Duncan

got to here, but Neil wouldn't let me press the down button. something about blah blah check everything blah something blah

Good to see this is still going Dave....it's amazing how much longer some projects can take than you might hope....

for sure, and even KYB is just an OEM replacement. If you buy a set of specific shocks you will get the springs to match (or vice versa, but the point is they come as a set once they move too far outside standard parameters). I ran lowered springs on stock shocks then KYBs for years on my 33 GTSt including track days and it was fine for a cheap upgrade. In fact probably better than most $1000-1500 spring and shock sets because they tend to use really cheap shocks and overly hard springs.

Had the front of the car painted to deal with stone chips, and the rear bar done too due to some gronk scraping it while leaving a park. Just got it back from detailing, I reckon it's come up great for 15 years and 200,000klm Ahh those big sexy gtt wheels....

just buy local on this, it's not a top line motorsport application, just a slightly lower car. Kings, Lovells, whoever has them at your local repco....

slow progress with the hot weather and fidly jobs today, but both master cylinders are back in (clutch new, brake only used on a sunday), brakes lines cleaned and back in including the modified front line with brake pressure sender Also finished the looms and plugs for the new Haltech senders (oil pressure, oil temp, brake pressure, fuel pressure, e85 and wb02). Hopefully engine and front subframe back in tomorrow

To the most recent change….the brakes have been a problem for 2 reasons; the discs and pads don’t match anything locally which is a pain with all the klm I do with this car, also they’ve warped a couple of times. So, I decided to move to larger brakes, stuffed round one afternoon with the racecar brakes trying to measure offset etc. At the end I figured 32 GTR was a good enough match to fit OK and headed to the justjap website to order some 330mm/6 piston fronts, only to find they had a listing for F50 Cima on there anyway! Couldn’t believe it….how many limo drivers need 6 piston brakes anyway. This is the size comparison Sadly I had to swap up from the 16s as well…I wanted to keep as close as possible to the awesome stock ride with high profile tyres. Old wheels and old brakes I picked up some cheap 34GTT 17” wheels in the same width and offset as stock, cleaned them up with the dremel and then Chris at Craved did an awesome job powdercoating them back to standard colour after the repair. The only problem with powdercoating factory wheel is the centre caps are plastic and have to be painted instead, still need to get that sorted. This is how they look with the ATTKD 330mm rotors and calipers And that’s hopefully it for now….get the misfire sorted and put another couple of hundred 000 klm on it

Anyway, with a recent change of plans, I’ve decided to keep the Cima longer term…so the only sensible thing to do was to modify it a bit I took it up to Castle Hill Exhaust to see what they could do with the stock system (it came with 2 cats in the manifolds, 2 cats and a muffler in the mid pipe, 3 mufflers in the rear pipe and even a factory installed valve that closes off the main exhaust and just uses a pea shooter when putting around town). This is what was replaced The main issue was that it was way too quiet so I asked them to fix that The manifolds and mid pipe stayed, and the rear pipe was replaced with 2.5” and one large muffler in stainless. Much lighter than the old rear pipes too. Can’t show you a pic of how awesome it sounds…..so I’ll try and take a quick vid one day. On the down side, the before and after dyno runs confirmed my suspicion that it was misfiring at high revs. Yes that sounds silly not to be sure but it’s very hard to hear the motor and it runs so damn smooth it’s hard to pick the issue. look at those AFRs diving and the power get uneven as the missfire kicks in from about 3000 (the scale at the bottom was wrong, redline is 6,500 ish, not 7.7) I’ve replaced the fuel filter and it’s a bit better (it was veeeeeery overdue), but I think I’ll let Yavuz work out what else is wrong, I’m hoping it’s just the intank/low pressure fuel pump (since it runs direct injection it has a mechanical, high pressure fuel pump at the engine, and injectors are as dear as poison to replace. Could also be the coils as it’s approaching 200,000klm but I’d rather be sure before spending on 8 coils as a guess.

Another couple of days on the car, and the progress is not obvious....but it's there the factory looms are all tidied up and back in the car (temporarily), and all the wires have been run to repace the fuse box/relays etc with the smartwire. next up is the switch panel and it's wiring, and the haltech's extra senders and their wiring. Also need to get the clutch and brake lines and masters back in, and throw the motor/front subframe back in. Oh and then test every damn thing.

Good to hear. The trick once the input shaft is in is to turn the gearbox back and forth a little from the tailshaft flange so that the internals rotate and line up with the clutch splines

Yeah I think the very conservative external looks really don't help it. It's not ugly....just very boring. But on the other hand it's probably the best car I've owned for it's purpose of highway cruising so I think it's been an awesome buy. And the ones for sale seem mostly to be overpriced which wouldn't help considering they are not common in the first place. And I'll come the the wheels etc later, but I guess the point is I really didn't buy it to be a pimped VIP car, just a super comfortable highway car....so much bigger wheels would not help at all. It definitely had bigger wheels in it's past some time because I could see wear marks on the strut and inner guard from some rubbing....

I can't see a pic, but leak points would be: Most likely, where you attached the brake line. You do need to be careful overtightening banjos and copper washers, but check that first. Next most likely is a bleed nipple is open. Perhaps even remove and reseat them. Less likely is the cross over pipe at the bottom of the caliper, the caplier body itself, or past the brake pistons

When the key is at ACC or IGN they give 12v from the battery to all ACC fuses. So if fuses are OK and a couple of ACC things aren't working, they might be the problem

A possibility if a few things have failed is the relay on the fuse box, maybe try swapping each (there are a few) and see if the problem moves.... BTW your english is better than most people on this site at this time of year

yes, that's exactly how I'd do it. factory ones are a bit easier because they aren't straight, they turn back on themselves where they meet the strut. With aftermarket ones they need to loop like you've done. Just make sure the slack/extra is on the car side of the strut and the caliper to strut section is short because that's where it could foul on the wheel....one I did the other day was hitting the wheel weights as the wheel turned

I use Lumley Special Vehicles as well, moved to them after I had repeated trouble with claims at Shannons (now they are just a brand of a big insurance company)

Well that was pretty much it for the next 120,000klm and 3 years, just heading to Canberra and back and changing the oil. The only issue in that time was a flat tyre and the front LCAs needed replacing (can’t get the bushes separately). I did new discs, pads, auto trans fluid, brake fluid and drive belt along the way too. Still giving awesome fuel economy between 7.5 and 10l/100 which I think is great for a 4.5l v8

I also added some DRLs due to all the highway klm (using a NC relay, they turn off when headlights come on) I also added an LED light bar which comes on with the high beams to see the wombats coming. They only draw a couple of amps so I just tapped the high beams I’ve put a fridge in the boot, and changed the battery to an optima because they deal better with being drained and recharged, and also a voltage sensitive relay that cuts it out to protect the battery if necessary (sometimes it is required on a hot day) Also some better lights in the boot because I use it all the time in dark garages, but no pics of them at the moment. All interior lights have been changed to LEDs as well, and there are about a billion of them. No pics of them at the moment, I'll grab them when I get a chance

First order of business was getting the A/V system under control, Chris Rodgers from Audio Express in QLD was super helpful. After some pics back and forth I sorted an FM expander (it was an unusual setup) and he also modified the TV system to support a reverse camera (an option my car didn’t have) and Oz TV input (not that I’ve added one), as well as a 6 cd stacker (yes, how quaint) I also added a front table…….because VIP

I’ve been pretty remiss and haven’t started a build thread for HGE-45L…so here I go! About 3 years ago I picked up a contract down in Canberra, meaning I’d have to drive back and forward from Sydney each week, putting about 800klm/week on a car. The Cube, although mighty, was not going to cut it. My budget was about $20k because it was only going to be a work car, and I figured I’d be selling it after a year or 2. After giving up on a decent v36 skyline at that price, and figuring v35s were a little old, I stumbled across GF50 Cimas, Nissan’s copy of a mid 90s S class styling but with a much cooler interior and driveline. Steve at Justjap ended up digging up a 2001 VX (mid spec) rwd for us with about 60,000klm and in great condition within the budget. This is how it arrived (complete with garish gold badges that I replaced courtesy of Jesse Streeter with some smoked black ones) 4.5l direct injected v8, power everything, and super comfortable highway cruiser, it’s like driving a lounge chair

Is that for a drain at the back of the head back to the sump, or something else. If it's a drain S1 is the same as r33 which I guess is the same as s2/r34 anyway.

give it back to the shop that did the work, they didn't put the wiring back properly when the changed the clutch. should be safe to drive in the meantime, keeping in mind no-one will know you are trying to reverse over them

It's a bit late now, but no you don't need to cut off the backing plate; bending it back slightly so it clears the disc is sufficient. Plus that way you still have a stone guard for the rotor as nissan intended. I don't really understand the brake line issue, but if you don't need them I can't see why the supplier would take a return/refund.

I've been in the strange position to have 2 weeks off work, so lots of progress on the car (not that it looks like it!) I've finished mounting everything internally and adding the wiring for each: Terratrip, Rallysafe on the Nav's side, Camera in the middle rear where either driver or nav can see and reach it. USB to charge the camera (sooooooo annoying to find out at the end of the event that your awesome one time only move didn't get captured for history) (and you can see why it's time to repaint the interior too....) snazzy new intercom has been mounted up on the roof where the cabin light once was with rivnuts, and wired up. Only problem is that it is a euro unit and has driver on the nav's side and vice versa. can't really mount it upside down to fix that either because then up volume would be down volume....will see how it goes. It's a single, digital unit with phone bluetooth, camera output and radio which means way less complexity than my old system (and I can get rid of the stilo adapters too as it's native) Pretty much all the auxiliary wiring has been run to the smartwire now, only the new LED, the wb02 sensor and the heated windscreen is missing I think. Still need to wire the car's old fuse box outputs to it though. And still have all the sensors to wire back to the haltech

sorry I intended to take a pic of some spares once I got back home....turns out I didn't have any anyway. so all the haltech stuff is set up to be mounted using server "cage nuts"...I've run 2 in each channel in the rear so there are 4 fasteners for each box. I've then used 4x m6 rubber mounts for each unit. The smartwire came with mounting tabs (much easier) so I've just used the rubber insulators there. These are the mounts I used: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/5PCS-M6-Rubber-Double-Ends-Screw-Anti-Vibration-Mount-Silentblock-For-Gasoline-/201279211695?hash=item2edd2d08af:g:aSoAAOSwIgNXlWer