Welcome to our first installment of "The Tent RB Swap".

We currently have too many cars at the shop and my brother purchased an s13 240sx as well as a Skyline motorset. So what do I do? Wait a few days for the weekend when there wont be as many customers cars in the way, Hell no! I assemble a tent/carport using some tarp, rebar and poles. Attach an 80w light fixture to the top of the tent and get to work.

In this installment you will see our first 8 hrs worth of work incluing some fabrication work.

Enjoy

http://www.mr2board.com/files/...P.WMV

So far we have completed the motor mounts and transmission adapter. The engine is bolted into the car and sitting on the new mounts. Sory no close up pics of those yet. The best part is the engine clears the hood perfectly and the shifter is in the EXACT same spot as it was with the KA24 transmission. Whats more since we fabbed the motor mounts ourselves we were able to mount the motor so that the stock turbo downpipe clears the steering linkage (way cool). There is roughly 3/4" clearence at the closest point. I don't know who said that a new downpipe is needed for a LHD swap but they were 100% incorrect about that.

We have also hooked up the power steering already, and the fittings for the AC are nearly complete. Thats right, we are going to retain nice cold aircon for this sleeper swap.

Congrats, nice work on the makeshift shelter!

-Dan

very nice. Go into detail on what you do for the AC please. I have had my swap for a quite along time and I am finally ready to look into getting some AC.

Thanks

The engine came with the R33 Skyline compressor. The fittings for the compressor are identical however, they are 180* from the KA compressor fittings. I will either be tig welding the fittings to face the other direction or I may try some vice grips and a torch in an attempt to bend them to the correct angle. I dont think that is likeley but its worth a try. I did have to persuade some of the hardlines to take a different path so that one of the fittings nearly works already. My primary concern is to get his car running by tuesday. I think thats an attainable goal given what we have left to do.

Pulled the wireing through the firewall. Looks like just the O2 sensor wires will need to be extended. The wires are a complete mess since this harness was all hacked up. From the looks of it there was an ITC, AFC, FCD, and probably some other electronic gismo on the Skyline. Unfortunately the folks in Japan were kind enough to cut off the MAF connector as well as completely mutalate the lower engine harness so I have quite a bit of work cut out for me.

The hood closes now and has a good 1/2" to 1" of clearence at its closest point to the engine. We did not need to cut any of the supports for it to clear the engine. We figure this is due to the fact that we have the motor mounted nearly 2" further back than most of the RB swaps we have seen. This seems to be the reason we have no clearence issues anywhere.

nice work guys its looking goodplus a nice little video for me to save for future referencegood work

Found something very interesting while digging into the wireing on this harness.

First I noticed that the harness was cut in several places at the ECU connector, at the firewall, the MAF connector etc. At first I just figured the Japanese owner had an AFC installed. After sorting through the wires I found that the harness was cut as if it were installed into a 240sx before. Somehow I doubt this was done in Japan. Also all the connectors that hold the harness to the engine were removed. None of the clips, none of the brackets, nothing attached. In a few places on the top of the motor there were some zip ties that were obviously added to make it look stock.

Its as if the distirbutor pulled the harness that came with the engine and threw this one on there. The wire colors for all the schematics I have downloaded are all different. The pinout on the ECU is correct according to the diagrams I have and the wires do indeed go to the correct places but they are different colors. Its like the harness is not from a Skyline but another car with the same engine.

Another thing, the clutch slave cyl is missing. Some deal for what was called a complete motor set huh?

I managed to get the wires sorted out by traceing every one of the 119 or so pins on the ECU to each of the sensors on the engine. The harness is nearly identical to a skyline but the wire colors are just different, WTF?

Anyway, im going to withold the name of the distributor that cut up the harness unless they dont provide the missing parts.

I should still have the car running by tuesday but we wont be able to drive it untill I fabricate an adapter for a different slave cyl and MAF plug.

Nice job, like how you are going all out and making mounts, ect. on your own, and I like where you are going with the videos, it will help alot of future RB25 ppl out in the future believe it or not.........keep it up!!!!!

Do you have specs on those mounts? Maybe even a sketch with some measurements? I am thinking about making some custom mounts for my RB25 in my S13. I can weld, just dont want to figure out everything!

Thanks guys.

As far as the mounts go, I had to drop the motor and re-install it several times to get everything perfect. Once I had the motor sitting where I wanted it I took some scrap 3/8" mild and tacked it in place. I then pulled the motor and transmission back out and welded the brackets to the crossmember. After they were welded in place I used my trusty cutoff and grinding wheel to shape them and remove excess metal. We then bolted the front motor mounts in place using a jack to support the transmission. Once the front mounts were secured it was easy to take mesurements and fabricate a new stronger than stock transmission mount.

Im really looking forward to getting the car up and running. Once we are happy with the intercooler setup I will be welding up a custom T4 manifold for the car and adding LOTS of goodies. Nearly the entire car will be rebuilt. As you can see from my siggy we are big into wide body kits here and this car will be no exception. 120mm custom rear flares are in the works once all the engine work is done.

Stay tuned, more videos coming up monday.

alright sweet!!! can't wait till monday for more videos!!