Frankiman's street/track GTR project

[c0ntract_thrilla]

|This is the best project thread I have seen, the story line makes the whole thing so much better.

I just got back from Montreal on Monday, I was shopping for a new car... but I did not find anything. Where was this shop located?

p.s I am looking forward to the rest of your story

[c0ntract_thrilla]

In this pic it looks like a Lamborghini Countache

[frankiman]

In this pic it looks like a Lamborghini Countache

well i said murcielago, but countach would be more appropriate you right

[c0ntract_thrilla]

lol I didn't see that, either way it looks more exotic.

So where was the good JDM shop?

[frankiman]

lol I didn't see that, either way it looks more exotic.

So where was the good JDM shop?

if i have to recommend a shop (shops) in montreal it would those 3

JDM Montreal;
where i bought my first GTR, great service
i went back there a couple times, got a great deal (900$ off, 9000 to 8100) on a 300ZX
for a friend, and also got 750$ off (7500 to 6750) a mint mint stock 180sx for another buddy

JDM nagoya auto parts;
the shop was started by thye guy who sold me my first GTR while he worked at JDM Montreal, and his 3 brothers
again, super service, i got deals on my Work wheels and a buddy's "fast" wheels
also got a deal on a mint stock CRX for a buddy's brother, and a couple of a/m parts

JDM Advance Motor Import; (google map)
where i bought my 2nd GTR, great service again, got a sick deal on seats (see end of chapter 3)
and again got 300$ off a set of 1200$ (down to 900) Work Emotions, just
like mine, but bronze 16" civic bolt pattern,
and a cusco Front strut bar for a friend

all 3 of those shops sell pre-SAAQ-inspected cars (big+)
and if you don't lowball (like alot of kids that go in there) then they'll offer great service

[c0ntract_thrilla]

Thanks a lot man, thats awesome advice + google maps lol.


I am from NS, so the next time I am up there I will stop by.

[EMAGDNIM]

Thanks for keeping us posted!

[frankiman]

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




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



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.





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....

click here to jump to next chapter

[archaeic_bloke]

AWESOME thread bro. super lucky find on those seats, im at those JDM shops once every few months scouring the rooms for finds like that,... they couldnt care less about the stuff they have so u find it.. offer some cash, and its urs!

[BenC]

R34 seats nice!

[frankiman]

just added some pictures in chapt1 and chapt3part2
chapter4 will be online by tomorrow

[frankiman]

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 Verchčre, 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



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


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




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



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


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 Sport-Comp II gauge was sourced


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


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!


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!




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;

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

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
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



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

[frankiman]

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


-hks replacement air filters


-a set of HKS coilover wrenches


-HKB 5mm slip on wheel spacers


-Nismo thermostat


-and i also ordered through a local group buy these custom SS brake lines made by TurboQuip in montreal


-also ordered a nismo rad cap, from Daryl i think, to match the general "nismo" theme of the car


-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..)

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


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






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

the song is MUSE's take a bow ! not Rihanna's

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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


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HKS air filters

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



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



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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



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, voilą!!



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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


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


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!


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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







that was in june, still alot of work to be done

[Rapier46]

i must have a white gtr.. that looks so nice.

I love seing pics of the interior apart, and then completely together again, makes you feel so good when you've ripped it all apart and put it back together perfectly.

[PL_GTR]

very nice build, i really like it.

I will have a white gtr in the near future for sure!

btw i scrambled upon this website that i think skym posted a while back, i would never run these foam filters ever on my car

http://www.mkiv.com/techarticles/filters_test/2/