From Japan and back to Europe, my sh*tbox R34 GTT

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

N54, convert to single and send its mum to the moon 😂

I think skip the Nistune and get a Link of Haltech or whatever is popular in the UK. Nistune on the R34 platform is a pain in the arse to tune. Heaps of 'gotchas' to deal with.

[GoHashiriya]

15 hours ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

N54, convert to single and send its mum to the moon 😂

I think skip the Nistune and get a Link of Haltech or whatever is popular in the UK. Nistune on the R34 platform is a pain in the arse to tune. Heaps of 'gotchas' to deal with.

Good to know, I'll have to evaluate it when the time comes. The appeal of Nistune was how dirt cheap it is, but it'll be stupid not to speak with tuners in Europe before buying.

Back over on the Europe side I've got sn N53 E90 325I which, to be honest, seems more appealing to sink money into going forward just on the basis that the chassis are so prevalent I don't need to care if I bin it. Cons: parts are f*cking expensive.

[PranK]

Nice! 

Love E90's! 

[GoHashiriya]

On 12/13/2023 at 7:39 AM, PranK said:

Nice! 

Love E90's! 

You and me both. I actually wanted an E46 or E36 but finding them without rust is next to impossible. Bought the e90 sight unseen for the bargain price of £2,700 - roughly 5k AUD

Edited December 14, 2023 by GoHashiriya

[PranK]

Grab some M3 front control arms. Easily the best bang-for-buck upgrade to the suspension.

[DaymoR32]

all this talk of europe but photos show English numberplates (did you forget about brexit 😆) 

i wish the prices for bimmers was the same as back in the UK, they are ridiculous over here! (im an expat)

 

[GoHashiriya]

On 12/18/2023 at 3:30 AM, DaymoR32 said:

all this talk of europe but photos show English numberplates (did you forget about brexit 😆) 

i wish the prices for bimmers was the same as back in the UK, they are ridiculous over here! (im an expat)

 

lol, yeah, and how gutted I am now I’m back over in Europe (actual Europe) and dealing with the nightmare of U.K.-Continental Europe bureaucracy.
 

Anyway, arrived in NL early January with the BMW, whilst the Skyline followed suit about a week later. Both cars ended up stuck with their relative importers for about six weeks. Since then, I made a trip to the Nurburgring with a friend and have since ditched the Skyline in the garage. This week, I finally managed to find a suitable shop to do an alignment so hopped on over to Germany to fix the miserable mess the local Netherlands shop conducted; the car was just not aggressive enough in the rear for my driving style - I found myself understeering a fair bit at the ring which was really a first for me with this car. Mis-matched F&R tyres can be held partly responsible - have now moved to F+R NS2Rs.

One thing I’ve noticed is the 180kph limiter just does not cut it here. I quickly hit that (for the first time) in Germany on the autobahn. Japanese circuits are small - at least the ones that were near me. I rarely spent much time in 4th. After much deliberation with the HKS SLD, I have ordered Nistune from Matt.

Whilst the Skyline has been gathering dust I got to learning the highly neglected BMW I bought in the U.K. was in fact just that, highly neglected. Took the ol’ dog down to Switzerland last weekend with a progressively deteriorating front end. It went from vibration during braking at highway speed on the way down, to vibrating non-stop on the way back. I’ve already fixed numerous engine issues - low oil pressure, f**ked injectors, incorrect coils and plugs, electric water pump. Still to do is a suspension and brake overhaul, rear subframe replacement and likely more ageing engine electrical components. But I must say, I love it. After so long with the Skyline, I really didn’t know cars could be so comfortable.
 

 

[PranK]

What did you get changed in the rear of the R34 for the understeer? 

Talk to me about E90's! You're probably the only other SAU'er with one!  

As is the consistent, and widely shared, sentiment with your updates, I'm just so jealous. Being able to country hop like that and have access to so many amazing roads and tracks, its just so awesome.

[GoHashiriya]

7 hours ago, PranK said:

What did you get changed in the rear of the R34 for the understeer? 

Talk to me about E90's! You're probably the only other SAU'er with one!  

As is the consistent, and widely shared, sentiment with your updates, I'm just so jealous. Being able to country hop like that and have access to so many amazing roads and tracks, its just so awesome.

So I raised the car up a fair bit for shipping - see image - then lowered it again when it arrived. I then rushed to get an alignment in NL before the track and the shop just wasn’t anywhere near as precise as what I got in Japan. The guys that did the alignment this week said there was a fair amount of toe in the rear that could have contributed to the understeer. It was also the case that the rear camber went from about -2 to -3 at the shop in NL. However, since I’ve now got slightly wider tires in the rear - NS2Rs run wider than Accelera 651S - I could only get a minimum of -3 in the rear now due to clearance. Front is now -2.75 (-2.45 in minutes) due to being raised a bit (previously -3 in JP). So it’s likely a combination of the two factors, camber and toe. The issue now is I have more camber in the rear than the front and the next step on the front Cusco arms will put me at -3.5ish front which seems a bit excessive to me. The weird thing is I’ve never had any understeer at the track in Japan but they are very different circuits - Japanese circuits are much slower than the one I’ve been to here. 
 

I’m probably going to have to start another thread for the E90. The plan is sort of to keep it as a daily but progressively mod it into a track car - honestly, you need a cage for the sort of speeds you go here. Just ordered the M3 front arms btw.  Love the car despite it being in pretty shitty condition. Oil analysis came back okay and it seems to have stopped consuming oil since fixing a load of engine bay things. Saw yours is a 335i right? f**king mistake on my part getting the DI N53 over the N52, fuel economy is insanely good though at 14-16 km/L.
 

Cheers, it’s great to see the benefits and pitfalls of different places. I’m contemplating going back to the U.K. around next year as the cost of living in the Netherlands is just ridiculous. GF is nagging me to settle and buy a house but I don’t know what LSD to buy. 

Edited May 8 by GoHashiriya
Upload picture

[PranK]

Japanese circuits have always looked tight to me on Youtube vids. They seem to be able to fit tracks into the smallest of spots.

I've never experimented with camber in the rear. I'm running similar front camber to you (albeit in the E90) but I've been looking into what options I have in the rear. -3 rear seems like a lot.

Yeah, mine is the N54. I had an N52 330i for about 7 years, it was awesome but I just needed a little more poke. The N54 is also DI. I'm running BC coilovers with the M3 front arms and a Whiteline front sway bar and the turn in and ride quality is brilliant. But I do still suffer from a bit of roll so I've been looking into that lately. 

[GTSBoy]

3 minutes ago, PranK said:

-3 rear seems like a lot.

Great for thrashing on the track - particularly if it is all corners. Otherwise, it is a recipe for massive tyre wear and reduced straight line traction.

-1 is plenty for a streeter.

[GoHashiriya]

On 5/9/2024 at 2:10 AM, PranK said:

Japanese circuits have always looked tight to me on Youtube vids. They seem to be able to fit tracks into the smallest of spots.

I've never experimented with camber in the rear. I'm running similar front camber to you (albeit in the E90) but I've been looking into what options I have in the rear. -3 rear seems like a lot.

Yeah, mine is the N54. I had an N52 330i for about 7 years, it was awesome but I just needed a little more poke. The N54 is also DI. I'm running BC coilovers with the M3 front arms and a Whiteline front sway bar and the turn in and ride quality is brilliant. But I do still suffer from a bit of roll so I've been looking into that lately. 

They absolutely are, but the thing is, if you're only exposed to these circuits for a while, what I normally think is good driving suddenly isn't so much. I was a pussy at the Nurburgring (GP) entering corners at 180kph - the difference in the balance of the car suddenly becomes so much more pronounced and I'm still a bit regarded at left-foot braking - something I now practice on my commute.

So the (dream) plan with the E90 is to make it a 325i Cup car. Whether I get there or not is another matter. In my mind the simplicity of having the NA variant and cost made it a bit more appealing. Plus, like mentioned above, I'm actually too much of a pussy for big power. Of course I f**ked up by not researching enough on the N53 vs N52, the latter being more robust without the DI system. 

Suspension-wise on the BMW, and I've been reading the technical requirements for the 325i cup, basically everything except struts has to be standard - bushes are free. I figure you get about 5-10mm adjustment with the rear camber bolts which should translate to 0.5- 1.5 degrees of adjustment. So with coilovers, lowered at 30/40mm I expect I can dial out some of the camber from a drop and attain -1.5 to -2. If necessary, I could get the same effect as the M3 arms with some offset bushes. There is a limitation on ARB width to qualify, although I absolutely want to get either M3 ARBs (can't say sway incase I upset GTSBoy) or the H&R ones - both of these are the cheapest options. Like mentioned, M3 arms are on the way and I should have them fitted within the next week.

How are the BC Racing coilovers btw? Reviews are mixed but I think for me they would be fine; a friend of mine uses them on his R34 for track driving and has nothing bad to say. I'm looking at these or the ST coilovers (German brand, new to me) as prescriped the in Cup spec sheet. They're both similarly priced and offer camber adjustment.

On 5/9/2024 at 2:15 AM, GTSBoy said:

Great for thrashing on the track - particularly if it is all corners. Otherwise, it is a recipe for massive tyre wear and reduced straight line traction.

-1 is plenty for a streeter.

It's fine but it really upsets my OCD. I've got a couple of options for dialing out the rear camber and keeping my ill-fitting wheels: raise the rear a little bit, say 5mm, that should permit -2.5 camber or drop the front to restore that slight bias of more negative camber up front (not optimal with the roads here). The next alignment won't be until at least next year and I really need to rebuild the rear subframe. For now, I'm not using it at all on the streets except occasional blasts through the German countryside. I was covering about 10k kms p/year in Japan, I expect this to now be about 3-4k.

You could say buy better sized wheels, and yes, I should have. But the wheels came from the Z and price of good wheels is just insane now. Again, a couple of options: get a new set (I want 17" RPF1s) or buy two used 9.5J TEs, both are about the same price excluding shipping. 

Edited May 10 by GoHashiriya
coilovers

[joshuaho96]

On 5/7/2024 at 11:02 PM, PranK said:

What did you get changed in the rear of the R34 for the understeer? 

Talk to me about E90's! You're probably the only other SAU'er with one!  

As is the consistent, and widely shared, sentiment with your updates, I'm just so jealous. Being able to country hop like that and have access to so many amazing roads and tracks, its just so awesome.

I don't own one but at this point I've done more than my fair share of work on one. 

[GoHashiriya]

New alignment and matching tires is great and f*ck me are the German roads fast. Took another trip to the Nurburgring yesterday with my buddy and the car feels great in the dry - a lot of mechanical grip. In corners at 140-160kph I felt like I could keep going.

[PranK]

My BC's are great! I wasn't going to spend big money, its a long way from a "well-funded" car. They are really comfy on the street and they feel good enough for me on the track. I think they were about $1400 AUD delivered with front camber tops. Hard to go wrong with that. They replaced my Bilstein B8's with Eibach springs which were good also but just a touch soft and I wanted the height adjustment. It didn't help that a Sydney mega pothole bent one of the front strut tubes just enough to make lowering with the jack tricky as it didn't compress unless you drove back and forth a bit. 

I'm also a little less willing to go hard into fast corners. Maybe I'll get better over time, but for now I'm happy to lose a few seconds and not keep feeling like I'm about to die.

Nice point on the left foot braking. This is definitely an area I want to get better at. Like you I should be doing it when pottering around town just to get more used to it and stop it feeling odd.

[GoHashiriya]

16 hours ago, PranK said:

My BC's are great! I wasn't going to spend big money, its a long way from a "well-funded" car. They are really comfy on the street and they feel good enough for me on the track. I think they were about $1400 AUD delivered with front camber tops. Hard to go wrong with that. They replaced my Bilstein B8's with Eibach springs which were good also but just a touch soft and I wanted the height adjustment. It didn't help that a Sydney mega pothole bent one of the front strut tubes just enough to make lowering with the jack tricky as it didn't compress unless you drove back and forth a bit. 

I'm also a little less willing to go hard into fast corners. Maybe I'll get better over time, but for now I'm happy to lose a few seconds and not keep feeling like I'm about to die.

Nice point on the left foot braking. This is definitely an area I want to get better at. Like you I should be doing it when pottering around town just to get more used to it and stop it feeling odd.

Yeah, I get that. I try to be as cost-efficient as possible with cars, and typically prefer to buy them at the bottom of their depreciation curve. I was looking at those Bilsteins too as they're roughly in the same price bracket as the BC's - lack of adjustability and being soft put me off, not that I want anything too hard.

That's my issue with the Skyline, it's too expensive and it's reflected in my driving. I don't mind going full pelt as long as there's a gravel trap to catch me. Really, proper safety equipment is needed for total confidence.

Well this just turned up for the BMW. I'll try and get the front together tomorrow and take some pics of the absolutely horrid rear end; perhaps I'll have a crack at the rear on Wednesday. I need to make the car drivable before the weekend as I'll be driving it over to London. 

  

[PranK]

Nice one! You wont know the old girl when all that's installed.

My alignment was absolutely horrid when I did my front end. The car just wanted to go in circles and it was so heavy to straighten up. I totally thought I'd stuffed it.