My R32 Gtr Vspec1 Project Car

[trustr32]

Well I think it’s finally about time I started a buildup thread for my GTR. I’ve owned the car for exactly a year and a half now with every day other than 3 of those spent with it sitting in my brothers shed. I actually bought the car by accident really I had flown up to Sydney to buy a GTST with a big$ built 26 in it with my mate Jack and his girlfriend to keep me company on the road back down to Melbourne to catch the boat back to Tassie but the car turned out to be a piece of shit. We spent the next 2 days looking at every R32 we could find around Sydney and eventually stumbled across this.

The ad on the internet said “1994 model R32 GTR Vspec2, ex track car, needs work but probably the cheapest way to own a Vspec GTR, $16,000” Basically as is where is. We went to Japlink and had a look at it where Adam the salesman tried to steer me towards another GTR he had for $21,000. We took that for a drive but I kept coming back to the fact that the Vspec looked tougher and was cheaper. Eventually we talked him into a test drive and he got a mechanic to take us out in it. It blew a cooler hose off after 1km, stalled in the middle of the road and had to be jumpstarted twice but compared to the other GTR’s we’d driven so far man this car had some balls!

I didn’t make up my mind then and there but said I’d sleep on it and went back the next day and bought it. I got the car for $12,500 with a new battery, 3 months rego and freight back to Hobart so I was absolutely stoked. Once all the paper work was signed I asked to go for one last drive which resulted in Jack wringing the absolute hell out of it through the back streets that ended with clouds of smoke out of the exhaust all the way back to the car yard. When we pulled up I got out and popped the bonnet to find it had shot the dipstick out and emptied about 3 litres of oil through the engine bay.

I think Adam thought I’d back straight out but Jack and I just started planning the rebuild. It took nearly a month for the car to arrive in Hobart and when it did I raced in after work to pick it up. That was probably the most embarrassing drive of my life. Right through the middle of the city and for the next 16kms back to my work the car chaffed out more oily smoke than 10 Ftrucks on startup. I had people overtaking me yelling out the window “get a new car” which was funny cause this WAS my new car.

Well when I got it safely stored away in my brothers shed Jack and I thought the most likely cause of the smoke considering that the car actually ran beautifully was turbo’s. So I found a set of R34 turbo’s for it and proceeded to swap them over. I soon learnt why the Japanese have such small hands my sausage like fingers could hardly get down in between the turbo’s to do anything and after about 3 weeks of getting so frustrated that I had to walk away rather than break something I finally had them swapped over.

Anyway over the course of weeks that it took me to source new turbo’s and actually fit the damn things I found a set of 17x10 lenso D1r’s with 235/45/17 federal 595’s on then that had about 90% tread. I fitted these as soon as I got them home and man it just totally completed the look of it. Originally when I had bought the car I didn’t like the side skirts and planned to change them in the near future but once these wheels were on it all came together to make a really fat, aggressive stance that I’m not keen on changing anymore.

Well after I finally got it back together at about 10:30 one Sunday night we took it out for a spin into town which was a night filled with dramas. We met up with some mates in their R33 GTST and a WRX and cruised around for a bit. Then did a high speed run across one of the bridges in Hobart and pulled over to check how my car was going and found out it had filled the catch can full of oil. We emptied this and set off again over some nice windy roads and pulled up again to check the catch can. All looked good. We decided to go for a bit of a long drive down south and not 2 minutes into it I thought I noticed smoke in my rear view. Jack reckoned he couldn’t see it but after another minute I was sure of it so I pulled over and there way smoke pissing out of the engine bay! I lifted the bonnet to find that Jack hadn’t put the oil filler back on when we stopped last which had then shot oil all over the turbo’s causing all the smoke.

I then decided that I’d put it to bed before I actually broke anything and so I went home. I took it for another drive the next day for probably half an hour and it behaved but when I went back 2 days later I didn’t get 2 blocks away before it started bellowing that same sort of smoke clouds it had done before the turbo swap. So I took it back and locked it up in my brothers shed and didn’t look at it for probably 4 months.

I eventually came to the conclusion that I was only putting off the inevitable rebuild and so started the big job of pulling out the motor. I’ve ranted on too long so I’ll end it here and post up more info and photo’s of where I’m upto now including my forged engine rebuild if this gets approved (and I wont crap on for so long next time more just facts and pics.

[iplen]

Not being an arsehole, but that's why you don't buy cheap GTRs.. At least you knew from the get go you would have to rebuild it, and accepted that fact. I remember seeing that car advertised, all the best with it, will look forward to the updates!!

[trustr32]

Lol no problems man and don't get me wrong either I'm not complaining at all. On the contrary thats EXACTLY the reason why I bought a cheap GTR. I love working on cars and I'd rather spend 3-4 years building and perfecting my own car than to buy someone elses car. That was one of the deciding factors in getting this car over the other ones that I looked at. All 32's need a rebuild eventually no matter how kind you are to them and this way I started off $8,000 in front. Plus at the end of the day it's a Vspec. I know that they dont have alot of extras over normal GTR's (especially as they stripped the brembo's off of it) but there was a limited number of them and in my mind it's a point of difference over other GTR's. Anyway it doesn't matter now as the engine has been pulled out stripped down, cleaned, tested and rebuilt and is sitting in the shed next to the car.

I was pretty pissed when I tried to upload all the photos of this stage off my phone and ended up deleting them all. not so much for the engine removal photo's as I'm sure we've all seen them before 100 times over but I had beem fabricating my own carbon fiber splitter for the front and lost the photo's of each step along the way. But back to the progress I started pulling everything out of the engine bay ready for removal and decided to pull the head off while it was still in the car. It was about then that I realised what the problem had been with the smoke out of the exhaust. I had swapped to ball bearing turbo's without putting restrictors in the oil feed lines! I'm sure that is what had happened in sydney too. The more I checked the car out the more I found parts that had been replaced with factory parts. I now think that Japlink imported the car with a heap of gear on it and then took all the goodies off of it and turned it back to stock.

Well here's the only photo's I have left of the engine bay all from when I got it

Anyway I continued with the removal of the engine and like I said I had removed the head then I unbolted the gearbox and tried to split it back off the engine. I reckon I spent almost 8 hours trying to get it off jacking up the gearbox, letting down the engine trying every possible angle until late on a saturday night when I eventually gave up. I went back the next morning and thought f**k it I'll take it out as one so I bolted it back to the engine and pulled the lot out. Man did that involve some angle to clear the rad support panel (no photo's) Once out of the car I eventually got the clutch fork pin out and it came out. I found out later about the little clip on the thrust bearing from my engine builder but hey it would've only saved me A WHOLE DAY!

I took the engine up to town and left it in the capable hands of Matt Rogers at Tasmanian Engine Reconditioning and got down to business of stripping the engine bay back ready to paint. The car was originally silver and has had a not too flash colour change to black so I'll be stripping the whole car back and doing a proper job in straight black once it's running again. Here's the engine bay all freshly painted

Sorry about the crappy Iphone picture quality all I had handy at the time. Anyway I'll try and add a bit more later or tommorow sometime.

[gtr fan]

Did you ask them about the brembos before you bought it?

[SiR_RB]

when you changed the turbos, did it have stock ceramic turbos or upgraded units?

[trustr32]

No gtr fan I didn't bother asking about the brembo's when I bought it like I said the car was as is where is and I dont even know if it came into Oz with them on it or not. No massive drama as I'll upgrade to some aftermarket 6 pots or something later on. I'm not sure Sir_RB I know the ones I pulled off had ceramic rear wheels and the rear housings were a slightly different size than the 34 ones I bought but I'll have a look at the numbers on tuesday night and post them up maybe someone will know. Not that it matters now anyway lol.

Anyway back to it after a chat with Matt at Tas Engine Reco. I decided to only do a basic freshen up with the engine plus fix a few inherent problems. I'm not ever going to get in to the power race as I know I cant afford it lol and I figured if I go all out on a $20,000 rebuild and something goes bang I wont be able to do it again in a hurry.

The engine is basically as follows:

Ross forged pistons

Nitto rods

Acl bearings

Oil restrictors

External oil drain

Hi octane sump extension

Basic head reco with New valve guides and stem seals,heavy duty valve springs ready for poncams and cam gears later on

Nothing too fancy but enough to handle some reasonable power but with longevity more the main goal. I mean nissan knew what they were doing when they built these things so not alot really needs to be upgraded to be able to make respectable numbers. Also being a late model R32 I was lucky enough to have the longer crank in it and I got the full rotating assembly balanced.

Along with my engine I also got a Jim Berry Full Monty single plate clutch as he reckoned my nismo Gmax twin plate wouldn't be any good even once rebuilt.

So heres a few pics of the engine once I got it back to the shed

I've got some custom stainless low mount manifolds being made for it at the moment by Capel Motorsport here in tassie he was making a few sets up one of them for TWOOGLE and said he'd make a set for me at the same time. I'm going to run -5's and the car came with a straight through 4inch system and stainless y-pipe and I'll hunt for some aftermarket dumps as well. I've removed the hicas unit but left the hard lines under the car as I'll convert them to feed lines and use the current lines for returns? Not 100% sure about the plumbing for that but I'll work it out later.

The car already had the battery relocated to the boot so I dont have to worry about that and the car aslo came with solid rear cradle and gearbox mounts, Tein coilovers, hicas lockout bar and Nismo 320km dash. I'm going to do a few things like get a custom catchcan made by Ryan Capel and I'll much around myself with a custom carbon airbox and a few bits and pieces like that. When i got the engine back I decided to paint the cam covers and timing covers. I had just helped the apprentice at work paint his bike in candy orange and I cant recall seeing anyone with that on their GTR yet so I thought it was the perfect colour and wow it looks good cant wait to get it back together properly.

I sat them on the engine when I got them home and took a few pics.

[Cplus]

you sure it is a Vspec?

ie: not just a stocko GTR with a different boot and the BBS rims?

[trustr32]

you sure it is a Vspec?

ie: not just a stocko GTR with a different boot and the BBS rims?

Yeah mate well as sure as I can be with the limited info I have at my disposal. I have a zoom magazine somewhere with an article that gives you the meaning for the codes on the VIN plate and using that I've worked out it's a Vspec1 not a Vspec2.

[SiR_RB]

coming along nicely mate love the engine covers !

[trustr32]

coming along nicely mate love the engine covers !

Cheers cant wait to get it in the car. Still saving for turbo's first though. I'm actually going to have to sell my R31 I reckon. It's an awesome car but while I've got it I'll keep spending money on that instead of the GTR plus it would go along way to get this thing running. I forgot to mention earlier that I also got a Trust oil pump for it off a member on here and I bought a Power Fc from Trent at Mercury Motorsports.

I went and bought 2x275/40/17s and got them fitted to two of the rims so I can pump/roll the guards out to cover them before I start the bodywork but I'm going to have to wait till I get the engine in so it's got the weight sitting properly. Massive tyres it will look fairly chunky with 275's all round but I'll offload the 595's and get some semi's cause the sidewalls dont look real flash on the fedrerals. Basically as long as I make any room under the guards now that I could possibly need in the future I'll be happy.

Also just a pic or two of my 31 incase anybody's looking for a really clean, tidy, dead straight 31 Ti.

[DR 32R]

Not being an arsehole, but that's why you don't buy cheap GTRs.. At least you knew from the get go you would have to rebuild it, and accepted that fact. I remember seeing that car advertised, all the best with it, will look forward to the updates!!

It was a "cheap GTR" and he's building it. I think the buy was OK. Nice effort on this build too.

Edited July 3, 2011 by WHITE gtt

[mico]

lookin awesome mate, where are your quarter panel indicators ? did it come with any ?

[iplen]

It was a "cheap GTR" and he's building it. I think the buy was OK. Nice effort on this build too.

That was more the point I was trying to make, it's good to see someone buying a cheap GTR, and not having a whinge because they can't wind 20psi and do skids all day.

[deki_4dr34]

coming along nicely, loving the cam covers, good luck with everything ))

[Mr. Untouchable]

the car drives really well, lots of potential!

and although it was "cheap" it was 10 times the car, or cars the other dozen or so 20 plus k GTR's were. Man there is some shitboxes around.

the car is rust free, front skirts rad. sup. panel etc is perfect, rails, all perfect. its had minor repairs, but overall is in very good order. its had a shit respray, but no probs, because if it was 99% perfect we'd still paint strip it and start again lol.

basically, the chassis/shell was good and the car was complete, and its a genuine V Spec I, what more can you ask for for 12k? gearbox and diffs feel really good. Rebuild, respray, interior makeover and a cage, bigger stoppers and some better suspension and its going to be a very good example.

[trustr32]

the car drives really well, lots of potential!

and although it was "cheap" it was 10 times the car, or cars the other dozen or so 20 plus k GTR's were. Man there is some shitboxes around.

the car is rust free, front skirts rad. sup. panel etc is perfect, rails, all perfect. its had minor repairs, but overall is in very good order. its had a shit respray, but no probs, because if it was 99% perfect we'd still paint strip it and start again lol.

basically, the chassis/shell was good and the car was complete, and its a genuine V Spec I, what more can you ask for for 12k? gearbox and diffs feel really good. Rebuild, respray, interior makeover and a cage, bigger stoppers and some better suspension and its going to be a very good example.

Ha ha yeah you didn't get a chance to wreck the gearbox or diffs did you although you sure as hell tried lol. Na it is a good base it just

needs a bit of time and effort spent on it. I need a bloody shed down home so I can work on it every night for the rest of the year and get

it done and then we can go racing!

Edited July 5, 2011 by trustr32

[Grey]

looks awesome!

wish i had the skills to do something like that =[

[Cplus]

Yeah mate well as sure as I can be with the limited info I have at my disposal. I have a zoom magazine somewhere with an article that gives you the meaning for the codes on the VIN plate and using that I've worked out it's a Vspec1 not a Vspec2.

put the VIN into Fast and then you'll know for sure.

[t01-100]

I sent a fax off to Nissan Japan to get confirmation of my old V-Spec II being genuine and I got a return fax confirming it within a few hours.

[t01-100]

PS. Cool car, I saw it on the net and called wanting to buy it two days after you'd paid for it... it reminded me of my old black one.