R32 Gts-T Track Build

[samos69]

Hi All,

I'm currently in the process of building my R32 GTS-T coupe up as a track car. I've owned the car for about 9 years though its been in storage for 5 of those while I was overseas. Previously it was used as a very cheap drift hack but now I'm trying to have a more serious go at it. It's being done on a smallish budget so plenty of DIY but hopefully with money spent in the right places.

I had started this build thread on another forum but there is a much stronger motorsport focus on here and after spending hours days reading all the great track car build threads getting inspiration I thought I'd put mine up here to get some advice and criticism

Once (if) approved I'll put up the last year and a bit's progress since the car was pulled from storage on my parents farm and I embarked on an ambitious rebuild..

Here's a few pics of the car when I bought it as a rolling shell, unfortunately a hard drive crash and poor backup discipline means photos from this time are rare..

I soon found a suitable donor car in Blenheim where the owner had decided he hated power poles and attempted to destroy one by means of wrapping his car around it! So at about 6.30am some very helpful fellows at the ferry terminal used a forklift and dumped this on my trailer:

GTS-T - not an m-spec though it had m-spec wheels (3 of which were usable!)

Progress from here was quick, motor in and source a few panels suddenly it's on the road with a WOF

few upgrades so it would skid better:

Locked Diff - turns out it was an open diff in a lsd diff casing

GTR Swaybar

Shielded K&N Pod + Cold Air Feed

That's the first post plenty more to come, currently the car is in getting its cage fitted. Hopefully I have it back in a week or two then on the track in September / October.

Cheers

Sam

[samos69]

Woo, approval

Next up I decided white was too bland for a drift car so it rolled into a mates garage and over the course of a weekend it came out looking like this:

So I did some of this:

(yes I heading off the track, no I didnt save it)

Which promptly fried the clutch, so I got this:

Basic final spec on the car was the following:

3.25 inch tanabe exhaust (stock dump, front and 2.5 inch decat)

Greddy Profec 2

Apexi Pod

R32 GTR Intercooler

Bride Fixed back drivers sear

GTR rear swaybar

Cut springs and million mile shocks

Locked diff

Z32 TT fuel pump

22 R32 and R33 turbo rims

RB25 Turbo

This all made 154rwkw at Speedtech on 13psi which I was quite disappointed about! It also handled like a bag of crap and couldnt stop to save itself (or me!).

But it was all built on a budget, from start to finish including purchase of the shell, paint, etc, it owed me about $5k.

The other half was making noises about doing the big OE so I had been putting money towards that and when we decided to go to the Uk for a year it made sense to put the car in storage with my parents and rebuild it bigger and better when we come back.

Fast forward and 4 years later we land back in Wellington and after what seems like an age we find a house we like, but apparently I have to make some concessions on the garage I had been dreaming of.... "ah well if it keeps you happy I guess so"

I have been regretting that particular concession as it's taken over 6 months to stop the water flooding through the garage every time it rains, do some small excavation to gain space for a work bench, run power everywhere, install lighting and build enough storage to make it usable!

Plus the roof is about 6 foot 1 so it feels a touch cramped!

[samos69]

So today I opened the bonnet and saw what 4 years of sitting in a disused cow shed in Taranaki does to a car.... damn salt spray

The plan is work from the back forward, I'll give it a good going over to ensure any surface rust is put to bed before it becomes major and then probably pull the motor as I'm teaching myself to weld and I want to stitch weld the engine bay so it's as good an excuse as any (plus I have the required tools so it's not too hard as long as it's not raining!)

Bumper off:

I spy rust!

Nothing a flap disc and some rust dissolver can't care of!

Also should give the arches a tickle up while I'm here, the R32s are prone to rusting there and my previous attempts at lipping the guards left a bit of exposed metal no doubt.

Looks bad but it's actually minor, here's partway through stripping

And that's about it for now. I've got until the 5th before I go back to work so there should be some good progress. I'll also get a few pics together of the goodies I've assembled

[samos69]

One of my biggest dislikes of the car was the handling, it would step out and slide fairly easily but it was a *** to control and was impossible to transition between corners at any decent speed. No doubt my lack of skill was also a large contributing factor but I'll stick with blaming the car

Of course the cut springs and decades old shocks are probably the main culprit but I have replacements for them to be fitted a bit closer to track time.

Here's some subframe locking collars I had lying around, lucky eh.

These are really easy to fit, first place a jack and block of wood under one side of the subframe like so

Mmm surface rust! I'm going to refurb a second subframe with adjustable arms at a later date so I'm turning a blind eye to the condition of this one

Loosen the 17mm nuts at the back and front of the subframe and lower the jack until you can slide in the C locking collar on top of the subframe

On the front you need to undo these two 14mm bolts completely and remove the bracket to get the lower collar on.

Put the lower collar on

Bolt it all up tight then do the other side. Done!

[samos69]

I still had a bit of time so I thought I'd work on another bolt-on upgrade.

The R32's aren't the stiffest of chassis and I'm told they benefit greatly from a rear strut brace. I've always put front strut braces on my cars and they make a noticeable difference so seems logical.

Here's the existing front brace, a few years ago I missed out on a matching rear one on Trademe and I haven't seen one since. No idea on the brand but it's built really well so doesnt seem like a cheap china job.

I bought a rear cusco brace from a forum member and once night while browsing trademe I found a front one for a good price, turns out it wasn't labelled and the seller thought it was a no namer!

I had also picked up a Cusco master cylinder stopper second hand

So I thought I might as well give everything a lick of paint to tidy it all up.

Scuffed it with some 180 grit wet and dry and gave it a coat of metal primer (no where to hang it at the moment so on the ground it is)

And that was about the time I decided it was beer o'clock!

[samos69]

Todays progress! I decided to do something different as I really hate rust and panel work.

As I said earlier the donor was not an m-spec and the brakes were to put it lightly.... terrifying. The cheapest solution is to upgrade to some m-spec brakes, which I happen to have had sitting in a box for 5 years :dozey:

Since the rear is in the air might as well start there. The calipers are in really good condition, I got these the week before I moved overseas as the price was right!

A lick of paint is in order, might as well tart them up a bit. The red may not be to everyones taste but I like it.

Now on to removing the old kit.

A pair of bolts holds the caliper onto the hub, undo them and the caliper can be put aside. Then the disc just pulls off (make sure the handbrake isn't on!)

Here's the old disc alongside my "new" disc. The discs were given to me and the pads came in the calipers, they are purely there for getting the car setup and rolling then a new set will be purchased!

The problem here is the backing plate, it's too small... here's a chance to use my new air cutting wheel

AAAnnndddd turns out my compressor isn't man enough to run the cutting tool for more than 15 seconds... bugger. Onto the grinder!

The backing plate is attached at several spots around the hub carrier, I don't have any cold chisels so my trust wood punch will have to do. Basically you just locate the spots and use the punch to seperate the backing plate. It takes a while.

All done! You can see I caught the handbrake shoe with the hammer a couple of times :dozey:

The remnants:

[samos69]

Now onto the calipers, refitting the pads and shims is easy with these brakes it all slots in the top!

Now once I'm done the brakes will be a massive improvement over what I had, and should be an upgrade over stock once the correct rotors and pads are fitted.

The master cylinder stopper shown above will help to stop the firewall flexing when I stomp on the brakes which will mean a much better feeling on the pedal.

I still need something else, like these Do-luck braided brakelines

And fitted up:

In reality that took ages, I bloody hate the fittings on the factory hardlines. Even with the correct tool they try to round off as soon as you look at them. After a dose of penetrating oil I ended up putting a small set of vicegrips on and whacking it with a mallet

The correct tool:

I should note that when refitting any bolts or nuts I put a small amount of copper grease on the threads as an anti-seize. Makes life much easier when you need to remove something next time and it makes assembly so much easier as well. Looks snazzy too

[samos69]

Fitted finally:

And lets see what these might look like

A bit blingy for a race car but they are possibly made by work from my research and they weigh about 9kgs per rim so not overly heavy (not as light as buddyclub p1's either but beggars can't be choosers!). 17x8 front and 17x9 rear 35p offset. I may need to fit some spacers to get a bit more track but will wait and see once tyres are on and it's on the ground.

Now onto the fronts! I got these in a box when I bought the car, and the condition of them put me off doing anything with them for ages.

After a lot of stripping and scraping they ended up like this:

I knew the seals would be shot so I ordered some in and followed this guide to fit them:

http://www.240sxforu...rebuilding.html

I also had a couple of pistons that couldn't be saved, someone had tried to get them out without a compressor obviously!

So a few new pistons to the rescue, but not too many as they are $40 each!

Trying to get the stuck old brake line out:

And now they are taped up to get a bit paint tomorrow:

[samos69]

Not much to report today, I slept in and the weather is too nice to be in the garage!

Here is under the rear windscreen trim, one little bit of surface rust.

And here is the bit I am dreading stripping back...

Having a look at yesterdays handiwork I realized I had put the calipers on the wrong sides :homer:

Luckily it only took 10 minutes to pull them off and swap them over so the bleeder is on the top

If you recall the strut brace I removed back on page 1, it had some oxidation on it and generally looked a bit tatty.

The ends were off and being painted so I hit the alloy bar with some wet and dry. Working from 320 grit all the way up to 1000 grit (local Repco doesnt have anything higher so I'll have to go searching before I start painting stuff)

Then hit it with Meguiars metal polish and reassemble.

If you look really closely some of the oxidation lines are visible but it looks really good overall.

This is now in the for sale section as I'll be using the Cusco ones I bought.

I also spent about an hour practicing welding on some spare panels... was blowing quite a few holes so more practice needed before I go anywhere near the car! Also might ditch the flux core wire and rent a bottle of c02 from BOC as I'm getting heaps of spatter.

Here's a bit of practice... crap I know! I've never used a MIG before and only stick welded once so hopefully I get better!

That's it for the day, time for a few quiet beers - no big new years this year as the other half is still suffering from morning sickness.

Happy new year all.

[samos69]

Last thing for the evening, I have no need for my turbo timer anymore so I'll remove it ready for sale. It's a greddy with skyline specific loom for super easy installation (and removal!)

It's mounted with some very sticky double sided tape to a bracket I made.

To get to where it plugs into the loom I need to remove the lower part of the dash. 6 screws all can be seen in the next two photos, plus two 10mm screws holding the bonnet release on.

Then just pull it towards you to release the clip near the vent and we can see my awesome cable tie job holding it all against the steering column.

Once the ties are off you can see how easily this turbo timer plugs into the loom (can you feel the sales pitch )

Unplugged and just plug the ignition loom back together.

Aside from unscrewing the earth wire that's all it takes to remove.

Thats it for the evening, hopefully I'll get more time tomorrow.

[samos69]

Ok some small progress. Finished cleaning up the cusco braces, I'm not going for show quality but I like having a good standard of finish on the car.

Started labelling the loom and stripping the boot completely. Masking tape to label all wires so when I strip the loom back to the dash I know whats not needed.

Another strange box behind the boot panel, I think this one is part of the fuel pump system but haven't had a good look at it yet.

All done except the fuel pump cover, that'll come off last.

Handily you can unplug most of the boot loom here, but there's a strange two core wire cable-tied to the loom which I'll need to strip back to find out what it does. I'm fairly certain it's a direct power feed I ran to give the fuel pump a true 14V instead of letting the ecu vary the voltage.

[samos69]

Got a bit done today. First up finished painting the front calipers and fitted some bendix race pads I got cheap

Continued removing the interior so I can clean up the floor and ready it for a cage.

console out

And carpet out, pretty happy its only got bits of surface rust on the floor no repairs needed.

I said previously I bought this shell with sound deadening removed, well I never did check it closely or I was lazy and just put the carpet down cos it was a crap job they did!!!

Not enough to go out and buy dry ice so I resorted to the heat gun method which takes longer and is much messier.... but got the drivers bit out

And then with some wiping down with thinners the dark bits are patches of surface rust left to be treated.

Here's a comparison with the other parts I'll have to tackle tomorrow, it took a few hours to get one bit done so lots left to do.

[samos69]

7.5 hours today.... and this was all I got done. Still got drivers side rear footwell and under the back seat area to go...

I'm aching like a mofo.... I better not crash this thing cos never again!!!

[samos69]

I was thinking satin or matt black to minimize reflection but I do have a bunch of gloss white spare so that may be it.

Well it's already about 2kgs of deadener I reckon as the bulk of it is already gone maybe another kg to go.

Here's some weights from a thread I saved over on SAU, it's for a gtr but lots of the stuff is the same:

rear seat back 6.5kg

rear seat bottom 6.5kg

front ds seat 15kg

front ps seat 15kg

main carpet 6kg

rear trims in back seat 5kg

parcel shelf 1kg

space saver wheel 15kg

boot trims 6kg

jack/toolkit 4kg

boot brackets 3kg

air con/heater/blower fan 10kg

firewall sound deadener 4kg

rear seat belts 2.5kg

spoiler 7.5kg

air con pump 8kg

air con bracket 1.5kg

charcoal canister/bracket 1kg

washer bottle 1kg

hicas pump, engine bay lines 7kg

abs unit 8kg

hicas undercar lines 2kg

cooler piping/bov's 15kg

fusebox loom 7kg

front bumper support 6.5kg

sound deadener 11kg

dash loom 4kg

fuel tank 13kg (fuel cell = 6kg)

interior/attessa/boot loom 6kg

rear wiper motor 2kg

coilovers 6kg lighter than stock

hicas pump rack 9kg

boot with spoiler (no hinges) 15.5kg

front axles x 2 12kg

sump/front diff(gtr=24kg, vl=2.5kg) 21.5kg

air con condensor/lines 5kg

battery 15kg

wiring harnesses 8kg

drum brake assemblies 5kg

hicas ecu 2kg

heater hoses 1kg

bumper reinforcements 8kg

transfer case 33kg

oil cooler block 2kg

So at the moment I've removed 141.5kg according to that list (once all the sound deadening is gone) and the only thing to go back in is my very light Bride drivers seat and a harness.

Of course the cage will add a bunch of weight as well as my fuel system but at the same time I have a few lightweight items on route to replace heavy factory items to counteract the weight-gain

[samos69]

So not a whole lot of progress due to work / family commitments etc but I'm still plugging away.

I'm now done inside with only a few seams to wire wheel at a later date. Thanks to the previous owner's chisel method of removing the sound deadener the worst of the surface rust was under the back seat. It was taking too long so out came my trusty grinder and flap disc

Also I wasn't going to do the boot but the previous owner had removed one sides seam sealer so I guess I should even it up. Almost done...

Picked up this during the week, R32 non-hicas subframe which I'll clean up and get some adjustable toe arms for.

I was hoping to mock up the fuel system and the rear firewall this weekend but the guy I bought the fuel line off is hopeless and hasn't sent it yet and the receptionist at Ulrich failed to mention they are open on Saturdays except when it's a long weekend (i.e this weekend when I showed up at 8.30am to a closed factory )

I have to go away this weekend for a wedding so better get into it in the evenings to make up for lost time! (and I have to fit a stereo + reversing camera to a dirty toyota highlander so that'll soak up one of my evenings!)

[samos69]

Well I've been tied up with work and family stuff so not a lot of actual progress on the car, although just dropped the other half off at the airport headed for Sydney so I've got 7 days to crack on with no distractions

Now even though no work has been done, the bank balance has taken a thrashing. Here's what's arrived and I have to get on fitting.

First up a set of Falken Azenis in 245/45/17. Not my first choice in tyre but they are brand new and I got the whole set fitted and balanced for under $700... beats $500 per tyre for R888s!

Also I don't think tyres will be my limiting factor on the track for quite some time...

Wheels are unknown from Japan and have AMP carving on the back, as far as I can tell from some research they may have been made in the same factory as work or something? Either way the are 17x8 and 17x9 with 35p offset and the 9 inch rims weighed under 10kg without a tyre so not the lightest, but also not as heavy as the cheap rims floating about.

Rear fitment (yes the tread is backwards, just grabbed the first back rim to test)

Hmm, may need some guard rolling or removal of the 15mm spacers... but I have these as well - 20mm spacers! Hmmm, decisions... maybe frp wide guards at some point I think.

Side shot

Bought this even though I don't need it yet. T3 to T3 with 38mm wastegate flange. Means I can retain the factory manifold instead of a cheap stainless job that would no doubt crack.. It's the only one I've seen on trademe so thought I'd snap it up.

And this all turned up so I can begin mocking up the fuel system. Bosch 044 and braided line, I already have a surge tank ready as well.

Fancy fittings are out of scope for now as money needs to be spent elsewhere on the car!

On a garage related note, I've spent 10 years working out of this tool box and assorted socket set cases... it's about end of life so I was hunting for a new 9 drawer unit.

I mentioned it my old man and he said he'd hunt something down through the farm suppliers and get a good price. He rang me up and said he'd found a deal but it was a bit more than I'd wanted to spend but he'd bought it anyway as a xmas / birthday gift. I was well shocked when this turned up. Absolute legend my dad!

Hopefully tomorrow some real work will get done!

[samos69]

Yeah he's definitely got the legend tag now

Well just a small amount to show for what surprisingly took quite a long time.

Finally used some of the por 15 to tidy up the rear seam. I got 30ml out and put it in a jar. this is how much it covered!!!! This area won't be seen so I just keep brushing it on. Great stuff but it ruins paint brushes. I also wanted to cover just above the number plate as that used to be visible when it was white and annoyed me.

I then dropped the fuel tank, couple of 17mm bolts on the straps and 1 10mm by the filler and it just dropped out.

I then attacked the tow hook with a grinder

I managed to get it removed but haven't uploaded the rest of the pics as it isn't finished but here's the mock-up of why I removed it

Previously my outings at manfield resulted in some errrr, regular use of the tow hooks and they are just too small to hook onto properly so I thought I'd put something a little better on just in case!

That's all for this update, but once again the postman delivered me some goodies so lots more work to get on with!

[samos69]

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm over all this stripping / maintenance stuff but the reason I'm starting at the back is because I know if I started in the engine bay I would never get around to doing this stuff!

Couple more pics of the tow hook mounting. I've cut enough out that I can attach / reattach the hook with the fuel tank in place (otherwise I would have had to drop the tank if I ever needed to remove the bumper!) I can mount it this way as I'm not running a rear bumper iron - wooo more weight loss

[samos69]

So today I planned on putting the front on jack stands and dropping the exhaust but due to the height I put the rear at my piddly little jack can't get the front up high enough so I'll need to borrow / purchase a bigger jack...

With that plan failed I thought I'd start on another side project.

Step one remove the brake caliper (the copper grease I posted earlier came into it's own here everything I had done up was easy to undo once loosened) and brake disc. The pop the handbrake shoes off and loosen all the suspension arms. Rattle gun made short work of the centre nut, luckily I had these off before so I had already purchased a 36 (!) socket years ago for the job.

This balljoint was a pain in the ***, also none of my metric spanners fit but my biggest AF which was lucky. A few solid whacks with a hammer and using a pry bar separated it.

Why am I removing the hubs you might ask? Because a care package from Driftworks arrived this week all the way from Birmingham (and only 5 days after ordering!)

With a bit of tat included

[samos69]

Now onto a job which took way longer than I anticipated.

First we need to remove the old rubber bushes, the best way to do this according to Driftworks and the internet?

With fire

Then using a hacksaw cut a notch in the sleeve you supposedly chisel the sleeve to collapse itself in all while taking care not to damage the carrier.

After over an hour of being careful!

Then finally it let go

The second one came out much more quickly as I got rather agressive once I had hit my thumb a few times with a 20oz hammer trying to be gentle

Still I marked the insides a bit, nothing too major and a quick once over with a file ensure no sharp edges so it should be all good.

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