My Ceffy

[Stang]

Thanks.

A bit over a week after I dropped the Ceffy off at Boostworx, I got a call from them saying that everything was pretty much finished. I'd asked them to call before doing the dyno run as I wanted to see it in action myself, so I headed down to the workshop with Sally to see and get photos of the car almost ready to go.

Pulling up in front of Boostworx behind a tough looking dark green JZX100 Toyota Chaser...

...this stunning bayside blue Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R immediately caught my attention.

Unfortunately as you can see, there's a defect sticker on the windscreen. More about that a little later.

I was wondering what the defect was for as it looked rather tame. After taking a few pics of the GT-R I walked into the workshop to see how the Ceffy was coming along, and saw it first in the line up on a hoist.

[Stang]

The front bar was out on a stand being trimmed to accommodate the new intercooler.

After cutting out some of the fins in the front bumper, a couple of the guys tried fitting the bumper on again to see how it looked.

The bumper went on fine, but the little bits of plastic in the side openings looked a bit untidy, so it was off with the bar again for a bit more trimming.

[Stang]

While I was waiting, I had a bit of a wander around the workshop to look at some of the other cars that were there.

This Nissan S14 200SX was sitting on the side, and if memory serves me correctly it's been there for quite a while, and doesn't look to have been driven recently.

Turning through to the adjacent workshop, the closest car was a bit of a surprise for a company that mostly deals with turbocharged Japanese imports; a 1950s Dodge Custom Regal, parked next to a much less surprising Nissan R33 Skyline, and a Nissan Stagea.

Walking back into the main workshop, one of the Boostworx guys had driven his R31 Skyline up near the hoists. It has a rather substantial amount of engine modifications, and from memory the power is somewhere around the 300rwkw mark running E85 fuel.

This Datsun ute looked to have an RB20 shoehorned into it.

Parked behind the black and yellow S14 was this Mazda RX-3 racing car, looking pretty tough with flared arches and wide rims, which I think are Watanabes.

There was another R31 Skyline there which had a rather serious-looking twin turbo setup.

Out on the street was a clean Nissan S13 Silvia.

[Stang]

After doing a lap of the workshop, I went back to my Cefiro to see how things were coming along. With the car up on the hoist, I took the opportunity to get a few photos of the underside of the car, which I'd never really seen properly before.

With the last fins on the bumper trimmed off, it was time to re-fit and properly attach it to the car again.

The standard side-mount intercooler looked rather small and sad sitting all by itself on the concrete.

While I was waiting I took a few more random detail shots.

[Stang]

With the front bumper back on the car, it was time for the dyno run.

[Stang]

[Stang]

At just under 140kw at the wheels it's not going to break any land speed records, but for standard boost and tune it's not a bad power figure.

And as promised earlier, a little more info on the R34 GT-R that was parked outside when I turned up. Despite looking relatively sedate, with a front-mount intercooler and different rims, it turned out to be anything but. I can't remember the exact details, but with the T51R turbo setup it had on the RB26, it was making roughly 600kw at the wheels. Which makes my 139rwkw Cefiro seem like a toy in comparison.

It was apparently defected on the way back from Mallala after a track day. The owner was pulled over on the side of the road by the police, and the officer went up to the car to have a look. He started by pressing on the boot, saying that since the suspension was stiff it was illegal, and once he saw the aftermarket performance catalogue under the bonnet it was sticker time.

[Stang]

After closing the bonnet on my car and driving off the dyno, there was an odd rattling noise coming from underneath the bonnet. Having a look at the engine bay again, the new intercooler piping was fouling on a few of the radiator fan blades, so there was a little bit of plastic trimming to be done to rectify the problem.

After a few minutes spent removing a couple of centimetres from the offending fan blades, the Ceffy was good to go.

It was good to be jumping back in the driver's seat again, and I enjoyed giving it a boot down the expressway, with the volume now turned up a bit on the induction and turbo noise side of things. It was also good knowing everything had been checked out, so I didn't have to worry about something going wrong from old fuel or bad spark plugs. So it was good to steer it back into the garage at home, ready for some proper driving soon.

Coming up in Post #15; more daily driving.

[Stang]

Following the appointment at Boostworx, I was feeling much more comfortable driving it, knowing that the mechanical side of things were ok. But with the black bonnet, I was still kind of edgy driving it around during the day, since it made the car stand out so much. Turbocharged Japanese imports get enough attention from the police without attracting them any further with mismatched panels.

So a couple of days later I started driving a bit more, albeit keeping an eye on the rear view mirror.

Coming home from my girlfriend's house one night, I stopped off to fill up with petrol, and quickly took a few shots of the Cefiro under the lights.

As you can tell in these photos of the front, it needed another wash after being at Boostworx and then parked outside in the rain since.

After topping up the tank, I headed back home again.

A couple of days later, I went into the garage to take some close-up photos of the scratched and mismatched front left quarter panels and bumpers, in preparation for getting it resprayed. The front left corner was the worst off, with a scrape and gouge along the front and top of the wheel arch, as well as lots of scrapes on the front of the bumper.

The side bits of the rear bumper are a darker shade of cream compared to the rest of the body and rear bar.

I then headed over to Supercheap Auto to grab a few things I thought would be useful to keep in the car; jumper cables, a small socket set and some cable ties. I stowed them in the boot along with my HKS intercooler and 'Nissan' rear light garnish.

[Stang]

Later that afternoon toward sunset, I thought it would be good to get a few half-decent shots of the Ceffy with its newly modified front end, and not in a petrol station at night. Since it was still quite dirty, I grabbed the hose to give it a quick rinse, but due to the cold and brittle plastic on the tap, the spigot broke off as I was pulling the garden hose across the front yard, which put paid to that idea.

I threw a bucket of water over it and tried to take some of the grime off with a sponge, but lacking in energy and with cold fingers, I thought it would be better to just grab a few shots with a streaky bonnet than nothing. So I grabbed my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens, and made the huge one minute trek over to the local Foodland carpark, and quickly snapped some shots as the sun went down.

As I was wanting, the new matte black front mount intercooler is very subtle, and you wouldn't really know it was there unless you were looking for it really.

Coming up in Post #16; bonnet swap and respray quote.

Edited September 22, 2011 by Stang

[A31-RB20]

Still subsribed!

Great write up man, cant get over how many photos you take!

My build thread (when I start!) will be weak compared to this!!!

[Stang]

Thanks...I take way more photos than I post. And these are just to do with my car.

Between being a professional photographer (sometimes) and being stuck in the hospital and at home for nearly a year too sick to do anything, the last few months I've been giving my cameras a hammering whenever I do anything.

I'm still a couple of months behind at the moment with this thread, despite how much time I have to do things, so I would be surprised if anyone with a normal work/social life could dedicate this much time to a build thread.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Stang

[DannyC33]

geez just read this thread. man you take some nice pics. which i could be f**ked taking pics haha. but with my little point and shoot they are just too hit and miss to bother. haha

nice write up man. loving the work youve put into it. and that fmic looks good. nice and subtle. howd you go with the piping kit? is it custom or you buy a 32 kit and modify?

i gotta get off my ass and get my nistune done so i can send it to shaun, had my hr31 tuned there and it was good.

he is a champ.

[Stang]

Thanks Danny. As you may be able to tell by the wildly varying photo quality, some are taken with a point and shoot, and others with my good digital SLR gear.

I had some piping that came with the HKS front mount when I bought the car; they used what they could, and fabricated the rest. Not sure what the kit was intended for originally.

Yeah I'm trying to decide about more boost + Nisstune etc myself. Boostworx isn't the cheapest, but they do quality work and Shaun is good.

[Stang]

I had been pondering for a while what to do about the black bonnet, and was thinking a respray would probably be best. I had looked around for a white bonnet, but Cefiro spare parts and panels can be hard to come by, so I wasn't having much luck.

Clicking around facebook one afternoon, I saw that local drifter Christian Pickering actually had a white Cefiro bonnet up for grabs in a 'garage sale' photo album. He hasn't had the easiest time with his health either, fighting and beating cancer a few years back. He was still competing in drift competitions between bouts of chemotherapy and surgery, and even managed to place second in the 2007 Toyo Drift Australia Series.

After a couple of quick messages, I organised to buy and pick the bonnet up from Nisswreck the next day, where it was sitting on a Cefiro front-cut. He was about to head off to Japan for some drifting at Ebisu, so reduced the price a little for a quick cash sale before the weekend.

Edited September 24, 2011 by Stang

[Stang]

After seeing a couple of his drifting videos the next week...

...it reminded me how much I would love to get over there myself one day for some sliding. He's got the reverse entries down pretty well by the looks of it.

So after hooking up a trailer to my parent's Commodore, I headed over to buy the bonnet and bring it home. I took photos of the load and trailer on the day, but unfortunately I seem to have neglected to actually copy those photos onto the computer at the time, so I only have pictures of the swapping process.

I used what was likely an excessive number of ropes to make sure the bonnet was tied down and secure in the trailer, before carefully making my way back home again, keeping an eye on the trailer in the rear view mirror to make sure it was ok.

Unhitching the trailer from the car, I pushed it to the back of the garage and spent a few minutes unraveling the maze of ropes.

With some help from my girlfriend and younger brother, the white bonnet was moved into the backyard for some cleaning, followed by unbolting the black bonnet and putting it in the trailer.

Edited September 24, 2011 by Stang

[Stang]

While the bonnet was straight and free of dents and scratches, there was some gaffer's tape on each side, which I think was to stop it being scraped by ropes or tie-downs.

It had gone hard being out in the open weather, so after a few marginally successful attempts at peeling the dry tape off by hand, we decided it needed some attacking with various cleaning and grime removal products. My arms are obviously not the strongest for tough cleaning, so my awesome girlfriend Sally started scrubbing away with some sponges, a toothbrush and a mix of Windex, Jif and lots of water. Judging by her comments, she was not particularly excited to be spending a sunny afternoon scrubbing a car bonnet in the backyard.

Under my careful and expert supervision, she managed to get all the tape and gum completely off the bonnet, leaving it much tidier looking than before.

[Stang]

We stood it up to dry in the sun for a little while, and then I supervised the transportation of the bonnet from the backyard to the garage.

At some point a courier had dropped off my Ensure liquid feed supplies at the front door.

With a ratchet at the ready, I watched as Sally and Todd carefully lowered the bonnet down onto the car. For some reason it looked like it wasn't fitting properly, which didn't make sense considering the bonnet was from another Cefiro, and I didn't see how they could be any different. But it was quite a way off actually being in the right spot. I spent a minute or two being confused, until looking more closely at the corners of the bonnet. I then realised that since the white bonnet came with hinges, it would probably work better if I removed the black bonnet's hinges from the car first.

With that low-IQ moment out of the way, a couple of minutes with the ratchet had the white bonnet secured to the car. Despite being a cooler shade of white compared to the slightly creamy car, it was immediately a big improvement to the look of the Cefiro.

After seeing it for so long with a black bonnet, it was great to have the car pretty much all the same colour. Not a perfect match, which was more apparent from some angles than others, but as far as blatantly sticking out in traffic went, the obviousness was dialed way down. I did manage to put a lot of greasy fingerprints on the previously clean bonnet though.

From the right-hand side, the paint appeared to be more similar, although that was partially due to the different light I think.

Feeling like I'd removed the target from my car with the white bonnet, and not having too bad a day health-wise, I decided it was a nice afternoon to go for our first hills run in a very, very long time.

Coming up in Post #17; a hills run to Hahndorf.

[Stang]

Following the bonnet swap and after cleaning up greasy hands and changing clothes, Sally and I headed out in the Cefiro, planning on going up to the German Arms at Hahndorf. I felt more relaxed driving around with the car not standing out so much due to panda-spec panels.

Getting up to Glen Osmond Road near the freeway, I pulled into a BP service station to fill the tank up with premium, which certainly hadn't gotten any cheaper since I was last driving regularly.

After topping up the fuel tank, we headed up the freeway towards Hahndorf. The Heysen Tunnels are always a good spot to lower the windows, slow down and then give the car a bit of a boot, with the exhaust and turbo sounds loudly echoing off the tunnel walls.

A little bit further on we passed a paddy wagon/ute full of cops which I thought was a bit unusual. That said, I don't live anywhere in the country where putting cops in a ute is necessary, so it probably isn't odd at all.

Rolling through Hahndorf, the sun was getting pretty low in the sky, so I took a bit of a detour on a random winding road to get some shots of the car in decent light. Coming up to a t-junction, the street sign pointed to 'Pain Road', which was mildly amusing I guess.

A little further up, Pain Road turned into gravel, so I stopped to take some photos of the Ceffy in the shade under some trees, with the golden sunlight in the background. It was so good to have such a nice backdrop for photos, as opposed to my garage or a Foodland car park.

[DannyC33]

loving this car man. very big fan