Offroad-Express

Yeah was always a messy job removing the filter, but on the bright side my front diff had been perserved in a thick layer of engine oil and cleaned up like brand new with the water blaster.
Am hoping to get lift kit fitted and engine mounts fabricated this weekend (work permitting) will post a photo update then.

Does anyone know a good brand of engine gauges that are reasonbly priced?. I want oil presure, oil temp, water temp, boost and need new RPM

I have never had a issue with the supercheap jobs.

well got a few hours done on truck today, installed the 2" body lift it was a easy straight forward job (once i remebered to undo drive shaft loop) haha, finished job looks good got decent bit of height on the old girl now and wont be getting tyre rub up front when full locked.

I also removed engine sump and wraped the bottom in clear plastic to keep crap out of engine. Tomorrow (work permitted) i will put engine in and bolt it to gearbox, align then start fabricating some engine mounts. Sump modification will follow that once i have finished position for engine. Will post some pictures at the end of weekend.

Well managed to get couple hours down today, aligned engine and gearbox and started engine mounts. Was shocked to see how far out of align the original drive train was

Looks like engines a good fit between chassis rails

yeah the engine fits nice and apart from been so long the engine has more room down the side than the td27 had, will finish engine mounts tomorrow and hopefully new adapter for gearbox cross member (the gearbox is 30mm futher back, 30mm raised and 18mm towards passenger side) i projected lines off center crank pully, g/box output and drive shaft and to get them align, the original g/box mounts where 18mm off to the right (dont know the reasoning for this).

Also found today my dump pipe dumps right on top of the front diff so it has to be cut so it runs backwards with slight angle not straight down.

Paulballz wrote:yeah the engine fits nice and apart from been so long the engine has more room down the side than the td27 had, will finish engine mounts tomorrow and hopefully new adapter for gearbox cross member (the gearbox is 30mm futher back, 30mm raised and 18mm towards passenger side) i projected lines off center crank pully, g/box output and drive shaft and to get them align, the original g/box mounts where 18mm off to the right (dont know the reasoning for this).

Also found today my dump pipe dumps right on top of the front diff so it has to be cut so it runs backwards with slight angle not straight down.

change the exhaust manifold to a high mount when the budget allows, makes for better access for maintenance too.

yet another good day on the truck, got the engine mounts finished and stitch welded in place (full weld when engine out), also made the gearbox adaptor. Found out the rear drive shaft wont need shortening since the gearbox has been rised so thats good news, just need to modify sump and turbo dumppipe then the engine will be bolted in permantly.

Sorry about picture quality they are off my phone

gee thats a tight squeeze, but i suppose better than it not fitting at all.

Looking foward to this project being finished, will certainly be different.

p.s When ya gunna start the SAS?

yeah it is tight squeeze but managed to get driveline back 30mm so that gave some more room up front, still deciding on wether to mount top mount intercooler with scoop or trim rear of bumper and mount it in front of radiator. Yeah i cant wait to see her finished and feel how hard it goes, still got that feeling in back of stomach hoping the engine is not a dud have been stung before but this is from a engine dealer with start up warrenty so should be good. in 3 weeks time i have 3 weeks off tech (am fitter turner retraining to be personal trainer) i will hopefully have the truck finished cert and all by then and still under the 6k budget

doing well for it being under 6K

I was planning for about that on my SAS and so far its still under, for now.

well didnt get bugger all time on the truck this weekend but i did manage to cut sump open and have a good look, this is where i discovered my next dilema. Been a front sump i am concerned that the engine oil will hydraulic the rear cylinders if left on steep incline for period of time, as alot of the oil will leave pot and flow down the back of sump. Does anyone know where i can find a picture of a rb30 patrol sump?, i am guessing these are rear sump and am hoping that there is a slight chance it may fit in terrano.

Rd28 sump also bolts on as well
Its rear pan

Well after some research and talking around i found that the rb30 and rd28 from the patrol are both rear sump compared to the front sump in the cars. This is for maintaining oil around the pick up when climbing so i decided to try find one of these sumps with no luck except some guy in Western Australia, so flagged that idea. I have cut the baffel plate out of my sump and plated the whole front, have copyed the td27 rear pot design and am in the process of finishing this. Photos will be up once do its quite a mission of a job as the rb25det has two brackets that mould around the rear of the sump to bolt onto the lower bellhousing. This has caused a bottle neck at the top of the sump pot.

hmmm, thats some good info.

do you think at any point you would be doing a Solid Axle Swap? if you are i would look at modifying the pan so that you could have either a left or right hand side driveshaft come past it, to make it easier later down the track.

i know with the terrano's the pan is offset to the drivers side which is a pain for putting a safari transfer case onto the gearbox, but ya might not have top worry about it with the Rb

get hold of gold coast 4x4 I know they have a rack of the rd28 sumps and pickups in stock
Last time they had about 5 of them
it was 150 I guess the freight to you may make it more expensive but at least you know its just a bolt on

you will be hard pushed to hydraulic anything with the sump oil in a nissan RB/RD/TD,

also i think you will find the rear sump RB30's etc was purely for suspension and steering clearance not engine performance.

you have to remember that the RB was a race engine The engines created forces on liquid like no other car before it, not even le mans racers could pruduce the side ways braking and accelartion forces that a forced inducted RB engine could.

It was never orignally designed as a road car engine

the only reason we still had the front pickup/ sump on my rb30 powered hilux is that it fitted, we were never concerned with where the oil was or when, you have to remember, what goes up must come down, in my experience the truck spends as much time facing down hill as facing up hill, and it'd have to be atleast 60 degrees for the oil slosh to reach the cylinder.

If you are winching, (electric i take it) just let the engine idle, don't rev it it will still charge the battery(s) then if it stalls from oil surge or it gets oil starved it will still have enough residual oil around its bearings until it levels up again

If you are that concerned weld baffle's into your sump to stop the oil sloshing.

Go rear sump if you can, many a car engine in a 4WD has been ruined from lack of oil. Whenever an engine is facing up hill is when its under load compared to downhill. Most of the 3.8 Commy motors and Lexii I have seen blow up are from lack of oil (been a few...)

Wax) Thanks for the heads up on them but have decided to fabricate the pan myself and process has started. The bolt on isnt that simple either as the sumps on the patrol are a double step sump. The first step does not clear the diff on the terrano so modification still needs to be done.

Crash bandicoot) that is interesting to know but i have never been one to tempt fate though and have spent much of my life as a fitter repairing equipment failure due to lack of lubrication. First concern is the engine is already on quite an angle even when the truck is level as they slant backwards and maybe slightly more in my truck than in the car. I understand about the race engine theory but they do not stay for long periods of time near vertical. Standard the sump has a large baffel plate for stabilising the oil and some rear motion baffels.

The main concern is the truck generally get gets stuck while climbing, this is where it may spend some time idling and at revs, the largest oil return ports are in the rear of the RB engine so oil will be pooling already and the front pick up will only be getting minimal.

I had originally planned on the front sump similar to this sump http://s526.photobucket.com/albums/cc34 ... C00311.jpg ....I am by far no expert but research has convinced me to go the rear sump as it seems logical. The job would of been much easier if i could of followed that guys sump.

NO prob.
I modified one when I put an rb30 into a 260z a while back.
Your right they are a double sump. The pickup may be of use to you however. Saves making one

Well i know its been some time since i have updated, today the sump was finished which was a mission of a job. The only part of the sump that is original is the flange apart from that it was cut about 1inch down all around and refabricated, we tryed to replica the td27 sump as much as possible but due to clearence issues on the rb and the front diff some alterations were needed. Anyway here is some pictures of the sump, there is also an unfinished picture showing the oil pickup (note baffels were not on yet).

The pictures show the bottle neck design that is needed since the rb engine has two brackets that wrap around the sump for the lower bellhousing bolts.
You may also notice that is a random looking line on a angle that is about 3 inchs long, this is a hollow for the pickup to fit through as the bottom pan is so close to the crank gurdel, The sump pickup on the block happens to be right above the front diff head which is a pain in the arse as room is already tight...all up with that cut out for the pick up it has 2mm clearance from crank gurdle, 2 mm from bottom of pan, 5mm clearance from the front diff head...

Apart from the sump i have ordered all my 3" exhaust tube and muffler so can start fabricating that as of next week, all the interior carpet has been striped and tidyed.

Progress has been slower than expected due to the work involved in the sump.

looking good so far,

hope you will post a vid of how it sounds with the 3 inch exhaust when its done.

at least your project is moving along faster than my one. but i suppose thats the advantage of doing most the work yourself, so ya can work on it when ya want, not waiting for someone else to do it.

Thanks, Yeah sure will get lots of videos up of this once shes running, spent alot of time with a local drifter that lives and breaths rb engines and took all his advice on exhaust system and muffler ect... he said with the setup i have gone with will be quiet will cruising around but will roar to life once under acceration... And doing all the work yourself is not always a good thing, yes it has its finacial benefits but many nights of lost sleep wondering if sump design is right, will gearbox cope, am i going to have overheating problems...theres no one to blame if ya do it yourself have found today that the torque converter has 1.2mm runout this is another problem with been an engineer, when i used to machine .5mm at 1000rpm used to nearly rip the lathe off its bed, 1.2mm TC at 9000rpm i could only imagine but that will do to the engine... Fingers crossed i can get it closer maybe i am just looking to deep into things

lol, yea i know what thats like, mind you all my good ideas come from when im trying to sleep. untill it makes me really awake and want to do it straight away.....

The sump is finally on was hoping to get engine in today but turned out had slight set back...firstly a snapped sump bolt (drilled and easy outed) then the td27 torque converter is so big that the small plate they weld to the outside for balancing did not clear all the cast moulds in the bellhousing so in with the grinder i went... One last job i have to do before mounting engine is cut the turbo down pipe as it aims straight at the diff head and make it so the flange aims out the back.

well today marked a great day, the engine went in where fingers crossed it will stay for some time now.

Progress has been good changed water pump, timing belt, finshed engine mounts an started on the fuel system.
What i have done is sourced a rb25det intank fuel pump, removed my diesel pickup from tank and cut the old pickup line and mounted the fuel pump there. Seemed the simplist way of doing it.

Am waiting for bellhousing / engine sandwich plate to arrive then gearbox will go on, i rebolted it all up yesterday and everything seems fine.

I can only dream of such a mod

Thats so cool. Its going to bag up all over the place. I love it

looking really good, finally starting to take shape,

Cant wait for more..

thanks for all the support and encouragement guys it keeps me motivated as life does get boring when its work/truck/sleep/, work/truck/sleep. It is finally starting to take shape, am starting to get pretty excited about seeing it in action, i must admit this project did cross my mind a couple of years ago but i clearly remember opening a mate of mines nissan laurel bonnet which is running a rb20det and saying to myself there is no way that will fit in the terrano.. well i guess i proved my self wrong which i owe alot to the old man who is also a fitter turner (still in the trade) so has access to machine shop and has spent alot of hours on this project with me.

Anyway now the engine is in i have ordered a triple core radiator that will fit in its snug home up the very front.

I managed to con the old man into machining my crank pully down to allow as much room as possible for my radiator, so he took off the first groove as it was ac and i never have been a fan of it (even when i lived in western australia).

I also started the exhaust work today just at the back the snake that is needed to get the 3" around the diff. Once the drive train is in ill finish it.