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The day had come, Friday. The day my R33 had to be complete and ready to be tuned, and trailered to Raceline’s Wakefield Matsuri.

After our efforts late into Thursday night, the Skyline was good to go for its tune at Mick’s Motorsports. When it had arrived Mick attempted to connect with the Haltech, but found the consult cable was faulty. Maya (Anthony’s other half) rushed to Mick’s to obtain the E11V2, then took it to Haltech to get repaired on the spot.

Once that was complete, she went back to Mick’s Motorsports and the planned tune/run in resumed. We all honestly thought nothing else could go wrong from here on in, it was the light at the end of the tunnel. I had heard nothing for a couple of hours from Anthony and I was starting to worry. Shortly after I received an SMS, it was from Anthony stating the car made 315kw on 16psi. I was over the moon to say the least.

Not only did the “new” engine last the tune, but it actually made some decent power. Although there was one last curve ball thrown at us. Anthony attempted to drive the car back to my house after the tune had been completed. He got a street away from Mick’s workshop until the engine cut out.

7:30PM, Anthony gave me a call and said “Your not going to believe this, I think your timing belt snapped”. I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t believe it. Until he asked if I had picked up the car trailer yet.

Jeff and I headed out to where my Skyline was, and loaded it on the trailer. Anthony was keen as mustard to get the car back the stop, rip it apart and find out what the hell happened. So we did just that.

He started by removing the cam covers, and checking if the cams were seized. Anth spun them with a wrench and they moved freely but something was making a nasty sound, we all knew what it was.

Anthony then took off the timing belt cover, the Power Enterprise timing belt was still on the camgears, but looked to have part of its casing removed. He looks down and said “f**k, I found the problem”.

Idler-loose.jpg

What you’re looking at is the idler bearing sitting in the timing case. The engine builder has not only over tightened the bolt, but he didn’t use a high tensile item. This stupid mistake has cost me is not only missing out at Matsuri, it’s going to cost me a new head assembly. As the pistons have bent the valves when the bearing fell off.

What gets me the most is that many people have spent a stack of time on getting this Skyline of mine up and running, and because the monkey who put this engine together had obviously no clue to what they are doing, we all suffer.

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I really don’t know what I’m going to do from here on in. I have no faith in this engine that has been slapped together. I’m thousands in debt and I’m basically back at square one.

The Run It Hard! gang still headed out to Matsuri at 12:30am Saturday morning. Paulie and I managed to convince Julie taking my spot, she had a blast and will be going to Wakie a lot more often now. I even got to drive her S14 a little bit, as you can see in the first picture.

No matter how hard we fought against the shonky engine, we were defeated by something so simple. Something that any engine builder should never get wrong.

Nail in the coffin

It's shit to say the least. The engine builder won't return my calls so I've taken it to fair trading.

The car is back at my joint for the time being. Everything will be put on hold for now I think.

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A little update:

I recieved a call from fair-trading today, shortly after I got a call from Jo. They want to "inspect" the engine.

I'm interested to see what they have to say for themselves.

horrible luck mate, hopefully only good to come from here on in! this thread has made me cringe at the thought of my engine to be stripped and rebuild with all the goods in the next few months so fingeres crossed!

well that just sucks a big fat one sorry to hear mate..

Cheers lads, can only get better from here, surely? lol we'll see what happens.

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Last night after I went out with a few of the Run It Hard! gentlemen, I managed to get to my computer and go on a hunt.

I’ve been doing this hunt every week or so since the pair of 18×12.5J Lehrmeisters arrived. I was looking for another pair. Hoping to make a set of kick ass wheels.

But they’ve been impossible to find. Upon my searching, I discovered they were replicas of the AC Schnitzer type III wheels. I also discovered that AC Schnitzer destroy replications of their wheels in public, among other things.

I kept digging around, and I could only find a couple old advertisements in the US and UK. There is no information to be found on these wheels. They are no longer listed on the Lehrmeister website, I couldn’t even find any images of them, after searching multiple terms on Google Japan.

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I told myself, that if I couldn’t find a pair tonight, I’m going to order some Work Meisters.

It was 4am, my eyes were closing shut but I just had the urge to keep going. I felt like I was hot on the trial, even though I was on the verge of exhausting every resource I had.

My persistence has paid off, I did in fact find another pair of these Lehrmeister wheels in 18 inch. The width and offset is less than desirable but that’s an easy fix. I’m just so happy that I’ll be able to have a matching set of these awesome looking wheels.

MIX AND MATCH

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Sunday was the day that Ali was ment to swing by, and have a chat about this engine failure we have on our hands. Here I was hoping to get something happening with it all, instead of the car sitting around.

He was ment to be at my house “around 2PM” to “inspect it”. I got a call from Jo at 2:30PM stating that they wouldn’t make it. So they’ve struck again, further delaying this whole ordeal.

Julie, Anth and I were pissed to say the least (more so Julie, she was furious!). So instead of getting all worked up. We to put the 33 on its guts.

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This is the final ride height for the car. I’m actually surprised the ISC coilovers have so much adjustment, they are maxed out though.

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t’s all I have to tell at the moment. Here’s hoping this whole ordeal gets sorted out swiftly.

WAITING FOR NOTHING

  • 2 weeks later...

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’s the charm

The belief that the third time something is attempted is more likely to succeed than the previous two attempts. It is also used as a good luck charm – spoken just before trying something for the third time.

If you’ve been following the build on my R33 the past couple of months, then you’ll know I’ve had just no luck with it so far. Well as the saying goes, ”The third time’s a charm”. I’m praying that this saying can pull this car into gear and demolish the curse that has been set upon my Nissan Skyline.

Tuesday morning, 12am I met up with Daniel and I purchased a RB25 head off him. It’s missing a few bits and pieces which is all good. As it has the complete valvetrain which is what’s needed to get the RB25 back to life.

This will be installed, and a few small things will be changed on the car at the same time.

If all goes well (seriously, how many times have I said that?!) I might just make that epic day at Eastern Creek, that Driving Sports are currently organising.

THE THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM

Schwing! the game changer once again!!

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After roughly 6 weeks of struggling to get in contact with Alister and Joanne from Hyperform/Powerplay. I’ve finally had some progress regarding this engine failure.

2 weeks ago, I had advised them that I will be taking legal action if my demands aren’t met. At the time this is what the Dept. Of Fair Trading had informed me to do. Anyway tonight, the eve of the 14th day, I received a call from Jo. The “conversation” got quite heavy (as you’d expect) about what went wrong, how it went wrong, the variables on what could have caused it to go wrong … basically trying to say because they weren’t the last person to work on the car so it could be anyones fault.

As you could imagine, I reacted to this and shit got out of proportion. I think it was well deserved though, seeing that it’s taken over six weeks to get where we are tonight. I think it’s long over due and that this should have been over a long time ago if they wanted to put the effort in.

Anyway, Jo and Alister are happy to issue me a refund once I return the engine. I’m going to do just that, I want this ordeal to be over with so I can get on with getting my R33 up and running again.

PROGRESSION

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