Everything You Need To Know About "RB30E Modifications"

How to modify and upgrade the Nissan RB30E

"Comprehensive guide to tuning the Nissan RB30E engine!"

TorqueCars often are getting messages requesting info on how to improve the RB30E from people wanting to know what are the best tips on RB30E upgrades. So let us look into Nissan RB30E modifications and outline the best modifications on this great engine and point out some frequent tuning mistakes along the way.

The Nissan RB30E are fantastic to work on and with a few sensible tuning enhancements like remapping, turbo kits and camshafts you will enhance your driving opportunities.

We shall look at RB30E tuning and summarise the greatest upgrades.

When talking about the greatest parts for your RB30E engine, we are going to focus on the parts that give the best value for money.

Improving air intake on the RB30E

You need fuel and air for an engine to work. If there is not enough fuel then it will run lean, if there is not enough air it runs rich losing power . We'll pick up on fuelling later in this article but for now we shall look at air supply.

So the goal to any engine upgrade task to get air into the RB30E engine but this has a knock on effect with the air flow sensor.

It is not unusual that there's a limitation in the air flow sensor AFM/MAP on the RB30E when considerably more air is being drawn into the engine.

When tuning you may well find you need to get an air sensor or flow meter capable of upto 4 bars to cope with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor limited bhp and torque at a much lower level.

Engine intake manifolds transmit the air during the suck phase from the intake filter and allow it to be sucked into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

Structure and rate of flow of the Air Intake manifolds can make a noticeable difference to to fuel engine efficiency on the RB30E.

Many mass produced engine headers are needing aftermarket parts, although a few makers provide decently flowing headers.

Adding a RB30E larger valve kit, doing some 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also improve performance, the fantastic side effect is it will allow you to get increasing the performance increase on other tuning mods.

RB30E performance cam tips.

Some RB30E engines respond better to less aggressive camshaft durations so view each engine as unique.

The ecu map and injectors and fuel pump also have a large bearing on the power gains you'll achieve.

Longer valve durations can alter the power band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

Significant air intake, and exhaust improvements on the RB30E can be made from cam upgrades. Changing the cam profile alters the intake and exhaust durations on the engine and can dramatically change the torque and power output.

NB: Fast road cams commonly raise the bhp through the rev band, you might lose a little low down torque but higher rpm power will be higher.

Motorsport and race cams, raise the higher rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

A Motorsport camshaft will just annoy you whilst driving around busy urban areas.

You should ideally optimize your power band to your usage of the car so for a car driven daily stick with a fast road RB30E camshaft

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the RB30E

Before we break the best tuning upgrades down into stages of tune, let's list the most effective tuning upgrades for you.

1. Suspension Upgrades - always improve your cars handling
2. Brake Upgrades - Even before adding power improve those brakes
3. Intake - make sure the intake is not restricted, use filters and intake upgrades to improve this
4. Exhaust - as with 3 ensure there is not restriction in the exhaust, cats are the usual bottleneck
5. Tunes - remapping, piggyback ECU's and aftermarket ECU's can all make decent gains
6. Fuelling - when you've increased power you'll need to match this with more fuel
7. Turbo upgrades - Improving the intake with a large turbo and better flowing intercooler will be the biggest power gain you'll see (but one of the most complex).

This video guide to tuning cars is a great starting point to work from in your project.

Stage 1 RB30E parts:

Panel air filters, Fast road camshaft, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Intake headers, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Sports exhaust manifold.

Stage 2 RB30E parts:

Fast road cam, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injectors, fuel pump upgrades, induction kit, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust.

Stage 3 RB30E parts:

Engine balancing & blueprinting, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Twin charging conversions, Competition cam.

Mapping helps unlock the full potential of all the upgrades you've done to your RB30E.

You will typically expect to see gains of approximately 20-30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but the outcome may vary depending on the upgrades you've applied and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the RB30E

To get a turbo working on a NASP engine there is a lot involved, from lowering compression ratio to improved fuel supply and mapping, so we have found a great guide to helpavoid the common pitfalls or end up with an unfinished project because you were not told what you were getting into by doing this on the RB30E.

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes massive power gains.

When the engine has a turbo already fitted parts are simpler to install and most turbocharged engines use strengthened components.

There are reliable limits for every engine, with some being extremely strong and some only just able to handle stock power

It is important to find these limitations and install stronger pistons, crank and engine components to handle the power.

There are many guys spending a loads of money on turbocharger upgrades on the RB30E only to watch the whole thing literally blow up on it's first outing after it's used on the roads.

Large capacity turbochargers tend to suffer no power at low rpm, and little turbochargers spool up really quickly but do not have the peak end engines power gains.

Thankfully the choice of turbo chargers is always developing and we commonly find variable vane turbo chargers, where the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end power.

Twin scroll turbo chargers divert the exhaust gases into 2 channels and direct these at differently angled vanes in the turbo. They also improve the scavenging effect of the engine.

Beefing up the air intake by adding a supercharger or additional turbo will help you achieve very large performance gains, although more complex to configure. We have this article on twincharging if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the RB30E

Don't dismiss the need pay attention to the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty. Don't forget to be generous with your injectors flow rate.

As a rule of thumb add another 20% when specifying an injector, this allows for injector deterioration and provides a little spare capacity should the engine need more fuel.

Don't forget that different fuel grades will usually require different settings, a high octane fuel will burn more efficiently than lower octane fuel for example. A car will trim fuel supply to keep within the ideal air fuel mix but at the extreme ends you may need to adjust your injector capacity, or the mapping or you'll get flat spots and potential lean or rich fuel issues..

Recommended RB30E performance exhaust upgrades

We'd only recommend you look to uprate your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if the current exhaust is actually causing a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you should find that your flow rate is ok even on modest power gains, but on a serious tuning project with a big boost in power you will certainly need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Do not go with the largest exhaust you can source this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between one and a half to two and half inches. Your exhaust design, the bend angles and construction are what have more effect on flow rates than your pipe width to a certain extent. So the exhaust design is a big factor.

Usual exhaust restrictions are in the catalysts installed, so adding a better flowing sports alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Decats (NB:catalysts reduce harmful engine emissions) is illegal in most countries and regions.

Faults issues and things to look out for on the RB30E

Like most engines an RB30E, should have few issues if it gets properly serviced and looked after.

We cannot stress enough the need for oil changes with the correct grade of oil on the RB30E, failure to do this will exacerbate engine wear, on a tuned RB30E this is more important than ever and close attention should be paid to your maintenance schedule.

If you are interested in learning more or getting impartial tuning advice for your RB30E why not pop over to the forums at TorqueCars where you can chat about RB30E tuning options and read about others projects who may be planning to do similar modifications on their RB30E.

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This entry was posted under Makes and Models. Tags: engine, nissan
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