Mistakes were made, my R34 Story

[GTSBoy]

16 minutes ago, Kinkstaah said:

We'll see how it goes with bushes only. I am sure this cope will fail and the answer will be to drop the subframe and put nismo rubber bushes in there instead.

There's a fair chance that my bushes are Nismo, because I'm reasonably sure that when asked the question (when putting the subframe into the car in ~2012) "What bushes do you want to run?", I'm pretty sure I would have answered "The stiff ones!".

I had to put some silicone grease onto the GKTech inserts I jammed into them last week, because the bushes were quite resistant to having something jammed up their jacksies. So, I reckon you'll be best off doing Nismo + inserts.

And, if I'd known you had PU bushes in the subframe AND PU pineapples, I perhaps would have said earlier that that's probably not a good idea. The pineapples are only intended to work with the stock type bushes, because those have a crush tube (which is what makes it end up looking like there is sloppy space in there - but doesn't, because the crush tube does make contact steel to steel) and the pineapples live in the space between the subframe's outer tube and the lower washer/bracket. But the PU bushes don't leave the space in the same way that the stock format ones do, and they do end up fighting for space.

Order some bushes and collars and get to it.

[MBS206]

Bahahaha, bloody hell Greg.
You've got bent and broken things, but instead, you're replacing perfectly good items. This story keeps getting more gregged!

 

Also, I'd 100% replace that reo if I were in your shoes, unless you panel beater is REALLY good. Even if you put another GTT one on there. Just because you've done so much nice body work lately, I'd say repair the body work fully  If it were more drift car spec, I'd be all "Hit it with a hammer and send it!"

[GTSBoy]

14 minutes ago, MBS206 said:

If it were more drift car spec, I'd be all "Hit it with a hammer and send it!"

I think he's already demonstrated that that's the way he's treating it post the paint jail release.

[Kinkstaah]

Yeah this was also my suspicion, that pineapples exist to reinforce the OEM bushes because people CBF taking the subframe out to do it. Basically that pineapples and subframe lock collars perform the same intended task.

The cup still bolts in under the bush/crush tube.. as to how it'll go I don't know. Two of the bushes at the back look mostly the right shape. The ones up front clearly have the impressions left by the pineapples. Time will tell whether this will work/make any difference. Ideally I would not want any lock collars or pineapples, I'd just want the bush to do the job of the bush.

Time will tell if the car works correctly with only the poly bushes in the state they're in. Worth seeing, I think. 

19 minutes ago, MBS206 said:

Bahahaha, bloody hell Greg.
You've got bent and broken things, but instead, you're replacing perfectly good items. This story keeps getting more gregged!

 

Also, I'd 100% replace that reo if I were in your shoes, unless you panel beater is REALLY good. Even if you put another GTT one on there. Just because you've done so much nice body work lately, I'd say repair the body work fully  If it were more drift car spec, I'd be all "Hit it with a hammer and send it!"

What panel work are you looking at? I'm shelving everything from the A pillar forward because it's shit/doesn't function and this was before I drove off at the track and then drove into somebody!

A second hand Reo and brackets is $1000, which is just cray when Mr.Hammer turns this piece of metal in regular metal shape.. considering it needs to be drilled to be adapted to the GTR headlight brackets anyway...

So I'm all for $0 instead of $2000 (new 34 GTR reo) for the same result lol.

[GTSBoy]

1 hour ago, Kinkstaah said:

Basically that pineapples and subframe lock collars perform the same intended task.

Yes no yes. Pineapple rings do do a certain amount of subframe "locking up", in that they do add some resistance to lateral movements. But the primary reason they exist is to alter the driveline angle. Depending on how you install them you can either increase or decrease rear traction __ a little bit __ by changing the angle of the lower control arms relative to the car/pinion angle.

The thing is, given what they are, how and where they are installed, their lack of engagement with anything in particular, there's a limit to how much benefit they can offer.

The GKTech collars put metal into the space in the stock format bushes, thereby limiting how much give they have. The rubber is still there to take up some force, albeit perhaps preloaded a little by having some extra metal jammed up into it, but the increase in stiffness comes from making it so that the stock format bush can't deflect that large bit of rubber over into the space adjacent to it, in any direction. Top AND bottom. Which the pineapples certainly do not do.

As I said in my other thread - I'm convinced.

[MBS206]

1 hour ago, Kinkstaah said:

Yeah this was also my suspicion, that pineapples exist to reinforce the OEM bushes because people CBF taking the subframe out to do it. Basically that pineapples and subframe lock collars perform the same intended task.

The cup still bolts in under the bush/crush tube.. as to how it'll go I don't know. Two of the bushes at the back look mostly the right shape. The ones up front clearly have the impressions left by the pineapples. Time will tell whether this will work/make any difference. Ideally I would not want any lock collars or pineapples, I'd just want the bush to do the job of the bush.

Time will tell if the car works correctly with only the poly bushes in the state they're in. Worth seeing, I think. 

What panel work are you looking at? I'm shelving everything from the A pillar forward because it's shit/doesn't function and this was before I drove off at the track and then drove into somebody!

A second hand Reo and brackets is $1000, which is just cray when Mr.Hammer turns this piece of metal in regular metal shape.. considering it needs to be drilled to be adapted to the GTR headlight brackets anyway...

So I'm all for $0 instead of $2000 (new 34 GTR reo) for the same result lol.

A Pillar forward?

 

The part above I was just looking at was the reo bar, I'd replace it, UNLESS the panel beater is GOOD.

From your early photos, it did look like the chassis might be tweaked, or at the very least there was tweaks in radiator support.

I'd personally do a new / second hand unmolested reo bar, and drill it, only so I know underneath the pretty painted front bar, there's not a mess of other metal that's been hit and smacked.

[Kinkstaah]

On 3/5/2025 at 5:36 PM, MBS206 said:

A Pillar forward?

I was very unimpressed with how the car came up from the A pillar forward, before I hit things (twice). It all has to go. It had to go, but now it has to go... more.

So we finally found the very first Shennanigans with the entirely perfectly setup engine that had no problems being pulled apart to improve on 'was perfectly fine'.

Cam bearings looked a bit... stock. Which isn't entirely bad given they were stock and this is a ~20 year old engine. So new cam bearings are on the way because it's somewhat difficult to get to this stage to do it later, and it will trash the block. It was quite unusual that it wasn't done when the perfectly new-looking VCM cam was originally installed by [unknown]

What IS unusual is the cam that was installed there was advanced SIX degrees. As to why there is no way to know.. however it could have been @Dose Pipe Sutututu's mate who wanted a larger cam sound but also wanted it to come on earlier to be more usable.

This is my dyno sheet with the previous setup - This cam is not supposed to peak until 7000+ RPM, according to VCM. This is what lead me down the whole 'my heads/intake setup is running out of puff and can't support the cam' line of thinking to begin with.

Anyway too late now - New cam is in!

It could be rather funny if this smaller cam acts like a larger cam because it isn't advanced six degrees.

In the spirit of everything is working amazingly - the COMP cam required no dialling in whatsoever. It was about 0.5 degrees advanced, which seems pretty bang on. Any adjustment either way would be further out. I'm told as a chain breaks in it ends up regarding back about 0.5 a degree as the chain breaks in, making it bang on.

In the spirit of everything was previously working amazingly - The timing gear that was taken out turned out to be was an N-Motion double timing chain kit, with adjustable cam gear (which is how it was 6 degrees advanced) and all looks entirely perfectly new. It also had a Torrington bearing, which was one of the reasons I ended up getting the Cloyes kit which they used in the C5R 24 hour racecar - Because I couldn't confirm what was in the engine when talking to Tony Mamo. I did believe however it was a Double chain kit of some kind... but found no supporting documentation or evidence for it.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

When's the rear mounted turbo kit coming? Needs dose and V8 chop idle lol.