R33 gtst Daily

[33easy]

R33 gtst Daily

I'm making this build thread to keep a personal journal of my progress. Suggestions, feedback and banter are welcome

The car upon purchase in January 2016. Overall a nice tidy example of an r33 s2 gtst with some mild mods. I personally love the stock r33 s2 look, and all future mods are intended to maintain the stock "feel" of the car

Major mods at time of purchase:

• 3 inch turbo back exhaust
• Koyorad aluminium radiator
• Exeedy heavy duty clutch
• ARC side mount intercooler
• Boxed Apexi pod filter
• Machined rotors and GTR wheels
• Rear sway bar

And a bunch of other "quality of life" and cosmetic mods.

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by SanicSilver

[33easy]

I spent the first year of ownership fiddling about with bulbs, LEDs, stickers and plates (as a student with no mechanical skills) and learning to drive manual properly (yeah not joking ). Learning as much as I possibly could off the internet and saving up for something more significant.

[April 2017] Eventually I got around to doing something meaningful and bought myself an HKS evc 6. The ashtray seemed like the best place to mount it - I dremelled out a piece of MDF to fit and carbon wrapped it, and got a mate to help me with the wiring. Overall cost around $300

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by SanicSilver

[33easy]

Also installed a GCG rb25det highflow turbo at around the same time as my turbo was starting to let go. Did it myself in the tiny garage I had at the time. Was a complete bitch but got it done eventually. The only other time I had ever worked on an engine was to change spark plugs - so a pretty big milestone for me . 

The increase in power from the highflow was immediately noticeable even with the stock ecu. Pulled way harder throughout the range, although I couldn't up the boost very much as it would creep out of control (need an ecu and tune...)

 

[33easy]

[June 2017] Recently installed some second hand Nismo damper adjustable coilovers and got some M-type skirts painted and fitted. The handling is immensely improved - no more scraping during cornering and also eliminated wheel rub on the guard!

Edited June 17, 2017 by SanicSilver

[Kane_R32]

looks great! KR4 is a good colour choice!

[r33cruiser]

Looks good mate. Just watch out with those blue bulbs in your headlights.

I wasn't fined, but politely pulled over by police and asked to remove them= no emergency vehicle colours permitted on civilian vehicles.

[33easy]

Looks good mate. Just watch out with those blue bulbs in your headlights.
I wasn't fined, but politely pulled over by police and asked to remove them= no emergency vehicle colours permitted on civilian vehicles.

Yeah I think even my headlights which are 5400k halogens are technically illegal. The cops haven't mentioned it when i've been pulled over so it must not be too offensive - kind of an "ice blue" colour in person. But maybe i'm just lucky [emoji28]

[33easy]

Nismo style lip and type M pods fitted. Time to focus on powah!

Edited July 6, 2017 by SanicSilver

[33easy]

Installed a Blitz SE front mount intercooler over the weekend. Had to grind down the reo bar a few mm on either side so it would fit, and also grind down the inside of the front lip to accommodate the new piping.

The new setup is definitely slower coming on to boost but the blitz should perform better when I get a tune.

[Kane_R32]

looks the goods

[33easy]

After living with the front mount intercooler for a bit, I can say that I already prefer it. Even though the boost comes on a bit later (~3700rpm instead of ~3300rpm) the power seems cleaner and more consistent, holding better up top. I used to have an issue with boost creep and boost spiking which has now pretty much disappeared. Not sure of the science behind that but I can now control the boost a lot better.

 

The fmic is also somewhat hidden behind some mesh and the phat JDM plate. Stealthy [emoji6]

 

Also chucked on some clear side indicator lenses because why not!

 

 

 

[33easy]

As for new mods, I've got these sitting in my garage:



- Bosch 040 pump
- z32 afm
- r32 ecu (ready for nistune)
- 550cc side feed injectors

Should be good for 230-250kw hopefully. We'll see when I finally get a tune!

[Fayded33]

hey dude with your front mount what does the piping look like in the engine bay i am wanting to clean up my engine bay without having to get a ffp. 

[Kane_R32]

turbo choice?

[33easy]

5 hours ago, Fayded33 said:

hey dude with your front mount what does the piping look like in the engine bay i am wanting to clean up my engine bay without having to get a ffp. 

It looks completely stock, the pipes fit directly into the rubber bits the stock intercooler plumbs into.

In other words, you could look at my engine bay piping and not realise I have a front mount!

[33easy]

1 hour ago, Kane_R32 said:

turbo choice?

GCG highflow

[vxsr33]

Return flow looks much neater. I wonder how the GCG highflow compares to the hypergear highflow.

[33easy]

I've been itching to make an update since it's been so long. There are few little projects that are ongoing at the moment.

Purchased, sanded and test fitted a trial style rear bar. This thing has a massive undertray which hopefully doesn't interfere with working on the car.. otherwise I'm gonna have to slice it. It's fully painted just need to find time to fit it. The plan (eventually) is to get a rear diffuser built to sit in the gap between the spats at the back.  Also got a  GTR spoiler which needs to be wrapped and fitted.

Installed a harder silicon turbo intake pipe. Doesn't fit perfectly (too long on the ends) so I can't bolt the crossover pipe ect back up. IF YOU BUY ONE MAKE SURE YOU CUT IT TO SIZE! Also snapped my first bolt doing this -  in the turbo elbow pipe, welp. After installing this pipe my boost doesn't seem to be coming on as sharply, not sure what this could be.

Got a tune booked in at MRC Dyno Tuning for the 16th Oct, just over a week from now. Super excited for this and just trying to figure out if I need anything else before then. Gonna get a lot of work done:

• New Walbro 255
• New Bosch z32 afm and connector
• New denso spark plugs
• Fitting the nistune, 550cc injectors and everything else

So an exciting updated on the 16th/17th hopefully with a vid of the final power run.

 

[33easy]

Finally got back from MRC Dyno - Services & Performance (Website), Mark was a legend and stayed back until 8pm to get the tune just right. Would absolutely recommend MRC to anyone looking to get a tune! The weekend was super hectic as my clutch died and I had to get a new Exedy HD chucked in before the tune. Also got some new Kumho Ecsta PS31 tyres at the same time.

Everything went super smoothly, the only hiccup was the ancient o2 sensor that had to be replaced (30 second job) and my brand new Kumho Ecstas were shooting rubber all over the damn place. All up the power came to just under 240kw at about 16psi on a safe tune which i'm stoked with The highflow is super responsive and the curve is beautiful, it just keeps pulling all the way to redline. I know for a lot of people on here 240kw is pretty mild, but to me its insanely fast and fun and the best car ever... drove the whole way home grinning like a flippin maniac and shooting fat whiplashes out of my BOV For now working on the power is done, maybe an upgraded actuator with a stiffer spring though.

Here's a vid of a mad dyno pull! Mark also let me sit in the car while he was working and was happy to talk me through everything, showing me the tables and blowing my mind in with all his ECU tuning wizardry.

And here are the graphs:

Edited October 16, 2017 by 33easy

[33easy]

Installed some HID lights (that my neighbour gave me) in my high beams a couple of days ago. They are super bright but take about 5 seconds to get to full output. Just had to drill a little hole in the back of the housing lid, splice a couple of wires and trim the base of the bulb mounting to size. Would be easy to go back to halogens if I don't like the new lights. Probably not gonna go HID's in the dipped beams as I feel the delay would make it unsafe.

Edited October 22, 2017 by 33easy