The Should Of Just Bought An R32 Build

[Scott Black]

Basically Im Scott,
By trade Im a licence mechanic, panel beater, auto elec, and auto air con guy with dyno tuning experience to. Work at a small mechanical shop in south hurstville hopefully getting our own dyno in 2 months time.
Technically my car belongs on nissan silvia where i also have a thread for it, Yet ive always felt more at home on SAU,
I used to have an r32 skyline and loved this place when i had it, unfortunatly it was stolen several years back, and the insurance company decided when it was found it was better to just give me 3 grand that they said was market value (dickheads) than give me my beloved car back.

So i went out and got a 1989 tn magna, put a na 4g63 in it and snaped the timing belt, so then bought a 1999 Toyota camry v6 mcv20, got married, bought a unit and settled down into post hoon life,
Then one day by awesome wife noticed me looking at jap nissans alot of ebay and such and allowed me to get one, (i dont get paid alot and was just an apprentice when i started this so we dont realy have heaps of cash to throw around on stuff)

So i found a wreck of a 180sx in someones front yard off gumtree for 800 bucks, rolling shell with most parts included. and i got it, first time i saw it was 9pm at night and picked it up then to. had a broken window, bent rails (didnt notice how bent until later), smashed in rear quarter panel, cut radiator support from a butcher removing the old ca18. what a great deal lol.

Took it to my workshop, had a few parts laying around at my house and the workshop and my mate Jason had some parts to donate to the build as well.

And so it began


Whats amazing here, it behind what you can see pushed in on the rear quarter is a minimum of 1inch thick bog.

So I started, I had an rb25 laying aorund from a issue with a wrecker,
Grabbed an r33 cross member as i couldnt find my r32 one,
Took Jasons old engine mount brackets
Then realised I didnt have engine mounts themself,
I knew from my research they had to be around 40mm high for clearance issues (lol i was worried about clearance back then)
As the show had to go on i made do with that i had

And in it went
rb25 sporting the turbo from an r32 rb20, from my old r32 before i updated to a r33 turbo on that.
found a r33 s1 loom on ebay, an r33 s2 ecu, and had some old r32 coil packs and ca18 coil packs between me and Jason that eventually got me a set.

Ended up getting some landcruiser engine mounts, to be almost the right height, as no way in hell was i going to have that car move under its own power with those mounts lol


Now the motors in, Gearbox time,

Car used to be auto, so drill a hole in the fire wall for the clutch master cylinder
buy a clutch pedal from an s14 of some random forum dude,
make a clutch line,
get a new slave cylinder
get an r33 flywheel and clutch of my good mate Jason
hmm no gearbox, Have a gearbox at work, yet its reverse gear is stuffed
Found a s13 ca18 manual box with the front half of the tailshaft to, got it for 150 bucks in unknown condition off ebay
pulled the rb20 box i had at work apart and swapped the reverse gear with the one from the s13 box, as i cant just swap bell housing and the output shaft and extention housing of the s series fs5w71c is longer than the rb ones.
found a c cross member i had from my r32 days,
put that on, and it all bolted up
swaped the front half of the tail shaft with my auto one and that bolted up
easy

problem was the gear was worn down to much for it to remain in reverse, all good now with the s13 gear though.

so thats the motor and box bolted in, almost home free.......LOL
wiring, So i found an r33 loom, cut it up to see what went where, patched into the ecu outputs to test.
powered up and spun the cas

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10150630928109069&set=vb.758294068&type=3

all working. all good ,
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10150681519814069&set=vb.758294068&type=3&permPage=1

might have a vacume leak or something, pac performanace joke was co worker comment saying it sounded like a rotor

then got a ej20 turbo liberty afm, and did some pipe work and ran good

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10150688175364069&set=vb.758294068&type=3&permPage=1
place looks like a bit of a dump, had a few issues that day lol.


sidchrome airbox

for the exhaust just used a jjr ca18 front pipe on the stock dump and modded the pipe going to the cat to fit the stock ca exhaust

then brakes
between me and jason i had a set of r32 front brakes,
bought a set of s15 front hubs from skyline spares, got a set of r32 rear hubs and brakes from skyline spares, and put all that in, had some modding for the handbrake cable, yet nothing much, and some stock gtst wheels

So now the abonimnation can drive, sort of
used a modified xr6 fmic for the start.
r31 power steering pump and r32 gtr stock radiator

Yet the clutch fan doesn fit,
over heats with stock stupid thermofans on the front
no ac
cracks in the dash
broken window
paint is soo ratshit condition





thats looking a bit better

cleaned up my airbox a touch


went to pick n payless blacktown and got a window from an s13 there


and she looked a bit better then, paints crap yet im not a good painter,


so then i took it for a drive, and the throttle kept getting stuck
found it was hitting the bonnet,
so i hit the bonnet myself to give it some clearance,

still getting to hot though
so at first i put a forward facing plenum to stop hitting the bonnet for good,
then cut the radiator support a little bit to get ac stuff in there
and modified an rx5 radiator to fit, wouldnt help overheating at all i know,
yet it let me fit a gk tech clutch fan


still had issues with over heating, air conditioning and fitting a decent intercooler,

so this is where things changed a little bit

had the shits with the poor state of the dash and interior so i replaced the carpet
put an r34 steering wheel
r34 front seats

and an s15 dash with all s15 dcc gear (required firewall mods)
looked like a different car after that, need to vaccumm here i know.

lack of space still pissed me off in the engine bay,
so i got a bit creative, and missed my old car a fair bit
got a grinder out and went nuts
Notice to anyone thinking this is a good idea, Nothing bolts on, nothing fits, even the gaurds are a half half gaurd and where they bolt onto for the rear two holes in the engine bay are rivet nuts

also added a r32 gtr wing at some point i was going to put on my gtst

there it is with a bit more poor paint
around this time i got an adaptronic select 420d ecu, pretty awesome, as i was also doing dyno tuning, so thought id do some on my car lol
made 100rwkw on the base tune with 97% duty cycle and 14:1 afr at 14 psi boost on the stock turbo, so big problems i had to address
then on the way home was defected for some random things
fixed the defected things, and thought i need to clean up the car, so grafted the r32 raditor support onto my car, redid my intercooler piping, had already fitted a better intercooler, fitted an r33 turbo,
fitted an e85 compatable walbro, and some ls2 coils.
spent 4 hours on the tune, end result was 197 rwkw on 14psi boost around 11.5:1 at full load and not even 60% duty cycle on stock injectors, much much better,
also fitted a new radiator and have fully working s15 dcc.
now it has some hsd coil overs as well, will be adjusting them and doing a wheel alignment tommorrow, will try to get some better pictures of the car soon, as i have a 6 month old child, work on the car for the past year had been very slow
yet with the amount ive learnt on this car as i went has improved me so much, the main thing it showed me, is dont be scared of issues, when you run into them, find a way, if it doesnt work, then find another way, (when i got it years ago i was just an apprentice mech (yet fully qualified panel beater, not painter, i cant paint lol)

yet in the end i should of bought another r32, i realy do miss my old car.

ill clean up this thread over the next couple of weeks when i remember other things and look threw some better photos.

[DoseVader]

Pretty solid effort with making do with what you had.

[ZLLA]

Respect, what an awesome build. Congrats.

[Scott Black]

Well i took it to my shop today, adjusted the height of the hsd coil overs, and did a wheel alignment
found bent rear lh toe arm (+5 toe on LH side)
bent front lh tie rod(still within spec, just slightly bent)
soo much stuff on this car was soo stuffed, forgot to mention in my big post above that also was on a car o liner for ages to pull the chasis straight, this car had been in some seriously big hits.
So have a few things to fix up soon

so as well as the above my plans for now are
adjustable camber and toe arms at the rear
type x copy rear bar
type x style side skirts
cut down the rear muffler as its to long and looks a bit ugly at the rear, yet theres no space at the back to move it in more.

then further plans for when time and cash are easyer to come by
Gtr style front bar, cut down the bonnet and put gtr style grill
r32 gtr rims
bigger turbo, bigger injectors so i can have around the 300rwkw
then my gearbox will break so ill need a better one
for this im aiming to get a gts4 or gtr box (so same gearset as the 33 turbo) then attempt to make a way to use it as a rwd box, without needing to render it impossible to convert back to 4wd later. for further stupidty

then for a time when i feel like going nuts again
Strip the car back to bare metal,
notch the front chasis rails to do a 4wd convertion (yes i know whats involved, its insane)
install sunroof
proper respray in 2k instead of acrylic paint, probley in bayside blue

unfortunatly most of this is a very long way off, due to having a family and morgage and such.

anyways heres some pics from today,
needs a wash desperatly to.

[Mikha1]

Hey dude! I met you at one of the ns.com meets a while back.

Really liking your dedication to the build and your 'show must go on' mindset.

I happen to have a tidy r32 gts4, could be for sale soon

[vetter2769]

This car is an abomination.

AND I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!

[Scott Black]

Unfortunately I'm not ready to get another car lol, and I've gone to far with this one to just get something else.so won't be getting a gts4 any time soon.

That ns meet is the only decent drive I've had this car on. Need to organise a decent cruise sometime soon.

And yeah its a bit of an abomination yet atleast I'm keeping it nissan lol. Thanks for the positive comments.

[JZP]

I like it.

You've made a car with a unique DNA that only you can understand because of the decisions you've been forced to make. It has a story, history and personality (yours).

You will never get that from any R32 you may buy in the future, not from an engineering stand point, but from the journey you've taken to get there. My best memories are from being forced to be resourceful in times of need, and enjoying the results.

I reckon you'd regret replacing it with anything. just park it in the corner and keep it for history sake when times change....

Awesome stuff. Keep going!

[AngryRB]

I'm confused lol, i thought it was an 180sx then it got a face lift, lol .. but i think you done an awesome job and made a great car, with a GTR front spoiler it will look better too, nice one..

I would imagine this thing would be lighter than an r32 or r33?

Edited January 19, 2015 by AngryRB

[Scott Black]

should be a touch lighter as its just the stock mcferson strut so no front double wishbone suspention setup,
and yeah looking at a gtr style front bar. type x rear bar and sideskirts and fixing up the rear muffler is my plans for the next couple of months when i have time and money.

[Therealsandybang]

This is amazing

[Scott Black]

Was looking threw the for sale section last weekend and a guy called France was selling some GTR parts so I now have some GTR wheels
Also did some test fitting of some side skirts ive had laying around for a while, Will require a fair bit of work, also need to rebuild the door hinges (pins and bushes) so they stop sagging and wont scrap on the skirts when installed, yet will do that work when i get a set of type x copy rear pods and bar lip.

Also I REALLY need to do something about seating as the r34 seat is not a good option for me.

[Scott Black]

As a side note, anyone know how to change the picture it uses for the thread

[Scott Black]

found out i could just click the pic from the main page and it came up with an option to change it, thats awesome

also for some reason i only get an edit link on posts ive just made, not ones made a while before hand, as in this post is the only one in the thread i can edit

Edited February 1, 2015 by Scott Black

[Scott Black]

so i finally got around to cutting down my hideous rear muffler that the muffler body would stick past the bar.
still need to cut the muffler off and change the angle it sits at to tuck it up a bit more yet a huge improvement

[vetter2769]

haha @ the R34 seat, you look like a giant in that pic!

I bet that tig welder comes in handy! "jealous"