Leaderboard

Long time no post! Well, I never thought I'd see the day but here we are...

So, I found my cover. And 12 hours later the replacement arrived. 🤷‍♂️

They see me rollin' they hatin'....... Took me most of the day to make the necessary mods to the mounts to make them fit the car. Fortunately I was able to just use the mounts that came with the rotisserie. The rear ones are really secure, the front I feel i might reinforce a bit more as it doesn't seem like enough attachment to the vehicle. I'm sure it's fine but better to be safe than (extremely...) sorry. I drilled and tapped thread into additional M12 holes to each car mount where it attaches to the rotisserie as an extra fail-safe. Without them the side to side movement is just restricted by the allen head pinch bolts, nothing actually goes though the beam. Does now! I still need to adjust the rotisserie to get the car centred in terms of centre of gravity. If it's too high or too low relative to the rotational centre line of the car, it will be like a turtle and roll onto its back or as it currently sits, I dont think I'd be able to rotate it as it sits as it needs to lift the whole car up as it rotates. Ain't happening... I'm going to be nervous as hell the first time I go to spin it on its side...

Latest round of updates on the car. I purchased and installed a SWS clutch slipper to help with 60ft times and got some second-hand good condition 275/40R17 Hoosier DR2 radials. Test and tune in November showed the tyres were an upgrade over my over 15 year old mickey Thompson's and I got a 1.8 second 60ft and pb et of 11.71 but even then, that run wasn't great due to rain and driver error (the event got called off 10 minutes later fast forward to the weekend just gone 25th of Jan and there was finally a break in the weather to let racing happen. The first run the track was slippery and only managed a 12.1@129 Second run the track was better and got a new pb et and mph: 11.54@131 Lith and I then worked out that I installed the previously mentioned clutch slipper incorrectly and its never been working, and I had just been dumping the clutch the entire time, we also noticed it was on street boost and not race boost. So I lined up for a third run with the car turned up in the first two gears, but the passengers side axle objected to clutch dumps and left the chat which stopped my weekend. so there will be another attempt in the future once I replace the tyres as they rubbed and are stuffed now. but a low 11 should be on the cards.

Me coming to check the thread to see if my manual boost controller was set up correct......

Greg, you are the reason you cannot have nice things.

Congratulations on the citizenship, that's huge. Needs to be celebrated with a skid, true Aussie style (post vid) 😂 There's a cruise this Sunday to Lorne if you're keen, meeting at Derrimut. PM me for more details if you want to come and I'll happily meet up with you beforehand.

So we have most the interior back in, and for the first time with one OEM speaker hooked up. The 31 is running, driving and now tunes!!! Hahaha yet another step for the sub that sat 10m under for two weeks!!! unbelievable really 👌 lots of love work and not giving up on her. Seen so many youngsters part way less, and in way better condition. I’m stubborn, thinking another problem is just a hurdle to overcome, One at a time. IMG_9277.mov

Haha thanks Lith, So it's currently working quite well and the torque reduction is setup and working phenomenal. It also got a custom torque convertor from All Fast in WA. Stall speed somewhere around 5500rpm unlocked but still with the lockup. The car went back onto the dyno after a 3yr hiatus (even with the dbw, and other mods completed in this time) managed to make ~515kw at all 4 hubs. Sean setup the Torque reduction which now sounds awesome and working well. We setup adjustable torque controlled launch control aswell. Man what a feature. Especially when drag racing on street tyres I Managed to get out to the drags late last year and tick a huge bucket list item off of running mine and the cars first 9. Car went a 9.98 @142 Still had the young fellas car seat in the back aswell. This was on 255/40/17 Nankang AR-1. Currently the Turbolamik is still completing it's own torque calcs and managing shift times from there. Unfortunately emtrons can export is still a little restrictive to export the ecu calculated torque just yet but I have recently been suggested a work around that I just haven't had a chance to trial yet.

Could screw the headlights washers there too...

Had a few skylines over the years anyway bought this a few years ago for skidz i think it’s been around these traps for a while anyway I plan to thrash and trash and I assume it’s going to send me broke good times

Deals off now apparently https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-13/honda-and-nissan-say-merger-talks-called-off/104934438 Hopefully Nissan closes up soon and the family X-Trail becomes a classic too!

Ask and you shall receive receive tyre blow out session ( low boost)

There was a thread on here when it was set up for the Bathurst 12/24 hour race a while ago then went to giant then to Jason’s who I bought it off has some cool shit and is old school cool

It's got a problem Prank... It looks like both washer spray caps have fallen off this car... 😛

For a daily just run Akebono ceramic pads. That's what they're optimized for. Obviously don't try to run it on track or anything like that.

Oh poop ! I missed the "deposit" in your post !

Gave her a nice wash today and took extra time to clean off the tree sap and tar and crap. We have a usable garage now so she'll stay cleaner longer. Took a few snaps in some nice light afterwards.

A little progress; I took the opportunity of an oil change to take a sample for oil analysis, will be interesting to see how it was treated for its first 125,000klm (I know how it has been treated since :rofl:) I went with 5w40 and will see what that does for oil pressure at higher revs. Also fitted the Z1 front undertray....a little more sturdy than the plastic factory one (although I suspect it won't stop a tree stump ) Nicest thing about it really is the 2 bolt "service panel"....a gift to the oil changer compared to removing 14 bolts holding the factory tray.

I've also got a quick jack. I would never get under my car again without using it. While it might be quicker to use a jack and stands, it is such a quality of life improvement that I wouldn't have it any other way now. How much slower the quick jack is to setup will be based on your circumstances. Can you leave the jack rails on each side of the garage? Can you leave the hydraulic lines attached? etc. If you can drive the car into the garage and simply push the jacking rail thingos under the car into place, it is super quick to setup and use. But if you have to pull the pump unit out of storage, attach the hydraulic lines, wheel out the lifting rail thingos.... yeah takes a bit of time. Having said that, I would still prefer that to using a jack and stands lol.

Here's Neil's car up on mine recently

Success! battery voltage needle calibration is a bit off but oh well

Son, in this country, that is a piece of Gyprock. f**king drywall. FFS! I also like the autocorrect of trailer to tablet. I was reading it and thing, "what the hell drugs is he on?" Then the photo made it clear enough.

The new project has arrived. I have wanted one of these for such a long time, well before that meathead Clarkson drove one in Africa. I really wanted an E34 but I have some medical issues that mean I *really* can't bump my head and the lack of airbags in the E34 made it just too big of a risk. I don't know why I've always liked these older touring BMW's to be honest, but man I love this car. She's been pretty well maintained for her 243k's with what appears to be only a single oil leak at the oil filter housing gasket. It has a bunch of updates including later model bumper and headlights, 7 series billion-way adjustable seats and it came with a few spares and another set of wheels with legal tyres. I got a unregistered car permit from the RTA and drove it back from Canberra on Saturday. First cab off the rank is cleaning it up for blue slip. I dont know how picky they'll be but I figured I'd clean the headlights, fix the oil filter housing gasket, replace the speed sensors (throwing errors) and swap the OE wheels (the M Sport wheels have a big chunk out of one of the tyres.) I also need to replace all 6 gas struts - 2 for bonnet, 2 for hatch and 2 for hatch glass. The car tries to eat me whenever i open any of these. My plan for this car; Ultimately, this is a budget car. I can't afford to throw lots at it and its because I have another car that I got this, if something breaks its no big deal. I will just maintain and repair it really. But eventually I want to do a manual conversion. It actually looks pretty straight forward for E39's and the trickiest part will be sourcing the parts. I do need to replace some suspension arms or bushes because wow, she's a floaty old girl. She's also fantastically slow. Like really, really slow. When pulling back out on to the freeway on Sat after a quick pull over I needed to wait until no cars were visible before going. Oh, and the guy I bought it from had a gorgeous R31 GTS-X in the garage.

Nah he was mega organised, the sort of guy that put (almost) every tool back every day, it made trying to work out where things were up to possible. My shed needs a swedish death clean, I would have >20 part done jobs, its particularly hard to collect all required parts for a job ahead of time when you can't just pop into a shop and grab things

Actually that's a good point, shouldn't you be in FNQ putting up a bridge for the Bruce Highway?

This is actually 2 whole different trains of thought that need to be addressed separately. No, as Matt says above, "Engineer" is not a directly protected title. A lot of guys who just do mechanical design via CAD, with or without even some sort of associate diploma in engineering, often have the job title of "Design Engineer". A train driver can probably still describe themselves as an engineer. But, to usefully get employment with anyone as a proper engineer, you're going to have to have at least the necessary and relevant degree qualification. You're not going to get a job as an electrical engineer if you have a chem eng degree, unless you can demonstrate x number of years of working in that capacity, sufficient knowledge, etc. Having the degree is at least in indication that you've seen the relevant text books, even if you haven't read them (like pretty much the last 10 years of graduates!). To be a self employed engineer.....you could get away with quite a lot pretending that you're suitably qualified, without actually being a proper engineer. But, you will find yourself unable to work for a large section of the client space because a lot demand CVs and capability statements when considering contracting for any engineering work these days. Insurances too. If you're not a proper engineer, it will be much harder to obtain proper PI insurance. Insurance companies have gotten hip to that. The "Professional Engineer" thing is a thing in Australia. If you have the right qualifications and experience you can apply to the relevant engineering top level body (mostly Engineers Australia, the less said about whom, the better), to be assessed and approved as a Chartered Professional Engineer, CPE. There are high bars to get over and a requirement for CPD to maintain it. The RPEQ thing is similar-ish, in that you have to demonstrate and maintain, but the bars are a little lower. It is required to be RPEQ in order to sign off as an engineer on any engineering design in Queensland. The other states haven't fully followed suit yet. There's "engineering" and there's "engineering". Being an engineer that signs off on timber (or even steel) frames for housing projects, council creek crossing bridges, etc, is a flavour of civil engineering that barely warrants the name, description and degree. That would be soul crushing work anyway. Being an automotive engineer working in the space where you have to sign off on modifications to cars and trucks would also be similarly soul crushing. At least partly because of the level of clientelle, their expecations, depths of bank balance, etc. And that brings us to your second question. No, we do not have professional engineers "do vehicle inspections". Well, not the regular roadworthies, etc etc. That's done by mechanics. There might be some vehicle standards engineers at the various state govco inspection stations where cars go to get defects cleared and so on, but that's because they (the cars) are there specifically for defect inspection and clearance and so the stakes are a little higher than on an annual lights and brakes working check. But, if you modify a vehicle in Australia, you have to get it engineered. A suitably qualified (and effectively licensed, which I will get back to) automotive engineer will have to go over the application, advise on what would be required to make the mods legal, supervise some parts of the work, inspect and test the results, and sign off. The "licensed" aspect comes from there being a list of approved engineers to do these things in each state. They have to jump through hoops set up by the govco vehicle standards divisions that mean only the suitably qualified can offer to and approve such mods.

Should say I modified the seat put a fire bomb in Drunk heaps of beer and thrashed it

I dunno man, that VX S with 200,000 k's is still hanging out for 1.5 I reckon the R34 is the better buy, personally.

One of those Proton utes then. with an Evo motor in it. Gowahn!

Been busy with the newborn. We originally thought we were going to go for a third, but we're good with two lol. He's starting to actually sleep now so I've had some energy to work on the car. It's been parked away in the garage since late November due to winter. I went ahead and redid all my head oil drains. I originally had my front and rear head drain going into the same pipe but have since split them up. I also added an Ethanol content sensor to get ready to run E85 this summer. Tossed it on my return line. Sensor sits nicely under my intake manifold. I also have a lot of parts that came in for my rear end. I'll be swapping over to a 3.3 final drive and doing the GK teck anti squat mod. While the rear subframe is off, I'll also change every bushing. We're planning on buying another house soon with the condition that I get at a minimum a 2 door garage, so I'll wait to have more room for this. Now onto the strange things that recently happened... After changing the lower rad hose (It had been sitting in my cabinet for well over a year and was the last hose I had to replace), I let the car idle in the garage to bleed my coolant. After running for a few minutes, it started missing. Got much worst within a minute or two and then stalled and would not restart. My crank sensor decided to crap itself. No damage, no explanation, just died. I went ahead and replaced it with another ZF sensor but the heavier duty stainless model with a shield. Tossed that in and started right up. Has anyone else seen this? I hate when things fail without cause. Luckily this was a blessing in disguise... This lead me to recheck my timing. It seems I may have had a beer or two the last time I had set my TDC angle as I was off exactly 5 degrees... I miscounted a line haha. I was running 5 degrees less then commanded. It's a little embarrassing but helps explain why my dyno operator seemed to think I should be making more then 478rwkws.

Sharing results from recent Liberty Walk R35 GTR, since they are still considered as somesort of a V36 Skyline. We do them turbos too. This are high flowed SS-1 models with ball bearing conversion done. Car have managed to pull 485awkws @ 20Psi so far pushing limitations of factory built engine. The build list for R35 GTR enthusiasts as follow : HyperGear high flowed stock turbos in SS1 (G25-660 specs) Custom titanium intake pipes. Vspec performance titanium front pipes. Vspec performance 4" titanium exhaust. Upgrade fuel pumps. 1200cc injectors. Ignition coilpacks Hks intake plenum. Hks intercooler piping. Greddy intercooler. Greddy bovs. Top-secret coolant reservoir. Emtron ecu. Straight E85. Built gear box.

Picked up a new OEM boot seal for the MX5 today as the old one got ripped a bit by me being a idiot by seeing if I could fit a large metal tool box in it, it didn't fit, and ripped the seal with the corner of the tool box I am still waiting on time to get the cams and new balancer installed, as well as the repairs to the boot Time will not be an issue soon though

I’ve heard it can be done, you need to redrill the holes where they bolt to the chassis and apart from that they are the same. I’ve never done it or know anyone personally that has, it’s just something I’ve heard

Glue the head from a Pez dispenser on it. Goofy, or Winnie the Pooh, so something.

No. I think it's gone. 😭 I think you can get body coloured ones on eBay so I think I'll get one of those... Or just hang a red ribbon from the hole and whack a TOW sticker next to it.

I hear the old "I'd never use a pressure washer on my motorbike" BS in the dirtbike community too. The only people that have had a problem from using a pressure washer on anything are the people that aren't using them properly. If you hold the wand any more than 45 cms away from pretty much anything (radiators, wiring connectors, paint, etc) you aren't going to cause any damage. We've had detailers wreck moulds and seals on cars at work before and the only reason why is they held the pressure washer too close and on the one spot for too long. If you have 5% more brain power than a detailer then you know not to not do that and you'll never have a problem.

The nature of my commute has changed. Way back then it was traffic lights all the way, for ~28km. It sucked. When they finally stitched the expressway together I could do a good 15+km of it at a steady 80-100 with no stopping. That alone has gotten me down to flat 10s. Prior to that it was mid-high 10s. I can't remember the delta that I saw when I got the idle down. It was only ~150 rpm, because the idle speed was never terrible, but for the delta in consumption to be noticeable it would have had to have been at least 0.2-0.3 L/100km - which is not to be sneezed at when it comes for absolute free. It's only about 50L per year, but that's ~$100. A few extra pizzas is always welcome. Note that I have a record of every tank of fuel that has ever gone through my car except for a handful put in by someone else, like my mechanic. I can show you the difference between stock RB20 and tuned RB20, stock RB5Neo and tuned, winter and summer fuel blends, winter and summer fuel blends when the ambient temperature is not appropriate for the blend, working O2 sensor, blown O2 sensor, boosting f**k out of it and frightened to boost it because it is pinging, and so on. OK, I probably can't do all that now with 100% clarity - but at the time when any of those things were in event, you could see it in the records. There's 25+ years of simple tank after tank records, so you have to look for landmarks to work out approximately how old any single record is. What's really important is the meta data and that lives in my head.

You know he's in the CCP's island of oppression, right?

I went for the scissor lift option, gives a 3ft lift at full lift. I wanted a 2 post but my concrete wasn't deep enough to secure it properly

No worries, everything worked out in the end. I just wanted to make the point that it doesn't matter where it comes from (I.E Australia), it can be broken or improperly built. I would still purchase from these companies in the future. B2R - Not certain how that finished, this was on a car I wired a few things and street tuned. I know the owner ended up shipping the motor back to Australia for investigation. Hopefully some of it is covered under warranty. Turbosmart - I always pressure test everything that goes on my car. It's a habit from my career in oil and gas. I run two 40mm's and both had major leaks from the actuator to exhaust portion through the shaft. I returned both, they shipped me back two and one was leaking and the other had a 38mm top (40mm gate with 38mm actuator cap, no idea how that happens). Eventually after a lot of back and forth I found myself with two non-leaking gates. I believe this happens a lot more then people would like to believe but you would never know if you don't pressure test them prior to installation. Crank Motorsport - Issued a full refund and let me keep the seat rails. I turned them into scrap metal for other projects. GKTech - Shipped me out a replacement and asked that I modify it as per my idea and that they would do the same for a future revision. ATP - Can just needed a large shim to bolt up properly. Haltech - They started an actual proper Beta channel for firmware's a few months back and stopped using the general public for testing. I'm now much happier. Speedtek - f**k Speedtek. I would love to watch them burn.

Yeah I've got one of these, Quick Jack not Quick Lift, but your link looks like a good copy For me, it's better than no hoist, but it is definitely not as good as a hoist It lifts the car about 60cm which is a nice working height compared to regular stands and it is only under the sills so it doesn't get in the way like regular chassis stands do. No need to use regular stands, it has a safety lock on it. On the down side it is really heavy/unwieldy to drag into place, and you have to place it after the car is there (no option to drive the car to where the frames are. You need to try and line it up with the proper sill points which is hard as it swings up in an arc and there is surprisingly little adjustment in the distance between the rubber pads for different car lengths. Not a big deal, but in practice a jack + stands is probably quicker. Also there are hydraulic lines to each side and you need either a 240v or 12v source to power it depending on which option you have, I use 12v as I always seem to have a battery around.

Finally addressing my catch can and oil setup Plan is to do as much as practical without having to remove the motor or pull it apart. (no back of head to sump drain/breather or oil restrictors) First step is a set of full length baffle plates from Hypertune and a Tomei cam cap stud kit. I could probably have laser cut and bent up my own ones but this took any guess work out

Realized I haven't been back here in a while. Still here, still alive, still waiting for the car. I went back again the only time last year from Oct-Nov for R's Meeting and drove it around some more, including a few laps on Fuji Speedway(in the wet, sadly). The car still feels good, but have a couple small things to address. I've been getting more parts but have slowed down still, and most of the bigger purchases are now out of the way. I find myself getting impatient more and more when it comes to getting started on this project; it's quite hard for me not being able to really dive in and start making this car my own because it's halfway across the world. At times it doesn't even really feel like I own one of these. Haven't really been motivated or had the desire to document the last trip on here or social media for, well, reasons... but here's some pics...it's also still alive and well as you can see: I've narrowed down to the last large part purchases(anything over $2k) before the engine build to be: 1) Ohlins Road & Tracks 2) ATS Twin Carbon clutch 3) Endless BBK with some custom options and 4) Kansai Service carbon driveshaft I don't think the budget exists for all of these this year, but I'll try for one or two items I think. Though, every time I look at my spreadsheet I sigh, shake my head, and get depressed just that little bit more. 'til later.

Reading your posts Josh, sometimes I feel like I've gone in a time machine back to the 90's when everyone was doe-eyed and figuring things out for the first time. I've lost track of how many single turbo GTR's I've seen on track that haven't burnt down lol. Everything has been figured out a long time ago. These things are at the point now where its essentially turn-key to go single turbo.

100% is gyprock, I agree. Slip of the keyboard. Haha! I left my indicator bulbs out to save a bit of weight.

I'm just shocked there's a euro driver on our roads who is thinking of other road users and not attempting to blind everyone. I wonder if Prank uses his indicator too...

If you fully flushed and filled it's probably good for 5 years. I would not push it any further than that. Generally speaking coolant is more by time than by mileage. Rust wants to happen whether you're driving it 50,000 km or 80,000 km.

The front lip and headlights are making me do more look backs when I leave the car. I totally love it.