Totally re-shell and restore my R33 GTS-T daily drive. (Read 164 times)

[adammurse]

Hi guys!

Been reading a fair few project threads on here and enjoyed everyone. My last project was to fit a K20A2 engine to a MGTF. It was a world first and ended up like this:






I got a taste for Jap engineering and decided to move onto my dream car. A Skyline! This has turned into an epic project envolving a shell up re-build!

The car is an R33 Nissan Skyline GTS-T... I have called Project JASPER (stands for Just Another Skyline Project, Easy Right?)... yes im very sad! :sorry:

Well the saga started like this... the worlds cheapest skyline!



I bought it as you see it there for... wait for it £1050.00!!! It even had half a tank of petrol!

I didn't know much about it, just that it was flipping cheap! I couldn't pay the man fast enough - I knew even if the engine blew up I couldn't loose money! Diving through the recipts it looks like It's only had 1 owner from import and had a good spec:

Bodywork:
400R replica front bumper
GTR Front panel
Side skirts
Type M spats
Light up skyline panel
Genuine Carbon Fibre Bonnet

Interior:
Turbo Timer
Blue LED Dash conversion
Boost Gauge
Good quality proper skyline mats

Tuneing goodies
Stock Turbo (as far as i know)
Blitz Air Filter
Yellow Jacket Coil packs
Unknown Downpipe (3" at least)
Blitz Nur Spec Exhaust and de-cat
Japspeed FMIC

Handling Goodies
Diayama Coilovers
Japspeed Lower Strut Brace
Japspeed Wishbones upper (front)
Japspeed Trailing arms (front)
Japspeed Steering arm TREs (front)
Japspeed uper and lower arms (rear)
I've probably missed some
I added a Cusco front strutbrace and GTR rear strutbrace

Stopping Goodies
Brake cylinder stopper
HEL Braided brake lines front and rear
Red Stuff pads all round
Grooved and Vented Disks all round
GTR Brembo front calipers


Not bad for £1050 eh?!

But


It had boost cut issues which thanks to my good friend Stuartthefish we soon diognosed to be a miss plummed boost controller.



I Re-plummed it (in the hospital car park after a 13 hour night shift using a pair of nurses scissors after I read stuartthefish reply on SkylineOwners.com on my iPhone!) and enjoyed actuator pressure (around 250bhp) for some time.. lovely. Then I did the cam belt, alternator belt, PAS belt, pully and idler, set of plugs, fuel filter, oil and filter swap and an air filter clean with the help of Ben-Z33 my best mate! (see up and coming how-to if i ever get my arse in gear and write it)



Ooo look, Yellow Jackets!





I did get the CAS a bit wrong and had stuttering... turned out my timeing was like 15degreese out! :gay:

thanks for the help to fix it stuartthefish!



Next job was to tidy up the dash

before:



During (my idea of hell):



after:



Much better! Tidy behind the dash (I made a proper loom) and looks good at the front! The CD holder is from a UK S13 and looks good i think!

and peel off the blue window tints!



Then all i did was drive the thing!



oh and drift it...



And wash it (note Ben-Z33s errrr Z33)





Then this happened...










Oops!!!!!!!

End of part 0

[dreadnought]

Apart from the crash you are a jammy bugger, lucky sod.

[Ricky180B]

Hi, what kind of figures are you pushing in your skyline.

Psi boost
Torque
Bhp at the wheel
Injector types
Map stage
Turbo

[adammurse]

Mar 24, 2013 14:59:25 GMT 1 dreadnought said:

Apart from the crash you are a jammy bugger, lucky sod.

Took me 18 months to find the right car, sadly it had issues (as you'll see as I update this thread, the forum keeps saying invalid post or something so I can't copy bits over :@)

The car handled badly, I wasnt sure what it was but it wasnt planted at the back end. My s13 was 330bhp and totally stripped out and I never had traction issues like the skyline. In the end I found out the rear subframe was badly held onto the car. That's what cause the crash, the mounts on the shell crumpled and the subframe moved

[adammurse]

Part 1! - It begins

Time to update you all...

The hunt began for a new shell and i soon found a R33 shell, resprayed in Bayside blue. Looked very clean, came with a JUN bodykit, Clifford alarm and some dynomat :gay: - not very drift but it's a lifestyler!

So a deal was struck. I needed to take some bits down to get the shell rolling and as part of the deal, so work began gutting the Gray car!

First to go was the boot, which ment taking the boot lineing out as i need it for the new shell...



Boot:



Undo this stuff:



No Boot:



No lineing:



Simples...



Looking a bit sad for herself here...




...time to really gut the thing!

wheels off to get the coilovers off



Note the sexy Japspeed Adjustable arms

Now inside the car to get to the strut top nuts... what a carry on!

Bye bye back seat



to get at the silly nuts behind here



parcel shelf had to go



and then we did the fronts...


Next job was to load up my mums chevvy (no it doesnt have a V8) and go get the shell!


my little bro looking so happy



full much?




Sadly this is where all my plans went a bit pee tong...

It was supposed to be a walk in the park. Put some coilovers and wheels on a rolling shell. Winch it onto the truck kindly lent by cooper_86 and drive home. Well it wasn't so much a walk in the park as a hop, skip and a jump through a mine field!

The camber arms/toe arms/TREs and HICAS were all missing, so the car couldn't be steered or really moved in anyway 4 hours we tried and all i did was damage the JUN body kit! Argh!!!!

So we came home empty handed and totally gutted

never fear tho... this is not the end!

but it is the end of part 1

[adammurse]

Mar 24, 2013 17:16:29 GMT 1 Ricky180B said:

Hi, what kind of figures are you pushing in your skyline.

Psi boost
Torque
Bhp at the wheel
Injector types
Map stage
Turbo

Actually very very standard Ricky, infact it may be slower than standard!!!

I'm a student nurse so don't earn much money (I sacrifice ALLOT to run my dream car) so unlike lots of people I haven't went mad chasing power

Instead I have:

Japspeed upper and lower arms rear and upper arms front
Japspeed tie rods
I've removed the HICAS Properly - not a lock out bar, I've used an s14 rear subframe and steering rack
I've got cusco tie arms and GTR brembo brakes with good pads and disks, braided lines and a cylinder stopper.

In short I've made it handle and stop better

Performance wise

Stock injectors
Stock ECU
Stock AFM

For this reason I have

Stock turbo running stock boost! Actually right now actuator pressue! Lmao so it's slower than stock

I do have:

Yellow jacket coilpacks

Blitz Nur spec exhaust
Japspeed de-cat
Cusco downpipe
Japspeed elbow
Blitz induction kit
Greddy re-circing BOV
And soon a HKS adjustable actuator.
Baffled sump


I had a choice - buy a boost controller and a re-map for 300+Bhp

Or

Full service with pullys/water pump/plugs/filters and engine, gearbox and diff oil

So I serviced it instead (my first ever cambelt change too!


I do plan on an RSP 400bhp kit in the future, with a turbos art/TIAL wastegate on the stock manifold and the map to suit but this is a long way off lol

[Ricky180B]

Well it looks like you've played it safe which IMO is the best and safest way. I can totally understand about yor restrictions due to your age.

[adammurse]

Mar 26, 2013 8:36:43 GMT 1 Ricky180B said:

Well it looks like you've played it safe which IMO is the best and safest way. I can totally understand about yor restrictions due to your age.

Glad you agree many skyline owners go nuts for BHP figures. But I've always been of the mentality that you tune a car in this order:

Remove weight
Good tyres
Uprate the brakes
Uprate the suspension
Stiffen the chassis
Add power

It's not really about age. Lewis Hamilton drove a 750bhp 605kg car to win a F1 world championship when he was 23, 2 years younger than me. My s13 was a stage 3 CA around 320bhp, I'd stripped it out and it had a shimmed diff, I drove it daily for months and it was still very slow compared to my motorbikes. I've done competitive rallying, drifting and stuff and never had an accident until the skyline hit a lampost.

I'm no amazing driver, I just enjoy going quick, that's why I go for handling, if I go quick round a corner at least I'm not braking the speed limit and can keep my clean licence lol

[adammurse]

Update!

Welcome to part 2! be warned, below thar be disturbing images!

Thats a bent front end that:



Best cut it off?



hmmmm

Going to need a bigger blade I think. bring on my mental mate Ferbie! And cue the music!



and his toy (see pic left)



light:



saw



action



I was suprisingly happy considering my car was being cut up by a gurning idiot





poor girl:




Ok Butchering the front - DONE. Time to begin with the next job.....

[adammurse]

Update: Lets bring on parts 3/4

Lots to do and limited time to do it ment I began work on the car at 6:00am... and it was a little chilly



actually strike that, no it wasn't - it was freaking baltic!

Job 1 - get the skyline panel off. I have a light up one which I love. I think R33s should have had this from the factory (as an extra brake light if nothing else)



Job 2 - Get the Front suspension and Brakes off!

I found my first bodge on this car. It's unforgivable this... a Brake line tied up with a tie wrap! Why unforgivable you ask? Because the plastic on the tie wrap will ware away at the brake line and eventually cut it! I have seen worse - Once... but still this was scary to see on a car I didn't exactly drive slowly!



OK... Before Pic:



sexy upgrades, mmmm

GTR Brembos, Disks and Pads gone. Diayama Coilovers gone.



Japspeed Rose Jointed TRE off... I quite like the odd pin on the steering arm



Sadly things began to go peetong here (surprise, surprise)

Bolts Snapped on the Brembos



Never mind!

Because I got to drop the lower arm (standard sadly, no extra lock for me) and cleaned the top arms up using WD40 (all it's good for) and they look damn sexy!!!



now remeber me saying things started to go badly?

see this bolt?



it wouldn't come out! and I dont mean I was a bit weak... I mean it WOULD NOT come out!

At first I thought it was because the square nut on the inside of the strut tower was spinning too much and so I couldn't get any purchase on it. So I jammed it in place with my little pry bar.



that failed.

I thought I was being weak and tired a long bar on the ratchet



that failed.

So I got peed off and decided to remove the nut by braying off the thin metal cage on it.



now in theory a light thump with a tapping stick (hammer) should push the bolt through right?

you know whats coming.... that failed!

I'm not sure what happened but It's happened again with a japspeed arm since, the bolt seems to have welded in place. My theory is heat has something to do with it?

So by this point I was properly annoyed... now my annoyance rating comes in 5 levels:

Level one: Shout at it (Swareing is optional but recomended)
Level two: Use pry bars and hammers
Level three: Use a bigger hammer
Level four: Use an angle grinder or fire
Level five: Call Swan AVO and sit in a nervous shivvering wreck, crying in the corner of my garage until Bob and Paul come and help*

We had now reached level four.





Thank god for that!



Thankfully the other side had no issues. The only problem is that bolt is still stuck in the arm... ideas anyone?



Thats all for now folks!






*Thankfully they haven't been needed yet... but watch out for Swan AVO in the future!