Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

private import thru prestige motorsport. much cheaper howver with sevs now im not sure its still as feasible vs local buy

have you considered private sale locally?

I have ... but I haven't found anything as yet. And all the R34's advertised privately are selling for close to 40k ... far from the approximated 30-33k I was told for the private import.

Well my concern about importing is the chance of something not being quite right.

In the end I've bought 1 car thru a dealer and the other I imported, so I've tried both.

Now the car I imported was dirt cheap and I expected to have to work on it to get it up to scratch......but if I was spending more (eg $40k range, which is what mine cost me 3 years ago) I would be buying from a dealer...too much to gamble for me.

yeah that's what I think ... 30 grand is a lot to roll dice on for me at any stage ... I guess the extra 10k I pay to someone like powerplay is for all the hassle they go to on my behalf, they do everything for me I just sit back and watch and read about it on email, plus the safety and peace of mind that if the car turns up and it's a lemon, I have a contract saying that they didn't deliver on the agreed product and I get my money back. So in a sense, it's in their best interest that for the extra coins, they get a good car.

Well ... I will be going wiht a series II R33 then. that dark gunmetal colour hopefully. I will keep you all posted. Now that I have made the decision, I am getting pretty excited deep down. :(

I'm in the same boat as yourself though I havn't made any calls to people to find out about things.

I how ever do want a R34 GT-t via a dealer or import or a R34 GT-R via import, which I'm not quite sure about as I have some other things on my mind, even though I have found a dealer that I would buy from.

My understanding and thinking is that you gamble your money either way you go, a dealer can't give you a complete non-problem free car off the bat, and nor can a import place either, so it seems as what price you really want to pay for the car and what you do want or really what you can afford to get.

Even though I hadn't asked around the place I had guessed that you'd save around 10K on the car price via importing, but I didn't think the wait would be 6 months more 3 months (I guess that's everything going smooth and no troubles)

The dealer I would go through has the model I'm after for $38 to $48 so that's within my price range.

I've already decided that the car won't be driven much and I intend to use it on the race track here and there rather than for every day use.

Let us know what way you have decided to go, it'll be interesting for me at least.

  • 4 weeks later...

a) Powerplay knows their stuff even though it's a tad more than the others. At least they have the courtesy to entertaining ex-tyrekickers like myself :headspin:

B) Edward Lee? The guy and the sales like to play hard ball..I am playing hard ball with them trying to comply my Supra as we speak.....

One thing you might wanna investigate before considering importing it privately - there's only 2 places in Aust so far have been given the type approval to comply R34's. One is in Hornsby but last time I've spoken to them they're out of the plates (go bug them though, they said one bloke bought 90 plates off them and haven't used it up yet). The other one is Crossover Conversions in Melbourne. That place in Hornsby was asking $5500 plus $165 application fee plus tyres.

Ever considered a R33 GTR? The prices for them is coming down at the moment.

A followup question guys ...

still deciding which way to go:

a) go to someone like Powerplay Imports, who seem to have a good reputation (not sure, anyone buy from them? what's your experience like?? I feel better because I am told that if the car turns up and it's not what was discussed, I get my deposit back.  

B) anyone every deal with Edward Lee on Parramatta road? what's your experience been like?

B) go to someone Prestige motorsport. Sure, I save a good amount of money, but there's a lot more risk. I know a lot of people have bought cars though him. Has everything always turned out ok?

For a newbie like me... what do you recommend? I have the money but I am ... I guess still afraid / unsure about forking over a wad of cash without knowing more about the two above people?

You *can* get some decent GTR's for under $35k, but for that price, you'll be going through someone like Prestige Motorsport, who I went through for my R33 GTS25t. Took 8 weeks from the day of loan approval to the day I saw my car coming around the corner to pick me up from the train station. :thumbsup: (still remember that moment, still havent' gotten the stains out of my jeans)

Don't be afraid of importing, but make sure you go with someone good. I have no hesitation about recommending Prestige. Geoff Risbey (owner) was great, happy to chat any time, there's travel insurance involved, etc... never had a car insured against piracy before. :)

The biggest leap of faith was forwarding $10k over to someone in Japan I've never met before, but considering all the good reports I'd heard, I only hesitated for a moment. When I got the car, everyone was impressed by the quality, me most of all. Even had a few extra bits that wasn't on the mechanics report.

I haven't heard anything about J-spec, good or bad...

Powerplay are known to be more expensive but thats because they truly choose the best cars. Funnily enough, I remember speaking to 2 other dealers that told me to buy from Joane from Powerplay simply because she choose the top cars, no accident, grade 5 cars. In the end i didnt buy from her but the dealer i did buy from still ended up screwing me for about 2 grand anyhow.

Since then my car has always been serviced and taken care of by powerplay ive only ever had 1 issue with them, but for the most part they have been good. Also u know u can ask Joanne to import a car in for u she will just charge her finders fee, i think.

Sciby: where did you get your loan from?? I was going to use prestige but then I heared that all finance companies will NOT finance you for a car that is not even on Australian soil?!? any advice there mate?

Cwest: I have been in constant touch with Joanne, but I haven't really seen any recommendations from her come through yet. But she's looking into it for me as an option. :thumbsup:

  • 1 month later...

Ack, sorry, forgot to reply to this. :rant:

I went through bank of queensland, for an unsecured loan... they just gave me the cash, I paid out the rest of my existing car loan ($3k), then rang Geoff and went from there. I don't know what finance companies are like syd for that sort of stuff, but sinec you're currently looking for an R34, I'd say you did okay. :)

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • You're not wrong, but more than a few times I've heard of people running into issues where their injector characterization isn't quite right and that approach works for that specific configuration but once they switch over to a new set they discover a whole bunch of stuff wasn't set up correctly. It's slightly more annoying to reverse engineer the OEM MAF transfer function but you already have the sensor wired up to the factory harness so keeping it around for a few weeks more while you figure out the tune is easy enough. I've seen GM also use a combination of both MAF + MAP in their ECUs before, MAF is for steady state and a calculation of the cylinder VE to correct the base VE table, then in transients it uses that calculated VE + raw MAP to determine cylinder filling somehow.
    • I know this one’s the BB one. My tuner did make mention about the actuator. I am curious about the VCT as well
    • Might also needs a stronger actuator with the right preloading. With older 2019 built bush G3 units, BB upgrade or 21U housing down size makes a pretty decent gain in response as well. 
    • Hey lads  so im finally putting together my rb30 forged bottom end and ran into an issue. I measured my main bearing clearance with arp main studs torqued to 60 ft-lbs using ACL H series STD size bearings and standard, un-ground crank shaft journals and got an oil clearance reading of about 1.3 thou measuring straight up and down and about 2.8 thou measuring at a 45 degree angle (just above and below the parting line). My machine shop said they measured the main tunnel and it was all within spec (they didnt say the actual measurement) and to go with a standard size bearing, which i have done and the clearance is too tight, I'm guessing because of the extra clamping force from the arp studs distorting the main tunnel. I was wanting to run about 2.5 thou main bearing clearance.  My questions are: 1. could i just use the HX extra 1 thou clearance ACL bearings? that would fix my straight up and down clearance making it about 2.3 thou, but then would the side to side clearance be too big at around 3.8 thou? 2. what actually is the recommended main bearing clearance for measuring near the parting line / side to side. i know its supposed to be bigger as the bearing has some eccentricity built into it but how much more clearance should there be compared to the straight up and down measurement? at the moment there is about 1.5thou difference, is that acceptable or should it be less? 3. If i took the engine block + girdle back to the machine shop and got them to line bore the main tunnel (like i told them to do the first time, but they said it didnt need it) what bearing size would i buy? the STD size bearing shells already slide in fairly easily with no real resistance, some even falling out if i tip the girdle up-side-down. If im taking material out of the main tunnel would i need a bearing with extra material on the back side to make up for it? this is probably confusing af to read so if something doesn't make sense let me know and ill try explaining in a different way. My machine shop doesn't come back from christmas break until mid January, hence why i'm asking these questions here. TIA for any help or info 
    • I bought the model back in Japan in Feb. I realised I could never build it, looked around for people who could build it, turns out there's some very skilled people out there that will make copies of 1:1 cars or near enough. I'm not really a photo guy... but people were dragging me in a group chat for the choice of bumper as someone else saw the car before it was finished as they are also a customer of that shop. I took the photo in the above post because I was pretty confident that the lip would work wonders for it. Here's some more in-progress and almost-done pics. It gives a good enough idea as to what the rear looks like!   I have also booked in a track day at the end of January. Lets all hope that is nothing but pure fun and games. If it's not pure fun and games, well, I've already got half an engine spare in the cupboard 
×
×
  • Create New...