in dissapointment.



Turns out I had a RB20 bushing, no where close to RB26 fitment. I seems that this kit (which I had bought as an RB26 kit) is typically sold as a universal RB kit on ebay, not quite universal afterall (really, no duh).



What made matters worse is that my current shifter, which had to go back in, had some pretty mean wear and tear as you can see in the guide slits on the side of the pivot ball. Still, I tried to polish the ball a bit and regreased the bushing with CV shaft lube in introducing small quantities in the crevices and rolling the bushing over to distribute it.

Also this gave me the chance to look at my transmission seal options. From factory you have 3 seals/boots. You have one flat which covers most of the transmission/gearbox hole, then the dustboot which is over the pivot ball and finally the other ribbed boot which completes the isolation of the inside of the cabin to the undercarriage.

Since I'm running a more compact setup (no skirt), getting the ribbed boot low makes it stiffer and takes out responsiveness from shifting. Ideally, I wanted one flat boot that would seal the cabin from transmission heat. So I found an alternative. I discarted the ribbed boot and grabbed the flat boot by its center hole, initially about the same diameter as the shifter. I figured if I could get it stretched over the gearbox/shifter hole (about twice the diameter) it would seal properly the cabin from the transmission. I made it happen. Mental picture, I goatse'd it like a ************.

[not pictured]

Next step was to complete the weight loss program. The AC delete had taken pretty much all of the hot side of the system but the evaporator remained. Another staple of the exquisite engineering in the R32 series, the evaporator is easily accessed from its box behind the glove box. The box, being a closed unit, can easily be removed by unscrewing 6 screws (again, the engineering is so superb that they made of the of the more isolated screws perfectly angled to be reached by a standard screwdriver) and both pulling the box down and towards the back of the car.



From this point its simply a case of unclipping the power/sensors.

Another reason to removing it is that on the track I could only rely solely on adequate flow coming out of the vents to cool myself. Not only was the evaporator dead weight, I surmised that it was also a good source of flow energy parasitic loss. Which you can see here, I was right.



So like I said, the box is a closed unit. Just looking at the construction I realized that I could gut the evaporator core out and simply put the box back in to seal the system (which would make the process a lot easier than I could of hoped for).





I then noticed a few ugly stains in some of the foam...

Don't smoke guys.



To seal the gaping holes in the firewall (remember the two hoses that go to the enginebay) I sawed both pipes long enough so that they'd keep their mount position secured in the reassembled box. Honesly with the evaporator out and the box all cleaned up, on 2/4 fan power I could now feel fresh air on my face straight from the right-hand steering wheel vent, so it was well worth it.



With some slight adjustment to the ride height to square the car up, an alignment was due. Since I've gotten more of a friendly relation with my local Nissan, they let me put my car on the hoist and assist with the alignment. Its a good way to cut time so you don't get the overtime (more than 1 hour) surcharge.

Bobbo, being the clever track guru that he is, had the genius idea of maxing OEM specs for negative camber to have good highway wear but still have some wedge on the track.





Next, flushing the ATTESA. Since my trunk is stripped I had been giving the stinkeye to the dirty ATTESA tank in the corner and I was itching to flush the system. Since there isn't any procedure to flush a contaminated system (I was assuming a worse case scenario), I devised this procedure. [link]

Finally, the fire extinguisher. I wasn't going to go out in a ball of flames, not on my watch.



She was ready.

[future_R34]

I like your build thread better than "project horny". This is a real life build that everyone can relate to.

[Woodly]

Awesome thanks for the break down!

Video works now! And wow that looks great in the dark in that spot.

[MarusGTR]

hehe thanks, it's from a sheet of ABS plastic I bought from an audio and "performance" shop around here.

One side has the typical ABS texture but the other is flat and glossy so you can score with a knife and break pieces cleanly. I instead used that side and made a prototype with the old eyechrometer and through multiple slight alterations I was comfortable enough to make the final piece by overlaying the prototype over and matching corners on the grinder. It looks ok from afar but don't look at it from too close. I really wish I'd be better equipped (or skilled).

Most of the work was done on my dad's counter grinder which I'd handle the piece with one hand and cool the rock with a water spray bottle in my other. If I didn't cool the rock the plastic would melt and warp.

As for the details they were done with my dremel. The chamfering of the holes (btw they're the lean-side LED lights) was done with a conical rock and then everything was painted. The screw holes were also chamfered for a sturdier look. The screws were a handfull of mismatched freebees (if you notice the one at the bottom left is bigger because it has more load on it) from another audio shop where the manager was planning to throw them away after my search at local suppliers wasn't fruitful (could of got some but it would of been by the hundreds).

Anyway final paint job was with Krylon camo flat black, the same stuff I used for the front lip.

[Woodly]

I added that to my porn folder...

But seriously what material did you use to cover the gauge it looks awesome? Also what paint is that?

Great update as usual!

[bobbo]

Me starting the convo: "So about tomorow?" (we had planned to hang out)
Bobbo: "Going out with the wife"
Me: "Wait what?"
Bobbo: "Yeah?"
Me: "..."

Oh turns out I thought we were the next week.

****.

LOL! Yea I remember that! That darn tricky Christian calender is always screwing people up!

[MarusGTR]

Jesus that's a long thread page eh?

EDIT: And seems like this post just broke it. Go back one page for my new chapter.

[MarusGTR]

The storm - Part 3: Braiiiiins (or lack thereof)



So after finishing the engine I took a break for a few days as I knew another work marathon was coming up.

Bobbo and I had started talking about having me participate in Time Attack #2. Because TA #2 and #3 were on consecutive days, the club had also reserved the day before the event as an open lapping session to get people warmed up/tweaked in and to practice for the event. So this meant that if I could get there for the open lapping, I'd get enough practice laps to get my license the day just before the event; it couldn't be any more perfect.

After our talk I elected to take some time and work on my thesis again.

In the mix of things, I guess with some of my stupidity sprinkled in, it hit me on a monday night (IIRC) that the open lapping event was the next friday. I then went into panic mode to get things done.

So you might of guessed I had bought a lot of parts and you were right. For tracking I had bought (PS thanks for Bobbo's sponsor Focussed Motorsport for the WB):

-Nistune ECU
-Innovate MTX-L
-EBC Yellows

Also as a final service I had bought all the fluids for an overhaul flush:

[oh **** my browser nearly crashed, s'all good now]



Not pictured, a gallon of Motul 90PA and jugs of Redline MT90. **** yes.

But before the fluids I wanted to do the ECU and WB. Too hard to resist. The ECU was a Veilside Stage 2 (I think?) chipped to Nistune. Super shoutout to the GTRC user I bought it from, he got it tuned by Almasi for my setup prior to shipping it.





Just to be sure though, I took a looksee to make sure the EPROM was actually present.

Well this was unexpected.



But since the thing looked like it had been in a washing machine it needed some spruicing up.



Much better.

But to be on the safe side, the WB would take priority. I wasn't about to install a foreign ECU without any feedback.

So out with the passenger seat, I needed the space to do some more creative work...



So, out with the radio.



Since sometimes working on the GTR I feel as dumb as a bag of nails I didn't want to start getting into the harness to find a suitable power source. The idea here was to use the lighter power.

It had suitable wire gauge and amperage as it's basically a heating element; the fuses wouldn't need replacing as they were more than enough for the WB.

And I'm not a smoker. Screw the damn thing.







I also took the gauge cover off. Both it and the radio were going to get matte paint. Yes you read that right. Yes I'm anal. But you'll see where I'm going with this.

W-w-wait, something's not right here...



Oh god what am I doing!?





Both the power and dimmer were spliced together. I wasn't looking to get blinded or host a rave, just to have some simple feedback when I'd look down. Because they suggest giving the WB a clean signal, the ground was mounted on the transmission/shifter block.





I was going to use the exhaust temp sensor hole to pass the O² sensor. Problem is that is was too narrow. So since I wasn't going to buy a 50$ bit just to widen a hole, I took a spray can cap, put it over the hole and dremeled the hole from under the car. The cap was so that sparks wouldn't ignite the insulation.

Cause y'know, that's bad.



I had brought the test pipe to another mechanic friend to get the bung welded. A ford sparkplug was used ironically as a hole plug.

Oh did I forget to mention I have a super awesome and rare RS*R equal length downpipe? My bad.

So, where was I going with the paint and sawing?





So after a good day of practicing, I had finally found a way I could do a decent mount plate for my WB. I used the spare ring and glued it to the underside and let it set overnight. I also used the spare gauge bezel and used it to mock up the holes. Since it got mauled in the process, I used the tinted screen and overlayed it to the bezel I was going to use.

I was really looking for low-key.

With that done, ECU swap. Easy enough.



Now with the fluids. Well as I had mentionned, Motyl gear had been a bad call for the rear diff as it lacks friction modifiers for clutch type LSDs. I still had enough left for the front open diff, which would be a perfect match.

So for the rear diff I found cheap 90PA (on a motorcycle site wtf?) which I replaced 35$ worth of Motyl gear in the rear diff.

The transfer case. Simple enough, Motul ATF went in.

For the transmission I had opted for Redline MT-90. From my googlin' it had come up as a better choice for old synchromesh than Motylgear. I know shockproof has a better feel but I was looking for durability, not artificial numbness that'll just end up grinding my gears. I previously had Royal Purple diff fluid put in 2010 (it was popular on GTRC back then) but I don't think the friction modifiers and my 2nd gear were playing well together.

So turns out my drain bolt was seized. Awesome. My dad wasn't too happy when he saw I had cut one of his spare copper pipes in half to get more leverage.

Moving on.

With time running out I had to change the brake pads. The AMS pads had been great for street but since my rebuild I was generating so much clamping force that the rear pads were getting pulverized. Basically braking hard and jerking to a stop the rear pads would make a sound like a pin falling in a metal can.

Seriously I have no clue why people look for BBK, for petes sakes these brakes were designed for this car weren't they?! [EDIT: Ok ok that was a bit harsh. Still the difference the rebuild made just made me realize that some just go for BBKs for looks. Which is fine, I guess.]





With the EBCs in I took the car out for a spin. She felt fine if not too rich (low to high 10s at WOT).

But anyway I didn't have time to think about it as I noticed that my BMC had brake fluid all over it. ************.

I managed to see it before it took the paint off the body but the BMC took a kicking. Basically at this point I thought I had made so much pressure in the system that I blew a seal. Since it was thursday, I PM bobbo to tell him the bad news that I couldn't make it.

Me starting the convo: "So about tomorow?" (we had planned to hang out)
Bobbo: "Going out with the wife"
Me: "Wait what?"
Bobbo: "Yeah?"
Me: "..."

Oh turns out it was the wrong friday.

****.

[nimblestix]

well it already exists;

http://forums.gtrcanada.com/gt-r-project-cars/27955-skyline-gtr-build-project-%2Alots-pics-document.html

:P

I've thought about continuing where josh left off, I would have to swing that past him first though.
Might be a bit cheesy?

Anyways not trying to clutter up yours!
I love what your doing here maurus, thanks for the props too!

Sent from a galaxy far, far, away.