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.

R33 Brake Stopper

Due to the high forces exerted against the bulkhead under braking, the Brake Stopper bolts onto the suspension turret and is adjusted upto the end of the master cylinder. Thereby reducing bulkhead flex for a sharper more direct feeling that can be felt from the brake pedal.

Originally I was a bit unconvinced by fitting one of these and many of them usually come in a pressed metal bracket. However I have gone for a machined item (see pic). This was supplied from SuperForma and although they were slow on delivery (no stock) they generously refunded my postage. I strongly reccomend you try them if your interested in high quality items. The part is not particullarly cheap, although quality components will usually set you back more (you get what you pay for) with postage it would have set me back near enough £70 (79 Euro or $114 USD).

The component comes is a matt shot blast finish. I can tell you that from my days working in the casting industry that this is usually to hide machining marks! I took the 400 grade sand paper to it and it actually did polish up quite nicely! So all in all it is a good quality item.


Supa Forma Brake stopper for GTST



After a quick buff and polish

 As the car is currently waiting at the tuners (Abbey Motorsport) for it's all important mapping session, I will have to keep you all in suspense as to fitting and if it actually feels like it makes a difference!





Can a Skyline make you more sexy?

Not much of a challenge! But here are the findings from Australia's Top Gear team

R33 Anti Roll Bar Upgrade

No, these aren't the things that are bolted inside the car in case you turn it over - those are rollover cages. Anti-roll bars do precisely what their name implies - they combat the roll of a car on it's suspension as it corners.
They're also known as sway-bars or anti-sway-bars.
Almost all cars have them fitted as standard, all have scope for improvement. From the factory they are biased towards ride comfort. Stiffer aftermarket items will increase the road holding but you'll get reduced comfort because of it. The anti-roll bar is usually connected to the front, lower edge of the bottom suspension joint. It passes through two pivot points under the chassis, usually on the sub frame and is attached to the same point on the opposite suspension setup.
Effectively, it joins the bottom of the suspension parts together. When you head into a corner, the car begins to roll out of the corner. For example, if you're cornering to the left, the car body rolls to the right. In doing this, it's compressing the suspension on the right hand side. With a good anti-roll bar, as the lower part of the suspension moves upward relative to the car chassis, it transfers some of that movement to the same component on the other side. In effect, it tries to lift the left suspension component by the same amount. In doing this, it's actually compressing the suspension on that side which basically counters some of the roll in the chassis by lowering that side of the car.
Typical anti-roll bar (sway bar) kits include the up rated bar, a set of new mounting clamps with polyurethane bushes, rose joints for the ends which connect to the suspension components, and all the bolts etc that will be needed.

The standard Anti Roll Bar fitted to a GTS-25T Spec 2 is 17mm this upgrade supplied from Serious Performance Autos is 26mm. So you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that it's going to be somwhat stiffer!
Naturally this will be fitted with Polybushes manufactured from a high grade polyurethane compound which as similar elastic properties to rubber, but with inherently superior shear strength and resistance to wear.
Kit consists of the following items.

26mm rear Anti Roll Bar
SuperFlex Drop link poly bushes
SuperFlex ARB poly bushes
New drop links

delays ahead

The modifications have been continuing at a fast pace now. All that is left to do is fit the adjustable rear camber arms for wheel alignment. However unfortunately Ms Skyline has run into a snag, whereby I can't get any dyno time at the tuners (Abbey Motorsport) until May 6th.
Abbey run a drag car and are preparing it for the Easter weekend (22nd April).

I could run the car at a steady pace with upto 0.5 bar boost and 4k RPM but really that would be a major step in the backwards direction.
My options are that I could go with another tuners, but Andy at Serious Performance Auto's has advised against that.

So am a bit stuck and will just have to wait it out. Slightly frustrating as it means my forthcoming touring holiday is now all off and I will be sitting around. Still can't be helped! Naturally the thought sticks in the head that four hours of tuning should be do'able, although if a slot comes up they will fit the car in. So there is the outside chance, although I won't hold my breath!

I must admit I did have my suspicions that Abbey would let me down, no big reason for this, other than having spoken to them once and having seen a few people complain about them not coming back to them. The main reason I am sticking to them is personal reccomendation. After all I got off to a shakey start with the car, when I had it tuned at Rising Sun. They managed to practically keep the actual performance of the car the same, build in a terrible misfuelling judder on mild acceleration, scratch the wing and charge me a load of cash up front for the privilege. So now I'm actually back at the stage of 'everything sorted', I am hesitant to trust the car to anyone else that 'say' they know what they are doing.

I suppose I did call the blog 'adventures in motoring' Although not quite the adventure I had hoped for!