Adam's R Chassis Journey - Skyline Number 5!

[Run-It-Hard]

Hey guys,

Thought I'd do a little write up on my current R33. For those who don't know me, I run a blog called Run It Hard! and also run a group and page on Facebook called R Chassis.

Here's a little history of my cars:

My first R33 Skyline

This was my gateway into the R33 Skyline. I picked it up on the cheap and it had some great mods on it, like a GT3071R. It was fricken awesome to drive! But after a few months of ownership the engine let go. Everything spiraled out of control from then and I decided to rebuild it all.

When that was all said and done the rebuilt engine had let go on the dyno. There was a big shit-storm with the builders and ended up going through fair-trading to get my money back. After all of this I decided to scrap the build and move on to another car I owned.

This cars ownership was from 2011 to 2013

My Nissan Stagea

This is probably one of my most known cars, my humble Nissan Stagea RS4. I traveled to Camperdown - Victoria to pick it up. Stock as a rock it eventually changed into a drift machine. Though it wasn't smooth sailing unfortunately.

A lot of problems occured each time I took it to the track and once something was rectified, a new issue would rise. In the end I got it to a point where I was considerably happy with it. But an oppurtunity arose on where my partner and I could own our first home. So I decided to sell the Stagea to help funds etc.

At one point I bought the car back, but a lot of it was changed/pulled apart/de-tuned. I got to the point where I thought I have spent enough money on this car, and I wasn't willing to do that again so on it went.

Adam's second R33

This was a good, simple set up R33. Very reliable and good fun to drive. I can't remember how long I kept it for but I think it was only a few months. I had the urge to get it painted though as it had some real bad paint fade and the clear was peeling from the roof.

More to come! Edited July 21, 2015 by Run-It-Hard

[Run-It-Hard]

Onto my third and fourth R33 Skylines

Both of these were my mates cars. The third one I owned was Paulie's. He decided it was time to jump back into a car that has little triangles spinning inside it's engine. So a deal was done and I hopped back into yet another R33. There was an event called Wakefield Matsuri coming up so I decided to take the R33 down. Unfortunately the R33 didn't have the same idea as I and within a few laps it gave up the ghost. Loosing power and spitting oil all over the place. This caused me to miss out on I think 3 matsuris now.



The fourth R33 was my best friends, Benny's car. He had an off at Wakefield resulting in a broken rear end. He came to the conclusion to take a break from the game and wanted to sell his car. We worked out a deal where I'd strip the car I got from Paulie to pay for his car, as they had similar parts.

So the dud R33 lasted about a week before it was all stripped down. The R33 I got from benny lasted a few months but ended up needing to sell it due to loosing my job.

I ended up cleaning her up good though!

Edited July 21, 2015 by Run-It-Hard

[Run-It-Hard]

After this time period I went through a few cars.

I went back to my roots and got a Eunos Roadster



Shortly after I was persuaded into buying my Stagea back



I made it look cool again and decided to move on from it.



SO I managed to swap it for this neat S15



Unfortunately I never got to see a track day in it. But it was a cool car with some good mods. I ended up selling it for top dollar to a P plater. Sometimes I miss this car.

Shortly after, I bought Skyline number 5!



Here's a snippet from a blog post I wrote about the S15 to R33 transition.

There is just something about them that I cannot escape from, I love the shape, love the engine and drive train package … they are one of the best cars you can get in the sub 10k price range .. for drifting anyway.

It has been over a year since I had hit the track and I’ve been itching to do so for a while, the S15 needed some more work before I would be comfortable taking it and in the end I figured I’m better off to sell it before I sink more money into it.

With the next car purchase, I wanted to make sure it had some good quality parts on it, something where I’d need to add the finishing touches to make it exactly what I want.

So I went on a hunt and looked on all the classifieds on the web, and on a Friday night I spotted an R33 with some great potential. Saturday came along and Julie and I had a look at it. This thing was amazing, the body was a little rough around the edges, but everything underneath the car was top-notch and near new. It drove exceptional too, I fell in love all over again with the R33 Skyline and soon enough I was the owner of my 5th.

It’s got goodies like an ASR extended sump, Garage 7 roll centre correction kit, BC coilovers and adjustable suspension arms, Plazmaman pro series intercooler, plenum and throttle body, Apexi power FC bumping power up to 220kw and to top it all off it’s even got a hydraulic hand brake!

The plans for this beast is to clean it up, upgrade the turbo and push some more power out if it, and make it look badass!

Edited July 21, 2015 by Run-It-Hard

[Run-It-Hard]

These posts are taken directly from the blog.

KEEPING IN THE LOOP - RUN IT HARD! BLOG

So this is the first post on here for the year, cool! It’s certainly been a while. A lot of things have happened and new with my current work situation I don’t have much time to post cool things about my car as often as I’d like.

I can happily say the car roulette game has stopped, I’ve stuck with the R33 still and have spent quite a bit of time and money on it since ownership. The most drastic changes would have to be to the exterior. The R33 has under-gone a complete make over!

I wanted to get my Ordens on the car, I was sick of them sitting in the shed collecting dust. There was no way I could get them to work without going wide body. So I figured what the hell, might as well make everything look pretty and get rid of the cruddy 3 tone the car had on it.

The Skyline was taken to Chris at Hollylea road smash in Campbelltown (the same shop we took Julie’s S14).To get an open door respray in a funky bronze colour.

Roughly 2 weeks later, the car came back looking like this.

Needless to say I was stoked with the out-come. As usual Chris worked his magic and delivered an awesome result on my car.

After the car was painted I decided it was time to take it on its first outing. With that in mind I wanted to do a few more things to it before its debut.

I had a S14 subframe sitting in the back yard for quite some time, so I decided to get it braced. I installed some GKtech V3 arms, subframe risers and solid diff mounts to complete the rear end.

The radiator was swapped out at one point too, along with the hoses and clutch fan setup as the OEM unit had a nasty crack in it. I opted for a GKtech unit as a replacement, instead of going for the more popular thermo fan conversion.

The GKtech fan is a direct fit to SR engines, however on RB’s you need an adaptor plate as the PCD is slightly different. Installation is pretty straight forward though.

You can see the vast difference between the original fan and the GKtech fan.

I also bought a pair of Bride Brix II seats off Benny and got some rails to suit. I went over a few other things like changing the tie rod ends to better units as the previous owner used some funky bolt on rack ends and cut the stock units down. I made a metal intake pipe too as it was using the factory unit with all the holes blocked with random stuff ha-ha.

Anyway, with all of that out-of-the-way. It was finally time to take this beast to the track. It’s debut was an event at Wakefield held by Cursed Sundays DC. I was a little anxious drifting Wakefield as it’s very unforgiving if you come off track, and I wasn’t familiar with how this particular Skyline would handle. But all in all I got used to it pretty quick.

In saying that I managed to buckle one of my MAE riversides on short track, I was pretty bummed about that. That’s drifting though!

The wheel is currently being looked after by Barrel Bros in Milperra NSW. Cool bunch of dudes that welded up a crack in one of my Ordens before I mounted them on the car.

Benny came out to the drift day and got a rad video of me drifting “schlong track” it’s a mixture of long and short track, you cut back into short track in a reverse layout. Super fun!

[Run-It-Hard]

After the Wakefield day the R33 was in hiding, I got my drift fix and forgot about the car for a while. That was until Driving Sports announced they were going to hold a drift day at Marulan driver training centre, something that hasn’t happened in many years.

Nothing major needed to be done to the Skyline to be ready for Marulan, I changed the oil, got a few pairs of tyres and I was ready to rock and roll!

I’ve never been to Marulan before, it was a pretty cosy track, it had a similar vibe to Raleigh raceway. Marulan itself was fun fun fun! It’s rather tight and has some sweet corners to slide through. The scenery is cool too, there are some parts where you’re surrounded by trees as you’re drifting.

This drift day was done as a “trial” by MDTC and is unclear if this will become a regular thing yet. I hope that it does as it was refreshing to drift there.

Can anyone guess who this guy is? It’s Benny! He’s back and this time he’s in a R32 GTS-T. Marulan was his first outing in his new beast, it took him some time to get used to the car but towards the end of the day he was nailing it. He had some issues with his handbrake, so we'll get that fixed up prior to the next event.

Speaking of the end of the day, my car decided to throw in the towel and chew through the wiring loom. I wanted to fix it on the spot and drive the Skyline home, but we had a trailer already so we figured we might as well use it. I needed to change my wheels over though as the car didn’t fit otherwise.

Here’s some poor quality in-car of the R33, I’ll try get some better vids up later.

[Run-It-Hard]

Here’s a vid that Benny put together too.

Once again, the R33 is in hibernation mode. Patiently waiting for the next drift day to come along so it can stretch its legs.

There’s a few things that need to be done to it so I should probably get it all ready for its next outing.

I’ll try my best to keep the updates coming on the R33. Some more things are planned for it in the not to distant future.

Peace out!

[timmy_89]

Nice thread man, car is looking great! I've always enjoyed your threads/builds

I think I may have even been at the Wakefield matsuri where you pictured your white 33 with some damage in the rear - was it a bent Ksport coilover?

[Run-It-Hard]

Nice thread man, car is looking great! I've always enjoyed your threads/builds

I think I may have even been at the Wakefield matsuri where you pictured your white 33 with some damage in the rear - was it a bent Ksport coilover?

Cheers Tim!

It bent a DGR coilover, broke the knuckle, traction arm, LCA and Hicas toe arm. Suprisingly the wheel was fine haha.

I think I remember talking to you, it was quite a while ago now though.

[timmy_89]

Cheers Tim!

It bent a DGR coilover, broke the knuckle, traction arm, LCA and Hicas toe arm. Suprisingly the wheel was fine haha.

I think I remember talking to you, it was quite a while ago now though.

Oops, thought it was a Ksport, but yes, definitely sounds like I'm thinking of the correct person

Yea would have been at least 2 years ago I think haha.

New R33 is looking mint, I remember seeing a picture of it recently and was surprised when I just jumped on here and saw it was yours haha!

[Run-It-Hard]

Oops, thought it was a Ksport, but yes, definitely sounds like I'm thinking of the correct person

Yea would have been at least 2 years ago I think haha.

New R33 is looking mint, I remember seeing a picture of it recently and was surprised when I just jumped on here and saw it was yours haha!

They are similar in colours haha. DGR are pretty good though, I've had them in a few cars now.

Yeah I think it was late 2013 I went to Matsuri last... Might be going this year depending on my work.

Thanks again! It's come a long way and kinda wish I documented more of the things I've done do it. But all the important stuff is up there haha.

I've heard a few people say that which is cool, but bizarre too. It hasn't been out much. Only really to the drift events and the SAU cruise..

[timmy_89]

They are similar in colours haha. DGR are pretty good though, I've had them in a few cars now.

Yeah I think it was late 2013 I went to Matsuri last... Might be going this year depending on my work.

Thanks again! It's come a long way and kinda wish I documented more of the things I've done do it. But all the important stuff is up there haha.

I've heard a few people say that which is cool, but bizarre too. It hasn't been out much. Only really to the drift events and the SAU cruise..

Yea that would have to be it.

I think I saw pics or vids from the Marulan day.

[Run-It-Hard]

I’ve had this M spec front grille lying around for a while now. So I finally decided to mount it on the car. I didn’t think I’d like it at first, but it has deffinately grown on me and I prefer it to the original slat grille.

[V28VX37]

Really digging the look, colour and stance Adam, great work! Long time reader of your blog too

[colourclassic]

How much camber is this thing running in the front? And what arms?

[Run-It-Hard]

It's a little crazy at the moment. It's got 4mm toe out total and -6 camber.

Reason being is the Garage 7 lock kit that's installed on it, it increases track 25mm a side. That along with a 10mm spacer for my other wheels to clear brakes.

Eventually I want to change the setup to GKtech. I'll be able to reduce the camber then too.

[Run-It-Hard]

CHOP AND CHANGE - RUN IT HARD BLOG

As usual I haven’t done an update in ages! I’ve got some free time up my sleeve today so here’s hoping I can keep everybody in the loop on what’s been going on with me for the past 6 months or so.

Alright, were to begin? I guess the most important thing is, that I still have my R33 Skyline, and a lot of things have changed on it since the July post I made last year. But lets talk about some other cars I’ve had during that time period.

The XR6 Turbo was my daily driver for quite a while, and at one point I bought a Toyota Soarer off old mate Jeff. So I had 3 cars … 3 fricken cars! All had rego too…

Anyway, I didn’t have the Soarer for long, but I did change a few things on it and I think it looked pretty awesome in the end. It was a standard 1J auto which I did have plans to change the gearbox and the like, but I came to my senses and realized it’s just silly to have 3 cars at that point in time.

Shortly after the departure of my Soarer, Wakefield Park kicked up a stink about not having a “Drifting Permit” … what a crock of shit! So I figured, hey drifting has died in the ass, and I’ve only towed my car once since I’ve owned the XR6 …. what’s the point?

Rego was due, and there were some issues starting to arise (typical Ford rubbish), so I palmed it off for cheap.

Then came along my 350Z, this was a cousins car that had been neglected to say the least. They don’t know much about cars unfortunately, So I bought it off them, fixed it up and decided to sell that in order to get my R33 Skyline running.

So what do I daily drive now you might ask?

Well, now I have a Toyota Corolla Sportivo … the original limited edition models. Which happen to be factory turbo. However my little Corolla has had all the gear changed that tends to fail over time. Like the turbo and manifold shitting themselves for instance.

It now has a GC8 TD04 turbo off a WRX, and a steam pipe manifold. Along with bradied lines, larger dump pipe and exhaust …. and even a metal headgasket and headstuds to handle more boost. It’s been resprayed and had a leather re trim too.

Since ownership I’ve changed the intake setup, the OEM setup uses the normal Corolla airbox and has piping going around the whole engine bay, and also features multiple reducers along the way. The new setup goes in front of the drivers side wheel. I’ve also fitting a Profec B spec II boost controller as it had spiking issues previously.

Cosmetics wise it is rolling on some Axis Bansai wheels for the time being. I picked these up cheap and they happen to have semis fitted which helps with traction on launches haha.

She isn’t the prettiest thing but it’s practical, fast, economical and fun so I’m quite fond of it. Luckily for the Sportivo, I don’t plan on selling it anytime soon either!

As for the R33, I did get it finished … more on that soon.

[Run-It-Hard]

Revival - VIEW ON THE BLOG

Alright it’s time for the main event, what the hell have I been up to with the Skyline since my last update in July? Well wonder no more because a shit load of gibberish and pictures are coming your way!

Since the Marulan track day, the R33 had sat in the garage for a little while … I was pondering what was next for it. Sooner than later I decided it was a good time to upgrade the turbo while there were no events on the horizon.

So I started shopping around and scored some good quality parts.

Custom made steam pipe manifold and Tial MVR wastegate.

Good ol’ Kinugawa T67 turbocharger with a T04R compressor wheel.

Adaptronic Eselect plug-in computer.

Tasty fuel setup, consisting of ID1000 injectors, Sard fuel pressure regulator, Proflow fuel rail and main fuel pump. Custom under-car surge tank and an ethanol content senor.

I also got a new rear housing and compressor nut too, as the previous owner of the T67 had an external wastegate provision on it.

With most of the gear needed, I set out to Rocket industries and got all the lines, hoses, tools, bungs, fittings and other little things needed to get everything on.

I opted to water cool the wastegate, seeing as I had water ports available as the T67 is only oil cooled. This was my first time making braided lines and was a lot simpler then I imagined haha.

The proflow fuel rail, combined with the ID1000 injectors fit snugly under the Plazmaman plenum.

The Sard fuel pressure regulator was mounted where my old brake master cylinder stopper went, the content sensor mounted just below it. The standard fuel filter location was ditched due to this.

Here’s a pic of the surge tank all fitted up, I gave it a coat of black and had some mounts welded prior to fitting. The Aeroflow fuel filter is mounted just after the fuel pump too. I’m fairly happy with how this all turned out.

In-between all of this I had a change of wheels. I sold the Leon Hardritt Ordens to a friend and imported another set of MAE riverside wheels. I wanted to run as little camber as possible and with the lack of rear wide body kits out there for the R33 Skyline, it was easier just to change wheels. This looked pretty cool but then decided I didn’t want to a spacer up the front, and with a brake upgrade on the horizon I ended up parting ways with the MAEs.

In search for a new replacement, I was keen to try something with a relatively flat face, and though Enkei RPF1 in their super bright chrome finish would look ace on the bronze. However I soon discovered that they only made them in 18×9.5 +15 and would be made to order … that didn’t fly with me. So I settled on something else.

AME Tracer TM-02. 18×9 +15 and 18×10.5 +22. The front size paired with my Garage 7 lock kit made for a good size, and the rear is the lowest offset they do in a 10.5 inch. I like this combo the best out of all the wheels I’ve had mounted up to the Skyline, they also allowed room for these.

A set of 350Z track brembos, these came off my 350Z which was a touring but at some point had the track brakes put on it. They were looking pretty beat up so I got them painted in bronze and some silver metallic decals applied.

The front calipers bolt straight on and are very similar to R34 GTR Vspec II items. The rears however need to be modified, the mounting points need to be closer together and part of the caliper needs to be machined in order to mount to the knuckle. I’m not sure if you can still use a drum hand brake with the rear though … mines been removed completely as I have a hydro installed. I was planning to retrofit a Silvia hand brake for when I go duel caliper.

Which these GKtech rear knuckles will allow me to do with ease! I got these primarily for their geometry correction and strength. Benny has managed to break multiple rear knuckles and I want this car to be virtually indestructible so these were the pick. I actually had drift works geomaters at one point, however the previous owner had a dual caliper bracket and it pushed the wheel out 15mm or so. These were sold off as I was trying to run as little camber as possible.

With the Skyline just about ready for a tune, I had to think about where I wanted to take it. Originally I was going to take it to a rather well-known workshop but decided upon taking my chances at a place called Red Sun Motorsports. Jeff had known the owner for many years and told me how good a bloke he is and that he recently got himself an in-house dyno.

Right before it was towed to Redsun, Jeff and I finally got around to swapping out my front cross member. Out comes the standard unit, and in goes the braced, and painted piece. Steering rack mounts were moved 25mm forward. Some nismo engine mounts were fitted at the same time, which was good as the OEM mounts fell apart!

There were a few issues that popped up along the way of running some solid numbers, wiring problems with a dodgy immobilizer, water temp sensor was fried as was the AAC valve. We even thought the Adaptronic shit itself as it was overheating. So what did Adaptronic do? They replaced it with a whole new unit free of charge! What a bunch of nice guys.

Anyway, Matt worked out all the bugs and got to tuning it. End result is a respectable 315kw on 22psi. As you can see the turbo kicks in HARD! and revs out all the way to 8000rpm. The figure might be a little on low side considering it is on E85, but I am willing to bet it’ll make a ton more power at other workshops. Either way it’s just a number and the car drives incredible which is what counts. I am also extremely happy with how Matt handled all the ups and downs with the car, it’s safe to say I will be a returning customer.

Oh, I forgot about the clutch. This was a spur of the moment thing as I was worried that the clutch already fitted in the car wouldn’t handle the new turbo. So I nabbed this xtreme twin plate unit for a steal and gave it to Matt to install. Good thing I did as the old clutch was pretty much done.

I’ve been loving life since the car is finally running again! It’s pretty much all I’ve ever wanted it to become.

. Jeff was driving and didn’t rev it out all the way. The rear knuckle setup along with stuff all camber has added a shit ton of grip. You can plant it and not have a hint of wheel spin in any gear … unless you activate launch control haha.

With the R33 running again I was hanging to get out on track and see how it performed. A skid pan day had come up and I figured sure, it’s cheap and it’ll be a good shakedown to see if the car blows up.

Being a low-speed and wet course, it’s a little hard to gauge the true potential of the car. But I did notice how stable and predictable it is now, I’m sure that is due to the alignment changes and suspension setup. I also have no more steering bind too which is a big plus, I was able to throw stupid amounts of angle in for shits and giggles which was fun.

For now the Skyline is locked away in its dungeon. As rego has just lapsed and I have to focus on Julie and I’s wedding which is in August! I hope to get out to Sydney Motorsport Parks South circuit soon and see what the R33 can really do!

Till next time!

[Run-It-Hard]

THE GREAT OUTDOORS - VIEW ON BLOG

I felt that although my car is near completion, I haven’t taken as many pictures of it as I’d like. So I had some free time to kill this arvo which resulted in rolling the Skyline out of the garage and getting some quick snaps taken.

This would probably have to be my favorite picture of it, I like how the engine bay theme extends out and matches the finish of the wheels, and the cars paint. I really need to get some stuff sprayed on the underside of my bonnet! If you know anyone that can do something rad, hit me up!

I recently bought a new steering wheel from an American company called Jimmy Up. They tend to do limited runs on apparel and steering wheels. This is their dark wood wheel which I thought would suit the R33 well.

Here’s another pic of the interior. Pretty happy with how it’s shaped up so far but I do have a few more things I’d like to do. Like change the seats for newer models, new door trim inserts and do something about the back seat area … it’s just stripped at the moment.

The 350Z brembos look right at home behind the TM-02 wheels.

Same goes at the back end. I will need to change the pads and rotors soon … I’ll probably end up going slotted.

Don’t mind the small exhaust tip, it’s got a muffler on it for when I hit the streets. It’s nice and quiet until it hits gate haha.

I love the DMAX front guards but man it’s so easy to damage them! You can see my skirts aren’t sitting great anymore either.

I’ve been contemplating going back to factory aero skirts and bumper, but the 400R gear just looks too good so it’s a tough choice.

I’d also like to get some sort of spoiler, I feel wingless has worn out and looks a little unfinished at times. A DMAX bonnet is on the cards too, along with new front guards. This won’t be for quite a while though so it’ll stay as is.

I’m pretty happy with how it’s looking now though, these are the first decent photos I’ve taken of it since I mounted the AMEs … about time eh?

[V28VX37]

^^^ One of the best looking 33's out there, love the colour, and this photo is totally rad!! Top mount FTW

[Run-It-Hard]

Cheers mate