Thread: RE4F03B Automatic with shift kit and Turbo = Success!

I took the old RR engine apart tonight to see what was tapping. Here's what 10 degrees too much timing, crappy gas, RR pistons, and 14 psi gets you.

Put 600 miles on it and everything looks like it's holding together. Shifting really good with the new clutch discs. Barks the tires when I'm into it hard. I'm pretty sure the old transmission was about worn out @ 148k miles since it didn't shift quite as hard. Running lean in the middle and super rich up top so we really need to retune the car. Had some guys in a SN-95 Mustang GT 5.0 ran me 3 times. Didn't matter from a dig or roll I straight out smoked them every time. on the 3rd run I let off and let them catch me and got back in it and could just pedal them. I would say she is putting at least 250whp down. Hopefully the tranny holds together for awhile.

It's been awhile since I have updated... The 2860 billet started to whine @ 1,500 miles so I pulled it and found the bearings were toast. Put the old trusty journal bearing 2871 back on until I get the 60 replaced. The spool up with stock cams is soooo slow compared to a billet 60mm wheel vs the cast 71mm...

Just hit 150,000 miles, so that's 2,000 @ 14psi on the tranny that we rebuilt.

Took it to KC on my birthday, then out to columbia last week. Broke 4,000 miles @ 14psi. Got 30MPG highway!! Getting ready to put her in the garage for a minor teardown. Going to use it for mockup of 3" downpipes for a few guys. Also going to pull the head and pans and change the piston rings and put the 148k mile head on. The 200k engine drinks oil like no other under heavy boost and guessing the oil rings are shot or stuck and the valve guides and seals that can't be in too good of shape either. Also have a GTX2867R sitting in the garage that I haven't sold yet.... Hmmm...

Another cool project that we have been toying with is the manual shift control for the RE4F03B. JamesJV0 has been working on the software when he can and the hardware is pretty much done. This is really going to be needed to test the capabilities of the auto since the stock tranny ECU gets weird under high boost and different TPS loads. We will be able to boost the line pressure when and where we want it and will be a fully manual auto. Also if I want to convert over to my AEM Infinity the auto will already be independent. Another cool deal will be using the VET transmissions as a FWD or AWD. It is a RE4F04 variant and has more potential than the re4f03's. The RE4F04 also came in the I30T with a LSD so we can build it with a locker, transgo makes a shift kit so there won't be any slop, can pretty much order any piece and part for them. But that's wayyy down the road only if the 03 can't take what we throw at it. Or if we wanted to build a AWD car......

Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving! I got the engine tore apart while I had time off. Pulled the oil pans and head, then pulled the rods/pistons to get a good look. The oil rings were jammed up really bad with carbon buildup and all 4 pistons had lots of crap on top of them. Three out of four rod bearings have quite a bit of wear but #4 showed almost none. So I decided to order a set of cheap rod bearings. The engine has almost 200k on it but I figure it's worth throwing a few bucks into if I can keep her going for awhile. So here's the build list to fix the 1.5 quarts of oil per 300 mile problem hopefully... If that doesn't work out I have the old 175k sentra se RR engine to go into it.

Flex hone $38.50
Cheap STD rings $27
Cheap Tri-metal Rod bearings $21
MLS head gasket $60
Plastigauge $2.50
Install old 148k head

The old head didn't suffer damage from the piston bashing broken pieces into it?

I'm pretty sure the piston chunks went through smoothly. A couple chunks smacked the top but it had good compression before I pulled it. Can't remember if I did a leak down test. I'll do a compression & leak down when I bolt it down. If it doesn't pass I'll throw the 200k head back on and maybe valve seals since they are pretty cheap.

My brother came over to help me get the engine back together this weekend. Ran into a few hang ups but got most of the major work done.

Piston ring specs:
Old 200k mile top rings .025 gap
New EVE $26 rings .020 gap
Nissan within factory spec was .0079 - .01541 and limit .0209

Rod bearings
Old 200k bearings 1-3 were between .0016 and .0017 (rod #4 had no signs of wear)
New enginetech STD bearings came in at .0020
I had a set of faxtory VE rod bearings low mile came in at .0015 (used these on rods 1-3)
Nissan factory spec is .0008 to .0018

So the new rings are not back to factory spec but barely within the limit... The new STD bearings were useless so they are going back. I just used some excellent condition VE pulls from a very low mile engine. We also used the old 200k mile head, the 148k head did have some scoring from the aluminum chunks on both sides of the valves on one cylinder and thought it wasn't worth the risk. But I did find that all the lifters in the 200k head weren't squishing down at all so I swapped them out. I checked them because I noticed the engine was really noisy on startup until it was up to temp and would quiet down.

Glazed 200k cylinder liner


After 12 fast clock way passes with the flex hone


Plastigauge green from Oreilly $2.49 - was very accurate repeatable top or bottom same results.


Old 200k rings were totally shot. The oil rings were froze up and the compression rings were out of spec and limp.

nice crosshatch pattern, looks real good there.
Interesting that the non-nissan parts were out of spec and barely within tolerance.

Everything is together and running well. Ran it around for 25 miles and only had 1 leak so I changed the front main seal and it's leak free now. Now to drive it everyday and get some more test miles racked up.

Note to self:
Odometer is at 152,500
Rebuilt RE4F03B is at 4,500 miles (14psi)
Engine had 190k originally + 4500 turbo miles = 194,500 miles at time of re-ring and rod bearing change.