First time Skyline owner

[677_GTR]

Hi guys, after dreaming of owning a JDM legend for 20 years, I got the chance to buy a 1995 R33 GTR. 
I live in a small country called the Solomon Islands which is in the pacific. There is no performance car scene here, however 90% of vehicles here are 2nd hand Japanese imports so there is a handful of JDM sports cars here, tucked away. 
3 Evo VI’s, 1 180sx turbo, 2 GTO’s, 1 R32 GTR and 2 R33 GTR’s. 
 

Only 1 Evo and a 33 (mine) are active. I’m hoping to set up a club to get these cars back in the road. 
 

I’d known of my GTR for 9 years and always dreamed of owning it. At the start of this year I found it sitting outside a workshop waiting for a respray. It was in pretty bad shape, although running and driving perfectly apart from a big exhaust leak and worn out bushings. My brother in law who is a huge GTR guy came over for a holiday and I took him to see it, he got into my ear and I bought the car 2 weeks later as is.
 

I’ve had a pretty bad problem with alcohol and weed since 2020 and I really wanted to quit. So I used this as my motivation. I quit everything cold turkey and have been investing all my spare time into restoring this car. It’s honestly been the best experience and has been such a positive impact on my life. 
There is no market for these cars here, no parts and no mechanics that can work on them, so if you wanted to sell one it would be pretty impossible unless you found the right buyer. After a bit of negotiating with the previous owner (a good friend) I got the car for $15,000 AUD ($85,000 SBD) which is insane. 

I’ve almost finished doing a refresh on the engine, new turbos, spark plugs and split fire coil packs. Also new gaskets and seals, This car had no leaks to begin with, but it’s due now being 30 years old. .
Next I’ll be working on the suspension, all new bushings, ball joints, king pins and new coil overs. 
Then it will be body work, it has really bad rust in the boot floor, I have purchased a rear beaver cut from my bro which will replace the rusted out one. The car is originally KL0, but was burnt orange when it landed here, then it was resprayed toxic green and then Bayside Blue. I’m probably going to get it redone in Bayside Blue. 

I’m super grateful to be able to enjoy this car and couldn’t have done it without my bro Chris from OG-JDM. Looking forward to the future with this car and hoping to get it on the runway at the airport here 😂 

cheers fellas 

[PranK]

This is awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing updates. 

Welcome to SAU! 

[677_GTR]

Thanks man! This forum has been a lot of help. Can’t beat those 20yr old posts 😂

[Rezz]

Echo the awesome sentiment 👍
Definitely a car worth saving. Looking forward to seeing updates as well. 

[GTSBoy]

Unsolicited advice? Keep the engine as close to stock as you can. Nothing wrong with adding some boost and making a little more power, but given where you are, you really don't want to try to make it into a monster. I can't imagine the roads are up to it, and the lack of locla support when it grenades will be a ball ache.

FWIW, If there is a dyno around that you can access, then brand new injectors are a good idea, which will lead you to (at least) putting a Nistune in it, which will allow you to put an R35 AFM on it, all of which will make it possible to make it much much nicer to drive and live with.

[GTSBoy]

On 11/10/2025 at 10:46 AM, GTSBoy said:

which will allow you to put an R35 AFM on it

And I just realised that that advice is slightly nonsensical for a GTR, because you need 2 of them. But it is otherwise true.

[677_GTR]

On 11/10/2025 at 11:16 AM, GTSBoy said:

Unsolicited advice? Keep the engine as close to stock as you can. Nothing wrong with adding some boost and making a little more power, but given where you are, you really don't want to try to make it into a monster. I can't imagine the roads are up to it, and the lack of locla support when it grenades will be a ball ache.

FWIW, If there is a dyno around that you can access, then brand new injectors are a good idea, which will lead you to (at least) putting a Nistune in it, which will allow you to put an R35 AFM on it, all of which will make it possible to make it much much nicer to drive and live with.

Yeah mate that’s the plan, I just want something I can have fun in and work on during weekends. 
There’s really only 1 road fit to drive the car on and luckily is been redone recently. 
I do want to tune it next year sometime, no dynos here so I’m looking at an ECU that can be remote tuned. 

[GTSBoy]

1 hour ago, 677_GTR said:

I do want to tune it next year sometime, no dynos here so I’m looking at an ECU that can be remote tuned.

Well, really, that's any ECU, because it's not so much the ECU that the tuner connects to, but a laptop that's connected to the ECU. You have to have the tuning software installed locally. The "remote" part is essentially just remote desktop (RDP) or VNC type access.

Nevertheless, if you're looking to upgrade, then you're immediately in the Haltech/Link territory, both of which can be done by any number of competent tuners here in Oz. But without a dyno, you'll definitely also need a wideband O2 sensor fitted, and you'll probably be relying on "auto" tuning a bit, where you drive it around under various loads and then apply the corrections that the ECU learns (basically applying the fuel trims that the ECU has to do to correct the mixtures). Tuning the timing is a little harder. It can be difficult to trust the old OEM knock sensors on RBs, so it is definitely best to have someone who knows what they're listening for, with knock ears (a piezo microphone connected to the engine, and and little amp and headphones so the listener can hear the angry men with hammers who live in the engine). That is more difficult to do remotely, and I suspect the only sane way is to be quite conservative on timing. But that's OK. You're probably waaaaay better off with conservative timing where you are.

What is the fuel situation? 98RON available? Or low grade jungle juice?

[Kinkstaah]

The above is very important. However as long as you keep timing relatively low, it's plausible to make your own knock ears and plausible to learn to tune with a modern ECU that can do wideband O2 correction like a boost controller.

I mean if you only have one viable road to even drive the car on, learning to tinker to this level may be worth doing given you can't do much else with the car...?