The 18R-GTE reference manual ...

[RA23GT]

Here's how she looks now, I like the sleeper look.

[river]

Hi,

Electronic dizzy is fine.

Good ECU is required.

I am using a GT25 because it is smallish and will be on boost at 3000rpm, which will make the car very responsive - which is what I want. A larger turbo will make more power, but for my purposes I want a smaller one and minimal lag.

seeyuzz
river

[JustenGT8]

Here's how she looks now, I like the sleeper look.

Hey Kev, been a while A bit feaky as i ran into another blast from the past today out at Stromlo....Matt Dyne, another 23 admirer

A mild turbo 18RG is dead easy. All the stock gear will do the job fine as will your F7 (that's what i ran back in the day ). Turbo wise, i'd look to the KKR series by Otomoto...forum sponsor. Cheap, proven and while 'maybe' not up there with garrett, near enough as to make no difference.

A 330 or even 430 would do the job nicely.

Stay with the high comp pistons for sure. You could always go the stroker route as well for 2.4 litres of stump pulling torque

[The Witzl]

Funilly enough, i have a KKR430 to use with my 18RGTE.... but i am aiming for lots of powahz.

I think River's setup would be pretty much spot on with what you want. That little baby garrett is going to make boost from idle and have enough torque to turn River's old auto-slushbox into transmission soup. For a nice, torquey, not over the top HP package - i think it will definitely deliver.... and will have headroom for a lot more HP in the future.
His has forged pistons though, which arent *that* expensive when compared to a set of new cast pistons.... IMO they are worth it when comparing the price. Also forgies usually come supplied WITH rings, and cast pistons dont.

i think my forged pistons + rings were around the $1000 mark... but that was many years ago now.

Does your electronic dissy have mechanical advance, or does the Haltech control the ignition timing? I would recommend using a computer with ignition timing control - which means if you have a mechanical advance dissy, you need to "lock" the advance in the dissy so that it provides a fixed timing signal for the ECU.

Good to see there are more people getting into the old tractor engine. We should all have a tractor pulling contest.

[RA23GT]

The 430 looks like a bargain, is there down side? Is the KKR up to Garrett? I am OK spend a few dollars more if its worth it I guess.

River's set up sounds sweet too with a small frame, low lag and all.

Will go the high comp but wont go stroker, love a rev

Dizzy is mech advance but can add a Jaycar set up with CDI and mapped curve. Not too hard if I can get a curve from someone

[timbosaurus]

My opinion is that those turbos will be fine. They've had enough exposure to prove themselves. Part of the reason garretts have good history is that the people who buy them usually pay a proffesional to do it, and they generally know what turbo to put on what engine. I'd hazard a guess that most cheaper turbo's are DIY jobs with little thought towards what is actually the best turbo.

Not saying there is anything wrong with DIY... especially when a garrett can give just as bad results if it is not matched to it's application.

Best bet is to find a fuel and ignition ECU. Won't be difficult (it will be a peice of piss) to setup if you already have the elctronic dizzy and injection gear, and will be a lot neater than a few different systems.

[JustenGT8]

The 430 looks like a bargain, is there down side? Is the KKR up to Garrett? I am OK spend a few dollars more if its worth it I guess.

River's set up sounds sweet too with a small frame, low lag and all.

Will go the high comp but wont go stroker, love a rev

Dizzy is mech advance but can add a Jaycar set up with CDI and mapped curve. Not too hard if I can get a curve from someone

Have a bit of a web search on how each spools but i would prob go with the 430 myself.

Quality is close enough to garrett as to make no difference. Garrett have a zillion more options is all whereas KKR just focus on a limited few, hence can be cheaper.

The 330 will spool just as quick as a GT25 so it's oretty much pick a hp level then pick a price. For Nissan, alot of the garretts are bolt on which adds hugely to their popularity.

All i did with my turbo 18RG elect dissy was have the mech advance modded so it had half travel advance and half travel retard. Base timing was set fairly advanced i recall around 18deg and retarded plenty enough for the low 7.5:1 comp ratio i ran....i ran up to 30psi with no timing or spark issues. Use the old VK commodore coil which is hell grunty.

With a higher comp you would set static timing lower and you are also running much less boost so i would say what you currently have will be fine. Worth at least giving it a shot 1st as will save you a coupla grand in upgrading to a better ECU.

My 2cents

BTW i still have my F7 maps around somewhere so a good headstart on the tune. In fact, i used your n/a F7 map in the 1st place to get started if i remember correctly

[The Witzl]

Im going to buck the Justen trend and vote for full ignition timing control to be done by an aftermarket ECU. When the price of something like the Adaptronic is a measly $900 - why would you bother with mechanical ignition timing?

Especially if you are going for the high-compression turbo route, i would strongly recommend ignition timing to be controlled by the ECU - when i did the ignition timing on my 9.7:1 18R-GE, i found that with the extra compression (going from 8.7:1 to 9.7:1) the engine was far more prone to pinging at certain places.

I had to pull out about 3-5* of advance at 95-100% load around the 1500-2500 rpm range because it would ping otherwise, but was fine in other places on the load map..... this is something you just cant do with a mechanical ignition curve.
Bear in mind that 95-100% load and 1500-2500rpm is a spot in the tuning map that you very commonly drive at - this is accelerating with mid throttle from a set of lights, putting your foot down to go up a hill... etc.

I still have my Megasquirt tuning files too..... here is my ignition advance table, and that table plotted as a curve.... just to show you what i had to pull out of the timing to avoid pinging.

NOTE: this is an NA engine... kPa is absolute pressure (ie 100 = atmosphere).




X-axis = RPM
Y-axis = absolute pressure (kPa)
Z-axis = ignition advance (deg)

[JustenGT8]

I don't disagree Karl, but reading between the lines of Kev's brief he is only looking for a pretty conservative setup. $900 is still $900 and the reality is that $900 is more likely to turn out closer to $1500 or even $2K.

If he had nada to start with then a no brainer to go with a full control ECU, but starting with an F7 that works well i think it's worth giving the existing setup a go. Nothing to lose and if it does turn out to be too much of a compromise then you're at the same starting position and can upgrade at that point?

[o_man_ra23]

If you decide to lock your dizzy and go with full computer control (my preference also, Megasquirt 2 with V3.0 board will do all this for you), then check my member's ride (click the RA28 in my sig) for the simplest method to lock and 18R electronic dizzy. One drill, and all is done.

One other thing I would like to stress is to research your turbo thoroughly before purchase. If somebody has used one with a very similar setup, try and find out what their dyno curve looks like, as this should hopefully show up weaknesses.

[timbosaurus]

Oh my.... I don't know what just happened, but I think I have to clean it up

[JustenGT8]

twin spark? WTF?

[1JZ-Rolla]

I was about to say EXACTLY the same thing Justen...

18RG 3TGTE hybrid! haha

[roadkill]

twin spark FTW!

Fixed for you!

Is it possible that you could tap a new thread into the head for a second spark plug? Weld on anything else needed (ie cylinder up to the cover?) Could be possible to make a twin spark out of 2 cylinder heads i guess!

I guess if you were a machinist with access to crazy machinery it would be very possible.

bEn

[Sagluren]

ohhhh my, i think im in love, where are those darn tissues.

that is weird, but awesomely beautiful.


cheers