R33fourdoor

Have PM'd you.....

Funnily enough, I have the exact opposite problem. My GTS25T Series 1 Sedan came with Tein Coil-overs and they're stiff as!! I would suggest that by the nature of their designated roles, the coupe should by rights be the firmer of the two. Even though both are high performance models , you would expect the factory standard 4 door chassis to be biased more toward sport touring rather than outright sport. Sorry I couldn't answer your question though..... ;o)

PM sent

One of the lads at work runs a very tidy R31 GTS-X and swears by 'Fours and More' over at Pooraka. Supplied and fitted his Silver Top RB20 and have looked after the car ever since. Very reasonably priced and good workmanship. I believe they have recently set up a Dyno facility too. Would have tried them out before but I live on the other side of town and Shaun is much more convenient for me.

I realise that this post is a bit old now, but are these grills still available?

Tried Tilbrooks and had a bitter sweet experience. Mark seems like a nice bloke and I have some faith in his diagnostic ability as he lifted the bonnet, listened for about 20 seconds and discovered about 3 vacuum leaks! Then he passed it over to Mick..........he's a fast worker.....too fast for my liking......felt rushed and the results reflected his haste! Left me with a big bill, an expensive list of things to replace, a car that was less powerful, had a big flat spot and was chewing over 20l/100km!! Go figure :confused: Matt (whatsisname) was kind enough to respond to my message of despair and suggested Shaun at Boostworx. Although some things are yet to be resolved, Shaun got stuck into it, got it running nicely again with power and economy back in balance again. As an added bonus, his bill for the tuning and fabrication work was very reasonable. He da man!! Boostworx - highly recommended (I'll be back..........!!)

G'day Matt, Ooooowaaa..... who's the Birthday Boy!! The 20th just so happens to be my 1st wedding anniversary :inlove: and we've booked in at Enzo's Italian restaurant for dinner that night....bugger, I even suggested we book the BBC for our big night but we decided otherwise (Enzo's is one of our favourite places)!! I'd love to help you celebrate your big day :bananaman but we'll have to see how things pan out on the night, so I won't go making any rash promises I can't keep. I mean.....you're just down the road and around the corner!! If we don't make it, have a great night and I look forward to catching up another time. Cheers , Mike

Howdy Matt, Whoops!! Sorry if I've got it wrong......as you know I wouldn't have the foggiest idea if it were the case (never had it back then), it's just something that Shaun mentioned when I collected the car last Friday. :Oops: He said that when he was with RPM, they had a particular naming pattern and the map name in my ECU is "RPM2R33t", so he must have figured it was the second! :idea: How about I get Shaun to rename the map to "RPM2.5R33t" (just in case "RPM3R33t" is also on this forum)!! Cheers.......

Geez, I'm starting to feel a bit better now (I'm not the only one)!! I presume you're running the standard ECU. I'm running a similar setup to yours in my R33, with the addition of a Microtech LT12. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was consuming about 20.5L/100km driving it like a hurse!! Had it in my head that it should be returning more like 11-12L/100km. Had some fine tuning done on the dyno last week and tonight I've returned 16.1L/100km with quite a few WOT blasts. Am pleasantly relieved that it's improved, but I'm not sure whether I can realistically expect much better at this stage. My car is currently putting out about 165rwkw, so I guess that this rate of consumption is not so unreasonable, it's just not what I'm used to. However there are blokes out there running much higher outputs and claim to be running better economy than this!? What's the story guys? How is it so? I definitely thought that a standard ECU would return much better economy than mine as the Microtech doesn't have a "closed loop" circuit to reduce consumption at idle and on steady throttle.

Thanks for the instructions on checking out the timing belt Mark, I'll definitely check this out on the weekend. Would love to eliminate it as a possibility but somehow imagined it would be more difficult! Now I see what you mean Joel. I suppose in a way this is the hardest thing to check as the injectors need to come out and go to someone else for flow testing. I can see the sense in it and I'll definitely get this done but I'll leave it until last and check out the more "user accessible" things first. Steve, I know what your saying mate, that was my concern also (comparing it to a standard ECU). I have a Microtech LT12 and it was apparently the second unit ever installed and setup by RPM (Lachlan "Freebaggin" I'm told was the first....but don't quote me). It doesn't appear to be a problem at this stage as the results are consistent and aren't varying between fiddlings. I have the standard ECU but I feel that this would just introduce yet another variable. I'd rather work with what I already have and eliminate one thing after another..........but yeah, it's tempting!! I wouldn't be suprised if I discovered something like this Ben, but I highly doubt it (couldn't be that lucky). I'll definitely know a bit more once I take some covers off to try out Mark's suggestion.

Shaun wasn't sure what the underlying cause was....that's why I thought I would let the problem loose here and see whether any good ideas popped up!! The only reason I brought up the timing belt was because Tilbrooks did this about 10000km ago. Trouble is that the original owner didn't even realise it was pinging when he sold it (so he says). This makes his account of it's history a little unreliable. Shaun thought it was a coil or two, so he got a couple of s/h units in. He swapped out #1 and he reckoned that it was all fixed. I collected it on the Wednesday night but it was pinging over about 6000rpm and misfiring over about 4500rpm at WOT. That was when I took it back. He just gapped down the plugs and that fixed the misfire, took some timing out to loose the ping. At that point he began to doubt whether it wasn't the coil at all. I might have a play around with the coil packs over the weekend, give them a clean up, visually check them for arcing and run the multimeter over them. I know you can test a coil with a multimeter while it's just sitting there, but is there a way of testing a coil under heavy load to confirm whether it's arcing? Any idea of the best way to check the ignitor pack? As for the Injectors Joel.....dunno! Fuelling didn't seem come up as a concern on the dyno, that part seems to be quite controlable and consistent at this stage of the tune. Still feels like something on the ignition side or mechanical timing........:confused:

That's not a bad idea Matt!! I actually went out and bought the Hand Controller and the Laptop interface from Tim before I took it to Shaun. He even set me up that nice little "valet" program when it was in last. But you're right, I should experiment a bit with the fuel anyhow and get a separate map done to suit. Just I'm reluctant to blow any more money on tuning if there's a possibility of something more fundimental at play which is preventing it from reaching it's most basic potential. Would rather eliminate the possibilities or spend on having it corrected first, then have some fun in the tuning department!!

The plugs he put in were NGK BCPR6E (VL Turbo). But says that he normally sets them up with a gap of .7 - .8mm but couldn't get rid of the misfire. After much head scratching, he checked the gap on the cold plugs that Tilbrooks last installed and they were gapped at .5mm!! He regapped to about the same and the misfire went away!?

The 165rwkw recorded was in shootout mode. When I originally picked up the car, it was putting out 176.6rwkw in shootout but when I brought the car back to get rid of the slight misfire and ping right up the top of the rev range, the power dropped back accordingly. But Shaun still seemed to expect better, even with the Vortex fuel. I agree that the grade of fuel could contibute significantly to my current situation, but could it be that simple? Shaun seemed perplexed at the sensitivity of the timing and the fact that it was not reacting at all the same as the other Skylines he looks after, a couple of which belong to some well known members on this forum. If the timing belt were out by one or even two teeth, what would be the effect? Would there be a seat of the pants feeling that would make it obvious.... would something noticably screwy happen when you hit it with a timing light? Is there even a remote possibility that this is why it seems to be "responding abnormally" to normal tuning methods? :confused: Is there a simple way of eliminating this possibility without tearing the engine apart? Or should I just shut up and fill it with Optimax.....:wassup:

Hi everyone, Being new to Skylines, this forum and the fascinating world of hitech engineering, I am amazed at the overall high quality of input and responses in these technical forums. Obviously some very clued up people haunt these pages and I feel quite fortunate to be able to seek some advice when little appears to be on offer elsewhere. I have a power issue (duh!!) Just had my car in the workshop having the Micotech sorted once and for all...... or so I thought!! Seems that the motor just won't take any advanced timing!? Currently running 15 degrees timing, a plug gap of .55mm and 12psi of boost, it's netting 165rwkw. But that's all she wrote!!.......open the plug gap and it'll misfire.....up the timing and it'll ping!! She'll no take no more.......... Currently running 3" system, fabricated 3" dump/front pipe, Greddy front mount, GTR fuel pump, steel wheel (stock?) turbo, Pod, Cold Air box and Microtech ecu). Fuel used is Caltex Vortex 95RON. Apparently, under normal circumstances (with this sort of setup), the R33 should be able to take up to 25 degrees of timing and be happy running a plug gap of .7 - .8, and up to 14 odd psi of boost. A fairly safe state of tune would be about 20 degrees, gap of .7 and 14psi of boost. This conservative tune would be running close to the 200rwkw mark. What's wrong with this picture? It feels as though the problem is something quite straightforward, possibly something that may not have been setup properly from the start........ Any input here would be greatly appreciated.