Mark And Duncans R32 Build

[Duncan]

well we agreed it was time to stop hijacking Russ' thread, so here is one of our own.

having built and raced standard gtrs for a couple of years (well couple of minutes track time), we figured it was time to go the other way and build something a bit more over the top. but of course our budget hasn't expanded so this is all being done on the dirt cheap (as usual). Hopefully under $20k over a couple of years - will see how we go on that. we've had it for about 18 months now but have only really got going this year

step 1. cheap shell that someone had to sell.

dead standard just a white car with a bit of paint.

[Duncan]

next, strip all the tar off the shell, take out the wiring loom, interior etc etc

nothing spent so far. well a heat gun, wire wheel and some scrapers

[Duncan]

save some weight in the boot too - the spare wheel well has been cut out. was damn heavy, we put a flat sheet of ally in instead.

[Duncan]

we don't really have a good pic but the rear parcel shelf has been cut out too. you can see it in the roll cage pics.

speaking of which....Mark has been working on the cage for weeks. thankfully with rob who knows what he is doing lol

it looked roomy back there for a while without the parcel shelf.

plenty of bracing, cross bracing and even support for the subframe mounts. don't think we'll need a rear strut brace now

[Yawn]

Thats a mad cage. What do you race in?

[JAS-25T]

Finally started on it hey?

has Mark bought a new car for targa yet? hehehehe

[Duncan]

front of the cage was a bit trickier. we wanted to support the front strut tower properly so we had to loose the

brake booster

abs

wiper motor

clutch master resoviour

brake lines

i guess some of those things will go back in somewhere later (1, 4 and 5 hopefully)

its a bit close to the throttle inside but other than that looks great. and all the holes in the firewall have been welded up to. and the speedo cable hole so i guess we wont be having one of them lol

[Duncan]

we've braced the cage to the a and b piller in 4 places too

heres the side of the cage. could be tricky to get out in a rush

which also kind of gives away the minor mods to the doors

they are getting ally skins once the windows are in - although i think we might have gone a little too far around the hinges - they flex so much the paint has cracked. might need to start again with them.

about 2k spent on that materials and labour probably. and a absolute heap of work

[Duncan]

up next.....clean and paint the cage and interior to protect it all.

also no pics but we've made a boot out of the ally sheet as well, rob did a top job welding such thin material. need to do some final adjustments then fit it up with some bonnet pins

also - foam filling. you can kind of see in the second pic, the a pillar and sills have been foam filled. one side only so far, need to finish off the other side soon.

[JAS-25T]

Is this going to be ready for the first superlap?

[Duncan]

also - all the wiring is out, we will pull out everything we don't need which will be at least 50% of it. its damn heavy and there are 4 seperate looms in the car.

windows are all gone, we are putting in perspex instead. looks pretty easy to form to shape but we haven't got there yet so who knows.

have a motor waiting to go on a stand, only 2.6 but got all the good stuff inside and a fair bit of work to the head including big cams. all the stuff we aren't allowed to do to the productions cars. was pretty cheap we had pretty much everything around.

[Duncan]

from here its mostly stuff we have to spend money on, so that will decide how quick we can do it.

fuel system

shocks springs swaybars

bushes and adjsutable arms

big wheels - no more of this standard 17x8 shit

brakes

tyres

tailshaft

seat, harness, kill switch, extinguisher

[JAS-25T]

lol more questions.

What use are bigger wheels.

Anything past 17's are harder to get racing tyres for, and also unless you are putting big fark off brakes they get heavier and dont give any advantage.

[benm]

A great thread - been looking forward to his as im doing an almost identical setup and im at a very similar stage.

Jaon - The 18" tyres are the best value for money (along with 16") the slicks are only slightly more expensive too.

[giant]

cool thread great to see mate!

hehe i bet it feels great to be able to throw the rule book away and do what you want and in some ways sometimes that is cheaper.

bigger wheels = bigger brakes

firewall mod looks good too!!

are you doing some seam welding?

cheers russ

[Duncan]

yawn - it will be log booked as a sports sedan like russ' one, one of only 3 gtrs with a 3D logbook afaik. but probably wont race, there isn't enough metal left to rub panels with anyone.

jas - no way will it be ready for this superlap, probably 3-6 months away from hitting the track atm and probably 12 months until it is sorted properly. We've built enough cars now to know these tings take way longer than you plan unless you can just pay a workshop to do it all.

will probably go 18s so we can use larger than targa brakes like g4s on 355mm rotors. and also can use porsche cup slicks for practice, and there are plenty of 18" slicks to choose from these days

russ....we have been talking about it, and I guess thats the reason for the thread - to think about those things. have you given it a go and where in particular were you think of? front struts still seems the weakest to me

[giant]

yep front struts towers, the area under your front guards along the seams there, also there is a little triangular plate there weld that fully too or make a more solid one.

may as well while you've got the welder out before painting.

[Merli]

Sports sedans don't need a rear firewall?!?

[benm]

1. Any idea on how many metres of cage was used?

2. Normal full exhaust or side exhaust?

3. Keeping ABS + wipers or removing?

4. Complete dash or just gauges/cluster?

[Duncan]

cmon russ there are pics, you need to add circles so i get it

andrew - rear firewall is required between the cabin and the fuel tank/system. but they will probably end up under the car not in the boot. pretty much where the standard tank goes. we can get fuel cells at a very good price from austalian auto. and lets face it the standard parcel shelf is not exactly fireproof. If we need to put something back it will be a sheet of ally rear of the strut towers

ben

1 - no lol. mark might have the numbers. but there were heaps.

2 - probably normal 4" for now we have one around. i saw the trouble russ has had with his so I am thinking rear titanium. side is fine in the production car where we only need twin 60mm. but i think this one will need to breathe a bit better than that. we still have to make some decisions around turbos/manifolds/dumps yet.

3 - gone and never coming back. we are keeping the brake booster though - i have driven a gtr on the track without the booster and it was a disaster.

4 - proably will go dash pad and cluster at first, but something custom later. don't have $1k to spend on gauges atm...