rev210

the 16 inch davies craig can be made to fit the factory shroud with some minor plastic cutting.

Although R32 GTRs are more common in Perth than they used to be , there still aren't many around to see. I'd rather see an R32 GTR drive down the road than an R34 GTT, as would most. The GTST owners in every guise (like me at the moment) just wish it was the other way around. The GTT just doesn't incite anywhere as much excitement, it may be less common but, it's a dull event. And seeing a beautiful thing often isn't a problem, it's a blessing.

If you are a cheap ass - don't buy the GTR, actually don't buy any performance car that you are going to drive like you stole it at some point. If you want to pick the real performance car - It's the R32 GTR by a very very long way. Also this is a 'depends' answer. IF both cars are good examples of the breed, in terms of condition. You will pay similar money for built R32 GTR *Poor bastards burning away money as you will for a very good nick R34 GTT.

Bonnet down or up on that one?

I actually ran without the lid at the drags (R33 gtst) a number of years ago to test the lid 'off'. It was 2 mph slower on the terminal speed, slower through each of the traps at 660 and 100ft too. 102mph Vs 104 mph. Obviously sucking down lovely hot air. The factory snorkel can be improved on like I said earlier. I ended up cutting a duct to the front part and made a cold air feed for it. Does bugger all having said all that.

I had a good look at this car when autowholesale had it and the car had major amounts of modifications all over , including a built motor. It was originally a fair whack cheaper from memory, sold off as a major bargain. The car may well be worth $150k to someone given the extras it has. It's the R34 GTR market boys not the R32 gtst bunky end of town afterall.

put the bonnet down and that power goes south for the winter. You can modify the top front of the lid for another more forward facing duct. As long as there is a duct collecting cool air outside the engine bay it's all roses. Always do the final tunes with the bonnet down it gets you a better base for your road tunes.

I got 450+km with my old R32 GTR , power FC (airflow meters) group A turbos, Tomei 260 cams (lumpy idle too) making the better part of 300rwkw and a half dead engine. BUT. Who gives a fig! If you have a performance car you are going to use lots of fuel or you simply aren't enjoying it! Want ecconomy? Buy a mo-ped.

Honestly the fact that the plenum allows 350rwkw worth of air through it means very little. Air flow restrictions to an extent can be overcome by working the 'air pump' (engine) harder. The good thing about the factory plenum is that it had long runners for better off boost performance and is pretty good at evenly distributing the air going into it at moderate power levels. It has a fairly low volume plenum chamber for suited to the airflow needs of the factory engine, helping with low end rpm response. The bad things are that , the plenum chamber volume is a tad small for bigger power levels requiring bigger airflow and cylinder fill rates. It will be well down on power compared to a good aftermarket unit with the same equipment. At 500hp I'd say there would be a significant difference indeed. It faces in such a direction as to cause restriction and dull response when coupled to a FMIC (not an issue with the factory side mount though). As for modification of the factory plenum, Grandenko did this to his RB25det and reported no ill effects and increased response. As to whether the cylinders fill evenly I'd say there may be an issue as the stock plenum isn't tapered to suit the front feed airflow bias to the rear cylinders.

The stock plenum is better than a crap el'cheapo one. However a well made unit is another story. The plazmaman plenums increase power over a stock plenum as a bolt on ($1,100 no crap required unlike the Greddy) not to mention the benifit from reduced piping volume, length and very restrictive bends. The stock plenum might be good for 500hp. A good aftermarket one will get 500hp with less effort. The cheapo units however are not worth bothering with. $1,100 for a good bolt on one is value.

ARE gets my vote.

that rubber turbo to afm pipe is worth a few hp odd if you turf it for something better for sure.

I don't mean visit a dyno with regards to a 'good tune'. Let me re-phrase for clarification. This is what I mean; On a factory ecu you can't do anything with the fixed maps. However you can ensure that the base timing is correct. Sounds easy. It is. However - I might tenatively suggest the factory setting isn't the best for Australian fuels etc. So if you take it to one mechanic you may recieve the factory setting for your trouble, if this is not best you have not recieved 'part' of what is overall a 'good tune'. The other things that get set and checked in the tune ought to be things like: plugs are in good condition and correctly gapped, injectors are cleaned, fuel filter replaced, any solenoids are free of gunge (cold enrichment), belts are in good nick and correctly tensioned, hose clamps are secure on all pipe work, hoses are servicable, coil packs need checking for faults. Now some of this might be called 'maintenence' but, rest assured if you have just picked up the car and you have some or all of them needing attention then it effects 'the tune'. To have a 'good tune' they all are addressed where needed. You don't necessarily need to visit a dyno to see before and afters. A 'good tuner' will set the car up well and you will notice the difference right away. I haven't needed to frequent dyno's over the years and saved lots of coin doing things the old fashioned way with modest sucess.

Full exhaust is a good idea. Pod filter is a bad idea - waste of effort/time and money and you get unwanted police attention. Oh and 'no' power gain over the factory airbox. Before skipping off to do the front mount intercooler, there are a number of other things like.... A good tune, along with fluid changes for everything. That is going to cost a few dollars. Pineapples - AKA diff cradle bushes, these give you more of what even stock skylines don't have much of , traction. $100 and 30min to pop them in. A good set of tyres. A decent set of brake pads, if you are unlucky the ones you buy the car with might be el'cheapos pone to almost instant fade. There are lots of things you can do in keeping the car simple. The R34 intercooler offers about the best value intercooler upgrade solution for the stock turbo setup, in line with your goal of keeping the car simple. Even that doesn't need to be done in order to get the car going into low 13's over a 1/4.

If you are able to retain the factory airbox then consider it's going to require effort and money to make any pod setup just as good. You can also modify the factory airbox with an extra or better air feed to improve it at low cost too. An airpod is really for when you have gotten stuck with turbo plumbing on big turbos that are larger or some other situation. It's just a part of a bigger bloody hassle that comes with bigger power setups. Try a dyno with the bonnet 'down' and see how much power a pod loses over the factory airbox. You need a very good cold air induction box to get back only what you lose, hardly worth the effort. Every comparison of 'Wonder Pods' I've seen showing power increases was done with the bonnet 'up', rather pointless. I have bought recently an R32 gtst with a pod and only a stainless partition in place, The partition does almost nothing (it gets very hot as does the pod inside). Suffice to say I am fixing the issue but, I'd rather not have to. Some drag cars don't bother with any filters or airboxes at all because it isn't the power they are that concerned with losing so much as the abillity to get what power they have (more than they can use sometimes) through the drivetain (without breaking) and to the ground (controling the traction and transfer). They also strip the engine quite often so little extra bits of dust aren't worried about so much.

I think you are correct about the bell mouths, they are only of real benifit during negative pressure, although perhaps someone can confirm that they don't so anything under boost situations? They help offset the issue with having a bigger plenum volume to some extent, that has a negative effect on vacume situations in NA mode. I wouldn't call them bell mouths either execpt that the manufacterer claims that they are, and they sort of look like them although very crap versions.

ssame as the 'stryder' ones. The bell mouths are hard up against the plenum walls, making them largely useless

I think the intercooler choice is a very significant area of performance and worth taking some care in selection. The right size and design of intercooler is similar in concept to the efficiency island on a turbo's compressor map. Whether you go china or brand you need to consider that 'one size fits all' selection is not going to hit any bullseye except by absolute fluke, this almost never happens. You can do the right thing with either brand or china to a point. The china core will just not get as close to the bullseye, and as with all things cheap you have a compromise. First issue I have with a generic china intercooler is that they are hand made/welded. I can't say that every welds a bad one but, as my car has one of these intercoolers on it (I bought it like that) I can say compared to my GTR's ARE custom made incooler they are crap. Next is the end tank design .. it doesn't have one. It's got a vague slope down to the furthest core in ,I am sure, no particular angle.So it's probably unevenly feeding air through every core so that maybe half of them aren't really doing too much or too well. It's rather nice to have some design here in the same way as head porting can't be really trusted to a 4 year old with a die grinder with basic instructions to 'remove the bumps in the way'. Now you do get some china cores with cast end tanks. Funny thing is some seem to copy the casting of the GTR tube and fin calsonic end tanks but, bolt them to a usually much thicker bar and plate intercooler thinking nothing about how that might alter the rather well designed air path. They are more conserned about whether it's going to fit in a stock position. You might also think a 'core is a core' , well to a point some of them are. I am sure I can find a fairly basic bar and plate core from a China Co that is identical to a brand one (although ARC seem to have an exclusive design at the moment). The issue here is quality control, do they pressure test each core? Nope. Do they inspect the welds? hell no. The cores themselves are a copy too and the little things that make a difference like the core air entry points aren't the most brilliant part of the copy. As a copy goes.. they suck. I don't have much time for the endless dribble about how "my car makes 200rwkw with a china core so they must be as good as your brand unit that makes the same peak power....". The reason is a peak power figure means pretty much nothing except perhaps to a dyno queen. Due to the efficiency islands intercoolers have it is quite easy to have one person with an intercooler too big for the job being significantly down on average power and response over someone who has made efforts to get the right size and design. The bottom line is that the car is slower without the effort and thought. end of rant.

* the power FC is a great ecu for a quick setup, away you go everything working just like stock. * the wolf v5 plugin appears to be a good ecu (takes more setup time, has more features), the other versions weren't too bad either. Steve (topracing now?) tunes them well and has been dealing with them for a very long time. * ROM changes are also good value, provided you have an ecu that accepts them, although you don't have the software to make changes yourself at any point and proprietry ROMs and software mean limited tuner choices? The rest are more setup intensive, so cost is going to be higher for perhaps limited or no return. The tuner dictates the result at the end of the day but, an ecu with lots of tuners to choose from isn't a bad thing.

A vent near the front of the bonnet for the radiator air would be ideal, that way the rain only falls around the gap between radiator and pulleys. Spacing the bonnet up at the rear does wonders too. The downside is engine smell when you activate the interior vents. On GTR's you only need to remove the rubber seal at the point where the rear of the bonnet meets the area in front of the windscreen. That works the same way.

The TB48's are also very similar to the RB26/25 design, although bigger. Aftermarket parts are availible for them including the forged stroker kit I mentioned earlier in the thread. Makes even the RB30 bottom end mod look weak.. The TB48 doesn't weigh much more than the RB's either.

boost control solenoid hoses could be on back the front?

ok. Get the power FC controller check the timing when the car is at idle on the controller. Get a timing light and then verify that the timing is the same as the power FC, my guess is it may have been adjusted.

check the timing. Perhaps ask them if they adjusted anything at including the timing. There is a remote possibillity that an exhaust gasket (any of the ones put in) was out of alignment when bolted down, the factory ports aren't well matched for a start. Do some looking about 'after' checking the obvious timing and plug gaps. Irridiums are a waste of money by the way. Go the copper plugs. NGK 6BCPR6ES etc..

I didn't spend $600 ,mine was free. The eboost looks very good.