RB20DET in a R33? Yuck!!

[Polo's R33]

Long time watcher first time poster,

Growing up in the early 90's I played a ton of gran turismo and forza like a lot of us did, and always dreamed of having a high power Japanese rocket ship one day.
Fast forward to 2014 and I had finally saved up enough to buy one of my dream cars, the legendary Nissan Skyline!
Being young and stupid I had no idea that those life choices would send me down the infamous and expensive RFB path.
Could have been worse I guess, although a drug addiction would probably have been cheaper...



It all started here with this stock standard manual RB20E R33 with 91,000km on the clock, brought for 6 grand. Not really knowing anything about cars I thought it was sick!!



Started off by slapping a dirty big bore muffler on, wasn't very fast but sounded quick!! 19 year old me was stoked!!

Or at least I was stoked...... After watching too many videos of Collin McRae I thought i'd try some back road rally driving.....



The little 20e that could!!! To all that say they have zero power, it certainly did a number on the R180 diff!!!



Started my mechanics apprenticeship in 2015 and was toying with ideas. Young, dumb and hungry for more power!!! Worlds first RB20ETT anyone??

Brought a 5 stud/ big brake conversion and R200 rear subframe/ viscous LSD for the 33, also got a big WhiteLine rear swaybar. Being non-HICAS and non-ABS luckily made the swap very straight forward.

 

What a difference having a LSD made!! Felt like a completely new car! Kept up with the Subaru in the snow easy ?

Decided not to lower it. Never been one for having a super low car, especially in my city where the roads are so bad and the type of driving I do. Maybe one day i'll get coil overs when it needs it.

Skip to 2018 and a mate of a mate gave his Cef a pretty serious love tap to a power pole, the engine was fine but the chassis was written off...  An offer was made for the engine and big plans were made for the R33...



Started to give the 20DET a tidy up, not a big fan of the purple! Lots of mess around the engine but I saw potential for it to clean up real nice.


 

It's very purple!!!



Starting to look a bit more tidy.



Brought an El Cheap-o forward facing plenum, going to wrinkle paint it.



Gave the runners a clean and painted them with high temp silver paint, looking flash ?

Time to get rid of those purple cam covers!!!!!!!!

What messy stuff to use!!!!!! It only removed half the paint after two cans of stripper! Lots and lots of sanding to get them okay for powder coating.



Worth it though, super happy with how the powder coating turned out!! Went with a desert sand colour.




Made a new coolant feed for the turbo, wasn't happy with the stock piping and wanted as much flow as possible for the new turbo.



Would later have to make a new exhaust manifold, the GT2860RS was way too close to hitting the chassis rail.



Now the fun part!!!! Work was nice enough to let me borrow their engine crane for the weekend.



Goodbye 20e, no turning back now!




Looking pretty empty!!



New clutch and flywheel, haven't lost my legs yet but if I were to do it all over again i'd get a more expensive flywheel as this one was a cheapy.



And we are in!!



Looks like it was meant to be in there!



Gonna need a few beers to sort the loom out.

 

First wiring loom i've made, came out good! Was a bit of a trip to keep air conditioning control and all the lights/ gauges on the dash cluster but got there in the end.



All done!



New exhaust, not stupid loud but still has lots of bass.



Welded the stock RB20DET 90 degree bend to the intake of the GT2860RS in 0.63AR ratio.



Test fit for the turbo.



Way too close to the A/C piping and chassis rail, will need to make a new manifold.



Cutting holes in my perfectly good car, scary stuff!!!!!!



Came out alright in the end.



Ended up painting the intercooler pipes black and using black silicone joiners/ clamps for full stealth mode.



Put a flexi join in the exhaust, not happy having it rigid the whole way through. High temp paint used.



Sorting out the piping.



The custom T2 flange sticks out too far with the stock manifold.

Sussed out a new manifold, seems to be working good!!



Need to sort out a better breather system, plans are to run the cam cover breather to the intake like on stock 20DETS.



Not the cleanest engine bay but it does the job! Throttle cable had to be modified but was easy enough to do.



Very happy with how the intercooler came out, it's nice and stealthy.



A few test drives later and i'm stoked with how it's going, turbo spools very quickly and has a lot of punch till red line.

Up next is stand alone ECU and finding a RB25DET gearbox that isn't stupid expensive so I can up the power.....

That was meant to be the end of it for engine mods... Till I brought a RB26 off a work mate...

To be continued!!!
 

[PranK]

So cool. Great write up!

I'm assuming you're not much of a speed freak? You seemed to be ok with the E and then to opt for an RB20 for a swap? I don't care either way, I just like that you made decisions that you're comfortable with and you're enjoying the car!

But ... what happens in future when you want more? Will you regret only going the RB20 route?

[KiwiRS4T]

2 hours ago, PranK said:

So cool. Great write up!

I'm assuming you're not much of a speed freak? You seemed to be ok with the E and then to opt for an RB20 for a swap? I don't care either way, I just like that you made decisions that you're comfortable with and you're enjoying the car!

But ... what happens in future when you want more? Will you regret only going the RB20 route?

Don't worry ... it seems he's already bought an RB26!!

[Steve85]

This is a cool write up. Glad you are enjoying the car!  Love all the pictures. 

[DaymoR32]

nice little project you've got going there mate, keen to see more updates!