Chris's R34 Gtt 4 Door Diary

[Chris32]

Well after a few years lay off after the 32, I've got a new car and thought I'd keep a bit of a diary/build thread of it to record its history.

The car was purchased of SAU member Evil34. Having known Shaun for close to 10 years, it was nice to pick up a car that I knew was genuine. Very hard to find a genuine manual 4 door.

Purchased July 2013, 94,000kms

R34 GTT, Factory Manual, built April 2001, KV2 silver

I haven't done much in my two weeks of ownership, but the car has a few tasteful mods to it already which was a nice bonus.

Nismo 300km/h speedo

Nismo triple guage cluster

Nismo S-Tune suspension

Blitz intercooler kit

Apex'i AVCR

Braided brake lines

Slotted and dimpled RDA rotors with A1RM pads

Cusco Master cylinder brace

ASE custom oil cooler

Walbro pump

Splitfire coils

NPC clutch

BBS CH 18" rims with Michelin tyres

I bought the car with a few known issues to sort out. I enjoy fixing stuff anyway so I thought I'd take a chance and buy it with a known miss-fire that had troubled a workshop and the previous owner for a while.

Unfortunately the front right guard has caught a roller door as well, so I've got a GTR style front bar that came with it which I'll need to repair at some stage too. At the time of purchase it had the stock Series II bar.

[Chris32]

Missfire - the car performed perfect during the test drive, but I was assured it would missfire at some stage. Driving to work the next day, sure enough after about 30mins driving, it dropped a cylinder. Luckily I was only a few minutes from work, where I have a nice garage area for me to play with cars in my lunch hour!

Upon inspection, there was piles of rat crap and rat piss stains around the coils. So a quick plug change turned into a few hours of cleaning and inspecting all the various parts where a rat had called home.

After cleaning it all out, and pulling the coils out, cleaning out some more, I had the plugs out. They looked OK, a set of NGK Platinums. In went a set of trusty old BCPR6ES's, as I've had good results with these in the past.

While putting the puzzle back together, I noticed that Coil #1 had been chewed up by the rat around the boot quite a bit. The car came with a spare set of Splitfires, so in went a spare into #1. All the others cleaned up and looked like new, so in they went with a quick spray of WD-40 to be sure. I always clean up the top of the plug with some sandpaper too, making sure the contact is good.

I also picked up a carbon coil cover, which will go on as the stock one had been lost.

It fired up like a champ, and no more miss after 500kms of driving. I'm pretty sure the boot was the issue, with the chewed up bit opening up under enough heat for the spark to jump. The rat junk surely didn't help either!

Whilst at it, I swapped the Pod filter out for the stock airbox with a new element. While the pod sounds good to the Fast and Furious generation, as a daily driver I prefer the minimal induction noise from the stock setup, with no noticeable drop in performance.

Also I put some rubber on the mount for the AVCR solenoid, as the solenoid ticking under boost was quite noticeable once the stock airbox was back on.

[Chris32]

[Chris32]

Yet to give it a wash yet!

[Chris32]

Well, first wash today. Paint in good condition, needs a good going over with a clay bar though. Put the GTR style bar on tonight, plan to repair some of the damage over the next few weeks

[Chris32]

[Chris32]

Intercooler and oil cooler shot

[Chris32]

Few initial problems encountered and sorted out.

Picked up a S/H Nistune, and had that tuned up. On the dyno, the viscous clutch in the fan wasn't disengaging - causing it to sound like a EL Falcon.

So the tune was limited to a quick tidy up, as the fan was sapping the power. 193kw at the wheels was a decent outcome.

I replaced the clutch in the fan with a decent second hand unit, and all was quiet - what a differance!

Next problem - boost leak! I couldn't hear it before because of the fan going flat out. After much listening I couldn't find anything that seemed to cause the problem, so I decided to check the nuts on the exhaust manifold. All four had come loose, and once they had been tightend up, no more squeal on boost, and the car 'feels' like its going much better.

I had been looking at swapping the wheels since taking ownership of the car. At 18 x 8, 38 offset - they sat quite conservatively on the car, and looked quite small for 18's. I really want to run at least a 255 wide tyre on the back too.

I posted up a swap add on Gumtree, and a guy with a Stagea had a nice set of rims he wanted to swap. 18 x 8.5 front and 18 x 9.5 rear, black and silver Drifz 520 rims. So I swapped them over last night, pretty happy with them. Not sure of the offset, but they sit close to flush with the guards, and fill them out nicely

Next up, 100k service and tidy up the Nistune with the leaks and fan fixed

[timmy_89]

Nice thread man. Car looks clean, new wheels definitely look better. Should be good to see what difference the leak and the fan were making with the retune

[Chris32]

Thanks mate

It should nudge 200 pretty easily I'd imagine, and for every day driving it quick enough at the moment. Happy with the way its coming along.

I've also got a Series 1 front bar with the factory lip, which should match up nicely with the skirts that are on the car. I've since sold the GTR style bar, as it just sits that bit too low and I kept bashing it into stuff. It was also quite wide at the guards, making it dwarf the wheels - this looked a bit odd to me.

[StevenCJR31]

If you have had a rat in the engine bay then best check all your wiring too as the furry bastards nibble on anything, I had one have a good go at eating the underbonnet noise insulater on my 300C

[mloo]

Really lovin' dat front bar m8

[Chris32]

Series 1 front bar replaces the stock Series 2 and Fibreglass GTR style bar. Has the stock optional lip, which ties in well with the rest of the kit on the car.

Painted it up myself, pretty happy with how it turned out. Autobarn rattle can mix with plastic bumper primer and decent rattle can clear x 3 coats.

Initial paint mix from Autobarn was quite a way off my cars colour, however they had 3 mixes for KV2 in their system. They guy was pretty helpful and mixed up a sample which was pretty close, and chucked in the can of clear for the other guy not taking the time to check and sample before he mixed it.

All up, with trimming the bar to suit it took around 5-6 hours including a bit of filler and a decent sanding prior to primer/paint, but it was done in parts over the last 3 weekends.

The front bar reo was chopped to suit the fibreglass bar, so I'm keeping me eye out for one of these over the next few months, as I'd like it secured in place a bit better than it is currently. However, for a DIY, im pretty pleased with it

[flavzz]

Car is looking great now mate! That front bar suits the car much better than the overly aggressive fiberglass bar. I believe a hills run is now in order

[Chris32]

Spent a few hours on the weekend changing the oils as its just ticked over 100,000 and I wanted to start fresh to know its all been done.

Oils used -

Engine - Penrite Racing 10/40w - capacity 6L. I'm guestimating the capacity of the oil cooler based on my old car, but the dipstick level seems good and oil pressure is stable.

Diff - Penrite Progear 75/90W - took around 1.5L

Gearbox - Penrite Progear 75/85w took almost 3.5L

Brakes - Motul RBF600 fluid

The gearbox oil was pretty straight forward, although the filler plug was insanely tight. Had to use the breaker bar to undo it. The drain plug came out pretty easy, so I’m guessing it was just done up way too tight.

The oil that came out of the gearbox looked pretty good – however thinking about it, looks could be deceiving on the gearbox as it doesn’t get exposed to carbon like the engine oil. There was a reasonable amount of fine metal particles on the magnet, so I’m guessing it’s been quite a while between changes, and I’m glad I swapped it over.

The diff oil looked in similar condition, with the oil still looking reasonably clear, and a similar amount of metal particles on the magnet. However, reading online, my diff is a ‘Torsen’ mechanism, as opposed to a viscous clutch like most Nissan diff’s from the similar era, so it won’t fill the fluid with crap as the clutch plates wear in the diff. Feels better with the new fluid.

The engine oil I’m very impressed with, with the oil pressure remaining at least that of the previous oil, and the oil temp lower by around 5* during similar driving. Given it a few blasts yesterday and the car feels much smoother.

I ended up flushing the brakes, instead of just a re-bleed, as the fluid was very dark, especially the first few pumps out of each calliper. Pedal feel is much more solid than before, so I’m quite surprised at this, as they felt good prior to the change.

Timing belt etc getting done next week, then it will be like new!

[Sinista32]

Props to you, looks to be coming along nicely.

your taking good care of it and sensible along the way.

[Chris32]

100,000km service complete, with the timing belt and water pump being done yesterday. The belt was still in OK condition, with just some fine cracks appearing in the rubber, and the teeth looking pretty good.

The water pump, apart from being dirty on the outside, looked in excellent condition, and probably could have gone another 100k. However, no point while everything was already off.

Chucked it back on the dyno, tidy'd up the tune a bit on the light load and played around with the timing up top to try and squeeze some more power out of it, but keeping the boost at 11-12psi was the limiting factor and power remains at 190rwkw.

I keep hearing whispers that the Series 2's came with steel wheel turbo's, but can't find any evidence of this. Maybe one day I'll drop the exhaust and check for myself.

In reality though, there isn't another 20-30kw hiding in the current setup, so there isn't much point winding up the boost to failure point just for another 10kw. One thing that might benefit from a upgrade is the exhaust from the cat. back, as its not overly large in diameter - 3" if im lucky. Never really noticed it, so next time I'm under it I'll measure it all up.

But for now, its all as good as new and I look forward to the next 100,000

[Chris32]

Had to replace the passenger side rear wheel bearing, found it was very loose when playing around getting the brakes squeal free.

Purchased a s/h hub from a wrecker, as sourcing a new bearing for the GTT is quite hard!

3 beers and. 2 1/2 hours later she's as good as new, with no wobbly rear wheel. Anyone looking to undertake such a repair, it isn't overly difficult but I was scratching my head a few times trying to get it off. If you didn't have to take the hand brake off, it would be pretty simple, if not a bit fiddly

[azathoth]

Awesome thread and very tidy car.

I think I am about due for wheel bearings soon.

[Chris32]

Awesome thread and very tidy car.

I think I am about due for wheel bearings soon.

Thanks mate, my bearing was pretty bad, the rest are fine however. I'm going to take the old hub apart in an attempt to get part numbers from a local bearing company. I'll post up my results.