Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

"An RB25 would have been better for cruising." Well, when I am cruising down the highway on a trip, I would rather have the fuel mileage. Of course there are occasions when another 75 horsepower would be advantageous. I have often said that stoplight drag racing is childish and immature --- but if a guy pulls up next to you in a BMW, well you just do what you have to do .

My local JDM source just got in stock an R34 front clip, with an RB25DET NEO and a 5 speed. The price is $4000, and I was very tempted. But there are two things putting me off: 1. The R32 front clip I am using cost me $2000 and has 57,000 km on it. 2. The NEO motors are rare here - none of the local tuners has ever worked on one to my knowledge, much less done a swap. I am sticking with Plan A.

We have been so focused on getting this thing put together that we failed to notice something unexpected - there seems to be no adjustments to the caster and camber of the R32 front suspension. What are we missing? Do you just have to buy aftermarket parts?

With our fabrication skills, we can easily make the tension rods adjustable, but the funky angle of the upper control arm complicates the camber issue.

  • 1 month later...

For the past few weeks, Sean has been dividing his time between the Studebaker project and doing some upgrades on a 1968 Mustang convertible that belongs to a friend of mine. We started with the idea of just buying and installing some of the disc brake and power rack kits that are available for the early Mustangs from various sources. But as we looked at the options on line, we kept thinking that they are not cheap, and the quality is certainly no better than the Nissan parts we are using on the Studebaker. Not entirely Skyline related, but some of you might like to see what we have done with a few used Nissan parts - this will be a truly unique Mustang:

www.pro-touring.com/threads/111428-68-Mustang-Convertible-Some-Unique-Upgrades

Sean has finished the turbo/intercooler plumbing and has been modifying the bumpers for the Studebaker. A lower valance panel was fabricated for the rear end and the bumper was moved in tighter to the body. Both bumpers were reshaped somewhat, and studs were welded inside for the mounting brackets, so there will be no bolt heads visible.

post-115519-0-76234600-1416908196_thumb.jpg post-115519-0-09849700-1416908590_thumb.jpg post-115519-0-74847300-1416908618_thumb.jpg post-115519-0-02304800-1416908691_thumb.jpg

The Infiniti J30 (Nissan Leopard) fuel tank is installed in the trunk, below the rear package shelf. Because of the inevitable effects of gravity, there was only one choice for the fuel filler location. I used a filler cap from a motorcycle. We also converted the hood to a front hinge arrangement to provide better access to the engine compartment. (Don't be confused by what you have been told by those guys who live on that big island off the coast of France - a boot is a type of shoe invented by that famous shoe salesman Wellington, and a bonnet is a type of hat that some ladies wear to keep the sun off.)

post-115519-0-76552900-1416908967_thumb.jpg post-115519-0-30560300-1416909198_thumb.jpg

Edited by stilettoman
  • 1 month later...

Can someone please tell me the year of manufacture of this Skyline? It is a R34 front clip with a rb25NEO motor, currently for sale locally. Total mileage is 95,396 KILOMETERS ( 59,276 MILES)

uoLhXLJ.jpg

  • 3 months later...

After months of body work, many coats of primer and hours of block sanding, I finally was ready and took the car to my painter friend. I have painted all my project cars, airplanes, motorcycles etc since 1958, but I never sprayed a pearl paint and I never spent so much time prepping a car for paint. This is as close as I will ever get to a show quality paint job.

Installing the headliner was not much fun, now it is ready for the window and windscreen install. I have been working on the dash, built my own heater using a couple of Skyline heater boxes, some ABS plastic, and the controls from a Mazda RX-7. The Skyline pedal assemlies are installed, used the round pedal pads from the studebaker to maintain some semblance of the original look. The Skyline key switch was adapted to the dash.

My fabricator, Sean , has been finishing the fuel, brake, clutch and power steering plumbing and wiring. The fuel tank is installed, and the filler connected. I painted the engine covers, power steering reservoir and few other bits, and now the engine compartment is complete.

o4mVfKj.jpg4QOp3dA.jpg6umcHlK.jpgTiIrO2M.jpgIYF8QZz.jpgn9TKkJw.jpg

Edited by stilettoman
  • Like 1
  • 1 month later...

With the headliner in, we were able to install the windscreen and rear windows. These are all installed from the inside, and the rear glass is very tight, not an easy job. I made some terminal strips to facilitate the wiring, ran wires to the rear, lights on the left side and fuel tank on the right side. I made rubber gaskets for the headlights and tail lights, and those are now installed. All the lights work perfectly, hope that bodes well for the fuel injection wiring. The ECU and fuse panel are inside the glove box door. I spent many hours adapting the Skyline instruments into the Studebaker instrument cases. The custom made rear valance panel is installed, so we could then weld on the exhaust tips to fit the cutouts in the valance panel. More photos of all this are now shown on my web site.

http://stilettoman.info/

I will be keeping that up to date, then post here when the car is running, hopefully in a few weeks.

I hope to get my airplane projects and some airshow photos on the site in the next few months.

post-115519-0-20929300-1435493468_thumb.jpgpost-115519-0-35353000-1435493541_thumb.jpgpost-115519-0-27097100-1435493591_thumb.jpgpost-115519-0-91772300-1435493658_thumb.jpgpost-115519-0-67981700-1435493727_thumb.jpgpost-115519-0-70655200-1435493869_thumb.jpgpost-115519-0-96502000-1435493886_thumb.jpgpost-115519-0-79202100-1435493943_thumb.jpgpost-115519-0-99506900-1435493957_thumb.jpg

Edited by stilettoman
  • Like 2
  • 6 months later...

The Studebaker has been running very well, excellent brakes and steering, can't say much about the handling until I get some bucket seats - cornering on this very soft bench seat feels like sitting on a beach ball. The RB20 has been only going to 8-9 psi boost, so we investigated and found some boost leaks. With all that sorted I was still getting 9 psi max boost. I have read in several places that 12-13 psi is a safe limit for this ceramic turbine wheel.

I hate paying money to buy something I can easily make in my shop, so I decided to jack up the boost pressure myself. It is obviously not possible to take the wastegate actuator apart and shim the spring, so I just added an external spring, with a clamp on the actuator rod which is adjustable. We set it up on the bench using a spare turbo and adjusted the spring so it opens the wastegate at about 12 psi. We installed it on the car and it goes up smoothly to 12 psi boost and is stable there. I can't measure the power increase, but it definitely has more power and I am now quite happy with the performance.

This is so simple I assume others have done this ????

post-115519-0-91367900-1453361171_thumb.jpg

post-115519-0-00938800-1453361189_thumb.jpg

post-115519-0-23247700-1453361261_thumb.jpg

post-115519-0-46169200-1453361542_thumb.jpg

  • Like 3

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

    • Yes that’s what im trying to decide. Should I do stock gtt box or enclosed or open pod. 
    • Also, I note OP is in Melbourne, which begs the question... are you aware of how illegal your car will be with a turbo, and intercooler and any sort of filter change? I don't know how you can get past the "2 intake mods" "rule" that seems to exist in Vic. Fully engineered might or might not get you there.
    • If you have a turbo... then the ducting holes I used to feed the pod are not available because your intercooler likely uses them. If you have an intercooler, your IAT's are going to be goverened by how good your intercooler setup is. I'm yet to really see anyone check IAT with a snorkel/boxed pod/proper CAI versus and unshielded pod. It would be interesting! But I suspect that the differences would not be so noticeable as if you were N/A as the intercooler is where the air is being cooled.. and out in front where the FMIC would be is a pretty good spot for it.. When I was turbo I pushed the stock GTT box as far as I could and made some pretty good power out of it, and noticed on the street I never made the same power/boost. Then I did a before and after run with a pod filter versus the box and picked up about 9PSI from the same boost duty cycle and about 50KW instantly. I never ran the stock box again, and recently removed it for my N/A setup. The box is restrictive to a degree - Even with the V8 setup I noticed I picked up power by removing the box completely, so punching holes from the bottom of it to get air from the passenger guard *helps* but the most effective one in my case was simply having the ducts, a pod, and no box around it. In my experience, *more* air was better than cold air. The air (with ducts) will be cooled off as you start moving, and especially if you start moving fast (a race track). It actually moves around quite a bit as you can see.  
    • Well you could certainly buy or build an enclosure for a pod in that corner of the bay. It is absolutely vital that there is a nice big opening to let cold air in to it from the front or underside, otherwise it will just pull air in around the edges from the bay, and if that air is hot, you gain nothing from enclosing the pod. There is lots of good evidence around (including on here, see posts by @Kinkstaah for example) showing that pods pulling hot air from the bay is only a problem when you're static or slow in traffic, and that as soon as you get the car up and moving the air being grabbed by the pod cools down. Although that will obviously vary from car to car, whether there is a flow of cold air to the pod or if it all has to come through the radiator area, etc etc. Obviously, the whole exercise requires as much thought as anything else does. Doing the lazy thing will often end up being the dumb thing. The stock GTT airbox has a cold air snorkel to feed it from over the radiator. Shows that Nissan were thinking. The GT airbox is upside down compared to the turbo one, yeah? Inlet at the bottom, AFM/exit on the lid? That might make it harder to route the turbo inlet pipe using the GT airbox than a turbo one. That would probably be the main reason I'd consider not using it, not that it is too small and restrictive. I'm looking at a photo of one now and the inlet opening seems nice and large. Also seems to have the same type of snorkel that the turbo one has. Maybe all that's required is to make a less restrictive snorkel/cold air inlet, perhaps by punching down through the guard like I did.
    • Also seen this as an option 
×
×
  • Create New...