FORCED INDUCTION to N/A to FORCED INDUCTION again

[judasentinel]

Thought I would update here on what I have done over the course of last 5 months. Seems like a lifetime and not without its trials and tribulations, but in the end, its all good.

BEFORE:

- RB20DET
- Greddy R33 Turbo
- Stock 270cc injectors
- Stock intercooler
- Stock everything else in the motor
- JIC Magic suspension
- Turbosmart BOV


AFTER:

- RB25DE (Naturally Aspirated)
- Greddy R33 turbo..........dont ask how difficult it was to run an N/A motor with a turbo.......pffffffttttt!!
- 370cc injectors
- TRUST FMIC
- Turbosmart Boost Controller
- Greddy Emanage
- JIC Magic suspension
- Kenwood CD/MP3 player
- Alpine rear speakers
- Infinity reference series 15" sub in a Q-Logic sealed enclosure
- Soundstream power amp
- Fuzion ZRi tires (225/40R17 fronts, 255/40R17 rears)
- Kakimoto full catback exhaust 3.5"
- New timing belt, tensioner, idler
- Fresh paint on the motor and intake + piping

So far, thats the list. I am going back stock on the seats from a GTR, looking for a Z32 MAF and Q45 TB (Anyone out there selling these?)

The reason I am writing this is because I want to share my experience for others to learn from and use my failures are warning signs. There are pitfalls to this whole project and I thought sharing them with others would be my best contribution. So here goes nothing:

The reason why went from RB20DET to RB25DE was twofold: I wanted more power and I wanted to spend as little as I could. My luck, I found this RB25DE motor for sale in Scarborough at a shop that dealt mostly in bikes. The guy had gotten this motor and he gave it to me for $600!! It was a steal, even though the motor was N/A. After a lot of study and migraines, we found out that turbo-ing an N/A motor was not only possible, it would be better for low end torque, when the boost has not yet kicked in. So went in headlong into the swap. I sold my old RB for $400 and dumped the new motor in. Before putting it in, we went thru the internals and surprisingly, the motor was SPOTLESS inside. There was no oil leakage, no rust, no residues inside, but we did discover that the pistons did not have oil squirters in them. This meant that the under boost, the motor would run hotter than a regular RB, and so heating became a critical variable in the whole project.

The alternator was brand new and so were the sundry connections. The motor dropped right in, but then there was the other problem - what ECU to run it with? Decided to go with the RB20DET ECU, since the loom is the same. The only modification that needed to be done was that one of the wires for the injectors is reversed on the amplifier. And since we had painted the coil cover and the engine block, when we hooked up all the wires, the car didnt fire up. LESSON 1: PAINTED ENGINE BLOCK IS NOT NECESSARILY A GOOD GROUND. We rerouted the ground to different locations on the block and finally found a few good ones. We fired her up and VOILA!! It was resurrected!!

Now the issue of EM came. The engine management was totally screwed up. The car was running stupid rich, wouldn't idle properly, and couldn't figure out how to connect the Emanage. With the help of a few friends of the shop where all this was being done (Dan's MEAN STREET SPEED AND CUSTOM.highly recommended!! Best bunch of HUMAN BEINGS to work with...they may be businessmen, but they maintain their humanity thru it all. VERY HARD TO DO THAT in today's times), we finally figured it out. I needed both the injecotr harness AND the ignition harness. LESSON 2: On an N/A motor, putting any kind of a forced induction system would mean that you will either run too lean when you floor it, or that the motor will pull so much timing that your car will detonate like a bomb, so use some kind of an EMS to retard the timing. We did just that. However, LESSON 3: Emanage is NOT a good way to retard the timing for more than 1-2 deg. On the software side, we tried to reduce the timing by around 15 deg BTDC, and it resulted in a retardation of hardly 2 deg BTDC actual on the motor. I needed 4 more deg, so the next step would be to retard it all along the torque curve by rotating the CAS.

Anyhoo, the car was put together mechanically, the FMIC was installed. LESSON 4: Don't go too big on the FMIC because if you do, you lose pressure/boost. There was an option for me to convert the side feed intake plenum to front feed, but due to the piping and restriction of the battery positioning (I didnt want to move the battery), we didnt do it. Besides, the whole throttle linkage would have needed to be redirected, and there was not much time to do all that. So we stuck with the original setup. We went for black on grey color scheme to provide adequte contrast to the body paint. It looks very nice, and as you can see in the pic, too shiny to come out well in the sunlight .........so it was all done.

However, once I took it to dyno, we had a whole new set of problems waiting for us. First off, I couldnt run more than 9-10 psi of boost - it would kill the motor. So our options for power were limited then and there. Still we managed to do some pulls and the highest it could achieve would be around 250 rwhp, not enough, because that was at around 6500 rpm when the motor was crying for its dear life and there was no more boost. We heard it detonate and just stopped right there. I am sure that if we had more boost and lower compression, we could have touched 300 easily, but ALAS!! LESSON 5: Higher compression motors cannot take a lot of boost. My option in this case is to reduce the compression by putting in thicker head gaskets (1.8-2.0 mm) and new studs with it (DUH!!). Well, that may never happen, since I am already bugging Matt (lucky) to sell me his RB20DET block. Will go for a stroker and build something nicer there. Right now, my car runs fine, with a bit of a hesitation problem and power loss at higher rpms. But I guess thats the price of going for an N/A motor and wanting it to act like a turbo. Another mistake that I made was to run the RB20DET ECU. My issue was that car was running rich, and having the Emanage did not help either. LESSON 6: Emanage cannot help you with reduction in fuel flow beyond what the injectors are capable of.

I also found out that if you run a bigger motor with bigger injectors with an ECU that is programmed for smaller injectors, AND you want to achieve more power, you run into the catch 22 situation of running too rich with Emanage or detonating because the ECU is incapable of retarding the timing beyond its stock capabilities. So while I could control detonation with richness, I could not control the richness without detonating, LOL. But luckily, I have somehow struch a FINE balance now. And its running. Nothing more to say on that.

So, FINAL LESSON: Do NOT go for N/A motors if you are chasing power. Likely, it will cost you the same amount in other expenses, if not more, as it would if you go for a turbo motor, and in the end you have something that wont be as turbo-friendly and prone to melting under high boost. Learn from my mistakes and stay happy, FRIENDS.

And now, for my project's visuals:

BEFORE:







AFTER:









Some of you know, I am still having issues with the idling, hesitation, timing, and power loss at higher rpms, but its only a matter of time now. I have learned that if one starts to get one's own hands dirty, one can achieve more. Next step is a retune of the ECU, which should get me in the ballpark of a regular RB25DET, and then just fine tune it with the Emanage.

What do you think, guys? I HATE THOSE DECALS on my car, but dont know how I can get them off. Any suggestions?

[GTS4tw]

Very nice car! Awesome job on the engine too, how do you find the E-manage?

[judasentinel]

Very nice car! Awesome job on the engine too, how do you find the E-manage?

Thank you very much for your comments.

Well, I am not very happy with the Emanage, perhaps because of my ECU. I am running an RB20DET ECU, which is set at 270cc for injectors. Now my situation is that I was running rich even WITHOUT the Emanage, and when the tuner guy put the Emanage in, it got richer, especially at lower revs, when I dont really need much fuel. As a result, what happened was that I started fouling up my plugs and clogging my cat and the O2 sensor. That throws all kinds of weird numbers at the ECU, which then tries to lean out the mixture. The settings on the Emanage do not allow the ECU to lean it out a lot. And when they do, it runs so lean that my car starts detonating at high rpms. So I am in a catch 22 situation I either run rich or detonate. I dont know what to do. For now, if I take it easy on the car, it runs really well, but as soon as I start to floor it, it bogs, hesitates and has a very rough drive.

I am going to try and change the settings on the Emanage now, to see how it goes. So in a nutshell, not really happy. Thanks for asking, though.

[volk_007]

clean car!

i love it

[judasentinel]

Subsequent to my woes with my car, the engine and the EMS, here is the latest update:

I have swapped another motor now, but this time an RB25DET. My RB25DE was a great motor - clean as a baby's bottom, lol. ....I loved it but it wasn't being run properly due to poor engine management and my nemesis, the Emanage. I spent over $4000 on that motor, accessories, tuning and stuff, not to mention the months and months of waiting for it to be completed. My experience with the tune part of it has been terrible and I intend to NEVER go back down that road ever again, unless I absolutely have to.

I sold my RB25DE and got an RB25DET as a birthday present last month, which was nice. Got it all dropped in, but the guy who helped me, botched up the wiring. The injector wires were all messed, some had two power wires going to them and others had none. As a result, the car was running on fewer than 6 cylinders, with around 4 doing th ejob and the other two, well.....talk about free loaders ........

Anyhoo, as it turns out, not just the injectors, but also the ignition harness was messed by this guy. He tried to find a RANDOM wire to provide power to the ignitor and in doing so screwed the firing order for the coils. They started firing in the wrong order. To top it off, he decided to use the ignitor that was weaker and didnt use the one that worked well. All in all, the lack of combustion in cylinders 2 and 5 wreaked havoc on them and I'm sure now they have a LOT of build-up inside of them, and hence the higher compression.

Buddy didnt stop just right there. When he had taken the tranny out to do the swap, he "forgot" to top up the tranny fluid and then ended up putting it back in such a way that it grinds and gives all kinds of noises that are there whether I am in gear or not and sometimes the gear shifting is impossible unless I bring the revs down. I paid him more than $500 to do the swap and then anohter $450 for the wiring (Yeah, I know I could have paid that much to get a whole custom harness done for my car).

I brought the car home from Etobicoke to North York in an hour, slowly dragging it, carefully not over-revving it. Got her in the underground parking garage, locker her away and forgot about it.

The next few days I spent reading up on WHAT could be wrong, talked to people on here and finally Matt (lucky_cefiro) came in to help me with the wiring. He figured out what was wrong with it all and fixed most of it. It was still not working well. So then another friend of mine Mike (belontay-typem) came over and we worked together to finally sort it all out. We redid the wiring for the harness and injectors from ground up, in terms of securing connections. I literally pulled the Emanage wires out with frustration because the damn thing gave me nothing but trouble. The dude who had done the Emanage wiring had messed it up too - he had spliced into the injector and ignition wires along with the MAF wire in such a way that it looked like a bird's nest in there. Someone made a very appropriate comment on here that it was perhaps the worst wiring job one had seen, lol. My fault in that whole thing was that I trusted others.

But thankfully, GTRC is here, and JZ, thanks for creating this :-).

We did all the wiring for injectors and ignition and then set out to run the car with a basic stock RB20DET ECU. It fired right up, code 55, and I couldn't be happier. However, since the RB25DET runs 370s instead of 270s, the car was running very rich. Some time ago, I had fallen for a tuned chip from some guy out in BC who claimed he could enable me to run more boost, better power and torque curves and my car's performance would improve considerably. I got a chip from him and got my ECU socketed. Paid $50 for that job and as soon as I installed the chip, the car started p&^$ing in its pants.......gas burning in the cat, overheating, and the revs just wouldn't go past 1500. I emailed the guy and he said that his chip was based on RB25DET ECU, so effectively he was asking me to rewire my car along the lines of RB25DET ECU to make it work. I gave him the four letter word and took his chip out. At this point, I went back to talk to Anton (Stinky_1) to give me his STINKY TUNE chip.

Got the chip yesterday, installed it and WHOAAAAAA!! What a difference!! It was great. But after a few revs, the engine started idling rough and shaking. Found out that cylinder 5 was not working. Checked the resistance across all coils - 0.7 ohm all across. That solved, checked the ignitor and wires and everything was fine. Before I went to the injector side, I decided to take a look at the brand new plug I had put in when I first had done the RB25DET swap. BLACK AS A COAL MINE!! It had greasy black deposits inside of it, which obviously was due to fuel not burning. The plug was shot. I replaced the plugs and the car came alive. Now its all running perfectly. The idle is good at around 850-900 rpm.

Here is the summary of things done and staus quo:

1. Engine - RB25DET
2. Stock R33 Garrett turbo
3. Greddy/TRUST FMIC with custom piping
4. NGK BCP7ES copper plugs
5. Stock RB25 coils
6. 370 cc injectors
7. 3.5" downpipe and catback with Kakimoto exhaust
8. JIC Magic suspension
9. BBS 9 X 17 (rear) and 8.5 X 17 (front) wheels......(one of the guys who works at the place where I bought my car from told me they're BBS)
10. Soundstream 240WPC power amp with Infinity Reference Series 12" single subwoofer in sealed enclosure
11. Kenwood deck
12. Alpine 6" round rear speakers (fronts I dont even know if I still have them, lol)
13. Stock RB25 MAF
14. Everything else on the engine is bone stock, and I am not changing anything for now, until the basic setup is made to run properly
15. STINKY-TUNED ECU set up for 370cc injectors, boost cut and speed limiter disabled. The good thing about this tune is that the stock safety checks set up by Nissan in the ECU are still in place - SAFE and RELIABLE, while giving me the performance that I need.

My only issue remaining to be addressed now is the transmission, which seems to be (based on the other posts and feedbacks given) related to the clutch. Its either the clutch going out of commission OR that the slave cylinder needs bleeding OR the tranny fluid is low (ref: the guy who did the swap and FORGOT to top it up).

Other than that, the car drives beautifully. I was never one to go for cosmetics, but now I feel attention must be paid to the engine bay. I will sort out the wiring, put it away neatly and nicely, and make the engine look good. Thats what I hope to achieve this weekend. Will try and take pics of it as I go along.

Stay tuned................

[judasentinel]

I decided to take some shots of my engine bay and the car itself. Do give feedback please: