The Yellow Lunchbox

[joorsh]

So here's my ugly yellow thing:

And that's how she rolled off the boat from japan, resplendent with stone chips, grandpa-grill and stupid sleepy eyelid thingies.

Now the interior. Where to begin.

There was no less than 3 different sized TV screens, 2 independant CD stacks, 3 head units (yes, three), 2 amps, 2 subs, 2 different alarm systems and more dodgy wiring than a Telstra telephone exchange. Just about everyhting had a remote too, and they had all been attached to the key ring. The entire key ring with all the alarms and remotes was so big that it couldn't fit inside the elbow-box on the centre console. The import guy couldn't stop pissing himself laughing as he handed the keys over. My favourite part was probably this though:

This photo was taken halfway through my exorcism of the wiring-demons. Note the innocent-looking little box near the top of the tangle? This ingenius device was labeled "MAXIMUM PARTY LIGHTS". When activated, it flashed the headlights, brake lights, indicators, high beams, reverse lights - EVERYTHING - all in time to whatever music you had playing. Sometimes there are just no words.

There were also 2 little black boxes jammed under the centre console. Their sole purpose was to play ridiculous little tunes. One box played an irritating song if you left the door open with the headlights on. The other box played a completely different (but equally irritating) song if you left the keys in the ignition. Here's the thing though: they didn't disable the factory Nissan "bing bing bing" sound. If you left the keys in the ignition with the door open AND the headlights on, what resulted was the most god-awful cacophony I've ever heard. Surely one stupid music box was enough? What the hell made them think they needed 2?!

I removed everything that wasn't factory, put it in a BIG carboard box and put it on my bathroom scales.

29 kilo all told.

46 kilo if you included the subs.

That's equivelant to like, a small girlfriend.

I threw it all on ebay and was able to offset the rego cost of the car, so pretty happy about that.

Aside from the atrocities committed against the electrical system, the car was otherwise unmolested. There was a HID kit that looked professionally installed and a cat-back exhaust. Considering some of the lemons I've imported in the past, I think I managed to score a reasonable Dayz edition Series 2.

Edited November 16, 2012 by joorsh

[joorsh]

Next stop was the dyno.

After some basic checks she laid down 150'ish at all four.

Oh the dizzying heights of power.

Still, not bad for a 12 year old land-yatch.

Edited November 16, 2012 by joorsh

[joorsh]

Next I had a choice to make:

1. Spend every dollar I have on MOAH POWAH, grenade the motor, and then whine loudly on the forums about the "weak RB motor" and how unlucky I am. Or...
   
2. Cover some basic maintenance items first, and spend whatever is left on go-fast bits.
   

I may be the odd one out here, but I opted for number 2. I dumped every fluid the old barge had, and to my pleasant surprise they all looked pretty clean. I also replaced some of the worst

hoses in the engine bay and threw a new set of sparks in for good measure. Fuel, oil and air filters also got covered, and topped it off with a fresh set of brake pads.

Edited November 16, 2012 by joorsh

[joorsh]

My wallet was a little on the light-side now, so I sold the cat-back exhaust and set about making my own dodgy contraption to replace it. After a few tests I decided to double-muffle the old girl, and adapted an old GTST dump pipe I had sitting around. The end result actually looks pretty passable and has a nice soft rumble to it. I even had some old heat-wrap that I wound on for good measure. I'll be under the car tomorrow so I'll post some pics up then.

I used the proceeds from the old cat-back to splurge on 400 bucks worth of intercooler (Play-Doh sold separately):

Considering the cost I was pleasantly surprised. Propper T-clamps, fibre-cored silicon hose and all-alloy piping. The welds on the end-tanks look quite respectable (definitely better than what I usually produce), and the black coating is uniform and smooth. Major props to JustJap on the shipping time too - it arrived at my door 22 hours after I placed the order online.

Weather permitting this'll be going on tomorrow along with a new fuel pump. I'll post some happy snaps at the end of the day.

Edited November 16, 2012 by joorsh

[wolverine]

Oooh cool another yellow fat pig and near the Hills District.

[4bidn1]

I actually like the eyelids gets away from the bug eye look

[joorsh]

Oooh cool another yellow fat pig and near the Hills District.

Ahh, familiar with MRC are we?

[Scriblez]

very clean mate, looks great!

Loving that stealth style FMIC!

[wolverine]

Ahh, familiar with MRC are we?

I only met Mark a few weeks ago but I have known Ben for >11yrs. Mark reflashed the Nistune with the correct base image for me after a year or so of niggling issues seemingly created by the auto image. I use Andrew@ASR Automotive for mechanical work and he is directly on the opposite side of Carrington Rd.

[joorsh]

Yeah Ben is a champ. I was put onto Mark a long time ago and been using him ever since. He's a boss at tuning and always has some serious cars in his workshop.

[S T A R 3 3]

were all the h/u, amps, subs etc still in the car when u got it? .. and were all the lights still active? OR was it all removed prior to you getting it?

[joorsh]

It was all connected and fully working (even the satnav) - in all of its insane glory. Mind you I couldn't operate any of it because it was all in Japanese, but I could make kinds of strange stuff some up on the screens just by button-mashing.

There were 5 or 6 different devices stuck on top of the dash (including one of the screens), and another 7 or 8 devices scattered throughout trhe car. It took me the better part of 2 days to strip it all back - I had to take the seats and carpet out - the works.

I actually kept the best one of the three screens and set it up so my little girl can watch the wiggles in the back

[joorsh]

I did actually manage to fit both the intercooler and the fuel pump over the weekend, though the intercooler took much longer than anticipated. I was fully expecting the "bolt-on" kit to be not-so-bolt-on, but I had to get creative when I saw how low it sat down. There seem to be quite a lot of posts on these forums about how low some of the JustJap intercoolers sit, so I did some creative part-relocating and was able to get it tucked up nice and high:

I had to relocate the horns & external temp sensors, and i also shaved a few mm off the thermo mounts to get it in closer to the aircon core.

I also trimmed the supplied intercooler brackets to pull the cooler in closer, and then I actually ended up flipping the brackets upside-down to give me another 4 or so inches of height. All in all, it sits up there nice and high, well away from driveways, speed bumps and small flightless birds.

All of the mounts and pipes fot very well considering the price i paid for everything, and all in all the cooler height was still above the legal minimum, it was just a personal preference thing for me to sit it up that high.

Pictures of my dodgy mounts and relocating to come.

Edited November 19, 2012 by joorsh

[Cowboy1600]

Very nice. Welcome to the club.

Yellow C34s, according to my mates wife, look like a taxi f**ked a hearse. At least that's what she says about mine I struggle to disagree.

Get rid of those eyelids, stat!

Is she a manuel or slusher?

[joorsh]

Thanks for the welcome

Re: The dopey eyelids. I actually went as far as to start lifting them, but there's all this sticky tar crap underneath which made it look like it had hairy eyebrows. This is the lesser of two evils until I can find some tar-remover that doesn't make the headlights go cloudy.

She's a manual. I spent longer looking for this one than any of my other imports (a little over 3 months just to find it, then double that before I was driving it). Auction grade 4.0 low KM manual Stageas are BLOODY hard to find! I think the biggest selling point for me was the log books. While that doesn't guarentee the KMS are genuine, it goes a long way to help.

Here's some pics of the adjustments. Unfortunately most of the pictures are post-install. I got about an hour into it and went to grab the camera, saw the state of my hands and decided I didn't want to cover my camera in grime, oil, blood & metal filings.

No holes were drilled for any of these - Mr Nissan was nice enough to pre-drill dozens of them for me to use. Top-down view of the temp-sensor, relocated to drivers-side chassis rail:

Thermo fan clearance to intercooler is about 3mm. Both solid mounted so no movement, and 3mm is plenty to cover expansion/contraction under heat:

Horns relocated. Angled back about 20 degrees and moved up closer to bonnet release (re-used original brackets).

Intercooler mounts, top-down view from the bonnet latch. You can see the mounts are flipped 180 to give it some extra height. One of the brackets shares a mounting point with the thermo fan, so I had to get creative there. The thermo is flush against the car body, then there's a 20mm spacer, and then the L-bracker is attached pointing upwards. Had to do it that way or the bracket didn't clear the thermo fan mounts.

Mandatory left-over bits. Small child & kelpie sold separately:

P.S Love the taxi/hearse analogy. I'm using that from now on.

Edited November 19, 2012 by joorsh

[Cowboy1600]

Nice. Certainly looks like a clean example.

[GoldZilla]

Nice buy!

I was at the SAU Nats on the weekend, and there was three other Stageas there yesterday for the SnS: Alex (PN-Mad) in his NM35; Gavin (533 RYC) in his s2 (which is also a yellow RS4S); and a guy from Canberra in his white s2 (didn't get a chance to properly meet him and catch his name, sorry).

Us three Sydney guys are all fairly local - Gavin lives on the border of Blacktown and Hills Districts, Alex in Pennant Hills district, and I'm on the border of Parramatta and Blacktown.

[pipster11]

It seems that nissan made a lot of RS4S's in manual then

Looks good, needs more dayz carbon filler piece on the front bumper

Edited November 20, 2012 by pipster11

[Jezboosted]

It seems that nissan made a lot of RS4S's in manual then

Looks good, needs more dayz carbon filler piece on the front bumper

I take it you mean Yellow, I know you know RS4S = Manual.

This is only the 2nd Yellow S2 RS4S Dayz with twin sunroofs that i have seen.

Nice car joorsh, very clean. Shame you didn't take a video of the disco party before taking it all apart. Or did you ?

[pipster11]

dammit, yeah i meant yellow rs4s's

a lot about, very few with sunroofs tho