“Golddust” – Jordan’s RB26 twin turbo powered S14 260SX

[JordanTr]

Not much to report.

Ordered some new plugs for this beasty. I went for the OEM plugs which are NGK PFR6A-11 or #4045. They're unfortunately spendy @ ~$10.60 CAD per plug but some motors can be picky. My second choice was not super optimal and only saved $20 so I just ponied up and got these guys.

[JordanTr]

Picked up my plugs the other day but no install yet.

Got some adjustable TC rod bits minus the spherical bearing. I'll machine my stock TC rods so I can adjust caster and keep the rubber or poly bushing.

Picked up a full set of Apexi N1 adjustable coilovers. They were "not seized" but a can of WD40 later and some pipe wrench and torch action were required to get them all apart. I'm going to clean up all the steel threaded bodies and give them a solid coat of cold galv and then a liberal coating of Never Seeze before reassembly. I was happy to discover that all the shocks are in good shape. Working on getting my dad's pickup back on 4 wheels so I can pull Golddust in to get its heart removed.



Stay tuned!

[JordanTr]

After picking up the new NGK plugs I mentioned above, I cleaned off the flaking paint on the coilpack frames and degreased them before coating them heavily with Plastidip. I washed all the coilpack boots well with soap and water and reinstalled the whole shebang with copious amounts of dielectric grease at all electrical connections. All the coilpacks installed ohm out to 0.8. Tada, the car runs pretty good now. It's not perfect but she runs. Check out a couple of the video links below.

Cold start video with walk around and Warm start video

It seemed prudent to do a compression test just to be sure I don't do a bunch of work to install a dead motor. With all the plugs pulled, 5 second crank and WOT, the following numbers resulted. At least both turbos end up with roughly equal compression from their 3 cylinders since the lower compression cylinders feed 2 different turbos.

• 1: 165
  2: 170
  3: 170
  4: 170
  5: 170
  6: 160

After pulling the plugs it was pretty obvious that holes 3 and 4 still need some ignition attention.



I'm hoping to get the KA pulled from the 240 sometime in the next week with the RB26 soon to follow.

I've been constantly doing research so I've updated the front page to reflect changes to the plan.

[JordanTr]

Been working on this project a bit alongside the 510. Ordered a timing belt/water pump from The Nismo Shop aka West Covina Nissan and I ordered a pair of rack bellows for the S13 rack.

Pops and I got the KA pulled from the S14.



I put the GTR on a diet and slimmed the front down for ease of work and motor pulling.



Today I started down the slippery slope of making things pretty... I figured since I had the gun all set up, I'd do some black bit so I did a couple brackets for the brake booster plumbing. They turned out pretty good methinks but not my best. They're powdercoated mirror black.

[JordanTr]

Got the motor pulled from the car yesterday with a buddy of mine. All went pretty well. The car does indeed have a pull type clutch from a late R32 or R33 meaning it has a matching late R32 or R33 trans. Supposedly those transmissions had upgraded gearsets. Kinda cool but no real use to me. It looks like the rear main needs to be done as well...

Here are a couple pics of the progress.





Got some OEM parts (water pump and timing belt), some rack bellows and ordered some Stance solid mounts for rear subframe. Kinda cool that the timing belt comes with a little Japanese sticker to denote the mileage when the timing belt is done.



Maybe the rear subframe bushings will match Golddust?



GTR oil pan with the integrated F160 front diff and everything that needs to be modified for rear wheel drive. Lots of cutting and grinding to slim it down. So far tonight took 7 lbs off slimming it down from 26.5 lbs to 19.5 lbs and still a bunch more to go. I used up 2 zip wheels this evening. Two 1.25" plugs and some welding are required to seal the holes for the original cross shaft. There are 30 fasteners holding on the GTR oil pan! :O





Stay tuned... More coming!

[Mattndew76]

That is one awesome third member setup!

[dodgydan]

you mean "was"

[S15DET]

Very interesting, not something one sees every day. So the diff housing was the same casting as the pan? Weird. Do you have a side shot pre-op? With careful grinding and flapper disc action I bet you can make it look as if it were never there. Just curious, wouldn't there be a RWD pan that could have been swapped, and this one saved for resale (or conversation piece/artwork)?

[S15DET]

Haven't some guys retained the AWD on the S14 chassis? Did you consider this route, what were the pro/cons?

[JordanTr]

Very interesting, not something one sees every day. So the diff housing was the same casting as the pan? Weird. Do you have a side shot pre-op? With careful grinding and flapper disc action I bet you can make it look as if it were never there. Just curious, wouldn't there be a RWD pan that could have been swapped, and this one saved for resale (or conversation piece/artwork)?

Yep, you're correct--same casting. Pretty crazy, I know. I'll try to find a pic of the side pre op.

Yep the plan is to hopefully make it look OEM ish still. I've heard you can bolt on an rb25 pan but the oil pickup needs mods. Also, the rb25 pan is steel like a KA so you lose the nice hammerhead aluminum oilpan. I've got this one to so there's the $$ aspect as well.

Never really thought of awd much. It's been done and there are a couple terrible build threads not detailing the swap. From my understanding the floor needs to be modded to clear the transfer case and extensive front suspension work needs to be done since the gtr has a double a arm front suspension (same as z32) whereas the s14 has a 2 piece McPherson strut like the s13. There isn't enough room in the tower for the upper control arm so some pretty serious cobbling together would have to go down. For all that work, I'd just go buy a gtr. They aren't that hard to come by up here. Some guys go awd with rb26 in the z32 chassis which is a much better option IMO. If I lived in the states and GTRs were a no go it might be a different story.

Thanks for the comments guys.

[JordanTr]

Brad, here''s a half decent picture of a broken oil pan still showing the pinion.



Been trying to bang off some more work on this project amid everything else...

Started here the other day.



Which turned into this with a little help from a plasma cutter.



I was distracted from my oil pan mods which resulted in this. A series of unfortunate events while I was mocking up the half car on the driveway got the dinged fender driven over so it's really not good now but it still looks decent enough for wall art.



Got most of my oil pan mods done. Need to weld the plugs and fill in the oil passages next to the one plug and then I'll smooth it all over again. Going to give it a bath in HF tomorrow before welding to really clean it up. I might have to notch the front edge of the pan for sway bar clearance but I'll embark on that later if need be.





Stay tuned. More to come!

[JordanTr]

Made some more progress on the ole Golddust today and yesterday. First, I finished off the oil pan. Gave her a good HF bath/scrub and pressure wash before welding and it welded real well inside and out without the need to outgas it so I was pretty stoked about that. As mentioned, I may have to notch the front bottom corner of the pan for sway bar clearance and if I do I will twin the hammerhead on the oil pan to make up for the lost capacity since I've seen how nicely this "oily" cast aluminum welds for me. I'm not sure how much notching may be required until a test fit of the motorset.

Final carnage. Burned through 8 zip discs and shaved a total of 10.5 lbs off the bare oil pan which brings it down to 16 lbs.



Some pics of welding. I made a couple errant cuts and actually chopped through the pan in a spot where I miscalculated the angle change. I welded up both inside and outside and now you'd never tell. The 1.25" plugs are welded inside and outside and then smoothed on the outside. The oil passages for inner diff carrier bearing that you can see next to the one plug were filled with filler rod and smoothed out.

Buzz buzz







Cleaning up errant cuts



Front diff? what?



Inside weld on plug





After acid bath/scrub and pressure wash. She's pretty clean.





Slapped the oil pan back on the motor to seal it up for now so I can get it on a dolly and clean and paint the block, mounts, etc.

Decided to powdercoat the valve covers and coil pack cover stuff so I pulled it all off yesterday. Pleasantly surprised with how clean the head is and how unscored the cam lobes etc are.



Went to a buddy's house today that has an oven big enough for the straight 6 valve covers.

Pre bake



Candy



All done along with diff cover. Relatively happy. It's not perfect but I'm not trying to build a show car!



Nissan heaven in the shop.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nT8SQP]

Should have solid rear subframe bushings this week. Quite excited for a rear subframe build. More to come!

[JordanTr]

I have still been working away on this.

Resealed diff.



I did some more powdercoating.

I decided to do the hot pipes, water necks and intake in an "OEM sparkle silver" with a clear that I had extra of. I really like how the colour turns out.





Back when I was first getting the GTR apart, I had a really tough time getting the rear axles separated from the rear hubs. Once the nut gets cracked with a 36mm socket and removed, the axle should slide out of the hub on the inboard side. My GTR ones were quite seized. The first side required a 6" 3 jaw puller to load up tension and a hammer tapping on the pusher rod of the puller to coax it along mm by mm until the axle slid out from the hub. I tried the same method on the other side that was equally stuck.

I ended up swapping my 4 lb hammer for a BFH and ended up buckling the pusher rod of the puller before the axle slid out of the hub at all.
At this point I was mad so I threaded the nut back onto the CV (to protect the threads a bit) and went ape with the BFH. Still no go. I mushroomed the nut beyond repair and ended up tweaking the whole set of threads that were in the nut. Grrr.

Next, I removed the LCA, axle/knuckle/backing plate assembly and went to the press. After getting it all jigged in the press and pressing with 8 tonnes of force, I broke an arm off the knuckle (axle hadn't budged). Mad again, I reset the knuckle in the press and got up to ~9 tonnes before the axle finally came out of the hub. The shock during release actually popped the outer CV joint off the shaft leaving me with a pile of parts on the floor (finally!!!).

The next day I went to the wreckers and got another pair of knuckles and axles in case I needed to replace the joint with the bunged up threads.

Today I redeemed the CV threads by grinding off the horrendously bunged up part and cleaning up the remaining threads with a triangle file. None of the missing threads are in contact with the nut when it is torqued. The new nut threads all the way on by hand now





Got the subframe out of Golddust and should have my Energy diff bushings this week. I made a new friend with the air chisel which makes quick work of getting the bushings out. I'm thinking of doing a crazy black/red vein powdercoat on the subframe but more research makes it seem very difficult since it is a silver vein, candy red and clear. Lots of work for the subframe that no one sees.... Still thinking about it. See teaser below.





I've slowly been working away on the engine. I've cleaned a few things so far and today I blasted the intake side of the motor with a fresh coat of black engine enamel. I still need to scrub the ITBS and get all the old grime off of them but the intake manifold is pretty clean now!



This past week I also bit the bullet and order myself a transmission. I have a 1988 300zx turbo 5 speed on the way. I had not done enough research up front to inform myself that the shifter placement of a z32 box with RB bell housing is about 4.5" further back than an RB25DET box or Z31T box with RB bell. This shifter difference is due to the external shifter on the Z32 trans. Without knowing this, I picked up a Z32 trans a few months back but I've decided to turf it and get the right box (Z31T box) so shifter placement won't be an issue.

This sounds like a horribly convoluted and difficult way to get a transmission to work with the RB26, however, the late late Z31T transmissions have better ratios than both the Z32 and RB25 5 speeds IMO. The tall 5th on the Z31T trans is good for about 200 rpm lower at around highway speeds which is nice. Rebuild kits for this trans are only ~$120 as well.

RB25DET: 3.321 1.902 1.308 1 0.759 3.382
Z32TT/NA: 3.214 1.925 1.302 1 0.752 3.369
Late Z31T: 3.324 2.077 1.36 1 0.711 3.382

Stay tuned. More coming! Lots of 510 stuff this week before the Winthrop drive!

[JordanTr]

Got my trans. The kicker is that there's no shifter baseplate (I have a shifter). Time for some aluminum fab! Good news is that the shifter fits like a glove in the KA pivot.

Trans party. Top to bottom: KA 71C, Z31T 30A, Z32 30A, R33 GTR 30A AWD. R33 GTR trans and Z32 trans are up for grabs.



Shifter placement between Z31T and Z32

[JordanTr]

Got most of my motor stuff done this weekend. New thermostat, coolant flush with ~205* hot water fresh from boiler heat exchanger, new OEM timing belt/water pump, resealed intake manifold, ITBs, and plenum, installed valvecovers, sealed up water necks, new oil filter, reworked brake/clutch booster vac lines to route under plenum and deleted clutch booster line.



Yesterday I got both the GTR trans and Z31T trans pulled apart for the bellhousing swap. Today I finished cleaning up my R33 bellhousing and Z31T tail section and resealing my new orphan hybrid trans. Didn't find any broken bits in either trans so it was a happy day. New input and output seals on the "new" trans.





Here are some pics of the Z31T synchros. I don't really know what to look for here.... Datzen Mike?!?







I need to get the front xmember swap done and the rear subframe finished and back in the car before I can test fit this and see how much more modification is required on the oil pan to clear the stock sway bar. Chugging along!