Daemonyk's RB25 S13 Coupe *RUNNING!* now with better video

[pepesilvia]

make a video when you first start it up

[daemonyk]

make a video when you first start it up

[daemonyk]

More work done. Driveshaft bolted in, heater hoses attached, radiator hoses attached, one fuel line attached (need more fuel line to reach), fabbed up a temporary throttle cable bracket. Still messing with the fans on the radiator to make them fit, and trying to figure how I want to wire them up.

So lets see. I still need to finish messing with the fans, the fuel lines, fill all fluids, bleed clutch slave, mess with the IC piping a little, bolt up the exhaust, put a boost gauge in somewhere, and make sure I'm not forgetting anything.

Looking more like an engine every day


Intercooler mounted and IC piping mostly in place, awaiting final tightening.


A few more days maybe, till I'll be ready to turn the key

Oh, as you may be able to see, I need a new bumper. Any suggestions?

[daemonyk]

So! Today I spent 8 hours doing ALL of the electrical work that I needed to do. New battery ground, new engine ground, elec fan wiring, boost and AFR gauges, and rewired several things I had previously installed. It's ugly, but it's functional, and a lot of it is better than it was.

I moved the radiator fan which made it clear the IC pipes better which allowed me to raise the FMIC a little which made everything fit better and now it's all tightened up and ready to go.

I'm having a sliiiiiiight clearance problem between the O2 housing and the steering shaft. I think if I slot the transmission mount holes on the crossmember I should be able to shifty-rotate the whole thing over enough to clear it. Also might try to shift the engine mount brackets on that crossmember too. They have about 1/4" -ish of play that might help.

My delightfully useless coolant overflow kept disintegrating more and more, so I finally just removed the remnants of it. Probably pick up a nice aluminium one somewhere down the line.

I still need to bleed the clutch, which according to what I've read is going to be either no big deal, or a royal pain in the arse. I have the chase bays line running directly from the master to the slave cylinder, so at least I have that in my favor.

And I still need to put fluids in it - oil, coolant, and ps fluid. Then a thorough final inspection. Then a few cranks (no fuel no spark) to prime the oil system. Then try to start the thing

In a perfect world, this will all happen tomorrow. I have my camera in my purse so I can definitely take a video when I'm ready to crank it

[daemonyk]

The RB has been started working on uploading the vid.

Problem though It cranks, but won't kick over - it almost kicks over, and only will if I pump the accelerator. Once it's started, it leans out till it stalls over a period of about 5 seconds. If I keep bouncing on the gas pedal, it will keep revving. If I stop, it leans out, stumbles, and stalls after about 5-10 seconds. The leaning out is according to the aem wideband I have installed. The boost gauge will not read vacuum or boost at any time, even while revving. I'm thinking I have a massive intake leak. A makeshift boost leak test showed that everything from the maf up to the throttle plate holds pressure. The intake mani itself will not pressurize even a little tiny bit.

That is all I know at this time

[Razi]

The joys of an RB swap. Haha.
Have you sprayed areas with soapy water to look for airleaks?

[daemonyk]

Well, here's the thing... Right now I'm not worried about the intake piping. I'm worried about the intake manifold. My pre-existing automotive knowledge is coming up blank, and I can't seem to find a clear cut answer on the 'net either - but I'm pretty sure that I should be able to pressurize the intake manifold at least a little tiny bit. But right now getting the intake mani to build pressure is like trying to inflate a beach ball that's been chainsaw'd in half. It's not like oh well if I hose air into it it kinda builds pressure but as soon as I stop it loses it - it's more like all the air I can blast into it and the needle on the gauge won't even twitch.

Also according to the net it should produce at least a few in/hg vacuum while cranking, but it isn't.

Is it possible that I did something stupid, and while I was reassembling the intake mani, I didn't get the collector gasket lined up right cos the upper mani was being a PITA and I kinda angry'd it on w/o paying attention to making sure it was perfectly lined up? Is that something that can happen? If so, would that be somethig that could make the engine run like it is? (no vac, no boost, super lean, only revs under throttle, etc)

[daemonyk]

I think I may have found the problem!

I was testing the sensors and the related wires, and noticed that there was 2.5v power coming FROM the TPS output-to-ecu wire, even with NO TPS connected. Pretty sure it shouldn't have ANY power that isn't supplied by the sensor itself.

So I traced it back to the ecu and started investigating that. I opened it up and found a ton of hairline cracks in the PCB, and it looks like both black circuit chips are burnt. Further investigation revealed that it seems to be a S1 ECU which to my understanding, won't work on a S2 RB25. ECU is labeled CC-23710-21U60, which according to a resource I found is from a 94 S1 R33. Also noteworthy that the original wire loom at the ecu connector was covered in wire taps like it was jiggy'd up to a piggyback ems.

And I'm pretty sure a wrong + fried + cracked ecu will cause the engine to run less than ideal.

So! Looks like I'm in need of an ECU.

[mixeds14]

Also make sure ur fuel lines are on there correct, there being a few on here that's had them backwards. Not sure on the s2 but I know my neo has a fuel dampner n a fuel regulator that looked identical. I also had them backwards when I had the stock manifold when I did my swap..

[daemonyk]

Also make sure ur fuel lines are on there correct, there being a few on here that's had them backwards. Not sure on the s2 but I know my neo has a fuel dampner n a fuel regulator that looked identical. I also had them backwards when I had the stock manifold when I did my swap..

Lol yeah, I already checked my entire fuel system several times, cos I've botched simple things like that before. At this point I'm 99% sure that it's both an S1 ecu, and a cooked ecu. Which makes sense since apparently putting an S1 ecu on an S2 engine toasts the ecu, according to the reading Ive done in the last few hours. And both things would make things not work right.

Luckily, I've found a good S2 ecu that I'll be picking up tomorrow which hopefully with make engine go. I'll let'cha know

[daemonyk]

Well, it ran better, but it's still dying after 5-10 seconds without throttle input. However! I got it to stumble idle at length and did some tests, and I think I have diagnosticated a possible cause.

On a whim, I pulled off a vacuum line and shot some gas from an unlit torch into it for a second, and the idle kicked up to normal for a second. I did it longer, it idled right longer. Groovy.

I think my injectors are clogged. While testing things previously, the injectors all read proper resistance, and fired when energized, EVENTUALLY, but 2-3 of them wouldn't fire at first till I bonked them a few times with a screwdriver handle. Some googling found stories of others who had as many as all 6 injectors test fine, but not flow. Usually accompanying old sticking injectors. So tomorrow I aim to pull my fuel rail and injectors and check / clean them. Here's hoping

[daemonyk]

Note to self, inspect things better.

Pulled my fuel rail and tested my "working" injectors, found 1 almost completely clogged, 2 very clogged, 2 only firing one stream, and one firing haywire misdirected overatomized streams. Also all of the pintle caps have broken tabs. Time to clean and rebuild some injectors!

[Razi]

At least you found the problem.
I might have to test our friend's injectors too, since the engine acts funny sometimes.

[daemonyk]

A problem. I found A problem I'm sure this thing isn't done tormenting me yet...

[F1fletch]

I need popcorn for this thread......as I wait patiently for schedules to free up so I can do my brakes, I will live vicariously through you Dae...haha

Glad to hear you are forging ahead, keep us posted

[daemonyk]

Thanx!

Tampered with the fuel rail some more. Hex screw mod. HEAPS better. Also put 2 on the FPR fitting.


After I cleaned my fuel rail plenum seals, I went to go put them back in, and noticed they fit pretty loose. I'm going to seal them a little better to make sure I'm not getting an air leak from there. My injectors are flowing much better now, but I have no way of knowing if they're flowing enough until I can find a place in town to take them to get them checked. I also need to finish rewiring my fuel pump to make sure it's getting enough current.

[daemonyk]

Small update:

I finished getting all of the old fuel residue off the rail to plenum seals, and off the rail and plenum themselves as well. Went to re-seat them, and at that point I noticed that the seals, didn't seal. At all. They just kinda fall right in / out of their spots in the plenum. All 6 of them. Even worse than they were before. Guessing that might cause me a bit of an air leak...

Found on an old thread in the RB section. A32 (95-99?) Maxima insulators part# 16636-72P00 are the same as the RB ones (same P/N). Autozone says they carry them. Guess I'll find out tomorrow. Took a few things apart so I have a few things to put back together. Probably take a day or two to reassemble everything and get those new seals in. Then I can try to start her again and see what happens

[CJH]

Looks like your build is coming along nicely. Everyone loves RB's. Keep up the good work.

[daemonyk]

Looks like your build is coming along nicely. Everyone loves RB's. Keep up the good work.

Thanx! It's getting there, slowly, one piece at a time. There is one guy who doesn't love RB's, but he's just jealous. Driveshaft envy, I guess I try to do good work, but it doesn't always work out that way lol. It's usually preceeded by "I'm sure it's fine for now", and followed by smoke, fire, and/or shrapnel it's a learning experience

[laxands13]

Lol. that's sig worthy right there. Looking forward to seeing this run right!

[daemonyk]

Well, that does pretty much sum me up . I'm not a master tech. I'm not a genius tuner. I'm not a brilliant fabricator. I'm a stubborn lunatic that somehow manages to get things done in the end, despite any crossed wires, elecrical fires, rags left in intake runners, overlooked procedures, untested components, unplugged sensors, general oversights, momentary lapses of reason, and occasionally electrocuting my brain with a spark plug wire

I've got the seals sealed and the fuel rail back in. Did a little mod to the fuel rail, too, for peace of mind. Apparently the s1 fuel rail bolts on with 5 bolts, whereas the s2 one only uses the bottom 3. I didn't like that very much, so I drilled holes in the upper tabs on the fuel rail so I could use the upper mounting holes, too, which are still there. Before, I could grab the fuel rail and bend it up and back unseating the injector ports, which I'm sure didn't help with sealing that area. Now it sits 100% flush, seated firmly, and doesn't budge at all, and I like that much better.

I still need to put a few more things back together,and finish wiring the fuel pump relay setup thingy, and I'll be ready to try again

[daemonyk]

I can get it to idle now. I still have to bounce on the accel to get it to start, but if I keep it going long enough to get up to temp, it will surge between 800 and 1500 rpm, and keep going. This is good. The cleaning of the injectors and sealing of the fuel rail seems to have helped. However, I'm still way lean. I'm less way lean, but still way too lean. Since I actually got the engine up to temp, I decided to pull the plugs and do a hot compression test - still 175 on all 6 cyl - but noticed that the plugs, while black, didn't really smell much like fuel. I think my injectors need to be cleaned better. I think I mentioned before, they are flowing, I just don't know that they're flowing enough. Last time I just hit them with gentle stuff, this time it's time to conjure up the caustic stuff, remove them from the rail, and clean them a little more thoroughly.

I tried to find a local place that does injectors, but there aren't any. I also know about mr injector and witchhunter, but I'd rather try cleaning them myself first before resorting to sending them out. I also checked witchhunter's website and they say they're backlogged by like 2 weeks at this time.

The gremlins are running out of places to hide. I'll let'cha know what happens

[Hijacker]

Don't forget about Deatschwerks for injector cleaning.

http://www.deatschwerks.com/services/fu ... r-services

I'm not sure how Deatsch's price compares to other companies, but you're getting a good package at $20/injector.

[WDRacing]

I think almost everyone in the KAT forum uses Deatschwerks for their injector overhauls. I have no personal experience, but I've read nothing but good about their cleaning.

[daemonyk]

Valid. I forgot Deatschwerks did cleaning n stuff. I too have heard nothing but good things of them, and planned on buying their injectors if I ever found myself in the market.

In the meantime I've pulled the fuel rail back off, and am trying to de-gunk the injectors a little better with some throttle body / carb cleaner. I also found some high temp liquid tape laying around the shop, so I figure I may as well coat my coils just cos I can, just to be sure they're not arcing.

[mechanicalmoron]

You could get it idling on the highest octane gas and injector cleaner you can find, and see if they'll clean themselves out. It's not hard to imagine why they'd be stubborn after sitting and all.

I, too, am enjoying watching you spend the money and time that I don't have.

[daemonyk]

Well, good news / bad news. The cleaning I did seems to have done the trick. All of the injectors fire more solidly, good streams at pressure, idles slighty less awful, AFR is shifted slightly less to the lean side, and AFR will go as rich as 11:1 when I throttle it to high rpm. However, while I had it idling, I pulled off some coil pack connectors, one at a time, and for the 3 coils I did it to, it made NO change in the idle

I remember when I bench tested my coils, some of them gave a since solid blue spark, some of them gave a half-arsed orangey spark. I figured that'd be fine for now (see how that works lol - I wasn't kidding ) but I've since been told that orange spark is weak spark Ok! I also recently ready on a skyline forum that, counter intuitive though it may be, RB25's go lean at low spark rather than rich doesn't make sense to me either, but if it IS accurate, then I need new coils. Even if it isn't, the deactivate-the-coil test plus weak-orange-spark symptom seems to indicate that I need new coils too.

CORRECTION: I found the thread discussion again, it was an old NICO thread in the RB section, and ignition problems cause A/F meters to READ lean - if I've got it right this time

So it looks like I'll be researching coils. Ideally I'd like to just get some known good used ones. Worst case I'll splurge for something new and shiny with the word "performance" in the description somewhere that I really can't afford anyways but whatchagonnado. I want to get a drop-in replacement, so it seems like it's either OEM, splitfire, yellowjacket, or superspark. Has anyone had any experience with any of those non-oem ones?

[daemonyk]

Well, I pulled my coils again and re-tested them because I have goldfish memory, the spark is woefully inadequate. Instead of a nice blue arc I get a weak orange flash type thing. I had nothing else to do, so I did an I'm-poor-and-because-science experiment. Electricity takes appx 10,000 volts to jump a 1" gap (IIRC), so the 20-40Kv an ignition coil outputs (also IIRC) should be able to jump at least a 2" gap. So I took an extra spark plug (a known working one) I had laying around, gapped it to .1", and all 6 coils had trouble jumping it. Also even at normal gap, I could blow the spark-ish-esque thing out like a birthday candle.

Pretty sure the RB isn't happy with that. Replacement coils have been ordered (oem), they should be here by the end of the week. Pretty reasonably fairly kinda relatively mostly getting close to being almost in the vicinity of resembling certain or something akin to certainty, that this will make the engine RUN, or at least limp. Let'cha know

[breadbox]

this is a nice read before I start rebuilding, my RB20 in the future, I am now going to try and get everything tested, and not just assume it works. I hope the coils makes everything happy.

[daemonyk]

this is a nice read before I start rebuilding, my RB20 in the future, I am now going to try and get everything tested, and not just assume it works. I hope the coils makes everything happy.

Hey thanks! I think I am officially allowed to laugh when someone pops up saying something like "Yeah I just bought a RB25 from jankyjunkengines.com for $1500 and I installed it why doesnt it run?"

Once I get this thing running I'm considering doing a writeup on it. I've noticed threads and stickies that explain what's needed to install an RB, and the minimum things that should be replaced before install (belts hoses plugs wear parts etc) but I haven't really found anything that really details how to make sure everything works on it. Aside from the FSM. And thats a PITA. So I might just condense all that crap into a "things you should check on your RB and how to do it" article.

Also I've found WAY too many threads where they give every miniscule detail there is when describing the problem, but then when they fix the problem, they get as vague as humanly possible. "Yeah my symptoms are (millions of details) - oh I fixed it, it was electrical." electrical WHAT?! Where was it, what was it, what was wrong with it, how did you fix it? And thus the thread becomes useless.

As for mine... The coils helped, now it's easier to get going, but it still wants to die out. While pulling off sensor connectors, I found that if I disconnect the tps AND maf, it fires right up (and idles poorly), but if I connect either of them, it won't start or idle (MAF was good, TPS was good-ish, I'll be retesting TPS). I also found that my VCT solenoid closes as soon as the engine spins up even a little bit (even if I slowly spin the CAS by hand), and I'm pretty sure it shouldn't (iirc VCT isn't supposed to kick on till like ~1200 rpm, and certainly shouldn't be on at idle, let alone when someone spins the cas slowly at maybe 100 rpm).

And if I understand cam timing correctly, having the intake cam advanced during startup or idle could cause all kinds of problems, including many of the ones I've been having. If I understand cam timing correctly, having the intake cam advanced w/o the timing advanced would open and close the intake valves too soon, causing it to draw less air, and spraying fuel at a closing valve. In theory, of course

Off I go, to do mechanical type things