HKS stroker kit step 0/1 or HKS GTIII 2530

[Kismos_R32]

I want to start upgrading but don't have the budget to drop 15k at once, if i was to do one first which would be better and why?

[Ozdavroz]

Definitely the stroker kit. once you mention you have a RB28 everyone will assume you will flog them and hopefully won't start asking about support mods. Anyone will be too scared to race you, except maybe the RB30 boys

[GTSBoy]

If you go 2.8, you're going to want bigger turbos.

Scratch that. If you go 2.8, you're going to want one single larger turbo.

[TurboTapin]

I'm not certain of your capabilities but parts and labour of a 2.8 will be well above 15k. You could do things slowly though (I.E Buy parts, save up, build block, save up, build head, etc.)

As mentioned, go single turbo. 

 

 

[r32-25t]

Neither, do some more research on what actually works these days and go from there.
 

Or just fit a 6466 with a twin entry rear and manifold and waste gate to suit and twin fuel pumps and 1650 injectors and a clutch and a bunch of other stuff I haven’t listed 

[joshuaho96]

15 hours ago, Kismos_R32 said:

I want to start upgrading but don't have the budget to drop 15k at once, if i was to do one first which would be better and why?

Turbos don't require pulling the motor apart so that's "easier". I would recommend the Nismo R3 turbos instead if you want to do stock twin turbo. It doesn't make as much power as the 2530s but it's only like ~50 whp off the mark and should have better response (ball bearing CHRA, slightly smaller turbo).

A local that went with a Garrett G30 and 6boost manifold recently nearly burned his car to the ground after the hood insulator started melting and and burning so if you go single turbo I recommend doing a lot of research and validation work to make sure you don't do the same.

[GTSBoy]

5 minutes ago, joshuaho96 said:

I recommend doing a lot of research and validation work to make sure you don't do the same.

Ceramic coating and heat shielding, you mean?

[joshuaho96]

1 hour ago, GTSBoy said:

Ceramic coating and heat shielding, you mean?

Among other things yes. Making sure to either use an oil pressure regulator or the right restrictor size for your oil pump/range of oil viscosities you intend to run, making sure you plumb the lines correctly, turbo should be placed such that it siphons properly even when the water pump isn't turning so you don't boil coolant in the turbo after shutdown, oil return should be low resistance and also preferably picking the one that is most likely to return to the pickup as opposed to some other irrelevant part of the pan. It's far from impossible to figure this out but I have seen people really, really struggle and if that's the case it's easier to just take the path of least resistance. To me, bolt-on twin turbos are a fixed cost whereas single turbo is almost unbounded.

[Murray_Calavera]

50 minutes ago, joshuaho96 said:

Among other things yes. Making sure to either use an oil pressure regulator or the right restrictor size for your oil pump/range of oil viscosities you intend to run, making sure you plumb the lines correctly, turbo should be placed such that it siphons properly even when the water pump isn't turning so you don't boil coolant in the turbo after shutdown, oil return should be low resistance and also preferably picking the one that is most likely to return to the pickup as opposed to some other irrelevant part of the pan. It's far from impossible to figure this out but I have seen people really, really struggle and if that's the case it's easier to just take the path of least resistance. To me, bolt-on twin turbos are a fixed cost whereas single turbo is almost unbounded.

Reading your posts Josh, sometimes I feel like I've gone in a time machine back to the 90's when everyone was doe-eyed and figuring things out for the first time. 

I've lost track of how many single turbo GTR's I've seen on track that haven't burnt down lol. Everything has been figured out a long time ago. These things are at the point now where its essentially turn-key to go single turbo. 

[joshuaho96]

2 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

Reading your posts Josh, sometimes I feel like I've gone in a time machine back to the 90's when everyone was doe-eyed and figuring things out for the first time. 

I've lost track of how many single turbo GTR's I've seen on track that haven't burnt down lol. Everything has been figured out a long time ago. These things are at the point now where its essentially turn-key to go single turbo. 

I think this is just a product of how the US market works for this stuff. Shops are expensive and there's no real way of knowing what kind of results you're going to get, people don't really have the institutional knowledge. I have heard too much at this point to really put faith in anybody "full service" except maybe DSport and they aren't really a full service kind of shop. If you go to the right place I have no doubt they'll get it right for you. Some locals have set it up right but the cost really is nuts and even now they're still fighting issues. And you know I'm a crazy person who thinks things like twin scroll, relatively short low-mount cast headers, PCV recirc to intake, recirculating BOV, right-sized for ~400 whp, MAF load, validating all of that to a standard comparable to OEM test programs, etc are relevant.

For what it's worth, multiple local owners at this point have been stuck in a perpetual cycle of blowing a motor -> getting someone to rebuild it -> some missed detail causes the bearings to wipe and spin just outside of break-in mileage or drop valves or some other catastrophe -> cycle repeats. I usually only find out about this because I'm perpetually helping random friends with diagnosing car troubles, Skyline or otherwise. The single turbo stuff if I'm honest is mostly secondary, it just doesn't seem to achieve the numbers in the ~2000-3000 rpm region that I would expect given the results I've seen here or in Motive's videos. I don't really know what we're missing here in the US to be causing this. Lots of people like to emphasize the necessity of finishing the project first and foremost, but I'm not made of money and I can't afford to be trashing a 15k+ USD engine build with any regularity. Or spending my relatively limited garage time these days unable to triangulate problems because too much was changed all at once.

Also, even if it isn't a catastrophic failure I would consider spending the cost of single turbo conversion with nothing to show for it to be pretty bad. 

Edited January 28 by joshuaho96

[r32-25t]

At times with how you make everything sound, all I imagine Americans doing when they see a gtr is standing there looking at it and bashing it with a gun like how a caveman would with a club and hoping it fixes itself 

[joshuaho96]

3 minutes ago, r32-25t said:

At times with how you make everything sound, all I imagine Americans doing when they see a gtr is standing there looking at it and bashing it with a gun like how a caveman would with a club and hoping it fixes itself 

I mean the other day I had to walk someone through diagnosing why their timing belt was walking off the cam gears. At least one of the issues was a bent tensioner stud. Local mechanics have found runout on the CAS mechanism causing weird failures. I'm also no saint here I've documented some of the things I've had to learn the hard way. Something I discovered recently is that my CA emissions catalytic converters weren't even welded correctly to align the downpipe to the main cat and they tossed the support bracket that goes from the transfer case to the downpipe to support everything there. I spend a lot of time chasing down these decidedly unsexy problems and the net effect is it feels like I never actually get to the original objective (flex fuel, VCAM, oil control, cooling, etc).

[Murray_Calavera]

@joshuaho96

Hmm considering the drama you've seen/experienced, have you looked into getting a built complete long motor shipped from Australia? 

Considering the AUD is basically monopoly money when compared to the USD, at a glance this seems like a good option?

[GTSBoy]

7 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

@joshuaho96

Hmm considering the drama you've seen/experienced, have you looked into getting a built complete long motor shipped from Australia? 

Considering the AUD is basically monopoly money when compared to the USD, at a glance this seems like a good option?

The downside to that is that the cost of everything, particularly labour, is significantly higher here than it is over there in the Disunited States of Slavery. You can hire 3 tradesmen over there for just the Ranger Raptor allowance of a single 3rd year apprentice over here.

[joshuaho96]

8 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

@joshuaho96

Hmm considering the drama you've seen/experienced, have you looked into getting a built complete long motor shipped from Australia? 

Considering the AUD is basically monopoly money when compared to the USD, at a glance this seems like a good option?

Nominally yes but I’m not really at that stage yet. Outsourcing to Japan is also a relatively good deal at the moment because their currency has devalued much more against the USD. 

1 hour ago, GTSBoy said:

The downside to that is that the cost of everything, particularly labour, is significantly higher here than it is over there in the Disunited States of Slavery. You can hire 3 tradesmen over there for just the Ranger Raptor allowance of a single 3rd year apprentice over here.

You would assume this but a lot has changed from the pandemic. Mechanics are in short supply and demand for fixing old cars has gone up from the cost of new cars. 250-300 USD/hr is not an unusual shop labor rate in California and you’re paying that regardless of whether the guy is competent or not. Coworkers have been quoted 3000 USD for a water pump and thermostat at a dealer on an N54. Oil changes went from ~75 USD to 150 on fairly normal cars like Civics. The cost of the oil and filter hasn’t even kept up with inflation.

[TurboTapin]

On 1/28/2025 at 7:28 AM, Murray_Calavera said:

@joshuaho96

Hmm considering the drama you've seen/experienced, have you looked into getting a built complete long motor shipped from Australia? 

Considering the AUD is basically monopoly money when compared to the USD, at a glance this seems like a good option?

The only high-power RB I've personally seen go pop after running for all of an hour on a dyno was built by B2R, while being remotely tuned by B2R. The only wastegates I've ever had leak like a sieve, return, still leak, return and get shipped back the wrong ones were from Turbosmart. The only final drive that I've ever purchased that were unusable, twice... were from Speedtek. The only seat mounts that I've ever purchased that placed the seats in the door frame were from Crank Motorsport. The only poorly designed parts that I had the manufacturer confirm should have been designed as per what I mentioned were from GKTech. The only ECU I've had firmware updates consistently break things are Haltech. The only catch can I've purchased that didn't fit in its advertised spot was from ATP. So forth and so on... Moral of the story, doesn't matter where it's from. Do your research beforehand and stick with products and companies you've trusted in the past. 

 

@joshuaho96 If you want it done right, do it yourself.

Edited January 29 by TurboTapin

[Murray_Calavera]

2 hours ago, TurboTapin said:

The only high-power RB I've personally seen go pop after running for all of an hour on a dyno was built by B2R, while being remotely tuned by B2R. The only wastegates I've ever had leak like a sieve, return, still leak, return and get shipped back the wrong ones were from Turbosmart. The only final drive that I've ever purchased that were unusable, twice... were from Speedtek. The only seat mounts that I've ever purchased that placed the seats in the door frame were from Crank Motorsport. The only poorly designed parts that I had the manufacturer confirm should have been designed as per what I mentioned were from GKTech. The only ECU I've had firmware updates consistently break things are Haltech. The only catch can I've purchased that didn't fit in its advertised spot was from ATP. So forth and so on... Moral of the story, doesn't matter where it's from. Do your research beforehand and stick with products and companies you've trusted in the past. 

I've got a Turbosmart wastegate, ATP catch can, many GK Tech parts and Haltech everything. Everything's been perfect, sorry to hear your experience wasn't the same

[TurboTapin]

1 hour ago, Murray_Calavera said:

I've got a Turbosmart wastegate, ATP catch can, many GK Tech parts and Haltech everything. Everything's been perfect, sorry to hear your experience wasn't the same

No worries, everything worked out in the end. I just wanted to make the point that it doesn't matter where it comes from (I.E Australia), it can be broken or improperly built. I would still purchase from these companies in the future.

B2R - Not certain how that finished, this was on a car I wired a few things and street tuned. I know the owner ended up shipping the motor back to Australia for investigation. Hopefully some of it is covered under warranty. 

Turbosmart - I always pressure test everything that goes on my car. It's a habit from my career in oil and gas. I run two 40mm's and both had major leaks from the actuator to exhaust portion through the shaft. I returned both, they shipped me back two and one was leaking and the other had a 38mm top (40mm gate with 38mm actuator cap, no idea how that happens). Eventually after a lot of back and forth I found myself with two non-leaking gates. I believe this happens a lot more then people would like to believe but you would never know if you don't pressure test them prior to installation.

Crank Motorsport - Issued a full refund and let me keep the seat rails. I turned them into scrap metal for other projects.

GKTech - Shipped me out a replacement and asked that I modify it as per my idea and that they would do the same for a future revision.

ATP - Can just needed a large shim to bolt up properly. 

Haltech - They started an actual proper Beta channel for firmware's a few months back and stopped using the general public for testing. I'm now much happier. 

Speedtek - f**k Speedtek. I would love to watch them burn. 

 

 

Edited January 29 by TurboTapin

[Lithium]

On 29/01/2025 at 9:19 AM, GTSBoy said:

Disunited States of Slavery

Outstanding!

[joshuaho96]

11 hours ago, TurboTapin said:

The only high-power RB I've personally seen go pop after running for all of an hour on a dyno was built by B2R, while being remotely tuned by B2R. The only wastegates I've ever had leak like a sieve, return, still leak, return and get shipped back the wrong ones were from Turbosmart. The only final drive that I've ever purchased that were unusable, twice... were from Speedtek. The only seat mounts that I've ever purchased that placed the seats in the door frame were from Crank Motorsport. The only poorly designed parts that I had the manufacturer confirm should have been designed as per what I mentioned were from GKTech. The only ECU I've had firmware updates consistently break things are Haltech. The only catch can I've purchased that didn't fit in its advertised spot was from ATP. So forth and so on... Moral of the story, doesn't matter where it's from. Do your research beforehand and stick with products and companies you've trusted in the past. 

 

@joshuaho96 If you want it done right, do it yourself.

This is kind of where I've ended up for the most part. It's easier for me, easier for shops that don't have to deal with my weird criteria/picky standards, etc.