R34 Track/Street Car

[Tobz]

This turned out better than anticipated! My reupholstered steering wheel came back. Guy did an amazing job. Was done by Guru Leather in Adelaide. You ship the wheel to him with a return postage bag. Let him know what you want, and he returns in better than new condition!

i asked for Alcantara and leather, he recommended suede as it’s cheaper and wears a bit better. I also asked for res stitching. Was $350 for my leather suede options. I’m assuming prices vary depending on multi factors. 

anyway super happy with the results!!

[Tobz]

And in the car

[acsplit]

That came out great, I am looking for options because I can't run my non airbag sparco on the street.

[Tobz]

Yer I wanted to keep the car as legal as possible. I looked into the mines wheel, just jap have an option and the random guy on the Facebook pages. But this was quite cheap in comparison and exactly what I wanted. Highly recommend the guy!

[Tobz]

On 10/04/2020 at 11:07 AM, Milkmun said:

Cube shifter, please do a little review when you drive it

Hey!

so finally took the car for a drive today. I think the best way to describe the change is the shifter now feels much more direct and mechanical, kind of similar in feeling to pulling the bolt back on a rifle. Just feels super direct and satisfying.

there is some additional noise in the cabin, but nothing that bad, it’s more than acceptable. 100% recommend this. It’s so much shorter, nicer and direct.

[Kinkstaah]

I'm gonna be that guy... why get suede on the parts you don't touch?

The idea of alcantara is when using gloves you get better grip on the wheel.... ?

[Tobz]

12 hours ago, Kinkstaah said:

why get suede on the parts you don't touch?

I do a lot of sim racing and I’ve realised I actually hate holding onto suede without gloves and when I am wearing gloves it doesn’t matter if it’s leather or suede for me. Also I absolutely hate the maintenance, you have the clean the damn thing every month and eventually it wears so bad it looks like leather... and I didn’t want a full leather wheel, I wanted some variation so went with the above

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Wow, that wheel came up pretty sex spec

[Tobz]

Had a bit of fun on the weekend! Finally got around to installing the Cusco roll cage I’ve had since September!

super simple to do, took about an hour. I’m waiting now for some 40mm roll cage steel to arrive so I can get a harness bar added on. 
 

Just a reminder this cage is not adr or cams approved but for the track days I do in the skyline don’t require one. Just wanted to add this in so I can run a HANS device safely.
 

did need to move the wiring harness a little, but it literally just pulls off the floor and you can move it around the cage.

 

cage I got is designed to keep your full stock interior, so far only needed to slightly cut the carpet, but clears all the panels fine. Still need to test fit the rear seat 

 

 

[Tobz]

Well Wakefield finally reopened and I managed to get to a track day there on the 20th! Was good to be out and about and able to give the car a good run. 
 

quickly ordered some 265/35 18 V70A semi slick tyres and mounted them to the Kyoto rims. And managed to test all the changes to the car. I was not going for outright speed as the car had so much changed so I wanted to get an understanding of what the car was like.

 

overall was really really good. The handling was neutral, I didn’t get any understeer and just a tad of oversteer in slow corners if I wasn’t smooth on the throttle. Overall I’m super happy and confident in the car now.

i did have one issue which stopped me really getting good times. I haven’t upgraded my brake master cylinder to the GTR version yet and that meant the brakes had almost no pedal feel and was very very easy to lock. Also they seemed to overheat after 5 laps, so looking to upgrade to a two piece rotor and Forodo DS3000 pads.

Ended up with a 1:11.2 which is not a hugely quick time but good enough considering it was a shake down day!

also it seemed the track wasn’t overly fast as most people seemed 1-2 seconds off their normal pace (May also be lack of practice in the last few months!!)

[PranK]

Track surface is probably lacking some substance if it hasnt been used in a while. I didn't realise that they were back open, I'm itching to get my 330 out and around it.

[Tobz]

35 minutes ago, PranK said:

Track surface is probably lacking some substance if it hasnt been used in a while. I didn't realise that they were back open, I'm itching to get my 330 out and around it.

It’s so good to be out again. Trackschool open pit days are selling out in less than 48 hours

 

I think we were the first people on there since March!

Edited May 22, 2020 by Tobz

[Tobz]

Only a minor update. At the track day I was overheating the pads and getting bad jutter after 3-4 laps and needed to back off and let them cool down. Have ordered some new brake parts to see if they will solve the issue

got the Attkd 350mm Evo X 2 piece rotors, Ferodo DSUno pads for race days and DS2500 for the street. I decided on the DSUno/2500 combo as they have the same materials so can swap pads without the need to rebed the brakes. As people say, track pads for the track and street pads for the street!

will still run the Intima type d pads on the rear.

[Unzipped Composites]

Interested to know what you make of the Attkd rotors. I was going to get the same for my car, but ended up cheaping out (which feels embarrassing given how cheap the Attkd rotors are ?)

[Tobz]

1 hour ago, Unzipped Composites said:

Interested to know what you make of the Attkd rotors. I was going to get the same for my car, but ended up cheaping out (which feels embarrassing given how cheap the Attkd rotors are ?)

I’ll let you know

[Tobz]

Small update! Going to Luddenham this weekend to give the skyline a good run. Haven’t been there before, so should be fun!

 

in preparation I have swapped pads. Now will be using Ferrodo DSUno for track days and then swapping to DS2500 for the road. Went with this combo as they use the same brake compound so don’t need to re bed the brakes every time I swap. 
 

also I have finally settled on my wheel choices for the car.

for track days I run the Koyo SF05 18x9 +30 in satin gunmetal with 265/35 semi slicks (currently Kumho V70a Mediums)

 

for the road I just got these beauties for the car. They are Koya SF01 18x9 +28 for the front and +32 on the rear in US Burnt Bronze. 
 

Am in love with the colour of these wheels as they change from black to charcoal to brown to bronze depending on the light.

i also needed to change my brake master cylinder to the BM57, but ran out of time

[PranK]

They look great (both sets). What do they weigh?

[Tobz]

30 minutes ago, PranK said:

They look great (both sets). What do they weigh?

The Koya’s are semi forged, so not the heaviest but also not the lightest. They are around the 7kg mark which I’m more than happy with

[PranK]

1 minute ago, Tobz said:

The Koya’s are semi forged, so not the heaviest but also not the lightest. They are around the 7kg mark which I’m more than happy with

Yeah thats great! 

[Tobz]

Got out to Luddenham Raceway today! What a great little course, awesome flow and just fun and technical.

had a small issue where the whole bonnet and the car (through the air vents) filled with thick smoke, originally thought it was my catch can hoses melting on the manifold. But after putting some heat tape on that, it was still smoking.

it always happened after around 4 quick laps, decided to call it a day. Did a bit of reading and I’m pretty sure it is just the power steering fluid leaking onto the manifold. Makes sense as I can’t find any oil leaks, it isn’t an issue driving around normally and has only happened at luddenham which is very tight. So hopefully should be a simple fix....

Edited July 25, 2020 by Tobz