DatsunBanana

Yeah thanks. It's a bit mad what we have to pay for some stuff. You could get Skylines from Nissan dealers new in AU right? We only have imports (apart from a small number of GTRs) I've just waited patiently for the right deals to come along on secondhand parts. Some of the cheaper engines on eBay are without turbo and other ancillaries and then another time you'll see one with a gearbox for a couple of grand. It varies but you can see one of the reasons why I've gone the +t route on the NA engine.

Ah yes, another good point - exhaust. Forgot that as I already put a stock GTT cat back on a couple of years ago. Great that you have LSD - I want one. Mine had none of the nice options LOL. Hicas delete seems a popular mod anyway so probably not a make or break if you have it or not really. Be interesting to see what cost estimates all this comes to for the various options. Mine's definitely been a budget build. Apexi suspension, GTT exhaust, R32 GTR brakes came in at 350 GBP. All the turbo bits are on target to come in at around 5. Just a turbo motor would have cost me £1500 GBP minimum. To sell mine and buy a GTT might have cost me 3-4K at GB prices but would probably have managed to get a manual for that.

Yeah, these are good points Aleks makes about changing over other DET bits too and there's a lot of those. NAs won't necessarily have extra bits like traction control, hicas, lsd. The suspension, brakes and fuel pump will be different (R34 NA suspension is same as R33). Have you upgraded your brakes and suspension first - or at least plan to do at the same time? These are all pretty important for the extra power and add to the cost which might make selling and buying a GTT a more economical option. Fortunately I did all that ages ago and got very good deals on the parts.

For me doing this will be about the cost and the challenge. On the forum you'll find other threads including 666DAN's thread which (if you enjoy a lengthy read) shows that some guys ran conversions successfully long term. Parts have cost me a third of the price of the cheapest NEO DET engine. If you want bigger power then an original DET engine has way more potential. There's lots of info about taking the right precautions to stop them blowing up - hopefully it's right :-) If you can afford it and potentially want to chase bigger power in future then you're probably doing the right thing dropping a motor (and ECU) in. You'll probably want a matching gearbox too if you want longevity.

Or there's this ... http://www.ebay.ca/itm/BRASS-MALE-BSPT-HOSE-TAIL-FITTING-CONNECTOR-1-4-3-8-1-2-3-4-1-GAS-WATER-OIL-AIR-/141926014965?var=&hash=item210b731ff5:m:mMyxf5-t7cIdny8nj0HFCUw From UK, says they'll ship to Canada.

If it helps I could get one here and send across - I think the part was about 5 GBP. Or a different one from the UK if you wanted an AN fitting end. Postage is about 5 GBP untracked and 10 GBP tracked (7-10 days) and you could paypal me. Probably best to wait for confirmation though from Aleks or wait till I fit mine. I decided against an angled one cos I thought once it tightens on the tapered thread, the angled part might be pointing the wrong way. BTW - did you get the ECU?

Not sure till I take it apart. I think I'll order a new one before I start that.

No - unfortunately no welding experience. BTW, did you buy new exhaust manifold gasket or could you get it up and running first with the original one?

I'm happy to be corrected by someone but I'd say get as much rust as possible off using a sanding or wire brush attachment in a drill and then some sort of treatment or inhibitive paint. That's why I got a couple of "Hammerite Direct to Rust" spray cans although I'll probably treat the rust too with one of the branded treatments. In this climate we get plenty of surface rust as you can see from the photos - makes yours look like a show car.

Yeah the horns fit fine I also took the top one off to do the work but then put it back after. I did at first put some bends in the top one's bracket to set it back a bit but in the end it was fine so I straightened it up again. Here's a pic, there's about a centimetre of clearance between the horn and the intercooler. Yep I'll protect the intercooler and piping from any metal edges and will also put a bit of paint on the bare metal - yellow Hammerite is a pretty good match for my car lol so going to respray the reo bar with that too.

Great pics. So that's what the back of the cylinder head looks like LOL. Here's what I got up to today. After getting the intercooler in place and marking up I took an angle grinder to the reo bar which was a lot easier than I expected. I cut the holes for the intercooler piping in the inner wing. The Blitz kit uses the standard holes so was just a matter of drilling them out. I used a 76mm hole saw and good old Nissan have even centre punched ready for the pilot drill. I also started work on cutting the inside plastic of the bumper. I used the angle grinder and a saw right where there was a natural lip on the inwards protrusion. It wasn't quite enough to let me push the bumper all the way back though so I'll finish that this weekend. I think the next line I cut might chip the paint a bit so need to think of something to prevent that - masking tape maybe or a finer saw.

Yeah, for the custom turbo lines do you mean the intercooler to inlet and turbo or do you mean the oil/water lines? I'll need custom stuff to connect from intercooler pipes to the turbo and the y-pipe. Not sure what you mean about the AAC though. I was going to leave all that on the stock inlet system with the existing loom. There's some pics in a link I posted earlier of someone using the stock y pipe with a j-pipe off a turbo but put on sideways. Mine might be a bit like that but with a silicon 90 at the Y and custom pipe back towards the intercooler pipe in the wing. If you meant oil/water I'll be cutting the banjo off the oil feed and joining to braided hose round to the oil sender tee. Drain will be custom using hose and the connectors I posted pics of earlier (a bit like yours). And for water lines I tried to explain my idea for that earlier. If it works I'll post pics and if not I'll cut off the banjos and connect via hose to heater pipes like you did. That reminds me ... you had oil in your turbo housing didn't you ... the standard oil feed pipe I bought has an approx 1mm restriction in one of the banjos and apparently this is cos the standard turbos are ball bearing. That's only what I've read but it made me wonder that if you used an4 hose without restriction it might be higher than expected oil flow. You're right about the BOV and gauge I think so will see how it goes.

Here's a quick pic of all the major bits I've got so far.. R33 turbo R33 elbow R33 manifold R33 water lines and oil feed line R33 heat shields R34 3" downpipe R34 GTT standard manual ECU R34 standard injectors Blitz FMIC kit Also now have nearly all of the various fittings. Most are shown in one of my pics above plus I've now got the tee for the oil sender. I just need gaskets, a bit more intercooler piping and a bit of hose to complete the oil and water lines. I'm assuming I can use the O2 sensor off my NA? I probably ought to get a bigger fuel pump soon as I've got it running with the above and I might get a BOV and boost gauge at some point. I think I'm gonna have to do this sooner than I expected :-)

I think that was my first mod too but wasn't the last. I left the hose in place and plugged the end with a bolt. If your filter is attached with a plastic adaptor watch out that it doesn't crack with the movement. I had to replace plastic adaptors twice and it's hard to spot the cracks at the join but means it would leak unfiltered air into the engine. I got an alloy adaptor in the end which was hard to find for the 3 inch adaptor neck that I've got but an Impreza one had the same bolt hole pattern.

I'm planning to keep my Y pipe. It is extra work to change plugs/coilpacks but after a couple of times it's not so bad. I guess there's some advantage in the DET inlet especially to put the standard BOV and turbo water return on. Not sure if the poorly matched large manifold ports meeting the smaller head ports might have some effect on the smooth flow of air but hey, bolting a turbo on is gonna be better than it was right? Interesting points about the Y pipe from Dan in the thread here - it's tempting to try what he said about that butterfly valve ... Did this today ... attacked the front bumper and got the reo bar off ready for cutting for the FMIC which should arrive in the next couple of days. Want to have a go at the rust spots as well. In the second pic, I don't know what the plastic thing is or where it came from. It was on the floor after removing the bumper. Aleks did you come across one when removing your bumper?

For your intercooler did you have to bring one of the pipes up through the body work by the expansion bottle? (where there are 2 already there on a GTT). Do you remember what size hole you cut? I need to get a hole saw and do that sooner rather than later for a test fit of my intercooler when that arrives.

Any progress on yours? I might end up doing this a bit sooner than I thought as I just got a package deal on GTT ECU, downpipe, injectors and a nice big FMIC with pipes. Didn't really intend to spend the money on all that stuff so soon but for some hard to get items at a fair price I had to say yes :-)

Looking good. I see you did use the 33 inlet in the end. Was that so you could get the BOV in easily? So here's pics of adaptors I've bought and my theory behind it is this ... I saw on a few non-Skyline +turbo threads that people use the block coolant drain plug for turbo water feed. E.g. I read about that for a Nissan Patrol. Also from what I've read, this seems to be 1/4" BSPT (tapered) thread on the RB25. It's also just a couple of inches below the place where the DET water feed would be so as the photo shows I've bought an adaptor to use the standard water line (with a bit of careful bending to reach the lower position). Photo shows: 1/4" BSPT to BSPP adaptor. A 1/4" BSPP banjo bolt which is a close but not perfect fit in the 14mm standard water line banjo (I think the copper washers will form the seal OK) and the block coolant drain tapping I hope to use. Just keep in mind that this is theoretical until I actually try it and report back. For the oil drain I've got the two adaptors shown in the pic. One is easy - an off the shelf T3 flange. The other is just a hose tail which I hope is the right thread. I believe the block tapping for the VCT oil drain (same one you're using) is 3/4" BSPT. Again - I won't know until I try it unless anyone can confirm. I've still got quite a few parts to get and on a tight budget so might be a while till I can confirm any of this.

Yeah, you're right about that pic. It must be a generic pic of a smaller adapter. The one that I actually ordered has the same size tail as the drain flange in my other pic. Both have outer diameter of 16mm to fit inside the hose. The narrow point will be at the turbo flange which has an 11mm bore. The hose tail at the block has a similar bore but maybe a fraction bigger. Hope it'll be enough but I'll check it all like you say and keep the hose as vertical as possible.

Thanks, I already took a punt and bought the fitting I think I need for the oil return so it will be interesting to see a photo of what you've got. I measured the plug you're talking about as best I could without undoing it from the block. It's about 1 inch diameter so I reckon it's a 3/4 BSPT thread (same as Japanese JIS) from the info here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Standard_Pipe I bought a straight hose tail adapter with a 5/8" outlet to fit a 16mm internal diameter hose like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brass-Male-bspt-Hose-tails-Hosetail-Fitting-Con-1-8-to-2-Water-Gas-Oil-Fuel-/111269900680 I've bought a T3 drain flange also for 16mm ID hose like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Turbocharger-Oil-Drain-Return-Flange-T3-T34-T35-T04-Garrett-Turbo-RS-Cosworth-/391484877901

The photos are very helpful. Just wondered when you tighten in the t-piece for the oil feed, is it just by chance that the take off is pointing in the right direction? Also it looks like a male end facing toward the camera but I thought it should be female to connect the sender to?

For those thinking about it, mine's had Evans in it for about 4 years now. It's hassle free, no temperature problems. I'm happy with it.

Great write up. Have you got a pic of the dump pipe extension? Not sure the tuners advice is quite right about the ECUs though ... page AT-3 in the R34 service manual says "Vehicle with RB20DE and RB25DET engine has TCM integrated into ECM. Vehicle with RB25DE engine has TCM and ECM separately." I wonder if they were getting mixed up with the RB20? Or maybe they meant that using the DET auto ECU can cause problems which would tie in with what I've been told - that a manual DET ecu is a better choice on an auto DE+t as the separate trans controller will just continue to do it's thing. That made sense to me.

Hi, I'm currently gathering parts to +t my 34 too and planning exactly the same as you for oil feed and drain. I did think about running it with no water and lots of people say it's fine but I got a turbo timer to help prevent the turbo getting too hot after shutdown. I would still like to do water if I can though and tee-ing into heater pipework is an option but I haven't seen any specific details on this either. The science behind it seems to be that the return should be to a higher part of the system than the feed comes from. That way the hot water will naturally rise after the engine shuts off and pull colder water through the turbo. You probably knew/read that elsewhere already. I've got a couple of threads up at the moment with some questions about my other ideas for this - one is about getting the feed from the block water drain that exists on our NEO DE's right next to the blanked off turbo feed. The other is to return coolant to the front end of the inlet manifold as I think this could be done neatly by extending a standard water return pipe. I just don't know what the water channels are like inside there but you might be able to tell if you've got an inlet manifold already off the engine. Hopefully you'll get some definite answers and that might help me too.

+t coolant feed from block drain plug? Although the question seems contradictory, it looks to me that the coolant drain (for emptying the block) is right next to the turbo water feed on DET blocks. See here for example ... So my NEO DE only has the flat in the casting where the turbo feed should be but right next to it I have the coolant drain. I can't find anyone else saying to use this but it seems like it's in a good place for some easy pipework and then return to a higher point. Any thoughts?