GTSBoy

I think he's already demonstrated that that's the way he's treating it post the paint jail release.

There's a fair chance that my bushes are Nismo, because I'm reasonably sure that when asked the question (when putting the subframe into the car in ~2012) "What bushes do you want to run?", I'm pretty sure I would have answered "The stiff ones!". I had to put some silicone grease onto the GKTech inserts I jammed into them last week, because the bushes were quite resistant to having something jammed up their jacksies. So, I reckon you'll be best off doing Nismo + inserts. And, if I'd known you had PU bushes in the subframe AND PU pineapples, I perhaps would have said earlier that that's probably not a good idea. The pineapples are only intended to work with the stock type bushes, because those have a crush tube (which is what makes it end up looking like there is sloppy space in there - but doesn't, because the crush tube does make contact steel to steel) and the pineapples live in the space between the subframe's outer tube and the lower washer/bracket. But the PU bushes don't leave the space in the same way that the stock format ones do, and they do end up fighting for space. Order some bushes and collars and get to it.

All of that is absolutely true. At any time in the history of these turbos the lottery has always been that it could die at stock boost treated exactly as the factory intended, or it could die when pushed to 10, or 12, or 14, or 16 psi, after a short time, or a longer time, or it could last seemingly forever. You have the combination of all the possible statistical (probably) normal distributions of manufacturing tolerances and quality outcomes, on top of the statistical distributions of failure modes (which might be normal, but are probably biased, like Poisson distributions). You get the lucky turbo and you can beat on it for years. You get the really unlucky turbo and it will crap itself as it rolls out of the factory gate. And every possibility in between. But you can definitely still kill the lucky turbo. It's just that most people didn't try, once they knew they really shouldn't try.

Yeah, but it's not "boost" that they can take more of. Well, I guess it actually is. They are the same turbine, driving different compressors. I think the failure is more of a turbine temperature and (probably mostly) speed thing. I think the RB25s end up needing the turbine to reach higher speeds in order to drive the compressor to achieve the same boost level. So they will fail at lower boost on a 25 because they've actually reached the same failure speed that they do on a 20 at a higher boost pressure. If that makes sense?

It's a lottery. I ran my RB20 turbo at 17 psi for a while. It survived, went on to run for many many more years at 14 psi. Was still good when the engine was pulled to make way for the big block. RB25 turbo died as it came onto boost, never having been over 12 psi in my 10+ years of using it.

And if one is a BMW and the other is a Skyline, they will probably both be broken at the same time.

There's a lot of drug money on that side of Sydney. Just sayin'.

Mine is not even a GTR and I've been resisting the urge to make it a power monster for the last 25 years. And as a consequence, I have driven it to work nearly every day across that span of time.

No need to drill any holes. There's plenty of access to reach through and behind all of that steel to "push" from behind with a pulling action on the slide hammer. There's all sorts of attachments you can screw on the end of them.

It seems the definition of "Gregging" something might need to be expanded?

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.