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American living in Japan with a R34

Hella_GTR

By Hella_GTR,
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Hella_GTR

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Hi Folks,

New guy here to this site.  I'm an american (sorry in advance) living in Tokyo for a few years.  While I am here I thought I'd live my dream and get my teenage dream car, a R34 GTR.  Because USA has crappy import laws for japanese cars, especially California where I'm from, I don't know if I'll ever be able to take it home with me.  That said, i'd like to enjoy the car now while I can. 

I picked up an original r34 GTR v-spec in December.  I installed JRZ's, standard issue Volks, and an HKS exhaust.  That's it for now and may remain that way for a while as I get used to the car.  I've got some issues with the car which is why I'm joining here so I can post some questions along the way.  Hopefully one day I can have a GTR in the US.  You guys are so lucky.

Hope you all have a great Friday and weekend.  Cheers, Kanpai!

 

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joshuaho96 Veteran

joshuaho96

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If you store it in Japan until it's 25 years you can import it to the US. Registration in California will require a mostly stock engine, you can have a catback but everything else needs to be stock. Expect to pay 50k USD for emissions compliance, roughly 71k AUD at this time or 5.4M yen due to the requirement for all 1996+ vehicles to have OBD2. After that smog will be every 2 years. Smog will be OBD2 connected with exhaust sniffer testing in neutral.

States other than Hawaii and CA will be simple, you will be emissions exempt so you can do whatever you want to the car.

Hella_GTR Collaborator

Hella_GTR

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23 hours ago, joshuaho96 said:

If you store it in Japan until it's 25 years you can import it to the US. Registration in California will require a mostly stock engine, you can have a catback but everything else needs to be stock. Expect to pay 50k USD for emissions compliance, roughly 71k AUD at this time or 5.4M yen due to the requirement for all 1996+ vehicles to have OBD2. After that smog will be every 2 years. Smog will be OBD2 connected with exhaust sniffer testing in neutral.

States other than Hawaii and CA will be simple, you will be emissions exempt so you can do whatever you want to the car.

Hi Joshua!  You're SPOT on man.  I know Sean Morris (owns Top Rank) is working on the OBDII stuff now.  I'm hoping by 2025, there will be some other options an OBDII system for the R34 GTR.  That's my plan though.  Keep it and hope hope hope the cost of an OBDII system goes down lol.  I think there will be enough demand in CA to get developers to make a system.  OR....I move to Oregon or Washington but it would be hard to leave my family and friends behind.  

That said, i heard the handfull of legal r34 motorex cars have offers of over $200k on them and the sellers won't sell.  So if you have a $60k r34 + $50k for CA compliance you're still winning in terms of what they can be sold for.   I'm sure there's folks here already swooping r34's for the future US markets. Crazy the things we do for love lol.  

On another note, I'm battling some noise from installing my JRZ's on the r34.  I put some videos up in my other post.  If anyone knows if this noise is normal or not, I'd appreciate the help!  https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/477651-r34-jrz-installed-chatter-noise/

Thanks all!  The more I drive this car, the more I love it.  

 

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