Frankiman's street/track GTR project

[bellis_GTR]

Hey Frank did you sort out the ac pulley situation?

[frankiman]

Hey Frank did you sort out the ac pulley situation?

yup, i realized that by tightening the nut, it pulls the pulley off the bracket, so its perfect
all done, everything is put back together, i'm going to do a compression test in... 30 minutes

i'm going up to my cottage this weekend, and its going to be super cold, so i'll be staying in and write many more chapters, that i'll periodicaly upload next week

Nice Build, my hat is off to you, I have learned a great deal by just reading your thread.

Ken

thx man !

[bellis_GTR]

yup, i realized that by tightening the nut, it pulls the pulley off the bracket, so its perfect
all done, everything is put back together, i'm going to do a compression test in... 30 minutes

i'm going up to my cottage this weekend, and its going to be super cold, so i'll be staying in and write many more chapters, that i'll periodicaly upload next week

Nice! Good to know that beast is finally awake! What else Do you have planed for it before winter?

[frankiman]

still some stuff to be done on the inside

then a photoshoot, and i'm going to be featured somewhere (no spoiler)

then the ultraride on the 17th

then..... i guess i "have" to burn the tires off of it

i'll be ordering new tires this winter, and probly going to have the wheels repainted for the 3rd time

[Pingar]

Just read the whole thread. Awesome attention detail. I'm in for the next 50 pages. Can't wait to see what you have going on next.

[frankiman]

borrowed a friend's SLR camera this weekend, took an industrial load of pics, heres a couple teasers, and randoms

[JosiahP]

great pics man

[frankiman]

a little something to make Oakville jizz in his pants















lets say i'm ready for UR part2

[frankiman]

Chapter 30 – Needs restraining


So in my last chapter (wow already a month ago, jeez i’m late) I covered the suspension tune I got done at VAG Motorsport


Racing harness
--------------------------------------

But just before that, I had done a bit of interior work

You see, there was still nothing inside the car at that point, only the driver seat and a barely bolted steering wheel
So I put the radio and triple gauge back in, and the rear seats

At the point I wanted to finish my racing harness install



I originally intended to use a harness bar bolted to both side’s top seat belt anchor, but that apparently doesn’t exist (as a bolt-on affair) for skylines
I tought, ok why not modify an S13 harness bar to fit
So I called Haig@Autoworx to talk about it, since he had already told me about it last year
He had actually tried it and said they were too different to make it worth it
He told me to get a custom roll/harness bar made by a shop, I now of 2 shops in MTL that do incredible piping/cage/exhaust fabrication work, but It would cost an arm (maybe a leg too) and I’d have to leave them the car for approx 10 days, but the thing that discouraged me was the fact that it would be welded in, and would automatically loose my back seat and all rear panels (remember, my car is still a full-on street car)
I really wanted something removable for versatility
But It was also possible to get a bolt-in cage custom made, but soooo much more expensive since the fabricator would have to work outside the car on a bench and keep test fitting stuff back inside the car
Another option was to get an aftermarket bolt-in roll cage, even used they are 900$ and at that time I wasn’t ready to spend that sort of money for what I originally needed, just an harness bar (but now I am)

Anyhow, my plan then was to simply bolt the shoulder restraints between the rear seat and backrest – where they meet
I was going to do the same as the lower restraints, make a backplate and use big washers and nylon locking nut
But when I got to take a good look at that part of the body, I realized there was no space to drill holes and back them with a steel plate
But I also saw that the lower anchors for the rear seat belt where already backed with a plate, welded to the body, the oem way
So i got; oh could i re-use those anchors? Re-drill re-tap them to fit my eye-bolts? (i didn’t care about deleting the driver side rear seat belt)
So i take the bolts off and immediately see something weird

Standard small metric bolts sizes are usually have a 4mm difference,
Ex;
A 6mm bolt will have a 10mm head, 4-8, 8-12, 10-14,
And those bolts had 14mm heads, but a body bigger than 10mm



So i measure it and its ~11mm,
wtf,
oh wait,
7/16”
Oh wait,
Thats the same as the eye-bolts
Oh shiit

So i try one and it screws right in, ohh yeah, its the same 7/16-20 thread, how is that ? ..the fawk do I know

I ended up simply screwing in the eye-bolts instead of the standard bolts, spacing them with thin washers so they would be at the perfect angle when tigh to clip the harness onto



This way, i doesn’t change anything in the functionality of the rear seat belt, in the occurrence i would absolutely need that seat (you know.. for a corpse)

Then i got lucky, since the metal plate on the harness where just the right size to go through the holes in my R34 seats



Then adjusted the darn things and clipped it in place


I’m not a fan of the angle, but its going to be like that till i figure out something about the roll bar



Then i put the rear seat back in its place, and voila!
I can simply flip the shoulder restraints over the seat and they don’t bother me at all

[frankiman]

Chapter 31 – Patience, it'll get done, part1


Autoworx appointment
---------------------------------------


Now lets cut back to where we were, right after the suspension tune

I went to VAG to pickup the car, which looked like this



So it was getting late, and i had to drive the car to autoworx

It felt great chassis wize, but engine wize it felt like absolute crap

My dad was following me on the highway, during the ~20 minutes drive and told me I had constantly a small bright red ball of fire in the center of my muffler tip
WTF
If I pushed the car into boost, it would take off like a jet fighter, but if I tried to keep a constant speed, It would studder, slow down, turbo shuffle like crazy, make all sorts of weird noises and spew flames out the back

It drove horribly

So we get to Autoworx, drop off the car and all the body parts (that were in my dad’s truck) and got to talk “only” to the second in command, body shop guy
He couldn’t understand anything I was saying about the mechanical stuff to do, so we went outside and I explained to him what to do body-wize, but I had aleady explained it all to the body shop boss a week prior, so I thought everything was well understood,
I left a small list of stuff to do in the car anyways (but that list was old and was missing stuff..)

That was on a Thursday

I call back the next morning, no ones as touched the car, can’t get Haig on the phone, Saturday neither

That weekend I was going up to my chalet with my GF
While coming back on Monday, Autoworx was on the way, so I stopped by to talk to haig

I told him about all my engine problems,
He seemed to think It was simply turbo shuffle doing all this

So this is what needed to be done

Mechanic side
Test the whole intake system for leaks (boost leak)
Check all vacuum hoses for leaks, cracks
Cut the 2 useless oldschool HKS BOVs off the passenger side hard IC pipe
Weld an OEM recirc valve on that pipe and re-route it back into the recirc system
Flush the power steering system
Check the strength of the Driftworks hicas eliminator bracket I had modified to fit (because it was bent)
Install Tuboquip custom SS clutch line
Re-balance all 4 wheels
Find the cause for the aforementioned engine issues

Bodywork side
Repaint ; front bumper; side skirt; nismo pods, type-m mud gards, lip, grill
Modify the front bumper, shave (fill) the license plate recess
Repair any damage to any part
Cut the side skirts to the right length so that the nismo pods leave no gap
Install everything, including the old mesh grill protecting the intercooler
Re-aligning the doors
Roll the rear fenders
Install the replacement passenger side front inner fender


Just the week before, while taking my front bumper off te top shelf in my garage, I knocked the plastic grill which fell and broke
It would have cost too much to repair
So that same night, I bought one from Matty that I got in a very short time, it was silver, but getting repainted anyway

And also, just a couple days before the appointment, I bought a replacement inner fender from DJ, and had him ship it directly to autoworx


Anyway, during the week after I had dropped the car off, I kept calling them to see if anyone had checked the car, started the body work, anything!

Nope nothing at all…

I was supposed to pick-up the car the next friday

I went back to my chalet the following weekend so I couldn’t call them to check

Patience….

The Ultraride was the following Sunday, the car HAD to be done

I called them on Monday, Haig and his team had JUST started work on the car, while the body parts were getting sanded down in the other department

On Wednesday, got a call from Haig, told me that my rockers were completely bent and needed to be straightened out on a special machine,
I asked why it “had” to be done, told me my sideskirts wouldn’t fit anymore because of that, wuh?
So I agree to that and they do it
Then I got another call, saying that if the side skirts were cut, it would leave a small gap between the skirt and the pod (which is normal, they’re all like that, the gap is basically just a 1mm line), told me they could mold the skirt and pod together for a seamless look, but it would take more time and cost more, so I say no, just cut them its ok

So I called back Thursday to see If it was done, I was told the part were in the paint booth, but the car would only be ready for Friday, it fawking better be
The guy on the phone tells me; “so you know how much this is costing heh?”
I’m like; “nope, I wasn’t told crap, Alex (the bodyshop boss) didn’t want to give me an estimate without seeing the car, and never called me since the car as been there”
Guy; “oh, ok, well its xxxx$ (twice as much as I thought it would cost)”
Me; “WTF, have you repainted the whole car or what??”
Guy; “well that’s how much Alex is charging you..”
Me; “”

At that point, I didn’t even know how I was going to pay for all this ****
I had the ultraride on Sunday, another appointment with Almasi for a checkup/retune on Tuesday and a trackday on Friday, all that with very little money

So I pretty much emptied my bank account to pay for this, and borrowed some $ from my dad to pay for the rest until my next paycheck

So I went to pickup the car at autoworx on Friday evening, and just driving up to the shop, seeing my car outside, my heart stopped, WTF have they done to my car ?!

I don’t enter the shop, I simply inspect everything around the car and can’t believe my eyes, man they messed it up

At that point I start yelling and running around the car, they are charging me xxxx$ for this crap ?!
A couple guys from the shop start coming out to see whats going on,
I walk inside and grab, the body guy I talked to originally,
“hey frank how’s it going?”
“I’m going to be sick”
“…”

[frankiman]

Chapter 31 – Patience, it'll get done, part2

So I start showing him everything that was wrong;
#1 they molded the side skirts to the nismo pods, its well done but I said I didn’t want it to be done because of $$, they still did it, and on the driver side the nismo pods isn’t glued onto the body properly and theres a gap, he tells me that’s because it was molded to the side skirt and couldn’t be bent enough to stick well, wtf





The front the side skirt, on both side, isn’t glued properly either, that’s because on the straighten rockers, wuh? Makes no sense

The rear Type-M mudguards aren’t stuck on properly too,
But that because the type-m piece don’t fit well wit the larger GTR body/fenders
Still they could have probly done something to make it flush with the body, you know.. being body pros
Its much worst on the driver side



Then get to the front, OMG
Frist of all, the grill is missing, I check in the trunk, its still there ! the guy goes “oops I forgot about that”
The nismo inserts are still completely FUBAR, they took them out and repainted them but never repaired them wuh???

They didn’t put the mesh grill back in front of the intercooler, its still in the car

And they didn’t put the tow hook back on because it didn’t clear the lip properly and they never thought of checking for clearance before..

But the worst of all, they completely filled in the middle of the front bumper, where the license plate bracket goes, they filled it all in



Then I knew why I was getting charged so much $$, they did a bunch of stuff I didn’t ask for that took 6-7 more hours

The guys from the shop keep telling me ; “it looks good man, why you so pissed”
Looking good or not isn’t the point, it’s the fact that all that stuff cost me so much more money

i also found out later that while fixing my door alignment, some guy chipped the paint at the edge of the door
(i had to get the doors re-aligned, because when i installed the fender braces, i had to unbolt the door hinges and put them back on, which made the doors perfectly aligned with the frame sitting on jack stands, when i put the car back on the ground the door alignment was crap)





Then I got to talk with Haig who explained to me all the mods and checks his team did

There no major boost/vacuum leaks, only 2-3 clamps needed to be tightened more
He checked my modded driftworks bracket in the back, he thought of welding a washer onto the bracket to kept the bolt tight and not allow the bracket to pivot, but I torqued that bolt to 65 lbs-ft and he tried to make it move prying with a 3 foot long steel bar against it and it never budged, so its good (in your face everyone that told me I messed it up and didn’t what I was doing :P)
Changed the clutch line and bled it with ATE Blue fluid
Flushed the p/s oil with Redline Syn p/s fluid
Instead of cutting the old HKS bovs at the flanges, he simply unbolted them and welded a plate onto the flange, much easier like that
But on the 2d flange, and welded an OEM recirc valve and using a custom steel piping rerouted it into the recirc Y-pipe that I had blocked off, its pretty tight how he did it because he had to go around the oil cooler and its lines
like this;



He said that having some recirculation capability back, helped a lot with my engine issues,

He also liked everything I did on the car, thought it was well done, and only disapproved with my catch can setup saying my lines weren’t big enough to allow the valve covers to breath enough

- I also found out later that they changed my brand new NGK-R copper spark plugs for standard BKRs without telling me or charging me… still

So because the shop closed, I went inside and negotiated the price for the job, I really wasn’t please about all the body stuff
The guy agreed to take 20% off, repaint the grill (duh, they forgot to do it), repair and repaint the nismo front bumper inserts, re-install the mesh grill when I’d be back and also paint the OEM mudguards because at that point I though of taking the type-m off

This meant I had to drive around for a week without much of the front end on, and show up like that at the ultraride and look like an idiot

Anyway, the whole ordeal still cost me a lot of money, cash¸
I never had so much green paper at once in my pocket


Upon leaving the shop, I realized my clutch felt really weird, it was “slow”
It didn’t feel like pushing against a spring , but more like a damper
I couldn’t press it rapidly,
And if I pressed it fully, then took my foot off the pedal, it would spring back super fast, it would come back slowly
So I told haig who drove the car around in the parking lot and said it felt fine, I think he just wanted me to gtfo at that point, he was late for a dinner or something

Basically, technician at Tuboquip might have messed up the welds on the new fittings to crimp the SS line, which created a restriction inside the line, not allowing the normal flow of oil to pass, both ways
And that issue made it pretty awkward to drive, since I couldn’t work the clutch fast which led to poor shifts (mainly downshifts) and not allowing me to dump the clutch at high rpms, and an overall heavy pedal

And while driving back from the shop, I still had the same engine issue, backfires at constant speeds, I think Haig tough the problem was only a bogging-into-boost issue like 99% of the time, I don’t think he ever tested it on the highway, only acceleration in the street


Overall, I was disappointed with the job the body shop did, but mainly their lack of communication skills, but in the end they gave me a good discount which made the experience less bitter
But as always, Haig’s mechanics team impressed me with the quality of their work, which I still recommend to anyone

[frankiman]

3 new chapters guys ^^

not 56k happy

[DJ]

**** bad experience on the body side eh.... I'm definately not digging the filled in middle section of the bumper!

[Super_Dude]

Please tell me they are going to fix the front bumper where they filled it in.

[frankiman]

lol, they can't, they won't