Sorry for bad pics. My camera is terrible and being replaced and when I do I will take pictures again.
Received the car on June 6th, very good mechanical and physical condition. Car was all stock aside from aftermarket suspension which I found odd. On first inspection doesn't seem like it was otherwise modded, especially when I did my first upgrade. Screws were ridiculously rusted and hard to get out, intake rubber was gone, intake filter was done 15 years ago, etc.
My goals for this car are for fun autocross, not serious as it would be in modified and i dont have the time/money to be competitive in that with a car like this, hpde, and regular useable street power. I enjoy getting more out of turbo cars and I plan to do that here. No hellaflush, drifting, etc that people usually do with this will be done here.
Before I was able to bring the car to the US. I bought exhaust and a front mount intercooler from Nengun, the purveyer of all the jdm kewl kid stuff. Normally I would go for cheaper domestic options but for this car that is not an option.
After receiving the car I had Nissan do a PPI on the car, really a post purchase inspection, and they said all good. The car is mechanically flawless.
Timing belt was done recently. Flushed coolant, rather paid someone to. Changed oil. Everything else was fresh.
Heres a list of things I bought and am going to be putting in:
I bought a Kakimoto Racing R exhaust: (not my pic, like i said bad camera) ~$500
I don't like the N1 pipes I like the normal looking non loud exhaust.
A catless downpipe. $150
A Tomei Turbo elbow: (was ridiculously expensive at $300)
standard: (known for being restrictive and causing boost spikes)
tomei:
That is the only upgrade for this that fits the stock style 6 bolt turbo. The other option would be to get a new exhaust housing for the turbo and get a downpipe fabricated. If you want to upgrade the turbo later this is a good idea but you can get 6 bolt housings for Mitsubishi and Garrett style turbos. RB25 turbos have housings like this so for a R32 you just get a R33 or R34 turbo housing. Kinugawa, Taiwanese company, makes housings for Mitsubishi turbos.
Apexi PowerFC with new OLED style hand controller. ~$900 so a good deal more than Nistune probably would of cost.
Greddy Profec - newest version. Got this for free.
Nismo Fuel Pump - Got this for free. Won't be putting it on for a while.
Blitz SE Intercooler ~$500 - front mount.
Interior bits to replace worn items. $31 - shifter, shift boot leather, ebrake boot leather.
Need wheels/tires, waiting on R33 GTR wheels to show up on Ebay. They are lightweight forged wheels and usually are cheap.
First up, intercooler install.
I never installed a front mount intercooler before and it doesn't help that my documentation in only in Japanese:
So I just went by the pictures and tried to figure it out on my own. The way this intercooler is set up is both pipes come up on the passenger side of the car because the original intercooler piping goes there. That way you don't have to cut into the engine bay, which i did not want to do.
My camera wasn't cooperating in the garage making extremely blurry pics so i dont have many but basically first step is to take the bumper off. One thing I couldn't figure out from the instructions is you have to take off the indicators to do this:
The plastic bumper clips all had to be pried off despite them being the screw kind. They were so old and brittle that they wouldn't go back into shape and all broke taking them out. When I put the bumper back on I replaced them with what you buy at autozone. There are only two actual non clip type screws that held the bumper on. Both on the fenders and one each.
The next part was to take out the stock intercooler and all the piping. About half the screws were horribly rusted and there was almost no space for my hands. Needless to say putting massive force in a small space on rusted screws with sharp edges all around resulting in my hands looking butchered. The piping was also extremely tight in weird angles. This took almost all day to do. After that I decided to finish the rest the next day.
One thing I found when taking out the stock airbox, which you need to take the piping out, is that ALL the rubber on it fell apart in my hands. The stock filter also seemingly was replaced last when Duran Duran was still popular. The filter was falling apart, the rubber lining becoming crumbled, and it was caked in what felt like sticky maple syrup or juice. A G35 K&N filter dropped in.
The new intercooler bolted onto what seemed to be holes that were there for the GTR version of the car and it fit rather nice. Didn't even have to take off the bumper bar. The piping fit easily and snugly, it came with all the silcone connectors I needed to connect the pipes together and it used about half the OEM engine bay intercooler piping.
Then I tried to fit the bumper, it did not fit. Turns out the 89-90 and 90 1/2+ front bumpers are different. The older style bumper gets in the way of the intercooler stuff so it needed to be cut. I was sad to have to do this. I looked on ebay to see if I could purchase a later version but all I could find is GTR bumpers which you need to cut the bumper bar to fit, this is not an option for me. So I got the dremel out and trimmed the bumper. What needed to be cut where the brake vents. They had this kind of split semi-half ass ducting that needed to be removed and this center divider needed to be cut out as well. I was not happy with the results but it doesn't too overly terrible. I think in my future is some kind of a intercooler friendly bumper or a GTR bumper and GTR bumper bar ($$$$$).
All in all that 2nd part took half again a second day. Keep in mind I never done anything like this before so if I was experienced it probably wouldn't have been as long. Drove the car, it sounded different but was fine. Heres the intercooler before bumper install.
Again sorry for poor picture.
To compare the stock intercooler is about 1/2 the size of a WRX intercooler. It is ridiculously tiny.
My next to do is to install the interior bits, when I get them, and install the exhaust. After that install the ecu and boost controller and get a dyno tune done. With stock turbo I should expect 220-240whp they max out at 14 psi, are ceramic so anything above 14 psi is the killzone for it according to the internet.
After this install I bought a Nismo thermostat. Same item as what a 300ZX twin turbo uses so I got one locally for cheap. ($40)
The car already has aftermarket adjustable suspension, swaybars, and strut tower bars. It handles very much to my liking aside from traction as it is so fortunately I don't need to spend money/time there.
Things I will not be doing:
"Upgrading" to GTR look, aside maybe the front bumper due to intercooler.
Changing to a loud blowoff jdm kewlkid valve. Stock is good for almost any amount of power.
External wastegate, will be unnecessary for my goals.
Fitting unreasonably sized wheels/tires/hellaflush/etc.
Things not listed that I want to do:
Mild turbo upgrade. RB20 is known for being far laggier per same sized turbo on say a SR20. May have stock turbo rebuilt with aluminium or steel wheels. So this means also I need injectors. Alternative might be 16G or 18G cheaponew turbo. 16G on similar builds to mine reaches max boost around 3600rpm, 18G at near 4000. On a SR20 it would be much earlier. Stock turbo is like 3000rpm to 7psi.
Oil cooler - this car does not come with one. There is this company in UK called Japspeed who I bought my downpipe from that offers a reasonably priced setup. They also reduce the price for foreign purchases not charging you VAT so the shipping becomes irrelevant. I don't plan on tracking the car when it's 100 degrees out and autocross during summer here is at night. So i'm split on whether this is truly necessary. Keep in mind that GTRs don't even have them I think. I'm told that all skylines don't have oilcoolers.
Cams or exhaust cam gear. On a RB20 these can help reduce lag significantly. Evidence supports 400-500 rpm earlier to max boost on most turbos with the exhaust cam gear.
