Duncan

umm that pic is not a 33 gtst as per your profile.....looks the a r30 skyline or something? there are lots of things back there that can clunk.

sorry I totally missed something in the first post. Do you have a 32 GTS4 with 4.4 diffs and rb20? If you do, your current sump bolts straight onto an rb26. I'm not sure where rb25 fits in? Unless you have an rb25 r32 gts4 (if so, sorry I didn't realise they exist!)

your rb20 sump bolts directly to an rb26. infact other than the engine and diffs a gts4 is pretty much mechanically the same as a gtr.

I'll reserve my terror level until I hear some facts.....so far it is a 1 person armed hold up yet half the city is in lockdown. Those guys win every time we overreact like this

So, that was more like a 12 year history lesson than a build thread, but I intend that the thread will change a bit from here. I’m not worried about saying what actually happens, both the wins and mistakes that comes with doing pretty much everything at home. The plan from here is to do a pretty big overhaul on the car, and the target (although not essential), is the NSW Production Car round at Bathurst in April. Upcoming jobs: Replace the PowerFC with a Haltec including dash and flex fuel sensor Strip the interior and properly prepare it, eg removing tar Remove unneeded wiring (I’ve only ever added, not removed) Replace all bushes and balljoints, they are a bit shabby after 10 years racing and 15 years on the road New fuel pumps, hoses and FPR Rebuild calipers and booster, replace ABS

that's not really my experience. I never had a failure or one come off but I was not happy with the wear on the flange where they seat on the wheels or the fact that they didn't always hold at the torque they were set to. I've been a lot happier since I changed back to steel

The good news is that change is dead easy. Just use a second terminal on the same stud (or the other one, they are connected by a metal bar) for the new wiring. Cut the old wiring as close to the terminal as possible and wrap well with tape

there is a difference in the angle of the LCA mounts between 32 vs 33/34 but they are still interchangeable. some of the subframes have different mounting distance on the car, there are offset subframe bushes to deal with this issue; but I don't know which ones have which. some models have hicas, some have none (standard control arm with bushes instead) 2wd have different spacing to 4wd from the floor to the subframe but again they are interchangeable some have wider track than others, eg w34 is narrower than r33 but overall they are surprisingly similar. lots of other rwd nissans from the same era too like GF50 cima.

I don't know if transmax is the correct gearbox fluid for an R34, but I do know that it does not run gearbox oil in the gearbox so it may be ok. The xfer case takes 1.8 litres

I'm not falling for that

I've never run spacers....if I was going to I'd grab these ones from Just Jap http://justjap.com/sri-20mm-bolt-on-wheel-spacers-m12-x-p1-25-5-x-114-3.html

yeah that's as funny as I can do mid-week

hahaha so at least you know what I still have to post up, just in case you have any other good stories....

oh +12 or +15 is the accepted "hectic offset" so I guess you need 20mm bolt on spacers. You will probably need to shorten the studs at the same time

ooo very interesting. do they fit in that offset without scrubbing on the shock or inner guards?

too much hooning around with a heavy car in 40 degree heat on too soft tyres I assumed. I checked the wheel alignment after, except for the bent left rear it was still OK so that wasn't the issue. There was obviously lots of camber wear but I don't see that was the underlying problem

oh I see. was deluxe, same issue with whatever I just changed to. But now I can't select "change theme" again to work out what I changed to

I'm in my own skin man. weird question.

lol best description of the issue I've ever heard.

uh-oh

Which brings me to the most recent event, Kel and I headed down to Targa High Country last month with Neil and Mark as an excellent support crew. Day 1: Kel is a very experienced navigator and dragged me into recce for the day 1 courses. There is no doubt when we got out there that it had been very helpful. We went along really well before lunch except for my rookie error in going full pace when the stages were easy to clear. Still, at the end of the day we were 8th in early modern, 1.02 behind the leaders. The car was awesome and poor old Neil and Mark had nothing to keep them awake all night (except the snoring) Day 2: The morning was excellent and the car was still going great. Come lunchtime we were 6th and getting into the rhythm. Stuff if I know how but Kel had read the squiggles she calls pace notes and not made a single mistake (and that continued for the weekend). Unfortunately on the stage after lunch the brakes departed..they worked properly about 1 in 3 times, but I would never know which would work and which would not leading to lots of pedal pumping well before any big stop which really slowed us down. We were still 6th at the end of the day but heading down the timesheets not up. Neil and Mark worked most of the night on the brakes, changing pads, bleeding brakes, bleeding brakes, bleeding brakes but it was not getting better. For some reason (that I still dont really understand), the ABS kept delivering air bubbles over and over. At about 1am we decided to change the master cylinder as a last resort (I brought a spare because I had not been happy with the pedal feel even before the event). The only issue was we had no flare nut spanner to get the lines off the old cylinder and nothing else was working. Facebook delivered the offer of a spanner down in Mansfield at 2am but we decided to start again at 6 and see if we could find one on the mountain. Luckily we did and the cylinder was changed and bled in record time (those guys are good!) and we were ready to go. Day 3: Which was all good, except that none of it had fixed the brake issue..so we spent the day going as quick as I was happy to without brakes, and bleeding the ABS after every stage. We were down to 8th on the stage after lunch with everything except the brakes going well (umm except for the little remodelling of the rear quarter against a bank on Big River)....however one of Kels (billion) rally mates asked how the front tyres were holding up.......and the answer was they were destroyed. Both fronts had delaminated and would certainly have failed if we had continued. So we changed one tyre for the spare we had on board and rolled through the next 2 stages at the rear of the field. Neil and Mark changed the other front for our final spare before the last stage and we enjoyed the last hoon up the hill, finishing 15th overall. Id decided to only take 4 new tyres and 2 very old spares to save $1k and that decision had bitten.

It took some time while we were finishing the house to get all that sorted, in the meantime the race car was in it’s usual resting place of a paddock up north. In about June this year (2 years later…..) I finally rescued the car, tidied it up and headed out to some more events. I was asked to be part of the SAU team for the Nulon Nationals rd1, which was the hill climb at Bulahdelah. Unfortunately I was not able to get the engine run in on time, and Neil made the very generous offer for me to drive Cheryl for the weekend. Which I did; she ran great and I can confirm borrowed cars do great burnouts  The next event was the Nulon Nationals day at Wakefield, this time the race car was ready to go and I set a PB at Wakefield, a 1.06.9 which I am very happy with considering the tyre size (235) and power (300kw) that the car makes. The car again ran well all day.

Which is where it all got a bit painful for a while. A workshop built a new engine and installed it for me, but within 30klm it failed. I was really impressed when, with no bullshit at all, the workshop organised for the work to be redone at their cost. Unfortunately the second engine also failed again (this time it made 70klm) and I decided to take it elsewhere. So I took it to a shop Id known for years, who had made all sorts of guarantees about how they could sort all the problems that all these other dodgy places had been causing me. $22k and 3 days racing later that engine failed too. The shop had removed the filter gauze in the custom oil pick up, overtightened and broken a cam cover bolt, and the oil pump had sucked the bolt head in. The shop, and their insurers lawyer team told me clearly that in their opinion a bolt in the oil pump would not cause an engine failure, and that the issue was undoubtedly in the design of the custom sump that I supplied and they bolted on to the engine. After spending all the money on the engine, and with building a house at the same time, I made a decision not to spend thousands more on legal costs to recover the money Instead, I took an engine from a half cut I imported with Pete, and chucked in unopened in the race car, took about 1 days effort. Took it to the SAU Sutton Rd day in 2012 and did the fastest runs of the day. Unfortunately while the unopened engine ran fine, it turned out the block was cracked where the water pump bolted on, so I decided to build another engine; that engine is still in the car today.

yeah man that my favourite track for sure....launching the car over the curbs at suttons, heading blind over the flip flop....ahhh.....kids these days don't know what they are missing anyway, back to the story......

I said flange, and then Roy said he greases his nuts. Then Neil got all serious again