SMOK1106

Hi all, I just thought I'd drop everybody a line after this exciting day.... I woke up at 6 am this morning, just like every other morning.... When I turned the TV on channel Seven's breakfast show, I saw a little news headline running across the bottom of the screen: ' Nissan to enter V8 supercars in 2013...' I was like...'WTF ??!?' thinking that I'd misread it having fuzzy vision as I had just woken up. So I waited a few minutes until it flashed across the bottom again..... It was that moment, at 6:04am on the 9th day of Feb, 2012, that I realised that Nissan had officially entered the very series from which they were banned from twenty years ago. This was the one of the better mornings I have had for a long time...... All day, I was wondering what Nissan is gonna bring to the table.... Just think about it, V8 Supercars with their 5 litre pushrod donk running around 600hp, compare that to the GT500 series in Japan, with power capped at 500hp, the Nismo cars all run a far more refined four-n-a-half litre N/A quadcam V8, rear wheeler, etc. I mean, I can't picture them simply throwing a couple of R35 in there with V8s under the hood - no, it's not gonna happen... but whatever cars they do end up sending the Kelly boys, it's gonna do us all proud. I was also watching the news earlier tonight when they interviewed Mark Skiefe, he stated that having other makes enter the series will increase the audience count blah blah blah......considering V8 supercars was originally conceived after the Nissans being banned. now, they're bringing Nissans back in to help improve the series..... HA ! See the irony in that ? I'm sure they'll bring in new audience, a heap of import lovers are gonna watch the Nissans send the Dunnydores and Henry's failures packing with the tails between the legs.... You know what tho ? I would really really love to see an interview with Dickless Johnson today considering he was the bitch that lead the movement to ban the Godzillas - a real Aussie attitude - 'cant beat them, ban 'em'.

I wouldn't be beating them down if their comments were constructive. I'd take in a comment from a lesser-experienced person with the greatest interest and respect if it was constructive, but somehow I dont consider people that have NEVER attempted anything before raving on how hard something is as being constructive.

The ends of the side skirts will need to be reshaped to match up with the new arches, same goes with the rear pods and/or bumper, otherwise it'll bolt on as per factory. We have moulded side skirts onto the actual body before, but for it to make any sense, you would need to modify the side skirts by cutting the front section off and have it attached to the front fender so that the whole fender can be removed if need be.

Hi all, I just thought I'd drop everybody a line after this exciting day.... I woke up at 6 am this morning, just like every other morning.... When I turned the TV on channel Seven's breakfast show, I saw a little news headline running across the bottom of the screen: ' Nissan to enter V8 supercars in 2013...' I was like...'WTF ??!?' thinking that I'd misread it having fuzzy vision as I had just woken up. So I waited a few minutes until it flashed across the bottom again..... It was that moment, at 6:04am on the 9th day of Feb, 2012, that I realised that Nissan had officially entered the very series from which they were banned from twenty years ago. This was the one of the better mornings I have had for a long time...... All day, I was wondering what Nissan is gonna bring to the table.... Just think about it, V8 Supercars with their 5 litre pushrod donk running around 600hp, compare that to the GT500 series in Japan, with power capped at 500hp, the Nismo cars all run a far more refined four-n-a-half litre N/A quadcam V8, rear wheeler, etc. I mean, I can't picture them simply throwing a couple of R35 in there with V8s under the hood - no, it's not gonna happen... but whatever cars they do end up sending the Kelly boys, it's gonna do us all proud. I was also watching the news earlier tonight when they interviewed Mark Skiefe, he stated that having other makes enter the series will increase the audience count blah blah blah......considering V8 supercars was originally conceived after the Nissans being banned. now, they're bringing Nissans back in to help improve the series..... HA ! See the irony in that ? I'm sure they'll bring in new audience, a heap of import lovers are gonna watch the Nissans send the Dunnydores and Henry's failures packing with the tails between the legs.... You know what tho ? I would really really love to see an interview with Dickless Johnson today considering he was the bitch that lead the movement to ban the Godzillas - a real Aussie attitude - 'cant beat them, ban 'em'.

As with any structural modification, there shouldn't be any engineering issues as long as the structural integraty of the car isn't affected. ie, any sheet metal part of the vehicle removed has to be reinforced - as per RTA (NSW) light modifications legistrations. They have all kinds of rules regarding welding and positioning of various components. By law, any structural modifications will have to be inspected by a RTA-approved engineer - even one of those wagons or SUVs converted for wheel chair lift access at the rear - they require the identical structural inspection as a roll cage installation. Once the modifications have been passed, the details are then uploaded onto the RTA computer. So if you were to get pulled up by the local highway patrol, they should have the details of all your mods in their system to begin with - it's no longer like the old days when you had to keep a copy of your engineering certificate in the glove box and then get told that the cop's gonna defect you anyways because he thinks your paper work is outdated.

In automotive forums, there are two types of people: One is people that have been 'there and done that', for example - people that have dropped 350 Chev V8s into 260 Z-cars (try drifting THAT !) and know how to set up the points in an old-school dizzy....And then there's the second type, these are the people that NOT only do not know how to set up points in a distributor, but have absolutely NO IDEA about anything automotive, but think they know cars because they have owned their mummy-paid-for Skyline for the last coupla months. These people in the latter group are also the very same idiots that go out and buy loudest BOV because the idiot next door has one. Well, what's the point of this post ? This is where the first group of educated people discuss ideas to try to improve their techniques, so therefore the second group (the idiots) should STFU and watch and learn and not cry about how hard something is to do.

Thanks for your advice. Yes, it's a huge job, but not a hard one. We did a similar conversion back in the mid-late 90's with my old '75 Galant coupe, we took a 4G63 out of an early Evo, keep in mind that this twin cam turbo version of the 4G63 was only a couple of years old at this stage, swung it 90 degrees and grafted it into the 1.6 litre Saturn engine bay.....this exercise induced a fair bit of wheel spin and being a rear driver pushing right on 200 rwkw with a curb weight of sub - 900 kg, the only way to get decent traction was to use wider rims & tyres - enter wider metal wheel arches. Rather than attempting to blend the wheel arch onto the existing fender, which requires shaping of both the new wheel arches and the fenders (as you have described), we found that it was much easier having the two surfaces simply cut and welded, meeting at an angle with the general overall shapes untouched, producing a distinctive clean line around the wheel arch. The trick was to mark out exactly where to cut so that the two parts meet up producing the clean line. I remember making some stensils out of cardboard for this purpose. An excess area of about an inch was left on the wheel arches along the welded edge so the two parts can be overlapped during welding. During the Galant project, I made an attempt to keep the car all metal, so therefore no fibreglass or plastic filler was ever used. I went as far as lead wiping and file finishing the body before paint. Once again, I'd say the trickiest parts was marking out where to cut the metal and not messing up the welding in terms of alignment and temperature management. So, yes, it was a huge job taking about 6 weeks for the rear wheel arches, but not a hard one. Now, back to the VE wheel arches, I have looked at it, done a bit more measuring and have decided that two pairs of VE front fenders are required to do all four corners as the factory rear arches on the VE isn't as complete in shape as the front ones and cant be used for what is required of them in this exercise.

The look you're talking about wouldn't be too far off what I'm suggesting with the VE guards - it's all about the curves and lines, some wheel arch shapes gives you the width but simply doesn't go with the rest of the car. It's not just about being able to fit a pair of wide rims out back, it has to look good too..... The sheet metal work isn't as hard as some people make out..... Here's one for all those people that's wondering about the inner guard when grafting on a wider / bigger wheel arch, instead of cutting off the existing wheel arch and trying to join the new one on, the new wheel arch is simply welded directly onto the factory steel body, the original factory wheel arch is reshaped and flared outwards underneath - instead of lip being rolled inwards, it's flattened out and merged with the backside of the new wheel arch (done before welding would make the shaping easier), now effectively becoming the new inner guard / arch. This technique will also strengthen and reinforce that entire section if carried out correctly. The most important thing is temperature control during welding so that the position of the new wheel arch doesn't get throw-out due to the expansions and contractions caused by the welding process.

People use those stick on over fenders as on the original 400R to try to give a false impression of wide perhaps... I think they look 'wrong' on the narrower gtst guards. The other good use for those over-fenders is to cover up the typical rust that's around that area.

Finally a constructive reply. Cheers. I have already considered the inner guard delima - read below.....

Hey, You're the dude that sold me that silver series II bonnet ! Still doing graphics ?

Thanks for not being a nay-sayer... Most of these people say 'no' simply because they're too damn lazy or too stupid to try something original.....I remember all the 'That wouldn't work' and 'That'd look shit' comments when we did a similar conversion to the ass end of a 260Z ( 4-bolt 350 Chev + raceglide + Jag diff = fully street registered and engineered) back in 1992, we wanted to give it the wide whale-tail look but we needed more width than what the factory plastic bolt-on flares could give us - we had to jam a pair of MT slicks under there..... we borrowed a pair of metal front fenders off another car and grafted those onto the outside of the rear arches .... I remember the looks we were getting at the old Eastern Creek circuit straight when she ran a 12sec flat off the trailer un-tuned. In the pit area, I distinctively remember people were coming up from all directions asking where we got that kit from. Gee didn't I wish all those nay-sayers were right there and then ?? enough said. Will be posting visions as soon as the gas-axe comes out .... No guts, no glory.....

If it's done right, it would end up with a nice bulgy wide ass-end in METAL and not like this ugly plastic thing below..... I swear, who in their right frame of mind would actually slap on another 100 kg of fibreglass and body filler to make their car look like this ?? You know what's even more stupid ? The said person paid thousands to a shop in Qld for this pile of plastic crap !

Gee....U do much of that ?

Thanks man !!! .... you're right dude ! WOW ..... Not being a smartass here lol.... but I picked up my R33 from Powerplay Imports over 10 years ago before 99% of you guys even dreamed of owning one, so yes, the 400R kit would be a straight fit AND she would also end up just like all the other 30,000,000,000,000,000 R33 out there..... I would then be calling it a MAJOR ORIGINALITY FAIL....... Oh I forgot, people here want their cars to look just like every other members' ....