Jump to content
SAU Community

Vicroads And Legality Of Modifications


Recommended Posts

Hi guys,

I'm on route to once again purchasing a car. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for some nice modified r32 gtr examples. I have some major concerns regarding the legality of the modifications, and additionally the legality of the car in general.

The last thing i want is my insurance becoming void due to illegal modifications as decided by vic roads.

I understand the basics in respect to this, i.e no pod filter and fmic etc. However in general:

- If the car has aftermarket exhaust, injectors, fuel pump, turbos, fmic, powerfc, diff, boost controller..

What needs to be done to get this car legal on the streets of victoria, or in the sense of completely legal is this just not possible and there will always be a level of risk owning such cars.

I dont mind the odd police question or three, what is concerning more to me is the voided insurance etc!

Edited by mcmn

Anything that alters emissions, that comes under the EPA:

boost controllers

injectors

ECU's

turbos

AFM's

In essence these can never be made legal.

The test to "make" them legal is $3000, and if you dont pass, you get no refund... no second chance, you must pay another $3000 each time.

Anything mechanical

brakes

diffs

gearboxes

Can be made legal via an Engineers Certification that the car has been modified but in such a way that is legal.

Contact an approved engineer before you make mechanical mods if your unsure of the requirements

There are things like:

exhaust

wheel size changes

1 intake modification (pod filter or intercooler)

These items are a pre-defined list on the VicRoads website as "allowable" mods. You can make these modifications yourself without any repocussions

Refer to thier website (or the sticky thread in this section) for more details.

As far as i understand, if you do not meet EPA requirements, the car is un-roadworthy by Victorian Law

:domokun:

- If the car has aftermarket exhaust,

injectors, - illegal

fuel pump, - probably illegal

turbos, - illegal

fmic, legal if you have airbox, its pod, or fmic, not both

, powerfc, - illegal

diff, - locked is illegal

boost controller.. - illegal

i dont think there is anything you can do to make them legal

so all the people here driving around in cars that have such modifications, that are illegal - do you have any concerns that insurance wont pay out?

The last thing i want is to cause an accident, I've never done that in the 7 years of driving, but i'm just looking at worst case scenarios here.

Is there some level of accepted risk taken by all drivers of modified skylines, or is it more a case of people just are not informed?

Thanks again.

What would you think if EVERY modified car owner, be it rotary, turbo, V8, whatever, all across Australia, united and marched in on Parliament in Canberra. We all demand a realistic approach to modifying cars, a change in the attitude of government and police to modified car owners. And if something doesn't happen and doesn't happen soon, we riot - old school style! :domokun:

It works overseas...

from reading the JCI PDS, they state that any illegal modification that CAUSED the accident will result in no payout...so there's some leeway there...it all comes down to luck, and interpratation of their own rules at the end of the day...having said that, 95% of the cars on here are techincally illegal....an exhaust is pretty much all it takes, and any car on here that is modified for performance is sure to have an aftermarket exhaust

when i had an accident i had my modifications listed and the insurance company didnt think twice. mods didnt cause the accident but i think as long as the insurance company has the mod listed on the policy they should cover it. never know with insurance companies though...

Working for Shannons, I can tell you that here we will cover all mods listed on your policy. If some of those mods are not engineered, or illegal, and you have an accident/make a claim, then as long as the 'illegal' mod was not the direct and responsible cause for the claim, then we will pay out.

Believe me, we have some HEAVILY MODIFIED turbo imports with us....

Actually in regards to the fuel system (rails, injectors, regulator, pump), when i got pulled over (booze bus blitz but they made me go up on the grass) I asked about it and he told me its not illegal to modify the fuel setup but it is illegal if it alters emmisions (although extra injectors are illegal). So its not a road worthy issue its an epa issue. So if you do get pulled up and let go, expect that you will most likely get a letter from the epa.

Cos it is a GTR, you are still only allowed to upgrade either to pods or upgrade the cooler. If the cooler is aftermarket, you have to prove that it is the same dimensions as the standard one in order to have both intake mods.

Working for Shannons, I can tell you that here we will cover all mods listed on your policy. If some of those mods are not engineered, or illegal, and you have an accident/make a claim, then as long as the 'illegal' mod was not the direct and responsible cause for the claim, then we will pay out.

Believe me, we have some HEAVILY MODIFIED turbo imports with us....

Yes but.... have any of them made a claim? What was the outcome? Also how do you decide if a mod caused an accident or not.. like.. ok I'm trying to think of a quick example..

Say you boost it onto the freeway, are not going over the speed limit.. and like in melbourne there is a really gay entrance to one of the freeways where everyone is trying to enter in two ADDED lanes and everyone else is trying to move to the left lanes to exit not too far up.. heaps of times trucks almost run me off the road because they dont look when they merge left... say I swerved to avoid a truck, lost it, ran into a pole.. say I had an upgraded turbo but no upgraded brakes.. you could possibly argue that if I had upgraded the brakes I might have been able to stop? I don't know, I'm sure someone else can think of a better example. The point is, it would be easy for an insurance company to find a million reasons to reject a claim and even Shannons has in it PDS that it only covers legal modifications.. You know I still haven't heard one story about someone who's had an accident and had heaps of illegal mods and got a payout.. :)

' date='24 Feb 2006, 10:57 AM' post='1977107']

So its not a road worthy issue its an epa issue. So if you do get pulled up and let go, expect that you will most likely get a letter from the epa.

And what would need to be done to clear this epa issue? revert car to complete stock? i.e exhaust, turbos, fuel setup, etc?

Paul.

Well that depends Paul...If you got an EPA to take it to a test station just to test for exhaust noise (<95dB) you would just need to make sure that your exhaust was under that limit.

However if it was a full test (ie the Macleod test centre) I'm afraid that every mod that doesn't comply would have to be put back to stock (fuel, ecu, intake, turbo etc etc)

' date='24 Feb 2006, 10:57 AM' post='1977107']

Actually in regards to the fuel system (rails, injectors, regulator, pump), when i got pulled over (booze bus blitz but they made me go up on the grass) I asked about it and he told me its not illegal to modify the fuel setup but it is illegal if it alters emmisions (although extra injectors are illegal). So its not a road worthy issue its an epa issue. So if you do get pulled up and let go, expect that you will most likely get a letter from the epa.

Cos it is a GTR, you are still only allowed to upgrade either to pods or upgrade the cooler. If the cooler is aftermarket, you have to prove that it is the same dimensions as the standard one in order to have both intake mods.

ARE U SERIOUS?!?!??! MAAADDDDDDDDDD so hold on, what is the dimension of a stock cooler? I think i may have found the answer to my dillemma :D

Exhaust db is 89 dB :)

how often has this happened to you?

what is the likleyhood of this happening? - if the car is driven humanly on the road, all fast stuff is on track and sau organised events :D

Cheers.

Paul

ive had one EPA (full) and 2 exhaust so far... that was in 12 months of driving my car it the state it was in.

THe gate was hidden, the much larger turbo was reasonably well hidden...

At the end of the day, all it takes it a cop to report you. Its that simple.

And can happen at anytime. If you get pulled over, pray the officer got out of the right side of the bed

Oh yeah sorry R31nis is correct <89 (its been a while Ash :) )

Put it this way....in my 1st 3 years of driving my car with a simple muffler (cannon) a little else...being driven under the limit to and from my place to my parents I had 3-4 EPA exhaust notices!!! The last one was a full test conv. after I had other mods fitted. :D

Never pulled over once for any of the notices.....simply driven past a police officer who obviously had a problem with imports who simply noted down my licence plate and forwarded to the EPA....

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • I did end up getting it sorted, as GTSBoy said, there was a corroded connection and wire that needed to be replaced. I ended up taking out the light assembly, giving everything a good clean and re-soldered the old joints, and it came out good.
    • Wow, thanks for your help guys 🙏. I really appreciate it. Thanks @Rezz, if i fail finding any new or used, full or partial set of original Stage carpets i will come back to you for sure 😉 Explenation is right there, i just missed it 🤦‍♂️. Thanks for pointing out. @soviet_merlin in the meantime, I received a reply from nengun, and i quote: "Thanks for your message and interest in Nengun. KG4900 is for the full set of floor mats, while KG4911 is only the Driver's Floor Mat. FR, RH means Front Right Hand Side. All the Full Set options are now discontinued. However, the Driver's Floor Mat options are still available according to the latest information available to us. We do not know what the differences would be, but if you only want the one mat, we can certainly see what we can find out for you". Interesting. It seems they still have some "new old stock" that Duncan mentioned 🤔. I wonder if they can provide any photos......And i also just realized that amayama have G4900 sets. I'm tempted too. 
    • Any update on this one? did you manage to get it fixed?    i'm having the same issue with my r34 and i believe its to do with the smart entry (keyless) control module but cant be sure without forking out to get a replacement  
    • So this being my first contribution to the SAU forums, I'd like to present and show how I had to solve probably one of the most annoying fixes on any car I've owned: replacing a speedometer (or "speedo") sensor on my newly acquired Series 1 Stagea 260RS Autech Version. I'm simply documenting how I went about to fix this issue, and as I understand it is relatively rare to happen to this generation of cars, it is a gigantic PITA so I hope this helps serve as reference to anyone else who may encounter this issue. NOTE: Although I say this is meant for the 260RS, because the gearbox/drivetrain is shared with the R33 GTR with the 5-speed manual, the application should be exactly the same. Background So after driving my new-to-me Stagea for about 1500km, one night while driving home the speedometer and odometer suddenly stopped working. No clunking noise, no indication something was broken, the speedometer would just stop reading anything and the odometer stopped going up. This is a huge worry for me, because my car is relatively low mileage (only 45k km when purchased) so although I plan to own the car for a long time, a mismatched odometer reading would be hugely detrimental to resale should the day come to sell the car. Thankfully this only occurred a mile or two from home so it wasn't extremely significant. Also, the OCD part of me would be extremely irked if the numbers that showed on my dash doesn't match the actual ageing of the car. Diagnosing I had been in communication with the well renown GTR shop in the USA, U.P.garage up near University Point in Washington state. After some back and forth they said it could be one of two things: 1) The speedometer sensor that goes into the transfer case is broken 2) The actual cluster has a component that went kaput. They said this is common in older Nissan gauge clusters and that would indicate a rebuild is necessary. As I tried to figure out if it was problem #1, I resolved problem #2 by sending my cluster over to Relentless Motorsports in Dallas, TX, whom is local to me and does cluster and ECU rebuilds. He is a one man operation who meticulously replaces every chip, resistor, capacitor, and electronic component on the PCB's on a wide variety of classic and modern cars. His specialty is Lexus and Toyota, but he came highly recommended by Erik of U.P.garage since he does the rebuilds for them on GTR clusters.  For those that don't know, on R32 and R33 GTR gearboxes, the speedometer sensor is mounted in the transfer case and is purely an analog mini "generator" (opposite of an alternator essentially). Based on the speed the sensor spins it generates an AC sine wave voltage up to 5V, and sends that via two wires up to the cluster which then interprets it via the speedometer dial. The signal does NOT go to the ECU first, the wiring goes to the cluster first then the ECU after (or so I'm told).  Problems/Roadblocks I first removed the part from the car on the underside of the transfer case (drain your transfer case fluid/ATF first, guess who found out that the hard way?), and noted the transfer case fluid was EXTREMELY black, most likely never changed on my car. When attempting to turn the gears it felt extremely gritty, as if something was binding the shaft from rotating properly. I got absolutely no voltage reading out of the sensor no matter how fast I turned the shaft. After having to reflow the solder on my AFM sensors based on another SAU guide here, I attempted to disassemble the silicone seal on the back of the sensor to see what happened inside the sensor; turns out, it basically disintegrated itself. Wonderful. Not only had the electrical components destroyed themselves, the magnetic portion on what I thought was on the shaft also chipped and was broken. Solution So solution: find a spare part right? Wrong. Nissan has long discontinued the proper sensor part number 32702-21U19, and it is no longer obtainable either through Nissan NSA or Nissan Japan. I was SOL without proper speed or mileage readings unless I figured out a way to replace this sensor. After tons of Googling and searching on SAU, I found that there IS however a sensor that looks almost exactly like the R33/260RS one: a sensor meant for the R33/R34 GTT and GTS-T with the 5 speed manual. The part number was 25010-21U00, and the body, plug, and shaft all looked exactly the same. The gear was different at the end, but knowing the sensor's gear is held on with a circlip, I figured I could just order the part and swap the gears. Cue me ordering a new part from JustJap down in Kirrawee, NSW, then waiting almost 3 weeks for shipping and customs clearing. The part finally arrives and what did I find? The freaking shaft lengths don't match. $&%* I discussed with Erik how to proceed, and figuring that I basically destroyed the sensor trying to get the shaft out of the damaged sensor from my car. we deemed it too dangerous to try and attempt to swap shafts to the correct length. I had to find a local CNC machinist to help me cut and notch down the shaft. After tons of frantic calling on a Friday afternoon, I managed to get hold of someone and he said he'd be able to do it over half a week. I sent him photos and had him take measurements to match not only the correct length and notch fitment, but also a groove to machine out to hold the retentive circlip. And the end result? *chef's kiss* Perfect. Since I didn't have pliers with me when I picked up the items, I tested the old gear and circlip on. Perfect fit. After that it was simply swapping out the plug bracket to the new sensor, mount it on the transfer case, refill with ATF/Nissan Matic Fluid D, then test out function. Thankfully with the rebuilt cluster and the new sensor, both the speedometer and odometer and now working properly!   And there you have it. About 5-6 weeks of headaches wrapped up in a 15 minute photo essay. As I was told it is rare for sensors of this generation to die so dramatically, but you never know what could go wrong with a 25+ year old car. I HOPE that no one else has to go through this problem like I did, so with my take on a solution I hope it helps others who may encounter this issue in the future. For the TL;DR: 1) Sensor breaks. 2) Find a replacement GTT/GTS-T sensor. 3) Find a CNC machinist to have you cut it down to proper specs. 4) Reinstall then pray to the JDM gods.   Hope this guide/story helps anyone else encountering this problem!
    • So this being my first contribution to the SAU forums, I'd like to present and show how I had to solve probably one of the most annoying fixes on any car I've owned: replacing a speedometer (or "speedo") sensor on my newly acquired Series 1 Stagea 260RS Autech Version. I'm simply documenting how I went about to fix this issue, and as I understand it is relatively rare to happen to this generation of cars, it is a gigantic PITA so I hope this helps serve as reference to anyone else who may encounter this issue. NOTE: Although I say this is meant for the 260RS, because the gearbox/drivetrain is shared with the R33 GTR with the 5-speed manual, the application should be exactly the same. Background So after driving my new-to-me Stagea for about 1500km, one night while driving home the speedometer and odometer suddenly stopped working. No clunking noise, no indication something was broken, the speedometer would just stop reading anything and the odometer stopped going up. This is a huge worry for me, because my car is relatively low mileage (only 45k km when purchased) so although I plan to own the car for a long time, a mismatched odometer reading would be hugely detrimental to resale should the day come to sell the car. Thankfully this only occurred a mile or two from home so it wasn't extremely significant. Also, the OCD part of me would be extremely irked if the numbers that showed on my dash doesn't match the actual ageing of the car. Diagnosing I had been in communication with the well renown GTR shop in the USA, U.P.garage up near University Point in Washington state. After some back and forth they said it could be one of two things: 1) The speedometer sensor that goes into the transfer case is broken 2) The actual cluster has a component that went kaput. They said this is common in older Nissan gauge clusters and that would indicate a rebuild is necessary. As I tried to figure out if it was problem #1, I resolved problem #2 by sending my cluster over to Relentless Motorsports in Dallas, TX, whom is local to me and does cluster and ECU rebuilds. He is a one man operation who meticulously replaces every chip, resistor, capacitor, and electronic component on the PCB's on a wide variety of classic and modern cars. His specialty is Lexus and Toyota, but he came highly recommended by Erik of U.P.garage since he does the rebuilds for them on GTR clusters.  For those that don't know, on R32 and R33 GTR gearboxes, the speedometer sensor is mounted in the transfer case and is purely an analog mini "generator" (opposite of an alternator essentially). Based on the speed the sensor spins it generates an AC sine wave voltage up to 5V, and sends that via two wires up to the cluster which then interprets it via the speedometer dial. The signal does NOT go to the ECU first, the wiring goes to the cluster first then the ECU after (or so I'm told).  Problems/Roadblocks I first removed the part from the car on the underside of the transfer case (drain your transfer case fluid/ATF first, guess who found out that the hard way?), and noted the transfer case fluid was EXTREMELY black, most likely never changed on my car. When attempting to turn the gears it felt extremely gritty, as if shttps://imgur.com/6TQCG3xomething was binding the shaft from rotating properly. After having to reflow the solder on my AFM sensors based on another SAU guide here, I attempted to disassemble the silicone seal on the back of the sensor to see what happened inside the sensor; turns out, it basically disintegrated itself. Wonderful. Not only had the electrical components destroyed themselves, the magnetic portion on what I thought was on the shaft also chipped and was broken. Solution So solution: find a spare part right? Wrong. Nissan has long discontinued the proper sensor part number 32702-21U19, and it is no longer obtainable either through Nissan NSA or Nissan Japan. I was SOL without proper speed or mileage readings unless I figured out a way to replace this sensor. After tons of Googling and searching on SAU, I found that there IS however a sensor that looks almost exactly like the R33/260RS one: a sensor meant for the R33/R34 GTT and GTS-T with the 5 speed manual. The part number was 25010-21U00, and the body, plug, and shaft all looked exactly the same. The gear was different at the end, but knowing the sensor's gear is held on with a circlip, I figured I could just order the part and swap the gears. Cue me ordering a new part from JustJap down in Kirrawee, NSW, then waiting almost 3 weeks for shipping and customs clearing. The part finally arrives and what did I find? The freaking shaft lengths don't match. $&%* I discussed with Erik how to proceed, and figuring that I basically destroyed the sensor trying to get the shaft out of the damaged sensor from my car. we deemed it too dangerous to try and attempt to swap shafts to the correct length. I had to find a local CNC machinist to help me cut and notch down the shaft. After tons of frantic calling on a Friday afternoon, I managed to get hold of someone and he said he'd be able to do it over half a week. I sent him photos and had him take measurements to match not only the correct length and notch fitment, but also a groove to machine out to hold the retentive circlip. And the end result? *chef's kiss* Perfect. Since I didn't have pliers with me when I picked up the items, I tested the old gear and circlip on. Perfect fit. After that it was simply swapping out the plug bracket to the new sensor, mount it on the transfer case, refill with ATF/Nissan Matic Fluid D, then test out function. Thankfully with the rebuilt cluster and the new sensor, both the speedometer and odometer and now working properly!   And there you have it. About 5-6 weeks of headaches wrapped up in a 15 minute photo essay. As I was told it is rare for sensors of this generation to die so dramatically, but you never know what could go wrong with a 25+ year old car. I HOPE that no one else has to go through this problem like I did, so with my take on a solution I hope it helps others who may encounter this issue in the future. For the TL;DR: 1) Sensor breaks. 2) Find a replacement GTT/GTS-T sensor. 3) Find a CNC machinist to have you cut it down to proper specs. 4) Reinstall then pray to the JDM gods.   Hope this guide/story helps anyone else encountering this problem!
×
×
  • Create New...