MrBs insane Skyline R33 tuning project

"The Nissan SkyLIME! - Go green and save the planet!"

We thought it would get interesting when MrB joined TorqueCars. He told us about his latest project car a humble Nissan Skyline R33 GTSt RB30/25.

As will become apparent MrB joins the ranks of TorqueCars members with GTitus, an inability to separate GranTurismo from real life with the symptoms including spending all of his money on his car and frequent trips to the specialist tuners and test tracks.

His intention was to get a fast car which he could enjoy. In standard form the car seemed to fit the bill but then he met up with the guys at James Green Racing and was introduced to the wonderful world of car tuning. Straight away he longed for more power and lots more style and individuality. The aim is to run the car in drag races so engine work became top priority.

MrB's first attempts at tuning the car led to disaster! With some bigger injectors and a new ECU which uses map sensors and cold temp sensors instead of the airflow meter he managed to get a flywheel power figure of 450bhp.

It was certainly a bit of a handful but MrB reassures us that it was great fun. 6 months later MrB wondered what would happen if he upped the boost and rev limit? He found lots more power, but this let to piston ring failure causing an explosion in the engine and an engine bay fire.

Now what do you do with a Nissan Skyline with a burnt out engine bay?

You and I might well have gone about looking for a new car, or at least tried to source another R33 engine.

After a bit of research it was decided that they should aim for a 750bhp+ monster with 3 litres and 24 valves making this an insanely quick street legal R33.

With no traction control it would take a brave man to tame this beast.

So bucking the trend MrB imported 4 RB30 commodore blocks from Australia and lets just say this is where the fun began.

Measurements were taken of the compression, rotation clearances etc... The crank was nitrided and knife edged. Rods and pistons needed to be custom made to suit MrBs spec.

The the Os Giken fly wheel has been lightened and balanced and the crank pulley was custom made from billet with the dry sump pulley attached to the front, the head has been fully race prepped with knife edged ports gas flowed as much as possible.

Then the valve guides were re cut to take wider GTR guides so we could run gtr valves that are longer than gtst so we could get more lift on the cams, the gtst valves will go no more than 10.25 lift and we want 10.8mm lift. Then they fitted GTR dual springs and GT solid lifters as the standard hydraulics just wouldn't be up to the job.

The VVT has been removed and MrB opted to go for dual lightweight Tomie adjustable cam pulleys so they could dial the cams in properly. The heart of the engine the turbo needed some careful thought. The turbo chosen was the new Turbonetics gtk850 (it's 875bhp rated) which should be more than adequate for this project.

When it came to getting this installed it hit on the rocker covers and on the suspension mound so it required a new custom manifold, exhaust and intercooler piping. The engine mounts also required a custom design and MrB had to sacrifice the power steering pump because there was just no room. Instead an electric power steering pump will be used which is more compact.

MrB tells us that his best modification so far is the methanol injection which gives a massive power gain with relatively little outlay and running costs.

MrB may well get the traction control running in the wet to keep the car pointing in the right direction. The ECU fitted to this GTS permits a number of custom maps so there MrB can now select from excessive wheel spin in first only right up to wheel spin all the way to fifth gear.

Now that the car is running fast enough MrB turned his attention to the styling. By now we are pretty much convinced that he is confusing real life with GranTurismo.

Most guys will just go for a colour, MrB however went to a paint specialist in Canvey who mixed him up a custom colour. For those interested the mix is Master Chroma Green 6692! The car was stripped back to bare metal and a full respray was done. The car is looking absolutely stunning in its new green livery.

Things never stay as they are and already MrB is talking about uprating from 1000cc injectors to a pair of 800 and 440s to enable smoother mapping under light and heavy loads.

Brakes are also in the process of being upgraded, which is a bit of a relief as the car is producing enough power to change the rotation of the earth when MrB pulls away!  To keep up with this every changing project or to tell us about your own project please join us in our forum. (The full 2 page spec list is available in the forum, although we have to add changes on an almost daily basis!)

Please join us in the forum to discuss MrB's insane tuning project, to keep up with other tuning projects and work in progress reports and by all means tell us about your tuning project. There are loads more (high resolution) pictures of MrBs project available to in the members gallery.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Features. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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