R32 GTS25 Four Door Slow Progress

Some goodies arrived and being stuck in at the weekends gave lots of time to get the bottom end sorted






For this build, I decided not to fit an extended crank collar, seeing as it's only going to be running around 350bhp and RB20's don't make enough torque to hurt themselves



Gave the torque wrench a good work out





New front and rear main seals were put in, the original oil pump was inspected and everything was inside tolerance with no damage so I reused it.

 

I got the piston rings mounted with the gaps correctly set and aligned


Pistons in


Got all of the pistons in and ready to go



Sump mounted


Popped the head back on, just to get a look, looks awesome!!

 

Already there buddy!

 

New headgasket on



This time around I ended up threading each ARP head stud through the head into the block rather than fighting to try and get all of them to slide through the head.


Neat bit of line routing and painted plate



Clutch isn't in perfect condition but works just fine and plenty of life on the disc.




Now, I was expecting a fight with the gearbox, each time I've put the gearbox on it's taken 4 hours minimum to get it lined up and bolted on and it's been a disaster. I don't know what I did differently this time, I was a bit more pedantic with the alignment tool, it may have been that but I got the box on in under 30 seconds this time, unbelievable

 

Time for the install.
I was doing this on my own with an engine crane and a cut cross member which does make the job a lot easier but still struggled getting it over the lip to the garage. It did involve some sketchy use of a scissor jack but got both front legs over in the end.




And touch down


There are a few marks in the purple on the firewall from some swinging donks but these things are very difficult to avoid when you're doing this sort of thing on your own. Hopefully can get them touched up!

Now I have to admit that the engine mounts need replacing but at the moment I can't collect my new ones due to the current situation so I'm planning on swapping them out one by one before I get anything else fitted up.

Started work on some smaller jobs like redoing the factory black paint on the headlights


You can see the difference between the two


Plenum placed on to check clearance


I've also wired in and placed my AEM wideband gauge


I also started some work on future parts I'll need. I want to retain the recirculating BOV that was on before but I couldn't find an adapter for the stock flange to match 2.5" pipe, I measured what I'd need and out it into CAD. Hopefully can get someone to make it out of billet for welding on to the pipework.

 

I started to get working on the inlet side of the engine
Everything is close enough to where it needed to be


I added the oil cooler sandwich plate and lines.
You'll notice the fuel filter isn't in the usual place, I thought that moving it here would make it much more serviceable than usual.
Also note the length of the oil cooler lines, I'm not sure why I made them this long, it may have been easier to install with the plenum in place.


New inlet gasket on which I was loathed to buy, there are £4.30 in Japan but all about £30 here.....


Power steering reservoir painted in the usual wrinkle VHT, I've had one of the returns welded up as the whole HICAS side has been blanked off and the lines removed.


Lower runners on



Now adding the top plenum was a bit of a disaster, unfortunately the bracket for the throttle cable hit the fuel filter and the oil cooler lines.

At this point the only way to get it to fit was to put the fuel filter back in the stock location, so I had to move that back and remake all the fuel lines to suit.

I also had to cut about 150-200mm of oil cooler hose out to lower them down below the runners, thankfully the AN fittings went back on with no troubles and I didn't get stabbed by frayed braid.

I also had to work out all the sizes for the vacuum fittings on the bottom of the plenum which took a few attempts but they're all in now.

The bolts also needed spacing by about 6mm to engage the threads and clamp properly.

 

I added thermal shielding to the turbo oil and coolant lines


I remade the intercooler brackets out of thicker metal and got those swapped over


Now the stock throttle cable was slightly too short for the new throttle body location
Plus had some lovely rusty brackets


I bought a universal cable but it wasn't OE quality so I decided to try and make an amalgamation of the two
Throttle pedal was just as rusty but I'm starting to get bad at photographing everything

Rust all cleaned up


Painted up and reassembled


I transferred the new longer cable and sheath to the stock hardware.
I had to cut the end of the stock cable to take the pass through for the pedal and the flat end stopper.

I used a 2mm drill bit to drill through the stock stopper, fed the cable through, moved it all over the car to get it in position and measure the length the cable would need to be. I marked it up, took it all back out and cut the cable to length.

I ended up putting the stopper in a vice with the cable through it, now the hole is 2mm, the cable is 1.5mm. I used a blowtorch to heat the stopper up and fed solder into the stopper to flow between the cable and the stopper. Once it started dribbling out the bottom I stopped and it seems to securely hold the cable.

Now I'm not 100% confident on this, I'm not sure what everyone else thinks?
I added the bolt stopper behind as a second stop just in case.


I picked up an RB25 fan with now cracks compared to my collection of cracked RB20 fans.

 

Just a small update for this one.

I picked my turbo core back up after a new oil seal and re-balancing, seems it was 4g out of balance


Reassembled the cold side



I'm waiting to get the exhaust housing back as one of the threads got stripped so is being helicoiled.

I started another mini project which in my opinion is completely unnecessary but I could do it, so I did.
Intercooler sprayer


I have no idea how well this will work, if at all, but for the sake of £4 mist sprayers and £2 of aquarium tubing might as well give it a go. It's hooked up to the pump for the rear window spray nozzle. Will try it at some point and report back.

 

Got the turbo mounted up





I needed to slightly adjust the heat shield for the manifold


Made a small covering blank to cover the gap between the defi's and the headunit


Started making up some of the pieces I need for the engine bay


Next up is the pipework which I've been putting off for ages

 

Started chopping up the previous pipework to see if I could find a combination of existing pipes






Test fit of the bumper to check everything clears


Seems to work OK and managed to redo the pipework without having to buy any more so that's a small success!

 

Now for the fun part, well, bit of an unknown for me as I've not attempted anything like this before.

It seems you can't buy a weld on adapter for 2.5" pipework and for a stock Nissan BOV pattern, so I had to get creative.
I also needed to replicate the coolant bleed point on the stock upper plenum I no longer had.
Plus I needed to add the holes in the pipework for various vacuum ports and adapters.
Cue the pillar drill

 

Fabrication part 2, the BOV flange, this was a tricky one and it was by no means perfect but it worked correctly!







Swarf, swarf everywhere and took a good few hours but got there in the end!

Will sit something like this with the BOV piping sorted



Yes I know the BOV should be as close to the throttle body as possible but rather than having a giant hose lying across the top of the engine I've mounted it on the other side and it will still work properly.

 

Time to get the paint out again, of course wrinkle black










Here's a Skyline pro tip for you, if you want to check for vacuum leaks and need to plug up the intake, good old John West has you covered

 

This is long overdue an update.

It's now up and running, the first start was an anxious moment as I've never done a bottom end rebuild before but all went relatively well.
It made good oil pressure and no strange noises so win win there.

So at this point in time I've put 500 miles on the engine since the rebuild and there haven't been any major issues.

I have an issue with stalling if you dip the clutch and roll up to a stop but as long as you tap the throttle it's OK, I suspect this is due to be fiddling with the cam timing and not telling the ECU yet!

In the process of fault finding I checked the fuel supply



This is entirely my own fault for leaving it with a tank of fuel inside it for nearly a year.
I suspect that this is the result of some of the fuel additives in VPower breaking down, but happy to be proven wrong!

Now at the first oil change at 100 miles or so gave me a mild heart attack.
Not because of this, which isn't too bad


But because of this


50% of you will be sharing my panic
50% might assume I've been panning for gold

I ripped the filter apart to check for debris with a magnet (not so bad)


Note the outlines of two strip magnets on the back side. For the price of about £3, totally worth it to catch pieces like this


Now I'll put you out of your misery and tell you where the glitter came from.
I'd previously changed the DSG fluid in a gearbox and not bothered to clean the pan out afterwards, leaving little flakes of I assume synchro rings.
Panic over!