Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

So where do I begin

I was one of those kids who always chose the r32 in a play station game and if it didn't have one I was reluctant to play it. Something about the 32 gets me

Within my top 3 fave cars. Having the p plate laws back then I was held off buying one but I knew I will definatly have one sooner or later.

That day came when I walked out of the RTA with my fresh full license and straight to the closest 32 I could find she wants 100% perfect but I was still overjoyed and couldn't say no. Mildly modded gtst I fell in love with the car the second I heard it start up. RB IDLE love it. I had the car for close to a year. Performing some more mods like Hicas delete and some others. I was in love with it!

Until one day I made the ultimate mistake and sold it I don't know why but I just sold it one morning I must have been in a grumpy mood. Instant regret I had lost a car I was so attached to the car was like family. I also seen the car a while later hearing the new owner crashed the front end and replaced it with mis matched gtr panels and the car never looked the same to me again so I didn't chase it back down (it did go back up for sale).

In its prime

post-108512-14318153504539_thumb.jpg

post-108512-14318153960271_thumb.jpg

post-108512-14318154615461_thumb.jpg

Once it sold to whoever bought it. I regretted once again not buying it back regardless of the state it was in. At the time I was driving an ss as a daily. one thing I faulted my 32 on it was a small daily but f**k I loved it enough to give up all the room of my ss to get another one.

In the meantime a close friend suggested to swap it. So up she went for sale and over a month I was offered 2. Among a million other cars even thought the ad said 32 only i got offered plenty of 33s even considering taking one. I knew it needed a sunroof as that's the one thing I was missing from my first one. Once I filtered thru my offers I found one of them to be a type m gtst with a sunroof.

My ss was a very clean car and I went to see this car and was a little worried as this it what I got sent

post-108512-14318154994155_thumb.jpgpost-108512-14318155574317_thumb.jpg

When i arrived to see the car it was in worse condition then I originally thought. The body damage was a lot worse then described. The sunroof didn't even work! And was wedged shut with rags. The car sat like a pro stock drag car and had the most awful wheels. Meanwhile my close friend arrives and I asked for his opinion. I was asking for an honest opinion and all I got was a yeah man get it! After taking it for a test drive and hearing the rb again we all know what I said. We agreed to meet back and swap later that day.

Once I returned and seen the car under the sunlight I had real doubts. This car was already worse for wear then my ss and any 32 I've seen for that fact. But my close friend more or less promised me that a family member will help me out with it. (Im not great with body work) mechanically I can do everything myself so I wasn't so worried in that department.

So I've done the deal. Here it comes. Prepare for the nightmares to begin. As I'm getting closer to home I turn my headlights on. High beams came on with them. So I go to flick the stalk back. Nope. High beams only! Great stuff. So I decided to see how well it goes. Tried to boost it up went nowhere... I was pissed.

Now I'm the type that if you screwed me around and lied to me I'm going to show up to your door with one of the many items I carry with me at all times once I arrived at my close friends family members place. We will call him Steve for the rest of the story. Steve asked me what was wrong my reply was I'm taking this back getting my car then I will drop him like a sack of shit. I had sent an abusive text already but was within an inch of driving back.

But then Steve asked me what were the main things that pissed me off I said the body works f**ked and the headlights I'm horrible with wiring so naturally i didn't want to bother. Steve more or less said don't worry I'll fix it for you. I unfortunately didn't know Steve was a hard drug addict.

The next day I met up with Steve and the first thing straight off the bat was to install a body kit as the one on the car consisted of a rear vertex style bar with the lip cut off, no side skirts what so ever and a stock gtst bar and fix the sunroof. Upon inspection the whole sunroof assembly was pretty much broken so I sourced one and installed it! And purchased a body kit.

It's starting to come together.

post-108512-14318164614554_thumb.jpgpost-108512-14318164855867_thumb.jpgpost-108512-14318165309972_thumb.jpg

Unfortunately the rear bar from the body kit didn't line up with the lights and boot. The person I purchased it off wasn't helpful and I had to chase him for a few months all I got was $100 cash back in the end.

post-108512-14318166650218_thumb.jpg

All of a sudden Steve wouldn't answer his phone. I had bought ppg paint. which i asked for orange base coat and ended up with DG (chasing a matte finish more money has been wasted)

In the meantime I had filled up a full tank of fuel only to have it all piss back out! Then once I got home again after another day of Steve ignoring me. The first 2 injectors were leaking. I found a set and asked him are the perfect? No leaks and no misfiring as I've been f**ked around enough that if he's chasing a quick buck I'm not interested. I was assured they were on good work order. WRONG!

I had installed them and at least 2 didn't fire while one leaked. Chased him up got the phone book of excuses. I politely told him the headache this car has caused you rip me of the last few dollars I had. As at this point I had just left my job of 8 years.

So steves pissed off somewhere, I've run out of money and the cars not able to be driven in the dark or in the wet as the hicas was playing up so much the car crab walked so bad in the rain I had no control. I'm basically stuck with a car that can only be driven in daylight hours on a clear day.

Since then I've found lots of little things that just show how pathetic car owners are and just let all the problems accumulate until they can't take it anymore and sell it. Why own a car like this if you have no intention of maintaining it? f**k off and buy a falcon I say.

Even found a full bottle of pure blonde expired on 08 lodged in the rear quarter.

post-108512-14318173249882_thumb.jpg

This was becoming an all to familiar sight. I then got a new job. Cash flow = parts flow. The misses thinks otherwise but I reminded her I don't own a Prius. So I start fixing the problems

- Temp gauge read cold all the time so naturally I went and got a thermostat for it which didn't fix the issues so next thing to do was

- Replace temp sensor for the gauge which did fix it! The car now shows operating temp. Still no heater though

- I bought myself some stuff for the interior I.e bride seat nardi wheel shit like that to make my cabin a bit more comfortable slowly fixing the little broken things

I.e

post-108512-14318177000204_thumb.jpg

Now that my first paychecks come on it was time to knuckle down and get this car finished sooner without the help of f**k flow and the twinkle fairy

I grabbed my trusty wallet

post-108512-14318177852534_thumb.jpg

And decided I should start with handling

Bought some

Coilovers

Hicas delete kit

Caster rod bushes and anything other little things I needed

post-108512-14318178772751_thumb.jpg

So it begins

post-108512-14318179450398_thumb.jpgpost-108512-14318180283291_thumb.jpg

post-108512-14318180795457_thumb.jpg

Then we got to the part I hate the most! Hicas balljoints last time I did it the hard way decided that I would do it the easy was or so I thought. Remove the hubs mind you one driveshaft was married to a hub so we took it along to press them out unfortunately we couldn't get em out with a press needed a lot of persuasion but they finally came out

post-108512-14318182645536_thumb.jpg

post-108512-14318182905396_thumb.jpg

post-108512-14318183694458_thumb.jpg

post-108512-1431818411237_thumb.jpg

post-108512-14318184427708_thumb.jpg

Back to the car we go

post-108512-14318184759251_thumb.jpg

Upon further inspection i noticed the passengers side had a r33 lower control arm. Don't know why but knowing the bodgyness of the previous owners o checked the drivers side. No surprise.... Had a 32 one in there

Probably explains why the car barely turns right. With the widest turning circle ever and turns left like a weapon.

Out she comes and I replaced it with a r33 one to match the other side [emoji106]

post-108512-1431818636112_thumb.jpg

So we install the Coilovers and get it on the ground again

post-108512-14318187082438_thumb.jpg

post-108512-14318187459499_thumb.jpg

post-108512-14318187956317_thumb.jpg

Once again another bump in the road the rears down as far as they go and the fronts as high as the go. The car still say to high in the rear to low in the front

----____

Out come the Coilovers and swapped the bottom cuffs over (hoping that's what the factory stuffed up)

post-108512-1431818925612_thumb.jpg

But this didn't fix the issue now the rear went plenty low while the front was too high and I couldn't get it down

___---- so I left it for now to deal with later on continued to replace all the power steering hoses that were leaking and loop the Hicas lines found more fuel leaks so I fixed them on the spot.

And got it off to to get a much needed wheel alignment

post-108512-14318190884108_thumb.jpg

Well remember the lca issue?

Seems that the passenger side was at 2 degrees give or take and the drivers at 3 degrees

(R33 lca promotes around an extra degree). And the car had been in an accident before. So someone has deliberately run an r32 one to get closer camber there isn't much adjustment factory so I decided to get the car as best we could and I ordered some more adjustable arms

post-108512-14318192488447_thumb.jpg

Since then new Coilovers have been ordered and the shop I purchased them will be fixing the issue for me which is great news but yesterday the car started to smoke a ton while free revving. Mainly on decel so new engine for me!

There are more issues that have occurred over that timeline but we would be here for days discussing them

A summary of the fight so far

Interior

- replaced horrible condition steering wheel

- found a shift boot clip and actually got a boot that fits

- replaced lop sided drivers seat

- replaced awful gearknob

And cleaned the f**king thing.

Exterior

- shaved spoiler holes

- new body kit

- replaced sunroof

Haven't bothered with much else until I find a painter

Driveline

- numerous sensors and replaced injectors

- bcpr6es plugs and a full service all fluids

- silvers neomax Coilovers

- new caster rod bushes

- new rack ends

- matching lower control arms

- adjustable upper camber arms front

- adjustable upper camber arms on the rear

- Hicas eliminator

Still to do

Some already on order

- engine rebuild

- traction rods

- adjustable caster rods

- thicker sway bars

- adjustable rear wishbones

- adjustable lcas

- modded knuckles

- splitfire coilpacks

- coilpack harness

- front mount cooler

- op6 then hi flowed

- injectors

- nistune

- z32

- a better exhaust

- more sensors lol

- fix the headlight issues

- reweld a frame on the roof as it interferes with the sunroof

- fix rear bar

- repaint car in flat burnt orange

- wheels

- replace wheel studs

- brake upgrade

- handbrake shoes with meat on them would be nice

- gearbox crunches in 2nd

And that's to name a few

There are still things I've missed out. As its 8am sunday morning and this started 2 hours ago

Just wanted to share my story. Feel free to pm me if you want to continue to see how the building goes hopefully things will start moving quicker

post-108512-14318202155998_thumb.jpg

post-108512-14318202489468_thumb.jpg

P.s I'm not going to read that again so excuse spelling mistakes and mistakes in general

  • Like 1

Bluddy hell mate i feel for you. At least you can now crack on with getting the car to how you want it.

Ill be following this along mate, youll have a great car in the end

Your list of woes reminded me of this.

Talk about getting sh*t on, I'd be in jail for murder if it happened to me.

Good luck with it man, hope you end up with years of trouble free motoring once it's done.

Hahaha that ghostbusters [emoji108]

That's it ! That's the car 100%

I'm very impulsive it's terrible

But that's another 32 I'm putting back on the road and getting up to scratch it feels like a public service

Blood sweat and tears build the best cars and I guess the day will come when it's flawless and I know everything's done right [emoji106]

  • Like 1

I will do my best to keep you guys updated weekly

In the meantime hopefully this Saturday the replacement Coilovers arrive

I will also be visiting the lenso factory to get some d1rs hopefully

18x 8.5 and 18x9.5

Flat black with an orange pinstripe to suit

I will also be trying to fix the fuel tank of its mysterious leak

Plus the old owner snapped the battery terminals and jammed a million screws in

so most mornings I have to pop the bonnet and wiggle them to get it going

Picked some up 5 minutes ago [emoji106]

Since then I've found lots of little things that just show how pathetic car owners are and just let all the problems accumulate until they can't take it anymore and sell it. Why own a car like this if you have no intention of maintaining it? f**k off and buy a falcon I say.

i think we all feel your pain,

every import i have had has had at least one or two instances of finding something and just thinking, dude... wtf.

if i have to patch fix something or know that something is not right i feel almost guilty of it and it gets to you.

money holds me back every now and then, prioritizing the car against other rl things, but you find a way to fix it properly. then you have that awesome feeling of a car that's working well and being able to drive it properly.

hopefully you will get to that point with the car. when you do, it will feel extra awesome after the work your putting towards it, so well done, keep going, remember, most important.... take lots of photos :)

Yeah man if I do a bodgy its always in the back of my mind. Nowadays I do things properly the first time so I can forget about it and move onto the next thing.

Bare in mind the list isn't a priority list merely the things needed to get it to my liking

A couple of things are my choices hopefully sooner rather then later I can present it to all the other 32 lovers and they can admire it too

This is what I'm talking about !!

Instead of spending $6 and replacing them they just jammed more and more screws in until the flamin mongrel snapped (tried to undo the bolt lol and that's what happened haha)

This car never ceases to amaze me

post-108512-14319400878053_thumb.jpg

Big thanks to Ian who read the thread and has donated a fuel tank [emoji106] greatly appreciated

Maybe some people following could give me some of their opinions

So as you know my engines blowing smoke now because that's it's an attention seeking whore

I went to see a builder who didn't even give a quote on rebuilding the 20 he just said go 3l

Or at least a 25

Now before we get ahead of ourselves i have a compression tester on the way and no decisions will be made until it arrives also any sensors or engine mods are on hold until said time

What are your opinions? I'm a drifter so naturally I love the high revving rb20. Is it really a waste of time rebuilding mine or finding a replacement in decent condition?

From what I hear the 25 swap is a piece of piss. But I've also heard Hicas deleting is. Ever battle a Hicas balljoint? If so you know it's a lie.

From what I hear all I need to do is change the 4th and 6th injector pin out at the ecu. And wire in the side feed injector plugs and vct plug from a 25 and then I can keep the rb20 loom. I'm also in the midst of ordering a nistune board. Would this be worth my time? Can the nistune be configured to run a 25 with no problems?

Or another route I was thinking can I just but a rb25 plus loom and buy a power fc to suit r33 (rb25) will I then have an issue with the body loom? I'm hoping this is the plug and play way of the conversion

Let me know what you all think and your personal experiences

Rebuild rb20

Rb25 swap

All engine references are about det engines incase you were wondering

Cabin shot

post-108512-1431994425459_thumb.jpg

25 swap + 2. I haven't done it myself but I wouldn't waste your time with the 20 when the 25 is readily available and well worth the upgrade.

It's not in Aus but http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/JDM-94-95-NISSAN-LAUREL-SKYLINE-RB25-Twincam-R33-S14-C34-RB25-Turbo-ENGINE-Motor-/251623266296?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item3a95ea57f8

Looks like you guys are really happy with your choice

I'll let the weekend decide I'll compression test the engine if it fails I'll just swap it for a 25

If it doesn't I'll just tastefully mod it (with interchangeable parts) until I can afford to take the car off the road for a week

On another note.

The car didn't play up once today.... (Once the cars hot it looses all power)

And the heater started working halfway home it's never worked :/

I did hear some noises like a motor f**king up when I started playing with the climate control but at least it's working now. Unless the engines overheating that much it's heating the cabin. Either way I'm not complaining haha

Could these issues have been rectified by the terminals? As that's all I've touched this week

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Latest Posts

    • Hey Dave, welcome aboard! Good to see another soon-to-be Stagea owner here. The wagons are awesome — plenty of space, still got that Skyline DNA, and loads of potential if you’re into mods. Definitely post up pics when you get it, everyone here loves seeing new builds. What model/year are you looking at?
    • See if you can thermal epoxy a heatsink or two onto it?
    • The other problem was one of those "oh shit we are going to die moments". Basically the high spec Q50s have a full electric steering rack, and the povo ones had a regular hydraulic rack with an electric pump.  So couple of laps into session 5 as I came into turn 2 (big run off now, happily), the dash turned into a christmas tree and the steering became super heavy and I went well off. I assumed it was a tyre failure so limped to the pits, but everything was OK. But....the master warning light was still on so I checked the DTCs and saw – C13E6 “Heat Protection”. Yes, that bloody steering rack computer sitting where the oil cooler should be has its own sensors and error logic, and decided I was using the steering wheel too much. I really appreciated the helpful information in the manual (my bold) POSSIBLE CAUSE • Continuing the overloading steering (Sports driving in the circuit etc,) “DATA MONITOR” >> “C/M TEMPERATURE”. The rise of steering force motor internal temperature caused the protection function to operate. This is not a system malfunction. INSPECTION END So, basically the electric motor in the steering rack got to 150c, and it decided to shut down without warning for my safety. Didn't feel safe. Short term I'll see if I can duct some air to that motor (the engine bay is sealed pretty tight). Long term, depending on how often this happens, I'll look into swapping the povo spec electric/hydraulic rack in. While the rack should be fine the power supply to the pump will be a pain and might be best to deal with it when I add a PDM.
    • And finally, 2 problems I really need to sort.  Firstly as Matt said the auto trans is not happy as it gets hot - I couldn't log the temps but the gauge showed 90o. On the first day I took it out back in Feb, because the coolant was getting hot I never got to any auto trans issues; but on this day by late session 3 and then really clearly in 4 and 5 as it got hotter it just would not shift up. You can hear the issue really clearly at 12:55 and 16:20 on the vid. So the good news is, literally this week Ecutek finally released tuning for the jatco 7 speed. I'll have a chat to Racebox and see what they can do electrically to keep it cooler and to get the gears, if anything. That will likely take some R&D and can only really happen on track as it never gets even warm with road use. I've also picked up some eye wateringly expensive Redline D6 ATF to try, it had the highest viscosity I could find at 100o so we will see if that helps (just waiting for some oil pan gaskets so I can change it properly). If neither of those work I need to remove the coolant/trans interwarmer and the radiator cooler and go to an external cooler....somewhere.....(goodbye washer reservoir?), and if that fails give up on this mad idea and wait for Nissan to release the manual 400R
    • So, what else.... Power. I don't know what it is making because I haven't done a post tune dyno run yet; I will when I get a chance. It was 240rwkw dead stock. Conclusion from the day....it does not need a single kw more until I sort some other stuff. It comes on so hard that I could hear the twin N1 turbos on the R32 crying, and I just can't use what it has around a tight track with the current setup. Brakes. They are perfect. Hit them hard all day and they never felt like having an issue; you can see in the video we were making ground on much lighter cars on better tyres under brakes. They are standard (red sport) calipers, standard size discs in DBA5000 2 piece, Winmax pads and Motul RBF600 fluid, all from Matty at Racebrakes Sydney. Keeping in mind the car is more powerful than my R32 and weighs 1780, he clearly knows his shit. Suspension. This is one of the first areas I need to change. It has electronically controlled dampers from factory, but everything is just way too soft for track work even on the hardest setting (it is nice when hustling on country roads though). In particular it rolls into oversteer mid corner and pitches too much under hard braking so it becomes unstable eg in the turn 1 kink I need to brake early, turn through the kink then brake again so I don't pirouette like an AE86. I need to get some decent shocks with matched springs and sway bars ASAP, even if it is just a v1 setup until I work out a proper race/rally setup later. Tyres. I am running Yoko A052 in 235/45/18 all round, because that was what I could get in approximately the right height on wheels I had in the shed (Rays/Nismo 18x8 off the old Leaf actually!). As track tyres they are pretty poor; I note GTSBoy recently posted a porker comparo video including them where they were about the same as AD09.....that is nothing like a top line track tyre. I'll start getting that sorted but realistically I should get proper sized wheels first (likely 9.5 +38 front and 11 +55 at the rear, so a custom order, and I can't rotate them like the R32), then work out what the best tyre option is. BTW on that, Targa Tas had gone to road tyres instead of semi slicks now so that is a whole other world of choices to sort. Diff. This is the other thing that urgently needs to be addressed. It left massive 1s out of the fish hook all day, even when I was trying not too (you can also hear it reving on the video, and see the RPM rising too fast compared to speed in the data). It has an open diff that Infiniti optimistically called a B-LSD for "Brake Limited Slip Diff". It does good straight line standing start 11s but it is woeful on the track. Nismo seem to make a 2 way for it.
×
×
  • Create New...