Tuning Feature: Nissan RD28 Modified

"Comprehensive guide to performance tuning the Nissan RD28 engine!"

We often are seeing threads about the best RD28 upgrades. So let us look into Nissan RD28 parts and outline the best upgrades on this great engine and point out some problems along the way.

The Nissan RD28 are popular engines and with a few sensible tuning modifications like ECU maps, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will enhance your driving fun.

Let us review RD28 tuning and summarise the optimum modifications for your car.

The best RD28 parts on an engine are obviously the ones that give the best value for money.

We won't be swayed by popular RD28 parts, they need to be cost effective.

Altering your RD28 camshaft could make a dramatic difference to your engines power band. Choosing a higher performance camshaft profile raises the power band especially at the top end.

NB: Fast road camshafts tend to increase the power through the rev band, you could sacrifice a little bottom end power but the top end will be higher.

Motorsport and race camshafts, increase the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

For a car used daily one, ideally, should ideally to match your torque band to your preferences.

I'd be surprised if you have found a RD28 Motorsport and race camshaft is a pleasure to live with when on the daily commute.

Each engine responds better to more or less aggressive cam durations check your engine on a rolling road.

The ECU mapping and injectors and fuel pump also have an effect on the torque gains you'll achieve.

Extending exhaust or intake durations can alter the torque 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.

RD28 Tuning Stages

Stage 1 RD28 modifications: Fast road camshaft, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Sports exhaust manifold, Intake headers, Panel air filters.

Stage 2 RD28 modifications: high flow fuel injectors, Ported and polished head, induction kit, fuel pump upgrades, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, Fast road cam.

Stage 3 RD28 modifications: Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Engine balancing & blueprinting, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Competition cam, Twin charging conversions.

ECU flashing should help to release the full potential of all the parts you've done to your RD28.

It will usually give around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but the outcome usually vary depending on the parts you've fitted and the condition of your engine.

It is the whole point to any engine performance tuning project to feed air into the RD28 engine

Intake headers carry the air during the suck phase from the filter and allow it to be fed into the engine cylinders.

Shape and rate of flow of the Intake headers can make a noticeable difference to to fuel atomisation on the RD28.

Most air intake manifolds are in desperate need of a performance upgrade, although a few car makers provide reasonably good air intake manifolds.

Big valve conversions on the RD28, doing a bit of RD28 port enlargement and head flowing will also improve bhp, and significantly will allow you to get raising the bhp increase on other parts.

Turbo upgrades for the RD28

NASP engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your RD28

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 an engine has a turbo already fitted mods are going to make more power and most turbo charged engines are built with stronger components.

However every engines have limits

Research these restrictions and upgrade to better pistons and crank to utilize the power.

It's not unheard of people spending a lots of money on turbo charger upgrades on the RD28 only to experience the motor throw a rod just after it's used in anger.

Large upgraded turbo units commonly suffer low end lag, and low capacity turbo units spool up quickly but don't have the peak end bhp gains.

Thanks to progress the selection of turbo chargers is always increasing and we commonly find variable vane turbo chargers, allowing the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end power.

Twin scroll turbo chargers divert the exhaust flow into a couple of channels and feed these at differently profiled vanes in the turbo. They also help the scavenging effect of the engine.

It is not unusual that there's a limitation in the air flow sensor MAF/MAP on the RD28 when loads more air is being drawn into the engine.

Going up you'll find 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor was restricting torque at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large performance gains, although more difficult to install. We have this feature on twinchargers if you want to read more.

Uprating RD28 fuel injectors

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so should look at the fuelling when you start extending past 20% of a bhp and torque increase.It is important to over specify your injector capacity.

As a rule of thumb add 20% to the flow rate when specifying an injector, helps cope with injector deterioration and affords a bit of spare capacity should the engine need more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

Best RD28 performance exhausts

Only look to upgrade your exhaust if the existing exhaust is actually causing a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll find the exhaust flow rate is still fine even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Note that with the largest exhaust you can get you'll slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Common exhaust restrictions are traced to the catalyst installed, so adding a faster flowing race alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Problems and issues to look out for on the RD28

The RD28 engines, if regularly serviced and maintained, are generally very reliable and have few issues. {But if neglected they can cost a small fortune|When neglected they get very expensive to run|They can however be quite expensive if neglected| }

Regular oil changes are vital on the RD28, particularly when the engine has been modified and is putting down more power than the manufacturer intended.

For more information on Tuning your RD28 engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our RD28 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

We need your help to complete and improve this page, so do give us your feedback in the comments box below.

We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which upgrades were the most effective for them, it helps us improve our recommendations and articles to reflect current trends in modifications and ensures that our RD28 guides and tips are kept up to date.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Nissan. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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