GTSBoy

I must say, that while I absolutely stick by what I say about the appearance of R33s, you guys are so easy to bait over it.

It's interesting to note that the most famous car movie franchise in history has featured the Skyline as one of the "hero" cars on a few occasions. Both the R33 and R34 were used in the early movies when the cars were as much a part of the storyline as the characters. The R32 has been overlooked as a featured car. I wonder why... Because it was already old at the time. The US is devoid of the R32 culture that we have in Australia. That's the US's fault, not the R32. Car movie makers who don't really give a shit about anything except making a profit are not in it to promote the car culture. They just pick a vehicle that they think will appeal and run with it. The R33 was pretty much the most recent GTR at the time of F&F. R34s would have actually been too new to consider ruining in a movie at that point (~1999-2000 when they were producing it). Hell, if I were looking to make such a movie, I'd pick the R33 too. Doesn't change my opinion of what they look like though. Hell - if the R33 GTR is such a stunner in person.....why did one pull into the carpark at the shops at the same time I did and it took me until I walked past it to realise it was a GTR and not just another GTST? Simply because they actually do not have all that much presence unless they are in that purple colour.

This is a thread about why people hate the R33. Not why they should love it. Arguments both ways are perfectly valid. Although anyone claiming the R33's looks are superior is taking it too far. Can't be superior when there's so much wrong! Nevertheless, I don't hate it. I just hate the way it looks. The R33 preservation society is being beaten by the flatbrimmer-slide-em-sideways-into-trees squad anyway. So it shouldn't be too long before they're all gone anyway. Luckily the last few good R32s were saved by never being sold to the previous generation of those dickheads.

Yes, but you're not listening to what we're saying. It matters not one jot what the OEM fitted headlights were for a car that was not sold in Australia with ADR compliance. Bring that car into the country with those OEM HIDs and if they do not meet the ADR requirements, then they are simply not legal. To be compliant here they must have the levellers and washers (unless they meet the <2000 lumen rule, which I guess is to cover other types of driving lights rather than "headlights".) it doesn't matter if Nissan are prepared to sell headlamp assemblies through their Oz stealerships. What matters is what you then do with them. Fit them to a road-going car and the problem is yours, not Nissan's. It's actually pretty simple. There is no loophole for you, or any other person in the same boat. Are there non-HID assemblies available for these boats?

That's one of the main reasons why it looks like a fat cow. It's not just wide. It's too tall - both at the base of the windscreen and also in the rear quarters. It looks bulky and without any design tension. Just looks like it's been inflated. With lard. I think you get too carried away with how much better the the R33 GTR is over all the others. Nobody really gives a stuff if a stock 33 was 30 seconds (pick a number, I certainly don't care) faster around the 'ring than a 34 was. Absolutely anything to do with performance is subject to modification. Anybody who really cares about how hard you can drive a GTR is perfectly willing to modify it. What you cannot do is change the fact that the R32 has a sweet profile, the R34 has a sharper edged version of that sweet profile, and the R33 just has so many wrong design elements that it is totally unappealing to look at, in the opinion of a significant fraction of people who care. Including me. Now, some guys like fuc[ing fat women. That's fine, as long as I don't have to watch. I feel somewhat the same about R33s. When it comes to non-GTRs, the only that that R33s are good for is brake and engine donors for R32s and Silvias. When it comes to GTRs, I'd probably rather a deal where I get one nice R32 than 2 nice R33s (assuming I'm not allowed to then sell for profit/disposal). I'd certainly take 1 R34 over 2 R33s. Oh. And the tailights. They're wrong too.

And typical OEM lumen output is in the order of 2500-3000 lumens. You will not be able to work that loophole.

Kinda depends on how likely your mods are to get you defected. You live in Vic and you have to face the biggest pack of (unt$ in all of Australia, every time you take the car out on the road.

There is no such thing as an engineer's cert for a non-modified car. That car doesn't need it. I think you misunderstand what the cert is for. The cert is to say that "this mod and that mod and that mod, and only those mods, were made on this car and they are all kosher".

Yeah, the money for the engineer is in the right ballpark, then you have to budget for whatever you have to get done to make it good enough for the Mexican sphincter squad.

That's the point. It's a completely random crap-shoot. The life expectancy of ceramic turbines lies on a probability curve that it approximately Gaussian, although it probably biased like a Poisson distribution (having a maximum point beyond which no turbine will survive). But the shape of such distributions has turbine death all the way down to "never even actually run". Running at stock boost is well within the range of death possibility.

But just so unattractive to look at. Too tall in the rear half of the front guards. Too long in the side panel behind the door/in front of the rear wheel. Too Magna in the front, too Maxima in the rear. Too stupid with the rear guards coming up higher than the boot lid - made it look heavy and slab sided when it didn't have to be. Look at all the other R chassis GTRs (with the exception of the mid 70s where they also lost the plot a little bit) and see that every other Skyline GTR has followed the silhouette cast by the first Mustangs. IMHO, even the R31 coupe looks better than the R33. It looks light and tight, not fat and odd. I don't mind R33 lovers loving R33s. But there are real reasons why the rest of us prefer the other cars.

I'd do the turbines because while turning them up drastically increases the risk of death, many stock ceramics have grenaded, and on the 26 that can take the engine with it. If it were a 25 I'd just leave it as the risk of engine death is much lower. But on a zero km 26 in a car of that condition, the effort would be worth the insurance.

I dislike R33s and would give my left nut for that one. But then I'd have the usual problem. It's only a car, so it should be driven. But it is the closest thing I have seen to a museum piece and it should be preserved. What to do!?!

The R32 wiring diagrams are freely downloadable in the GTR workshop manual.

It would be about 3 minutes of a Project Binky episode to build a bracket and crank-linkage to mount the usual suspect so that it could drive the 26 lever.

The original ABS would expect life to be without TCS, so it should be fine.

It's not a workshop or a "tester". There are engineers listed on the RTA (insert name of bunch of arseholes in your state) website that are permitted to certify vehicle modifications. These are real automotive engineers, not mechanics, that know what has to be done/tested/proven to ensure that any proposed modification is safe and legal. You contact one of these guys and you start paying him as a professional for his consultation and ultimately his certification.

In a market where Toyota sell primarily taxis to taxi drivers/owners and 50+ year old Asians (so long as the car is silver)......does it really matter?

Yuh, NIstune the ECU and get rid of the TCS. No reason to have it when you have a functioning ankle.

This makes no sense.

There's really 2 options. The valves are leaking, or the rings are. On a built engine it is far more likely that the rings didn't get a good bed in than it is that the valves are leaky on all cylinders. Unless the guy who did the head needs a kick in the nuts.

That's a FloomJabbar (TM). Very rare. eBay will tell you what it's worth.

Workshop manual is downloadable. They're easy enough. Undo nut, pull off hub, extract bearing. Reverse the process. Sealed bearing, so not regreasable.

Hum. I just tried to message him too, but same result.

There are better options (than ID specifically) and have been for years. You should perhaps PM Scotty to find out what he can do for you. Basically, if you can get unmolested EV14 injectors in the size you need, that is best approach. But even the ones that have been decapped are pretty good.