RH9 R32 GTR Build Thread

[OST Micah]

A bit more progress before the end of the year. Manifold fully welded and wastegate added. It didn't quite fit where I initially thought it would but I made something work. The hot spots on the manifold are not from welding (not that my welds are fantastic!). They are from using the torches to move the runners back where they needed to be after welding.

Manifold is now done! Fits with PS, AC, ABS, and no cutting the hood. What a chore. Huge props to those that do this all day everyday. This is only my second manifold and my first with a true collector. I wish I did this more often so I could get better.

 

For the charge pipe I wanted to go through the factory hole and fill in the one I made for the first turbo setup. Cut the v-band off the comp housing and tacked on a Plazmaman clamp. It's tight between the housing and the AC lines so I had to cut about 1/4" off each clamp flange and even with a donut it barely clears. I'll do another clamp flush with the factory hole so the entire pipe can come out and it's not in the way when working on the car. Second section of the donut is just held up for reference; not a final piece.

[OST Micah]

Chipping away at it some more. Got the cold side piping finished. I am doing better at aluminum welding and getting more consistent with adding filler. I don't do it often enough to perfect it but progress is progress.

 

Started on the downpipe as well. Had to use stainless this time because there is no aluminum available anywhere thanks to good old Joe. Let's go Brandon! 

 

Exhaust is on the car again and I'll be connecting it to the downpipe and making the wastegate dump next.

[OST Micah]

Turbo system is complete! Downpipe is connected to the exhaust and wastegate dump made. Unfortunately I made a silly mistake and did not bolt up the AC pump lower bolts, just the top bolts. It was not rotated counterclockwise all the way and with the AC lines already bent as much as possible and clearing by a couple mm, they now do not clear with the ump bolted up correctly. Downside of doing things after a long day and trying to hustle I guess. Going to have to remake the top section of intercooler piping.

 

This is always the hardest part for me; make two pipes meet in the middle at the same angle and along the same line. Seems to take me a lot of time. Does it take everyone else that much time or am I doing it wrong?

 

 

[OST Micah]

Also converting to DBW with a 2014+ Hemi Challenger throttle body. Got an IO box for Christmas! We have lots of take-offs from customer cars and the bolt pattern is almost identical to Plazmaman's cable throttle. Cut the throttle and clamp down to match the dimensions of the cable throttle so can switch back if needed with no fabrication. Also makes the conversion easier. Got a 350z pedal from a yard for $25 so I'll try to use that. Apparently it's pretty close to bolt on.

 

 

 

[soviet_merlin]

If I may ask, with what and how are you taking your photos? They look great! Super crisp and the lighting and details are on point.

[SRS13]

Great work! That turbo is massive! 

[30ed32]

Looks good man, I have the same issue with making pipes up.. just finished most the piping on my build and it's made me want to take a huge break from doing it anytime again.

[OST Micah]

On 1/16/2022 at 12:14 AM, soviet_merlin said:

If I may ask, with what and how are you taking your photos? They look great! Super crisp and the lighting and details are on point.

Thank you. It's just my phone. Samsung Galaxy S7. We have really bright lights in the shop which is probably why they're crisp. For engine bay shots I use a stick light otherwise they're really blurry.

On 1/16/2022 at 12:21 AM, SRS13 said:

Great work! That turbo is massive! 

Thanks! 

On 1/16/2022 at 12:58 AM, 30ed32 said:

Looks good man, I have the same issue with making pipes up.. just finished most the piping on my build and it's made me want to take a huge break from doing it anytime again.

I feel you there. Very tedious and you can't cut corners on fitment or it'll bite you later. 

[OST Micah]

Hot side piping chopped up and remade to give lots of AC line clearance. This one really fought me. I already mentioned I seem to struggle with making too tubes meet in the middle. This was even harder in the very short distance between the comp outlet and bulkhead.

[OST Micah]

Been a while but I finally got some time to start plucking away at this thing after hours.

Made up a reluctor pickup for the driveshaft speed sensor. Not because it needed it but because I thought of a way to do it and wanted to. 3D printed prototype pictured.

 

Then I started on an oil filter relocation. I wanted a larger filter, a common filter, and placed in a spot that didn't get everywhere during changes and, if possible, let me keep the oil drain pain in the same spot when draining the sump. This is a rough draft. We'll see how it goes.

 

Next was to strip the bay (not the entire front clip, no time for that) and paint. I also had to fill in the hole I made a few years ago for the turbo outlet. New metal welded in, filler to smooth on the top and bottom. Cleaned, smoothed, and prepped the bay for paint.

 

Painted! I'm not a professional and it's not perfect but I think it came out very well for my time input and skill level. 

 

Starting reassembly. 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by OST Micah

[OST Micah]

Got a bit more assembled. Brake lines are installed. Going to either remake the one or straighten and rebend. It has a goofy bump by the firewall from someone removing these and reinstalled before me. Bugs my OCD but I needed the lines in so no fluid leaked on the paint after I installed the master and ABS pump. All new hardware being used. New brake line clips as well. I'll clean the reservoirs another day.

Rerouted the body harness in this area. Didn't want to see anything but the turbo parts here.

[OST Micah]

Found some old pictures of what the original brake line routing should look like. Removed the lower two lines, rebent them, and covered some of the nicks in one of the lines with heat shrink. Did the other line to match. So much better!

 

Pistons came back from getting the skirts coated and the tops coated. Motor is going to finally start going together!

 

 

[OST Micah]

Well the shortblock STILL isn't done. Starting to get a bit impatient. Apparently it's being machined now but that's been the case for a week or two.

In the meantime my cam covers and other parts came back from powder coating. Everything is looks fantastic. Really a shame they're going to get beat up eventually but I'm going to try the best I can to keep them nice. Lots of other parts got coated but I only unwrapped these. Laid my shop's ornament cover on the valley cover and sat my freshly painted CAS on the timing cover. Going to look mint!

[Duncan]

Good choice, powercoating looks good and is way better for durability than paint. I've been running PC cam covers for about 10 years on the race car and they still look good

[OST Micah]

Thank you. As many times as these covers come off I really wanted something that would be durable. The paint was nice for a couple months but quickly started to deteriorate. Good to know your coating is holding up still!

[OST Micah]

So after 6+ months of waiting for my motor I threw in the towel. The machine shop did my motor two years ago so I wanted them to do it again and look it over to check for any damage/condition of the parts. They obviously did a good job last time as it held up great. This time however progress was just so slow and ground to a halt when they could not line hone the block due to not having the correct mandrel.

Last week I drove down, picked up my parts, inspected everything, made some corrections, crated everything up, and shipped it to our Hemi engine builder. He bumped me to the front of the line and the day the block arrived it was on the line hone. The next day it was getting the cylinders bored and honed. He measured the rod big ends and mains and bearings will be there Tuesday. What a guy! 

 

While he is doing the shortblock, I got to work on the head. It was at the same first machine shop for a crack repair. This did get done and looks to be a good repair. I had them cut the seats and valves as well because there was evidence of valve float and the seats were beat up. Switching to a dual spring to fix this.

Assembled with Supertech dual springs, Supertech guides, Supertech seals (made a tool to get these on), and stock valves. Polished up the buckets on the lathe as well. Then torqued the head to a mock-up block and got the shimming sorted. I'm getting a decent collection of shims now so I only needed to order two. Why torque to a block for shimming? I found that the clearance can change (mostly increase) after torquing. I suspect valve seat distortion.

 

Finished up the oil filter relocation.

 

Lastly was a new location for the oil drain. Unknowingly, I placed the first drain at the front and on the side. The front wasn't good because in the car the bottom of the oil sump slopes rearward meaning there's probably a quart or so of oil I couldn't drain. On the side was a pain because the oil drains in a long arc and you have to stand there the whole time and keep moving the catch tray as the arc shortens.

Cut a bung down to fit flush with the bottom of the pan. Now welded up in a much more convenient location.

[OST Micah]

It's finally done. What a long road. Time to go back together. So far I've got it out of the crate, inspected, painted, final freeze plugs in, oil pump, windage trays and sump installed, and a couple other smaller bits. Was going to get the head on but got sent the wrong gasket. 

 

Deleting the hardlines under the intake but still going to use cabin heat. Turned down this spare cam cover breather for a .004" press fit aided by some loctite. Tapered the first bit to get it to go in nicely.

Edited June 5, 2022 by OST Micah

[OST Micah]

Hardline for cabin heater finished.

 

Factory coolant fitting modified for -10 on the main outlet and the smaller outlet blocked.

 

Turbo drain fitting extended. With the new turbo position there is much more room below the turbo and that makes room for this extension. Now getting a wrench on the fitting will be easy since it will be below the comp housing.

 

Motor assembly started. One thing I always wanted was access to the tensioner with the damper installed. I feel that Nissan dropped the ball here. Put a hole in the lower cover so I can remove and install the cams more easily in the future because I seem to need to do that a lot. Also switched to a Gates belt. No real need but want to test it out and see if I can reduce some of the changes I implemented to make the factory CAS work.

 

All together! Switched to the Outsider Garage billet half moons as well. The cam cover some off all the time and I got tired of piling rtv on the factory ones.

 

A photo of how little is under the intake now. Super happy about this! Will make removing the intake easy and no clutter. 

 

Cabin heater hose attachment. No clamps! 

 

Finally back in the car. Not long now!

Edited June 12, 2022 by OST Micah

[Duncan]

Great thinking on some of those convenience changes, we've done a few things for the race car over the years too and it makes a big difference for convenience, speed and frustration. I like the tensioner hole (are you going to put a grommet in there? and the extended turbo drain, they should all be made that way)

As well as your access to the intake, you will find even more helpful is how easy it is to get to the starter from underneath any time you need to take the gearbox or engine out. We don't have a heater any more and have re-routed some other lines, there is so much room there I can get a full size spanner on the starter motor bolts if necessary (although generally I just use a stubby 14)

[OST Micah]

Thanks, Duncan. I was going to use a Honda tensioner cover because I thought I had one but I can't find it. It has a nice pull tab to remove. I think I will leave a plug out of it as I'm afraid I may accidentally push it through the cover when trying to remove it. I run an undertray on this car so if something gets up into that area of the bay I've got other issues!

Yes, the trans comes out often to check the clutch or change it out. Looking forward to any added speed for that job.

Thank you for the kind words!