GTSBoy

Well, twisting it to see if it has teh rigth tension is perfectly acceptable. You're not going to harm it by twisting it as far as you can. If it is too loose you will be able to twist it more, and the tension will end up the same as if you can only twist it the rigth amount or if it is already too tight and you can barely twist it at all.

Takes a few minutes to malke one. Wood, or steel, or a wrap strap with some strategically placed solids to provide teh drive onto the ribs.

Yes, well. One of the hallmarks of poor quality control is variable quality.

She's only rears Matt.

Also, the cause of fuel spills and smells from the top of the tank is almost always the rubber hoses that are up there, not the tank seal.

I guess the main advantage is that they start out hard and incompressible, so you can throw them away immediately, rather than waiting until they've done 50k km or something?

Yeah. Nah. A grain of sand will take out a ceramic turbine that is doing 100000rpm.

That too, but I think this is why she's put the work into the cam cover baffles. I mean, a catch can should only need to be a catch can, not an oil air separator also. Not to say that putting the effort into having it do a better job of oil-air sep is a waste of time, but doing the sep earlier is always going to make life better. And that should happen now anyway.

I think both. Higher ratio and more stout. I think at least part of his lift increase came from the rocker.

It's usually the pointy end of the wheel brace* digging into the palm of your hand. * I refuse to use the term "lug wrench".

I'm confused. Does this qualify as "Gregging" or are you somehow avoiding the Gregging?

Yeah - the secret learned a long time ago is that the RB likes to belch oil out the covers, and/or starve the pump because it drowns the head in oil, because the upflow of crankcase gases from piston blowby comes up through the oil drain holes in the block and prevents the oil from flowing back down. The external vents from sump are about creating an alternative path/much more XS area for gas flow to decrease the gas velocity up through the oil drains and allow the oil to get back down. So, it's not about pressure at all. It is about flows - gas up and oil down - or when it's not working, gas up and oil not going where it is supposed to after it arrives at the top, except out through the cam cover vents. And regardless of whether the catch can is vented to air or vented to the turbo inlet, it must still be vented because a sealed system would blow out the crank seals, or something equally bad.

^^ It's a valid point. Sometimes you (and in this case, I) stand too close to the problem to see the solution. The oil control thread eventually came to a recommendation about running lines from cam covers and sump to the catch can.

Oh, yeah, look - here's the thing. You always replace the tensioner when you're going in there to replace a belt....under normal circumstances. You want to make sure it is good and safe, and that you don't create a reason to take the front of the bloody motor apart again. But in this case, OP is replacing a belt that has aged out on time, not usage. The belt is a million miles away from aging out on usage. The belt gets a time "limit" merely because it is made of rubber and can degrade naturally. The tensioner? Not so much. I reckon it could last forever on the current usage pattern. So I reckon if the thing is going to continue to get used at the same rate, replacing the tensioner is somewhat gratuitous. Would I replace it if I was doing it on my car right now? Hell yes. Because my car does 10-20 thousand kays a year. So it's all going to be the same thrashedness. Would I YOLO it on OP's car. More than likely.

I dunno. I think any one of those from each side to sump is probably enough. Remember - this is about creating a path for gas flow up from the sump to the cam covers. That gas flow then has to leave via the lines to the catch can. There's probably little point in providing 100% more capacity from sump up to covers cf. what you have from there to the catch can. Put in the 3 convenient ones? Any which way that you see fit. That'd be my thoughts.

There is X amount of load on a timing belt. Adding bigger duration cams and valve springs will certainly add some to that figure - but there is no way in creation that you need "300% stronger". There are plenty of big power RBs and JZs running stock belts. There have been more complaints about noise from Gates belts than there have been reports of stock belts dieing young.

Gates no better than Pitwork. These things only exist so that people can have different coloured silicone looking things to see through their clear timing covers. Fashion, not function.

But whatabout a V12!!?

Nissan/Pitwork is fine stuff. HKS is just marketing wank. I personally wouldn't do the idler if it is already new. If it looks and feels fine, it is fine. But as D says - it's cheap to add it to the job. The water pump ditto. Even more so. If it show no signs of problems, then it is nearly new - leave it.

And, given that you're in NC, go buy an LS7 or something equally sweet and piss that crappy old RB off. Or call up Wesley Kagan and get his help putting a Merc V12 into it.

I'm not trying to be rude - but can't you just go and take a peek at the pads you already have. I mean - they're right there, visible between the spokes of the wheels.

Yeah., so whilst the death of that one was actually caused by other factors - it's still a 30 year old turbo. It's alrwady had a life. There are no new ones.

OK, so all I can suggest is that - if you have all the parts, and you have all the wiring looms, and you have all the electronic modules, then....it really is just a wiring problem. You likely have a damaged wire, pin, etc, somewhere.

It's impossible to convey what it will feel like to get the right torque. But you can develop a feel for it. A 900mm breaker bar is.....f**king huge. I only use a normal ~400mm one. But with 900mm being very nearly a metre, and the right torque being in the order of 100Nm, then you're going to need a bit over 100N of force, which is about 10 kg. So if you practice using the bar pulling up, instead of pushing down, then it will be about the same effort as lifting a 10kg bucket of water. That's what the pressure against your fingers should feel like. Ish. If you use a more typical length breaker, then it's about twice that. So a good 20 litre bucket, or a little bit more.

I don't think that's what you're seeing. Something else doing that. The only time I've seen it get so retarded is when it's trying to control idle (in which case we're not talking about mapped timing tagets anyway) and when there is an extreme coolant temperature sensor fault. The RB26 ECU is essentially the same as the 20 ECU and I knew that ging inside out. There is no facility for it to retard that heavily on cold start. The OEMs never used to do it back then. I mean, shit, the catalyst is abotu 3 miles down the exhaust anyway. Early light-off was just a twinkle in some EPA arsehole's eye back then, not a regular engine control strategy.