Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Hi all , I see many threads on intercooler upgrades to R33 and R34 single turbo Skylines and I'm interested in exploring the topic but doing things a little differently .

Firstly my GTS25T currently has the R34GTt intercooler because it was easy to do ie it just about falls in .

Secondly I'm not looking for a million Kw and I don't want to overkill in this area . The turbo I have to fit is a HKS GTRS and something like 240 odd stress free Kw would be fine for me .

I don't want to go down the road of non standard inlet manifolds or extra pipework in the engine bay . I also don't want the full front mount with its considerable length of return pipe .

Now of late its impossible not to notice the diesel commercials and 4WDs clogging up the roads and the vast majority of them have intercoolers nowdays . We have a few utes for getting around the yard at work and I'm always trying to see if their intercoolers look like they would fit in the unchopped nose of an R33 .

My train of though is can you fit an intercooler of at least twice if not a bit more than the core area of an R34GTt into the near radiator side of a R33 . While this may sound a bit lacking from memory the twin turbo Z32 300ZX TT's made 209 kw and more torque on paper than an R32 GTR and they from memory used two intercoolers of possibly R33/34 25T dimensions .

I will never race or drag my car and all I need is enough intercooler capacity to not form an air restriction or heatsoak in the 6-8 seconds of full throttle use that is usable on public roads .

I'd like some bang for buck here not because I can't afford better but because I don't wish to overkill/overcapitalise with this car . Its also a challenge to find some hopefully low cost but adequate OE intercooler and have most of a car look as factory as possible . Less eye candy for rev and you protection officers to ping you for .

Does anyone have access to a light truck wrecker that could measure up some of these intercoolers ?

Cheers A .

PS please don't come back sayng just fit a JJ return flow because I'm not interested in going that way .

Ideally an intercooler with its inlet and outlet facing the same direction could be good because it could be fitted with its inlet/outlet facing the nearside to keep the plumbing short .

All the best, I'm all for innovation and doing things differently...but I am against ignoring common sense. Don't you think if it could be done and for cheap...the rest of us would have done it? It's like asking us to tell you how to do something that we didn't know how to do for ourselves.

The best you can do for that power level is try and find an ARC side mount...but nothing will beat a front mount on a Skyline by nature of how intercoolers work...a good design is important, yes...but surface area of the core itself is the most important factor, given it's air that's cooling it.

FMICs aren't illegal...why wouldn't you just get one?

Something like this but a bit bigger maybe?

http://www.gktech.com.au/front.asp?pid=11&ProductID=univ-nhfm

A vertical flow core with tanks top and bottom would be what ur after.

I'd go a small conventional FMIC (around 500x250x70 or similar) with inlet/outlet in the middle facing 45 degrees backwards then make up super short custom piping and a 315 degree bend straight off the throttle body and going diagonally down to the driver's side from there. A 2.25" hot pipe and 2.5" cold pipe would be heaps.

Edited by bradsm87

the problem you will have will be heat soak with smaller coolers , the smallest diesel intercooler i've seen was on the '05-ish mazda bravo/ford courier . if i were you i'd be scouring yahoo auctions through import monster or something for an arc sidemount if you definately don't want a front mount .

I too had a yearning to try something a little different disco, started when i was fitting a normal front mount but didnt want to chop up my series one bar..

After a lot o fluffing around and some good help from Scotty, "Frankencooler" was born looking something like this

post-65674-0-97992600-1301147416_thumb.jpg

post-65674-0-98468600-1301144892_thumb.jpg

post-65674-0-96014000-1301147502_thumb.jpg

Its pretty stealthy once its all together. It works well makes 240kw and is very responsive, but is only possible if you are willing to lose aircon and f**k around fabricating stuff. I am keen to do a FFP as well for even less piping when the funds exsist :)

..

Before this I was toying with the idea of a vertical type cooler as well, there was one i found was about 500 wide by 300 high with tanks top and bottom, (I think it was from supra actually) so you could hook the bottom one up like you would a normal FMIC but you would have to pipe the top through next to the radiator which would make it really short as well. I was also considering the Gktech one that Brad suggested.

Only thing i can suggest is keep scouring ebay cause all sorts of weird coolers pop up there, and keep your imagination open, you'll need it

Its pretty stealthy once its all together. It works well makes 240kw and is very responsive, but is only possible if you are willing to lose aircon and f**k around fabricating stuff. I am keen to do a FFP as well for even less piping when the funds exsist :)

How do you survive Aussie's 40C days in a traffic jam? :whistling:

I've seen a couple of MR2 trust cores on yahoo auctions come up quite cheap lately.... they are very thick and are usually placed on a 'side' air inlet. Most of the MR2 guys get 250rwkw out of them before they start chopping into they're boot areas.

I'd be tempted to grab one and re-configure the end tanks for a side mount install... Or find an ARC side mount upgrade...

If you go side mount just put alot of time and effort into getting air in and out, maybe a thermofan on the back of it and/or temp activated water spray onto the core. If you get a good core, restriction isn't going to be a problem... it's just the heatsoak.

There are also a heap of W2A heat exchanger options out of the US. Pop the core in where the side mount usually is, hide the pump behind it, add a 1lt tank after the radiator (just to add volume to the system) then bang the bigest- thin radiator (painted black) behind the front bar.... hell, you could even add a little black ice bucket for track days/summer etc.

Cheers

J.

Find someone capable of tidy allow welding and turn your R34 side mount into a water to air unit.

It will bolt back into place and look great.

You can also buy a cheap alloy rad to suit a civic from justjap, have your alloy dude mod the in and out pipes to have the water flow and buy a 12v water pump.

The civic radiator is half size and will be very easy to fab behind the rear bar, paint it black and no one will pick it.

Like this (although the 100mm version would be better):

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/topic/353819-fs-er34-arc-smic/

yes before my original reply I sent disco a PM with a link to a $280delivered HKS r32 gtst intercooler to match that ARC unit.

on ebay aus if anyone wants it

Hmmm ahah i don't know if this is relevant :). But The previous owner of my car had a little bit of an ingenues idea. he took the spray portal for the rear window and transferred it above my front mount. So when i trigger for it to release water there it actually sprays it down and in front of the inter cooler.

Sid

Idea is clever but it's been around for a while...I saw the same thing done on a television show 5 years ago lol^

Wiper water sprays come on a bit thick and use up water a bit quickly...better off finding a finer nozzle sprayer and putting that on the hose instead. Something really misty would be good...even two of them.

while where on the subject, Has anyone seen my windscreen wipers, i took them off to paint them now i cant find them anywhere :unsure:

LOL what? :blink:

On the subject of "I screwed up & lost something..."

Has anyone seen my yellow cap for the reserve coolant bottle? I must have forgotten to tighten it up after topping it up & now it must having fallen somewhere on the road while driving! :wacko:

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • So, that is it! It is a pretty expensive process with the ATF costing 50-100 per 5 litres, and a mechanic will probably charge plenty because they don't want to do it. Still, considering how dirty my fluid was at 120,000klm I think it would be worth doing more like every 80,000 to keep the trans happy, they are very expensive to replace. The job is not that hard if you have the specialist tools so you can save a bit of money and do it yourself!
    • OK, onto filling. So I don't really have any pics, but will describe the process as best I can. The USDM workshop manual also covers it from TM-285 onwards. First, make sure the drain plug (17mm) is snug. Not too tight yet because it is coming off again. Note it does have a copper washer that you could replace or anneal (heat up with a blow torch) to seal nicely. Remove the fill plug, which has an inhex (I think it was 6mm but didn't check). Then, screw in the fill fitting, making sure it has a suitable o-ring (mine came without but I think it is meant to be supplied). It is important that you only screw it in hand tight. I didn't get a good pic of it, but the fill plug leads to a tube about 70mm long inside the transmission. This sets the factory level for fluid in the trans (above the join line for the pan!) and will take about 3l to fill. You then need to connect your fluid pump to the fitting via a hose, and pump in whatever amount of fluid you removed (maybe 3 litres, in my case 7 litres). If you put in more than 3l, it will spill out when you remove the fitting, so do quickly and with a drain pan underneath. Once you have pumped in the required amount of clean ATF, you start the engine and run it for 3 minutes to let the fluid circulate. Don't run it longer and if possible check the fluid temp is under 40oC (Ecutek shows Auto Trans Fluid temp now, or you could use an infrared temp gun on the bottom of the pan). The manual stresses the bit about fluid temperature because it expands when hot an might result in an underfil. So from here, the factory manual says to do the "spill and fill" again, and I did. That is, put an oil pan under the drain plug and undo it with a 17mm spanner, then watch your expensive fluid fall back out again, you should get about 3 litres.  Then, put the drain plug back in, pump 3 litres back in through the fill plug with the fitting and pump, disconnect the fill fitting and replace the fill plug, start the car and run for another 3 minutes (making sure the temp is still under 40oC). The manual then asks for a 3rd "spill and fill" just like above. I also did that and so had put 13l in by now.  This time they want you to keep the engine running and run the transmission through R and D (I hope the wheels are still off the ground!) for a while, and allow the trans temp to get to 40oC, then engine off. Finally, back under the car and undo the fill plug to let the overfill drain out; it will stop running when fluid is at the top of the levelling tube. According to the factory, that is job done! Post that, I reconnected the fill fitting and pumped in an extra 0.5l. AMS says 1.5l overfill is safe, but I started with less to see how it goes, I will add another 1.0 litres later if I'm still not happy with the hot shifts.
    • OK, so regardless of whether you did Step 1 - Spill Step 2 - Trans pan removal Step 3 - TCM removal we are on to the clean and refill. First, have a good look at the oil pan. While you might see dirty oil and some carbony build up (I did), what you don't want to see is any metal particles on the magnets, or sparkles in the oil (thankfully not). Give it all a good clean, particularly the magnets, and put the new gasket on if you have one (or, just cross your fingers) Replacement of the Valve body (if you removed it) is the "reverse of assembly". Thread the electrical socket back up through the trans case, hold the valve body up and put in the bolts you removed, with the correct lengths in the correct locations Torque for the bolts in 8Nm only so I hope you have that torque wrench handy (it feels really loose). Plug the output speed sensor back in and clip the wiring into the 2 clips, replace the spring clip on the TCM socket and plug it back into the car loom. For the pan, the workshop manual states the following order: Again, the torque is 8Nm only.
    • One other thing to mention from my car before we reassemble and refill. Per that earlier diagram,   There should be 2x B length (40mm) and 6x C length (54mm). So I had incorrectly removed one extra bolt, which I assume was 40mm, but even so I have 4x B and 5x C.  Either, the factory made an assembly error (very unlikely), or someone had been in there before me. I vote for the latter because the TCM part number doesn't match my build date, I suspect the TCM was changed under warranty. This indeed led to much unbolting, rebolting, checking, measuring and swearing under the car.... In the end I left out 1x B bolt and put in a 54mm M6 bolt I already had to make sure it was all correct
    • A couple of notes about the TCM. Firstly, it is integrated into the valve body. If you need to replace the TCM for any reason you are following the procedure above The seppos say these fail all the time. I haven't seen or heard of one on here or locally, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. Finally, Ecutek are now offering tuning for the 7 speed TCM. It is basically like ECU tuning in that you have to buy a license for the computer, and then known parameters can be reset. This is all very new and at the moment they are focussing on more aggressive gear holding in sports or sports+ mode, 2 gear launches for drag racing etc. It doesn't seem to affect shift speed like you can on some transmissions. Importantly for me, by having controllable shift points you can now raise the shift point as well as the ECU rev limit, together allowing it to rev a little higher when that is useful. In manual mode, my car shifts up automatically regardless of what I do which is good (because I don't have to worry about it) but bad (because I can't choose to rev a little higher when convenient).  TCMs can only be tuned from late 2016 onwards, and mine is apparently not one of those although the car build date was August 2016 (presumably a batch of ADM cars were done together, so this will probably be the situation for most ADM cars). No idea about JDM cars, and I'm looking into importing a later model valve body I can swap in. This is the top of my TCM A couple of numbers but no part number. Amayama can't find my specific car but it does say the following for Asia-RHD (interestingly, all out of stock....): So it looks like programable TCM are probably post September 2018 for "Asia RHD". When I read my part number out from Ecutek it was 31705-75X6D which did not match Amayama for my build date (Aug-2016)
×
×
  • Create New...