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

I witnessed a friend in a bolt-on 97 SE-R accidentally shift from 3rd to 2nd near red line and break a couple rockers,

I took my B13/B14 SR20DE's with cams/valve springs to 7800RPM no problems (but I didnt miss shifts)

And FWIW one of my B13's with the VE and N1 cams, valve springs, 8600RPM

June 23rd 2016 -
9,300 miles on the rebuilt RE4F03B and still at 14psi. My primary O2 heater burned out and it was only 4 months old... That's what I get for buying the cheapest O2 Rockauto had. Put in the original Bosch and it's back to normal. The new brakes are sooooo much better. I didn't realize how bad my brakes were until I changed them out. Still need to find time to retune the car for the Garrett. Thinking about changing the intercooler piping around and trying a tial 50mm blowoff at the compressor outlet so I can move my MAF off of the TB so I can install the AEM meth injection. With the HKS BOV installed by the battery tray I have to move the MAF pretty far upstream or I get CEL if I let off of the gas from boost too fast. That kinda screwed me on spraying water or meth mix without going through the MAF and on a open air element that probably wouldn't be too good.

July 4th 2016 -

Happy 4th of July!!

Played around in the garage on the G this weekend. I had several pairs of calipers I have been wanting to try out, QX4 twin piston 11" big brakes. They are just like my 6 speed car with 350Z 12.6" calipers but fit factory 11" rotors. I had to trim the dust shields and drill the bolt holes with a 9/16" bit.

Also decided to go back to a factory type motor mount in the front. The solid motor mount with a low idle speed and AC on was a little too much vibration. I don't have a stand alone in the car and didn't want to screw with the idle. I think the motor mount bracket I used was from a VET engine and I just trimmed it down and had to drill holes in the cross member for the new mount.

Also I'm super excited that I found a front bumper cover at the junk yard with a few nicks and scratches but no major damage.












Aug 9th 2016 -
Found a problem last night. I have been using or loosing about 1/2 gallon of water every week since the engine replacement. I have been ignoring it since I really wanted to believe that it's just a small leak.... But there was no water dripping anywhere and It had a miss every once in awhile when I started it cold. I ran the camera down the cylinders and sure enough there was some water in #4, #1 and #2 plugs looked like they might be getting a little also but not as bad. What really sucks is that I used a brand new VET MLS gasket so I would say maybe the head is warped or maybe has a small crack somewhere? Other than that it runs pretty good, I'll probably drive it for awhile and pull it when I get time. I have 2x DE's and another RR sitting around so it won't be down long.

Aug 29th 2016 -

Made it to 160k on the odometer. So that's 12k on the rebuilt trans so far. I have piston rings and some stuff on the way to get the other RR engine together, it really sucks I have to replace the engine but I am going to have to get antifreeze in it soon and that's not a good deal with the water consumption issue. The RR is from my girls 00' SE Sentra and had 175k on it. It was in good running shape so I'll tear it apart check the bearings, hone the cylinders, replace the piston rings, new crank seals, MLS head gasket, and tap for oil/water drain.

I have been toying with running E15 or 91oct in the fuel tank and maybe adding a second tank in the trunk for E85. I already run 2 sets of injectors and would only need to add a 8-10 gallon cell, inline 255 walbro, extra set of fuel lines and regulator. We have E15 and E85 everywhere so it wouldn't be an issue to get anymore. The car would run mainly on the E15 or 91oct until boost and then add in the E85. I think it would run really good with the factory ECU and no problems with cold starts either.

Found some E15 info
Fact Sheet: High Octane Fuels: Challenges & Opportunities | White Papers | EESI

Sept 6th 2016 -

Ugggh, was sick all through labor day weekend. I did get the RR engine torn apart. My brother came over and helped get it honed and tapped. The bearings were a little worn from the 175k miles so I went ahead and spent the extra $150 for all new OEM Nissan main & rod bearings. After 15 passes with the ball hone all of the cylinders looked excellent. Found out the water pump was leaky so I need to order that also.

New OEM main and rod bearings - Courtsey Nissan $150 shipped
Eve RR STD ring set - $26 shipped ebay
Front and rear crank seals $22 (front National 224650) (Rear National 228411)
VET MLS headgasket $65
Gates water pump $21 (PN # 41138)
Distributor o-ring $1 (Felpro 70015)





Sept 7th 2016 -

This motor we are going through is from our 00' SE sentra and have had it since 130k miles. It has the cruddiest pistons I have seen. I spent 2.5 hrs cleaning 3 pistons last night. The oil rings were frozen up so that's why she was eating oil when it was in the SE... I'll be lucky to have everything clean by the time parts show up LOL!





Sept 15th 2016 -

Well I switched from 91oct to E15 300 miles ago. I didn't tune anything for a little so I could watch the AFR changes. James helped me get it tuned last night and I can really tell a difference. It's smoother and perkier that it was. It says 88oct on the pump (guessing 88oct gas with 15% ethanol) but an article on the internet I was reading says E15 anti knock octane rating was 92 ?? So I'll run the piss out of it for the next week or until I pull the motor and see if there has been any detonation. I'm also paying .70 a gallon less now!! Whoo hoo

Edit: Just filled up and I'm getting 21.16 MPG city with a little hwy WOT tuning



Sept 23rd 2016 -

The engine is done and we were really happy how it measured out. The crank was in awesome shape @ about 175k miles even though it was really nasty inside and obviously didn't get regular oil changes early in life. Main bearings were just under 1 thousandth, the rods were 1.7 thousandths, and rings (1st and 2nd) all came in 8-9 thousandths. All within factory spec! I'm glad it's done because the car is drinking quite a bit more water this week and is getting progressively worse. I may get started pulling the car apart this weekend.

We are guessing the 200+k engine in the car that we honed and re ringed either had been overheated at one time or when my brother ran it into the water early this summer it pushed water past the headgasket or cracked the head... Oh well we got over 12k out of it

Edit: The Gates water pump has a composite wheel unlike the Nissan metal wheel. We will see how it holds up...

What grit size ball hone did you use?

It is a 3 1/2" 240 Grit ball hone

- - - Updated - - -

My brother helped get the drivetrain pulled and put Sunday. I finished getting everything back together and fluids in after work every night. The engine purrs like a kitten again. Will probably do a little tuning on it this weekend.

Odometer @ 160,950 miles
Transmission since rebuild = 12,950 miles
Engine @ 0 miles

10-17-16

The car was down for almost a week due to wonky MAF problems. The tune was all over the place and I couldn't keep it running from one day to the next. Pretty sure the MAF was slowly going bad for quite awhile. Another thing that didn't help was that I used a stainless steel mesh air filter that allowed quite a bit of dirt/dust through. While I was in there and the car was down I decided to change a bunch of other things.

Brand new OEM Nissan Maxima MAF (22680-2Y001)
Aeromotive Stealth 11542 340LPH E85 pump
2014 GT500 Injectors (DR3Z-9F593-A) 16 hole spray pattern 574cc @ 3bar 662cc @ 4bar
New Cloth style 3" inlet air filter
E85 content gauge and flex sensor
10ga fuel pump wiring upgrade

Now running on :









I am running equal parts E15 and E85 to get 40% now. If anyone is interested E15 showed up as 14% ethanol content. The E85 is here is usually about 66%. Started fine this morning @ 69 degrees... We'll see as it gets colder, if it has hard cold starts I'll go to E33 (50% 91oct and 50% E85). Turns out the MAF and Walbro 255lph were both the culprit getting it tuned right. The maf scale has been off for quite awhile messing with the fuel table and the 255lph pump just wasn't enough with the ethanol and 14psi.

Edit: Another cool thing I found is the Maxima MAF has the AIT sensor built in thus the extra pin on the connector. That pin is normally unpopulated on the sentra/G20 maf. I may ohm it out at different temps and see if I can integrate that sensor later.

Just hit 14,000 miles on the rebuilt RE4F03B, and all those miles are at 14psi. Also have 1k on the new motor now. The car has never run better. Depending on the street temperature it can hardly keep traction in 1st and makes a good bark into 2nd. I'm going to get some regular daily street driving video and also get it to the track next week and get the new 1/4 times. (last day open until next year). My birthday present to myself was a 350Z brake upgrade that I installed this weekend. I also swapped the wideband to the new AEM 30-0300 4.9 LSU unit, it was worth every penny for the upgrade.

Also a close estimate on the E40 mileage: 19 city and paying $1.67 a gallon




Grabbed my brothers GoPro3+ and took a video on my way home from work.

Very nice!

Well the car is going in the right direction. I got to the track but only got 2 runs in 3 hours it was so busy. I screwed up on both runs, 1st run I let off before the 1/4 mile and 2nd I shifted late and hit the rev limiter and did some funky shifting up/down crap... Both times were faster than it has ever been so I'm pretty happy. 13.92 @ 95 MPH

To compare it to something at the track the same day a new Chevy SS 6.2L 6speed automatic was pulling 13.5's

11-30-2016
Just broke 16,000 on the automatic at 14psi. I also have 3,000 on the RR motor we rebuilt running at 14psi. The E40 fuel has been great, 18.5 MPG lowest and 19.92 highest and it was all mostly city driving. I have just switched to E85 (actually 66%-67%) to see the mileage difference. Other than that it's getting really cold here now so just racking up miles until the track opens up again. When it opens I may turn up the boost to 18psi and then 21psi to see if the RE4F03B can even handle shifting at that HP level. I am rebuilding the old original transmission in the garage so I have a hot spare ready to go just in case. It's already shift kitted, just needs a refresh (clutches and seals). Low 13's would be nice for a all stock P11 autotragic car

12-01-2016
Was 26 degrees this morning. I am running 60% ethanol and it took several times to get her started. I may end up sticking with E40 for the winter if it gets any worse when the temps drop more. I'm still pretty impressed that I can use that much ethanol on a factory ECU since there is no way to tune the cold idle table.

Looked down at the odometer and noticed I was sitting at 165k miles this morning. I went back to E40 with the cold mornings, 60%-66% was getting really hard to start. 2017 plans will be another rebuilt tranny with extra clutches and hopefully full shift pressure at all times and still on factory ECU/TCU. Then I can think about pushing more boost so I can find out what the transmission internals are good for. If I can get this heavy turd going low 13's I would be pretty darn happy.

Rebuilt RE4F03B with shift kit @ 14psi now at 17,000 miles
Rebuilt factory 00' roller rocker engine @ 14psi 4,050 miles
Best track time so far @ 14psi - 13.92 @ 95 MPH