Author: sr20tuning

Today I completed the last of my uni commitments for the semester, in the form of a 76 page research dissertation. After giving a big sigh of relief it was straight to the workshop to have my oil restrictor drilled. Despite the workshop being officially closed, John still allowed me in to finish the restrictor. A big thankyou to him for his kindness.

Home then it was to put on the HKS gt2510, not wasting any time. The time available was short but no dramas saw the swap almost complete. The t25g has been removed, the braided line fittings installed and a few other things are in place. Tomorrow morning all that remains is to do is to bolt the new turbo into place. I have been documenting everything as always, spawning a new page covering the turbo fitment, the preparation of the braided lines, and comparing the t25g to the 2510. Please enjoy the Fitting a Bolt on Turbo Page.

More updates tomorrow after everything is in place.

Things are moving slowly but they are moving. The registration costs are now paid off and a few niggling problems have been cured. Firstly a post rebuild inspection of the valve train by myself ended up in a rocker cover gasket leak when everything went back together. This fired a fine mist of oil over the fuel rail and inlet manifold. The danger of an oil fire was a great reason to have this fixed ASAP which I now have. The other problem was a brake pad wear indicator tab bent and squeaking when the pad still has a great deal of meat remaining. Easy fix at least for that one.

I have had the oil feed fitting welded up ready to be drilled smaller. The drilling will be done at my uni workshop this Tuesday when I go in to hand in my last assignment for the semester. After this it’s full steam ahead for tuning. The following still remains to do:

• Drill oil inlet fitting (next tuesday)
• Fit turbo (should be an easy job indeed with the braided lines)
• Obtain Z32 sized pod adaptor (possible swap for old afm with DumHed)
• Have 80mm inlet pipe fabricated (don’t know who I’ll get to do this)
• Have injectors cleaned and flow tested (will shop around again)
• Wire in plugs in parallel for afm and injectors (should be easily done by myself in a spare day)

Then of course tune! The car will be driven to Unigroup with just the turbo in place, and after a base power run the injectors, induction pipe and air flow meter can be bolted on ready to go. It will be exciting indeed, finally concluding the ecu tuning section of the site. I have a huge update planned in this regard.

After that the site will continue to grow and grow until it is the ultimate s13 site. The Jap Turbo page will be finished shortly, and the new pages on DumHed’s Silvia will be online soon I hope. In addition to this he has a new and exciting project that will fascinate many including myself. It will be covered here in great detail.

The site has passed 61,000 hits, which means 11,000 in the last 6 weeks, or 1800 hits a week. This means between 200-300 hits a day. Sites with forums generate a lot more, but this site has no forums, which means people come here to read the content. A site sponsor once again would be welcomed.

I was unable to have the restrictor made at uni due to the lack of correct welding equipment, but I will have it done soon. I will probably need to take it to a specialist, but it still should be very cheap if not free I hope.

In other news, I’m preparing other small details needed before tuning, such as the fitment of the z32 afm. A new page has been created. Much more will be added when I actually wire it up and have the car tuned.

Another step closer today towards getting the 2510 on the car. I visited Motorsport Connections at Seven Hills to line up the extra fittings I needed for the braided lines. They stock a complete range of speedflow fittings as well as the actual braided lines. Other products include oil coolers, sandwich plates, silicone hose, hose clamps, race harnesses, oil catch cans, and the list goes on. For a bill of $45 I now have all the correct fittings on the turbo side of the lines, and an assortment of fittings on the engine side of the lines. Some fresh alloy washers are waiting to go as well.

The only thing needed now to fit the turbo is some sort of oil restrictor. From what I’ve read recently, ball bearing turbos require much less oil than a conventional plain bearing turbocharger. where as a bush/plain/journal bearing requires a layer of pressurised oil between its internal components to work properly, a ball bearing turbo only requires a small amount of oil to lubricate the bearing. As such a restrictor is required to cut down oil pressure to the bearing. If not used the bearing can be over pressured with oil and have a detrimental effect on the response of the turbo. Needless to say supreme maintenance is required, the restrictor will be only 1 mm and therefore would easily be blocked from negligence.

I’ll be taking one of my new fittings to the uni workshop to have it welded shut and then redrilled smaller. And of course I’ll take pics of the process so the knowledge can be passed on for all.

I took the car to Western Clutch yesterday to shed some light on the situation, and aren’t really any the wiser. The guys (and girls) at Western Clutch were fantastic once again however, spending 10 minutes with me trying to diagnose the problem and giving me the best advice they could. I would have to say Western Clutch along with Unigroup are my absolute favourite and trusted auto related business. With so many dodgy places around I always feel confident in being given the truth and a fair deal with these guys. Another that has impressed me with dealings with a friend was GCG turbos, although i haven’t dealt with them myself. Free plug for all of them.

I will be taking the car back to Western Clutch as soon as I have the money to have a new brass button fitted. This will be nearly the same as what’s in the car now, but it will be new and ready to last for quite a while I hope. Straight after this comes fitment of the HKS GT2510 which is now in my possession. Along with a few little things like wiring up the plugs for the z32 afm and injectors, and getting a fatter induction pipe fabricated to suit the 80mm external diameter meter. Also I need to get two more fittings to suit the slightly different orifices of the HKS turbo. The banjo bolt for the oil feed is slightly too small as is one of the water feed fittings. Shouldn’t be hard to rectify however. It’s all just a matter of time.

Some exciting new developments site wise, with initial talks with a good friend Andrew (aka DumHed) about hosting the build up of his car along with the other pages on the site. Along with goodies such as the 5 stud conversion, the engine side of things is really interesting. Andrew runs a S14 spec VVT SR20DE with custom turbo install. All of the work was done by himself, the car has never seen a workshop. The results of this were 157 rwkw the same night I made 170rwkw, on just 8/9psi. Very impressive and I’m sure it will make interesting reading.

The success of the site keeps snowballing, the acceleration of hits getting stronger. Maybe someone might be interested in banner advertising on the site and even sticker advertising on the car? Judging by the amount of times links to the contents of this site are posted on forums the site seems to have a good influence on the community. The car will  see the track at least once a month after its tuned, so an opportunity if anyone wants it.

Last night, as planned, the car went on the dyno at Unigroup for a post rebuild power run. The result was 170.1 rwkw, which is kind of disappointing but not too much for several reasons.

Firstly the engine is very fresh with close clearances, very ‘tight’ so to speak. It may take ssome time before it loosens up and makes a bit more power. Unigroup seems to be reading lower than previously, with another’s car making 13rwkw less than the dyno day with an identical setup. The shape of the power curve is very different to previously too, which I can’t understand. The shape of the Ricol graph is more reflective of how the car feels on the road, and appears very similar to all of the previous runs at Unigroup. Compare them on the results page or the rebuild page.

It’s hard to let go of the numbers but what really matters in that the car feels faster to me than it ever has before. Response is excellent, power delivery smooth and it doesn’t seem to drop off up top. Apart from the clutch I’m really happy with how the car is performing.

Yesterday I pulled off the braided lines from the Apexi turbo, ready to be trial fitted to the HKS gt2510 when it arrives.

I have finished the Rebuild page and it now includes a scanned copy of the bill and plenty of other info.

Tonight I should be attending Unigroup for a post rebuild dyno run, as they car feels bloody fast. Maybe it’s just because I’m not used to it again but it’s possible the static compression is higher and also that the cylinder compression is better from the new rings/bore hone.

Hopefully the clutch can be sorted soon, as shift quality is a bitch. Changing gears quickly just can’t be done at the moment. A shame because I want to get the car to WSID asap.

Car has returned! Everything is 100% except the clutch which feels very ordinary. Full write up and rebuild page completion when more time tomorrow.

Today is the day that I pickup the car, after all this time. After some heated discussion with Ricol and then discussion between IDA admin and Ricol, the situation is a little more clear. I am not expecting the clutch to be as stuffed as was made out to me from what I’ve heard I am confident of fixing it with some hydraulic adjustment. The pricing too seems better after I have learnt more about the actual bill structure. All will be revealed on the Rebuild page when the invoice is scanned for all to see. This site has always been about providing accurate information for free to benefit people, and this will be no different with all expenses listed to assist others.

The HKS GT2510 is expected any day now, and will be on the car very soon I hope. Firstly I will be taking the car back to Unigroup for a post rebuild power figure and check over. Assuming the clutch is ok I really want to drag race the car with the standard turbo in place to see what time I can get from it. There should be a good window of opportunity to do this between saving up for tuning and paying the registration costs from my credit card.

Site wise I have split up this page again for a total of three news pages, with this page starting with the engine rebuild story. Loading times should be a little better now. The bolt on turbo page is coming along nicely with some good data. This page will be one of the most useful pages out there when it comes to picking a low mount turbocharger, I’ve never personally seen anything like it. It will take a while to complete but before too long I’ll get up the draft version of the page.

Some good news at last. I still have no further updates on the actual car and clutch but I do have some money refunded from the broken Apexi turbo I was sold. The sale of the hks 2510 I spoke of a while back has fallen through with someone else. I have contacted the seller again and confident I will be able to purchase the turbo.

It seems a shame to get rid of the data I collected on the Apexi turbo, so instead of replacing the page with a new one on the hks, i will expand the page to cover aftermarket Jap turbos in general. It might take a while to be completed because I am in my final year of uni now and things are getting busy.

Fingers crossed to get the car back 100% asap.