Hanaldo's R34 Gt(T) Skyline Build

[Hanaldo]

Hey all,

I'm hoping this thread isn't too hard to write as this 'build' started about 3 years ago, so some stuff has probably slipped my mind. I'll try to include as much detail as I can up to where the car is now, but I really just wanted to do this thread so I could document what I've done to the car, and maybe some of you will find it interesting. I'll try to use as many of the good photos that I have that were taken by RM Photography (Rhys Maylam), but a lot of the things are just crappy photos taken with my camera phone.

So to get it started I'll give a quick bit of background. At the start of 2009 I bought my 34 GT, pretty much stock as a rock engine wise excluding pod-filter, 2.5" exhaust, extractors, blah blah. Had a Top Secret front bar, 18" (staggered 9.5" on the back and 8.5" on the front) G-Max Enigma wheels, and super low king springs. Also had R33 GTST brake calipers and rotors. Me being the absolute sucker kid that I was, I also believed the sellers stories about a heavy duty clutch and some other stuff that turned out to be bullshit. Live and learn eh, gotta love being a kid. Anyway, scrounged up these photo's of how it looked then:

Car stayed pretty much like that for the first few months; I spent a bit of money on little things like HID's, painting the engine cover and interior pieces and the brake calipers, some completely unnecessary gauges, Isotta aluminium racing pedals, DBA 4000 slotted rotors and EBC green stuff pads on the front, and a GTR spoiler:

And that is pretty much how it stayed for the rest of 2009.

[Hanaldo]

So, 2010 is I guess when things started to get a bit more interesting. The mod-bug had well and truly bitten me by this stage and I had been entertaining blissfully ignorant thoughts of building an NA beast, or an RB26 transplant, high compression turbocharged engine; you know, the sorts of brilliant ideas that frequently pop up in the NA section on here that get posted by kids with an active imagination and not a clue about cars. I was one of those guys, and I may in-fact have posted on here a couple of threads that make me cringe today.

Anyway, some time in early 2010, the car developed a few not-so-pleasant noises. I took the car to my mechanic to learn that my gearbox was on it's way out, thrust bearing was shot, 2nd and reverse were starting to crunch, etc. I decided that perhaps now was as good a time as any to take some action with the car and I started asking around at local workshops about turbocharging my car. Long story short, I eventually decided to import a written-off R34 GTT from Japan and begin the conversion process. The workshop I was going through found me a coupe with front end damage with about 60xxxkms on the clock. This included the engine, gearbox, driveshaft, diff, dash pieces, and a few other bits and pieces that would be useful; so I went ahead and put the deposit down to get the ball rolling.

Now while I was waiting around for the donor car to arrive in Oz, I decided I wanted to fix up the paint on a few panels on the car. The front-bar needed a respray, the rear bar had some cracks from the previous owner, the bonnet and front guards were pitted all over not really sure what by, and the eyelids had a few stone chips here and there. So I rubbed it back, primered it up and then rubbed it back some more:

And sadly enough, this is probably the toughest my car has ever looked :

And after a few days of trial and error teaching learning to use a compressor and spray gun, this was the result:

[Hanaldo]

Those pictures were taken right after the panels went back on and the paint was still to fresh to buff. But a few days after I finished that job, I got the call from the workshop to bring the car in. By this stage the car had been off the road for about 2.5 months waiting for that call, so I was a bit excited.

Now as the donor car was a front-end right off, there were a few things that I needed to supply for the conversion. This included FMIC, radiator, fuel pump, boost controller, and possibly some other stuff that I've forgotten. I thought I had some pictures of this stuff but I can't find it anywhere, so I'll just write up a list. I decided on a Greddy M-Spec front mount, AGP triple core alloy radiator, Walbro 550hp fuel pump, Greddy Profec II EBC, etc. I also needed a new clutch as the R34 GTT box is obviously a pull-type while my old RB20 gearbox had a push-type, so I went with an Exedy Sport Ceramic Racing kit. While the car was at the shop I went on a bit of a spending spree, so by this stage sitting in my room I had:

Sparco Torino II driver and passenger seats.

Recaro bottom mount rails to suit.

JJR 3" bellmouth dump/front pipe.

5" body Venom metal cat.

NIStune board.

HEL braided brake lines.

BC Racing BR series coilovers.

DBA slotted rotors and Feroda brake pads for the back.

Splitfire coilpacks.

Greddy gauge pod.

Ark Multi Functional Display

Aaand again, possibly some stuff I've forgotten by now.

*EDIT* Found my pictures:

Edited March 13, 2012 by Hanaldo

[Hanaldo]

Fast forwarding about a month and a lot of frustration/anger/annoyances/etc. and my car was finally done. The workshop had put the car on the dyno to check it's AFR's and it came back with 219rwhp@11psi. I was happy with that considering it was dead stock and still wearing the NA 2.5" cat-back. This is how things were looking:

Sure beats the shit outta this:

So first things first, I immediately went and got local welding wizard Kermit to make me a 3" cat-back and install my Venom cat, with this work of art being the outcome:

I then went about installing the rest of my previously purchased parts:

Fast forwarding again, the last thing I had installed was the NIstune board, which resulted in this:

Again, was happy at the time but looking back I think this is about where the problems started to shine through. More on that later, but this is how the car was looking at the time:

Edited March 13, 2012 by Hanaldo

[Hanaldo]

Car stayed like that for a few months, with this being one of a few small improvements:

I also tried making my own custom heat shield for the pod filter, which turned out like this:

And I bought a pair of GTR bov's to replace the stock one:

[Hanaldo]

So now it was about the time of Powercruise here in Perth and I had entered my car for the first time. This proved to be a bit of a catalyst and I was inspired to chase more power. After a bit of research I purchased a Hypergear ATR43G2 with the .64 rear, some Power Enterprise 660cc injectors, and a Z32 AFM:

And the car went back in for a retune. This is where the first disappointment came:

Expecting at least 350rwhp as I had seen numerous cars making with this turbo over on the East coast, I was disappointed to say the least. The car went back in for a retune a few times over the coming months to try things such as dropping the exhaust, raising the boost, etc. Even tried getting Hypergear to send me out a replacement turbo and got that retuned, but nothing really worked and I eventually got a bit pissed off and left the car as is for awhile.

[Hanaldo]

Circa around February 2011 and I went over to Europe for 6 weeks for a holiday. The trip gave me a break from the car and when I got back I finally decided to get the car in to a different tuner. Without changing a thing, this was the result:

So now I was a bit happier. Next up, Rising Sunday was on the calender. I decided this needed a few more improvements with the car, so I ditched the hideous G-Max's and purchased some bronze 18" Wolf S36's with the same staggered widths but a much better offset and fitment. This also included some KU36's to improve my track times:

I then went for a change of colour with the brake calipers and decided to go with a nice dark blue:

I also thought the car needed more low, so I dropped the coilovers about 2.5" lower than in the above pictures, which of course required rolling the guards. Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures as I only finished at 3am, still kicking myself about that. To paint the picture for you, the car was now so low that I couldn't fit my iPhone4 under my front bar and the rear rims were tucking inside the guards, giving me -4 degrees of camber on each side. It was a risky drive to Rising Sunday which included lots of scraping around corners and wheels rubbing on guard lining

Edited March 13, 2012 by Hanaldo

[Hanaldo]

The car went like Powercruise 2011 like this as well. Again Powercruise proved somewhat of a catalyst and I was again inspired to chase more power. At around this time, Hypergear had just finished developing their new ATR43G3 with FNT technology, with Stao netting a very respectable 330rwkw@23psi with full boost at around 4500rpm. I decided this was the turbo for me, however I was no longer interested in stealth and asked Stao to ditch the internal gate and convert the rear housing to support an external wastegate.

While that was going on, I purchased a Turbosmart Comp-Gate40 to suit the turbo and two 7psi internal springs to get me my base gate pressure of 14psi. Around late October 2011, the turbo finally rocked up and I got stuck into installing it:

The old ATR43G2 vs the new ATR43G3:

My first impression of the size of the thing was that there was no way in hell it was going to fit in the stock location. But Stao assured me that it would so I forged ahead. And indeed, with a 15mm spacer on the manifold, it did fit... Just.

I finished up the install and this is how it all looked. I had taken the chance of having everything apart to replace some dodgy old hoses and spent a bit of money just cleaning things up some more:

I managed to get it finished just in time for the tune, unfortunately it resulted in yet more disappointment:

The power seems about right for the boost level, however it's the missing mid-range and response that had me annoyed this time. I am getting full boost at around 5000rpm which is a bit lame on the street, and I'm down about 30rwkw through the mid-range. After speaking with my tuner, I discovered there was some trouble with the NIStune and stock ECU. Basically when the engine was installed in my car, we decided to delete the TCS to save having to wire it up as well as the fact I wasn't really interested in traction control. Little did I know at the time that this was going to wreak havoc with the stock ECU causing it to pull fuel and timing, meaning my tuner had to disable my VCT to prevent the car from detonating. So this explains the missing mid-range and response.

On the bright side, the external wastegate sounds amazing

Edited March 13, 2012 by Hanaldo

[Hanaldo]

This pretty much brings us up to date now, with that tune happening on the 4th of December last year. Since then, after a few weeks of research and discussions, I have hopefully sorted out the problem by sending the ECU off to Matt at NIStune Developments to reprogram my board with a Stagea image, thus eliminating the traction control in the ECU. However I won't be sure until it goes back in for a retune, which will hopefully be this month... AFTER the latest mods.

One thing I have done since then is get Brad (Risking) at Pro Fabrication Race Engineering to fabricate a custom combined catch can/radiator overflow bottle which turned out like this:

This is where the car is at now. I decided about a month or so ago that I was just done with the stock intake plenum. The original plan was to get a copy Greddy plenum, however after reading up on FFP's I was concerned about losing potentially more mid-range with the shorter runners. So you may be able to guess what I decided on from here. It literally rocked up about 10 minutes ago

And the 72mm throttle body to go with:

Originally I was going to try to use the Plazmaman alongside the stock fuel rail and my current injectors, but after talking to Matt (34GeeTeeTee on here) about his setup and looking at his pictures, I decided to purchase his spare HKS fuel rail. To go with that I also bought a Sard fuel pressure regulator, a Turbosmart fuel pressure gauge, and decided to upgrade my Power Enterprise 660's to Injector Dynamics 1000's; all of which rocked up a few days ago:

So now I'm hoping the braided hose and Speedflow fittings I ordered will arrive this week sometime so that all of the above can go on this weekend

[Gerry Giraffe]

Good stuff mate, looking really good.

[Hanaldo]

Forgot about another couple of cosmetic items still to go on:

Good stuff mate, looking really good.

Thanks mate, it's been a lot of headaches and stuffing around, but it's really come a long way. In fact, I just looked up my dyno result from when the car was NA... An almighty 138.6rwhp So I've increased power by about 283.4%

[Gerry Giraffe]

Thanks mate, it's been a lot of headaches and stuffing around, but it's really come a long way. In fact, I just looked up my dyno result from when the car was NA... An almighty 138.6rwhp So I've increased power by about 283.4%

Hahaha always a good way to look at it i guess, money well spent!

[10 4]

A lot of money

[Bsa]

It's worth the money when you love it it's hard but iv nearly tossed in the towel on my build a few times but it will get there. Good build mate did well

[Hanaldo]

A lot of money

Haha got that right. It's money that could have been spent on illicit drugs and alcohol though, so I took the 'healthy' addiction

It's worth the money when you love it it's hard but iv nearly tossed in the towel on my build a few times but it will get there. Good build mate did well

Thanks mate, I completely agree. Have been keeping an eye on your build as well, hope you get it done mate

[GUN_METAL_GTR32]

very nice build so far!

white r34 gtts bring a lil tear to my eye lol

[Hanaldo]

very nice build so far!

white r34 gtts bring a lil tear to my eye lol

Thanks Julz. I'm still on the hunt for a carbon triple gauge pod if you wanna get rid of yours?

[GUN_METAL_GTR32]

honaldo brother!

believe me i want it to be in ur car more than anything!

i want to sell all the pieces in a package though and need stock pieces for swapping yeah!

let me know if u wanna work something out cuz

0433005569

text me tomoz n ill organise some pics for ya mate

[JH32]

Good writeup mate! Keen to see how your next round of mods go ... hopefully no disappointment this time!!

[Hanaldo]

Thanks mate, me too!