Murray_Calavera

Can't help it, its an illness.

Yep, with the crazy inflation of the value of our cars these past couple of years this became a problem for me too... My solution is to transition to bikes. Everything feels so cheap compared to tracking the skyline lol

It's interesting seeing everyone talk about what level of risk they are happy to tolerate. Building a GTR always has a level of risk, you could be that lucky guy that drops 20k on the engine build alone and still has the thing go pop on the dyno. Life is fun like that. The way I see it, the thing is a toy to be enjoyed. I'd be happy to turn up the power on stock motor and limit the risk with sensible tuning and engine protection. If it still goes pop, it is what it is. The car isn't a daily driver so it can happily sit while a plan is made to sort it out. Given this thing will be a street car only, I really feel it's worth the (relatively small if managed well) risk to turn the power up to around 350KW on e85. I don't think anyone getting into the skyline game now is doing it out of logic. Surely it is a purely emotional decision so I'm not sure how important it is to think about the engine build logically. The heart wants what it wants. @joshuaho96 little note for Josh, I run my 525 pump flat out all the time and through the factory lines without any issues. (excluding the melting connectors, that's sorted now. we'll pretend it never happened lol)

Oh, I forgot to mention this before. It is accepted that your taking on risk buy turning up the power on a 30 year old stock motor. You can lower the risk with the ECU engine protection, but this is more money on sensors. CAN wideband, oil temp, oil pressure, coolant pressure, fuel pressure, air temp, etc. It adds up quick. I am a huge fan of running all of the engine protection the ECU offers. You'll have to decide for yourself how you want the engine protection setup and what you think is worth monitoring.

After my million questions, I'll throw in my 2c now. If I was in your shoes, I would buy the best/most modern ECU available. A Nexus S3 would fit the bill. It is highly likely that this ECU will last the life of the car, regardless of whatever ECU manufacturers develop in the future. Modern ECU's are amazing and will still be amazing in 10 or 20 years time. If you can get e85 relatively close to where you live, I would buy a flex sensor and size the injectors to run e85. I'd go a Walbro 525 fuel pump with relay wiring kit. Turbo wise, I'd hit up HyperGear and get a pair of the biggest bolt on turbos. Now for the safety side of things, I'd have the tuner setup the tune to be very soft/safe on 98. Then on the flex tune, a lot of the timing can be put back in on the top end (I'd run full boost on both tunes, but manipulate the power with the timing). This also has the benefit of hopefully delaying the, "bored now, need more boost" that comes with owning a modified turbo car. If you spend most of your time on the 98 tune, the few times your on e85 will hopefully stay special/fun. The bad news. As your paying for labour and tuning, I don't think this will happen with $10,000. This might be the motivation to learn to do it yourself though, that way instead you'll have the built car and change from the $10,000

Yeah ok, it'll be expensive. But it is what it is. How do you plan to use the car? Any track work?

Are you doing the work yourself or are you paying for labour?

Where are you located, is that budget AUD?

Budget?

lol I thought I was bad

Maybe? If changing the cat to a higher flowing cat, caused the turbo to spool more quickly, and those areas of the map had not been tuned for the boost level it is now seeing, then yes you would need a re-tune. How dangerous it is running without the updated tune would depend on how far out the tune is with the now higher boost levels, how the engine protection has been setup, is the ECU compensating with a wideband sensor, is the boost control closed loop blah blah million other things... But yeah having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if changing out the cat for a high flow, in say a full 3" exhaust, made no noticeable difference at all.

Just checking, when we are talking about high temp fluid, are we all referring to DOT 5.1? I haven't had any issues with changing it every 2-3 years.

I've always approached this as, price is comparable between low temp and high temp fluid. Just put in the high temp fluid. I've not going to lose any sleep thinking about could I have saved $20 on brake fluid that is going to live in the car over the next 2 to 3 years.

What ECU are you using? The flex sensors I'm used to working with normally cost around $300. If you don't have a way of tuning the car, how do you plan to safely run e30?

You've never bought something online before?

If the tyres were fitted when new, I wouldn't expect much over 5 years of use. Especially if the car lives outside full time. If the tyres had been stored under ideal conditions and are being purchased new, I'd fit a set of already 5 year old tyres if I only expected to get 1 to 2 years of use out of them. I've purchased many a set of new (but quite old) tyres from St George Tyres when I just needed some decent rear tyres to drift on. Here is a pretty crazy example, can't say I've ever bought 11 year old tyres from them before though lol. https://www.stgeorgetyres.com.au/momo-tyres-245-45-17-outrun-m3-official-product-by-momo-italy.html

Called it! Just wondering, why did you pick this site to ask for help and not like a local facebook group for Subis?

Where are you located?

Seeing as it's an 04 model, I would be hitting up wreckers first.

Can you export your tune and upload it here for us to look at? Would be much quicker for us to diagnose that way.

The easiest option might be to just spray a bunch of fish oil in there. At least that way you can feel like you've done something while you continue to ignore it

@Vee37 How much do you really care about finding these pads again? If your pads are quiet, work well and produce minimal dust, really isn't that enough? If you are set on finding the exact pads again, I suppose I'd do something like this - Visit your local Jax, find out what brand of pads they carry. If the Jax workshop you previously went to had the pads on the shelf, then you can almost guarantee it will be of said brand. I'm guessing you don't have the receipt for the previous work and pads. Can you visit a Jax workshop and see if they can look up your previous job to see what pads were fitted? Still no luck? Put your stalker hat on, find the staff that used to work at the Jax store and ask them. Talk to local workshops, try to find out where the mechanics went to. Talk to Jax workshops, maybe they relocated to another workshop. When it comes to mechanics, its a small world. You'd be surprised how easy it is to track someone down. If these ideas don't work, shit will start getting crazy very quickly.... You could find out every brand and model of pad that fits that car... and try them individually ticking each off the list if it wasn't the one you were looking for.... If you go down this path your going to want to learn how to swap pads yourself, it is very easy, takes minimal tools and space. If you have room to park the car you have room to swap the pads. Plus you have the advantage of making sure all the brake hardware goes back in so they won't squeal!

My crystal ball says that when they replaced the pads, they didn't replace all of the brake hardware (could be a missing shim, pin, spring, etc). Finding a low dust pad should be very easy. Have a google for things like, low dust / soft pad compound / easy on rotors. Your dust primarily comes from the rotors getting eaten up by the pads.

Yeah I had the probes on the battery terminals. Sounds good. What reading should I expect to see in a car that runs well?

Are you going to delete the stock damper or are you just replacing the fuel lines and keeping the stock damper? There are also options for sexy ones if the stock one is too ugly for you lol - https://www.radiumauto.com/Fuel-Pulse-Damper-Inline-Kits-P751.aspx or https://www.radiumauto.com/Fuel-Pulse-Damper-Direct-Mount-Kits-P759.aspx So sexy.