Alfa Pages

[LDA]

in reply to kaboom

the rb lumps are too heavy for the s13's chassis if you want to drift. we are using a hybrid engine. its an s14 sr20 block with pulsar rnn14 crank and head and custom forged pistons and rods. gt28rs turbo so there is loads of power near the redline where the car spends a lot of its time.

its basicly a pulsar sr20 but using the s14 casting so that the engine mounts and gearbox mounts fit the s13 chassis.
392bhp and 365lb/ft from a 2L lump.

the pulsar head is much better than the s14 as its high port for better gas flow, shims and buckets so no hydraulics to break at high rev. no vvti rubbish and best of all its got the quad throttle bodies readdy strapped to it.

we plumbed in the pulsar piston oil jets to help cool the back of the pistons and the bottom end has lost nearly 9kg with the flywheel as well.

rb lumps are better in bigger cars like yours. too big for the nimble s13 chassis if you really want to extract the most from the car's handling.

L.
_________________
A good workman allways blames his sh*t tools.

[LDA]

soz peeps for the non alfa topic.. just needed to get this topic out of my other post in the for sale section..

L.
_________________
A good workman allways blames his sh*t tools.

[LDA]

i see the inlet manifold is not the front intake style one as on the gtr's. why not go for the better flowing manifold?

L.
_________________
A good workman allways blames his sh*t tools.

[kaBOOM]

Oops sorry for the lack of replys. lol......

Well the motor runs a supercharger instead of a turbocharger, and since its not really a higly boosted motor, an intercooler was deemed not required. The motor is all about mid range grunt and throttle response. It was also quite cheap to throw together. You'll also notice one of the water injectors sitting in the inlet manifold, and I kept the VVT. I really don't have a problem with it at all.

As for weight, the VL Commodore is only 70kg heavier than a CA18 Turbo powered S13 Silvia (1190kg)......very light, comeing in a 1265kg Much lighter than a Skyline of the same era.

I'm really not a fan of the SR motors, being heavier than the iron block CA's they replaced, a very poor valve train design and haveing the problem of blocks that "walk" (warp) when pushed to the limit.....the CA isn't perfect (that horrid inlet manifold) but as a starting point I prefer it over the SR.

While GTR's are quite common here, the inlet manifolds and the like command a price premium, and since this was a "budget" rebuild, it was out of the question. 6x throttlebodys would be nice, but still......there are also very few diffrences betwwen the GTR cylinder heads and the RB25 heads......and RB25 heads/manifolds are cheaper. So thats the path I took.

[LDA]

i suspected it was because you wernt going to run an intercooler with the blower. nice to see some creative engine building

ah the sr's not such a bad engine. not had any warped blocks but seen a few warped heads from overheating. mainly due to duff rads or thermostat.
better torque curves from the sr over the ca too. the rockers are a bit of a pain but nothing a lash killer kit didnt solve. and they dont do bottom ends anywhere near as much as the ca. but then nothing does

L.
_________________
A good workman allways blames his sh*t tools.

[kaBOOM]

CA's killing bottom ends? Now thats one I haven't heard. The only one I've seen, was one that got a hole in the sump, and the owner didn't get it fixed and drove on......

Then again, you don't see many SR's cook the bottom end. lol

The wonderful thing about the Nissan motors is their bottom end cradle, that holds all the main bearing caps together. Wonderful stuff.

The RB is a wonderful motor besides one thing. The oil pump drive. Its the most stupid design I've ever seen. The oil pump is driven off a colar on the front of the cranks shaft. not a bad idea, but the surface area it drives off is so small its pathetic. Drive the motor hard and the oil pump drive ring cuts a grove in the crank. All RB's bar the R34 motors suffer from this. The CA 18 with the same design, has far more area to drive the oil pump and doesn't suffer this problem. I'll take a pic to show you what I mean.

As for a Silvia Chassis with a RB, what about a Cefiro/Laural? RB20DET on a S13 floor plan with 4 doors.....a wonderful drifter car......

I have all this Jap stuff to play with but no Alfa 33 P4

[LDA]

have a look on sxoc.co.uk. maybe the most common post is "my bottom end has gone, how can i fix it" or similar. the shells just die for no reason and they do it all the time.

ours went on the old engine after just 47k miles most have gone by the time they get to 70k. we have had lots of properly rebuild engines do the same thing too. new cranks, new shells, new everything and yet they still do it.
theroy (and thats all it is so far) is that they oil starve at high revs some how. it could well be down to the rubbish dip stick on the ca. it doesnt work!!

the only way you can get a good reading is if the engine is cold and has sat over night. pull the stick out for your one and only reading of the day. cos there is a bend in the tube as it goes throught the oil pump, the oil covered end wipes oil all over the inside of the tube. so the next time you pull it out it shows full regardless of how much oil is in there. if the engine has been run then it allways shows full.
this is only a prob on the ca18det. the older ca18et doesnt have a problem and doesnt seem to do bottom ends either.

the rb is a lovely engine.. just too big for drifting. a few of the uk peeps use the rb25det in the prs13 chassis and have tried drifting with it. it works because they have good power but they had to use a fair bit of weight in the back to even out the corner weights.

most people over here use the sr20 in the s13 for drifting. not had one go this year from a field of over 30cars using the engine. had 2 go in the whole feild last year but they were just stock motors pushed too hard in old age. one blocked injector killed a piston and the other was a head gasket.

as far as i know i'm the only person anywhere using an s14 sr20 block with rnn14 sr20 bits and head.

hmm what a non alfa topic

is there some sort of old car law in aus that would mean you could get a car over say 10 years old into the country and then reg' it for road use. or is the law a flat ban forever on any car that was sold out there?

L.
_________________
A good workman allways blames his sh*t tools.

[kaBOOM]

Probably the same problem as the RB26 @ high revs, try putting smaller restrictors in the oil feeds the the camshafts. Alfa Boxers have the same problem, pumps the cam boxes full of oil, no oil down the bottom end, bang spun bottom end

You could also try a external oil drain from the head to the sump, which is what the twin cam RB motors (unlike the Australia only RB30ET) have. Look on my motor near the CAS, you'll see a pipe running down from the head and tucking under the exhaust manifold........it runs to where the turbo oil drain would normally be.

I'll have to dig out my other hybrid unfinished project, a CA18/20, in effect a CA20DET.......Got all the bits, but I sorta lost intrest when I started working with alfas.....

I'm always in awe (?) of that comment about how RB's are too heavy in S type chassis, when a Cefiro has a RB in that chassis, and is considered a fine drift car......I know 4 doors on that floorpan will have a diffrent weight balance, but still......+

[LDA]

in the uk we have a thing called an ESVA. if a car is less than 10 years old and its an import it has to go though an esva. the esva sheet is a list of all the standard parts of the car. if they differ from standard then its an instant fail.
only some cars have had an esva sheet done and in some cases its private companies that have had the sheet done so you have to rent the sheet to get the car through the esva. this can cost abotu £1000 for one days use. not cheap!

the perm 4 uk spec is not the same as the perm 4 aus spec. so would that get round the law? different spedo's and prolly some other stuff we could work out if it was going to get a perm 4 into aus.

ca20det eh.. what bottom end are you using to get that? or have you gone for a stroker kit?

wouldnt surprise me if the rb and ca suffer the same probs as they are quite similar in design. gah, cam belts.

L.
_________________
A good workman allways blames his sh*t tools.

[kaBOOM]

I see timeing chains and I get worried....lol

I suppose its all what your used to working with eh? Anyway, my "hybrid" 3L twincam motor is free running (thank GM's design imput on the 3L motors for that one Nissan) so not a problem. Useing a VW/Audi timeing belt to run the whole shooting gallery was a strange ones, as was running a extra tensioner in a custom position......I really have no trouble with belts at all

What are the diffrences? I only know the Aus spec ones (all 58 of them ) have a km/h speedo and thats it. Do your cars have ABS? Ours don't....

Yes oil restrictors and CA's and RB's.....lol the bane of us all Still I had a Ex Nissan rally team mechanic paint me a poor picture of the SR in the GTIR once.....Oh well. All depends on whos story you get eh?

I really don't play with SR's much, a few stories turned me away very early on......

I'm not useing a stroker kit, just a stock Nissan CA20E crankshaft, out of a Nissan Pintara (Australian built R31 Skyline with a 4cyl engine in it). I'm also useing the CA20 block, rods and pistons.