My R33 Gtr Daily / Build-up Thread

[UNR33L]

Hi guys,

I've always wanted to own one of these cars growing up since the GT2 days on playstation! and make one of these threads and I think now I have the car to make it worth while.

Its a 1998 series 3 R33 GTR, the last of its kind, purchased from a private seller who imports vehicles. Feels a lot more powerful then the non-turbo R33 I drove whilst on my P's, I turned 21 and purchased this now that my P-plates are over!

Anyway this car is my daily which I have to drive to and from work everyday so wont be seeing any stripped out interior in this thread just some nice modifications for a street driven GTR (for the moment anyway )

When I first picked up the car the only modifications it had was a HKS cat-back exhaust system, Volk 18x10 Challenge F-Zero rims and other then that completely standard yet felt so quick compared to my old car so I was stoked about that.

Here are some pics of how I first got the car:

Clean and stock:

Note the P-Plates in this photo and my old non turbo out on the street haha:

So with all that out of the way it was time to start doing some mods.. firstly started off with buying some number plates! when I noticed [GTRFTW] was available I couldn't say no.. too good to resist and everybody gets a good laugh and loves them when they see the plates.

The house driveway as it sits at this stage.. from left to right - my brothers GTST (yes he copied me) - my N/A (now sold) - my GTR (current car):

Thanks for viewing and I will be updating this thread as I do some more work on the car

-Leigh

[UNR33L]

Now the first things I did to the car was a new set of adjustable coilovers and some a-pillar gauges.

I went with BC Racing BR series coilovers good value for money and heard nothing but good things about these and so far since having them put on the car they are still going strong I highly recommend them got them setup for street + a track day every couple of months.

They are 8/6 spring rates, bought from justjap and installed / setup professionally by tractiontyres in Rowville some nice blokes and good service down there.

Heres a quick snap of the gauges I put on the A-pillar just a basic boost gauge so I can see whats going on with the turbos, and a volt gauge to fill up the 2nd cup for the moment

This was all done in the first 2 weeks of owning the car and only just the beginning.

[UNR33L]

To break up the white a bit I purchased a carbon fiber rear wing blade, and end caps for my wing, and also plan to repair my damaged front lip (silly me) and was going to spray it matt black rather then the white that its currently sprayed.

Pics of the new wing (sorry iPhone quality):

[UNR33L]

Now the next thing I did to the car was the rims / tyres.

When Tractiontyres fitted my coilovers they noticed my tyres had some small cracks on them and a decent amount of camber wear and showed me this which lead toward me getting some new rims and tyres as the next mod.

I considered many options.. was close to buying some XD9s but see it fairly often now days, I ended up giving John from RotaAustralia a call and he hooked me up with a very good deal for some 18x10 +15 Rota Grid rims with 265 Falken tyres, these took about 1 week to get to my house and was very excited when they arrived so took a couple of pics and wacked them on, let me know what ya think:

Yes the car is jacked up :

Overall very happy with how the rims turned out and gave the car a better / tougher stance I think

Next up was repairing the front lip which I cracked going very slow into my own garage (DOH!)

[UNR33L]

Ok so me and my Dad (big thanks to my Dad he did basically all the hard work) repaired the front lip, and I sprayed it a matt black with just a 3m rattle can I think it turned up really well.

My dog "Tiger":

Now after the front lip was back on my Nismo smoked side indicators came in the mail from ebay so put them on the car as well (hated the stock orange).

So here's how the car sits to this date (8/9/10) thanks to Jamie for taking the following pictures at a SAU VIC meet :

Next on the list is to get custom front pipes and 'high flow' cat put on the car, this work will be done on Thursday by Jay @ Hillside exhausts in FTG, he has done many exhausts for myself and my mates and all have been a great job and a top guy.

Will update once the new exhaust gets put on.

Thanks again for viewing my thread.

[N1GTR]

Looks really good, the series 3's are so nice with that front lip

Whats wrong with the tacho?

I have a set of those wheels, if you upgrade brakes, you can go 380mm discs and 6 pot calipers which is way more clearance then almost any other 18'' wheel (TE37's are the only one i found with same clearance)

[UNR33L]

Looks really good, the series 3's are so nice with that front lip

Whats wrong with the tacho?

I have a set of those wheels, if you upgrade brakes, you can go 380mm discs and 6 pot calipers which is way more clearance then almost any other 18'' wheel (TE37's are the only one i found with same clearance)

Thanks mate, yeh I wanted to get a series 3 when I was looking at some cars

The tacho goes spastic (common R33 problem) and sits at 11k revs, really annoying I really need to try and fix it on my day off and have a fiddle with it to get it working correctly.

Good to know about the wheels no doubt in the future I will want some upgrades thanks for the info

[Nur33]

I know how you feel Leigh, i have similar story i went from a EA Falcon on gas probably 90hp to a 320hp R34 GTT now a 600hp R33 GTR and in a few months time a full blow 1000+HP R32 GTR its awesome experiencing different power levels. I remember driving my first gtr it had 280rwkw and holy s*#t it was the best feeling ever.

At least you started with the right model the Series 3's are beautiful, wish mine was a S3 but instead its a fake imitation S1, disguised as a S3.

Looking Forward to your modifications hope it all goes well.

[pistol-pete]

congrats on the purchase. all you need to do know is get some camber arms and wind the coilovers down and it will look prefect. oh and some ganador mirrors too.

[nuclear_skyline]

Awesome car mate. I was looking at one before I bought my bnr32. Love the wing btw.

[UNR33L]

I know how you feel Leigh, i have similar story i went from a EA Falcon on gas probably 90hp to a 320hp R34 GTT now a 600hp R33 GTR and in a few months time a full blow 1000+HP R32 GTR its awesome experiencing different power levels. I remember driving my first gtr it had 280rwkw and holy s*#t it was the best feeling ever.

At least you started with the right model the Series 3's are beautiful, wish mine was a S3 but instead its a fake imitation S1, disguised as a S3.

Looking Forward to your modifications hope it all goes well.

Haha yep!! I did the correct thing with the law and drove a non turbo while on Ps.. and rewarded myself in the end for it

And yeh I didn't really want another white car, but finding a midnight purple series 3 was VERY HARD and near impossible to find locally, so just bought the white and going to chuck some black / carbon bits on to make it look tough.

Will update tomorrow once new exhaust is on

congrats on the purchase. all you need to do know is get some camber arms and wind the coilovers down and it will look prefect. oh and some ganador mirrors too.

Thanks mate, where abouts can I get some camber arms from? I'm a bit of a nooby when it comes to suspension but I thought the GTR had rear (or front) camber adjustment? or am I completely wrong? and yep coilovers will be set lower once I get the exhaust tucked up a bit. As for ganador mirrors I'm a bit iffy about them they are borderline ricey in my eyes, but might give it a shot was thinking carbon fiber ones what you recon? or just get white ones.

Awesome car mate. I was looking at one before I bought my bnr32. Love the wing btw.

Cheers buddy! your car looks very mint as well especially for a slightly older model, very nice.

[HEKT1K]

looks good Leigh... even better IRL

i reckon you could have gone more aggressive on the wheels.. those GTR guards are just huge!

[Cupcake]

Haha yep!! I did the correct thing with the law and drove a non turbo while on Ps.. and rewarded myself in the end for it

And yeh I didn't really want another white car, but finding a midnight purple series 3 was VERY HARD and near impossible to find locally, so just bought the white and going to chuck some black / carbon bits on to make it look tough.

Will update tomorrow once new exhaust is on

Thanks mate, where abouts can I get some camber arms from? I'm a bit of a nooby when it comes to suspension but I thought the GTR had rear (or front) camber adjustment? or am I completely wrong? and yep coilovers will be set lower once I get the exhaust tucked up a bit. As for ganador mirrors I'm a bit iffy about them they are borderline ricey in my eyes, but might give it a shot was thinking carbon fiber ones what you recon? or just get white ones.

Cheers buddy! your car looks very mint as well especially for a slightly older model, very nice.

You can get camber out of stock arms as they are ecentric. Only around +/- 2 degrees. You can pick up aftermarket arms from between $100-$500.

Looking at your pics you need a wheel allignment bad!! The rear toe is - real bad which will cause the car to crab when you turn. I suggest setting rear toe to 0

Car looks great tho, My first car was a 350rwhp R33 Gtst and although people hate on them, They are a great car!

[UNR33L]

looks good Leigh... even better IRL

i reckon you could have gone more aggressive on the wheels.. those GTR guards are just huge!

thanks mate still gotta do a fair bit of stuff to get it how i want it.

and yeh i wanted to go more aggressive but hard to find some more aggressive then what i got at the price, these sit fairly flush anyways, and will look a lot better once lowered more the tyres will hit the guards i think but nothing some camber cant fix up.

You can get camber out of stock arms as they are ecentric. Only around +/- 2 degrees. You can pick up aftermarket arms from between $100-$500.

Looking at your pics you need a wheel allignment bad!! The rear toe is - real bad which will cause the car to crab when you turn. I suggest setting rear toe to 0

Car looks great tho, My first car was a 350rwhp R33 Gtst and although people hate on them, They are a great car!

yeh i think thats just a bad pic, had a full alignment done on it and the car doesn't seem to pull like it use to a little bit with my old tyres, going nice and straight now know any good places i can purchase some aftermarket arms?

[pistol-pete]

Thanks mate, where abouts can I get some camber arms from? I'm a bit of a nooby when it comes to suspension but I thought the GTR had rear (or front) camber adjustment? or am I completely wrong? and yep coilovers will be set lower once I get the exhaust tucked up a bit. As for ganador mirrors I'm a bit iffy about them they are borderline ricey in my eyes, but might give it a shot was thinking carbon fiber ones what you recon? or just get white ones.

nah theyre not ricey, the fit with the curves or a 33. mirrors with indicators built in look ricey imo. carbon would look sweet but so would white.

[UNR33L]

If i decided to get some i'd probably get carbon ones, still $500 for mirrors is hard to spend at the same time, could go toward performance.

[N1GTR]

$500 for mirrors is hard to spend at the same time, could go toward performance.

Now THATS a true GTR owner.

[msports180]

Looking very nice!

Good to see a youung bloke in a GTR who looks after it and isnt getting chrome 22's and cream leather!

+ 1 on lowering it to get those big rims into the guards, will look tough as, white and black allways looks good.

[N1GTR]

19x10+12 TE37's in black with no lip. Instant win.

[UNR33L]

Thanks for all the nice comments guys

Got the car back today from Jay @ Hillside Exhausts in Furntree Gully, the new 2.5" front pipes and 3" 'high flow' cat are on and WOW! Jay did a fantastic job as usual and the car responded to the new exhaust very well, feels so much better now and the noise level surprisingly stayed about the same, I wonder if it'll shoot flames now?

Almost forgot to add - when I picked up the car Jays price was VERY reasonable, I actually went there in my head thinking it shouldn't be much more then a certain price.. and it was actually half what I was thinking! Maybe I can get new mirrors after all!

I will get some more photos up when I can of the new couple of things I've done to the car.

Also the dash is all apart at the moment because I'm trying to fix my hecktik 11,000 RPM issue LOL, I bought a dash off someone here and the new tacho had the same issue.. not a happy camper I will be expecting a full refund from the guy as it came in the mail already sitting at 11k RPM.