GTSBoy

This is why I suggested that there is really nothing that can safely be done in the engine bay at this budget level. Just the work to reassure yourself that the engine won't instantly crap itself the moment the boost gets turned up will wear out the piggy bank long before the first turbo gets installed. Spend $10k and still not have any extra performance? My tip is a version of our standard advice from 15 years ago about buying a GTR, which is not to buy one unless you can afford to buy two. The new version is not to modify a GTR unless you have all the funds required to do it all at once, properly, and enough to rebuild it after it blows up.

15 years is not too long to hold onto something like that, right?

Hmm. I don't think it is possible. As soon as you start, you will be on the hook for all the money. $5-10k is enough to make it fragile. Here's the list of things you need to do to make it nice, and driveable. If Japanese coilovers, get them measured and tested, then decide if you're keeping them or replacing them. If low rate springs, then consider big ARBs. If high rate springs, then probably leave stock ARBs. Either way, ad decent end links. Replace and/or upgrade all suspension bushes. That's LCAs front and rear, UCAs & traction arms at rear, caster rods at front. I highly recommend GKTech FUCAs, although the step to spherical joints is a step too far for some people. Rebuild brakes front and rear. This means making sure the calipers are healthy, discs are up to thickness, hoses are replaced with braided. Add good pads and fluid. Investigate wheel bearings all the way around, tie rod ends all the way around, upright bearings at the front, balljoints everywhere. Any of these that are still original are likely to be a bit wibbly nowadays. Bride or Recaro driver's seat, with fairly deep sides. Nice tyres. Street performance wheel alignment. Or track focused, if you're not going to use it on the road. Fluids everywhere if not known to be fresh. Now, learn to drive the car as hard as it will go, before trying to add any power. Save up big $$. $5k is the minimum cost for putting a decent ECU into it. A big single, with manifold, new exhaust, injectors, fuel system upgrade, ignition upgrade, triggering upgrade, etc, is >>$10k. None of that (except the ECU) is a good idea on an old RB. You really should put head studs in it, investigate engine health (compression and leak down, real oil pressure at revs, coolant condition, etc) before even considering adding power. There's nothing sadder than the "I added boost then it shat the bed" thread.

I don't have a printer, but could at least attempt to make a printable model.

Surely the cam timing is set to something stupid at low RPM?

KYBs are typically twin tube, putting them in the lower tier of desireability. Do you just want to replace worn out ones for the lowest cost? I mean, you wouldn't just replace one end of a car, if the rears are a similar age to the fronts, then they are probably nowhere near what they should be, and likely won't be great against brand new fronts. So, to spend ~$800 on 2nd tier dampers, when you could get a decent set of MCA coilovers for <$4k.....? As to the strut tops. 1st up, the Sparesbox site specifically tells you that they are not correct for an R33. Beyond that, why do you think you need them?

Now that these are NLA, I suspect the answer is going to be to 3D print the plastic bit and glue on some felt or something to replace the brush. I have one or two of them (new) in the shed to go onto the car at some point. I could put some effort into measuring them up and could attempt to draw up the printed part in FreeCAD, if there is interest.

Yeah, unless you're doing it by the book, your data is probably not useful. Boiling point drops rapidly with only just a little water in it.

You know how to make friends!

But not DE. But the important things are the same.

I just watched a Hagerty YT vid on the Rocketeer, with the 3L Ford/Jag AJ V6 in it. I am now sold on the idea.

Actually, ethanol has probably never been cheaper, on a tax free basis, than petrol. With fuel excise being what it is, and only being levied on the hydocarbon component, not the ethanol component, and ethanol for non-drinking purposes not being subject to liquor excise - E85 was cheaper, but not because the combustible liquid itself was particularly cheaper.

Auto electricians that do repairs on automotive AC systems can source service kits. I don't know where they actually source them. I do know that there is one available for the R34 comp that I would need it for. If you have to pay someone to dismantle, clean and do needed repairs and fit kit contents, then you'd probably end up spending a good fraction of the cost of a new one. I would not be paying for that, because I would be doing it myself. My mechanic (bro-in-law) will happily source what is needed. Back in the day (like in the 80s and 90s), rebuilding an AC compressor was the standard approach, same as for starter motors, alternators, etc, because new replacements were v. expensive. After the China manufacturing boom and the rise of the disposable approach to everything, people just started throwing broken/worn stuff away and not rebuilding things.

They do. The pale yellow translucent ones from Japan were .... I dunno. Useless? Whiteline and SuperPro are probably fairly similar. There's bound to be a range of different hardnesses amongst the dozens of options on the market. The simple fact is that the pineapples don't get up inside the bush at all. They just sort of exist in the space between the washer/bracket and the subframe's bush outer tube, and...exert a bit of force between them? Or something like that. I'm sure that with enough provocation, they will simply allow one to move wrt the other.

I'd suggest the answer to the first question is at least a qualified "yes". I'll come back to that. Pineapples just don't do a lot to solidify the mounting of the subframe. They do a little bit, and that little bit was clearly helpful to me in the past, but the main thing they are intended to be used for is to tip the orientation of the subframe to try to either dial in more or less anti-squat. You can install them one way to try to increase launch traction, or the other way to try to increase lateral grip (at the notional expense of longitudinal traction). Or, as I did, you install them neutral, which only really offers a little bit of "snugging" up of the subframe. When I did pineapples, that was the only option. No-one had a machined alloy collar like the GKTech ones. There were some other options, but nothing like the slip in collars. And it is clear from looking at them that they occupy almost all the free space inside the rubber bush, so they will do a lot to stop them moving internally. So I thought, "that's the game for me!". Obviously the next/adjacent step is poly bushes, but what's the point in doing that with all the work and hassle required to change them over, when jamming (and I mean literally jamming) some alloy into the rubber bushes probably gives an equivalent, or possibly even superior result? So, to go back to your 1st question, I would suggest, for the investment of <<$100 and a morning spent lying under the car swearing and getting some sore fingers, it is certainly something you should try. Who knows? Maybe your situation is so severe that it doesn't solve it. But it might help a lot. If your problem is as severe as you say it is, the next thing to look at is what the rest of the bushes in the rear end are made from. Things like the Hardrace arms with hardened rubber bushes might be a good thing (for the purposes of having adjustability AND stiffer bushes). Otherwise, just poly bushes throughout could be a help. Or following in my fever dream footsteps and putting a lot of sphericals into the rear? Eliminate undersired movement to avoid the build up of resonances that cause the tramp. Also, if you have adjustable uppers in the rear, and you haven't put effort into adjusting the traction arms to minimise bump steer, there might be some advantage in that. If you don't want to go to the effort of doing it yourself (like I am pretty much forced to in Adelaide, owing to a lack of race alignment specialists) then surely there's a place in Melbs that is able to do it. It will cost $$, But that's life.

Not noticeably. Arguably, the catless turbo is going to work harder in a different direction, as it will spool up faster, go to higher speeds more easily. Only if it was tuned in the original condition. If it was a stock tune, using the AFM before and after the cat/dump change, then no, no retune needed. If the car is running on a MAP sensor, then it might well benefit from a retune. It might even run a little dangerously without a retune, but it could quite easily be fine.

No. Have only gotten as far as contemplating the task of having to put in the required fairly heavy wiring and fusing to run it (along with the big alternator), and preferring not to. But otherwise, it would be nice to have a little extra freedom as to exactly where the compressor is located and free up some space around the exhaust side of the engine.

Following from this in a related by not closely-related sense... Because I was buying a bunch of other GKTech stuff, I got some rear subframe collars. The history that leads up to this is: 25+ years ago the car arrived into the country with stock subframe bushes. At some point shortly thereafter I added Whiteline pineapple rings, set up neutral, and it improved the rear end behaviour. Well, it is my vague memory that I was happier with it with them in. Less axle tramp on launches, generally better, etc etc. ~2012 it got a new non-HICAS subframe with new stock bushes. No pineapple rings. I reckon that ever since then I've been dissatisfied with the axle tramp. Recently I've been f**king around a lot with all aspects of the suspension. One contemplation has been to relocate the rear lower control arm front mount points (and do the other things needed to make that work) to improve longitudinal rear grip by getting rid of some of the stupid anti-squat that Nissan ladled into the R32. But.... before doing that I thought I'd put some collars in. And.... The collars are good. The rear sounds a little bit different, but there has been no significant increase in NVH coming up into the body. In terms of rear behaviour - expansion joints on long sweeping elevated freeway ramps that would sometimes cause the rear to jiggle around a bit, no longer seem to do so. It appears that jamming chunks of metal into the gaps in the rubber so they can't move much is a really good thing. And the launch behaviour and general forward traction situation seems to be greatly improved too. It's impossible to be really sure, because the tyres are completely shagged - they are freakishly willing to let go right now. But as an A-B test with the same tyres it certainly seems to grip up a lot better. Highly recommended to anyone who still has stock bushes.

Yes. Needs new ports. Usually just achieved by screwing an adapter onto them. Be aware that any AC compressor that hasn't been used in a long time will very likely have dried out seals and will not hold gas. Oh, and obviously you will require a new receiver-dryer also.

To be fair - you see the same thing for every clutch. There's always someone making an installation error.

So, just the essentials then?

R12 has not been not available for....decades now. Propane is not a great replacement. (I mean, it's a great replacement, but it is a bit too flammable). R134a being the only way to go forward with an R12 system. The design pressures etc, are close enough to R12's to work. The ability to move heat around is close enough to R12's to work.

OK, just for some extra clarity - there is more than one option at Frenchy's. 1. You can buy the whole kit - with or without the actual compressor. The whole kit includes mounts, hoses, condensor, etc. That's either ~$2200 or ~$2800. No surgery required with this option. 2. You can buy just the bracket (~$600), or the bracket with the compressor (~$1200). Either of this or the above option "without the compressor" is if you already have an Echo comp or you are able to source one locally. Whatever the case, in this option, you will need surgery done on your hoses to adapt to the new compressor. When I said "the Frenchy's kit", I meant the whole kit in option 1. It is obviously somewhat more $$ than a $1500 OEM compressor. But if I had to spend $1500 on an OEM compressor, I would certainly consider spending double that to renew and significantly update everything forward of the firewall. Another option is to rebuild your original compressor. My R34 comp is currently dead and I will be most likely doing that to it if the spare one in the shed is also leaky.

The Frenchy's kit is the way to go forward. A modern compressor that weighs about 1/2 as much, is at least twice as efficient, and will do a good job on R134a. And of course the kit has everything else you need to connect it up and have it work properly.

Well, your RB20 ECU loom won't have wires for the boost solenoid, that boost sensor, and possibly one or two other things. There could be differences in seemingly random things like the charcoal canister purge solenoid, because the 25DET has to handle boost in the vacuum system and the 20DE does not. I don't know - I haven't looked. It is very likely that all the most important things are same-same, being the main sensors like AFM, CAS, etc, and the injectors and ignition. Not that you'll need the AFM for the Haltech anyway. I would suggest that you would seriously want to sit down with the pinouts for both ECUs and just go through them and highlight green what is the same, orange what is different/missing, and make a plan from there. It's not going to be difficult. It will either be the same or need to be fixed.