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mine gets driven maybe once a month if that. Luckily all the dumbarses here are brought up on a healthy diet of "Performance Car" magazine and they usually don't know skylines existed before 1989, so I often manage to escape the dreaded traffic light grands prix... that is until they notice the badge The last DR30 which sold here went for $9000 after languishing on Trademe for a couple of months, it had a Reg Cook-built FJ20 and big turbo etc and the body had had a respray at some point. Sorta makes me wonder if I should have gone through with my last brain fart and let my DR go for the $18k which was offered to me. ...nah! oh, and since we're on a photo sharing buzz, here's what the old girl looks like these days. Albeit a bit higher now that it's been fitted with some new sports springs from Japan.

I think the projectors were a factory option. you can get regular (non-projector) slant nose headlights as well. Actually your post raises another good question: was the squared-off "feral" front an option, and who in their right mind would choose it over the slant nose front?

I think the DR30 is the sort of car you wouldn't just flick off willy nilly to the next person who turns up with the cash, which is why a lot of the prime examples remain in Japan or in the hands of other collectors round the globe, and the rough ones turn up from time to time in the classifieds. It might sound a bit paranoid but here in NZ, where DRs are like moonbeams and anyone can get a loan to finance whatever hi-po turbo Jap import they wish, any serious enthusiast really needs to screen potential buyers to see whether or not their vehicle will be cared for in its next life, or end up being butchered, slammed straight into the nearest pole or otherwise destroyed by someone who doesn't care much for history nor prestige, only the opportunity to impress their mates I've seen mates go through regretful sales in the past and it can get really painful seeing someone's ex-pride and joy rolling around with cut springs, half-arsed paintjobs, or fresh panel damage the next week...

there's definitely a market for anything classic, Japanese and turbo these days. But I'd say now is not the time to be importing with the aim of selling straightaway, speaking from experience I'd personally wait a few years before putting anything on the market. Problem is separating the people who can afford to buy said vehicles from those who are just out to kick the tyres and be test pilots for the sake of saying they "drove a mean car boe". I've had no trouble sourcing parts for my DR30s (except for the whole CAS rigmarole but let's assume that's a one off thing), HOWEVER anything unique has to come ex-Japan and it's rather expensive once shipping is added.

There's a surprising amount of backseat room in an R30 coupe as opposed to something like a R32. Even an R31 coupe has less space. Headroom is limited as you can imagine, but a couple of my mates are 6 foot and have been comfortable enough sitting in the back of my DR - however I wouldn't recommend squeezing more than two adult sized people in there. The RS-X turbo C came out in Feb 1984. Here's my DR30 coupe:

The fueling system on the sedan's already been checked and given a clean bill of health, it's also running an upgraded Bosch pump. You can actually smell the unburnt fuel coming out the exhaust while it's cranking over, so it's definitely OK. (Not good for the bores I'd imagine ) It's been suggested that I replace the PCU (ignition module), apparently they are notorious for failing, so I'll do that when I get home from work. Thanks for the tip anyway.

I would say DR30, but then again I'm biased... Having driven my mate's HR31 coupe it feels more modern and vastly more refined but at the end of the day it's missing the 'fierceness' and rough edge that makes the DR30 such a fun car to drive as others have already mentioned. From a collectability point of view however both cars are just as awesome as each other, and see my comment below on resale/investment value. Just out of interest how common are DR30s/HR31s (coupes, mainly) over in Oz? Here in NZ the DR30s are very thin on the ground (I can count the number of known examples on one hand) and HR31s more common but still quite rare, you'd be lucky to see one maybe every couple of months. As for resale, I find that there are many people who want to buy DR30s/HR31s but don't have the means to do so. I came close to parting with my DR coupe for NZ$18k, but the prospective buyer couldn't arrange finance so the deal fell through. Looking back I'm glad the sale didn't go ahead because the amount of interest for 'oldschool cars' in general has skyrocketed since then - to the point that owning something like a tidy DR30/HR31 or other older model Nissan sports car can almost be considered an investment. Plus I'm no longer interested in selling anyway, so would probably be kicking myself to this very moment had I done so! U13 Attesa turbo, eh? I see you're a fan of the subtle approach also Another friend of mine has owned several SR20DET powered U12/U13s - he used to have fun in his younger days wiping smiles off the faces of Evo/WRX/[insert make and model of quick turbocar here] drivers...

Just wondering if any of the FJ20 gurus can help me out as I've got a rather bizarre problem with my DR30 sedan. Ever since I got the car in late December it's had a nasty habit of literally dying on me at random while I'm out driving. So far the problem has manifested itself every 4 times out of 5, and as you can imagine it's starting to fray my nerves because I get too scared to drive the car and it ends up sitting in the garage gathering dust! The only warning I get of impending failure is that the engine starts to misfire and cut out, slowly at first but then more and more violently. Within a couple of minutes (5 at the most) the car will then stall. It turns over, but won't fire at all. Eventually after waiting for a while you can turn the key and the engine finally fires, but one of three things will happen: 1. it will rev up to around 1500rpm, but die again straightaway. 2. it will run, but idle like crap, as though it's not running on all four. If you give it a rev or try and hold the throttle partially open, it'll miss, pop and fart like hell. If you put any load on it, it soon dies but you can start the engine again and repeat the whole process. 3. it will run perfectly as though nothing ever happened. This has happened to me about ten or eleven times now, and each time I've just stopped and waited a while between attempts at turning over the engine. Each time there's a delay of anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour before the car will start normally (option 3 above) and I can continue on my merry way. As I said it doesn't happen all the time - I recently went on a trip out of town in the sedan, travelling 1000km over the course of five days and the car didn't miss a beat at all. On the worst days it occurs multiple times in one journey, and a 20 minute trip turns into a 4 hour nightmare of waiting. Today I had an appointment with a suspension workshop to have a knock in the front diagnosed, so I came home from work during my lunchbreak and picked the DR30 up. It started and drove perfectly fine for about 10 minutes until I got to about 5km from my final destination when it started exhibiting the warning symptoms above, on the friggin' motorway of all places. I promptly took the first exit I could (which luckily, happened to be the one I take to get to work) and coaxed the poor car into the work carpark with literally seconds to spare - the engine died just as I cruised into my parking space Went inside and did some work for about 15 minutes, then decided to go back to the car and see if it was fine again. Wouldn't fire, so I went back inside and tried again every 10 minutes after that. On the next two attempts the car fired, but died straightaway. The attempt after that, it ran for about a minute and idled like crap the entire time. Finally on the last attempt it fired and died, so at that point I just left it, cancelled my appointment with the workshop and worked for the rest of the afternoon. Three hours later hometime rolls around. to my surprise the car fired up as though nothing was wrong, and I got home without any trouble at all. Was it all just a bad dream? Anyway, ever since the problem started manifesting I've tried swapping bits and pieces over from my DR30 coupe (which runs perfectly fine) to see if I could isolate and diagnose the fault, as well as testing various components. The sedan is now running the coupe ECU and fuel pump controller, the AFM has been tested and seemed to exhibit no issues, and I have yet to test/swap the TPS and O2 sensor (at the suggestion of StageFumer11). Fueling system has also been inspected and given a clean bill of health. I'm now beginning to suspect the problem could be related to either the coil, leads and/or distributor cap, as today on each attempt at getting the car started I did a few tests to see if any spark was being generated. With the car turning over but not firing, there is no spark at the spark plug end of the lead, but an erratic spark at the coil. It then became progressively difficult to come to any conclusion during each of the three stages mentioned above but by the time the car started running like a bag of poo (stage 2 above) the spark from both ends was still erratic and not in time with the firing cycle at all. So after all that, my question is: could there be a component within the coil or distributor that fails after a period of time, such as a transistor that starts overheating and takes an unspecified amount of time to return to 'normal', or should I be focusing on something simpler (e.g. spark plugs) or more complicated? I'm prepared to swap the coil from my coupe over, and the leads as well, but the distributor looks like it's going to be a downright royal pain in the arse to change. And of course, the parts will all need to go back onto the coupe in the long run once I've finished restoring the interior and other various things. Apologies for the long spiel but I guess the more background info I give, the better. If any more information is required, I'll do my best to provide it. Thanks in advance Ed

Iron Mask (Tekamen) was the nickname the Japs gave to the facelifted DR30 front end, it has nothing to do with Hakosuka at all (which means "box skyline").this is by far the best explanation of the phenomenon I've found, from an old issue of J's Tipo magazine on Kev's DR30 site (which has since disappeared): also a bit of DR30 history, probably already covered, and definitely not relevant...Oct 1981: First DR30s released, 2000RS with FJ20E engine. Standard interior is stripped out with no mod-cons Feb 1983: 2000RS Turbo with FJ20ET released. 2000RS N/A continues as per normal. Spartan interiors still standard equipment Aug 1983: Facelift of R30 range. 2000RS Turbo becomes RS-X Turbo, 2000RS becomes (simply) RS. Interiors are now full luxury spec as standard Feb 1984: FJ20ET intercooled version released. RS-X Turbo becomes RS-X Turbo C as a result

o_O I wonder what's gone wrong then... perhaps I'll pull the rims off and measure the offsets again, but I'm positive the calculation ended up being +24. Hope there's nothing funky going on with my rear suspension setup

GT-Ps are nice! I was looking at buying a set for my coupe back in the day, but they aren't cheap. My other choice was the Volk GT-U (mesh type) but they aren't available in 4x114.3. All this trash talk about Watanabes is making me a bit iffy about buying a set of F8s from Japan, but I guess they're 100x more popular in Oz than here in NZ The last time I saw a set of 'em on any car would have been a good 18 months ago, and they were on some random 1980s Civic (go figure)... Just out of interest what offset and width are you folks running on your R30s? The whole reason I'm getting the Watanabes shipped over is because the Work Ewing rims on my sedan seem to have the completely wrong values on the rear (15x8.0+24), and as a result they stick out from the guards by at least 20mm. Also, finding decent tyres to fit 15x8 rims proved to be the ultimate headache - I ended up stretching some 215s on, which was borderline when it came to warrant of fitness time. Typical that I couldn't find any SSR reverse mesh rims when I was looking - now that the F8s are on their way, a whole slew of 15" SSRs have suddenly appeared on Yahoo Auctions Japan at bargain prices

My mate's HR31 coupe with a difference: (click thumbnails for full-size photos)

Yeah, to fit R30.

What about Z31 rear hubs? Also a friend of mine did a bit of research recently and found that Y31 Cedric rears may fit as well, he just needs to confirm that the rear suspension is identical to the Z31. Y30 Cedric may also be an option, but they're non-IRS. Not sure about availability in Australia as the Cedrics were Jap market only. A few of them found their way to NZ and I do know of a Y31 sitting in a wrecker's yard with the rear end still intact...

I had the same problem and ended up using a C31 Laurel rear switch for a while that worked fine, I'm guessing anything of that era would be more or less interchangeable. They're not the same cosmetic design, but the wiring is identical. Those R30 rear switches are a downright pain, the internals always fall apart and then you're stuck with the whole assembly in several pieces. Must be something to do with the way they're vertically mounted on the doorcards, people push on them too hard and over the years they just get more and more worn out until they finally break. In fact I'd probably say that the C31 switches (which were designed for horizontal mounting) are far more robust than the R30 ones.

Yeah, relocating the overflow bottle and running the piping through the space there seems to be the most logical method of choice. Here's how it's been done on my DR30 sedan - it's an off-the-shelf 1980s GReddy setup, long since out of production but the cooler's a nice healthy size. Only downside is the central radiator support panel has been removed to fit it all, which makes the front valance less stable. And here's what it looks like with the bonnet shut. Very stealth - you wouldn't even notice it was there unless you looked closely

Hey folks, new member from across the ditch saying hi... Year: 1983.08 Model: KDR30 RS-X turbo Engine: FJ20ET (non-intercooled) Body type: Coupe Colour: Red/Black and Year: 1983.10 Model: DR30 RS-X turbo Engine: FJ20ET (non-intercooled) Body type: Sedan Colour: Silver/Black