Stephen_rx7

August 22, 2016

good job fixing one instead of cutting it up man

in for updates, keep em coming

August 21, 2016

On 8/14/2016 at 8:18 AM, k_d said:

I admire the dedication in retaping the full loom, its a sticky job!!!

Love the wheel choices too, pity most of that style of wheel now fetch stupidly large amounts of money, they do look awesome!!

Thanks man, yeh haha its not a great job but the looks is worth it afterwards, yeh the wheels are awesome and fetch big bucks these days, i only bought them a couple months ago so unfortunately didn't get them for cheap haha

On 8/14/2016 at 5:54 PM, breaker1845 said:

Nice thread. I definitely am enjoying the progress of your resto and the attention to detail you put into your work. I think a new box of tissues is needed now though.

Thanks man, if you guys keep commenting ill keep posting

i love the small details of a build so try to focus on them alot myself

So Abit more of an update

Finally got my box of parts back from being plated, took about 2 months

Parts turned out pretty good this time

Shouldn't need to use these but was more of a test to see how they'd come out

Plated the reinforced brake pedal so it doesn't rust under the dash, new plastic spring retainers

Reassembled pedal

Managed to get the pipes back on, the top ones look much better this time round, I was Abit fussy with these as they are quite visible

I know most people think I'm being overly anal about it but I think the outcome is worth the outlay in the end

So now I can finally finish off the piping setup

So Abit of an update on the Ssrs

Wheels have been stripped
Centres have been sand blasted, the factory coating apparently is like very thick powdercoat so hasn't been easy to remove

Lips polished up

Centre bore machined out for later style centre caps

So they are just waiting painting of centres then putting back together

Some more new parts ordered for the old girl

The original corners were pretty good, but I sold those off and bought new old stock corner indicators, cost an arm and a leg now days

Also brand new braided brake lines, I didn't like the fact that most aftermarket lines didn't use the factory mounting points

So I found something like the nismo ones but that has the adr approved double crimp

And last but not least I bought a exhaust system that's seen minimum use, not sure if I'll use it yet or not, the hks front pipe I have no need for but I have a stock cat so the sard cat will replace that and the rear section of exhaust is a kakimoto, I'm tossing up the idea of selling it and making a custom exhaust I'm not too sure yet

Cheers

August 13, 2016

So abit of an update

I spent abit of time starting to re-tape and refit the body loom back into the engine bay

I didn't take any pics during because it took abit of concentration and was abit of a sticky mess

Some new retainer clamps and other bits and pieces

It still requires abit more work around the fuse box but I'll finish that off later

So i posted earlier i bought some nismo lmgt1, the specs on those are 18x9 +24 and 18x9.5 +14, the plan was to put wider lips on the fronts and make them square.

Sadly the 1.5" lips required aren't sold so back to the drawing board on those

Id already come to terms with having to buy 18x9.5s as the 18x10s just go for way too much, id bidded on a couple sets and they had gone for 3500-4500 for poor condition wheels

So i magaged to track down through a guy intetested in my lmgt1s for his 180sx a set of the rare 18x10s

And here they are

Unfortunately they are completly in white which will look abit funny on a white gtr

So heres what's planned

So I've dropped the ssr indy 500rs off to be rebuilt

Centre's are going gunmetal grey, bored out for new o-ring centre caps, new 90 degree valves and polished lips

Once they come back the nismos will go away and lips polished and I'll leave it at that, they were only refurbished a year ago so they shouldn't need any work to the face

Cheers

August 12, 2016

13 hours ago, jmknights93 said:

Ah sweet. Wouldn't mind getting a pair of the headlight rubbers as spare. Luckily mine are still in good nick.

I ran a group buy on them across the gtr sales pages on facebook

there wasn't a massive amount of interest tho, I could run another if we got enough numbers to meet the minimum

the factory ones deffinitely have an expiry date

cheers

August 11, 2016

Some pretty cool parts for the gtr coming up

Middle top is a genuine Nissan part I managed to buy still in the packet, discontinued awhile ago

I managed to have these technically drawn and then laser cut out of reinforced insertion rubber
The finished product looks identical to Oem, but won't tear like the original

Brand new retaining clips, pretty proud of the outcome, it's the finer details that make a car IMO haha

From the front

Some people ask what is the purpose of these, it's meant to stop water/dust/road grime coming through behind the headlight messing up your engine bay

These are the crappy originals, not of much use

If any r32 gts/gtr guys are wanting a set pm me, running a group buy on some fb pages at cost price to help the community attain some parts that are no longer available

Also everyone knows I love my old school nismo gear, another addition to the stockpile lol

And the icing on the cake, nismo lmgt1 wheels, pansaports are for sale if anyone wants some ballin 90s forged wheels, I think between the ssr indy 500rs and the lmgt1 I have enough choices haha

Enjoy

August 11, 2016

7 hours ago, JH32 said:

Looks so clean! Great work!

Thanks man

shes deffinitely come a long way since I got it

August 11, 2016

Nice car man

great colour and looks to be in great condition, almost a shame to modify one that clean and standard

how do you go sourcing a rb30 block in the U.S.?

Grenades as look great on it

August 11, 2016

Alrighty update time

Test fitted up the strut brace, looks pretty good

Started putting painted boosters and masters back in the bay

More pieces to the puzzle

Drivers side n1 brake line in

Wiring harness needs some love

Other side of the bay, not much goes on there lol

Bov setup bolted up

My gtr key collection, too pretty to cut for the car

Every time I buy a new car I change out the wheel studs, have a couple snap on you from previous owners who don't know how to correctly tighten a wheel nut

New studs

Studs out, I quite dislike the red brakes too

Cleaned up hub with new studs

Hoping to find some brembos to fit shortly so if anyone knows any forsale let me know, otherwise I'll be cleaning up the Nissan factory brakes for the time being

Cheers

August 11, 2016

On 9 August 2016 at 0:30 PM, jmknights93 said:

Always looking forward to updates on this thread. Well done

Thanks man, as long as people keep commenting I'll keep posting, got over the last forum I was on because it went from being a thread to a blog with no comments

15 hours ago, k_d said:

So much time spent, but so worthwhile!!!

Looks awesome!!!

Thanks man

1 hour ago, niZmO_Man said:

I have a set of those weird tapered wheel nuts, accidentally bought them (internal drive).

Yeh they are weird, they are a shanked tapered internal drive nut haha

pretty hard to find, cost about $210, damn early style 90s wheels

August 9, 2016

Alright what everyone's waiting for some progress on the car finally, it's now back home

To give you a bit of a refresher of how it looked before here's some pictures

This is how it left, sorry state from the previous owner, that's after some effort by me with wax and gerase remover

So 10am this morning I checked my phone and had a message from my painter, it said your gtr is ready to go, I wasn't confident it actually was 100% finished so I got my stuff in order and headed down for a look

Here's what I saw

Surprisingly enough it's painted and looking amazing

So I organised a tow truck to get it home, wasn't able to get it home till late afternoon which left bugger all time to actually work on it which is a it sad

He hasn't painted my clutch and brake boosters so still waiting on those to come back next week then I can start fitting brake and clutch plaster cylinders and hooking the lines up properly, I've started fitting the new line clamps though and some of the hard lines

New n1 brake line clamps on the firewall, only have provision for the one brake line and the carbon canister line

Brand new n1 front lhs brake pipe fitted up

All in all she's looking good, progress will be reasonably slow from here, need to be careful not to scratch the bay and I need to order a lot of new parts as I go to replace worn/crusty old parts which is a it time consuming and overwhelming if you don't do it as you go

And the new genuine gtr wing I finally got a chance to bolt on

August 7, 2016

Sooooo, went and had a look at the car, no change since 2 weeks ago, frustration.

I dropped the bits off for electroplating that I blasted last week, 10 working days on that so the engine can't really go in the car till thats sorted anyway but still frustrating I don't have the car back

So I bought some splitfire coil packs, seems to be the done thing, I could have bought new Oem coils which would have done the same thing but rb owners seem to go crazy over these things

Old vs new

Had a bit of a giggle over this, one of the previous owners must have been illiterate haha

Stripped the, apart and noticed the bolts were all different lengths lol, blasted the mounting plates so they look new

All new stainless bolts and washers mounted up

I always thought rb owners were lazy sons of bitches that they only put half the bolts in the coils, only 2 of the 4 holes are threaded haha

I thought the coil loom was abit tired but it appears to be still good, hasn't gone brittle and shitty yet

Cheers

August 7, 2016

Thanks man

Another parts purchase

Panasport G7C5C

Pretty stoked

August 6, 2016

Ok a bit of a small update if people are still following

Decided since the fuel rail was finished I may aswell fit the new injectors and the refinished rail

All fitted up with the xspurt 1000cc injectors, looks pretty decent

Tidied up and finished off all the hoses at the back of the motor

So I wasn't happy with some of the condition if some of the parts that were zink coated

So I bought some more gears, twin turbo pipes and decided to even give the banjo bolts a go to see how they'd come out

I picked up a bench top sandblaster so I could prep some parts myself

Before

And after, this is using glass beads, so I'll be interested to see how the finish is being the glass beads seem to clean up and polish compared to sand that pits the metal as it cleans

Box of bits to be dropped off to be zink coated

So there was a couple Nismo parts I want to finish off the additions to the car to make it more era correct and unique

Rare rear Nismo strut brace which I'll be restoring to match the front one

And something I've been trying to buy for awhile that is extremely rare, so much so that a lot of gtr owners don't know about them

R32 gtr Nismo optional rear pods, basically finishes off the exterior of the car, so with any luck next week the car will be towed back from the paint shop and I can't start assembling this engine bay!

Cheers

August 5, 2016

On 4 August 2016 at 7:19 PM, milanr34 said:

Well done and keep up the good work!!

I can honestly just bring a chair some popcorn a drink and just watch people restore cars (no homo)

Thanks Milan, appreciate he kind words

It's something else to watch someone's car come along from where it to started to a piece of artwork in the end

hopefully mine will be worthy of that statement haha

So this will probably be a bit of a long winded update

Went and paid a visit to the painter, his dragging his feet quite a lot as painters do

Cars been started on at least this time, he said he wouldn't need it for more than 3 days, now it's turned into 4 weeks and counting
He seems to think it'll be done this week but I figure in 2 weeks

Engine bay has been cleaned with some strong citrus cleaner, it's the only thing that'd get the soot off, then the bay has been rubbed with scotch Brite, his smoothing out some bits that were modified to clear the single turbo ( basically strut tower was clobbered with a ball pein hammer)

And new rad support is on and bonnet latch upright

So once everything is back to Oem fresh it'll be primed then a couple coats of 326 white rather than the original Oem dust coating of paint that wears through in no time lol

So that's about it for the shell, onto other fiddly bits

Brand new heater hoses turned up

Out with the old, surprisingly still in good shape tho, not crunchy at all, could have gone again

Proper Oem retainer clamp that was missing ordered new

All fitted with proper hose clamps not those Oem Nissan jobs

Dropped off my Oem clutch slave to SSS at brendale (stainless steel sleeving), I could have ordered a brand new slave, but I didn't want to, I believe in stainless sleeving, have it sleeved and the master lasts a lifetime, then you just put a rebuild kit through it

Basically all the old parts, slave was full of gunky dirty shit before hand

Slave looking like brand new, but better

Parts finished being electroplated, some parts came up better than others but they are heaps better than before, and the twin turbo pipe has been powdercoated for the second time haha

Started doing final fitment of the hard piping for the twins, pretty happy it looks better than the Nissan new Oem finish

All the piping on, I'll probably buy another set of the upper water pipes and have them redone because I'm not 100% happy with the finish and they are most visible pipes

From another angle

Close up of the finish on the fuel rail and cam gears

That's pretty much it for now

August 4, 2016

So i picked up some parts off my fab guy this afternoon, he does some excellent work

Twin turbo pipe modified with the splitter to stop turbulence

Clutch pedal tig welded at the joins, nismo bracket eat your heart out haha

Rear wing turned up and it's as good as i hoped

No rust on mounting studs or plates and no rust rattling around inside

New nissan strikers and striker covers

New n1 brake lines

Overpriced nismo floormats lol

New ssr 90 degree valves, valve extensions and some ssr lip stickers

And i found out the ssrs require special wheel nuts that are shanked and tapered, never seen anything like them

These suit volk gtc but also suit the ssrs

And brand new o2 sensors

Will have a lot of work cut out for me fitting this gear when this car arrives

August 3, 2016

On 2 August 2016 at 10:13 PM, r32-25t said:

Those lifting points don't come on the car factory and if you leave them on I think they hit the bonnet

Thanks for the heads up, I'll be sure to check that once the motor is in

that'd explain why I had so much trouble finding them haha

August 3, 2016

So, I went to check on the car, been with the painter for a week, unfortunately was meant to be done this week but hasn't been touched yet

So I'm doubting that will happen

But anyway, got my alternator housings back today

Been powdercoated, I told them not to do inside but sadly they did the whole thing

This presents 3 problems, the rectifier needs to be grounded to the housing for the alternator to work

Bearing clearances are already tight without having thick powdercoat in the recess

The stator is a right fit inbetween the two housings and again the thick powdercoat doesn't allow for it

Bought myself a much needed bearing removal tool, should have bought one years ago, this one isn't excellent but does the job

So you end up with a removed bearing

New bearing on

By this time I've cleaned up inside the housings as best I could, front bearing was a tight fit but it went in

All basically assembled with the stator painted black, normally you'd fit the pulley to the front housing before hand using the vice to stop the rotor spinning, then slot it in together, but the pulley required the powdercoating removed from the centre hole before fitting

And that's basically it

I may even sell this one off and have another crack at it specifying not to cost the insides, see how it goes though

Terrible picture but brand new r34 gtr n1 1 bar adjustable actuators turned up

So they have also been fitted up

Also managed to pickup kudos's last radio surround

I believe tour can still get the smooth one from the s1 which is strange, I think a lot of people update to the textured s2 in their s1

I think if I had a s1 I'd prefer the smooth look

Cheers

August 2, 2016

Alrighty

While I'm waiting on the shell to come back i thought I'd start on some other jobs

Pulled the brush box for the alternator apart, brushes were abit more worn than id like

New brush vs old brush

And thats basically how you re-brush an alternator

Still waiting on the housings and bearing puller to replace the rear bearing

So i removed the twin turbo pipe and clutch pedal, common for people to buy nismo clutch pedals which are basically stock pedals with a couple extra tack welds so they don't break as easy

My fab guy did the splitter mod and stitch welded the pedal with some gussets so it doesn't break ever

Last couple hoses for under the plenum arrived and fitted those

New breather hoses eventually became available from nissan, ive had to try to order 3 times as there has been nil stock

You can spy the brand new lifting points, not sure why but everyone removes these from these engines, another item that was difficult to order

One difficult part about building one of these cars is the parts becoming disscontinued, i tried to order some of these headlight flaps but they sadly aren't available anymore

And they sell for 400 a pair for new old stock !

So mine are completly busted and only 1/4 remains

So i needed to find a pair on a r32 being parted that aren't mangled too badly that i can make a template

After scouting facebook i found a guy wrecking a r32 gtst and he has these

Should be good enough to make a template and im going to try have a couple sets of these reproduced for anyone interested

July 29, 2016

4 hours ago, junkie said:

Damn, this is awesome

I love these "resto" builds. Much more interesting then all out power builds where so much of this stock stuff just gets trashed

thanks man, I feel the same, resto with a few improvements is what I'm about

4 hours ago, reaper said:

How much is the blasting and zincking/powder coating setting you back for all these bits and pieces? Considering doing it with mine.

The blasting can sometimes be more expensive then the powder coating itself

All the pipes/cam gears/ brackets you see there were from memory were about $150 to blast

for the big lot of powdercoating on the previous page I think from memory about 250, engine covers and HPC manifolds/exh housings was around 700

so it's definitely not cheap but it's durable

3 hours ago, jmknights93 said:

@Stephen_rx7 I ordered those stickers from the same place. What was the turn around for you?

Pics and updates look awesome. Whats happening with paint? Anything special going on there?

They were surprisingly quick about a week from memory

for now it's just had the bay painted, I wanna get the engine back in then running and do the complete outside then it'll basically be where I want it

im not too Into special, it's a factory white car so it'll stay the 326 white, it looks great in good condition, I'm hoping to get a bit of wow factor from the nismo additions

cheers

July 29, 2016

Ok an update I've been looking to make for awhile, cars rolled out side and gave it a quick hose down to get the dust off

First time it's seen daylight since I've had it haha

Not much of a car at the moment

Painter is semi ready for it, so tow truck booked and on its way!

So she's out of my hair for the next 2-3 weeks

Nismo decal turned up, they actually sent 3 which was awesome incase I stuff one up, looks like it is placed pretty well to me tho

I apologise for some pics being Abit blurry, Samsung phones don't like to focus, I really need a decent camera

A couple more parts back from powdercoating

All my pipe work for the turbos, cam gears, fuel rails and brackets have been sand blasted, and I dropped them off for zink coating yesterday
For anyone thinking of doing the same soda blasting is advised so your parts come out with a nice shine, apparently sand blasting takes the shine off and leaves them Abit dull after coating

I'll be removing the golebys adjustable cam gears and putting them in the bin and fitting up the oem cam gears

Also the alternator housings aren't pictured but I have decided to leave them with the powdercoater to have coated to protect them for the future instead of being raw alloy which soaks up all the oil, grease and gunk which quickly makes them look black

I wasn't 100% happy with my rear wing, the base mounting plates were a little crusty, so you'll notice in the pics it's missing, it's been sold off

And I've ordered a wing from Japan that looks brand new

Unfortunately shipping alone is $200 aud to bring it over, but it's hard to find parts in this condition locally, still waiting on this part to arrive

Nismo floor mats and brand new oem O2 sensors ordered and coming with the wing from Japan

Also last but not least some very exciting purchases of new old stock n1 parts

Brand new n1 bonnet lip, long since discontinued, managed to pick one up that someone had on the shelf, sadly it's grey but it'll be repainted white

And the last known set of n1 front vents brand new in circulation from supplier, will go well with the brand new n1 bumper and lip

Pretty exciting times.

At this stage it looks like a lot of parts

But soon things will come together and parts will be getting fitted

Cheers

July 28, 2016

Thanks josh

appreciate the comments

Abit of a parts update

More n1 parts, a brand new bm50 non abs master cylinder turned up

Some brand new SSR centre caps, I'm not a big fan of the unusual centre caps in the indy500s so I figured I'd order the latest style Ssr caps
These will be fitted to the Indys once the centre bore is machined to accept them and they are refurbished

A s2 gtr horn button to be fitted to my s2 gtr wheel, have to decide which wheel I want to run once the s2 wheel is retrimmed later in the year

Some brand new oem Nissan parts

New timing belt to replace the gates belt that's on there, the gates racing belt is apparently brand new but I'll replace it with new oem for piece of mind

A couple breather hoses for the stock cam covers, and brand new bellhousing bolts as well as some copper washers

Also a rebuild kit for the alternator, bearing were a bit tired and brushes a bit short so I'll fix that why it's apart

And a set of black silicone heater hoses, I'll probably sell these as I've got some oem heater hoses on the way

Hopefully see some of these parts be fitted this week

July 28, 2016

Another update

Bulk new engine bay parts :-O

Basically all the stuff that breaks when you go removing stuff from the engine bay

The wiring housing for the cas wiring at the front of the engine

Was broken on my loom

Heater hose clamps and pipe clamps for the carbon canister pipe and brake pipe on the firewall

Abs firewall clamps which funnily enough now i don't need, engine loom p clamp

Engine bay main harness cable clamps

Series 1 gtr horn wire

Fuel line clamp for rhs chassis rail

Nissan calls it a brake clamp but it actually holds the carbon canister line and a/c pipe to the lhs firewall

And 10x dump pipe nuts finally

Been waiting on these for ages

July 28, 2016

The guys name was nick haha, he is on here somewhere

the exterior is fine, just the engine bay he abused and dirtied the f$&@ out of

the boot lip is the only non genuine n1 part I have, the Oem ones require holes in the boot, the studs rust which I don't like and also the plastic goes to shit and they bulge out past the boot line

tried to buy a couple genuine second hand and they were very average

July 27, 2016

Alrighty another half an update, nothing majorly significant

I removed the last remaining things from the engine bay, the clutch and brake boosters were a pita because it's sitting on a hoist so access under the dash was limited and uncomfortable

So i decided when i was looking at the gtr i really didn't like the big ugly indicators they had fitted at compliance, no worries Ill contact andrew at kudos and line up a new pair.

Well so i thought, it seems everyone crashes these things on the lhs and it means lhs guards are discontinued, damn

So i started the hunt for a good second hand pair, i found a white gtr being wrecked at the gold coast and pounced on the guards!

No holes and better cond bumper mount tabs!

So i decided while i had abit of motivation that i wanted to strip the guards off and everything forward of the windscreen so my painter could paint under the wiper cowel

I was abit nervous about removing these panels because you never know what previous damage or rust your going to find

And I've seen a lot of gtrs at auction with rust in the back corners of the bay

Nuts for the wiper pivots are a little rusty but that's it, no rust on the car itself which is a big relief

The area under the guards will also be painted instead of just being under coated so it won't rust in the future

I was also happy to see no rust under the brake/clutch boosters or under the abs unit

A problem i did have though was the flare nuts in the wheel wells were siezed and rounded off with pipe spanners, even vice grips wouldn't work so i had to cut them off and use special sockets for rounded nuts

Another issue I've encountered is the brake lines don't fit properly, the stud on the upright is too big for the brake line, so you can see the hole next to the stud they used to tech screw it down which is prerty rough haha

Might be an excuse to buy braided brake lines haha

So with cut off brake lines it got me thinking, im going to have to order lhs and rhs brake pipes

But then i got thinking i don't want to put an old abs unit into a freshly painted bay, especially when they are known to leak, so i ordered this

R32 gtr n1 brake master cyl, i also ordered the correct engibe bay clips to secure the lines as well as the 3 brake lines i need to remove the abs unit

I then decided to strip down the alternator to rebuild and tidy up

Bearings are abit tired so they are ordered, and the brushes are shorter than id like so ill pickup some replacement brushes, the pulley has been powdercoated and the casing will be sandblasted and probably cleared

And abit of a cosmetic update

R32 gtr n1 boot lip :-)

Some people love it some people hate it, personally i love it

July 26, 2016

15 hours ago, Trex said:

This is looking like a fantastic build.

Havent seen one like this is years!

Thanks man, I thought it'd be a regular occurrence on here, I'll need to have a better look around

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Posts posted by Stephen_rx7