R32 GTR - Where to begin

[Toni]

6 minutes ago, Murray_Calavera said:

After my million questions, I'll throw in my 2c now. 

If I was in your shoes, I would buy the best/most modern ECU available. A Nexus S3 would fit the bill. It is highly likely that this ECU will last the life of the car, regardless of whatever ECU manufacturers develop in the future. Modern ECU's are amazing and will still be amazing in 10 or 20 years time.

If you can get e85 relatively close to where you live, I would buy a flex sensor and size the injectors to run e85.

I'd go a Walbro 525 fuel pump with relay wiring kit. 

Turbo wise, I'd hit up HyperGear and get a pair of the biggest bolt on turbos. 

Now for the safety side of things, I'd have the tuner setup the tune to be very soft/safe on 98. Then on the flex tune, a lot of the timing can be put back in on the top end (I'd run full boost on both tunes, but manipulate the power with the timing). This also has the benefit of hopefully delaying the, "bored now, need more boost" that comes with owning a modified turbo car. If you spend most of your time on the 98 tune, the few times your on e85 will hopefully stay special/fun. 

The bad news. As your paying for labour and tuning, I don't think this will happen with $10,000. This might be the motivation to learn to do it yourself though, that way instead you'll have the built car and change from the $10,000

Thanks Murray, appreciate the advice, a few things to think about now 😀 

[Murray_Calavera]

Oh, I forgot to mention this before. 

It is accepted that your taking on risk buy turning up the power on a 30 year old stock motor. You can lower the risk with the ECU engine protection, but this is more money on sensors. CAN wideband, oil temp, oil pressure, coolant pressure, fuel pressure, air temp, etc. It adds up quick. 

I am a huge fan of running all of the engine protection the ECU offers.

You'll have to decide for yourself how you want the engine protection setup and what you think is worth monitoring. 

[GTSBoy]

This is why I suggested that there is really nothing that can safely be done in the engine bay at this budget level. Just the work to reassure yourself that the engine won't instantly crap itself the moment the boost gets turned up will wear out the piggy bank long before the first turbo gets installed. Spend $10k and still not have any extra performance?

My tip is a version of our standard advice from 15 years ago about buying a GTR, which is not to buy one unless you can afford to buy two. The new version is not to modify a GTR unless you have all the funds required to do it all at once, properly, and enough to rebuild it after it blows up.

[Kinkstaah]

GTSBoy is again on the money.

My actual advice? Sell the car.
(really).

For what it's worth as is, you can sidegrade into something much better. If you care about function then this is the actual move.

If you want a Skyline to perform, set aside about $100K to do it. This is NOT a typo.
You will see right away these are two very different mindsets. Realistically we're talking full restomod for any Skyline still kicking around.

Have an honest think about which one you are.. and what you want to do, and how much you want to invest in this (with no return).

[joshuaho96]

3 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

After my million questions, I'll throw in my 2c now. 

If I was in your shoes, I would buy the best/most modern ECU available. A Nexus S3 would fit the bill. It is highly likely that this ECU will last the life of the car, regardless of whatever ECU manufacturers develop in the future. Modern ECU's are amazing and will still be amazing in 10 or 20 years time.

If you can get e85 relatively close to where you live, I would buy a flex sensor and size the injectors to run e85.

I'd go a Walbro 525 fuel pump with relay wiring kit. 

Turbo wise, I'd hit up HyperGear and get a pair of the biggest bolt on turbos. 

Now for the safety side of things, I'd have the tuner setup the tune to be very soft/safe on 98. Then on the flex tune, a lot of the timing can be put back in on the top end (I'd run full boost on both tunes, but manipulate the power with the timing). This also has the benefit of hopefully delaying the, "bored now, need more boost" that comes with owning a modified turbo car. If you spend most of your time on the 98 tune, the few times your on e85 will hopefully stay special/fun. 

The bad news. As your paying for labour and tuning, I don't think this will happen with $10,000. This might be the motivation to learn to do it yourself though, that way instead you'll have the built car and change from the $10,000

But the Nexus S3 is very expensive and won't be as purpose-built for the application as a separate electronic boost controller :^)

More seriously my pet issue here would be that the Walbro 525 running at 100% duty cycle is going to require more FPR than the stock setup can handle. I'm also pretty sure from what I've seen elsewhere you might want to slow down the pump regardless unless you're going to come up with some way of upsizing the fuel lines coming from the fuel tank. Factory 8mm fuel line doesn't actually flow very much if you want to keep pressure drop down between the fuel pump outlet and FPR. If you really want to "keep it simple" I would run only as much pump as you need and source a fuel pump controller to slow down the pump in the vain hope of being able to run stock-style FPRs which are pretty dinky. Or just use the HICAS lines and it should be mostly fine.

OP should also really think hard about what profile they'd want out of the turbo. My pet choice here would be the G1 profile rather than anything higher power but YMMV. I already think ~stock turbo lag is pretty bad so I don't want to make it worse. In "gentle canyon cruising" I found that I spent a lot of time around 4-4.5k RPM.

I also recommend DIYing labor if you're detail-oriented enough. Costs are high for labor + if you do it yourself you can be your own quality control.

Edited March 4 by joshuaho96

[Murray_Calavera]

It's interesting seeing everyone talk about what level of risk they are happy to tolerate. 

Building a GTR always has a level of risk, you could be that lucky guy that drops 20k on the engine build alone and still has the thing go pop on the dyno. Life is fun like that. 

The way I see it, the thing is a toy to be enjoyed. I'd be happy to turn up the power on stock motor and limit the risk with sensible tuning and engine protection. If it still goes pop, it is what it is. The car isn't a daily driver so it can happily sit while a plan is made to sort it out. 

Given this thing will be a street car only, I really feel it's worth the (relatively small if managed well) risk to turn the power up to around 350KW on e85. 

I don't think anyone getting into the skyline game now is doing it out of logic. Surely it is a purely emotional decision so I'm not sure how important it is to think about the engine build logically. The heart wants what it wants. 

@joshuaho96 little note for Josh, I run my 525 pump flat out all the time and through the factory lines without any issues. (excluding the melting connectors, that's sorted now. we'll pretend it never happened lol)

[joshuaho96]

6 minutes ago, Murray_Calavera said:

It's interesting seeing everyone talk about what level of risk they are happy to tolerate. 

Building a GTR always has a level of risk, you could be that lucky guy that drops 20k on the engine build alone and still has the thing go pop on the dyno. Life is fun like that. 

The way I see it, the thing is a toy to be enjoyed. I'd be happy to turn up the power on stock motor and limit the risk with sensible tuning and engine protection. If it still goes pop, it is what it is. The car isn't a daily driver so it can happily sit while a plan is made to sort it out. 

Given this thing will be a street car only, I really feel it's worth the (relatively small if managed well) risk to turn the power up to around 350KW on e85. 

I don't think anyone getting into the skyline game now is doing it out of logic. Surely it is a purely emotional decision so I'm not sure how important it is to think about the engine build logically. The heart wants what it wants. 

@joshuaho96 little note for Josh, I run my 525 pump flat out all the time and through the factory lines without any issues. (excluding the melting connectors, that's sorted now. we'll pretend it never happened lol)

I don't think the G2 profile is particularly dangerous for the engine per se, more just are you actually ok with the turbo lag trade-offs? If the answer is yes then go for it. I personally don't think I'd be ok with it because I spend so much time at lower RPMs and I really enjoy the feeling of being able to stay in 5th gear on the highway and just roll into the throttle to get boost. Or staying in 3rd gear on "gentle canyon cruises" without feeling the turbo lag too badly.

The 525 pump should be able to run flat out on factory lines but I would bet the pressure drop from pump to regulator is quite impressive. I don't know how much it would be exactly but I've seen figures like 30 psi thrown around.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

3 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

I don't think anyone getting into the skyline game now is doing it out of logic. Surely it is a purely emotional decision so I'm not sure how important it is to think about the engine build logically. The heart wants what it wants. 

This.. no one is going into it wanting to "build" a fast track car, because let's be honest you can buy a i30N or Type-R lawn mower and both will destroy a R32 GT-R (even with mild mods) around a circuit.

 

3 hours ago, Kinkstaah said:

GTSBoy is again on the money.

My actual advice? Sell the car.
(really).

For what it's worth as is, you can sidegrade into something much better. If you care about function then this is the actual move.

If you want a Skyline to perform, set aside about $100K to do it. This is NOT a typo.
You will see right away these are two very different mindsets. Realistically we're talking full restomod for any Skyline still kicking around.

Have an honest think about which one you are.. and what you want to do, and how much you want to invest in this (with no return).

Greg is on the Gregging money here.

 

If you love your R32 GT-R, just leave it stock and enjoy it and If you want a fast car to play with and hit the track with, just put aside $80K for a M2 Competition and keep the R32 GT-R as a weekend cruiser. Same outcome (you have a R32 GT-R and you have a fast track car) really.

[GTSBoy]

Mine is not even a GTR and I've been resisting the urge to make it a power monster for the last 25 years.

And as a consequence, I have driven it to work nearly every day across that span of time.

[joshuaho96]

40 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

This.. no one is going into it wanting to "build" a fast track car, because let's be honest you can buy a i30N or Type-R lawn mower and both will destroy a R32 GT-R (even with mild mods) around a circuit.

 

Greg is on the Gregging money here.

 

If you love your R32 GT-R, just leave it stock and enjoy it and If you want a fast car to play with and hit the track with, just put aside $80K for a M2 Competition and keep the R32 GT-R as a weekend cruiser. Same outcome (you have a R32 GT-R and you have a fast track car) really.

I don't even know that you want an M2 Competition as a track car. My rule for a track car is only risk as much as you're willing to completely total out. Clean stock C5 Z06 Corvettes out here are cheap. Buying someone else's already ruined track car is even cheaper. Maybe I'm just not that good a driver but even a Fiesta ST on the Nordschleife felt like as much car as I could realistically handle.

[Murray_Calavera]

1 hour ago, joshuaho96 said:

My rule for a track car is only risk as much as you're willing to completely total out.

Yep, with the crazy inflation of the value of our cars these past couple of years this became a problem for me too...

My solution is to transition to bikes. Everything feels so cheap compared to tracking the skyline lol

[Kinkstaah]

I specifically said buy new performance car because of the use case here (i.e, no track use and fun livable everything/do it all easily if not especially amazing as a drivers car).

Tracking an 80K Skyline and an 80K M2 makes the BMW the obviously more risky purchase WHEN something goes wrong you suddenly can't easily fix it with hand tools and readily available parts that you may have a community of people you know available, or years of your own knowledge on the platform to apply.

There's reasons you see Hondas and Vettes and RB's and Miatas and such at tracks, you can easily hand-tool repair 99.9% of it in a shed, usually with the tools and the skillset of the owner to apply to it.

An i30N is not going to beat a R chassis unless it's got massive problems either.
The old cars can, and still do work great.

The problem is - and always has been - social media would have you believe it's simple and easy to achieve the results you see online. 

People want their car to be like "one of those cool JDM cars" which is the default image people have when they think of  "cool JDM cars"

You are paying 25 years of catchup R&D to achieve. Or the knowledge somebody else has to do it for you, which is big dollar restomod stuff.  The bar has been moved and every R chassis that people see/like/enjoy has 25 years of R&D thrown at it, or is owned by someone who did all that work and has that knowledge over the past 25 years. All the survivors have been progressively resto-modded the entire time.

OR you slowly bring it back to how it was stock. Which is also prohibitively expensive, done for the love of it.

This is what the JDM community is now. This is fine, but "Where do I start?" is either:

1) Don't
2) Take your own slow journey but you cannot compare your progress with others who have had 25 years of R&D and experience building their own cars unless you pay for it.

[Kinkstaah]

I also don't mean to rain on your parade. But with a 5-10k budget for road only? I'd want to check confirmation that everything IS working correctly and I'm with @GTSBoy for a plan of action here. I'd be checking subframes, bushes, exhaust hangers, interior bits and generally QOL things and CONFIRMING they are working right before thinking about motor.

You can get 250KW+ on stock RB26 hardware by simply removing the built in restrictors and tuning the stock ECU. If you want purity that's as far to take it, which I would be worried to do and won't think the budget would allow for when earnestly checking for 30+ year old car stuff.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

2 hours ago, Kinkstaah said:

There's reasons you see Hondas and Vettes and RB's and Miatas and such at tracks,

At SMSP, I mainly see Hondas, M cars, A90 Supras and of course, plenty of Evos.

Have not seen a single R32 ro R34 Skyline on the night sessions that I've been to. That's really saying something.

[GTSBoy]

20 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

At SMSP

There's a lot of drug money on that side of Sydney. Just sayin'.

[Duncan]

30 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

At SMSP, I mainly see Hondas, M cars, A90 Supras and of course, plenty of Evos.

Have not seen a single R32 ro R34 Skyline on the night sessions that I've been to. That's really saying something.

You're 20 years too late mate. Used to be 80% skylines back in team trackday days

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

34 minutes ago, Duncan said:

You're 20 years too late mate. Used to be 80% skylines back in team trackday days

I think you're missing the point here Duncan, I was trying to say that if you want to go fast around and have a spare $80K to $100K, easiest option is to just buy another car instead of modding your Skyline.

Sure blowing $80k to $100K would make it fast, but then you'll have a car that you can't drive on the street comfortably. But use that $80k, buy a fast factory car, spend like $7K on AliExpress pipes, email tune, tyres, pads and you can be fast, not to mention now you have two cars.

[GTSBoy]

And if one is a BMW and the other is a Skyline, they will probably both be broken at the same time.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

12 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

And if one is a BMW and the other is a Skyline, they will probably both be broken at the same time.

Seems like the only true "budget" track cars here are Hondas and Mitsubishi Evos.

God forbid anyone mention Subaru lol.. every 2nd track day, new head gaskets or new block.

[Duncan]

The V37 did just fine at the track day, other than it needs a bigger radiator.

Mods are the problem.