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This is a very condensed version of what I have done to prep my 33 for drift and curcit racing. Dan has done an awsome job with his and I had a look at it at the QLD round, a job well done there.

My rebuild started about 14 months ago when the cambelt tesionerstud snaped off. The end result was 5 bent valves and 2 broken off.

The pic below is of the offending stud. The lesson here for all is to replace it with every cambelt change. This one let go 4000 shy of a schedualed timming belt change.

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With the motor out I started the Job of stripping the interior, and the sound deadening with a heat gun and paint scraper.... I wish I knew about the dry ice idea. The chasie did twist alot when we took it to the track so I set about seam welding with a mig at and inbetween the original sopt welds, about every 1/2 inch or 12 mm.

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Then we sent it off to get the roll cage fitted by Bruce Dumbit at NRW rollcages in Nambour QLD. An 8 point cage to cams specs with x intrusion bars. the cage picks up the rear struts, main hoop, down the A pillar dnt through the fire wall to the front struts. It has been tagged to the body in as many places as possible ti incraese the ridgidity of the chasie. I have painted it all in stone guard with a roller so it doesn't reflect the sun or lights.

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Being a drift car, stearing lock and camber have been modified for greater and adjustable angles.

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With the extra lock more guard clearance was needed. This process took some weeks to get just right. Cuttin pulling dollying etc.

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and the finished product

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I will put up some more latter, have to run. :)

Edited by Noddy
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The body work has been a long and tedious job. Any one who does this for a living earns every cent. We diddn,t take the windows out but got advice from a mate who has a shop in brisbane, Camerons pannell works. The drivers sill was crushed by a water barrier at QR 1 drift day a few years back and needed to be cut off, bashed back to shape and welded back on. The passenger side always had some cracks and odd bumps, obviously from some dodgy jap shop. Everything on the pasenger side has been fixed or replaced at somestage. Looks like it had been T boned and rearended, bog every where. Looks good now after 3 or 4 weekends drowning in bog dust.

post-15176-1156481528.jpg

Putting the primer took a long time as every weekend for a few weeks there were showers and made it very hard to transport a car that had baer metal here and there. Sara my partner is works at a company where they build grain conveyors and have a paint bay/booth that you could paint an entire semi in plus some.

We did the painting ourselvs, Sara proved the steadier hand at it. Primer on at last.

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Then 1 week later edging up in door jambs, filler cap, in guards etc.

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and anothe week or two the outside

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Edited by Noddy
  • 2 weeks later...

The engine returned form my machinist on monday and have just started by painting the block and installing the crank. Im still waiting on a few items, oil pump, head gasket and oil sandwich plate so Im not in the greatest of rushes to get it all to gether just yet.

If all goes well I might beable to get down to the sat arvo sprints next weekend at Queensland Raceway to run it in. I hope.

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

The big man up stairs on occasions (in my opinion any way) must sometimes need a laugh and makes dumb stuff go wrong. For example, some 18 months ago the Cambelt tensioner stud in my skyline just snapped in one clean faccet. Result was it ate some valves. A random act of GOD? I rebuilt the motor and the car from the ground up.

Just this week while running in the newly finnished machine, checking and fixing the little things, BEHOLD!!! another random act of GODLENESS. Checking to see if an oil leek from the oil cooler sandwich plate was fixed i started the motor cold, let it idle for 2-3 min to get some temp into it. I gave it 3 quick mild blips on the throttle bodie to about 2-3000 rpm. Comming down from the third blip there was a fast tapping sound. It got louder and the motor just turnd off. It did not jar, just stoped as if the key was turned off. From he start of the noise to engine stoped was abou 3-5 sec. Then I said some,. no, a word very loudly, sounded like truck.

Testing showed,

0 compression in every cylinder.

Cams turn fine (not broken cam).

Pittions all go up and down (not a rod prob)

All timing marks line up fine(not a timing belt slip)

As I took it appart I took photos so I could try to trace the cause. When I got down to head bolts I found that the Inlet cam was 1/4 of a turn out of place. The retainer bolt was still at the correct tension and onct the cam gear was removed, the drive/shear dowle was sheared it 2. this has bent/broken every inlet valve and guide. How does that type of thing happen???

  • 2 weeks later...

nice work mate.........looks a treat and the yellow stands out big time. how come u went flare option rather then bolton fibre glass???

u probly could of saved time, then again.......flaring it looks awesome

top stuff again

nice work mate.........looks a treat and the yellow stands out big time. how come u went flare option rather then bolton fibre glass???

u probly could of saved time, then again.......flaring it looks awesome

top stuff again

subtleness and its unique.

  • 1 month later...

The head is fixed, and I've been waiting for a vernier inlet cam wheel to be machined up. All the parts arrived this arvo so it is slowly going back together again. This time specificly to the specs for the cam shafts.

  • 1 month later...

Finaly, It goes and has completed a 350km caining of a run in drive. The drive wound through the Great Deviding Range popping into NSW for a bit and along some amazingly bumpy roads. There were some very nice ones too, with some biblickly fun couners.

Wed a mixtures and dyno test in Dalby.

This Sat, 1/8th mile tast at Warwick &

Friday week it will be at QR for it's first drift performance.

After talking to the local motorsport community out here in Warwick I took the car down to a local dyno that was reccomended by most, to check mixtures etc.

At first I was a bit worried because at low boost levels (7 psi) it was looking a touch lean. At this level it was producing about 250 rwhp.

Then we pushed about 10 psi. Surprisingly the mix got richer and naturaly moer power, 270ish rwhp.

seeing this we looked at 12-13 psi. The mixture got richer and the power was just nudging 300 rwhp.

On the road it feels very nice in it's delivery and put a very big smlie on my dial.

There has been no tuning yet, this is purely the result of mild porting and some mild cam work. Before the rebuild it made 275rwhp on 14psi so Im very pleased.

sounds like some great results happening, and the guy upstairs seems to be on your side at the moment haha!!

sorry if i havent seen a thread before or just didnt see it, but what turbo are you using on your setup.

I have roughly the same power, maybe a bit less with actuator and hesitation problems making 320rwhp on 15psi.

im in the process of gettin another turbo (gt3040)

looking into cams, and suspension gear.

also have 19's arriving soon, so hopefully will look the part.

Anyway im glad that everything is going well, and cant wait to see it on the track.

same thing happened to me, crank was exactly 180 degrees (or 360, whatever way you look at it) out of phase with the cams, nfi how the hell it happened :S i could seriously swear that everything was exactly perfect when i tensioned the belt, checked time and time again, but yeah, like you say, the guy upstairs must get bored :laugh:

The big man up stairs on occasions (in my opinion any way) must sometimes need a laugh and makes dumb stuff go wrong. For example, some 18 months ago the Cambelt tensioner stud in my skyline just snapped in one clean faccet. Result was it ate some valves. A random act of GOD? I rebuilt the motor and the car from the ground up.

Just this week while running in the newly finnished machine, checking and fixing the little things, BEHOLD!!! another random act of GODLENESS. Checking to see if an oil leek from the oil cooler sandwich plate was fixed i started the motor cold, let it idle for 2-3 min to get some temp into it. I gave it 3 quick mild blips on the throttle bodie to about 2-3000 rpm. Comming down from the third blip there was a fast tapping sound. It got louder and the motor just turnd off. It did not jar, just stoped as if the key was turned off. From he start of the noise to engine stoped was abou 3-5 sec. Then I said some,. no, a word very loudly, sounded like truck.

Testing showed,

0 compression in every cylinder.

Cams turn fine (not broken cam).

Pittions all go up and down (not a rod prob)

All timing marks line up fine(not a timing belt slip)

As I took it appart I took photos so I could try to trace the cause. When I got down to head bolts I found that the Inlet cam was 1/4 of a turn out of place. The retainer bolt was still at the correct tension and onct the cam gear was removed, the drive/shear dowle was sheared it 2. this has bent/broken every inlet valve and guide. How does that type of thing happen???

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