RB25 Swap Begins!

[cyris3d]

Well I have begun my RB25 swap into my 89 240sx coupe....

The Body....

The motor...

Stage one... We dropped the motor in, in about 15 mins... We bolted up the R33 Crossmember.. then buy lifting it with the hoist and swooping it under and in...

Now the Problems that have occured.. the motor went in smooth.. but.. when set into the mounts.. the engine is too far foward.. the shifter hits the plastic bezel.. and sits about an inch and a half too far foward(will post pics soon) and also the rear mount is way off(pics soon also).. these can be werked around with a lil cutting and an adapter plate..Alll and all the motor sits pretty well....

with that done in the next couple days.. im moving onto the wiring... which will be a complete ***** to intergrate the 2 harnesess together.. soo.. at the moment.. im lookin to find someone that has some tips or good info.. so far what ive seen info wise doesnt tell me much.... or if any one knows where to get a R33 complete manual in english for a decent price...

ill keep this updated with all the current happenings.. pics and all..

any questions, comments.. or if ya can help in the wiring area.. hit me up.. [email protected] Glad to be joining the RB community.. special thanx to Night.. for the motor. rear end, FMIC and support..

[d240t2]

Quote »Now the Problems that have occured.. the motor went in smooth.. but.. when set into the mounts.. the engine is too far foward.. the shifter hits the plastic bezel.. [/quote]Hmm...guess I didn't make that one up after all.

Dennis

[Siddhartha]

lol, Dennis, guess not . . .

Good job, cyris3d, about time someone tried to verify what is actually going on with this swap . . .

[Imissmyturbo]

Is it possable that the clip that either you or night used was wrecked and somtihing was shifted to make the shifter no line up right? Cyris3d Yours could be the way all swaps are and maybee nights was different. Or it could be the other way aroud too. :thinker

[khmaikid]

congrats on the start of your swap! unfortunatly mines is going to have to wait till the summer!:mad:

[Vrtgrumpy]

Siddhartha, before going in farther I would check to see if the hood fits. That motor looks like it is sitting real high in the car. Good pictures, I hope everything goes out the way you planned it.

d240t2, you tried to tell people......LOL

Anyways, good to see more RB's out there.

Grumpy

[Imissmyturbo]

I have a few questions about what you could do to fix this problem. 1. Is it possable to slot the holes in the crossmember to slip the engine back about 1"? It would depend on how the suspension (lower control arms) would line up. Another thing is if the steering shaft would fit or is it already in place?2. If the rear mount isn't in place is the engine/transmission too low in the back? This may cause the shifter to sit too low and contact the bexel.3. What does Nightxcz77 say about this? I would assume since you purchased the clip from him you would have contacted him first.

I am not sure what the engine mounts look like but could they be modifeid (sloted holes) to move the engine/transmission into place? Sorry for all the questions but I am doing the swap in the next month or two (When my clip gets here) and I just want to know what to expect.

[cyris3d]

the motor is sitting high in the pictures due to the transmission sitting really close to the ground... but when we jacked up the transmission it sat pretty good..

[ZERO]

wait a second...When you took the pictures the transmission was hanging and weighing the engine donw in the back, right? that is what I understood...did I miss something?

but everything is ok now? does everything line up the way it should?

Does the shifter fall in place? or is it too far forward? Im thinking of doing an RB swap and that is one of my biggest concerns...

[cyris3d]

in the pics the transmission was hanging.. but we jacked up the transmission into position and placed the shifter back on the transmission.. and its 1-1.5 iches to far foward

[ZERO]

do you think you could still use it the way it is?

[ZERO]

Does it fit like in the pictures that night put up?

[rbsileighty]

Hmm...guess I didn't make that one up after all.

Dennis

Maybe it's different for the 25 b/c my 20 has no problems... not saying you weren't providing good info... just some FYI

[93semax]

Maybe it's different for the 25 b/c my 20 has no problems... not saying you weren't providing good info... just some FYI

UH has only done RB20's, no 25's. This thread could get interesting :eyecrazy

[Redline240]

If the clip came with some of the dash then why not just blend the two consols together so it will line up and look good....this is just a thought, i havn't seen the setup so there could be a lot more to it....but what about just cutting an inch or so from the plastic so it will fit, i'm sure its nothing a shift boot can't cover....

[ZERO]

I know this sounds crazy, but is it possible that model-years and/or bodystyles might have had some changes? Maybe this could explain why it fits in some cars and not others.

What I mean to say is that I know that rbsileighty and night have hatchbacks and cyris3d has a coupe. I know its a stupid question, but just thought i'd toss it up and see it fall flat on its face...

[Projekt]

hatch and coupe are almost identical all the way around, so i doubt that's it. if anything the trannies being used for the RBs may be different. companies usually stick to the same transmission, but you never know.

[taco-salad]

Forgive my noobness, but I thought there was some driveshaft shortening required to make the transmission properly fit, like swapping the yolk on the rb transmission to the stock shaft, or cutting the rb shaft or something along those lines. Someone needs to figure this out, I'm gonna swap a 240 soon, so this is something I'm concerned about too.

[ZERO]

rbsileighty used his stock KA shaft. all he had to do was cut the dust cover 1.25"...

[dabigbolf]

hey,

what turbo is that hanging off ya motor. t04, or something. did u get it with the motor, if so wat a bonus.

looks good.

and hope all goes well.

i just bought a 5 puk brass button for mine, looking forward to gettn it going.

[meggala]

hahah dabigbolf you took the words right out of my mouth I'll have the shiny thing sitting on the exhaust manifold nice picsmeggala

[93RPS13]

dabigbolf dont you have a RB25DET in your yellow 240 is the shifter to far forward?

[Imissmyturbo]

I know this is another dumb question but is it possable the crossmember could be on backwards? I know if this was the case the steering rack would be on the wrong side so it would be pretty obvious unless you didnt mount the rack up yet.

[AREITU]

While we're all trying to figure this out...

Night's car is a fastback and a '91. The '89-'90 had some minute differences compared to the '91-'95. Maybe these are it? This could also explain why Unstable-Hybrids has much different resuls.

Comments

[dabigbolf]

well i got a 90 S13, and used the r32 engine crossmember and r32 engine mounts. i had no problem at all. the sump was a bit tight to the front sway bar, but not a big deal.

the motor sits a little high but ah well, just got to cut some of the bonnet.

[Accelerated Concepts]

Hmm....I used the stock r33 crossmember and my engine sits just fine and the shifter doesn't hit anything. Question for Dennis at UH. If you haven't done a rb25 swap yet, how do you know if the shifter will hit or not?

[dcdrifter]

I thought you had to shave 1/2" off the drive shaft. I heard this from a couple of sources. Is this correct? Even if, would this affect the way the shifter sits?

[d240t2]

I don't know exactly how an RB25DET will fit...but I don't claim to. I didn't in this thread...nor do I think I did in any other thread, other than the speculation I have given from my experiences with RB20DETs, 240SXs, etc.

All I can say is the problems we have had. Some people think we are full of it and we made it up. I am just showing how other people have similar problems to what we had.

My opinion...there is a discrepancy...but it isn't a discrepancy in the truthfulness of what people claim (like some people think), but a discrepancy in fit caused by things we haven't narrowed down yet.

And UH has done RB20DET swaps into S13 coupe and hatches, all DOHC 91-93 cars so far. There aren't any differences in mounts of the cars from our experiences with SR swaps, KA turbo kits, DOHC->SOHC swaps, etc...so it seems like it is an engine/mount difference problem.

This is all the more reason why we like to use custom mounts...we know it'll fit...we can send custom mounts out to a customer and know they will fit on his car. We could send a clip out and tell people it'll bolt right in...but we don't know for sure on that yet...especially with all these discrepancies...so we won't do that.

Dennis KalmanunStable Hybrids

[ka24de_510]

hey, I was wondering if anyone knew the length of the rb25 compared to a ka. I haven't really been able to find that info, just basically that it "fits." I figure it must be a little longer being an I6, but hopefully not much, because I only have maybe 3-4 inches of room between the ka and my radiator (I moved the intake line to the intake side.).

who wants to see an rb25 in a 510? I do, I do!

[dabigbolf]

i have 10 cm for radiator and thermos