A big bunch of parts arrived, so it was time to get serious on the engine. I started disassembling the cylinder head. You better have a factory manual beside you, just in doubt. For example the cam shafts on a 6-cylinder engine are quite long, so they can be f***ed up fast by unscrewing the bolts in the wrong order. In the worst case, they can just break!
The head of the RB25 looks familiar. The cam shaft and hydraulic lifter setup of the CA18 is more or less the same. The hydro lifters provide silent and maintenance-free operation, but are not able to take extreme rpm levels. But research brought me to the conclusion, that a redline of 8000rpm should be reliable.
Since the engine came from a foreigner, even from a different continent, I wanted to check everything before enhancing its power. The crank shaft bearings seemed to be in good shape and everything else looked just great and factory (stock). Note the reinforcement of the main bearing shells that is one piece from the one end of the engine to the other. That’s what RBs are all about, STRONG!
I was aiming for way over 400hp, so felt it was a good idea to improve the engine’s life insurance. An N1 oil pump had to be fitted. It is able to deliver the same amount of oil up to very high rpms and raises the oil pressure all over the revband.
It just feels good to mount such a nice and expensive part, knowing that this will make your engine bullet proof. (at least concerning oil supply)
On went the oil pan. Freshly sealing, nice and shiny.
N1 water pump was also mounted, now the block needed to be cleaned and prepared to receive the head again (once ready).
There isn’t alot of space in the S13’s engine bay and I was not a great fan of the „over-head-intake-manifold“. So I needed one of these side intake manifolds. Port-matched it to the cylinder head and painted the whole thing. Next to it lies the one-and-only Infinity Q45 throttle body. This TB sports a true 80mm bore and bolts right onto the intake manifold.
The manifold all set up and equipped with the stock fuel rail, 740cc injectors and the Q45 TB. What a nice sight 🙂
Because the old cam covers were scratched up and looked kind of wasted, I applied wrinkle paint on them. I think it just looks marvellous, next to the black manifold.
Here is the reason for the mess in the cockpit. I got a genuine NISMO R33 GT-R cluster to be installed into the S13’s cockpit. Above a comparison with the stock S13 cluster. The NISMO sports an oil pressure gauge and expanded rev-gauge/speedo, next to its sensational looks. And most important, it’s perfectly compatible to the RB25’s 6-cylinder rpm signal and gearbox ratio.
Although there are a lot of wiring diagrams and how-tos on the web, I cannot recommed this to everybody. In order to properly wire all the functions into the S13’s wiring loom, you’ll need more than just a little bit of experience…
In my case, I could rely on the immensely valuable help of MartinS from the Team. We literally had to check every single wire, since there is no detailed translation of an R33 GT-R cluster on the internet.
This is what it looked like when installed. All the lights and gauges worked fine. Thanks again Martin!
Together with the cluster, I wanted to have at least the following information at hand, when driving: Oil temperature, boost pressure and exhaust gas temperature. I know there are a few other interesting gauges to be installed on a performance engine… more on that later.
Check back for part 5…A big bunch of parts arrived, so it was time to get serious on the engine. I started disassembling the cylinder head. You better have a factory manual beside you, just in doubt. For example the cam shafts on a 6-cylinder engine are quite long, so they can be f***ed up fast by unscrewing the bolts in the wrong order. In the worst case, they can just break!
The head of the RB25 looks familiar. The cam shaft and hydaulic lifter setup of the CA18 is more or less the same. The hydro lifters provide silent and maintenance-free operation, but are not able to take extreme rpm levels. But research brought me to the conclusion, that a redline of 8000rpm should be reliable.
Since the engine came from a foreigner, even from a different continent, I wanted to check everything before enhancing its power. The crank shaft bearings seemed to be in good shape and everything else looked just great and factory (stock). Note the reinforcement of the main bearing shells that is one piece from the one end of the engine to the other. That’s what RBs are all about, STRONG!
I was aiming for way over 400hp, so felt it was a good idea to improve the engine’s life insurance. An N1 oil pump had to be fitted. It is able to deliver the same amount of oil up to very high rpms and raises the oil pressure all over the revband.
It just feels good to mount such a nice and expensive part, knowing that this will make your engine bullet proof. (at least concerning oil supply)
On went the oil pan. Freshly sealing, nice and shiny.
N1 water pump was also mounted, now the block needed to be cleaned and prepared to receive the head again (once ready).
There isn’t alot of space in the S13’s engine bay and I was not a great fan of the „over-head-intake-manifold“. So I needed one of these side intake manifolds. Port-matched it to the cylinder head and painted the whole thing. Next to it lies the one-and-only Infinity Q45 throttle body. This TB sports a true 80mm bore and bolts right onto the intake manifold.
The manifold all set up and equipped with the stock fuel rail, 740cc injectors and the Q45 TB. What a nice sight 🙂
Because the old cam covers were scratched up and looked kind of wasted, I applied wrinkle paint on them. I think it just looks marvellous, next to the black manifold.
Here is the reason for the mess in the cockpit. I got a genuine NISMO R33 GT-R cluster to be installed into the S13’s cockpit. Above a comparison with the stock S13 cluster. The NISMO sports an oil pressure gauge and expanded rev-gauge/speedo, next to its sensational looks. And most important, it’s perfectly compatible to the RB25’s 6-cylinder rpm signal and gearbox ratio.
Although there are a lot of wiring diagrams and how-tos on the web, I cannot recommed this to everybody. In order to properly wire all the functions into the S13’s wiring loom, you’ll need more than just a little bit of experience…
In my case, I could rely on the immensely valuable help of MartinS from the Team. We literally had to check every single wire, since there is no detailed translation of an R33 GT-R cluster on the internet.
This is what it looked like when installed. All the lights and gauges worked fine. Thanks again Martin!
Together with the cluster, I wanted to have at least the following information at hand, when driving: Oil temperature, boost pressure and exhaust gas temperature. I know there are a few other interesting gauges to be installed on a performance engine… more on that later.
Check back for part 5…