Hello everyone from Zimbabwe Need help with my Gtr34 engine

Good luck

on this subject again.
I have met Steve Clark a few times after reading this thread and follow his work closely as i am having my Evo motor built by him in the coming months. Rudeboy also had his GTR built by him and is running like a dream at 700hp.
He is one of the few tuners i know that is really going out of his way to servise his customers, so much so he has serious family problems . weekends and public holidays means nothing to him to spend time with the customer travelling far to come fetch a car. i know this from experience when i was with Rudeboy to fetch his GTR. and if any builder/tuner says he will pay for parts and labour to fix a broken motor is talking out of his arse. Its not the way it works . Anyway i think its time to show Steve this thread and get a comment . He does not have time for forums but hopefully he will respond
there is always 2 sides of a story.

ljS14 wrote:

Good luck

on this subject again.
I have met Steve Clark a few times after reading this thread and follow his work closely as i am having my Evo motor built by him in the coming months. Rudeboy also had his GTR built by him and is running like a dream at 700hp.
He is one of the few tuners i know that is really going out of his way to servise his customers, so much so he has serious family problems . weekends and public holidays means nothing to him to spend time with the customer travelling far to come fetch a car. i know this from experience when i was with Rudeboy to fetch his GTR. and if any builder/tuner says he will pay for parts and labour to fix a broken motor is talking out of his arse. Its not the way it works . Anyway i think its time to show Steve this thread and get a comment . He does not have time for forums but hopefully he will respond
there is always 2 sides of a story.

+1

😉

Hi Shane,

There is a possibility that his second engine failed because we made a mistake, but I cant say for sure. As far as I am concerned the only error we could have made was missing the bolt during the tightening sequence, however it is almost impossible as we run through the bolts twice every time and if it was loose surely it would have failed while I was testing the car revving to 8000 rpm through all the gears.
I offered to build him a stroker motor, all he had to do was get the car or motor to me and since we were doing forged pistons and rods I asked him to make a contribution towards those parts. I have since built that stroker in another R34 and it makes 480 kw at the wheels and runs perfectly.
I had heard that he was running me down, but never actually believed it, so thanks for enlightening me there.
So far he has broken 3 motors. The standard one, the rebuilt one ( ours ) and an N1 motor from Japan.
He also messed a friend of mine around badly. He let him fly to Harare to look at the car, made a deal and when the guy had all his paperwork and money ready ( a few weeks later ) he reneged on his deal.

Thanks
Steve

... all i can say is... never listen to 1 side of the story

Well, thats what happens when you do not read all the posts !!
Good ol` edit. 😳

ooooh yes i love it .
Its been a while since i have read this thread .
And yes i would like to thank Steve for commenting .
Indeed he said he might have missed a bolt and that it might have caused the failure .
And yes i had my first engine break because of a spun bearing .(over rev)
I then proceeded to have the engine rebuilt a second time by steven clarke and thats when the failure was catastophic worst then the first failure.
So in herently i called steve and was told that, he can built a second hand engine, with Brian crower crank and pistons and rods, and also use a old Gtr32 block.
Not what i wanted and frankly not what i needed. i have a limited edition car that contains limited edition parts inside, like a Nur spec engine, that has a Nur spec Block and pistons etc .
Why would i want to use a gtr32 block in my car ???
So back to the topic i suggested steve consider the block i needed and asked him for a price and never got a call back?
Not once did Steven clarke ever pick up the phone to call me to confirm what our plan of action was going to be ?
Not once did he email after this incident to ask what we were going to do with the problem at hand ?
If he is good to his customers clearly i have missed that boat cause i got nothing from No sweats customer service accept a whole lot of sweat blood and tears.
So i studied for two years how to build an engine, how to assemble parts check clearances and test .
And i was told by numerous people u can never do it, u can never build an engine .
Well 4000kms down the road with alot of Drag passes at our local strip running local crap fuel and a stock tune i have run a consitent time of 12.65 Sec 1/4 miles .
Thats up there with alot of high performance tuned cars in our little small town that Steven clarke used to look after.
Never the less the car runs the best its even run, the head is silent as we blueprinted all the shims anc buckets made sure we were with in spec of spec .
And we added some safety features for good measure .
And its a strong build .
Steven thanks for teaching me a good lesson .
If you want something done right DO IT YOURSELF .
shot and cheers take it easy and live strong .

Ps about that good friend of yours .....
He did come here he did see the car he did negiotate the price, he did want to buy it .
But sellers benefit, he took long, i retracted the sale simple, he still wanted to buy i raised the goal posts and eventually he agreed but decided against it .
So i still have the car .
Iets be honest money talks, and if he wanted to buy the car he should have come with cash and said here is your asking price thanks and cheers im taking my skyline !!
Simple.

P.s.2
Second engine failure was because of oil contamination, and yes it was my fault because i was learning and should have never been installing an engine in a car in the first place.
Its not my job, but i would have never been in that position had the second engine built by steve not failed .
I fix computers for a living not cars .... and not building engines either .
A rod through a block isnt a joke and it never ever happens, so why did it happen .
It was not like i was bombing around a track all day .
This car was put to street use, it was being used on roads where it cant be put under continous load.
i have pics of all the parts that Turbo and Nos lost yes thats right, turbo and nos were sent the original rod bolts and they apparently say the courier lost the rod and bolt, and i have original emails from Steve.
Any one care to see the photos and comment on he rod bolt and conrod failure, if need be i can post it up for all to see ?
PS i had some another final peice that i kept back and sent in for testing to ARP america, they tested it and said there was no reason for failure as the part test 100% correct for metal composition and structure .
So assembly is to blame simply put !!!!

As one user stated on another forum this is all typical of a rod bolt spit ..... which means it wasnt tightened properly .
If he had agreed to fix the motor at zero cost to me i wouldn't have had to start a debate about this, but because i had not joy, what goes around comes around ....
Any one else want to take their cars to him ....

Not sure I agree with you that the bolt was loose. If it had been there would be witness marks under the bolt head and corresponding shiny witness marks on the rod.
I reckon you may be a victim of a chinese made pirate bolt here. They do exist in the millions out there.
That the failure was caused by the head breaking off is a no brainer.
Ivan from Mr Turbo loves selling the chinese sh*t.

Hello, yes there are fakes, i did indeed send the fillet back to ARP in america and they concluded the bolt was original and materials passed correct structure and composition to make the bolt.....!! if need be i can post the original email from them .
I would say if there isnt any witness marks i would say the problem is more assembly. possibly yhr fillet was not seated well on the conrod.
Or the fillet radius was not recessed and the fillet was proud of the mounting point, and caused the fillet to break off once their was enough load on the engine .
Either way assembly is the most probable cause as the bolts were not fake, they came from Turbo and NOS indeed but were tested by arp.

Whatever way you look at this, it`s really pain full.
I have a motor from Steve and Nick that puts serious power to the ground and have not had an ounce of problems.
I presume you have now sorted out your car and all is good ?

Seems to be luck of the draw atm :facepalm:

Well its running now the car is never been better, and im a better man for it, yes luck of the draw and maybe some magic fairy dust lol.
Im not upset the engine is broken im more upset that Mr Clarke wasnt more compromising, he could have said listen we can get a new block and piston and rod and crank and we can get your motor happy again and u only pay 50% instead of telling me we can patch the block, or put forged internals in the car etc .
I wanted a stock motor and didnt want all the extra expenses. Its a pitty i know he is good engine builder and a good tuner and i know he is a reliable guy its just i had a bad experience and im upset about it, i dont treat my customers in this way and dont tell them to spend more then the should if the problem was my fault .
Im pointing out the issue at hand that if a problem arises with a builder he or she must be accountable to some extent, otherwise why spend 100 000 Rand on a build and then have an engine blow up and have to go and spend 200 000 Rand because the job wasnt done right the first time .
Ive learnt loads from this and like i say his advice is what i took as gold, if the stock rods are an issue say so and order new ones with new bolts installed, if the arps arent meant for a rb26dett then no use modding them say so, and say listen i wouldnt modify something like this lets get stock rods and bolts for x amount and use them .
Or aftermarket h beam rods with Stock pistons that have a better rod bolt structure .
Its the little details that upset me and now that i know more i wish he would have advised correctly and helped me make a better informed decision if this build was going to be based on a "luck of the draw" !!!!!!
No offense but you dont see rods being spat out of blocks very often and i mean literally even all the tuners and builders i spoke to suspected foul play.
To the likes of Abbey motorsport, and Rips in New Zealand and also various forum members on gtr.co.uk .
Simply put if you cant guarantee your work dont do the job, engines break but not the way mine has broken .
Please feel free to comment on my thoughts that is what this discussion it about ......
Am i wrong for feeling this way ?

ps how many people do you find out there that are willing to build their own engine based on reading and practising on small engines and then going to the rb26dett and assembling it because of the simply fact that they cant trust any one else because of luck of the draw.
And engine isnt rocket science, it requires patience and requires some thought and effort, and can be built to last if done right .
I have studied and built other engines before i started on my rb26dett, this has been years in the making and years of reading and practising, it has been a shit road, i fix computers and i dont want to learn another trade because of the lack of expertise in my area.
I even had people tell me send your can to Rob in New zealand and get him to fix the car, just the shipping alone is 15 000usd !!! simply put a waste of money in my opinion.
In short the quality of workmanship is not the same any more people are more worried about making the extra rands instead of worrying about making sure there are no come backs and that customers are happy, its a shame . And has taught me to build my own engines no matter what spec the build !!!!