Turbocharging a VT V6 Auto

[KamikazeR33]

i told him he should drop a rb25det in it, and sell the old 3800

would come out close to being even i presume

[Steve]

Hmm, and while he has the RB25 out, buy a 3L bottom end from a wrecker for $100 - simple swap - he wont regret it lol

[Cubes]

He would be better off rebuilding the RB30E Bottom end then buying a 1000 RB25DE Head and slap that on it.. Then Buy the turbo.. ECU etc.. exhaust..

Would work out cheaper that way compared to buying a RB25DET as they are still quite expensive.

[KamikazeR33]

hmm all the possibilities

i just hope he is patient... i will have to sit down wif him later and discuss it

[KamikazeR33]

but wif the rb30 bottom end what manifolds would i be runnin?

[Steve]

I think it would be close Joel, a long motor costs 2.5 or less, just a head then you need manifolds, injectors, plenum...blah, blah

Even with a NA 3L and DE head, no turbos, he would be miles in front.

[Steve]

Solved the problem - get him to buy a front cut - just sell the left overs - panels, 3.8L engine, etc

[Cubes]

Use the RB25 Manifold and buy a RB20 Exhaust manifold.. Exhaust manifolds are bugger all well factory ones are.

You could build a 500-600hp RB30E bottom end for around 3-3.5k. Then buy the turbo then ecu injectors.. etc really depends on how much power you are looking at.

[KamikazeR33]

lol but a good condition front cut? lookin at higher 5's arent we?

[Steve]

Have seen guys sell them for But seriously, a 3L bottom end is dirt cheap, new rings and bearings, RB25DE head plenum and fuel rail, injectors, 2nd hand turbo, afm, ecu, harness, new timing belt.

May have to do gearbox too, which would be a good thing. Then there is the brakes (r33 ones would fit nicely I think)

All up, if he buys a front cut, sell what he doesnt need, including the holden bits - would reduce the overall cost.

Come to think of it there was a guy selling an R33 front cut on here in the business section - think he was from aulbury - wait I'll do a search:)

[KamikazeR33]

ok

[Steve]

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/sh...light=Front+cut

This is the only thread I found, you could try and e-mail FVEJ [email protected] they guys name is grahame King - he's pretty helpful.

I will have a look on the SDU forum now

[Sydneykid]

maybe he should just go out and buy an LS1 engine from the states.... wouldn't be much more than $3000, as they as common as sh!t in the states.... hey, could prolly get one here too....there must be a lot of wrecked GTS's around wih all the HSV Boy Racers around

all this nissan talk, and the most logical answer hasn't been brought up...

HEY, even better - get a 427ci donk from the states....

Son of Sydneykid

[Steve]

So the LS1 engine will just bolt straigth up, nothing else required, wouldnt have to upgrade suspension or brakes? Plus there is the staggering economy from a LS1, and in stock form, they have huge output.

This is a nissan forum, why would you go and put in a dinosaur engine that burns huge amounts of oil, has crappy fuel economy, and doesnt generate huge hp (althought torque is a different matter). Then you still have all the added expense of just about every thing else needing to be changed, new exhaust, suspension and brakes gearbox blah blah.

I really dont think its all that logical.

[Sydneykid]

Yeah, sure you have to upgrade a few things, in fact, you have a lot of things to upgrade. My personal belief is to keep Nissans in Nissans, and GMs in GMs. Sure, there's no technology in a chevy engine, they aren't the most economical or reliable, but thats the decision someone made when they bought a V6 Commondore.

I have seen a VS Commondore with a 427ci dropped in, and there was a extreme amount of work put into it. It was driven daily, as an auto (ford toploader 3 speed from memory) was was reasonably reliable, not economical or technological, but thats the nature of the beast.... the standard V6 is neither of those things anyways. Except with the 427, it shook the neighbourhood at idle, and inside the car was an extremely rattley experience at 3000rpm. It was well looked after, and sold about 6 months after he did the coversion and all the work... But cost a bit, and was built with a few mates over the space of a week. Engine management and tuning taking up the last 3 days... try holding the thing on a dyno.... hade head splitting torque, and never really got a total HP output, but damn it was a beast. It drove from Oyster Bay to Bankstown trouble free for 6 months before it was sold.

All in all, if you are afraid of technology (which is prolly why you bought a holden anyways), a perfect replacement for a pushrod dinosaur is a BIGGER pushrod dinosaur... Its not my thing, but someone's onto the retro engines... And I don't believe a Nissan engine belongs in a VT Commondore....

But outside an engine swap, i'd be going CAPA supercharger.

S of S

[Xeron]

And here comes old Xeron.

To all of you that said the buick 3800 has no potential and is an old tech pushrod heap of shit, get your ****ing heads out of your asses you arogent pricks.

Now that ive got that outa my system, turbo chargin the 3800 is nothing new, like i said it was a factory item in the US in the 80's, running better times than most nissans do now days. While the crank etc used in the turbo engine was vastly different to the n/a variant, if you got a long block of a s/c v6 u have a pretty much ideal setup, and importing a turbo kit from the US could be quite economical really, unfortunatly i dont have the price off the top of my head sorry. Other than that you could just s/c the engine, if you use an aftermarket s/c over the vs+ stock sc you will be able to achieve much higher power levels. It all depends on your budget really.

To stick a nissan engine into a commodore, lets see uve got to redo all the computer and eletricals, custom fabrication of engine mounts, and transmission mounts, no doubt need to cut another hole in the floor for the shifter, if u go manual ull have a nice time hooking up the clutch, then uve got to have a drive shaft cut, the nissan end welded on after its been shortened. And thats assuming the nissan gearbox isn't drasticly longer than the holden unit or something stupid which would require body bashing to make it fit. Plus the registration, oh that'd be fun.

[Steve]

xeron, I dont think anybody doubts that pushrod engines can make huge horsepower - but, be realistic, they are dinosaurs - very old technology, thats all I was getting at anyways.

As for rego, holden borrowed a 3L from Nissan a few years back (just before they decided to go back to dinosaour pushrods..hehehe), so I cant see how it would be a problem if you are putting a 'holden' engine in a holden?

[Xeron]

Well im not too sure on NSW law, but here in the west you are not allowed to put an engine into a car that is older than the car itself. Now say you use a holden s/c block, they arent gonna give a rats ass aslong as u keep VT levels of emmisions equipment, especially being as vt's came sc'd stock. But u go throwing a nissan engine in there, and if they check what year it was made, which they could well do, u better hope that front cut u got was pretty damn new.

That and many other stupid little things they can do, its just alot more hassle to go through.

[Roy]

As for pushrod engines being dinosaurs, well i think it horses for courses.

GM/Chevrolet built in conjunction with Lotus a quad cam 32 valve 350 Chev. It had 405hp and was a sweet engine. Limited run option called ZR-1 from 89-95 (may have been '94)

Whilst building these engines, they were using under 5L quad cam V8s in luxury cars etc, so know how to build a quad cam multi valve engine.

So do yourself a favour and read up on the history of the GenIII engine and see why they stuck with pushrods for their premier performance engine. Dont assume GM engineers are idiots.

You will be surprised how pushrods, whilst not being ideal from some design perspectives, are perfectly sound for a fistful of revs, allow more compact packaging (see how wide quad cam V6/8s are), cost of manufacture, reliability ... the list goes on.

And before you all assinate the reliability side of things, US GenIIIs dont have the piston slap problem, and i dont hink you can relate this Aus problem to the fact the engine uses pushrods.

Go back to the mid 90s and the Indycar series. Mercedes Ilmor actually built a pushrod engine for the class, as by the rules it allowed them to run more boost. If i recall correctly the rules were soon changed.

[Xeron]

and btw, OHC and DOHC technology pre-dates pushrod's by a few decades, just to be a picky ****