jimnastic

Haha similar situation with the wife's Polo. Will take crappy switches and RB soundtrack any day Also been thinking of doing something to replace the awful headlight/key buzzer sound with that nice VW 'ding ding ding'. Maybe it would be easier to just swap the RB into the VW at this rate

Minor update between buying the clutch and fitting the clutch Got these Behrman replacement headlight lenses from rhdjapan. Only problem is they're too nice to put on the car. Looking into what options there are to protect them, at this stage thinking of covering them with clear vinyl wrap or something Here's a little project I've been working on. I've developed this weird obsession with getting the power window switches to feel nicer and work better. Bought a VW window switch, which turned out to be way more complicated than a switch needs to be. Programmed an Arduino to translate input from the switches, and then send that information back to 1995 so the car can understand. Very rough looking prototype installed in the car while I continue tweaking it, but it works... some of the time.

As mentioned earlier, the clutch was a bit unhappy with the new tune. Coppermix twin plate was purchased along with a few other bits to change while the gearbox is out (parts breakdown in an upcoming post) Rear camber arms from Hardrace to hopefully stop the rear end from eating tyres Found this stock stereo going for a good price. Planning to install a bluetooth module and replace the existing JVC unit

Things got real busy between now and my last update, bought a house, got married, all of that stuff that keeps you occupied. Very excited to have a garage now, so the GTR finally has a roof over it's head, and I've got plenty of room for bigger projects (possibly a friend for the GTR soon?) Anyway, here's a small update to start things off - New handbrake and shifter boots. Bought these from redlinegoods.com, very happy with the quality of these compared to the cheaper ebay ones I had before, hopefully they hold up a bit better

Thanks for the positive comments, keeping it clean and tidy has been my goal with everything, so I'm glad it comes through in the photos Recently fitted a GReddy oil filter relocation kit. I avoided doing this for a long time as I really didn't want anything in the engine bay that didn't look stock, but I was a bit over fighting with the location of the filter every time I do a service Since getting the car tuned, I've been doing some homework on upgrading the ignition system, and decided on an upgrade to R35 GTR coil packs. I got the coil bracket from Platinum Racing Products in Sydney, the coils are Splitfire SF-DIS-103, and the harness was found on ebay. The engine cover is staying off for now, as it will need a bit of modification to clear the rear coil

I've also been trying to remember to take pictures of the car itself rather than just shiny new parts Cattai National Park My grandfather's farm in the Snowy Mountains Mount Ainslie, Canberra

Since the last update, my partner and I have moved down to Canberra due to her job, so I've unfortunately had to restrain myself from spending too much money on the GTR until I start working again. I did however receive some parts from Japan that I ordered just before the move. A (fake) Garage Defend style carbon cooling panel. Couldn't justify the price of a genuine one, as I only wanted it so it would cover all the ugly stuff behind the front grill and lights, but it's surprisingly good quality, just took a bit of persuasion to get it to fit properly Also received some various bits from Japan, including new coolant overflow and washer bottles

It's the "duracon" plastic gear knob, so it's like a really hard plastic I'm not sure how to tell the difference, it was on the car when I bought it. If it is fake, then it seems to be good quality

$150 - Standard RB26 injectors

$30 - Nismo gear knob $250 - Nismo air flow meters

Moving sale - R33 GTR Parts Moving out of Sydney soon, and the less stuff I have to pack into the GTR, the better. Located in Riverstone NSW, but we're moving to Canberra so I can bring stuff down there. I'll be adding more stuff if I find anything else in the garage $350 - Nismo front pipe. Has had flex pipe replaced $250 - X Force split dumps. Not 100% sure if these are for R32 or R33 as I never ended up putting them on the car, they appear to be for an R33 based on the thread size $100 - Carbon fibre cooling panel $30 - BCPR6ES spark plugs. Gapped to 0.9, used for 15km before being changed by the tuner

I've been focusing my attention recently on tidying up the engine bay. There's no way I'll ever be able to get it as clean as I want it, but every little bit counts While I was in there scrubbing away at everything, I also hit a few bits with some black paint The bonnet stand These mounting brackets The top of the headlights, and the coolant and washer bottles. I actually have new replacement bottles on the way, but I just wanted to see what they look like black I also got some pictures of a few miscellaneous bits that I hadn't covered previously The interior. The shifter and handbrake boots looked better when they were new, but I don't like how they've faded. They're on the to do list I've posted about the wideband before, but I didn't get a picture of the data IO cables, which are run through where the little glass window was in the ash tray The drivers side window switch wasn't quite working properly, which I think is a common thing on the R33s. With a little bit of fabrication work, I swapped the broken window buttons out for buttons from a Hilux, which seem to feel a lot sturdier This is just a close up of where I've tucked the injector ballast and boost solenoid plugs back in to the fuse box. Makes this whole area look a lot neater than just leaving the unused plugs hanging out This is the Nismo dash I bought and fixed, with the aftermarket immobiliser LED connected to the A-LSD light. Nice and factory looking And finally, I haven't really put up any decent pictures of the car itself, so here's one from the weekend

Been a bit busy recently so I've fallen behind with the updates, but this is pretty close to where it's at now So far, I've just used what limited knowledge I have of tuning to just keep it running nice and safe, but now that I've got all the performance related bits that I want, it was time for a proper tune. Had the car booked in at Unigroup, where it made 265awkw @ 18psi, not a bad result While it could have made a bit more power, it was being held back by the clutch beginning to slip (an Exedy NSK-7172 OEM replacement, changed a few years ago), and some weakness in the ignition system was starting to show. So at this stage, I'm considering replacing the clutch with a Nismo Coppermix twin plate, and possibly an upgrade to LS2 coils, but neither of these will be happening for a while as I'm quite happy with the power it's making now. I'm happy to hear any suggestions or recommendations if anyone is following along Since a post without pictures is kind of boring, here's a picture of the engine bay not long after I bought it, and one from a bit more recently (still not current though, will get some new pics soon)

Yeah it seems like it'll keep going forever, I hope I'm right! It's had a pretty easy life while I've had it, only occasionally pushed hard on a nice curvy back road here and there

A few updates from earlier this month: After putting up with a crappy battery for quite a few years, I finally replaced it with a nice new Optima yellow top (D51R-T1). I can now leave the car for more than a couple of days, and it will still start, amazing! Next up, changed my old beaten up front pipe for a new Blitz item, with 70mm inlets to 80mm outlet And just as exciting as the shiny new front pipe, some shiny new brake line clips. These are the same part as clips for a S14 (46289-15U10) And last on the list, made a slight modification to the AFR gauge. The LED display was a bit too bright for my liking, so I bought some small sample pieces of window tint and applied that to the clear plastic over the front of the gauge. When the gauge is off, it looks completely black, nice and stealthy

February 2017 - I'd being keeping an eye out for a while for a Nismo 320km gauge cluster, but the only ones I could ever find for a reasonable price were the white version, and I much prefer the black. I found one on Yahoo Auctions for a really good price because of a dead tacho, so I grabbed that, did a bit of electrical tinkering, and now it's working perfectly. Since I don't have an Active LSD, I wired up the warning light to the alarm LED, which fits in nicely with my 'keep everything looking stock' theme. I also modified the gear shift surround to mount the wideband gauge where the cigarette lighter was, as it never gets used. I got a scrap piece of plastic and cut a hole in it to fit the gauge, then used epoxy to stick it on, and drilled some small holes to screw the gauge on. It looks rough as, but it's surprisingly strong, it won't be falling apart any time soon

January 2017 - Since moving to Sydney (don't know if I mentioned that?), the horn has been getting quite a workout. With only one of the horns working, I decided to upgrade to a set of Hella Supertones. Wanting to keep the engine bay looking neat, I pulled the fuse box out and upgraded the factory wiring, rather than using the supplied relay. I was unsure about having two bright red horns behind the grill, but they're not actually too visible

EVC-S

November 2016 - When I did the timing belt a few years ago, I didn't do the water pump for some reason, so you can imagine my surprise when it started leaking. So I stripped the front of the engine down and replaced: -Water pump (21010-24U27) -Timing belt (13028-5L327) -Aux belts (?) -Idler & tensioner bearings (?) -Cam seals (13042-16V00 x 2) -Crank seal (13510-10Y10) -CAS seal (13568-05U00) While on the subject, I got the A/C tensioner pulley bearing replaced a few years ago, and the bearing place told me it's a 6301 (size? part #?) bearing, which cost me a total of maybe $5 to replace, compared to $100+ for a new pulley Also while everything was off, I painted the engine covers as well. I used VHT metallic engine paint, which uses a silver metallic base coat, and then a red top coat. It came out pretty well, but if I were to do it again, I'd do more layers of red, or just get them powder coated I One more thing, I found that the rubber bonnet stops can be replaced with ones from a Nissan Patrol. I don't have a picture of them installed, but the part number is 90878-2L700

I found a picture from when I had the quarter panel off to do the wiring. I changed the headlight bolts hidden in the front bar to wing bolts at some stage, so when I need to take the headlights out, I can just remove the front indicators and stick my arm the bar and undo them by hand. Now I can have both headlights out in about 5 minutes

It still works while the face plate is down. I find that the stock gauge is sort of good enough most of the time, and I only need to look at the controller if I want a more specific number, so I usually leave the face plate up When I had the turbos out, I mounted the HKS solenoid under the air box. I extended the wires and ran them with all the stock wiring under the rail in front of the radiator, and through the quarter panel. I made a point of hiding everything as much as possible, so there's no hint that anything has been modified

October 2016 - I suspected the injectors may not be quite as good as they were 170000km and 21 years ago, so let's upgrade them too. Got a set of Bosch EV14 1000cc injectors and a ballast delete plug from NZEFI. This was an easy swap as they fit into the stock rail and wiring harness, then I just punched the right settings into the ECU, did some data logging and fine tuning, and it's all good. Idle was noticably improved, and the car felt a lot smoother to drive around A bonus to doing this was that I could now completely remove the bracket that the ballast and the stock boost solenoid are attached too, and there was just enough room to tuck the delete plug under the fuse box. Two other new additions are a hard pipe kit, as during the turbo install I found one of the rubber pipes was starting to split, and I also found some adhesive backed foam to go on the air box snorkel

Haha looks like the head unit mod is a hit. I've done a few other things like that but I wasn't sure if they were worth posting. When I'm done catching up on the old stuff, I might do a few posts documenting all of that stuff Mine is currently on around 175000km and still going strong. A rebuild isn't in the budget yet, but it's definitely part of the plan one day!

September 2016 - Fiiiiiinally got around to replaced the stock shocks. I went with a set of Bilstein B6 shocks (front B46-2107 & rear B46-2108) and man do they make a difference. Also gave one of the calipers a quick and dirty coat of clear coat just to get an idea of how much better they'd look. It's 6 months later now and I still haven't done the others, I'm tossing up if I should redo them in black or go another colour

August 2016 - Had the car off the road for a few weeks while I slowly made my way through swapping the turbos. Having never stripped down this side of the engine before, I didn't want to rush it, and it gave me an opportunity to give every bit a good clean as things went back together. The whole process was made a lot longer when I found a leaking copper washer after putting everything back together, which meant pretty much pulling the whole thing apart again just to change one washer. All the time and money was worth it when I took it for the first drive and heard the sound they make!