R32 GTST - 600KW+ RB28/CD009 Build

[TurboTapin]

Started building an RB28 recently and I have not seen many high hp R32 GTS-T builds so I figured it might interest some. I also plan on keeping this car for awhile, so it's fun to document. I'll recap from the beginning.

The year is 2018 and I had just sold my 800hp E55 AMG due to boredom... Car was fast but it was automatic and finally drove me nuts. Having always had turbo manual cars prior (B5 S4, STI's, IS300, etc.) I knew the recipe to keeping me happy. I started looking for a Pulsar GTI-R but every car I went and saw, was rusted beyond belief. Sadly GTI-R's in Canada were often sold for 2-3k back in the early days and were mainly used as winter beaters. Of the 5 I saw, all 5 had 10K+ of bodywork to do. American's could finally buy RHD cars and Skyline's were getting popular again so I decided to look into those. 

Finally found one on Facebook marketplace just before winter and after a quick inspection in his driveway, the body was immaculate. I offered him 8000$CDN to his 10000$ asking price and he accepted. This hurt as back in the day a mint GTR use to go for less but times were changing. Car also included a GTR hood, wing and grill he was planning on installing.

Owner lived near Quebec city which is roughly three hours away so I left a deposit and it was agreed we would meet at a later date to transfer ownership and that I would then come back to pick it up. We met the next week and transferred ownership. At this point he was adamant in delivering the car personally... I knew this trick. This is the cars a pile of crap that will burn down to the ground before you get it home and I would rather you not be aware of it until after you have paid me in full trick lol. I had already invested a lot of time into it and they were going for double the price, so I was fine with it. He arrived, quickly mentioned the alternator was so so but that he was a great guy and had a spare in the trunk along with Tein coil overs he found laying around for it. I paid him, and he left.

Car wouldn't even start to get it into the garage, so when he said the alternator was so so, he meant it was shot. It was later into the evening and I also noticed no lights in the rear were working and only one headlight. How he managed to drive three hours without being pulled over was surprising. Long story short and many hours of wiring later, all the electrical issues were resolved. I spent the rest of the winter fixing a bunch of other issues with the car and installing the GTR parts I had. As for those Tein coilovers the guy had left me? They had part numbers for three different cars and two were leaking so to the trash they went. 

 

 

 

 

[TurboTapin]

Spring was finally around the corner and I could finally drive the car (You cannot legally drive without winter tires during winter in Quebec). Wasn't much of a drive but I dropped it off at a local paint shop to be resprayed in its original black pearl metallic. 

We agreed that he would have it done within a month. Here is what it looked like two months later lol. I generally don't stress about things but having purchased this car 6 months prior and only had driven it for a total of 10 minutes, I was annoyed. By this point I was going to his shop every day to put pressure.

During the wait, I purchased some BBS LM's from upgarage to replace the hoopty mags that were on the car.

Three months later and many return trips to the paint shop to resolve issues; the car was painted and drivable. With the extra two months he took, he actually forgot to paint my rear spats and buff the car. 

Edited November 28, 2021 by TurboTapin

[TurboTapin]

I enjoyed the car for that summer but quickly realized it was slow.. very slow. My little RB20 running 14psi on the stock turbo wasn't cutting it anymore. Winter 2020 was around the corner and I wanted to see what an unopened RB20 with a bigger turbo could do. 4-5 months, a lot of fabrication and a Holset HY35 later and I finally had a respectable 366whp.

Car had some severe heat issues due to a dead clutch fan on the dyno, and I've done a few upgrades since. Car is making at least 380-390whp now. Here's some specs on that setup and an updated picture from today.

6boost twin scroll t3 manifold

Dual turbosmart 40mm gates

Holset HY35/10cm twinscroll @ 20PSI

R35 maf/4" intake

Splitfire Coilpacks (Rewired S2 with no external igniter)

DeatschWerks 550CC Injectors

AEM 320 Pump (FPCM Removed, OEM Relay Rewired)

FFP Cast Manifold

3.5" Downpipe to 3" Catback

Nistune

ATP Catch can

94 AKI Pump gas

Edited November 28, 2021 by TurboTapin

[TurboTapin]

Fast forward to this summer and once again I was bored. It was fun for a bit but having always had 600-800hp cars, it wasn't cutting it. I enjoyed my little RB20 but knowing RB25/26 prices were shooting up, I had to buy one now while I still could. I found a blown RB25 on Facebook Marketplace for 1500$. An accepted offer of 1200$ and 8h of driving later, I found myself the new owner of a disassembled blown engine. 

After going through everything at home, I noticed the head had been ported by a blind guy with Parkinson's and some parts were scrap. He had mentioned the head had been professionally ported but having him hand me most of the head parts in a dremel box should have been my first indicator that by "professionally" he meant him after a few beers. 

He had left the valves in the head while porting it and nicked them all on a few occasions with his dremel. The lifter buckets were all in a box without having marked where they went. Crank looked like it had been left out in the rain, etc. I quickly realized my intentions of just tossing in forged pistons and rods went out the window. At the price I had paid, it was still a fair deal.

 

 

 

Edited November 28, 2021 by TurboTapin

[TurboTapin]

After accepting the fact that this build was now going to cost double, I moved forward. I could now aim for more power anyways... more power is always good. 

First step was to build the head. I went with all new Ferrea parts and buckets. While I was waiting for the parts, I dropped off the head at TK Race heads, a local shop to actually professionally port it. He put 6h of porting into it, it's mild but at least it's done properly and will now flow evenly. By the time he was done, the parts finally arrived and he assembled it. 

 

Head is done, short of 272 vct Kelford cams but those will be ordered at a later date. Next was the block. Engine had originally met its demise due to a ring land letting go. I never planned on reusing the pistons or rods, but also now needed a new crank since the one supplied was toast. I figured I might as well stroke it now while I'm at it.

I ordered Spool I beam rods with .250 wrist pins and L19 hardware, 9:1 CP Pistons and a Spool 2.8L billet stroker crank. Received everything about two weeks ago. 

Edited November 28, 2021 by TurboTapin

[TurboTapin]

Now just waiting for my ARP main bolts to arrive so I can drop off the block at my machinist. Once machining is done I'll be able to start putting everything together. ARP bolts seem to be on backorder everywhere. I'm hoping it doesn't slow everything down too long.

Meanwhile I've been keeping busy with other smaller things that need to get done. I got a wicked deal on a new still in sealed box Haltech Elite 2500 and R32 adapter harness. Guy was asking 2300$ for both, which is about 1000$ off retail. Here I was just flashing it with the new NSP firmware that came out about a week ago.

I've been getting accustomed with the platform. Very different compared to nistune. Volumetric efficiency is very new to me but wow this seems simple to tune... Very happy with the purchase and all the different features. Due to my career path and love of software/electrical design the ecu and electrical is what I always geek out the most about on builds. I have a lot of other Haltech parts on the way now.  I've always opted for stock ecu software in the past and never had a full blown standalone. Very exciting! Yes that's a mug my wife got me with my car on it.  Love that mug lol. 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2021 by TurboTapin

[DaymoR32]

love this, i'll be watching very closely to see how the stroker performs as im very interested in stroking my NEO.

 

Keep up the posts mate!

[TurboTapin]

On 11/28/2021 at 7:43 PM, DaymoR32 said:

love this, i'll be watching very closely to see how the stroker performs as im very interested in stroking my NEO.

 

Keep up the posts mate!

Hey, thanks! Happy you like it. I'll update rather often. Tend to work on it every weekend or so. 

Cheers. 

[soviet_merlin]

Yes please for more updates! It looks super clean now.

Are you actually driving it in winter? I'd be so worried about stuff rusting away.

 

On 29/11/2021 at 11:13 AM, TurboTapin said:

Very happy with the purchase and all the different features. Due to my career path and love of software/electrical design the ecu and electrical is what I always geek out the most about on builds.

Hah. Did someone say 40 channels of datalogs... looking forward to see what you do with it.

[TurboTapin]

On 11/29/2021 at 3:10 AM, soviet_merlin said:

Yes please for more updates! It looks super clean now.

Are you actually driving it in winter? I'd be so worried about stuff rusting away.

 

Hah. Did someone say 40 channels of datalogs... looking forward to see what you do with it.

I'll never drive it in the winter! I can barely drive it in my driveway with snow, let alone on public streets haha. Thanks, more updates coming soon. 

[GTSBoy]

V. good.

When you've successfully given this thing all this power, you're going to need to do some things at the rear. You will need a diff. You will also want to consider modifying the lower front suspension pickup points to obtain geometry more similar to the R33/4s, because the R32 has terrible anti-squat geometry and they just do not like to put the power down. This, coupled with some proper adjustable upper arms and traction/radius rods and some time and effort spent with a bump steer gauge (you will have to make this yourself) will make the back end behave a lot better.

[TurboTapin]

On 11/29/2021 at 9:12 PM, GTSBoy said:

V. good.

When you've successfully given this thing all this power, you're going to need to do some things at the rear. You will need a diff. You will also want to consider modifying the lower front suspension pickup points to obtain geometry more similar to the R33/4s, because the R32 has terrible anti-squat geometry and they just do not like to put the power down. This, coupled with some proper adjustable upper arms and traction/radius rods and some time and effort spent with a bump steer gauge (you will have to make this yourself) will make the back end behave a lot better.

First I hear about the front geometry issues I'll definitely have some questions for you when the time comes. As for drivetrain and rear, the plan is a CD00A, beefier shaft and axles and a 1.5 diff.

So far I'm presuming the R200 housing and stubs will suffice but I need to look into it more. Thoughts? 

[GTSBoy]

Not front suspension. I said you will need to do things at the rear. The "lower front suspension pickup points" I was referring to are the lower front points on the rear suspension.

Front suspension has a whole raft of other geometry issues that are essentially unsolvable without using upper arms that pivot in the centre. Many words written on that topic.

WRT the diff, yes, you just need a centre to suit what you've got already.

[TurboTapin]

On 11/30/2021 at 5:43 PM, GTSBoy said:

Not front suspension. I said you will need to do things at the rear. The "lower front suspension pickup points" I was referring to are the lower front points on the rear suspension.

Front suspension has a whole raft of other geometry issues that are essentially unsolvable without using upper arms that pivot in the centre. Many words written on that topic.

WRT the diff, yes, you just need a centre to suit what you've got already.

Perfect, understood! Thanks. I unfortunately just found out most if not all ARP products are on national backorder. My main studs and most likely my head studs as well will only arrive in February. I just spam emailed every company between Canada and Australia to see if anyone has them in stock. If not, I'm probably going to order my diff now so I can continue working on something while I wait. 

[TurboTapin]

Had a bit of time so I worked on my valve covers. Wanted to plug the pcv valve hole and paint them. 

I started with disassembly.

 

Next up was cutting out a piece of aluminum to block the port and welding. I had a few beers but it came out alright.

 

Lastly tossed a couple coats of gold on them. Should match my PRP CAS bracket pretty well.

 

I also received my PRP RB25/RB26 billet oil pump gears today. Took the time tonight to clean out my old pump so it's ready for verification/installation tomorrow. 

 

[TurboTapin]

Got around to finishing my oil pump. Started by comparing the old and new gear set for "Science" and peace of mind.

 

Old and new inner gear I.D. Nearly identical.

 

Old and new outer gear O.D. Nearly identical.

 

Old and new outer gear thickness. Identical.

 

Old and new inner gear stub O.D. Nearly identical.

 

Both OEM and PRP gear sizes were basically identical. Moving on, I verified tolerances as per service manual. 

 

Measurement #1 - Outer gear to housing clearance. .152mm was a go, .203mm was a no go. It's within specs. 

 

Skipped measurement #2 as it's a new gear set. Measurement #3 & #4. .152mm was a no go. I did not have anything thinner but I see a small gap so will assume this is within spec. 

 

I was happy with the measurements and moved on with assembly. Measurement #5 is not pictured. Cleaned bolts thoroughly for proper Loctite adhesion, oiled gears and housing and knocked out the old seal. 

 

 

I then assembled the pump without Loctite to verify fit. The gears did not bind on anything and turned freely. Lastly I assembled with Loctite and torqued to spec. I added an extra 2nm for peace of mind. I mark each screw with a paint marker after I've torqued it. This is also useful in the future to verify if any of the fasteners have backed out.

 

Pumps now ready to party!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by TurboTapin

[TurboTapin]

Forgot to mention, I did measure crank nose to inner gear clearance. I did find it a tad loose but the old one had the same clearance and the service manual does not mention a need to verify this. .46mm total clearance or .23mm each side. Double checked it with feeler gauge. 

[Duncan]

It's a little late as the back plate is already on, but you can prepack the pump with assembly lube (or even vaseline apparently) to help build pressure quickly on start up too.

[TurboTapin]

On 12/4/2021 at 3:52 PM, Duncan said:

It's a little late as the back plate is already on, but you can prepack the pump with assembly lube (or even vaseline apparently) to help build pressure quickly on start up too.

I've heard of this practice before and it is an excellent idea but instead I've always just pulled the plugs and injector fuse and cranked until I see pressure prior to first start. So far this has always worked for me on new builds or motors that have sat for a long time. Thanks for the heads up though Duncan! Cheers. 

[TurboTapin]

Project has been stalled due to ARP fasteners being on global backorder. Was lucky to find main studs in the UK and head studs in Australia. I'll be dropping off my block at the machinist after the holidays. 

Received a few other things as well. Worked on my radium fuel pump hanger this morning. I was originally running one AEM 340LPH, I'll be reusing that one and running a staged second. Hanger can accommodate three pumps but I do not have a need for the third. 

Pulled my oem hanger and removed the fuel level and low level sensors off. 

Sensors installed on new hanger. 

Finishing up the internal wiring. 

Hanger setup complete. Was pleased with the quality and ease of setting this up.

Getting it back in wasn't pleasant though... Very tight fit. Anger gets shit done. 

I put the original hoses back on temporarily just to get it in and out of the garage if needed but I will be running new hard lines soon with flexible 8an ends. Slowly working on the exterior wiring now... I forgot to bring my wire labeler home from work.