sopwey

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I was finally able to get some additional basic work done on the car this weekend. 1. Installed D.SPEED clear corner indicators. I'm thinking about switching to smoked. Any opinions? 2. Oil and filter changed. Switched to Redline 15w50 and a Nismo Veruspeed oil filter. Engine is making healthier sounds and running a bit better. The filter, as is its reputation, was a major pain to remove and replace. Filter relocation kit added to the list. 3. General engine bay cleanup, degreasing. There is a lot of work to do here still. 4. Installed Nismo horns I found on eBay.

Easy boys, may be a yank but not a moron. Acetone to get all the writing off of the glass. they used some sort of paint on the windshield and rear glass for shipping. Did not get it on the actual body paint.

A couple of washes later the car is fully registered now. Car has been lowered substantially (if you can tell). It could still use further lowering in front, I think. Ohlins DFV coilovers and TBD (but really stiff) springs for suspension. Front will go all the way down now. Rear may go down a little more. Trying to avoid rubbing on these bumpy Texas roads. New headunit installed (playing late '80's US R&B, if course) and my two older kids (14 and 12) helped me show her off at the local "coffee and cars" meet-up this morning. With only five or six R32 Skylines in the Houston area (third largest US city), they are a very rare sight and obviously this yellow is incredibly unique. Had a lot of lookers and picture-takers. More substantial mechanical work coming this week. fluids and filters.

New Nismo bits arrived from Yahoo Auctions Japan. Installed new retro Nismo logo shift knob + CF mirror cover. S-tune meters + Nismo horn to be installed later. Also received (but not pictured), intercooler piping for the Nismo IC received a few weeks ago. It needs a good refresh and won't be installed for a while. Also in the background is my red Nismo kill switch lighter, installed last week. I'm not going full Nismo on this, but pretty close. Also installed a new panel filter & degreased the airbox, which was full of 150,000 KM worth of gunk. It was pretty nasty. Response is definitely different now.

Had the Nismo Omori rims (18x9J) installed today with Michelin Pilot Super Sports (255/40/18). As you can see in the wheel pic, could stand some serious lowering, especially in front. It was put high for its trip on the boat. Will try to get to that tomorrow. Also gave her a wash and dry + was able to get off all of the paint / shoe polish used to mark the window during export. Never seen a car this dirty. I've also never used that much acetone in one sitting. And LOTS of "elbow grease".

k_d you're absolutely right it was in the console. Pulled the trigger too soon.

It's finally here! I picked the car up at the port in Freeport, TX a few days ago, and drove it 2 hours home. It's even better than I had hoped. Paint and interior are in great shape (a couple of minor chips). Seems very mechanically sound and pulls hard on boost. A few other goodies which we didn't know about include HIDs and a new battery. It feels like a really great base to build from. No issues so far. I'm on travel now and will do the compression test and change the fluids when I get back, as well as get it registered. I'll also get the new rims (Omori Factory Spec LMGT4s 18x9J) on and wrapped in the Michelin Pilot Super Sports (255/40/18) that should be there when I arrive back home. It needs a good detailing too. I'll take more pics inside and out when I return home and do the next update.

Hey Phil - where are you at in the US?

PS. Yes the factory is in Yokohama now.

If you're talking R35 they are well north of $100K here depending on the model. On R32, if it's a 25 year old car we can import and the duties are pretty low. My taxes were about 2-3% of the value of the car. The tradeoff is you can't bring in anything not originally sold in the US until 25 years have passed.

My car would easily be $21-22K delivered through an importer, maybe more. I was able to get that cost down to $18K delivered by going direct to the auction. I recently saw an importer advertising one for nearly $30K. It had mods, but that's how crazy the prices have gotten here in the states. I'm supposed to be going through Asia in a few weeks, and hoping for an opportunity to stop through Tokyo to visit the factory. I'll try to leave my wallet at home.

Thanks Peter. I bought it through an agent at auction in Tokyo. Looked for quite a while, as so many are junk now, even on paper. The importers in the US are charging outrageous fees, so I made the bet on an auction. My original thought was to upgrade to -5's and enjoy it for a while maxing out the stock internals (I know the Nismo IC is overkill for that, but I wanted to have the option to go higher boost later and these ICs are getting more rare for the R32). I wanted to build my version of an Omori factory demo car. Sort of an ultimate streetable R32 w/ twin setup. Now I'm also considering going to single turbo and building an engine with a new N1 block. The new turbos seem to do well on the bottom end. We'll see. Haven't bought much so far that won't work for both scenarios. Maybe something to be said for building the stage 1 version first then taking my time building the race engine. First things first, need to finally inventory what's been done to it so I can make a full plan. Cheers!

Too funny. Got any pics/specs?