Finished another semester and had some time to do a bit of work on the break.
Got some 2WD RB20 upper engine mounts to mate with the GTR rubber engine mounts. This works well, 4WD mounts don't work. On the exhaust side on the motor, one of the oil feed lines needed to be rerouted to clear the mount and the turbo brace no longer fits--I'll have to fix that later. On the intake side, the mount is right tight to the oil temperature sender so I can’t get a plug on it currently but I’ll be reworking the upper mounts to place the engine back another ¾” ish so I’ll regain access to the sender.
I made a little cart with some crazy wheels that bolts to the RB20 crossmember and a single crazy wheel with a standoff to bolt onto the rear of the trans so I can roll the motorset around. Took the entire front suspension and TC rod boxes and radiator mounts off to give me lots of room to drop the car on the engine. I did the install easily by myself in a few minutes!
About halfway through the install I realized that the brake hardlines coming out of the master were going to interfere with the rear turbo outlet (they are really close on Jesse’s car). I pulled the lines out and used some heat to coax the bends a lot tighter and it all fits with about ¼” of clearance but it’s soon to grow since I’ll be pushing the engine back a bit more.
Picked up my rotors the other day but haven’t drilled to 5 lug yet so I don’t have pics of them on. GTR rims don’t clear even with a 10mm spacer. On my relatively accurate bathroom scale, the rotor weighed 14.8lb (compared to ~17.5lb for a Z32 30mm rotor).
I messed around with my power steering a little bit. After taking some measurements and realizing that an S13 KA24DE Hicas power steering pump I had kicking around shared the same offset as the R32GTR pump (also hicas), I sold the R32GTR pump and bolted up the S13 pump after pulling the vanes out of the rear half of the pump for Hicas delete. I used the RB26 power steering pump bracket, RB26 tensioner arm (spaced forward ~3mm), and RB26 tensioner bracket to the pump (enlarged 2 holes from M8 to M10).
I’m currently working on the wiring and am about 80% finished. It looks pretty daunting but once you get in there it’s all good! I swapped the RB26 coolant temp sensor (for the gauge cluster) for an S14 KA one so I can have temperature readings. On the engine harness I’ve relocated the resistor box for the low impedance injectors, stock boost solenoid, and the MAP sensor for the GTR DIN gauges behind the passenger strut tower where the cruise control module used to be.
Due to the 3” piping that has to go through the stock battery location, I’ve taken out most of the battery tray and left some so that I can run something small like an Odyssey PC680 half battery (7.15 x 3.00 x 6.65”) tucked against the outside. Spot weld drill bits do an excellent job of removing factory sheet metal.
I originally planned to run a custom 1 or 2 piece driveshaft using the GTR32 companion flange/CV at the tail end of the propeller shaft but the rear subframe risers have pushed the flange right into the ebrake clips. I’ve now got an S13 non ABS companion flange for the diff so I can run a cheaper aluminum 1 piece driveshaft. Current plan is a unit from shaftmasters.com.
I ordered a pair of replacement HKS filters and a pair of R33 ebrake cables so I can get my rear setup mostly dialed in. Next on the list is finishing the wiring and fabbing a transmission crossmember.
Stay tuned... More coming