Modern technology means that most modified GT-Rs use just one turbocharger, rather than the factory twin setup
One area that is simple is the RB’ s head – it’ s a really efficient design. Any work on the head is about enhancing what attributes it has and making it a little more durable.‘ If we’ ve got to choose between a port job and putting oversized valves, we’ ll always put valves in. The head castings aren’ t great; there’ s a lot of core shift going on. They’ re getting old now too, so it’ s very hard to be able to be consistently run the same port program. Everything’ s CNC now. You get more bang for your buck from an engine with an oversized valve, as opposed to an engine that’ s had $ 2000 worth of port work. We’ ve got a custom valve that we get made, which is longer.
‘ The valve train arrangement is a valve shim bucket. It’ s all solid, a shim under bucket design, which is okay to a point. Once you start hitting rev limiters and ignition cuts for gear control, we’ re running into issues here. We run a longer valve and a Toyota bucket and then it’ s shim-less. We then match the cams to the turbo, or vice versa. But, plenty of lift is my thing.’
New technology, bigger power, higher revs. It requires new thinking, according to Anthony,‘ Our big learning curve for us was with regards to torque. You can have 40 pounds of boost at 4000rpm. We were getting big turbos to come on early; it’ s a possibility. But as a result, we were hurting engines. We were starting to see coolant pressure problems and accelerated bearing wear.
Plenty of the standard components in the RB engine can cope with 1500hp and 1000Nm of torque
28 The Engine Rebuilder Issue 03