Run-It-Hard

Spotted a white RS4S around 4pm on cumberland highway, plates "flwles" or something. Then spotted a wine red M35 on cumberland around 6.

Nah, just cash

Cheers for that Chris! Don't worry I've been eyeing out your thread and others constantly

Fast foward an hour or so and there it is, the Nissan Stagea we travelled all this way for. It looked awesome just sitting there, so clean! much better then the photos posted on carsales. We spent a good amount of time checking everything, and found a few minor problems (as expected). I told myself as long as everything is in decent condition, and there is no rust in the chassis I'd take it. Anyway, after we scoped the car out, Yuan, Jo, Julie and I had some lunch and discussed about the Stagea. After we ate, we went back to the Stagea. I was hoping that I could haggle the price down a little, but the owner was playing hardball. I guess he knew he had the upper hand considering the effort we've made to see this car. So about 20 minutes of negotiations later, the car was mine! So we were on our way! but before heading back to Melbourne, we had plans to go to Geelong. We travelled via the Princess highway, and after doing some stupid things this happened.

No idea why the this thread has been moved, it is a build thread The drive to Camperdown was lonley, we'd be lucky to see a car every 10 minutes. On the way we saw some beautiful things though, like massive fields of sunflowers ... it was like they didn't end! The further we went on, the shittier the roads got ... we were really heading into whoop whoop now. On our way, we went past a few lakes. It's pretty cool how you can see the deep spots in the middle. Ok ok, that's enough scenic touring for now.

The hunt begins Today, we were off to pick up a GT-R gearbox for the upcoming manual conversion. The next big hurdle was the clutch. I originally wanted an ORC twin plate due to having good experiences with one in the MX-5, but whilst speaking to the owner of the GT-R box plans changed. Ben had quite a bit of parts lying around and one of these parts just happened to be a HKS twin plate clutch with quite a bit of meat left on it. I was contemplating it well before he told what he was after for it. let’s just say that the price I payed for it, I’d be hard pressed to find a used OEM clutch. So with the main parts out of the way, it’s time to gather all the little bits and pieces and get this show on the road!

http://vimeo.com/23359592

Some better photos

I've always had a fascination with the Nissan Stagea, it's quite an odd car that many people either don't know about, or completely under-estimate. Until recent times, I never actually had a good long look/drive of them. My first drive of a Stagea was a few weeks ago, and from that point on I knew it would be my next car. I was never happy with the Kouki (Series 2) front end, and I was torn on whether to put up with it, or to buy an S1 and convert it to manual (the Zenki/S1 models never came in manual). I was leaning towards the S2 for a while, until I found something that caught my eye. It was a Zenki DAYZ edition, with twin sunroofs and all the factory extras, it also had extremely low km's. Problem was, that that it was in Camperdown, which is over 2 hours west of Melbourne. With a bit of planning, Jo (J_HUI), Yuan (RR-04-RR), Julie (MY-514) and myself were on our way to Victoria. 5am Saturday March 5th was go time!, Yuan and Jo made it to our house and we caught a shuttle to the airport. After arriving and checking, we had time left to spare. So we grabbed some breakfast ... my foot long was awesome! Here's Julie holding the tickets for our flight, Julie had never been on a plane before, so I was a little worried if she'd chuck a Marge Simpson and freak! ... thankfully, she enjoyed every bit of it. We landed in Melbourne at 8:20am, first thing we noticed when we walked outside were the yellow taxi's!, I don't think we saw a white one during our stay, wierd. Anyway, we headed to Budget to get our car hire sorted. We were orignally booked for a Hyundai Getz, but we recieved a free upgrade to a Toyota Corolla, as no Getz' were avaliable. After that was all sorted, we were off to Camperdown to check out this Stagea we traveled 1000km's for. All I had running in my head at the time is "God I hope this is the one". To be continued.

haha yeah I'd like to get that sorted pretty soon aye, I've found a box local to me for dirt cheap. So the hunt begins for a twin plate clutch (preferably ORC, had it in the 5 and it was brilliant!) Will be hoping to have it manual by September ... yeah lets set that as my goal! haha. Apparently the front end will sit higher with the manual in it too? That could be a bit of a problem I think, gotta figure out how to get these BC's lower ... might need to modify the bottom mounting section.

Selling my RPM R215 Suede steering wheel out of the MX-5. Bought it back in 09' for $350 new willing to let it go for $200 pickup/$220 shipped located in Liverpool region Adam.

That's fair enough Chris, you can't please everyone when building a car. Oh yeah, PM sent!

blog link here. After weeks of searching, I’ve finally found myself a new wheel for the Stagea that didn’t break the budget! It looks to be a Nardi deep cone replica, and the build quality of the wheel is on par with many of my old ones, which cost 3-4 times the price I payed for this one. Where’d I get it from? Ebay bro! I had change left over from $50 too.

Cheers dude, I had a few plates in mind before even buying my boat, but this suited the car the most haha. That's a good idea! would cover up those bottom brackets too, hmm.

Oh you PS3 haters are just Jelly that you have to pay for online services If this happened to you, you guys would be loosing your shit! I sold my 360 for a PS3, only thing I miss is Forza.

I've been going to those meets for years! That MX5 was pretty knarly, if I was still running the RG blog I would of asked the dude to feature it. Next month I'll bring out the Stag.

The one that had my wheels on My missus' car.

Still here, collecting dust

bump

Found water last night in some interesting spots. Front drivers side floor, under the seat where the vent comes out, and under part of the seat rail there was quite a damp puddle. Still need to look into this leak though.

JDMST EOMM? I was in the S14, if I knew there'd be Stagea owners about I would of brang mine!

That would be me! Has potential, needs more manual. I believe I spotted your M35 too Wagon boy

These arrived today

I was thinking that, but she doesn't drive it much so I'll probably stick with them for the time being. just looked through the melbourne road trip pics, f**k it was fun! just realised I've only had the car for 2 months, from this: To this, look at the height difference! :lol: My new numberplates are ready for pickup too

Yeah it ain't bad still has a shitload of plans with it, she is a lot slower to getting around to doing things then I am though. The wheels look dope on her car!