Stock Or Stage? What Would You Do?

[Honky 33]

I am new to the Skyline community and live in Hong Kong. I lived a very impoverished life in Canada and as a result grew up thinking that fast cars were the likes of Mustangs and Corvettes and of course I loved Porsches but they were too pricy. I could never get too excited about the American iron. Cool engines but the rest was junk.

After coming to Hong Kong my neighbor allowed me to drive his R34 GTR. Well I was hooked – crack on wheels!

Recently and after over a year of searching and one GTT (slush box) later, I found a really nice sonic silver, 97’ series 3, V-spec GTR 33 with 55 K km.. The car was in really wonderful condition. The only mod was an Apexi exhaust. The boost restrictor was still in situ, the engine and suspension all original.

Initially, I wanted to keep it stock. I couldn’t stand the suspension and it was tired anyway and so it had to go. I added the Whiteline / Bilstein package from the group buy and it now handles beautifully. (It is slowly diverging from stock). I am seriously tempted to add some stage 1 mods – full exhaust, remove the restrictor, Power FC.

This is the question. Should I keep it as is, or return it to full stock or add the stage 1 mods. Unlike the original R32 or even the 34, maybe a R33 will never be much of a collector’s car in which case I may as well have some fun. I don’t have a covered car park and at the moment I am using the car as my daily driver (5000 km in the last 6 months since purchasing). But I feel torn between my responsibility of stewardship of this fine motoring icon and releasing the beast. I would appreciate the Aussie Skyline community’s opinions and reasons.