Worthless without pics I know. I got my camera right here so I promise to take some when I go out today.

So I've been going at this thing nonstop for about a day and a half now. My goal is 225whp or so on as small a budget as possible. Here's what I'm using.

Turbo XS bottom mount T2 manifold
T28 from a RB26DETT
Stock RB O2 housing
Custom 3" mandrel bent exhaust all the way back to an oval Magnaflow
Volvo (740 I think) Intercooler and Radiator
EGR blockoff
48" -3 oil feed line to turbo
Stock or 370cc injectors with a BEGi/Cartech Rising Rate FPR
I'll use my LM-1 wideband in car with the RPM Converter so I can datalog AFR/RPMs

So basically I jumped right into this thing, yanked the stock exhaust manifold and exhaust system off and threw on the turbo. The manifold fits pretty nicely with the only minor clearance issue being a couple of the brake lines coming out of the master cylinder. It would touch while I was trying to maneuver the manifold onto the studs but once its on there is plenty of clearance. I had to do a little customizing of the wastegate actuator braket on the compressor housing in order to clock the housing the way I wanted it but not too big a deal. With the turbo mani and turbo on there are no clearance issues and no need to relocate anything, like brake lines or even the power steering pump. The stock RB o2 housing bolts up to the back of the turbo and clears the firewall perfectly, crazy its like it was made for the s12. It clears the steering shaft by about 1/2" and clears the firewall nicely. So then I spent several hours building a 3" exhaust last night and I'm pretty happy how it turned out. I'll tell ya, getting 3" diameter piping to go over the rear subframe and under the axle (like stock routing) is a real pain!

Anyways the turbo and manifold is on, the exhaust is done, the EGR has been blocked off. I need to mount the IC/Rad and build IC piping (gonna be SHORT!!). Need to weld the oil return bung to the oil pan and run my oil lines.

Thats the major stuff left. I'll update this post with the pics sometime tonight. Wish me luck I'm trying to drive this thing to Florida on friday! haha.

WOW

you are brave

but, it sounds like you've got a good plan. Cant wait for the pics!

pics are up!

NICE!

dude is your nissan floating or what!

I think Garrett might have the first offical turbo ka on the forums. Definetly want to see some action videos of this when he is done.

I've got those same orange jack stands at my house =)

finally got to see your car lol I was beginning to doubt if you even had one lol anyway looks good can't wait to hear this beast run

No someone else already did it, but just one guy. Still, there's only two of them.

Looks good!





Does he live in Vegas, too?

no I ment pics of it

Where do you live, Garrett? It's not in your profile.

Are you not going to run fans on that beast? My guess is you either have them mounted in front or you just haven't put them in yet.

Oh shit garrett, are you in norcal? I think I've been considering buying your Z, if that is in fact the one posted on craigslist. Haha

Haha, ok there profile fixed. . .

I've been putting in some long hours on this thing. IC piping and BOV is done. Little tricky considering that the compressor housing outlet on this skyline turbo is a two bolt flange instead of the typical t25 3 bolt. So I had to make my own flange to start with and then build the piping. Exhaust is totally done and mounted. Remounted the dipstick bracket to a different bolt about 1 inch away from stock location. Had to spend about 15 bucks on various fittings to get the -3 oil feed line to mate up to the M12 1.5 pitch metric female fitting. . . BOO!

Only big projects left are to yank the pan and weld in the bung and to get creative routing some radiator hoses. Hoping to drive it tomorrow. . .

Fuck Yes!!!

Oh and why do you bother with a S12 when you have such a nice Z? lol

Shit is gonna be sick! Beware the volvo IC. They dont take much boost.

Pics and vid of you slidin this bitch!

Looking great man!

His Z puts out something rediculous like 450 hp or whatever, so that car is pretty built up already, and the S12 is his daily

I've seen this car in person, its hella nice, and even quicker now!

why would you use a stock skyline rb26 turbo? those are smaller than sr t25's lol, i guess you will have amazing response...

unless this happens to be an aftermarket t28..

Man I've been spending way too much time on this thing! Fabricating most things from scratch saves some cash but takes up time!

Anyways the car is done with the exception of one troubleshooting issue. For whatever reason it doesnt seem that coolant is flowing through the radiator. I know my water pump and thermostat should be good but for some reason I dont seem to get any flow. Car sits and idles and then gradually overheats. I went through the trouble to route the rad hoses the same way the s12/s13 does. I've burped every freakin air bubble out of the system and still no dice. I think I'll have to rip the rad out tomorrow and double check that its not clogged up or something.

Exhaust sounds good and doesnt look too bad either. . .





Go easy on me, the bay is still a bit of a mess, really dirty and cluttered at the moment but this is it for the most part.







Perhaps you're thinking of the stock twins on a z32 300zx? Those are T2's which are smaller than an SR t25. The RB26DETT comes with twin T28's from the factory. I have two of the z32 turbo's in my garage and by comparison this RB turbo is significantly bigger. . .

Did you do a pressure test on the radiator before you put it in? The radiator might be clogged.

Another possible cause would be your fan being very close to your engine, you might not get optimal air flow through it. Better still, does your fan even turn on? That could cause you to over heat.

Not trying to talk down to you like you don't know what you are doing, I can tell you know what you are doing. Its just, the best way IMO to solve a problem is to assume nothing and state the obvious, and go from there.

WELL. . . where to start . . . I guess where we left off.

I believe I fixed the issue with the rad. No clogs or anything its just that the volvo rad has a outlet to the overflow that is always open, aka no rad cap, so as soon as pressure would start to build in the rad it would immediately blow out the overflow and the coolant wouldnt circulate. Pipe plugged and it seemed to do the trick.

So then I was excited and really close to getting this thing on the road, so I swapped out the one bad injector so that I could get out for a smooth test drive. Thats when it all went WAY downhill. . .

I'm still pretty confused but basically when I went to crank it up somehow gasoline got pumped well everywhere, its in the intake, the cylinders are full of gas, and I drained 8 1/2 quarts of oil/gasline out of the oil pan. SO. . . this is gonna get put on hold for a few weeks. I'm going on my trip without the car so I won't be home for awhile.

This story only gets slightly better . . . in the middle of all this gasoline going everywhere I cought stuff on fire, haha. The insulation on the underside of the hood was the most fun part.

Geez what a long day/week. I could use a break.

A really bad injector o-ring? I don't think I've ever seen it where it would actually dump into the oil pan like that.

bad fuel pressure regulator maybe? I mean if your fuel pressure was too high and it dump a bunch of fuel in the cylinders and it didn't ignite, it would find its way past the rings to the oil pan

Oh damn, my bad. I thought for sure that was the Z on craigslist. Same blue, same swastika wheels, even had a photo of it half-covered. My bad!

so having 24 hours to process. . . I'm thinking that this one injector might be stuck open, so as soon as I turn the key on and the pump starts priming its shooting fuel straight through the injector and into the intake manifold and cylinder. The intake is so full of gasoline that I think it could have gone into the crankcase breather or something and filled the oil pan. I dont see how 3 1/2 quarts of gas could have gone by the rings into the oil pan, there has to be some other way. . .

Still thinkin about this one.

dude....it has NOT been a good week for S12s, or club-s12 members.

updates yo.

do you plan to upgrade from the rising rate FPR or just run low boost and hope for the best?

Still in FL right now. Leaving in a week for home. I managed to grab an SAFC while I was down here so I'll prolly throw the 370's in and shoot for 10-12psi. Should be good for around 250whp or so. Anxious to get back home and get it finished.

i have a turbo ka...?





the sidefeed injectors on the ka24de are known for this. get some different ones. or you can pull the whole injector and rail off the manifold and have someone turn the key real quick.. just to see which is squirting. or you could check the plugs possibly. so then u could probly get away with just changing out 1 injecter.. .but you should def think about sending out whatever injectors you have to get them cleaned and tested and what not...

thats just one reason why ka24e > ka24de jk, but the single cam does have the much better top feeds.

my buddy had the same prob with his ka24de. ended up spinning a bearing from all the gas in the motor. when he would pull the dipstick, gas would shoot out! LOL

Ok so I'm back in ohio and got out to the garage last night. Turns out I had installed an injector with no lower o-ring at all. So . . . dont do that, haha. Dumped any remaining oil out, filled it with fresh stuff and fired it up, no problems. So the car is running with a couple issues still. For some reason the coolant system is not circulating coolant and for some reason the car is idling really high. So I'll be trying to get down to the bottom of those issues over the next couple days. Other than that I should be able to start getting this sucker tuned and boosting pretty soon. I'll keep ya posted!

SO i take it that a top mount turbo will not fit.

The volvo rad needs a surge tank with a pressure cap, thats how it is, just replicate it.

so is there a reason you went with a bottom mount? is there any clearance issues with the other aftermarket manifolds out there?

I went with the bottom mount t2 flange becuase I got a t28 for free and because I heard that the XS Power bottome mount its good quality and doesnt crack like their top mount t3 flanged manifold.

Yeah I will probably be using the volvo pressure tank, although I cant see how that has anything to do with flow through the radiator.

you have a lot of room left on the bottom mount?

For what? A bigger compressor housing?

yes. I want a gt35r.

so will a bottom mount be able to fit a gt35?

depends, if you get the right one....

http://www.jgstools.com/turbo/kamain.html

but that kind of sticks out to the side, and our bays are kind of skiniier

Hard to answer your question ross since I'm not running a 35r. You wouldnt be able to run this particular manifold since its flanged for a t2, without hacking off or modifying the current flange anyways. I will try to remember to get an idea of how much room is down there at any rate when I'm working on it tomorrow.

Update on the car: Coolant issue is solved and I've been driving it around town on some short trips with no issues. I went ahead and hooked up my wideband to the car and confirmed my suspicions. The car seems to idle high and its quite lean at idle as well. So tonight I did a boost leak test on the new system and found at least one. I resealed the outlet of the compressor housing with silicone and will wait until tomorrow to run the test again. If that goes well and the car is running normally again I will install the SAFC and 370cc injectors and get it tuned. Should be boosting soon . . .

Awesome!

How's the weather? We just got 4" snow here.
So no more fun right now, at least not until the roads thaw and dry up.

yeah same, not as much snow but cold, windy and slick roads. Not the best time to be tuning!

Yea, no kidding.

alright just let me know if there is a lot of room when you get around to it. thanks

so what was wrong with the coolant and how'd you address the issue?

nice cant wait to see results

Air pocket behind the thermostat, I didnt know there was bleeder valve on top of the upper rad pipe. Fixed it right away.

Garrett76zt: what downpipe did you use on this setup? Or did u have to fab one up?

The way it was described it sounds like there is nothing to keep pressure in the cooling system.?? That would effectively allow it to boil over just by driving it around.. correct me if Im wrong about your system..

I used the factory RB T28 o2 housing and then made the 3" exhaust/downpipe connect up from there.


As far as the cooling system goes, right now the overflow is blocked off.

Ok so its 1 degree outside, just got back from a business trip and now I'm gonna jump in my s12 and head to Florida! Its still not tuned for boost and its got a decently big boost leak somewhere but I think it should make it. I guess we'll see! Hoping to work out the bugs while I'm down there and get this thing to the track. So umm, wish me luck!