Frankiman's street/track GTR project

[frankiman]

well, it if the thermostat is on the return side from the cooler than it could still be there
because, after starting it, 4-5 seconds later when pressure built in the oil lines going to the oil cooler, oil spewed out of the little holes on the fittings, because i forgot to tight them,
it the thermostat was on the little coming out from the block to the oil cooler, then there wouldn't have been any oil in those lines till the thermostat opened

so i'm guessing my thermostat might still be in there and working

[AstulzerRZD]

well now i'm seriously considering having the book made..

and yes the UltraRide will be held on Sunday September 12th,
click the link in my sig for more info, and please signup in that thread too

edit; a new video was made using last year's footage to promote this year's ride

check out 0;21

I was bored yesterday, and randomly made up a draft for what could end up being the title page for Frankiman's build book.
It's 3 quarters done, and i need some input regarding what i could place above the text saying "Frankiman's Street/Track Skyline".
The area is quite empty right now, and I would like to fill it in.

[frankiman]

for the cover art, i've already asked a buddy of mine,
heres "some" of his stuff
http://forums.gtrcanada.com/f25/incr...-friend-39896/

[AstulzerRZD]

for the cover art, i've already asked a buddy of mine,
heres "some" of his stuff
http://forums.gtrcanada.com/f25/incr...-friend-39896/

i believe you posted the rest of his stuff under the media.
oh well =S. If you ever need help with the "book" email me at my email in my sig
good luck with the build.

[TW]

so epic dude... when do you have it all ready to go? Im planning a little bbq / meet before UR and ill try to plan it for after your car is rolling

[frankiman]

i'll be done before the end of august

[frankiman]

VAG Motorsport - Alignment/Corner balance appointment ; booked
Almasi Tuning - Dyno tuning appointment ; booked
Autoworx - body parts paint and stuff ; kinda-booked
CobrAaAaaAAlex - exterior detailing ; done

the money pit deepens

[greddytrustGTR]

AGTRONIC FTW!!!!! Mark did a few of my buddies cars, sooooo awesome!!!




that hood right there, what is that? top secret? i have looking for one for a while!!

[nelsonmxmarc]

Took some messing around but they're done! First interior trim i've tried with this new 3M wrap.. Looks damn good though, which sucks, because now i'll probably end up doing it for my car which means another 6 hours.. lol

[cobrAA]

I did mine with my gf.. took me like 3 hours x2. so yeah. it's very long to do but look nice at the end.

[bellis_GTR]

Hey Frank when will the chapter about your brake ducting be up? Very curious to see how your set up will look like.

[Oakville]

Hey Frank when will the chapter about your brake ducting be up? Very curious to see how your set up will look like.

same!

[frankiman]

not sure,

it won't be before the 12th (the ultraride) since i still got lots more to do to the interior

for now, i'm about 3~4 chapters late, ALOT as happened since the last chapter
for now the car is sleeping @ Autoworx, so i don't have anything else to do and write and write

[frankiman]

Chapter 26 - And she lives, week16


------------------------------
Day 55

i'm super late in my updates, but i worked really hard on the car in the last weeks

since i couldn't find my "twin turbo" emblem after i got my parts back from powder coating
so... i ordered a brand new one



but then eventually found the original one 2 weeks later, but it was all f'ed up

so i started assembling my rear brake calipers

Brembo rear STI calipers
HAWK HP+ pads
super custom TuboQuip made stainless steel teflon lined brake lines



i had a bit of a hard time with the pins because of thick paint in every holes

fully assembled and lubed;



since i was really running out of time for my dyno day and i really had to get the engine running to make sure everything was fine

so my dad asked if he could help, and after he'd done the oil change on his truck, he filled my radiator and crank case with, simple water and cheap oil, just for test



finally got it on, and managed to nicely fit the totally custom brake lines





then everything in the back was now done





but while i was doing that, i adjusted the tension of the handbrake
and a while i later realized i had put it much too tight, which cost me almost a whole evening



------------------------------
Day 56

so the following day, i assembled my front brakes



now i worked really hard to make it all fit, because of the paint being really too thick in some places

again my dad came around to land a hand, and told me we had a full dremel type kit,
wuhh?! why am i learning this now??



so i had to grind the paint off some spots inside the caliper,
also had to re-drill the holes for the pins, twice



and finally on



i couldn't get my AMS rotors on, because i had been waiting for over a month for AMS to get their R33 GTR rotors back in stock, and made sure with Vuk that i would get a message as soon as they got them in,
so i was supposed to get them on "day54" but while at work during that day, i got a pm from Vuk saying that they weren't sure they sent me the right rotors because they now had their new R32 GTR sized rotors

so as soon as i got home that day, i measured the AMS box i received, the R32 rotors are 296mm and the R33 and 324mm
and sure enough the box was only 310mm large, yey

so i sent them back, and had to wait till the next week to get my right rotors



after i filled the brake fluid with Motul RBF660 dot4 racing fluid


last year, i used RBF600 i think, but didn't bleed the brakes properly, so ended up using about 700ml
but since the Brembo calipers have 2 bleeders, one for the inside piston and one for the outside piston
so this time we bled the system the right way; by starting from the furthest calipers to the closest from the brake master cylinder

but since i didn't have seats in the car, i was laying down on the floor awkwardly pressing the brake pedal, while my father was going around openening and closing all the bleeders

we ended up using less than a 500ml bottle


then, i finally found my clip for the foglight buld for the driver side headlight,
but there was obviously something missing (or broken) that kept the spring from poping out



so i had the awesome idea of putting a dab of silicon right on the pivot of the spring,
after it dried, it was perfect, it could still use the clip and having it still solidly attached to the headlight




ohh yeah... we finally had the engine turn over for the first time in months

it was really funny at first, because with my small lightweight battery being in my trunk now, with 16 feet of cable to the front, my dad was positive it wouldn't have enough power to start the engine

the battery wasn't even at full charge and the engine just started within 3 revs


another fun fact
right after i first started the engine, it took a while (5-6 sec) for the oil pressure to go up, because of all the filter relocation and cooler lines and stuff took some time to fill before getting pressurized
but then, oil spewed out need the filter relocation, so i emmidiatly stopped the engine,

haha, i loosened and tightened the fittings for the filter plate (to the cooler lines) so many times, that they were loose,
and those earl's fittings have small holes on them, where oil will first leak if the fitting isn't tight enough
at that moment, both fittings had their holes exactly parallele and aligned to spew oil right accross the whole front of the engine all the way to the pod filters
those fittings actually needed a full rotation to get them tight, oups


anyway, i let the engine run for a total of 20 minutes, and everything was fine
idle was stable at 950rpm

[frankiman]

Chapter 27 - And she drives, week17


------------------------------
Day 57

now that the driver side headlight was fixed, i got to install it and fit all the wiring for the HID around my new custom brackets



PIAA fog lights work wonderfuly and are my new DRL


then i fitted my wiring for the new boost controller, using the harness for the old one, then cut the old one and trashed it



and finally got my AMS R33-GTR 2-piece rotors, yey



for the remainder of the day i simply fixed some loose wiring stuff



------------------------------
Day 58


on day 59, i had Alex (CobraA) come around for a step-1 exterior detail job

thing is, he was supposed to arrive at around 7;30,
but the car was still on jack stands, without wheels, with all the body parts and rear seats on top of the car,
and the hood was also on top of the car, which was under all the stuff just mentionned,

so before he arrived, i cleaned all the stuff on top of the car, threw some of it into the car, then quickly put the wheels on the car, and dropped it on the ground

when alex go here, we only had to put the hood back on the car

and thats when i found out my hood didn't clear the oil filter because of the way i mounted instead on the oem boost selenoid


so first to do was to clean the car, outside the garage,
we tried to push it outside, but the handbrake was set REALLY too tight and the front wheels were so crooked (alignment) that we could push the car for more than 2 feet

so i jumped in the car, my ass on the floor, started it, worked the clutch and slowly got it out, without a steering wheel
i looked f***cking stupid

and since i didn't want any water on my BOV (both sides of the car), i took my front bumper of the top shelf it was - and accidently knocked my GTR grill from that shelf and cracked it in half - and using zip ties quick-mounted the front bumper on



while Alex was cleaning it and was working the claybar, i left to get something to eat because i hadn't stopped working on the car since i got home from work


after the car was super clean, it was dark outside, and i drove the car back into the garage

then Alex took his products out (which is about 5% of all of his stuff)



Alex clean/waxed the wheels



and did a full compound / wax / sealant on the car,

freaking amazing





THX CobraA




------------------------------
Day 59

the next day, i wanted to fix my wheels, and mount the wheel spacers

so first thing i did was i took off the rear wheels, and cleaned the inside with ArmorAll wheels cleaner,
then painted the spots around the wheels' bore that were missing paint, and also paint the chip on the front of the wheels

i bought white wheels paint at canadian tire, then sprayed a puddle of it on a piece of cartboard, then used a small brush to apply the paint



like new,



did that to both rear wheels and let them dry,



then when i mount the 15mm Ichiba spacers, i found out the wheels were hitting the oem studs that were sticking 8~9mm out from the spacers

so i used my dremel kit again to grind down the spots hitting the wheels studs

before


after


then i worked my ass off for more than an hour, with my dad's help to realign the f*cking holes in the rear brake rotors to adjust the handbrake because it was so darn tight,
it was so tight, we couldn't turn the rotors at all
i finally jumped in the car, pulled the AWD fuse, started the engine and played with the clutch till everything was aligned, then adjusted the handbrake properly

then after mounted the wheels properly, using the proper aluminum hubcentric rings

these rings are truly necessary to transfer the load of the wheel directly to the hub instead of the studs, so all the studs do is attach the wheel to the hub

in my case, i used 63x72,1 rings, aluminum instead of plastic (my old plastic ones got really brittle from track heat and snapped)
cost of rings was 17$/set, heh

never forget to apply a thin coat of all purpose automotive grease between all metal mounting surfaces, wheel - hub - spacer - rings - studs, so that nothing sticks and binds together from the heat

and took my brand new Rays long type Duralumin wheels nuts out to install them








------------------------------
Day 60

the next night, the day before my dyno tune, i really really had to test drive the car to make sure shiit wouldn't blow up everywhere

so i swapped the front rotors for the AMS ones and mounted the 25mm Ichiba wheels spacers





them put the wheels on
(my parents had my uncle over for diner, hes a profesionnal mechanic, yey)



and quickly ran inside the house to grab the driver side seat and bolt it in



and filled and bled the power steering fluid, let everything heat up, checked for leaks, then took the car for a spin around the block

OMG

the brake squeal was incredibly loud !!! (brand new everything)
and the HKS SSQV BOVs were even louder, it was crazy,
it was 10pm, if anyone was already asleep, they weren't anymore

the car pulled great, but died a couple times when coming to a stop, after a pull, because of the atmo BOVs

then brought the car back, my uncle checked everything, which was all ok

test drive - passed !



full of win