7Sec R33 Drag Build

I was driven to my wedding in this car more than 10 years ago. It was owned by a mate of mine at the time and was a bit of a weapon. Packing a 3L bottom end, a twin-cam head and a big for the time HKS turbo, it was a genuine 10sec car that never quite reached its potential on the track. It looked amazing on the cover of Zoom Magazine #99 and was always quite a bit faster than my car.

Fast forward a couple of years and I'd built my street car to race. It went 10.7 @ 128mph on the first pass which left me both happy and sad. I'd run a solid number in it but now I needed a roll cage, a different level drag licence, a stronger rear end and some other changes to things like suspension to get the most out of it. I was talking to my buddy Brett who suggested that, rather than doing all of that to my car I should just buy his. And so I did.

I purchased the car as a roller and that's how it sat for quite a while. I sold my street car at the start of this year but it wasn't until I went to the Brisbane Jamboree in August that the fire was re-lit and the motiviation to get the race car done came flooding back. It was time to make things happen.

The goals for this car are fairly simple; To run a 7sec pass on radial tyres. I don't care what category it will eventually fit into and so I'm not too worried about class records. I just know what I want it to look like and what I want it to run. Rules will always change but this way I'll end up with the car I want, not a car that happens to fit into a particular class. First thing I did was to strip the inside of the car so we had a bare cabin to work on things like weight reduction and wiring. There's nothing worse than trying to get an all new engine combo working with wiring that 6 people have had a go at over the years.

Engine parts have been piling up for a while now and they've all been chosen to suit the Spool 3.4L billet stroker crank that will form the basis of the new engine. I used Spool conrods in my last motor and they've proven more than capable in any number of street and race engines. This engine will use their 94mm billet full counterweight stroker crankshaft, drag I-beam rods with 7/16 bolts as well as a set of custom CP pistons to suit the combo and the desired compression of 10.5:1.

A PTE Gen-2 8891 turbocharger was specified for the job by Aussie Precision Turbo & Engine dealer, Joe Signorelli from Rotormaster. Joe's knowledge was invaluable in choosing the turbocharger and specifying housing sizes and despite not having this unit in stock managed to get it from Precision's manufacturing facility in the USA to Sydney in 5 days. Awesome stuff.

When building a hardcore RB you are faced with the option of either heavily modifying an RB30 block to cope with the extra power or going to a bit of extra trouble and using Nissan's RD28 diesel block. With the experts at Pro-Built Engine Reconditioning on the job the modifications to mate the RB26 cylinder head and RD28 block will be made as well as preparing the block for the Spool billet main caps and girdle. Pro-Built are also relieving the block in several places to allow for the extra stroke of the new crank.

On the cylinder head side of things, Milos from Pro Built sourced a used standard RB26 head for me for the right price. He quickly set about disassembling it and pushing out the guides so it could be sent off for CNC porting. Once it returns it will be hand-finished on the bench and filled with a heap of Supertech valve gear from Fabre Australia as well as a set of custom camshafts made specifically to suit this engine.

For manifolds I've placed orders with the best in the business. For the intake side I'll be using a Plazmaman single throttle body intake manifold and 100mm billet throttle body and on the exhaust side a custom 6boost merge collector manifold complete with wastegate feed and bosses for the 6 x EGT probes. The 6boost manifold should allow me to run a 5in dump pipe without any hacking of the inner guard but we have to wait and see how the engine sits before making the short exhaust system that will ultimately end up running straight out the side of the front guard.

There's loads more to talk about in future updates but if you have any questions please feel free to email and ask.

Back to the shed. There's still a long way to go!

Special thanks to the following businesses that have helped with the build:

 Spool Imports

Precision Turbo & Engine

Pro-Built Engine Reconditioning

Top RPM Motorsport

Plazmaman

Top Class Tyres

6boost

Turbosmart

Rotormaster

Protrans Performance Automatics

Royal Purple Australia

Motorsport Connections Australia

Speedflow Products