Frankiman's street/track GTR ''grip-alot'' project

A forum for owners and fans of the legendary Nissan Skyline and Nissan GTR.
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frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

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Chapter 1 - where it all began

edit; basically, this is all copy/pasted from the original thread which can be found here
http://forums.gtrcanada.com/gt-r-projec ... 48442.html


took me a long time to come around to starting my own project thread

before i get started, heres some info on me
-i'm 21 years old as of june 23rd 2009
-my only car prior to buying a skyline was a beat-up mazda 323
-i'm a student in Mechanical Engineering @ ETS university
-i've never had a full time job, only compensated internships
-i have never worked as a mechanic
-and i absorb automotive knowledge like a freaking SHAMWOW

so here we go, got alot of stuff to cover


i got my first GTR back in august 2007
pretty much stock car, with coilovers, cat back exhaust, oldschool HIDs and AVS wheels
good interior fully stock
stock exterior with worn paint and moldings
A1++ mechanical condition, engine had just been replaced as a condition of purchase
well worth the 12,5k i paid worth it back then, from JDM Montreal, tip top shop !
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took the car to the drag strip a couple times (since i had the most powerfull car (wow stock GTR) out of all my friends
also took it to the track for half a dozen 20min sessions, but unfortunately it was all in the rain

then, i started pilling up parts for it,
so i decided to jack the car up for a couple weeks for well deserved upgrades
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finally took me 3 months to do the lot, because of parts beeing on back order,
and also it was my first time doing some heavy mechanical work on a car (compared to changing brake pads and air filter on my beater mazda 323)
and i'm proud to say i did everything on my own, without any support except for my dad's advices, but he never touched my car out of respect
(didn't know GTRC existed back then)
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i was really proud of what i had accomplished, even if i hadn't driven the car for the full summer
then, exactly a week after the car was off the blocks, i signed up for the "UltraRide", which is basically just a cruise, with 40 others cars

i got overconfident, as many young drivers get with powerfull machines

and this happened, scroll down
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nobody got hurt, i only had a couple scratches from getting out of the car
the body was so badly damaged, there was just no chance in hell of getting the car back into shape

mechanicaly, the car was fine, only the front had gotten damaged (bumper to plastic fan)
and while the car was upside down and i was waiting for the tow truck, me and my buddies found some rust behing the passenger tailight, which really got me pissed for some reason

and to make things worst, THE SAME DAY, september 21st 2008, about 10 hours after the accident, my garage caught fire:furious::furious::furious:
because of an old leaking air compressor
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so i swallowed my pride :banghead:, decided to buy the car back from the insurance and got it towed home, next to the burnt garage,
my neighbourgs were all like WTF:dunno:

and the car sat there all winter, while i reflected ont the situation

lets just say i kept the insurance compagny really busy for a while
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after having sorted all the insurance stuff out, my dad decided to get a new and improved garage
so i said, F**K YEAH, me too

so we had a new garage built to our spec, knowing that we would actually put a car in this one

as soon as the garage was done, we put the old GTR in it, and started taking it the F**K apart

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so now all the parts are up for sale
and obviously, i'm only selling parts that are still in perfect condition


so thats all about my old GTR
i'll cover the new car in my next post
Last edited by frankiman on Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:48 pm, edited 3 times in total.


User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

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Chapter 2 - out with the old, in with the new

so fast forward to february 2009,

i was an intern @ Pratt & Whitney Canada, working on a energy saving project
so i had alot of time on my hanbs :wink:

at this point, i had reflected alot on my situation and the idea of leasing a brand new car (mazda3) was coming back to me all the time like a boomerang

but my thirst for GTR godliness was still unquenshed

and my "wise" father said that i would never be satisfied with anything else than another GTR, to finish what i had started

so before making an actual decision, i had to make sure what options were financialy feasable first
so i got really serious about it, everything was going to be planned in advanced, everything would be calculated to the last penny
i started building a budget considering the next 72 weeks (till my next internship)
and i didn't want to miss a payment again

so the moment i realized that i actually could buy another GTR, i picked up the phone, call the bank and got another loan the same day (my first loan was cleared after my insurance money for the car and the garage got in)

so there i was, with an extra 12,5k sitting in my bank account, waiting to be spent on a new set of wheels

but i had still not checked the Montreal JDM market yet for GTRs, so i had the money, but nowhere to go with it

so i started peaking around the JDM shops, my first stops were JDM Montreal and JDM Nagoya Auto Parts since i had good connections there, but they didn't have what i was looking for, which basically was the exact same car i had and placing a special order would have taken months

and my father had warned me about this, he called it "car rebound", i just wanted my old car back

so finally got over the fact that my car was gone forever :cry:
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finally found a good candidate at Japan Domestic Motors in Montreal
a black 1990 GTR, with not many mods, seamed to be in really good condition, but interior was a bit worn out

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but it was clear the engine was runnig on only 5 cylinders
since i was really interested in buying the car, i asked them to get it check by a professionnal shop (i.e autoworx)
so after a couple visits to the shop, they never got the car checked and it was still running weird, and they argued me that it had old sparks plugs, the engine wasn't up to temp, needed more gaz (they kept the gas tanks of all their cars practically empty, wtf)
so just for argument's sake, i asked to take it out for a test drive
engine kept stalling repeatedly on my way out of the shop, on a stock clutch, the engine was just no good
so the vendor got pissed, told me he would drive it, since i "couldn't drive manual JDMs"
he had to rev the engine like a mother fu**er not to stall it, drove around the block, again, it was clear the engine wasn't doing well

so i got out the car and litteraly told them to suck my nutsack

at this point, i had visited pretty much all the shops i knew existed in montreal, but still no luck finding my "precious" and felt a bit beat

but right after i left Japan domestic motors, i drove around the block next to a shop i never knew was there,
and laid my sight upon this gem..
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feels like i'm writhing a story more than an actual build documentation..that will change soon
Last edited by frankiman on Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:21 pm, edited 4 times in total.

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 2,1 - answers

[QUOTE=archaeic_bloke;446218]what happened with the accident? how did you roll the car like that? speed?[/QUOTE]

yeah speed, but if it had been my 4th year driving and tracking the car, i would have made it trough the corner no prob

what hapenned is i was following a MS3, but didn't see it going through the second bend/crest of a S twist, so i went in too fast, and basically reacted like anyone with a lack of experience and slammed the brakes instead of letting off the gas a bit and smoothly turning in,
when the road started going down, the car lifted, went straight into the ditch, hit the bottom, did a full second of air time, did half a barrel roll, landed on the roof and skidded for 20 feet

no one got hurt thank god

[QUOTE=NismoS-tune;446271]Crazy story I gotta say. Why didn't you get a stock GTR the first time rather than a fast one..? Also, I gotta ask, how does a student afford all this?[/QUOTE]

it was a stock GTR, the only power mod was a cat-back exhaust..
how can i afford this? two things
a 4 months paid internship every year
bank loan

[QUOTE=archaeic_bloke;446546]ya frank why did you chop the top off the GTr shell!? couldnt you sell it as a shell? or no one would take it? bent frame? lemme know what happend![/QUOTE]

well, one thing i didn't mention is, that the tow truck driver was an absolute idiot, (he told me my car handled like ****, and that his crown victoria pocile pack was a race car compared to mine :clap:)
instead of using his flat-bed to flip the track, he tried to pull it with hooks till it flipped,
he dragged it for 20 feet till it finally flipped, every feet he dragged it made the roof collaspe even more
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Nissan Murcielago ?? i think not
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some of you might have realized my now that my Avatar's picture was taken right after the crash by a fellow UltraRide participant

i got the car towed home about 2 weeks later, since the car had been dropped at a local garage, 180km away from my home
a couple days after, i found this picture surfing the pages of local car enthusiats forum MontrealRacing.com with the caption "spotted, skyline on A15 south :(" some dude actually took a picture of the car on the flatbed coming home
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anyway, i would never have been able to take the whole interior apart without taking the roof off

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interior was still ok.. i sold the seats to a friend, who custom fitted them in his track civic
the dash was still mint, helped a friend swapped it with his, since his had a bubble like many R32 dashes

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and i sold alot of other interior parts to GTRC members and local skyline owners

most of the damage was absorbed by the car's body, like its meant to


alright lets keep going on with the story...

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

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Chapter 3 - bringing home baby

so i turn around the block to see this shop

JDM Advance Motor Import
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and saw these two parked outside

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since i had nothing to lose just taking a look at them, i did just that

the silver one caught my attention first, since it wasn't a stock color,and that flat black lip looked nice

but the white one had that "wow i can't believe its not butter" (replace butter by new) factor

so after circling the two car for about 5 mins, the vendor came out with the keys of both cars, opened them both and said "take a look"

screw the silver car, the white one had me hooked, with its full nismo body kit

then i opened the hood, since i was used to the stock oily engine of my previous GTR, looking at the engine bay i took a step back and said "wooh" (picture to follow)

my budget for my 2nd GTR was about 10k, so when the vendor said "well the white goes for 12,5k",
i went "ishh"

so i went home, fiddled with my budget's inputs and outputs again,
and pretty much went "fawk it, i'll make it work"

so i came back a week later with a blank 1000$ check in my back pocket and my father, i wanted him there to make sure i wasn't rushing my decision

at that moment, the car was sitting in the shop, so we took advantage of that fact and jacked it up,
did a thorough inspection of the car (as thorough as we could without hand tools), making sure there wasn't any weird sounds, no leaks, every electric feature worked and that the engine was running perfect

at first i didn't like the interior too much, worn out bride driver seat, stained stock passenger seat, plenty of wires coming out from the rear of the dash,
but it had some carbon fiber leathery goodness
and anyway, i said to myself "i can fix this, anything can be customized)

the paint looked ultra mint, as did the modlings, except for a couple big scratches (that after all were just stuck on grease) and a huge dent on the front passanger side fender

so i stepped to the back of the shop to reflect with my dad,
him ; are you sure you really like it?
me; fawk yeah
him; you're not going to change your mind after you buy it are you?!
me; no no
him; i don't like the color, you sure you wouldn't prefer a gunmetal again?
me; nah, white is perrrfect
him; ok then, you got my consent

so we walked back to vendor,
who told us another buyer had dibs on the car, but hadn't dropped a deposit yet

at that moment, i yelled "well now I call dibs" and yanked the 1000 check out
we filled the papers and asked them to keep the car for a month, so we could finish taking the other one apart

so this is what i bought

1991 Nissan Skyline GTR
138,000km
(all the following pictures were taken by the shop weeks ealier, or by me that exact day)
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modifications at time of purchase

Nismo front bumper vents
Nismo front hood lip
Nismo side pods
Nismo rear trunk spoiler
Nismo N1 headlights
Nismo shift knob
Nismo 555cc injectors
Nismo frp
Nismo N1 turbos (which i found out much later)
Nismo downpipe
Nismo fuel pump
Nismo solid shift
Nismo (suspected) single plate clutch, probly Gmax
HKS coilovers
HKS EVC1 boost controller (type that in google, its so old its not documented)
HKS suction intake kit
BeTime turbo timer
Sparco boss kit
MOMO RACE steering wheel
Bride bucket driver seat
Greddy GREX oil filter relocator with oil cooler
Greddy FMIC with a mix of Greddy and HKS hard piping and couplers
Blitz rad cap
EXAS 4,5" cat back exhaust
R33 GTR wheels with unkown Bridgestone potenzas
SS braided brake lines (which i also found out later, after buying another set.. whatever..)
R33/R32Vspec conversion rear brakes
Cusco brake master cylinder stopper
Carozziera speakers
Sony deck
"carbon fiber" shift boot and handbrake boot
unkown a/m pedal covers

no too bad huh?

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

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Chapter 3 - Bringing Home Baby, part2

during the month when the car was still at the shop, i had made deal with the vendor;
since i had already had two sets of 17'x9' wheels at home, i had no need for the R33 wheels
and since the seats were really worn out, i needed new seats, i was going to use the seats from my old GTR, but decided not too after a discovery i made at the shop

i asked the vendor if he could keep the wheels and tires, find a good driver side seat, and lower the price a bit (for the value of the seats)

at that moment, he said he might have something i would like,
so i followed him to a small room at the back of the shop,
where two beautiful seats were sitting on a table in the middle of the empty stock room

then i realized, they had bits and pieces of an R34 GTR laying all around on shelves, bumpers, hood, engine, tranny, diff, wheels

those seats came off an R34 GTR, they were practically brand new

because these were a bit pricy, i had to give up the wheels and both seats in exchange, for the same price
but if was definitely worth it
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so i came back after the agreed month

seats were installed (with a passenger side silvia seat belt lock wtf?)
so we jacked the car up, swap wheels with my old set of AVS (can be seen on 1st picture of chapter1)

paid what was left to pay,
and left with a huge giggle

dropped the car in the drive-way, and left it there for another month, since there was still some snow, and didn't drive it till all the snow had melted
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cons...

-exhaust was way to loud for me, and way to big for my style (4,5" tip)
-torque split gauge didn't seem to work
-"open door" light stayed lit
-steering was at a 30° angle to the right, and pulled to the left a bit
-rear subframe felt loose
-there was holes in the steering column cover from a water temp gauge (i'm guessing)
-damned jdm radio couldn't get North American frequencies
-daytime running light had been ghetto fabed
-squeek coming from swaybar bushings
-nismo side pods had been badly installed (over the sideskirts)
-dent on front passenger fender
-very bad ECU tune (for canada), 18L/100km was the best i could get
-hks boost controler is a dinasaur, with no screen
-betimer was hard to use
-instead of a valve cover breather pipe, there was 2 silicon caps
-the trunk release lever didn't work

pros...

-i had the emergency road-side flare !!
-engine ran great
-driver side floor mat heel rest still intact
-interior was clean, and no bubble on the dash
-smooth clutch, shifter bushings felt brand new (nismo solid shift uses brass bushing)
-suspension is stiff but still very comfy
-mint paint
-functionning a/c
-oil filter relocater made oil changes quick and super easy
-the amount of aftermarket parts installed on the car made up for a couple grands (at least 10k)
-came with a plethora of documents, mostly of maintenance, with date and KMs
i.e.
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in general, a very very clean car in great condition


:biggrin:........

now i started hatching my great big plan
i was going to build this car to be a clean "show-ish" street monster, and track contender, with full interior and accommodations

now the real project starts....:headbang2:

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

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Chapter 4 - SSTLC - Some Skyline Tender Loving Care

i got the car back in march,
and ALOT has been done since

alot of work needed to be done to put it back into shape, since no one knows how long the car hadn't been driven

i was nearing the end of my 2009 internship, so i had a re-stocked bank account, for mods, but mostly for maintenance


first thing on the list was choosing which part i would keep from my old GTR


1- the AVS wheels had to go, i just couldn't bare seeing them anymore
i had my work wheels, but 2 were badly damaged, and all were really scratched and chipped
but the tire were brand spanking new, and another set would have taken me back another 1,5k

so, fearing the wheels would cost me an arm to get reapaired, i took them to P.Jaques wheel repair in Verchère, Quebec to be quoted
i big shop, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, renowned for their Über quality
i was told they could repair anything

so i got there with the wheels on a tuesday, i nice girl came outside to take a look at them,
i told her i just wanted them repaired and powder coated white again
she said, for the most damaged, 150$
for the 2nd most damaged, 125$
and the other two, just for paint, 100$ each
so in total, 540$ for freshly painted wheels with the tires mounted and balanced

ohhh yeah
then she tells me the wheels would be ready for the following monday (6 days, holy crap)

so that was that

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2- lug nuts
i had a brand new set of rare Rays Duralumin blue anodized nuts,
there was no way in hell i was going to sell 'em

3- the whole brake system
i had just repainted the calipers, installed brand new Nismo discs and Hawk Hp+ pads all around
and the rear handbrake shoes were brand new from nissan

i wasn't going to sell all that, it was all new
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this picture shows the 4 steps of the painting process

4- strut bars
i had a cusco rear strut bar
and a freshly powder coated nismo front strut bar

the nismo bar was bent just a bit in the accident when the hood pushed against it, but it was still structuraly sound, and only small spots of powercoat had come off

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5- HID kit
my old GTR had an old school HID kit, pretty old, with huge ballasts
and it was something i absolutely loved on it,
i had to keep it

6- cat back exhaust
like i said in chapter 3part2, the huge 4,5" exhaust tip just wasn't my cup of tea,
and since i was going to drive the car alot on long journeys, it was also too loud (for my girlfriend)

my old cat-back though, only had a 2,5" tip, fitted flush with the rear bumper, and was much quieter

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any general, a much more subtle exhaust

7- battery
i had bought a special "dry" gell-type Braille Battery, about 1/2 the size of standard skyline batteries and 1/3 the size of standard north american batteries, for the same power output,
and it weighted only 11,5 lbs ! and was so small, that i actually had to make a wooden box for it to fit properly
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second thing on the list was to fix some of the things i didn't like about the car

1- steering
sine i'm tall and large, my seat is always in the furthest position,
and the "flat" momo steering wheel was uncomfortably far from me
so, i sourced a Sparco 50mm steering wheel spacer
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2- boost gauge
since the HKS EVC1 is an absolute dinosaur, it doesnt have a screen so you never really know how much your boosting
and the stock narrowband boost gauge is [-7 , +7] in 100mmHG which equals to a range of [-13.54 , +13.54] in PSI which wasn't enough
so a broadband [-30 , +30]PSI Autometer Pro-comp Ultra-lite gauge was sourced
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3- turbo timer
the BEtime was old, which means it must have been installed a long time ago, which is a good sign the car the old owner cared about the car
but it was also hard to use
and i had a BNIB HKS type-0 turbo timer which was supposed to go on the old GTR
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4- rear subframe slop
to correct the slopiness in the rear subframe,
some subframe spacers and diff bushings were sourced

5- FMIC grill
i think GTRs came with a grill in front of the FMIC, but they are a rare sight
i needed one, because..
the first time i took my old GTR to its top speed (limited ~180km/h) i saw a brown stop pass right in front of me really quickly
the next day at school, during lunch time, a friend of mine stormed into our engineerng locale saying;
"frank, when the hell did you hit that bird?!"
i was like, "what bird??"

that brown spot was actually a little bird, that got wedged between my front bumper and the lip, 3" away from the FMIC,
so i've been kind of paranoid about having a grill since

6- radio
damned jdm radios are crap, so i called up a buddy who works at Future Shop to get a GREAT deal on a ipod control pioneer deck
this thing is so sleek!
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7- HID
my old hid bulbs were busted from the accident,
so Haig from autoworx found me some new bulbs that would fit N1 headlights (not cheap)

8- oils
new fluids all around!
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9- cam gear cover
i didn't like the greddy clear cover, since it messed up whole look of the engine bay,
anyway, who wants to see stock cam gears ??

so i took the over off my old engine,
went to Polissage St-hubert with the spark plug cover, where i got my nismo strut bar coated (which wasn't very good btw, but he was the closest powder coater),
i showed the guy the spark plug cover;
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i asked him to match the color as well as possible
the guy didn't seem to give a ****, he just oppened a couple catalogs, and chose a random gold color he would have to order
so i gave him two constrains ;
1- i gave him 16 days MAX (for the appointment below) to have it done (since the first time he was really slow)
2- i wasn't going to pay more than 40$, just for a cover (he charged me 60$ for the strut bar)

the first appointment

since i was getting ready for a 7 days Caribbean cruise with my family, for my father's 50th birthday, i didn't have time (and installations) to do everything myself

so i called up the experts, Autoworx for an appointment, which was arranged to be 4 days after i came back from the cruise

i had called Polissage St-hubert a couple times to see if the cam gear cover had been dore, everytime i was told the paint didn't arrive (after 2 weeks ! wtf?!)
so finally i was going to drop the car off at Autoworx on a wednesday, for 6pm, without the cover
i absolutely needed it before the car left autoworx to have it swapped

so on that wednesday, while at work, i kept calling the guy's shop,
first no answer..
then his wife told me to call later..
then i got him on the phone, saying the paint had ~just~ arrived, and that he would start sandblasting it (wtf that wasn't done already ??)
then again, 2 hours later, he had just finished blasting it,
another 2 hours later, he had just finished painting it
last time i called him at 4pm it was almost done cooking
HOW SLOW DOES THIS GUY WORK :confused:

since i had to leave from work directly to autoworx, and my father was my lift back,
i called him to pick up the cover, because it was too late to stop by to pick it up,

so my dad arrived at autoworx about an hour after me
i took a look at the cover, and i was pissed
it was clear the color didn't match properly
and there was a couple pale spots and bubbles in the paint
and then my father told me the guy charged 60$ for the job, now i was fawking furious:furious:
anyways, at least i had it

this is what was done at autoworx ;

--install boost gauge
--install hks turbo timer / uninstall betimer
--swap cat-back exhausts
--install HID kit with 6000k bulbs

--install subframe spacers and diff bushings
--oil change ; Motul 4100 15w50 synthetic motor oil
- - redline shockproof Mt-90 an ATF gear oil, rear diff, front diff, transfer case, tranny (9 liters!!)
--radiator flush, with Motul MoCool fluid
--cam gear cover swap
--install FMIC mesh grill
- - and also had them stick my old GTR trunk badge in the middle of it

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also got new NGK-R spark plugs and a 0gauge marine battery wire while i was there


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just before leaving for the cruise, i went on RHDJapan.com and ordered a couple thigs;

to be continued in next chapter

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 5 - blood sweat and tears, part1

just before i left for the cruise this is what i ordered;

-i didn't like the feel of the cylinder-like nismo gear knob, so i ordered a nismo duracon ball type knob
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-hks replacement air filters
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-a set of HKS coilover wrenches
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-HKB 5mm slip on wheel spacers
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-Nismo thermostat

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-and i also ordered through a local group buy these custom SS brake lines made by TurboQuip in montreal
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-also ordered a nismo rad cap, from Daryl i think, to match the general "nismo" theme of the car
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-since i knew i would be driving "often" over 180km/h,
i bought a cluster with a 320km/h Nismo speedo in it from a GTRC forum member (can't remember who..)
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this is not the actual cluster i bought since i can't find the FS add anymore

-last but not least, i went on ebay and found some nice nismo decals and badges
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then i contacted Vince, a specialist, who worked on two of my friends VW MK4 GOLFs
a detailler
got an appointment for just after my cruise for a thorough job;
-good wash
-claybar
-buffing and waxing
-sealant
when i delivered the skyline, it was something else for him, since he was used to VWs and Audis (every member of his familiy owns either a VW or an Audi)
it was his first skyline, and his 2nd JDM (mk4 supra)

when i came back from the cruise, i had some time to work on the car myself
so i spent ALOT of late nights and weekends in the garage getting all sweaty and dirty...

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steering

first thing i did, was trying to get the damned steering re-aligned
so i got the puller out, and had fun
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steering wheel spacer

after that i installed the sparco spacer,
and realized that i had to use the countersink screws for the flat spacer and the flat screws for the countersink holes in the steering
i needed an exact opposite set of screws

i never though sourcing a dozen screws worth about 5$ would have been so hard, but finaly got lucky at QuebecBolt Industries

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battery relocation kit

after that, i embarqued on what would be one of my biggest challenges,
passing the 0gauge marine battery wire through the inside of the car, from the engine bay to the trunk

so i just emptied the car to be able to work more easily

getting the huge 0-gauge wire, plus a 8-gauge ground wire from the front to the back was an absolute pain in the butt, took me the better part of two days

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at the same time i decided to re-paint the extremely worn magazine holder

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ipod cable

before putting everything back together, i drilled a hole in the bottom of the arm rest storage compartment, and ran an Ipod docking cable from the arm rest to the back of the console

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radio install

then i turned my attention to the radio
this was my first time installing a deck

i used the sony compatible harness from the old sony deck, hacked it, and had a friend help me soldering the wires to make a full Pioneer harness with the "half-harness" that came with the pioneer deck

while i was at it i decided to swap the positions of the A/C control and radio, since most north american decks have the master button on the left (LHD), if the deck is at the bottom you always have to avoid the shift knob when using the master button
Image
the song is MUSE's take a bow ! not Rihanna's :wacko:

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shift knob

when i swap shift knobs, i realized the old long knob was really had its threads really deep, which made for a low sitting knob

when i put the small ball-type duracon knob, it was sitting really high and was too short,
there was a 1,5" gap between the bottom of the knob and the shift boot
so i looked around the old boxes in the garage and scavenged a huge conical rubber bushing, that i put under the boot, to leave no space between the boot and the knob,
this is how it looks now
Image

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
HKS air filters

i took off the whole HKS suction kit to swap put in new filters

Image

while i was at it, i cleaned the body and the washer fluid tank

Image

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
HID bracket

since i came back from my cruise, i invited my friends to the new garage if they needed the space, tools or just help to work on their cars

one day, my friend Just-in-time came with his B18 swapped EF civic sedan for a couple things;
-install new upper control arms
-install new brake discs and pads, and clean the calipers
-and fix a couple other things i just can't remember

Image

while we were working, he took off some old strut bar brackets (since he didn't have the bar) and left them lying in my garage (the prick)

but then while i changed the air filters, i was looking for a way to old the HID ballasts in place, instead of having them lying under the filters
i found out the strut bar brackets fit the MAFs and the ballasts perfectly

so i grinded them, sanded them down, and painted them, voilà!!

Image

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
320km/h speedo

while i had everything out, i swap clusters,
then i found the hard way that the cluster was a pre91 beige-back cluster,
which wasn't compatible with my 91 blue-back
so the only thing working properly after the swap was the only mechanically driven gauge, the speedo,
all the other gauges were all over the map, and all the lights were turned on

so i tried swapping the speedos out of both clusters, which didn't work either
Image

because the blue-back cluster doesn't have the pin hole connection that the beige-back clusters have
Image

so i was reffered by Haig to a expert at making custom clusters in Dollard-des-ormeaux, Sebastien, who was actually an engineering student like me, but graduated a year or so ago

He modified the Nismo speedo to work with the blue-back 91 cluster

while he did that, i had to drive the GTR without a cluster
which is one of the least fun things to do because of two important factors
1- you never know which speed your going, obviously
2- since there's no speedo to send the speed signal to the ECU, it drops the power steering pressure which leaves you with no HICAS or power steering

but looking at the speedo cable spin is hilarious though

so i picked up the newly modded speedo, re-installed it in the car,
and tried it on the highway with a GPS unit to see if the speedo matched the actual speed of the car,

and everything worked, yey!
Image

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
finally some results

right after the detailling job
i picked up the Work wheels
put them on the car, with the Rays nuts

so this is what the car looked like at that moment

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that was in june, still alot of work to be done
Last edited by frankiman on Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 5 - blood sweat and tears, part2


ok so lets pick-up where i left off, all this was done in july

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
finding the reason for that damned rear slop

by slop i mean, everytime i changed gear i felt the rear end move backwards and forwards, and a rumbling noise came from the tranny around 2000rpm in 2nd gear or higher

so after talking to a few people, my guess was that the driveshaft was the culprit

then i went to a driveshaft shop with my old driveshaft and its matching hangar, to have it all swapped, since i knew that was 100% prefect

Image

cost me 50$ and didn't change anything :(



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-front brakes / front coilovers

since i kept the freshly painted and rebuilt calipers from my old GTR, i decided to swap them to get that white / blue color scheme on the car

also, i didn't know in what state the brakes were in, and going on the track without that knowledge is a big NO-NO

so i took everything off in the front
Image
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everything was in great shape suprisingly,
pads were project mu (from the color)
found stainless steel lines !!! (crap, already bought another set)
everything was dirty as hell,

while i had the coilovers out, i cleaned them, and re-ajusted them
because of my weight, the front tires were rubbing inside the wheel wells, i guess the previous japanese owner didn't weigh much

so i put them up by 1/2'', with the HKS wrenches i had just received

but HKS coilovers are designed with very smaller lower adjustment (locking) nut, and i broke each on the rear coilovers, using the wrench!
a zip tie and duct tape later, its fine

and also found out that most rubber dust seals were ripped
so i'll be ordering a couple rebuild parts this winter..

Image

then i got ready to install my old new stuff, with everything cleaned

Image

Hawk HP+ brake pads
Nismo rotors
custom TurboQuip brake lines
HKB 5mm wheel spacers

Image
Image

also, while i had the wheels off, decided to paint the center of the hubs white
thats because no one makes center caps for Work Emotion CR wheels, and i got quoted 60$/cap to get some custom made, and thats without paint

it sucks since, if i were still working as a machinist, i could have made some myself in an hour or 2

so i taped everything off, and painted just the spindle and nut with rustproof metal white paint that i got at canadian tire racing depot

Image


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
rear brakes, rear subframe

so then i got to the rear

yeah those are curiously oversized discs
started taking them off and realized i had a conversion kit
brackets and 2'' bigger discs,
these, are rare as fawk Garage Saurus Big 350mm Rotors (standard are 297mm)

Image
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while trying to take off the discs, i wiggled them and felt the half shaft turn, i bit more than i though it should have, without the driveshaft moving
so i though i had a loose rear diff, which could have been the cause for all that rear loose feel

so, not taking any chances, i decided to put the subframe from my old GTR all back together, since i would have to change the brake back plates (since they were heavily modified to fit the 350mm rotors)
and i would install the new brake parts on that subframe, instead of directly on the car

nismo rotors,
hawk hp+ pads
turboquip brake lines
brand new oem handbrake shoes
new grounding wires
also painted the center nut on each side

Image


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
the second appointment

i called up autoworx, needing to swap the whole rear subframe assembly, Haig was like ''wtf, the whole thing?''

so i had my dad drop it off (by truck), on the little dolly,
from what my dad told me, the guys there apparently had a good laugh

Image

so this is what was done

-empty/keep diff fluid (at 16$/L you don't want to waste that thing)
-drop old subframe
-re-install new one
-refill diff fluid
-connect brake lines, bleed brake system with Motul RBF660 i brought them
-install nismo thermostat
-install a wideband O2 sensor bung onto the downpipe (for dyno tune)

i picked up the old subframe a couple days after

as soon as is got out of the shop with the car, it felt super tight, which was what i was looking for

but by the time i got home, it felt just as loose as before :(
so swaping diffs didn't change anything


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
preperations for D-day (dyno day)

i got the car back from autoworx on a friday
and my appointment for the dyno tune was tuesday

monday morning i got my baffled twin turbo pipe from MWracing

Image

so i installed it, and re-checked all of the clamps
made sure i had no leaks

also re-checked all of the spark plugs, and added a grounding wire to the coilpack rail

Image

the actual dyno tune will be covered in next chapter


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some porting, some polishing, some painting, alot of elbow grease

a couple days after the dyno, i decided to ''pretty up'' my engine bay a bit

my old twin turbo pipe had been hand polished a bit, which looked great
so i started sanding it,
which gave me the idea to do the same thing with my HKS suction kit elbows

this is how the pipe came out after awhile

Image

then i wanted to do the same to the intake manifold because its paint was starting to flake
not wanting to lose the car for a couple of days, i took the manifold off my old engine

Image

so just for fun, i took the pipe and manifold to a polishing / chrome plating speciality shop to get a quote

LOLZ
for the pipe; 125 polished, 230 chromed
for the manifold; 460 polished, 800 chromed

at that point, i kinda decided to do everything myself
but polishing the intake manifold would have taken days
i went to canadian tire racing depot again, and found a high temp paint color that would match the engine covers

before painting it, i decided try to port all the openings, sanding them with up to 800grit paper and a bit of polishing paste
and i did the same to the twin turbo pipe, and HKS elbows, which all had very rough interior surfaces (like most aluminum castings)
probly not going to do much, but it can't hurt thats for sure

i even cheaped out on a good sandblast job, (since i didn't know of any place close that could do it), BIG MISTAKE
it took me 7 hours to scrape and sand the paint off, :furious:
i blocked all the bolt holes, and used masking tape for the opening

i think it came out great, after 7 coats of paint, and 2 coats of clear

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i enlisted the help of another GTR owner, former GTRC member BNR69, former beause he sold his GTR and bought a G35coupe, at least its still a nissan

it took us 5 hours to take the old manifold off and put the new one back in, mostly because the oil filter was in the way, using the metal gaskets from my old engine

i also got a great polished Greddy oil filler cap from a GTRC member who i can't recall

Image

so this is how the engine bay as looked since then

Image

heres a before/after shot, big improvement i think, does anyone else?

BEFORE
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AFTER
Image
Last edited by frankiman on Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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frankiman
Posts: 25
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Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

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i've heard too many weird stuff about brake from people who clearly don't anything about them

this is following the question asked about BBK in the GTR discussion section (i copied this post from the one i posted in there)


ok let's clear up some facts about big brake kits, or plain bigger brakes than original

i study mechanical engineering, so i know a bit about this
lets look at the situation from an engineering point of view (based on fact, knowledge, and calculations)


when SCC did their BBK test using a stock-ish RSX, they found that most BBK took a longer distance to stop from the same speed, why?

because they forgot what was actually touching the road

because, logically (and based on facts) a car cannot brake more than its tires alow it too
which means the maximum a car can deccelarate is based on the grip of the tires and the weight of the car (and wheels)

if you keep the same tires (lets say 300 utg street tires), and install bigger brakes, theres a certain chances you will take a longer distance to stop, why? the brakes overpower the tires

because the braking limit is still dictated by the tires threshold grip, but you are adding the rotational inertia of the larger rotors (rotational inertia grows exponentially with diameter) because they have a larger diameter AND they weigh a bit more, which has a tremendous impact on the total weight of a car


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


ok now lets look at this from another point of view, the advantages of upgrading bigger brakes

i will use a personnal experience for this one,

this summer i went to a track day, a st-croix's riverside speedway near quebec city

there was a nissan 240sx, stripped out, with about 310whp, on racing slicks still using the stock single piston calipers (idiot)

this is how his pads looked at the end of the day, let me explain why
(i pickep them up after he threw them i the trash, before leaving the track)
Image

in this case what happened is that the tires overpowered the brakes

the threshold grip of the racing slick tires was much much higher than the maximum braking capabilities of his system
which meant he had to apply an enormous amount of force the pads using the pressure area of only 1 piston,
this caused the pads and rotor to heat up quicker and to an higher temp
the temperature of the pads (porterfield brand) exceeded its designed limits which caused them to desintegrate much quicker to an extent where he did his last 8 laps without any compound left on his pads

this meant the pads metal backing was beeing pushed with tremendous force against the metal brake rotors, again everything heated up beyond the system's limits, and thats why his single piston calipers left prints on the pad's metal backing, and the rotors dug 3mm into those backing


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


in his situation, it would have been extremely advantageous to use bigger brakes,
for example, lets see what would have happened with stock skyline R32 GTR brakes

1st, the bigger rotors,
by using bigger rotors, it means the calipers braking surface is further away from the center of the rotor, why is it better ? lets calculate
the stock s13 front rotors are 257mm
the stock GTR front rotors are 296mm
(296-257)/2= ~20mm, this means that the rotors are 20mm further outwards
lets assume the braking force is the same, the lever (distance from center of rotor to the outer diameter is 15% longer, which means the brake torque is 15% more

2nd, the 4 piston calipers
a single piston caliper pushes the rotor from one side against a flat part of the calip, sliding along the way loosing power
so the braking surface is actually a bit less of the piston's area, = (pi*diameter^2)/4
i think the piston diameter is about 40mm, so, pressure area is (3.1416*40^2)/4 = 1256.63mm^2
on a forged two piece 4 pistons caliper from a GTR, each piston are paired and they push the rotors against themselves, which doesn't casue loss of power like in the single piston approach
i think the pistons are 25mm in diameter each, so, pressure area, is 4*(3.1416*25^2)/4 = 1963.5mm^2
so the pressure area of the GTR calipers is 156% greater


so if you apply the same force to both systems, lets say 1MPa (MegaPascal) =145psi
pressure*area = force force*radius = torque
s13, 1*1256.63*(257/2) = 161 476.95 Nmm of brake torque
GTR, 1*1963.5*(296/2) = 290 568 Nmm of brake torque

GTR/S13
the GTR's brake system is (theoretically) 180% more powerfull than the S13's


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


another advantage of using bigger brake is, that you have to apply far less force to get the same brake torque as smaller brakes, which means you are creating much less heat
and bigger rotors dissipate their heat much more easely, because of their larger contact surface with the air (inside and outside the rotor)
also, since bigger rotors have more mass, they absorb more heat (energy) so they heat up (temperature) less


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


lets go back to the first topic,

like the saying goes '' you are as strong as your weakest link ''

a car's maximum braking power is dictated by its weakest link, its tires or its brake, whichever is the weakest

for most of you, using stock GTR calipers, driving on 300utg tires, you will never overpower your brakes
and if you don't go to the track, there is absolutely no reason you should need a Big Brake Kit,


to get the most performance without changing calipers,

is to go with better alloy ''plain'' (not cross-drilled, not slotted) brake rotors, like Brembo's rotors

use DOT4 or higher brake fluid, which will absorb alot more heat (energy) before boiling

use nylon/stainless steel braided brake line, that won't expand with heat like rubber lines

use higher temp brake pads, pads that have higher coefficient of friction that can still perform at higher temperatures
for example, hawk HP+ pads work from 30°F to 600°F unlike stocks that only work from -20°F to about 350°F


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


about SCC's big brake kit test,

if they would have used racing slick tires like Hoosiers, tires that no street brake kit could overpower, then they would have clearly seen the difference between each brake kit


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


about front / rear brake bias, not only does it influence the maximum braking performance of a car, but also its handling caracteristics under hard braking (oversteer, understeer)

thats why there are compagnies like Wilwood that make brake bias valves

brake bias is really hard to get right, since it is based on the front and rear weight distribution of a car, its front and rear mechanical grip (suspension setup), its front and rear brake system's power and its front and rear tire grip (if using different compounds or different width)
its something that can take a couple months for a group of engineers to design


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


about brake pads, i will tell you something 99,99% of you don't know, how exactly do brake pads work, why do they squeal?

well, brake pads don't work based on their ''coefficient of friction'' like everybody thinks

the pads performance is based on the ''coefficient of stiction'' or ''sticking coefficient'' between the compound of the pad and the alloy of the rotor

when you brake, a layer of the pad's compound is transfered to the rotor
but only after they have attained a certain temperature (temp range of the pad)
its the stickyness between the pad and the pad's compound on the rotor that actually brakes the car

if the pads worked by friction, brake rotors wouldn't last weeks, they would erode too fast

if you really brake hard all the time, the pads will erode quickly because of all its compound beeing transfered to the rotors

so, before the pads attain that temperature, they work by friction, which makes the rotors resonate (at a certain force application) wich is the squeal you hear
over that range, and the compound with break apart, disintegrate (melt away)


thats all non-engineers should know about brakes!

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frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

mouhaaha, just got this pic from the guy who took the actual picture and had it printed in 20''x30''

this is going to look sick once i get it, and put it on my wall

Image

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frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 6 - tuning session, dyno style


tuesday july 7th 2009

early that morning i rechecked everything again, packed extra pints of every fluids i could need and drove to Almasi Tuning, to get the car tuned my Robin Almasi:bowdown:

after a short 20 minutes drive, i arrived at the shop, closed

o...k, my appointment was for 10am, and its was 9;50

at 10;15, i saw an old s*** civic park next to me (the car was named s***#1) crazy little racing car
Image

a little indian guy, sajan the poonji rocket, walked out and greeted me;
''are you waiting for Robin? obviously, i'm not him'' lol

so he opened up the shop, started to get everything ready
while i was helping him, we talked alot and found out he was also an engineering student like me, but at Concordia

also i noticed this, on the dyno's screen from the day before, lets just say, its quite interesting
Image

by the time Robin got there, the car was already jacked up, rear-wheel-less and beeing bolted to the dynapack hydraulic dynamometers

Image
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Robin placed the big a** fans in front of the car, plug all the sensors, MAP sensor, wideband AFR sensor, ambient air temp

he started asking me about engine mods;
''so, what do you got in there?''

list of engine related mods at time of tune

HKS EVC1 boost controller
HKS suction intake kit
HKS legal cat-back exhaust
Nismo 555cc injectors
Nismo FPR
Nismo fuel pump
Nismo downpipe
Nismo thermostat
Greddy FMIC
Greddy intercooler hardpipe kit
baffled twin turbo pipe
NGK-R spark plugs, gapped to 0.35''

''what about the turbos?''
stock i gues...


then he took the stock ECU out, opened it up and went upstairs to his workbench to install the chip
back 5 minutes later;
''hey did you know you already had a chip?''
maybe, tuned to jdm 150octane or whatever cause the engine was running hyper rich
reconnected the ECU to the car
then took my boost controller off and checked all the connections behind it to be able to set different boost levels for each button, since i got this crazy old HKS EVC1, with push buttons.. which is just crappy
Image

then he plugged his laptop into the ECU, checked all the signals, started the car and let it run for a couple minutes
he got comfortably into the driver's seat, setup his work area, laptop, wireless keyboard for dyno's computer

Image

them he checked to make sure his laptop was getting all the gauges signals from the ECU, looked at the engine temp, turned around and said ''nice, you got a nismo thermostat in there!''
just by looking at the engine temp

when everything was ready, he pressed the START button
Image
and thats when the magic happened

garage door closed
ceiling lights turned on
fans turned on
exhaust fan system turned on
dyno cooling system turned on
dyno software booted up

i was like woahh

so typed in all the required inpurs to setup the dyno software and did a couple test pulls in 3rd gear
all his test pulls were between 3000rpm to 5000rpm,
and the lowest boost setting possible, around 8,7psi
after every pull he checked the AFR at the higher rpms to make sure i had a good enough fuel delivery system
since the dyno's cut-off was set at 5000rpm, hp only went up to ~200

then broadened the rpm range from 2500 to 6000
and then he started modifying the fuel and timing maps
with the cut-off at 6000, hp went up to ~240

and finally, full WOT pulls between 2000rpm and 7000rpm
why only 7000? cause i asked him only to tune up to there just for safety reason, i didn't want to stress the engine too much before really knowing its potential
so over 7000rpm ignition and fuel maps are pretty conservative
and to keep a good idle and low speed driveability, so are the below 2000rpm maps

i was really admiring his work, and i kept asking questions and getting his opinion on a load of tuning subjects
i had a real good time watching him work

after each pull, he said ''nice, i can advance another degree''
and he also kept ajusting fuel injection to kept the AFR as stable as possible

he maxed everything out for the final ''low boost'' pull, still beeing a bit conservative
so he got 300whp @ with peak boost of ONLY ~8,7psi

low boost (~300whp @ 6600rpm @ 8,7psi)

POWER vs AFR
Image

POWER vs BOOST
Image

then he got out the driver's seat, looking perplexed, told me;
''there's no way OEM turbo can move this much below 9psi, you sure you got stockers?''

to which i responded; ''i have to friging clue man''

he took a flashlight and started poking around the scalding shielded exhaust manifold, but couldn't see crap and it was obviously too hot to ''feel'' it
so he told me to wait a couple minutes as he wanted to try something

after the engine had cooled down a bit, told me to sit in the car and turn it off while he had his face right up to the exhaust manifolds,
i turned it off,
''yup thats what i though!!''
me = :dunno:
then we switched places
he turned it back on, then off
''did you hear it?''
me = :dunno::dunno: ''hear what?!''
again... turned it back on then off
me = :dunno::dunno::dunno: ''what???''
him;''turbos man''
me; ''what about them?''
him; ''they keep spining!''
me; ''what does that mean?''
him; ''bearings man''
me; ''...''
him; ''ball bearings!''
OH SNAP...
me; :banana::headbang2:

he jumped back into the driver's seat, programmed another boost setting (turned a darn screw on the back of my crappy old EVC1, i hate that thing with a passion)
my first setting beeing the lowest possible (~8,7psi)
he put the second setting at 10,5psi
then the third setting at 12psi
and did a couple other pulls

''man, you got a really healthy RB''

and this is what he got out of it

med boost (~360whp @ 6600rpm @ ~12psi)

POWER vs TORQUE
Image

and turned around, looked at me and said;
''how high you want to go?''
me; ''dunno man, really want to keep it safe and reliable...''
him; ''*****...this setup could probly take 16psi''
me; ''ok, lets go to 14~ish''
him; ''done''

he set it to about 14psi
and did about half a dozen pulls to get it just right, making small adjustments to the ignition timing and fuel maps after each pull

i kept staring at the dyno's screen with an enormous :D
my original goal for that day was to leave with 340whp (exactly 400bhp)
but the hp number kept going up on the screen

final pull saw a peak power off ~381whp (450bhp) @ ~13,7psi
the 555cc injectors were at ~72% duty cycle
mafs were at ~83% capacity
oil pressure was bang on, so was oil and water temp

so it all sounds alright, even based on this calculator
Image

high boost (~381whp @ 6600rpm @ ~13.7psi)

POWER vs TORQUE
Image

you can clearly see torque falling off quickly after ~6500rpm, because of the conservative tune i asked him to do, cause even on the track i rarely shift beyong 7600rpm (i'm not the kind of big oaf to blow an engine at 9000rpm :P)

POWER vs BOOST
Image

and from this chart, you can see that the turbo spool-up isn't too great, i might have something a bit bigger than N1 turbos actually

and boost isn't stable at all, maybe something to do with wastegate actuators or boost controller selenoid, my ECV1 is at least 15 years old, i might be pushing it a bit, anyway, just ordered a new one :wink:

POWER vs AFR
Image

and from this chart you can see my fuel pump / injectors delivers throughout the rpm range without falling off

---------------------------------

so thats that, i left the shop with a bg a** smile on my face, and i got the ''good guy'' discount too,
and now all the guys from almasi/synoptic are good friends

after the tune, i went to the track with sajan a couple times, even gave me a ride in his civic :yikes:
stock seats / seatbelt = never again
anyways, that car is now totalled (backed into a wall at 100+kph at calabogie racetrack :sad: )


with what i got planned for next summer, 425whp/500bhp will be an easily achieveable target
and no teasers, everything will be explained after my last 2009 recap chapter, in the projected 2010 build chapter
(btw, car as been in storage since october 20th)
Last edited by frankiman on Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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frankiman
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Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 7 - 2009 track days, part1

i know its been awhile, after months of promises, finally another chapter in my ''saga''

since the title of my thread is ''Frankiman's street/track GTR project'' i had to talk about my track experiences at some point

2008
i started doing lapping events (practices) in 2008 with my previous GTR, as some of my buddies where doing it, and it was cheap, and i had always had a great passion for racing

so there i was with a 300hp japanese racing icon
i started doing a couple lapping evenings at Autodrome St-Eustasche for starters

since i had to cross the whole island of montreal to get there, i didn't go to often, and got pretty unlucky as everytime i went either it was raining of there wasn't enough beginners to have multiple beginner session
(sorry for the quality, this is a pic of a printed pic)
Image

then i ordered a couple parts to make the car more track worthy, ended up slowly working on it for 3 months, and then crashing it (refer to chapter 1)

=======================
2009

when i bought my current GTR, i new i wanted to do ALOT more track days
hence why i overhauled to whole brakes and had to car tuned on a dyno before ever setting foot at the track

-----------------------------
Autodrome St-Eustasche (ASE)

or course i went back to ASE first since thats where my passion for lapping started, and where all of my buddies went to
Image

in 2008, the lapping club was called TRAC, sponsered by a shop also named TRAC that was based just outside the ASE, the club included about 10 instructors and a couple flaggers, and about 60 members tops, cost was 160$ for membership, and 20$/20min sessions, basically 1$/min

but, apparently, the shop's owner was paying his distributors, so the shop closed down, and the lapping club was dead

then, in 2009, Carl Wener, who worked at TRAC and was a lapping instructor, picked up the club, got sponsored by the ASE's owner
and Carl went back working at his family's shop; Perry Auto Laval, which is one of the biggest/best oem and a/m parts shop around Montreal, which also sponsors the club in a way, and Carl became the club's director and renamed it the ''ASE Lapping Club''
do to some clever web advertising, word to mouth and business planning, membership prices dropped to 100$ for new members and 60$ for returning members
which had the effects of having more than 150 people sign up

so this is how the club works,
you can turn up in any car you want, mechanically safe, no leaks whatsoever
a Snell/DOT helmet is required, a roll bar for convertible cars, and every loose objects must be removed from the cars prior to getting on the track, and NO drifting
its on monday evenings, starts at 5pm till sunset
drivers are seperated in 4 groups;
beginners ; instructor as passenger at all times, no passing
intermediate ; instructor on demand, passing on straights only
advanced
; no contact
pros ; race cars and lisenced pilots

so of course i started as a beginner again, since i never got the yellow sticker the previous year because i didn't come often enough

so i went there twice a month, right after my univestiy afternoon class, (sometimes even skipping the second half of it i'll admit)
and did a total of about a dozen sessions during the summer, sometime i got there so late there weren't any RED sessions left :(
the later in the summer, the sooner the evening ended, the less time we had

towards the end of the summer, i finally accounted for enough track time to get the exam (basic rules and flags) to get into the yellows intermediate
but i never lapped in that group since i tore my ligaments in my left ankle at work around that time, and couldn't really race, still i went there one last time just to pass the exam and get my yellow sticker

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this is one the best pictures my girlfriend took, the only time she came with..
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===========================
Mad Track Weekend 1

i'd heard about Mecaglisse from a friend, and since there was no club based there, i had register to one of Mecaglisse's own lapping day
and since they have a limit of 24 cars/day and only organize 3 days like that per year (rest of the time the track is rented for pro events, or by some clubs) i reserved 3 months in advance

then, 3 weeks before that, when i got my GTR tuned at Almasi, the afternoon appointment was a EK civic coupe with a supercharged SIR motor owned by a very cute girl named Cynthia
so i ''decided'' to stay a bit longer after lunch while her car was getting tuned
then she told me she was lapping too, but at SANAIR, which i thougt was only a drag strip, but it also had a road course
she told me it was only 100$ for the whole day **sweet**

but the next track day at SANAIR was on the same weekend as the one at Mecaglisse :yikes:

--------------
a week before that dreaded weekend, i drove down to the shop where the girl worked at (JDM transplant) to give her the 100$
nextdoor there was a wheels and tires shop, so i got in there asking if they could do me a favor

at that time, i'd been already driving for a while with the wrong tires on the wrong wheels, because i got my wheels painted way before i got my spacers, only my +28 wheels could fit in the front, so i had my Neovas mounted on them, and my Azenis on my +38 in the rear
when i got my spacers, i could finally swap my wheels in the correct positions
but then my tires' grip balance was more to the rear which made the car understeer much more, and with the Azenis in front, they kept locking under heavy brake

so i got the guys from that shop (who had absolutely nothing to do that day from the looks of it) to swap all the tires/wheels and rebalance
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but ..:banghead: i seemed to had lost the key to my sweet Rays nuts at ASE 2 days prior ......fuuuuuuuuuuuck
we had no choice but to destroy the locks with some nut pullers thingy
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now i had everything set-up perfectly

------------
SANAIR

so on saturday morning of that weekend, i met up with all the drivers very early at a mcdonalds, they had some serious cars, which i didn't really anticipate, STI, S2K, turbo civics, S4, FD3S, turbo golf, built S13
so we drove for 40 minutes down to the track, waited in line to sign the darn disclaimer
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since it was my first time at SANAIR, i asked the STI owner to drive me around a couple laps to learn the road course, :driving: he was a super guy, except for 1 thing,
on his first lap (my first lap ever) while going threw the chicane, he tells me;
''be carefull here, theres a bump, just last week 2 skylines slid here and smashed in the tire wall'' :yikes:
my confidence went out the window..

then i realized most of the hondas (and the turbo golf) where there just to get top speeds on the drag straight and didn't really care about the corners,
but others, like the Carbon S2K (see much below), the STI, the EP civic SIR and the clown EG turbo civic where realllllly serious
and the S13 seemed to test its shoddy build quality by testing how long he could drive without a hose poping off, he used my tools more than i did

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the FD never made it onto the track apparently because of a radiator issue
and we were joined by an NSX after lunch which had busted brake pads, which was fixed after a quick trip to canadian tire :paperbag:

since we were a group that rented the track, there was no instructors, thus no ''rules''
we could just get on/off the track whenever we wanted

**since i'm running out of caracters, i'll have to continue this story in another post**

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 7 - 2009 track days, part2

[CENTER]''Mad Track Weekend 1'' continued[/CENTER]

the track wasn't as fun as others like ASE, the only interesting part was the straight,
i started by running my low boost setting (360hp) and i was getting just over 200km/h top speed
later i turned up the boost (450hp) i got 225~230km/h top speed :wink:

but this track is seriously deadly on brakes
since at the end of the straight lies the slowest corner of the track, so you have to brake from ~220km/h down to ~60km/h
that is ALOT of energy to disperse
which ulimately proved fatal to my Hawk HP+ pads and Nismo rotors
my pads were melting and making sooo much dust
this is how my WHITE rims looked like at mid-day
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after i drove home, i went to the car wash after diner, since my car was dirrrty and told the guys there not the get water on the wheels
that was 2 hours after i left the track
my drilled rotors had gotten so brittle, and were still a bit hot i suppose, that they cracked right along the holes (typical for drilled rotors:hurl:) from the humidity and overspray
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400$ worth of rotors scrapped


now what, i had to be at Mecaglisse the next morning, a 2 hours drive, or lose my 130$ deposit :readit:

luckily, i had another set of rotors, the ones that came with the car, :idea:
but i was so tired from my whole day, after taking a shower i fell asleep:sleep:
woke up at 11pm..
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got to the door and my dad said; ''your not realllllly going to go are you?''
went to the garage and swapped the dam rotors, took over an hour! i was so tired

-----------
Mecaglisse

sunday morning, i had to be at mecaglisse for 9am, got up at 6;45am

here you have to know that before any track day, i completely load up the car with tools, bottles of every fuilds, extra battery, 10L fuel tank, cooler with plenty of bottles of water, chairs and lunch
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well i forgot to refill the tank, change the water and pack a lunch
which i had to do before leaving
yey, great day to come

to make it worse, it started raining 20 minutes after i left
and around that hour, on a sunday morning, when its raining, there isn't alot of people on the road
i must have met 15 cars max on my 140km drive

when i finally got to Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci, which might be one of the smallest town ever, because i passed right by it,
the signs ''welcome to..'' and ''you are leaving..'' were within half a km of each other
theres only 4 things in that village; a caisse populaire, a general store, a gas station and a race track

so i turned around, and entered the path to the track, which looked like a rally stage with packed gravel and a sign saying; ''please respect the residents and do not powerslide'' of something like that and had to drive another 5km along that path at 30km/h following those signs
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finally got at the end of the path, saw 2~3 old houses which one had a ''Mecaglisse Inscription'' sign in front of
it was only 8;40 (ok maybe i drove a tad fast on those empty roads)
i knocked on the door, no answer, got back to the car, parked it behing the sign, folded the seat back, put on some MUSE, closed my eyes
at 9am sharp, Frank, the track's owner knocked on my window; ''you can go sign in now''
got inside and while i was signing the disclaimer, looked at the list of participants;

out of 24 possible spots, 18 had been reserved, out of 18, 4 didn't cancel because of the bad weather, including me
i took a quick peek, skyline, lancer, lancer, mazdaspeed
shwweet

after i signed in was told to wait in front of the bridge to wait for the others
''what bridge??'' this bridge.. where not at the track yet!
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followed Frank on his ATV for another 2km to finally see what can only be described as motorsports sanctuary
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than we got briefed, and Frank told us since there was only 4 cars, that he wouldn't stay around to check groups, basically it would be open lapping all day and that we could change direction whenever everyone would agree
he left a walkie-talkie with us and went back to the house

so these were the cars
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skyline GTR, 1st timer
lancer EVO X, 2nd timer
lancer ralliart, 1st timer (girl coached by her ''tremblant instructor boyfriend''
mazdaspeed3, 5th timer

the track was still uber wet, and it was sooooo humid, i stopped checking the barometer after i saw it do a full spin, think 100% humidity, and foggy too
i mean, really foggy
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so we were told to start slowly to wait for the track to dry out a bit
but of course Mr. 5th timer wasn't going to be told what to do, went all out, and crashed on his 3rd lap, which was my first (pic from my dash cam)
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he spun around at the little jump, hit a pile of gravel dead on, and was stuck jacked up onto barrier tires

so we got Frank on the radio, he came back with 2 other guys, with 3 ATVs, a bunch of shovels, brooms and jacks, we all helped out and everything was cleaned within 15 minutes

of course the mazda's front bumper was scrap, and the radiator was warped, so the guy left the car sitting on idle for about an hour to see if there would be a leak, but unfortunetaly for us there wasn't so he got back on the track
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because it was so humid, it didn't feel great going around a roller coaster track again and again, so we took alot of breaks between our short sessions

the instructor boyfriend called us p****** and told his GF to get back on the track, he had her pushing it totally to the limits, we counted at least 8 spin-outs (which is alot considering its a FWD),
when we checked her car nearing the end of the day, all this fun would ultimately end up costing her a new right ball joint, front brake pads, front rotors, front tires

the track was really fun tough, like i said, just like a roller-coaster with alot of elevation changes and tight corners
but with the configuration we were running, there wasn't much room for high speeds (blue part)
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i was driving around the whole track in 2nd gear, making my recirc valves going crazy, tshh tshh, and then putting it in 3rd just for that blue bit to get a top speed of ~115km/h, probly could've gotten higher if the braking zone for the chicane hadn't so wet, which had us braking early

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unfortunately, as the day progessed, i got more and more nauseous, probly mostly du to the high humidity, lack of sleep, exhaustion, the smell of gaz and burning brakes (mostly the ralliart's) and malnutrition (hey, all they had at the dam general store were pop-tarts)

when i started to feel like i needed to puke, it meant it was over for me, it was only 3pm, we still had an hour left, but i packed my stuff and headed back

i still had 100minutes of driving to do, AND COULD NOT stay awake, so after fighting it for 40 minutes, i stopped in st-julienne and parked behind a gas station, folded the seat back, put some MUSE on and closed my eyes (remind you of anything?)
took a 1 hour nap, woke up, went inside, picked up a redbull and a kit-kat and went straight home to bed

what a weekend !!!

**i'll start another post before i run out of caracters again**
**don't worry, vids will be in part3**

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 7 - 2009 track days, part3 **videos**

''Mad Track Weekend 2''

about a month after the first mad track weekend, i again made the mistake of scheduling 2 track days on the same weekend

SANAIR

went back to Sanair for the 2nd time, but since it wasn't the same person who rented the track, it was an entirely different group of people there that day
but the same amount of nice up cars!

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it was even more beautiful than the last time, clear sky, hot sun... hot tarmac

a friend of mine had tagged along to ride with me for the first half of the day
he got yelled at by the track's gate-keeper because he tought my buddy was going to race his Kawa Ninja around the track, pff
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the day went on and we all had alot of fun,

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i was destroying everyone on the straight except for 1 car

the dam 911 turbo went by me like i was parked
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so we got back into the pits and i asked him; ''you cannot seriously still be running stock 480hp?''
''no no, i swapped the turbos and upped the boost a bit..''
''and?''
''well... 600hp''
''ahhhhh''

but around corners, he wasn't much faster (probly the 20'' HRE rims not helping)

but there was 1 car going around corners like it was on rail-tracks
the ''Carbon S2K''
why carbon?
because everything body piece on that car was carbon fiber; front/rear diffuser, hood, hardtop, wing, side skirts
and he was running racing slick tires, and a stoptech BBK with race pads and had a fully built NA F20C engine
i made this little animation just to show how much better he was during hard braking and cornering
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funny thing is;
i used a full tank of gaz for the whole day, and only used my extra 10L just before leaving
but that S2K was on the track so often, it had to refull at the nearest gas station 3 times !

then, a friend of the guy who rented the track arrived just after lunch, with another supercar
he got on the track just for a few laps, but ohhh what a sound
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he got on when nobody else was on the track, the sound of his butterfly valves at WOT on the drag straight echoing around the track was definitely the best moment of the day


as the day went on, i felt my brakes becoming weirder and weirder, i felt the front of the car jittering and the brake pedal vibrating, wtf
so i got back in the pits, check the brake fluid level to see i was running low, o..k
so i filled it back up, and went back
like i said in part2
but this track is seriously deadly on brakes
since at the end of the straight lies the slowest corner of the track, so you have to brake from ~220km/h down to ~60km/h
that is ALOT of energy to disperse
well it seems i had forgotten to check the status of my brake pads the day prior, i had no compound left on the pads, just bare metal
i couldn't drive anymore as my front brakes were completely crapped
the reason my fluid was low is because the last thin layer of compound was quickly disintergrating which made the pistons travel further out of the calipers, sucking the fluid down with it
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i just never made the connection until too late
it was only 3;15pm, and i had another track day the next morning !
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while i was packing, i called up PerryAutoLaval, closed..
i called up Haig @ Autoworx, but he only had Hawk HPS in stock..
i wasn't going to drive 2 hours just to get to autoworx to grab a crappy set of pads when luckily:idea:, i had bought spare AMS pads from CobrAA just a few days earlier

but i still had to get home, so using my handbrake and the down-shifting (compression) technique, i managed to only use the front brakes 3 times on my 45 minutes drive back from the track

so i ended up working on the car late again, taking the front brakes apart, re-lubing everything just to change the darn pads


------
Riverside Speedway

before going to bed on saturday night, i sent an e-mail to the DarkSideCrew who had organized the track day at riverside to tell him i would be late, i was going to sleep this time

so i left at 9;30am for a 2 hour drive to St-Croix on the south shore of quebec city

why is it called riverside speedway you might ask, well its right beside the St-Lawrence river
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but when you arrive at the track, theres no way of knowing where it is, except for a little sign off the 132 road, leading into trees
then you have to drive down a zig-zag busted old half-paved path to finally get down to sea level
yeah, theres an elevation difference of 100 feet between the road and the track, which makes for an incredible sight while going down the path
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you can clearly see it here
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then i had to wait a few minutes for the gate-keeper to let me cross the track since the pits are in the middle of the track

i got briefed quickly by the chief flagger and asked him who could coach me to know the track real quick
he pointed to a USDM EVO9, shweet
so i got 3 laps of shotgun in the evo, fantastic car

and since i started lapping right after lunch, it was an open lapping formula from then on (groups before lunch)

then i discovered that AMS brake pads were absolute crap, the surface of my rotors were a bit uneven because of the day before, but still

i had to brake for sooo long before corners, at least 3 times the distance i would have braked with HP+ pads
and after only 6~7 laps, the pads were already overheating and i couldn't brake at all anymore
so i spent the day doing on-track sessions or 7 laps, and then waiting 30 minutes in the pits to let the brakes cool off between each session

its a nice track, about the size of ASE, but even simpler, and with a greater average speed
i got top speeds of about 150km/h, might have gotten 160+ with better brakes

the whole day was super, met alot of great people, alot of cool cars
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i was on of the last person of the day to leave and while i was packing up my stuff, the gate-keeper came round with his truck, hailed me;
''hey take this, you might be interested''
''but this is a registration sheet for a drift event..''
''yeah well i saw you drifting that hairpin all day!''
''sir, my car is AWD...'' :dunno:
:rolleyes: and he left

but you can see in that last picture, that i was actually powerslide the hell out of the hairpin's exit (note how much counter-steering im doing)


----
so thats my track experience in 2009
2010 is going to be siiick ( yeah with 3 i)

----
**Videos**


click the images to see vids

took awhile to finally make this dam vid, enjoy it!!! took me 12 hours to complete, my own montage

http://vimeo.com/9258222
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my buddy's vid

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/vide ... =668156458
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another guy's vid

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/vide ... =668156458
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User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 8 - 2009 meets, and GTRC members

unlike most of you guys who've been working on your car for so long, that you've forgotten how to shift with your left hand :P
i have, on the other hand, been driving my GTR around, alot, this past summer

not really using it as a daily driver, since i'd always use my other more economical car go to work school and what-not

i'd loved to just drive it around after i got back from school, you know, to let it stretch its legs between track days

but i would also drive it for ''special'' occasions, to places where i would park it and never have it out of my sight or never be more than 100 feet away from it pretty much, since i have yet to install anti-theft system

so i drove it to lots of tracks events, drove up to my chalet with it a couple times, went to quebec city with my girlfriend on holiday, and then there were car meets, lots of 'em

i put about 8000KMs on the car in 2009

@ chalet up north, did a little photoshoot on the beach with the camping ground's owner's son (camping -> don't know the english translation for ''pourvoirie'')
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@ quebec city
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JULEP

of course, for anyway who lives in the montreal area knows about Julep
its basically THE place for car meets,
my dad used to take me there i was a kid to look at hot-rods
everyday, theres a different car culture meeting there,
but thursday nights are always for tuners
[these are just some random picture of Julep i found on google since i dont have any pics of it myself]
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this pic was taken @ julep back when i had my first GTR
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so i went there practically once every 2 weeks
met alot of buddies there, and made alot more too

one night, we had a nice little skyline gathering, totally random though

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from right to left;
GTR - allwheeldrifter - aka Marco
GTR - me
GTR - deo13 - aka dave
GTS-T - deo's buddy who bought my AVS rims, but then sold his skyline for a sports bike :( - aka donovan

then, i met up with allwheeldrifter a second time to sell him some parts
and we were the only 2 cars parked at julep, on a friday night, me with my GTR and him with his beater
but then an italian man parked right next to us
with a freakin GTR, i mean a real one

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we talked for a good hour, he kept telling me how nice my car was, while i kept drooling all over his
he told me alot of stories of him beating 911s M3s and Ferraris around montreal, mostly on the A13
i told him i tracked my car and he got really interested, asked where i went and how it worked
so i invited him to come to the monday night lapping at ASE

told him that even if he got on the track for only 1 session, that he probly would have to pay the membership fees (100$ for new members)
he said; ''hey i own a GTR, i don't care about a little 100$'' :bigok:

so he came, the following week,
even told me i could dirve his car around the track for a couple laps :banana:
but the instructors didn't let me because i was still only a beginner :ChairShot:
next year i guess


so if you don't have anything to do on a thursday night and your engine isn't all over your garage, then come by Julep
if you don't act like an idiot you shouldn't get into any trouble with the cops
even if you have a 4'' muffler, well .... maybe not
i went there a dozen times, never got any trouble

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Five Roses

this was a one time meet, in a parking lot beside the old Farine Five Roses flour factory south of downtown MTL
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we had the promise of cool cars, private location and free hot dogs
i went with GTRC member WPJ who had just arrived from Calgary, but his GTS-T was still on the train
we got there pretty late, 11pm~ish, cuz i got lost and there was a ton of traffic do to construction in the area and all the people wanting to go out partying into Old MTL
the party was just beginning

i noticed there was a camera crew, and was told they were making a tuning DVD

we were told to drive around a bit, and come back to the parking lot to make some sort of smoke show entrance lol

and then we were told to park all our cars in a certain pattern, while they filmed some interviews and other bits for their DVD, i got ''stuck'' beside a brand new M3 on 19'' Advan rims :bowdown:

its there i met GTRC member AndreP for the first time, with his cat-scratch hooded GTR

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i think this scene took over 30 minutes to do, it was hilarious
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upon signing a waver, we were promised a free copy of the finished DVD
we are still wainting on that, but the trailer should be out this week (2 months ago REALLY)

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GTRC members

i've met a couple GTRC members over the summer
1. deo13 and his buddy
2. allwheeldrifter
3. mitch32
-- here he is riding shotgun with me
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4. andreP
-- one the hundreds of times he dropped by to pick up some parts lol
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5. wpj -aka patrick joooones
-- he moved back from calgary this summer, and lives 3 minutes away from my house, he actually a very old friend
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6. ''max'' can't remember his forum name
-- when i fixed his a/c
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7. Klys - aka marc-andré, met him at the track, went to the same university as me
8. Klys's dad who also owns a GTS-T
9. vulcain - aka ''luigi''
10. J-O
11. cobraA - aka alex
12. t-bag - aka phil
13. fonky - aka JF
14. popolz - aka alex
15. dynamiteQC
and of course
16. canu_50 - aka alex, who works @ perry auto laval, and ordered me a ton of parts

i might be forgetting some

------------------------
Sightings

just some random pics of skylines i was able to snatch

if you know who they are..

@ deux-montagnes
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track side @ ASE
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@ somewhere in MTL
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@ ETS
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i hope to see alot more of GTRC members next summer
josh..
nelson..
manny..
dj..
munib..
munzar..

looking forward to a possible ottawa meet

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 9 - The UltraRide 2009

2008
so some of you may recall the name UltraRide from my first ever chapter
its because it was during that cruise, in 2008, that i crashed my first GTR

the 08' ride was the 3rd edition, and about 45 cars showed up to take part in this ~600km cruise from Laval to Tremblant taking the scenic route

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2009
so in 2009, i had my 2nd GTR, and wanted to prove that i wasn't just a young punk who crashed a car he couldn't handle
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so again, i enlisted to the UltraRide
but to my surprise, the hype was indredible and about 130 cars (and 2 bikes) signed up
totalling more than 180 people

this was the planned route, ~600km
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again, in an effort to prove myself, i wanted to be there super early, and was only the 3rd to arrive at the meeting spot, it was ~7;45am

and just before i went to grab some breakfast from the nearest Tim's
i taped a couple pictures of what happened the year before
basically, just some pics of the accident, the totalled car, the burnt garage, and the remaining scrapped shell
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alot of people didn't know about that story, so..
when i came back with my coffee and bagels, there was a dozen guys circling the car going; ''holy ****!''
????
so i just went; ''whats up''
one guy told me; ''dude look what he did to the car, crashed it and completely rebuilt it!''
at that point i just screamed; ''you idiots, its not the same car, wtf!''

big LOL moment

the organizer came to shake my hands and congratulate me for bouncing back from the crash and making it to this year's ride

this is what the parking lot looked like before we left (alot more cars out of shot)
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then started the 130 car convoy heading on the highway at ~9am
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blasting the highway
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after the highway blasting, we made our first stop to regroup, since alot of people always take the wrong exit from the highway
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then we got onto the B roads, with a big a** trail of cars
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then made our 2nd regrouping stop, on this deserted piece of highspeed back road :)
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then i had a nice surprise, Mitch32 was in the convoy riding with a buddy
we chatted for a bit then got back into our cars and carried on

just before coming into the Tremblant village, everyone stopped at this Petro-can, where most gas-guzzlers refulled (not me :P)
or to take a well-needed piss (yeah me :P)
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we actually blocked in a couple familly vans since we used ALL the space in the lot to park our cars
the expression on the cashier's face was priceless
and it got even better when a large group of bikers came in the lot too
hilarious

we finally made our way into Tremblant
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we got to park all the cars in a reserved lot, there was barely enough space
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we all took a shuttle bus up to Tremblant village where a Casey's restaurant was reserved for all of us
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when we came back to the shuttle, the same camera crew from the Five Rose meet was there to report on the event
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upon leaving Tremblant, Mitch climbed abord my GTR and rode shotgun for the remainder of the ride
before we got on the main road, we had a couple stops to make from the parking lot to the road

since most of us had Walkie-talkies, we kept messing around with them during the ride

but at one stop, i was right behing a ~2000 Camaro SS and the two bikes, who all sudently popped a HUGE burnout right in front of me

one guy on the radio said; ''wtf is going on in front, did someone's car just blow up?! theres a **** load of smoke''
to which i answered; ''no its just the darn camaro coating my front bumper with alot of rubber!''

after leaving tremblant, the roads got much trickier, we all got seperated into smaller convoys
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and a couple guys leading the several convoys messed up the directions, and alot of people got lost

even our group got lost down small rural streets a couple times, where we had to make 180deg turns

then it started to get late (5-6pm), and the roads opened up and got less interesting, so alot off people who didn't get lost just got of the route and went home


when we finally arrived at the last meeting spot, barely a dozen cars were left
thats where i refulled my car for the first time of the day (economical skyline, wuh?)
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and again, in an effort to prove myself, i was the very last car to leave, after the 2 organizers (the 2 integras)
just as the sun was setting, epic day

so i drove Mitch back home and checek out his car that he was taking apart in his garage (at the time)

and finally got home at 8;30-9pm, i was DONE


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Videos


this video is an absolute must see, it best describes the whole day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR6V4vEE8Ik
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and since i had my GoPro stuck on the roof of my car for the most part of the day, i compiled all the pics into a video, and check out the second half for the highspeed back road
http://vimeo.com/6676695
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and you can also visit the UltraRide's website and check out pictures from the past 3 years
http://www.theultraride.com/index.php
UltraRide.com


anyone can come with any car, sign up to the group for more info on the next date and meeting spot!!

i'd love to have a couple skyline in there this year, since i was driving one of only 2 JDMs last year

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 10 - The Master Plan, part1

http://forums.gtrcanada.com/gt-r-projec ... 72034.html
no more teasers you want to know what i'll be doing to my dearly beloved this summer
here it is

i've been ordering parts even before putting the car into storage
so i got piles of boxes

and, if anything can be learned from my previous build chapters, is that i'm not the kind of guy to spend big bucks on only a few select parts, or only work on of the car's caracteristics

so there's going a ton of upgrades, in and out, front and back, under and on top

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heres a list of the new parts

Engine, externals
SS braided rad hoses
Apex'i power intake kit
Splitfire coilpacks
new OEM coilpack harness
Cusco oil catch can
HKS special edition SSQV III bovs (2x)
downpipe heat wrap
Greddy adjustable intake cam gear
OEM timing belt kit (timing belt, tensionner pulley, tensionner spring, idle pulley)
custom grouding kit
..will eventually source a KOYO rad later this summer

R34 black ornament plate

Electronics
HKS EVC-S boost controller
HKS Type-1 turbo timer
AEM UEGO wideband AFR meter
Skylab torque split controller (not shown in pictures, haven't receved it yet)

Brakes
R33 brembo calipers
R33 324mm stock front rotors (will eventually switch to AMS's 2-piece R33 rotors)
Garage Saurus big rear 330mm rotors
Garage Saurus rear caliper conversion brackets
SPL front cooling guides
Hawk HP+ front and rear brake pads

Wheels
Ichiba bolt-on wheel spacers, 2 pairs (15mm and 25mm)
Rays Duralumin ''long'' lug nuts
PoorBoy's wheel scealant (aka brake dust shield)

Suspension / chassis
Nismo rear traction links
KTS adjustable front upper control arms
Cusco adjustable tension rods
Cusco adjustable tension rod pipe
Moonface roll-center adjusters
Nismo steering rack bushings
Whiteline adjustable front and rear swaybars
Cusco tri-point rear strut brace
solid steering bushing

Drivetrain
TurboQuip custom SS braided clutch line

Exterior
PIAA super yellow fog light bulbs
Type-A front canards
possibility of a carbon fiber front diffuser (heh nelson?!)
white LED strips
tow hook

Interior
OMP corsica steering wheel (selling it, since i just picked up a uber rare special edition of the same wheel)
carbon fabric and vynil
Autometer carbon fiber 52mm gauge cup
Sabelt harness
blue LEDs for cluster, din gauges and AC (thx to josh for the idea)
cup holder
used console trim, to be carbonized
cluster dial rings
ebay nismo harness shoulder pads
ebay nismo horn button


Here are my plans
(take into consideration that these pics were taken with a cheap camera 2 days before i stored the car, it had been sitting outside for 3 weeks, without a wash)

i'm going to have this harness/roll bar i designed made

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since my car is my summer daily driver, i want to keep seating for 3 people, or you know.. a place to put my school bag

and since i'm an engineering student, i designed it too hold from towards force from a body restraining harness, and the downwards force of a possible roll over

so, the big green bar would be 2'' cromoly tubing, flush to the roof, and flaten at one end to bolt to the seat belt pivot, and maybe with a camera mount at the other end, directly in the middle of the car
this bar would be powder coated to hold against the rubbing of the harness, since the harness would be strapped directly to it

the small green bars would be 1/2'' solid aluminum (or steel, in worst case)
the red parts are adjustable threaded bits
the forward facing bars would be bolted to the rear 'front seat mounting points'
and the rear facing bars would be bolted to the rear 'seatbelts mounting points'
all those small bars would be connected to the big bars by helm joints

the height of the harness mounting bar, would make it so that the angle of the harness would be 15deg (FIA approved)

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i'm dropping the MOMO Race wheel in favor of my new uber rare special edition OMP Corsica, which is a deep dish, suede, 330mm wheel
maybe i'll finally be able the heal-toe now

to help the heal-toe maneuvers, i'm going to weld extensions to the metal pedal covers so that theres almost no space between the brake ad gas pedals

cluster;
i'm going to swap all the bulbs for blue LEDs, polish the plastic screen, cover the surround with carbon fiber vynil, and put in metal rings in each dial, each ring will be painted flat black

the plastic steering column cover will be covered with CF vynil as well

the Autometer boost gauge is beeing relocated to the steering column cover, with an Autometer carbon fiber gauge cup
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the AEM UEGO AFR meter will be installed where the boost gauge was

i'm also going to cover the used/cracked console trim i just bought in CF vynil, and probly the DIN gauge cover too

the Ash tray is getting replaced by the Skylab torque split controller, where its desgined to go

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the light bulbs for the cluster, DIN gauges and A/C will all be replaced with blue LEDs to match the radio and the general white/blue theme of the car

swapping the electronics;
HKS EVC-1 boost controller (which was discontinued in 1994, tells you how long it had been there!) will be swapped for a brand new HKS EVC-S unit
HKS type-0 turbo timer (2008 model) is getting swapped with the new type-1 unit that matches the EVC-S

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the harness bar will go right behing the driver side seat,
and the Sabelt harness will be installed

the Fischer cup holder (that i found in an old DIY in one of the GTRC forums) will be fitted to the back of the armrest

and i'm also going to wrap the door cards in CF fabric

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i'm having the front bumper repainted, because if full of chips and scratches,
the portion where the license plate goes will be filled in with fiberglass of bondo to make it flush with the rest of the bumper

and large white canards will be added to the bumper

and somehow, the huge dark gap between the lip and the bumper will need to be fixed

still haven't decided where i'm going to install the tow hook (which will be powder coated light metallic ''Endless'' blue)

i'm taking the headlights off, to properly fit the new PIAA super yellow fog light bulds in place, because my old ones kept shorting out
and i will realign the headlights to north american standards, because right now, with my non-projector HIDs, i must pissing alot of people off

and i might completely remove the FMIC diamond grill, or replace it with a honeycomb shaped grill

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i'm going to get my wheels painted (for the 2nd time), same color, but with a much thicker coating inside the wheel

i'm also checking on how much it would cost me to have custom center caps made (since none exist for this wheel:banghead:)

i'm going to install my new brembo calipers, that i will previously have had powder coated ''Endless'' blue, a kinda light mettalic blue

i'll probly paint the rotor hats de same color

i'll install de wheel spacers, and probly paint them white to match the rims
the front wheels offset's is +38, so i'll put the 25mm spacers for a final offset of +13
and the rear wheels offset's is +28, so i'll put the 15mm spacers for the same final offset of +13

and swap my old faded Rays nuts for new ''long'' type ones, same color

and the rear brake back plates will need to be modified to fit over these 330mm garage saurus rotors
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and the side pods with definitely need to be fixed,
i'm going to have them repainted with the bumper
but i'll going to have to take the skirts off the cut the portion that goes under the pod, so that the pod fits snugly

to look something like this
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and this enormous gap will also need fixing


ran out of caracters again, continued in next post

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 10 - The Master Plan, part2

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first off, the battery is beeing removed, to make place for the Cusco oil catch can, and a bracket that will hold both the driver side HID ballast (that isn't fixed anywhere right now) and the grounding kit block

i'm going to try to modify the oil filter relocator's mounting plate to alignt the bolt to the injector's resistor pack bracket

and the battery relocation cables will themselves be relocated underneath the car

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the darn stock recirculation valves will be swapped in favor of the HKS SSQV units

here where i'd like to get your opinion;
should i have them recirc too, or full atmospheric,
or recirc one and atmos the other?!!

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i'm going to spend quite some time cleanin the firewall since it is just so god dam dirty and looks like s***

the strut bar will get powder coated flat black

ornament plate will be swapped for the black R34 'skyline GTR' plate

old OEM coilpacks are getting swapped with new Splitfire ones
and the old coilpack harness with be replaced by a brand new one

t-belt cover will finally get the right color powder coat

i'm going to finish hand polishing the twin turbo pipe, and the first IC hardpipe

the HKS suction kit is getting canned in favor of the Apex'i power intake kit, which will be also powder coated flat black

the HID ballast will be relocated, cuz right now its looks like s***

the charcoal canister is gettingTFO

and i will eventually swap the stock rad for a full aluminum KOYO unit and then install the SS braided rad hoses, and might swap the rad fan for electric alternatives, all this later in the summer

and while the t-belt cover is getting painted, i'm going to change all the timing parts for brand new OEM ones, and install my Greddy adjustable intake cam gear

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i'm strongly considering having the spark plug cover machined something like this, so that the coilpacks can breathe

but i would only get the holes circled in green done on each side

this the look i would like someday, this is Marke's car, which has one of the cleanest engine bays ever
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right now, my oil cooler is sandwiched between the Trust FMIC, A/C condenser and radiator
saying its a heat soaked area is an understatement

so i'm having longer braided hoses made by TurboQuip, like these
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and relocate the oil cooler exactly like this, (curtisgoodman's car)
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i'm finally going to finish relocating my Braille lightweight battery to the trunk
but like mentionned ealier, the cables will come from under the car, i'm going to run them where the HICAS lines used to be, since i removed them

i'll put the trunk panels back in once i'm done

and i am going to install the added Cusco brace, which will look like this (GTR--J's car)
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at some time this summer i'm going to have to take the tranny off to figure out exactly what clutch i have

and then, i'll swap the rubber clutch hose in favor of the SS braided one custom made by TurboQuip in montreal

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the downpipe is getting wrapped in Tomei heat wrap, its absolutely cooking my tranny to death right now, which shoud look like this (thanks again to GTR--J for the pic)
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and i might take the whole cat-back off to polish it a bit, i got the idea from the job a buddy did with my old cat-back i sold him
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and what Josh managed to do isn't bad either!
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i'm going to install the adjustable KTS upper control arms
and take the coilovers off again, the lower then back down 1/4''
and i'm probly going to have them tested/rebuilt by Selex suspension since they are pretty old units and the rubber boots are all torn

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also going to install the Moonface roll center adjusters
i'm not going to use the full spacing offered by the part, since my car isn't ''japanese road' lowered

(not my pic, can't remember where i took it)
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this is what the underneath should look like,
cusco tension rods, and rod pipe
but instead of the Cusco swaybars, its going to be grey Whiteline units

with all these adjustable suspension components, i'll be able to infinitely fine tune the car's handling caracteristics

and where the green circles are, i'm installing SPL brake cooling guides to direct air to the calipers

==========================
2nd dyno tune

i'm going back to Almasi for another tune this summer
this is what i have now

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as you can see, the turbos spool quite slowly, and boost drops alot after hitting its peak

thats why i went with these parts;

replacing the HKS suction kit with the Apex'i power intake, just as good power wize, but filters 10x better

replacing the HKS EVC-1 boost controller by the new EVC-S,
the evc-1 is just so old, after talking to a few people, it might the cause of the boost falling off at high rpms, with a new unit it shouldn't drop

replacing the stock recirculating valves with HKS SSQV, again to ensure they don't leak at higher rpm (high flow) which drops boost, with these i should be fine, and the sound will be OMGZorg

replacing the old OEM coilpacks with new Splitfire ones, will ensure better spark during high load or/and high rpm situations

replacing the OEM intake cam gear with an adjustable Greddy unit, advancing the intake cam by 4 or 6 degrees should help the turbos spool much sooner

and boost will be cranked up to 14,7 psi (1 atm) or maybe just a bit higher
RBs can take up to 16psi on stock internals, so i don't want to go over that (or even test it)
and i was told N1 turbos were much more efficient above 1bar (14,5psi)

the weakest link in my setup will be my nismo 555cc injectors,
at 13,5psi, they peaked at 72% duty cycle
i was told by experts going over 80% greatly reduces the injector's life spand
so ~15psi will get me near that 80% limit

my goal is ~425whp or ~500bhp


next year though, the engine is coming out for a full gasket refresh, and new breathing hardware

==========================

i might be forgetting somethings, but thats mostly it

i might have to change my tires this summer
right i have Yoko Neovas in front, and Flaken Azenis in the rear

i'll probly swap them with Dunlop Direzza Z1 Start Spec, which are much sturdier tires than the azenis, but much cheaper than the neovas

==========================

opinions? i'd like to hear them

and i just realized my car is looking more and more like GTR--J's car
not a bad thing i might say

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

so i just got my Cat Delete pipe today, looks pretty nice

i'll eventually have 2 bungs welded to it, 1 for my wideband O2 sensor and 1 for the oem EGT sensor,
then shoot a couple coats of high temp clear coat on that shiny sucka

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a bit like josh's DeCat
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for some reason (if anyone can enlighten me..) the guys at autoworx welded my wideband bung onto the rear dump pipe on Robin Almasi's request (guy who tuned my car), which only gets its reading from 1 turbo..

i just thought getting the reading after the Y would be more precise since it would be from both turbo,
and if one of the two turbo starts to run lean, you would know immediatly,
as it is, its only monitoring the rear turbo, which is the one most likely to fail yes, even though...

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User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

so today my skyline decided to pull an April's fool on me,

i went to pick it up, saw it in person and sat in it for the first time this year, and the darn thing would never start

at first, battery was almost dead, still cranked it for a long period of time (15+ seconds) thinking it would ementually show signs of life,
nothing

so then we put the battery charger on it, on high amperage
10 minutes later, tried it again, nothing

the guy asks me if theres fuel in the system,
i think i can hear the fuel pump priming, but the have no idea how much fuel can be in the system, the fuel gauge is below 0

so he puts in 10litres, fuel gauge stays at 0
crank it again and again, still with the charger on,
nothing

add another 5 litres, just to see if the gauge would move, no

i was cranking it for so long, saw the oil pressure go up

anyway, just fawking nothing

it smelled of gaz more and more


so after about an hour, i left the car there, had to get to class

so heres what i think,
i cranked it way too long at first on very little energy, the engine not turning fast enough would'nt start, but it kept pooring in fuel, which after all the tries just flooded the cylinders

and since the valves were still opening and closing, and pistons still compressing, that fuel would get spewed into the exhaust


any other input?

so tomorrow i'm going to bring another fully charged battery,

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

so i went back today, with a fully charged battery and a couple tools

i hate working anywhere else than in my garage, and this was an dark incomfortable underground garage/storage

anyway, took the spark plugs out and they were covered in carbon, like insane

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so i plug 1 back into a coilpack, crank the engine for about 2 seconds,
and in about 10 revolutions it only sparked twice, dam

so i cleaned them all, put them back in and the car fired right up

took it out and drove the 7 blocks from there to my house with my heart pounding since the car isn't plated yet :S


anyway, its officially out !!!!!!
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the car is fawking dirrrrty, it needs a really nice wash, maybe tomorrow if i can find the time, anyone want to make a quick 10$?

and the 27deg celcius weather was crazy!!!

User avatar
frankiman
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:04 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan Skyline GTR

Post

Chapter 11 - GoPro photos galore

on this hottest 3rd of april ever recorded, i thought i'd share some of my best pics (of everything and anything) from my activities last year

all were taken with the gopro motorsport hero

lets start with my all time 2 most favorites

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and or course, my dad doing what he does best, fishing quietly
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