Interior - fitting white replacement dials and chrome dial rings

When a Skyline is imported into the UK it comes with it's speedo set to KPH (kilometers per hour) which although okay is not a lot of good for a country used to the measurement of MPH (miles per hour). The usual way to get around this is by fitting a speedo converter, which by some electronic jiggery pokery changes the signal so that the speedo will read in MPH.
Of course this is all fine and good but does mean that you now have a KPH dial reading in MPH. Most people get around this by sticking a sticker over the top of the KPH reading MPH. The other way I have seen is that the K of KMPH is coloured in black.

None of the above display a very high level of refinement! So I cast about looking for a replacement dial, there are a few around.. Nismo ones (still in KMPH) rare and expensive, Plasma dials that light up as if its Christmas or my preferred choice Lockwood dials.

Lockwood dials have been producing replacement dials in the UK for many years. What appealed to me about them was that they were a direct replacement, featuring MPH plus the KMPH equivalent. Seeing as I had to change my clock after the auto to manual conversion it seemed like the ideal time to 'have a go' at this modification.

Fitting:
Very basically to replace the clock faces you have to remove the actual clock needles from the instruments, pull away the old black fascia and replace with the new one.

This sounds easier than it is... To remove the needles you first need to work out where they sit naturally, this involves gently pushing the needle round with your finger clockwise and anti clockwise until you meet resistance and marking that position in pencil on the dial.

After you have marked the resting positions of the needle you will need a hair dryer. Apply heat to the needle body where it is attached to the spigot, enough to make it reasonably hot (a good couple of minutes). Then with a firm twist and pull detach the needle. this works well on the majority of needles, but be warned that the rev counter is especially well attached and it would be a disaster to pull out the needle and spigot.

When all needles are removed you can then attach your new dials. Push your removed needles back into place and much like you would set the hands on a clock. Push them against resistance around to your pencil marks, you can then check both marks clockwise and anticlockwise.

I found that using my sat nav (which displays speed) the ideal way of checking calibration.

Chrome Dial Rings.
These are supposed to be a push fit. Some were and some were less so.. Suffice to say that if you can easily poke them out with your finger the application of glue maybe required. Originally I had a Skyline spec 1 front fascia to my instrument cluster. It always annoyed me and the first chance I had I obtained a Spec 2, which has a curved front face and warning lights are individually segmented. This is simply a painted Matt back plastic fitting and if yours is 'tired' you can use Wayside Adhesives plastic paint. This is specially formulated to give a 'plastic' look and feel. It is magical stuff!


Skyline R33 Dials



Finished item

The original dials and surround

Exhaust Heat Shield Second attempt!

You may remember me fitting a carbon exhaust heat shield back in May here

Well alas the heat of the exhaust was un gluing it from the bumper and I was lucky not to have lost in a million pieces on the motorway! A rethink was required and a new method of really, really, really sticking it to the car had to be looked at.

So I had a look at Wayside Adhesives website as I have found them to be suppliers of good quality items in the past. I settled on their Masterseal product.

It was only later that I saw there is an alternative to masterseal called masterbond, so I did the usual thing and shot myself in the foot (yet again).

Delivery was a bit slow taking a week, so adding a frustration bonus!

The main problem I had fitting the Goki Exhaust heat shield was it's warped nature. Carbon fibre is flexible I know, but as this was warped and twisted it presented me with a bit of a headache. Eventually with the use of a fair amount of duck tape I managed to strap the heat sheild to the back of the bumper and to stop fiddling I walked away!
The Master Seal does clean up with White Spirit, although I found that this would penetrate what you want to keep as well as removing what you don't want. So clean up was a pain. However you can get a very clean finish with the sealant and a steady hand. Naturally my lovely painted heat shield was looking very sorry for itself at the end of the attaching process and needed masking and painting 'on the car'.
The heat shield itself has two holes that you can use to locate with at the bottom either side of the aperture. Ideally these holes could be riveted to the bumper, however due to the warpage of the piece I just found that the rivets were under too much pressure and one ripped out of the side of the heat shield, so it was with a sigh I reached for the filler and just did away with them completely.

It sits there.. Laughing at me

Not fallen off yet!

Masking the Heat shield up was 'fun'. Ideally I would have used a scalpel to trim the tape, although typically that would require me to be organised and both my modelling knifes were 'missing in action' only to reappear after the job was complete. So I used a Stanley craft knife blade and patience to do the job. The master seal is overpaintable which is handy as it dries Matt black, it also goes a long way to covering up the fact that it isn't a perfect fit as you can see from the side views.

However I am being over critical as this is a part of the car that no one will really notice or look at!

Would I recommend you to try it? Um, no.. Well depends actually! Maybe, as it is possible to do, but it is a messy and frustrating job.

Super Forma Brake Stopper Fitted

 Fitting the brake stopper was simplicity itself and there are two rubber grommet's concealing a couple of bolt holes on the suspension strut. Ping these out, bolt in your break stopper and wind the thread of the 'stopper' part up to the brake cylinder.

Brake Stopper Fitted

Very easy installation with no scraping of knuckles! As to a review of it in use, well I can't honestly say that it makes a whole heap of difference to the braking, maybe, although this could be me actually thinking 'is it working?'

Brake stopper kit made using high quality components is a straight bolt on component for most skyline models. The Super Forma brake stopper is unique in design and function. Due to the high forces exerted against the bulkhead under braking, the Brake Stopper screws onto the suspension turret and is adjusted up to the end of the master cylinder and vastly reduces bulkhead flex. The kit includes all fixings and fittings required. Visit the Superforma website here

Alltorque's footage of Japfest 2011

A couple of 'young' film makers are covering all things petrol. Check them out on Facebook

Here is their footage of May's Japfest at Castle Coombe 2011 and especially enjoy the parade of Skylines at the beginning of the film cruising along the M4 in the morning sun.

R34 Burns at Japfest 2011

Now this would ruin your day out!

From the driver. As posted on the GTROC forum. I have added some grammar, apologies if English is poor in some areas:

First (track) session breather pipe split by the turbo, changed the pipe but didn't have the time to clean all the oil off before next session

Second session, 2nd lap, slowed down and came in due to smoke in the foot well .
As it had started getting worse I stopped just by the ambulance and fire area at which point the aircon radiator exploded giving me a nose bleed. I got out walked round the front, went to walk back to get extinguisher behind my seat but was shouted at and pushed by the marshals to get back.

I was pretty dazed and shocked so I just had to stand back while it burned, as the fire truck guy was directing traffic to the pit lane

Totally my fault, next time to clean off the oil and waste a £35 session then loose the car... hopefully i'll bounce back stripped most of it last night interior is fine loom is done!! the main man mr Julian smith rang me this morning offering 1 can of Rio and 1 r34 gtr engine wiring loom

thanks to all that helped me get the car home i'm truly grateful

Alas, sooner or later this is the way of all things!

Goki Carbon Exhaust Heat Shield

Disaster! After the usual messing about with the catalytic converter for the MOT to keep the car legal on the roads in the UK swapping it out for with the de cat pipe. The exhaust moved a bit, enough to be just pressing up against the rear bumper causing some 'light melting' damage.

Not that anyone would ever notice I thought it would be an opportunity to have a play with a carbon heat shield.

The Carbon Version

I sourced the heat shield from EP Racing and it retails at a whopping £60. Although carbon parts are usually quite expensive. The irony being that personally I can't stand the sight of carbon and think it looks a bit cheap! The component itself was well made, if a little deformed.

Heated with hairdryer to get it to conform to bumper.

Fitting was reasonably straight forward, in fact I made this part of the process hard for myself as even though I knew it was deformed, I assumed (wrongly) that the sticky pads I had acquired would 'pull' it into shape.

I prepared the part by roughing up the lacquer finish slightly and using a thick filler primer to fill any pin holes. I then sprayed a coat or two of Nissan Kuro Black.

So I had the heat shield stuck firmly on the car and half hanging off at the same time! So after wrenching it free and picking off the sticky tape, I applied new tape and this time took a hair dryer to it, heating the carbon fibre up. I then pressed it into the rear bumper and it conformed to the curves like a dream! It would probably have been a much better idea to have done this before painting, but we live and learn!


See the underside of the car can get dirty

After some flatting back and polishing up the end result, although not spectacular. looks reasonably subtle and actually quite good. Hope you all agree dear readers!

Dyno Figures

Collected the car on May 3rd, which amongst other things was also my birthday! Although I suspect most would be less interested in that and more interested in the Dyno results of the tuning.

As you will see, these are hub figures so the read out is given at the wheels rather than the flywheel. For information (and bragging rights?) the conversion from the hubs to the flywheel is around 360 BHP.