RB25DET Solid lifter conversion

[Yeetus]

Gday,

Due to not finding much up to date info on this topic I thought I'd make a thread to get peoples latest opinions/recommendations.

Background info - 

I've got a S1.5 R33 GTST as a fun project car, mainly for street use and occasional drag strip, apart from all the cosmetic things I'll be doing a full rebuild of the engine with forged internals. Since it'll be getting new cams (kelford) and springs to match I thought I might as well get new lifters and valves while I'm at it, the dash says 160k KMs but the engine seems pretty tired, compression measures about 130psi across all cylinders so I'd like to freshen everything up.

This is where I'm tempted to just fork out the extra and go solid lifters while it's all apart, aiming for 400-450kw atw with a flex tune. Assuming all supporting mods (oiling, fuel and all bolt ons) with a lightly ported head and turbo to match (yet to make a decision possibly gtx3582r or similar from Hypergear)

I've seen the Tomei kits with just the buckets getting around, Supertech sells most things - Supertech High Performance Cam Followers | Trusted Racing Cam Followers

Questions - 

Has anyone found the Hydraulic lifters to limit them at this power level?

Is it usually found that you can just clean the stock lifters and find they work fine? 

Does going solid lifters save any headaches/issues with hydraulic lifters in the future?

Any recommendations on other things that will need to be replaced, I know I'll need to get the solid profile cams but can you use the same type of valves and springs/retainers and is it recommended to change the guides and stem seals? 

 

Summary - 

Basically looking for pros/cons and wanna know if I'll actually need the extra RPMs from solid lifters or it'll just be bragging rights to say it ReVs OvEr 8000

Cheers

[pogman]

Gday mate,

Personally in my car i run 450kw in an s2 rb25 so also hydraulic lifters and have always run it to 7500 RPM and using some baby 256 poncams with new but stock springs and retainers. While i cant speak on any experience with solid lifters i personally have had no issues with my hydraulic lifters which were just cleaned and set in an oil bath before assembly over 7 years ago.

Over 8k RPM is cool IMO and if you are using the stock gearbox or just a box with longer ratios the higher rpm certainly could aid to maintain boost into the next gear as that was always something i struggled with as i have a 3582r also but a hypergear equivalent could aid that issue.

In summary i would make a choice on the cam you want to use first then decide which springs and retainers work best with it and then you can toss up if you really need the solid lifters, if the car is mainly street i would learn towards keeping the hydraulic lifters as when installed properly and nothing too hektik going on around them they do the trick.

 

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Cheapest option, find a NEO head. Put in good springs, decent cams, and send it to the moon.

I rev mine to 8600RPM, gets me about 232km/h down the main straight at SMSP bouncing off the limiter in 4th.

I've never dared to grab 5th 🥲

[Yeetus]

43 minutes ago, pogman said:

Gday mate,

Personally in my car i run 450kw in an s2 rb25 so also hydraulic lifters and have always run it to 7500 RPM and using some baby 256 poncams with new but stock springs and retainers. While i cant speak on any experience with solid lifters i personally have had no issues with my hydraulic lifters which were just cleaned and set in an oil bath before assembly over 7 years ago.

Over 8k RPM is cool IMO and if you are using the stock gearbox or just a box with longer ratios the higher rpm certainly could aid to maintain boost into the next gear as that was always something i struggled with as i have a 3582r also but a hypergear equivalent could aid that issue.

In summary i would make a choice on the cam you want to use first then decide which springs and retainers work best with it and then you can toss up if you really need the solid lifters, if the car is mainly street i would learn towards keeping the hydraulic lifters as when installed properly and nothing too hektik going on around them they do the trick.

 

Cheers for the input, 450kw on poncams is impressive! I assumed you'd need 264 or 272 for that power level, good to know you don't need to rev that high to hit it, just don't want to buy the cams etc then find out the hydraulic lifters suck haha

The box will be getting reconditioned too, possibly an aftermarket gearset if it turns out they're toast, cheers I'll keep that in mind

[Yeetus]

45 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Cheapest option, find a NEO head. Put in good springs, decent cams, and send it to the moon.

I rev mine to 8600RPM, gets me about 232km/h down the main straight at SMSP bouncing off the limiter in 4th.

I've never dared to grab 5th 🥲

Goddam! Thats the dream, neo heads seem hard to come by these days though, best I've seen is $2-3k or there's a full motor for $7k atm

[GTSBoy]

8 hours ago, Yeetus said:

$2-3k or there's a full motor for $7k atm

Seems like an excellent reason to convert to something else entirely. Spending all that money to go forward by about 2% is hardly good business.

Could get a very large V8 for less than that.

[MBS206]

1 hour ago, GTSBoy said:

Seems like an excellent reason to convert to something else entirely. Spending all that money to go forward by about 2% is hardly good business.

Could get a very large V8 for less than that.

About the same coin for LS3 and a 6 speed manual... However, needs more dollars spent making it fit... Probably about the amount of money that would be spent on new turbo, intercooler, ECU, tune, etc...

I support stonking big V8s in Skylines...

[The Bogan]

13 minutes ago, MBS206 said:

About the same coin for LS3 and a 6 speed manual... However, needs more dollars spent making it fit... Probably about the amount of money that would be spent on new turbo, intercooler, ECU, tune, etc...

I support stonking big V8s in Skylines...

Registration and insurance can be problematic with engine swaps from dissimilar manufacturers, especially when throwing in a LS in the engine bay

Can it be done for a "street car", sure, but every part of the build should be led by the automotive engineer who will be signing off on the project, so bring your bank account, that part gets it registered.......then there's the yearly insurance dance to consider, can it be insured, sure, but at what cost

I would hazard to guess that building the RB would be a much simpler project without all the logistical headaches, and probably for alot less coin, for simular, if not more HSPRS 

[MBS206]

43 minutes ago, The Bogan said:

Registration and insurance can be problematic with engine swaps from dissimilar manufacturers, especially when throwing in a LS in the engine bay

Can it be done for a "street car", sure, but every part of the build should be led by the automotive engineer who will be signing off on the project, so bring your bank account, that part gets it registered.......then there's the yearly insurance dance to consider, can it be insured, sure, but at what cost

I would hazard to guess that building the RB would be a much simpler project without all the logistical headaches, and probably for alot less coin, for simular, if not more HSPRS 

Pansy...

Drop engine in, drive it.

Don't drive like idiot, so avoid popo attention.

 

From a legalities point of view, you need most of the same stuff signed off by an engineer once you up the power, but everyone ignores that part of all the documentation don't they

[GTSBoy]

Yeah, how many 350, 450, 550, 650, etc HP RB powered Skylines have any sort of engineering?

[Murray_Calavera]

1 minute ago, GTSBoy said:

Yeah, how many 350, 450, 550, 650, etc HP RB powered Skylines have any sort of engineering?

I do  

[The Bogan]

15 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

Yeah, how many 350, 450, 550, 650, etc HP RB powered Skylines have any sort of engineering?

I did....

[GTSBoy]

Well, that's.... 2

Out of how many? I suggest you guys would be outliers, and statistically speaking, should not be counted!

[The Bogan]

1 hour ago, GTSBoy said:

Well, that's.... 2

Out of how many? I suggest you guys would be outliers, and statistically speaking, should not be counted!

I believe Kinkstar would make it 3

And statistically speaking, you need all points to compare something 

So, out of ??? cars that were roadside tested or inspected, so far, 3 would drive away clean

In this day and age, where any random person can complain about your car, can you really "risk it for the biscuit" especially after dropping lots of coin modifying something, unless of course your prepared to return it to stock to get it cleared

And with a few members of my family working for the constabulary, modified cars are always a hot topic in our conversations, where they are actually told occasionally to hunt for modified cars

The way I see it is if people are happy to spend 10's of thousands of dollars on a build, a couple of thousand to get it engineered is good insurance 

[Yeetus]

5 hours ago, GTSBoy said:

Seems like an excellent reason to convert to something else entirely. Spending all that money to go forward by about 2% is hardly good business.

Could get a very large V8 for less than that.

Well the car has only basic mods atm, Apexi Power FC and stock turbo so I'd say I'd be moving forward by at least 100%? 😆

4 hours ago, MBS206 said:

About the same coin for LS3 and a 6 speed manual... However, needs more dollars spent making it fit... Probably about the amount of money that would be spent on new turbo, intercooler, ECU, tune, etc...

I support stonking big V8s in Skylines...

While this is tempting, I've owned many cars and can say I'm much more of a fan of the straight 6 turbo setups, hence why I bought the Skyline instead of a V8, I'd be more inclined to try a turbo 1UZ to still have the Stututu noises

3 hours ago, The Bogan said:

Registration and insurance can be problematic with engine swaps from dissimilar manufacturers, especially when throwing in a LS in the engine bay

Can it be done for a "street car", sure, but every part of the build should be led by the automotive engineer who will be signing off on the project, so bring your bank account, that part gets it registered.......then there's the yearly insurance dance to consider, can it be insured, sure, but at what cost

I would hazard to guess that building the RB would be a much simpler project without all the logistical headaches, and probably for alot less coin, for simular, if not more HSPRS 

Also this, big headaches

2 hours ago, MBS206 said:

Pansy...

Drop engine in, drive it.

Don't drive like idiot, so avoid popo attention.

 

From a legalities point of view, you need most of the same stuff signed off by an engineer once you up the power, but everyone ignores that part of all the documentation don't they

Haha I had this attitude years ago and it cost me many fines and defects so trying to do things the right way this time around to avoid that, as right as I can with a high mount setup anyway. NSW highway patrol have it in for modded cars especially Japanese Cars and 4wds (they'll leave old mates commodore with no rears springs alone though) in the Newcastle/Central coast region so the quieter and less obvious you can be the better.

Although sometimes they just have a problem with you just looking too happy in your Japanese car

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

And this is where a M2 or M4 makes sense.

 

[MBS206]

7 minutes ago, Yeetus said:

Well the car has only basic mods atm, Apexi Power FC and stock turbo so I'd say I'd be moving forward by at least 100%? 😆

While this is tempting, I've owned many cars and can say I'm much more of a fan of the straight 6 turbo setups, hence why I bought the Skyline instead of a V8, I'd be more inclined to try a turbo 1UZ to still have the Stututu noises

Also this, big headaches

Haha I had this attitude years ago and it cost me many fines and defects so trying to do things the right way this time around to avoid that, as right as I can with a high mount setup anyway. NSW highway patrol have it in for modded cars especially Japanese Cars and 4wds (they'll leave old mates commodore with no rears springs alone though) in the Newcastle/Central coast region so the quieter and less obvious you can be the better.

Although sometimes they just have a problem with you just looking too happy in your Japanese car

So, Barra Turbo, with a fake RB25 and Nissan badging on it to confuse all? 😛

[MBS206]

1 minute ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

And this is where a M2 or M4 makes sense.

 

And you can then legally not use your indicator too! 😛

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

2 minutes ago, MBS206 said:

And you can then legally not use your indicator too! 😛

Win win!

 

Here's a wild idea @Yeetus, come to my doorstep with either $60K or a F80 M3 and take my car away from me.

It could rev to 9000rpm but I would recommend putting in beehive springs.

[Yeetus]

24 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

And this is where a M2 or M4 makes sense.

 

I can appreciate those as nice cars but I'm more of an Audi fan, did almost buy an RS5 but settled for the cheapo R33

19 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Win win!

 

Here's a wild idea @Yeetus, come to my doorstep with either $60K or a F80 M3 and take my car away from me.

It could rev to 9000rpm but I would recommend putting in beehive springs.

Haha that is a wild idea, how about a banged up R33 and a case of beer? Mates rates? 😁