The rear wheel drive Nissans are absolute classics in their own right, and a gold-mine for anyone wanting to build a fast, reliable, good-handling car, either for road, track or drifting.
Nissan RB25DET
Nissan SR20DET
There are the six cylinder cars- Skyline, Laurel and Cefiro, and the four cylinder cars – Sylvia, 200SX, 180 SX, all available with and without turbo.
The sixes (the RB’s) come on 2 litre 2.5 litre, 2.6 litre (the Godzilla) and 3 litre (Aussie Nissans and Holdens) It is possible to build a RB30DET by taking an aussie 3 litre block and fitting an RB25DET head. It is common to fir bigger turbos, and some phenomenal power outputs can be achieved.
The fours (SR’s) are no slouches either- conversions of a DE to a DET by fitting a turbo are common, as is fitting bigger turbos.
The suspensions on all of these cars is basically sound from the get-go, and respond well to fitment of adjustable platform struts (coil-overs), adjustable camber arms, caster bars, etc.
The braking systems can generally be interchanged- the bigger brakes come with 5 stud hubs.
Front Intercoolers are commonly fitted, and often holes cut in the inner guards for Intercooler ducts.
There is a problem with later, “frontal impact” cars- no LVV Certifier can test the crash performance of a car, so cannot approve anything that affects frontal impact. We heard of a man who bought an intercooler kit from Japan, and followed the instructions to modify the front siderails to make it fit. He ended up having to have the whole front of his car re-built with new side-rails. If your car is fitted with airbags, or is later than about 1997, check FIRST with your LVV Certifier
John Brett Technology Ltd. Ph 0800 LOWVOLUME (0800 569865)
Hi, just a question.
I have a toyota windom with a 3.0 V6 motor in it. If I sourced a motor from another toyota which is the 2.5 litre 6 cylinder twin turbo and put it in my car would this have to be certed? Can you Please provide a list of all modifications that require certification as this is going to be on ehell of a project. Thanks, John
Hi John-
Yes that mod would need to be Certed, and I can’t see much of a problem with it.
List of all items that need to be Certed are here- http://www.lvvta.org.nz/CertThresholdScheduleApril04V3.pdf
All mods on a car have to be Certed at the time
Regards
John
Hey John,
I have a mazda b6t FWD 323 wagon 1989 model, i’m planning to take this 100kw turbo engine out of this wagon and place it in a non-turbo mazda 323 sedan 4WD 1995 model which currently has a 79kw b6 engine. No modification to the mounts or engine bay is required (same engine block and head, just a turbo bolted on basically and a lower compression ratio) (4wd gearbox bolts straight up to). I was wanting to know if anything needed upgrading in the way of brakes or anything else before i get a cert for it. The rest of the the 1995 mazda sedan is straight stock standard. Also how much does a cert cost? And is there a cost to re-do it if you fail the first time?
Hi Nicholas
Sounds like a pretty straightforward Certification. The LVV Requirements for brakes is to perform 3 stops from 100 kph, I think that your standard brakes would cope, although if you could get a set of the bigger brakes now would be a good time to fit them.
At John Brett Technology (Low Volume Vehicle Certification) we aske that you present the car in a WOF condition- and recommend that you get a WOF check done first to be sure. That way you are likely to get a pass on the first LVV Inspection. We don’t charge extra if a recheck is needed, but obviously don’t want to be doing repeated re-checks for WOF items. Phone us on 0800 LOWVOLUME to discuss prices, and appointments available.
Sorry another random question!
I have a 94 s1 R33 skyline…..Was a GTS25.. but have bolted on a turbo and supporting fuel mods & management…..dyno shows 201.5 HP ATW currently but only because of missfire at 10 pounds of boost….Factory states 180Hp for the N/A. Do you think the brakes will be sufficient for cert? I really dont want to mess around getting new rims and tyres to suit a 5 stud conversion.
I thought that a GTS25 had a turbo from standard?
Brakes on all of these Nissans are all good. The LVV Cert requires 3 stops from 100 to 0. Your car should be fine without upgrade.
Thank-you for the promp reply!
The GTS25 came out as a non-turbo model of the GTS25T, with 4stud hubs instead of 5, and the Weaker rb20DET varient gearbox. Hopefully everything else will be upto spec aswell. I understand That I will also need to fit a catalyctic (sp?) converter and catch can to pass??
Another slight worry i have is the chassis rails (or what i think are chassis rails) seem to have been crushed in ever so slightly on both sides in the same place, almost as though someone has hit a speed bump and bottomed out? Will this be an issue? It never has been with WOF’s…..
Hi- Thanks for putting me straight about models. We have to meet an emission standard, which means that you need the POSITIVE CRANKCASE VENTILATION SYSTEM left in place, and no catch-can. (Why do people want to put Catch cans on engines?) As you are not changing the engine, we do not need to require a Cat, or to do the on-road emission test.
The Chassis / floor rails damage needs to meet WOF requirements- so will probably be OK
Hi,
I’ve recently had some bucket seats fitted to my Nissan Skyline 1989 R32 GTST and wondering about the certification process for these… They have been put together using aftermarket base brackets as well as aftermarket rails however have retained the factory mounting positions and the seat belts have not been altered in any way other then changing the seat beat clip in pint from the standard seat to the after market base bracket mounting point. Is this alright?
Cheers.
The problem area is in the strength of the seatbelt mounting- the load on the buckle is 15 Kilonewtons (about 1 1/2 tonnes force). The standard rails are tested to this load, but with aftermarket rails there is no certainty that they are strong enough. Any welding also comes into question. If in any doubt, you should bracket the seatbelt buckle directly to the floor mount, using 40 x 3 flat steel strip.
Great post, you seem to know your stuff. I did find a few points that I was unsure about, but thanks to Google I now understand your points fully.
hi have a 1985 mazda bongo with a 12a rotary fitted what problems will i run into for a cert with the emission standard as this motor runs a pre mix fuel and oil
Hi Sam- I have done emission tests of 12A rotaries, and been able to pass them. I have never done one with Oil premix, so I don’t know how it will work out. The best advice I can give is to get it tuned properly, so there is minimal unburnt hydrocarbons coming out of the exhaust. A good tuning shop with an exhaust gas analyser would be able to help.