CRSKmD

Despite my avoidance of GKtech arms I ultimately decided that I wanted to keep the caster on the high side. I will be keeping a very close watch on these after past experiences but they do look like a great product with solid construction. At the same time i got some more Acostal arms this time in the form of some Rear LCAs. These or other arms (or even press in spherical bushings) that allowed for higher misalignment were needed as I also wanted to move the front mount for the RLCA to reduce the Anti-Squat characteristics closer to that of an S14 subframe. A fresh alignment done with some slightly different settings Front: Camber: -3.3° each side Caster: 7.5° each side Toe: 2mm out each side. 4mm total out Rear: Camber: -1.5° each side Toe: 1.5mm in each side. 3mm total in Little extra front camber as i was scrubbing the outside edge of the tyres. Caster was pulled back a touch to save my bumper while still hopefully keeping that feel. The extra (almost double) toe in, in the rear should be appropriate to counteract the toe out that happens while the car squats considering the new rear geometry should allow ~45% more squat among the other benefits. Yet to take it out beyond the drive home from the alignment so we'll see how it goes

By the end of the last drift day I had well and truly bent the makeshift lock stop and even managed to crack the welds holding it to the LCA by getting the knuckle stop underneath and then getting it jammed as the suspension moved. so it was time for a a better solution in the form of some stronger bigger "targets" This bigger target solved the getting jammed under the lock stop issue and made the following days much more enjoyable!

For a while I'd be living with a mysterious oil leak from vaguely behind the timing covers. After a drive there would be a small puddle under the car. If I ran the valley cover oil would collect under in the coilpacks especially around #1 and #2. If I ran no valley cover there would be a fine mist over most of the engine bay. Everything pointed to bad front main or cam seals as it was impossible to initially see the source as the timing belt would pull everything around. I tried several times in a day replacing the seals thinking that the issue was one of the front main or cam seals. I went as far as using genuine nissan goo around the corners of the cam seals etc. But still the issue remained. This was how it was for longer than I care to admit but with a large sump capacity and limited use it wasn't a big issue. Finally I found the issue, The VCT gear thing itself was leaking and after speaking to a few people who are highly knowledgeable in RBs the consensus was "huh thats a new one." Anyway incase this is your issue too i post the following run through: remove the upper timing cover and replace the CAS using the small spacers from in the upper timing cover. Oil behind the VCT timing gear on the timing backing plate. But not behind the backing black on the head around the seals. Oil inside the VCT gear VCT oil gear pressed in seal. Apparently there is an o-ring behind the seal. it was able to rotate independent of the rest of it a test i did to point me in this direction was holding some paper against the backing plate and shining a bright light on the paper to watch the oil spray pattern More info in the video showing the tests and the rotating of a bad vs good gear. Also voice reveal lol right after I confirmed the issue was fixed i dropped one of the little CAS spacers down into guts of it. Thankfully I had an inspection camera and a magnet so did not need to remove the timing belt for what would have been the 20th time!

Oh good point completely forgot about that issue. I used to run around 8.5° On an old setup maybe 6 years ago with poly bushes and sure enough they died. Replaced them with spherical upper arms which eventually flogged out and then I went back to a poly arm around the same time I had the cracked alloy caster arm. Personally trying to avoid GK tech arms

Even with the caster as set the tyre grabbed the bumper. The bar was moved forwards as much as practical without cutting it up. the fitment and panel gap is far from ideal but at least im less likely to drive over it. A small diameter front tyre could do the trick but C H O N K. The added caster was truly a night and day difference on turn in, but sadly the caster along with the alignment has introduced very severe steering bind at full lock. a quick fix was to try and wind some lock out. Further investigation revealed that my Adjustable lock stops we made up in 2016 are effectively useless now as the knuckle stop actually sits below the lock stop due to me raising the car several inches since. wear marks suggest that at lock throughout the suspension travel the knuckle stop is actually moving up and getting stuck under the lock stop which is adding to the bind. Track side fix was to literally scour the dirt car park for a big washer and some nuts to enlarge the lock stop target. Which worked, for exactly one lap before bending it. The rest of the day was spent trying to drive around it with less angle or using power to lift the front a little and make it easier to unbind. Yes that is a wheel nut welded to the LCA with a collection of bolts and washers to clamp the washer... Enjoy some pictures from the latest day.

A shortcoming of my car was the turn in characteristics, having significant understeer on turn in and speaking to a few people I trust including Stewy we can to the conclusion that a lack of caster wasn't doing me any favours. The old arms were likely more suited to an S14/R33 not R32/S13 as at the max adjustment they only produced ~6.5' of caster. A pair of Acostal HC caster arms were purchased. way overkill clearance wise for me. Especially as i have no plans to remove the front swaybar. But the quality bearings along with steel construction made them the best choice. Long time readers may recall a crash caused by a snapping alloy arm... The adjustment allowed for more caster than my bumper allowed Took it in an got a fresh alignment with the caster dialed back to a reasonable level. I aimed at something suitable for drift but while still being streetable. I ended up with the below alignment. Front: Camber: -3° each side Caster: 7.8° each side Toe: 2mm out each side. 4mm total out Rear: Camber: -1.75° each side Toe: 0.8mm in each side. 1.6mm total in I am also trying out a set of the Kenda KR20A soft tyres in 255/40R17 all round for the street wheels courtesy of Sleeka Spares.

went out for a drive to test it out. Proper alignment to be done but felt tighter.

After a go over the car we noticed the tail shaft centre bearing was beyond flogged. a new replacement was sourced. For people searching in the future part number NP-30-6250 was a direct replacement for R32 RWD centre bearing from, hardy spicer. I was looking to go genuine but this was available in a matter of days not months. Jackup the car nice and high at the back leaving front on the ground in order to keep the gearbox oil inside and not in my armpit (ask me how i know). Placed on stands before getting under the car old bearing off (27mm socket, 14mm spanner, 17mm socket) mark the alignment of the shaft first so it goes back together balanced new one on Also put some new Rack Ends in Part number RE-4760 $28.10 each

haha while there are some crap places out there. There are also some real gem shops that have been around for years

It made me sad haha

Yeah for sure. A lot of speed and aggression was required to get it sliding and keep it there. Of course I could have changed the setup to suit drift but that is not the main focus of the car so for now I prefer to give it a solid go as is.

Of all the places I could have done the damage I was lucky. Further forwards and I'd have done some suspension and wheel damage, further back the the boot/beaver, tail light and rear bar. Took it to All Type Crash who did a stellar job pulling out the mess I made. First they drilled a few small holes to pull out the bulk of it. They then chased out as much as they could in metal Coat of primer Painted up with a decent match in colour. I just need to cut some new stickers and we're back in business

The next day I had a grip session at The Bend Motorsport park for JDM speed. Thankfully even with the big wack to the 1/4 my track wheels still fit without rubbing Maxed out 5th gear down the main straight with plenty of space before the braking zone. Different, longer gearing might be in the near future. notice the grill flexing up and the lip pulling down 😅

not super related but got myself a new workshop jack

after learning from the first day i changed absolutely nothing and came back for the next school skid pan day. I should note the tyres i'm using for this and the last day are the same ones i bought in 2013 and were sitting in the shed since I was last drifting. It took a few laps with some great pointers by the instructors before it clicked and suddenly i found a decent groove and managed to even link a few laps. great clip my mate got of me sliding back into line some on board footage including me sending a water barrier to the moon... Aftermath of the water barrier.

so for the first time in ~7 years I headed back out for a drift day. The last time I did any actual drifting I had an RB20DE+T making around 185kw. safe to say a 7 years of slowly setting the car (and my brain) up for circuit not to mention coming back with much more power than last time made it for an interesting experience. I still had tyres from 2013 when i last did drifting stored in the shed so slapped them on and headed up Starting out on the Wet skid pan I, along with the instructors who jumped in, found it challenging to even do a consistent donut around the cone. Eventually we decided this was due to a combination of the snappy power band an too much front end grip which lead to the car pivoting around the front axle rather than closer to the driver. Changing to the shittiest front tyres I had access to and moving off the wet pan was like night and day. Just look at that smile. After this day I signed straight back up for the next one where things happened...

Last update for today New look for All Japan Day 2021 side note: can i change the name of the tread considering its no longer +T or my daily?

I will cover the air tank install shortly. An added bonus of the air cups is that when they are up there is no more droop which means one pump of the jack and the wheels are off the ground! Tyre change over at the track After over 1 year since my last grip day I didn't expect to see any improvement from the suspension upgrades. That being said I managed to match my previous PB! For any one that knows T1 at Mallala, bit of a butt clench moment with my wheels either side of a pretty gnarly ripple strip. Hopefully next time I have more of a chance to play with the damper settings as this past track day I was constantly coming in dealing with melted/blown/split vacuum lines

Bump, droop and height Depending on the use case the ratio between bump/droop will vary. Track use the consensus seems to be 70% bump and 30% droop For street use, more droop to deal with potholes and uneven surfaces is ideal. As the aircups lift comes the droop I wanted to maximise the amount of droop travel without compromising the bump travel and track performance. Hence me settling on a 50/50 ratio to start with. As i had 80mm of stroke i wanted the static/resting height of the car to be half way through this travel giving me 40mm bump travel and 40mm droop or wheel extension. Which in turn gives me 40mm lift. With this plan in mind the coilovers were fitted to the car with the springs just retained (no preload) and the shock body lengths as adjusted earlier. The spring seats were then adjusted in order to have the static position half way through the stoke. Adding/reducing preload as needed. At this point the actual vehicle heights were not worried about. Once set the vehicle heights ended up at 335mm front and 325mm rear. With the aircups up the heights are 375mm front and 365mm rear. so 40mm lift front and rear. Jack access is a dream, to think part of the reason i originally got the subframe brace made up was to have a jack point that was higher than the diff because the car was too low to use it

I haven't forgotten about this but i haven't had time to get the pictures i need for the next parts. stay tuned

As I had gone to the effort of getting higher end custom coilovers. I wanted to make sure I was setting them up right with the car's main use case in mind. Going fast on track while still being a "street car". Now the following setup guide might be overkill in the information department but i hope it to be useful for anyone looking to do a similar install. That said, my opinions and theories for coilover setup may not align with your own. With that out of the way... The first step was to set the shock body length so that at full bump there wouldn't be any significant interference with the body. To do this I disassembled the coilover, removed the spring and bump stop, fitted the aircup and reassembled the coilover. Without the spring and bump stop fitted, the coilover was put into the car. The LCA was then jacked up so that all of the shocks stroke was used. Then the bottom mount was adjusted so that at full compression the wheel was still able to rotate freely. For the front I also checked clearance throughout the steering arc. Make a note of the total shock body length and do not make this any shorter. As any shorter the wheel would be able to make contact with the body before using all of the available travel. This was done once for the front and rear then the body length copied to the other side. Assuming my guards are flared/rolled/mounted the same… haha… the shock body length is correct to allow for full use of the shocks stroke. Now it was finally time to assemble the coilovers and aircups. The bump stop was cut down with guidance from Shockworks to compensate for the change of usable stroke length. Spring reinstalled. The normal rubber spring locator was unable to be relocated to inside the aircup as the dimensions did not fit. As i did not want metal on metal contact for noise and wear another set of the plastic/teflon washers used on the lower spring seat were placed between the aircup and the spring. Shockworks were able to supply me with another set quickly and at short notice. So shout out again to them. On my particular coilovers the normal spring seat is on the top hat. As the new spring seat is the aircup which has now moved down the coilover to be on the shaft the effective top hat position has been moved by 40mm. As a comparison my old ISC coilovers the spring seat was lower due to the tophat design. Pictured below are two coilovers, one with the air cup and one without. They have the exact same bottom mount position (and shockbody length) with the spring installed with zero preload. It is easy to see how much "max lowness" adjustment you lose (40mm in my case). So the compromise for installing the aircups is: 40mm “max low” lost 20mm stroke lost Now the springs configured were 20mm shorter so effectively that leaves us with: 20mm “max low” lost 20mm stroke lost

As promised install and setup post. This may come in parts The Shockworks coilovers are a very nice quality piece of kit, very beefy and a nice neutral colour Through chatting to them about my goals for the car they were able to offer a custom solution with valving as well as spring rates and lengths (more on that later). they also come with their own install gloves. Very nice touch The Stanceparts aircups kit too is very well made and for those not familiar with them. No, they are not bags. But rather an air piston that essentially replaces your top hat. They are designed to be run in the "down" position and only lifted up to pass obstacles, get on hoists/jacks, and when cruising past rbts... When down they are a solid alloy spacer, this means no squish and the coilovers handle as normal. Now I mentioned spacer, in the down position they are exactly 20mm thick. They sit on the shaft portion of the coilover which means they to take up 20mm of the total stroke. The Shockworks coilover I ordered have a stroke of 100mm, so with the Stanceparts aircup installed that is now 80mm stroke. As the aircup is now the new upper spring seat this means the total "max low" will be reduced by at least 20mm depending on how the coilovers are made. To partially negate this my shockworks coilovers were configured with 20mm shorter springs. The aircup set needed to be ordered to suit correct shaft diameter, in this case 15mm as that's how they seal and fit to the coilover. The maximum lift the aircups can provide is 50mm but this will depend on a number of factors including your setup, spring rate and droop. The reason for this is that the lift actually comes from the droop or wheel extension in your suspension. This is another reason why they are not designed to be driven in the up position long term. When in the up position you will have no droop or wheel extension. Next up the install and setup

May not suit your needs then. They are designed to be driven down. And only lift when you need to clear an obstacle or get on a jack/hoist. the way they work is the lift comes from your suspension droop. full install and setup post to come

I’m coming from circa 2013 ISC “drift” coilovers should be a good upgrade and hopefully I can notice the difference at the track day coming up. Even though it’s been more than a year since I last drove on track

Some tasty suspension upgrades in the form of custom valved Shockworks coilovers and a set of Stanceparts aircups