Okay, it's been a minute, and a fair bit has happened since I've been able to update this.
The biggest one being I traded the RB25 setup. I really loved the idea of the engine, but there were just too many things that I wanted to change/had to change in order for it to be a reliable setup for the way I drive my car. Also, the cost of replacement should the worst happen would mean the car would be down for a long period of time or I'd have to switch setups anyway. Enter what I traded for:
The VH45DE. The V8 everyone loves to hate, haha. This is an early engine that's already had it's timing chain guides replaced with the steel backed ones. Also included was a Z32 transmission and one piece driveshaft, which was another big missing piece in the RB swap, as I would have destroyed that 71c in short order. This setup was running and driving in an S13 already, so I was hoping it was good to go. I got a good chunk of cash from him as well, so that was nice.
While chatting on the VH facebook group about the trade, a local offered me another complete VH45 with Z32 trans with milled bellhousing and adapter, all for $500. I couldn't resist, so now I have two of everything.
The black valve cover one has quite the varnish on the inside, but otherwise seems in good shape.
VH's are weird, and it took me ages to scrape all the red RTV off so I could seal it up with some fresh GT-R glue.
Swapping the valvecovers over from the other car because I don't really trust the black ones as they look like they might have been beadblasted and powdercoated, and I've heard the horror stories. I'll have them chemically stripped at some point so I can use them.
In the above you can see the atrocious swap 'headers' that were built to make the VH fit in the chassis. The guy showed me a clip of him doing donuts and it sounds like two out of sync straightpiped EJ25's, so I wasn't too pumped on that. I've started modifying the manifolds, mostly for sound, but they may flow a little better as well? I'll definitely be building some equal length manifolds with proper collectors at some point, but I really need to drive this thing before the snow flies.
This is the left side:
I'm going to modify the front two cylinders a bit as well, and then do the same thing to the right side manifold. Hopefully it doesn't sound like a bag of dicks.