R32 Gtr - Track Car Build

[JohnGTR]

Grab a coffee guys, this is a long one …

I'm pretty new to this forum and wanted to start up a thread on my GTR build. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. I am going to use this thread to record my progress, wins/losses, the good the bad and the ugly…

I bought the car a couple years ago, it's an import and started tinkering around with it in the garage doing bits and pieces myself.

The car had a standard motor, heads and bottom end, ARC intercooler, HKS intercooler piping, Tien Super Streets, various aftermarket control arms and suspension mods, Hicas disable bar, Sard Injectors, Sard Fuel pump, 3" exhaust and an EMS 8860. The body is pretty straight and the interior "was" pretty good. It needs a paint job, but being a track car I'm not fussed on the exterior look of the car. (Spray and Wipe the car before a track day outing and I'm happy)

Let me state up front where I want to go with this project…

- This car is going to primarily be used as a circuit car although I've been advised to keep it street registered.

- I'm not planning on loosing it to the boys in blue hence will be minimizing road testing and joy rides (been there done that… I'm in my 40s and have grown out of that?? Ha)

- It is not going to be a dyno queen or a show car.

- I'm not setting it up as a drag car but it will probably do a few runs .

- As a circuit car I'm not looking for outright power, I want reliability. I want to be able to do 6 x 15 minute sessions in a day without killing it.

- I'm thinking that I want to start at about 300awkw with as much low down punch as possible, setup the chassis/suspension and upgrade the brakes before I try an push for more power

I have been progressively looking to make improvements/modifications in my spare time. I pulled out the rear seat and installed a 4 point harness, I had ½ installed the Fuel Surge tank, ½ fitted the oil cooler and filter relocation kit (agricultural setup), had some BC coil-overs sitting in the box for 2 months, had a shift light sitting around etc etc etc … I had about 15 items on my task list that I wanted to do before I would consider taking the car back out to the track.

With the cooler weather coming on and work getting busier I realized that I was not going to get to the track any time soon and decided to take my car to Unique AutoSport.

UAS did some work on my first GTR (Aussie spec) and John always had time to provide advice and guidance on my street/race setup. So for me it was an easy choice to go and see John, Dave and Ben about my build.

A few months ago I sat down with John and the boys at UAS went through my wish list and I dropped the car off on the Saturday. I could not believe it, they got through the whole list in a few days and it did not cost an arm and a leg. Dave and Ben know these cars inside out and although they might not be the cheapest in $/hr they got through the work very quickly and the overall costs were very reasonable.

The motor was showing signs of wear and tear and with a standard head and bottom end (no baffles) it was only a matter of time before it had a catastrophe at the track. I bought the car with the intension to rebuild or replace the motor as it was blowing a lot of blue/white smoke when I first test drove it before buying it.

The next step was to tune the car a bit more aggressively and try and sneak up to the 300rwkw mark. With HKS 2510s this was going to be a challenge. I told the boys to wind it up and rev it through to 8000 rpm. The motor made about 245 rwkw on 15psi before it broke the oil pump. I was not surprised as I knew the car has had a hard life… I am quite sure that it was a drifter/racer in Japan in a past life. The previous owner said that it had a lot of Japanese stickers and signage on it when he bought it.

Anyway the choice on a motor / rebuild was simple… RB26 head on a RB30 bottom end!! I got lucky got a low mileage RB 26/30 motor with a built bottom end, Nitto oil pump, 2860-10s, big injectors, complete long motor. (Thanks MarkoR1!!)

I told the guys at Unique at lunch time on a Monday that I had found a motor and that I was picking it up that night. When I turned up in first thing in the morning with the replacement engine the old motor was already out and the engine bay was degreased, clean, painted and ready for the replacement motor.

After a few little holdups with some miscellaneous missing parts the motor was installed and fired up first time on Thursday afternoon. Ben ran it up on the dyno today and I asked him to go easy on the tune to make sure that it was safe using the Power-PC (That ran the motor in the last car, I removed the EMS 8860).

The car made about 250rwkw on 10psi, 290rwkw on 15 psi and 330rwkw on 20 psi with a 3" exhaust. The timing was tweaked down a little to be conservative and the air-fuel was left a little on the rich side…

Story/Modifications to date:

- I broke the standard gearbox before I got to the track, 3rd gear synchros… and replaced it with a R33 unit.

- Installed some sway bars had it tuned and then did two track days at Eastern Creek mid-late last year, I did 1:52s with the rear sway bay moving 3" side to side on RSR 595s on a 15psi tune. Not happy but it was a start.

- Vipec installed, same power reached but much better drivability. 290rwkw @ 15psi.

- Did a track day at Wakefield, nearly rolled the car on the first session of the day, popped the passenger side tyres off the car. Re-installed the tyres and went out for a few sessions that afternoon and managed to drive home. Ran 1:11.3s, poor drivability out of corners, too much understeer, power coming on after 5000rpm. 280 degree cams with 10.5mm lift … laggy bugger!!

- Installed full roll cage !! Bond Roll Bars… highly recommended, in on the Tuesday morning, picked up the car Thursday morning.

- Replaced 280 degree cams with 260 degree poncams. Tuned to same power 290rwkw @ 15 psi but power comes on about 1000 rpm earlier.

- Replaced front rotors and pads DBA4000 & DS2500 (from DS3000)

- Bought some R34 GTR rims, installed some new R888s and did a track day at Wakefield. 0 degrees in the morning and light showers. Cold day and struggled to get tyre temps up. Still a lot of understeer push… managed 1:10.15s.

Most recently…

Replaced front Whiteline swaybar with a standard one and went out to Eastern Creek practice day. Less understeer but the car is not getting front end grip after mid corner. Managed a few clean laps without traffic but only ran in the 1:54s. Dissappointing as I did 1:52s with my old rb26 on the Teins on RSRs… compared to now… RB30, BC ER Coilovers and R888s!! … I've got video footage and can see that I'm coming onto corners a bit too sharp/early but with the understeer push I am not confident of taking the wider lines around Eastern Creek… especially turn 1.

One thing that I did notice is that there is a lot more of a difference between the Ferodo DS3000 compared to the DS2500. I changed from the DS3000s to the DS2500s for the last track day and there is quite a bit difference in performance. The DS3000s have a lot more initial bite and can handle temperature. The brakes started grinding and loosing bite after a couple laps. I started discolouring the 630degree marker on the rotors and I don't think that the DS2500s like getting that hot.

I've ordered the Alcon fronts, floating hat rotors and will be setting up some proper brake ducts.

I will also be installing the new Gtech lap timer to give me some idea of what is happening…

Right now …

The car feels super reliable at 15psi 290rwkw, no temperature problems (oil stays goes up to about 95degrees max). I have a go fast button on the steering wheel which bumps boost up to about 22psi 340rwkw. It makes a difference when overtaking and is fun to use but I have too much blowby out of the catch can and it makes a mess under the bonnet. I have a lot of cylinder leakage 10 -20% across cylinders?? I'll pull the motor out over Christmas and look to sort this out.

I know that the driver needs to improve a lot as well and I am going to look at trying to fix this with some training next month.

I'm frustrated as I feel I have hit a brick wall and obviously my setup is not balanced and hence not performing… maybe it's just me?? My old R32 (original aussie spec) on Tein super streets, medium hard Pirelli slicks and 220awkw did 1:08s around Wakefield!

Next priority is to sort out the handling… I want the make it go around corners!! … I will focus on wheel alignment, front end geometry, sway bars (again) and chassis and see how I go.

Any ideas, advice, feedback (good and bad) would be great …

HELP !

[adam Foster]

Hey I'm very interested in your build as I have a gtr track car build myself.

How long ago did u have the aus spec on the track. Might be driving with more fear now lol I will hope to see you at a trqck day. Did u find dropping he power fc worth the money I'm using a dejetro

[BoyWhoCriedWolf]

Gday John,

First of all congrats on the build and I hope you have a ball with it. Please feel free to add your car to the ADM GTR registry, just click on the link in my sig.

Love to see some pics and vid of the car in action!

Cheers,

Ken

[JohnGTR]

Hey I'm very interested in your build as I have a gtr track car build myself.

How long ago did u have the aus spec on the track. Might be driving with more fear now lol I will hope to see you at a trqck day. Did u find dropping he power fc worth the money I'm using a dejetro

I was tracking the Aussie Soec GTR in the late 90s... Yeah, fear is always there otherwise we do stupid things beyond our capabilities... as I said, I'm looking to get some driver training and then gauging where I am at skill wise.

I did have a CAMs competition licence which has expired but never did any competitive racing.. only track days and club sprint events.

The Vipec is a much nicer street friendly ECU, it idles, runs nice and lean on light and cruize throttle (14.5 - 14.8 AFRs) and I can also remove the MAFs. The car would compressor surge and the Fc would richen up the mixture to the point of stalling turbo spin up speeds. All good now !

[JohnGTR]

Gday John,

First of all congrats on the build and I hope you have a ball with it. Please feel free to add your car to the ADM GTR registry, just click on the link in my sig.

Love to see some pics and vid of the car in action!

Cheers,

Ken

Sorry to confuse ... mine is an import. My original car was an Aussie spec.