Rb30 s13

the car didnt have any ARB's fitted, we arent going to run any as the suspension is very hard

 

well saturday went well, did a quick oil/filter change (7.5 litres btw) and pulled it out to wash the dust and crap off it and get a few snaps of it to show off the exhaust. ufortunetly 95% the millions of pictures i took were lost due to a cheap ebay memory car corruption misshap so pictures are limited. and unfortunetly no videos of how it sounds ill try and get something organised next week to let you guys hear it. it is very civilised tho but hopefully it will have a bit of a bark to it when we get higher up the revs.

so the surviving pics of the car look something like this:







i think the wheelbarrow look is quite fetching

anyhoo, all that lot was done by lunchtime and because of that i was at a bit of a loose end as to what to do, so a quick chat with alan, and after checking the fluids this happened...



then this happened...



it was a awesome feeling, total mix of emotions, i was really happy to see it actually getting some mapping but bricking it that it was going to blow up. its been the best part of 3 years work to get to this point, the past 18 months has really seen a gigantic leap forward in the progress and its really down to alan and dave at ava pushing me to get things done so big thanks to them.

the rollers provided some really good information, its given me things to focus on sorting, it has a couple of oil leaks, and it really needs an airbox and better fans/ducting round the rad to keep the temps down and the exhaust needs lagging to stop the floor melting.
early indications how the turbo may come in a few 00 rpm later than we thought and quick tests on the exhaust indicates that it was very much the right thing to do.

the cars been mapped now to 3k revs, makes 0.5bar and approx 140whp.

im over the moon with it, i didnt expect it to be able to run for 90 mins on the rollers with not a hint of an issue, my ass however was making buttons

 

Few quick snaps of the progress on the exhaust, we put a couple of Lambda boss's in the system, 1 for the ECU and one for the Wideband. Its allso been heat wrapped using Titanium wrap, far better than the normal fibreglass stuff and looks really good. It should protect the floor/bulkhead from the worst of the heat and is really easy to work with.

Pics:

















We have put the sensors either side of the gearbox mount so that there is some protection to them plus they are easy enough to get to

 

Appologies for not keeping this thread up to date.

currently the car has no wastegate, for the time being it doesnt need it and it will likley be run in without it, once the car gets fully mapped the wastegate will be hooked up.

as for progress:
Well today was spent working on the air intake side of things, currently the car has a large K&N fitted directly onto the turbo intake which works perfectly, however, it does draw in alot of heat from the manifold (as shown on the rollers) and out on the road will suceptable to spray, puddles etc. To solve these problems i came up with the design for an airbox, popped to the local fabricators to get the bits made.
Its a fairly simple design, its essentially just a 10" tall by 9" dia rolled sheet with a couple of disks to cober the end, it still needs the intake to the airbox made but that will happen in the next few weeks once i figure out the best place to feed it from.

anyhoo pics are worth a thousand words so here goes:





The end is removable to clean/change filter


and so ends up looking like this:


the filter fits in it and looks like this:




and fits on the car/looks like this:

 

As an update to the previous post about the airbox it was left looking like this:



the turbo intake is 5" so all the pipework leading to the airbox has to be of 5" diameter or have the area of a 5" pipe. 5" pipe is near imposible to find (especially in aluminium) and having a length of 4" pipe left over from the intercooler pipework it seemed logical to make my own. I got carried away making the pipe and scaloping it to fit the airbox, then cutting the box and welding/smoothing the intake pipe so it all flowed nicley. The end result was something that looked like this:





I agree with you that it looks a bit industrial, but hopefully with heat proofing etc it will soften the look a bit. To go on that i had a 5" silicone bend that had been provided with the turbo, it was used for the original intake system and it was ideal for what i was planning.
A 5" bend wouldnt fit between the current intercooler pipe and the radiator but i had a 45deg section of 4" piping that was left over from the intercooler so i did what ive had to do elsewhere and ive made my own pipes. So with that in mind i set about the pipe with the angle grinder, worked out what needed adding to make it work and got it tacked back together leaving you with this:







once this is welded up and reimmed to suit i needed to extend it to draw air from behind the headlight, que another length of 4" pipe,



slice this down its length and open it up to form an oval:



then weld it onto the bend made earlier. this pipe is left open at the bottom because it is beyond the radiator extents and also because it can draw air from the area where the wing mount used to sit. This pipe is then trimmed to suit the angle of the front panel, it ends up looking like this:





and when fitted looks like this: (applogies for the crap pics, it was getting dark in the workshop, ill get better pics up through the week)





overall im pretty chuffed with its look, it does need a bit of trimming here and there and also a few clamps put on the hoses and mabey a bit of polishing or a coat of paint but its another job ticked off the list. Time will tell if its worth the effort but im sure it will be.

ive got a few better shots of it in the daylight, not sure about painting the rocker covers to match the hoses or to paint them the same green as the car (dark metalic green) so its being left mismatched and looking crap for now.







and proof it does all fit:



and a wee shot i took i thought looked alright.