Greetings from Japan by a Finnish bloke

[tsuokun]

Good day,

I'm a Finn, living in Japan, posting on Australian Skyline forum. ?

I have lurked for many years here and it has been extremely helpful with many things Skyline. So finally I decided to make an account here and perhaps join the conversation. A lot of forum-talk has moved to facebook or such and I believe that is not a good way to preserve (or find) information, so from my part, I want to promote conversation that can be later found by a search engine, instead of it being buried among of half-hearted brainfarts that is the most of social media. (no offense to anyone ..)

I began my Nissan hobby with an RS13 200SX in 2004 and after two of those, went to S13 Silvia to which I swapped from AT NA CA18DE to MT SR20DET back in 2006. But since then I've gotten "wiser" and went with the R-body, starting with R32 GTS-t and then moved to ER34 4door that I currently drive. I bought the R34 in 2011 and fell in love with it and couldn't sacrifice it to the gods of rust on the Finnish salty winter roads. So opposed to as initially intended, I kept it in the garage during the winters and did all sorts of tweaking to it. During the years, the car really grew on me, so I put it on a ship back to its home country when I moved here (to Japan).

So as the Japanese would say, 宜しくお願い致します (which I playfully like to translate to "please bear with me").

I hope I can give something to this community as I have received a lot from it during the years.

Currently looking for a shop or somebody who can tig weld around Tokyo area, and some tips on how the track day / circuit driving stuff works in this country and general car-stuff. So if you have some tips or care to meet up some weekend in a PA, do let me know as it is always great to get to know some like minded persons.

Thank you.

--Tume

Me in the R32 2010 or something at Botniaring, Jurva, Finland DNSF.org track day .. with the stock suspension.. seasickness ensued. Was rocking a Chinaman FMIC kit and a 2876 garret on stock mani. That thing was silly.

 

Rainy spring evening on the outskirts of Helsinki May 2014

 

Somewhere in the middle of the Finnish Countryside near Pesämäki Circuit, Honkajoki, Finland July 2018 after another DNSF.org track day. Since I started driving on circuits back in 2007, this was to be my second to last track day in Finland.

Same ER34 June 2019 in Yokohama in front of an UpGarage shop. Was looking for shaken friendly wheels but no luck there. Just out of the customs, on my way home.

 

Yeah, I did swap the GT-R twin turbos on it for few years. Apart from digging pieces of turbine wheels from my cat, it was quite brilliant in this form. Since then I've gone big-single Holset (among a bunch of other things) as the twin turbo setup was a complete pain in the arse to maintain.

[GTSBoy]

I love the chaotic idea of sending an R34 back to Japan. Welcome to the forums.

[PranK]

Looks great! Any more pics?

I love the GTR twins on the RB25, as nutty as it is.

 

[Steve85]

2 hours ago, GTSBoy said:

I love the chaotic idea of sending an R34 back to Japan.

Chaotic Good! 

@tsuokun welcome to SAU. Hopefully we become your utterly dis-functional internet family!
 I really love the colour of your R34. I can't tell though, is it black, purple or dark blue? (i'm getting old ).

[tsuokun]

Thank you for the warm welcome! I probably should've signed up much earlier, hehe.

 

The GT-R twins were a great drunken idea that somehow slipped into production. The twin turbo pipe just looked so cute next to the NEO plastic cover (and was MOT friendly). Regrettably I don't have a better pic and that engine room is filthy.. But it did work surprisingly nicely! and I sort of miss having it.

 

About 10 years ago I was sitting in a bar in Tokyo and talked with some Japanese dude who had shipped his motorcycle to Europe in the 90's and driven around there for a summer. I thought that idea would be hilarious to do in reverse, thus a seed of silliness was planted. But another reason was that I had just done a complete engine overhaul with forged parts and that costs a lot of money. Also the prices of ER34s in Japan are getting higher year by year. So in a twisted way it kind of made sense. ?

@Steve85 The color is sort of dark blue, purplish, almost black. I wanted a white one but after years of looking at the car in this color, I think I will stick with it. Even when I eventually have to have it resprayed.

 

So a couple more pics:

2012 Still with the stock body kit. Would have stuck with that, were it not that the passenger side skirt was missing.. ?‍♂️

 

Ahvenisto circuit 2013.

 

Among friends at Botniaring Circuit 2016

 

Finnish highway 2016 September.

 

Some autumn colors 2018. Didn't know this would be the last time I drove the car as automatic.

 

Freshening up the insides a bit - 2017

 

Test fitting the turbo lines.

 

Engine room pretty much as it is today. 2018

 

Going for a cruise to the other side of the planet April 2019. About 1 month prior to this the car was without a gearbox and engine, spread all over the garage. Not to mention what else was going on at the time. Memories are hazy.

 

Japanese highway 2019 (under Tokyo Bay, going to Umihotaru PA)

 

Some video too

https://youtu.be/7sPZMemTlRs

Edited April 20, 2020 by tsuokun
Typos and forgot to add a link.

[robbo_rb180]

Welcome, that's cool sending the car back to Japan.
You should do a full write up on the build of the 34
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/forum/190-projects-overhauls-and-build-ups/

 

[PranK]

29 minutes ago, robbo_rb180 said:

Welcome, that's cool sending the car back to Japan.
You should do a full write up on the build of the 34
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/forum/190-projects-overhauls-and-build-ups/

 

This.

[tsuokun]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll start a topic there!

[Gojira34]

Hi Mate,

this is my first time commenting on SAU, though been a member for a while.

i too have the er34 though coupe!

Love what you did with the twins.

if you don’t mind talking about it, I was wondering how you did the exhaust manis , as they have two ports wrong?

did you custom make these? Or cut rotate weld.

would you want to sell them?

Cheers

[tsuokun]

On 4/25/2020 at 2:57 PM, Gojira34 said:

Hi Mate,

this is my first time commenting on SAU, though been a member for a while.

i too have the er34 though coupe!

Love what you did with the twins.

if you don’t mind talking about it, I was wondering how you did the exhaust manis , as they have two ports wrong?

did you custom make these? Or cut rotate weld.

would you want to sell them?

Cheers

Good day,

General mock build-up was done with GT-R manifolds and once that was done and concept was proven, I ordered some "stainless" china manifolds. As you guessed, the flanges needed some slight seeing-to in the form of angle grinder + test fit + weld. After the fabrication was done (including but not limited to correcting the warped flanges) I had them sand blasted inside and out and ceramic coated inside. Outside was coated with heat resistant spray paint, which lasted amazingly well.

Oh, and I had to swap two of the studs to M8 size, as there was just no room to put an M10 nut in there. I believe the original GT-R manis also have one stud that is smaller or somehow handles the alignment of the mani to the head? In the final revision of my build I was running a pair of GT2860-7's (if my memory serves me), along with R34 outlets.

Regrettably I sold the whole package as a bolt on kit a few years ago, before going the single Holset way..

The rear turbo used the stock oil return. For the front one, the NEO block had a similar 3/4 inch (again, if my memory serves) threaded hole that was used with a suitable hose barb. incoming oil was taken from the block stock location with a T-adapter and for the water lines OEM GT-R stuff was utilized with slight adjustment.

 

[MoMnDadGTR]

ya that twin setup is nutty lol...i like it to the fact it is different from the classic top mount single. nice car mate.

[samw/skyline]

Welcome! I lived in Japan for 2 years and would give anything to go back if I could! I hope you love it as much as I did! I'm honestly not a fan of R34 sedans' looks but yours is pretty amazing! looking forward to seeing your build in another post with figures and everything. I owned an ECR33 sedan when I lived there, and still do, but it's in storage until it arrives in the USA March 2021. Maybe I'll be able to use some of your content as a guide. Cheers!