My New R33 GTR - so it begins...

[ColinR33]

In some of the lapping sessions and autocrosses I found it made the car rather "twitchy" in some instances, when the hicas reacted to change the steering angle of the rear wheels midway thru a turn as I am accelerating out of a corner I did not like the feeling (could also be due to a shot ball joint I found). Also didn't like the way it reacted to a slide. True test will be when I do my first sessions with the eliminator kit. It has been the subject of numerous discussions with very polarized views.

[Daryl @ RightDrive]

I would love to hear your opinions after you drive it this year, it's always interesting to hear real-life comparisons!

[JZ]

Loving this thread.

I know HICAS was lame in the 32's, which was why eliminating them is almost imperative but the revised system in the 33 is supposed to be pretty decent. Personally my butt is not very sensitive so with or without HICAS is lost on me.

[M13]

So back to suspension installation, did the Driftworks HICAS eliminator kit tonite, pressed in the new bushings, went in pretty smooth:

Then bolted up the bits, trick is to loosely fit everything together before tightening up.

DING DING DING DING.

So many ppl have problems with this, it's not even funny. GREAT build thread!!

[bellis_GTR]

Awesome stuff ! Love the work and pictures

[Voodoo_ChildR32]

I've seen Colin's work in progress, and I must admit it is one of the cleanest builds I have seen in person. The car is a monster, all I remember from the last time he took me for a ride was my head bouncing off the headrest between shifts lol. Can't wait to hit the track with ya this year, you'll bury my car but it'll be fun trying to run away from ya.

[ColinR33]

Thanks for all the kind words guys. I am having a lot of fun doing this build and learning a lot along the way. This forum and others have been a great source of information and inspiration. Hopefully will have more updates in the next couple of weeks. James, I am looking forward to the summer track season as well!

[ColinR33]

So, time for an update, have been working on various things, finally got a few of them complete.
Being a cheap bastard (half Scottish and my wife is Chinese) I could not justify $4-500 for powdercoating my brakes (lots of other placess to spend my money) so I took it on myself. First thing is to disassemble the brakes, use compressed air to force the pistons out, make sure to have a block of wood in between to make sure the pistons don't shoot out, and do not get your fingers in there!

Once all the pistons are out:

Use a sharp pick or Xacto knife to take out the old seals, be very careful not to scratch the insides of the pistons!

I then stripped all the paint off using a chemical stripper, got them all down to their anodized coating:

Cleaned thoroughly inside and out, taped off the piston holes and all bits I don't want painted

Painted with VHT black caliper paint and put on the Brembo stencils and painted the Brembo logo.


Then clearcoat, turned out pretty good, we'll see how long it lasts, see if it was worth the effort compared to powdercoating, total cost about $150. Make sure you leave 5 days between the different coats and bake the calipers in the oven to help cure the paint as the caliper paint is heat cured. Now I just reassemble with new seals and dust boots.


Also, since I went with a Vipec, I sold my MAFs and had to get MAF delete pipes, but agaian being cheap I didn't want to spend a couple hundred on the HKS or some other units, so spent $8 on a couple squares of 5mm aluminium plate and sacrificed some leftover 70mm CAI piping from my Altima. Some drilling, grinding and welding later...

Total cost, $10 and a few hours of my time.

[ColinR33]

Doing my suspension work I noticed surface rust and a few spots where the paint had been worn away to bare metal by the fender liners and was starting to pit, so I figured I would paint the wheel wells with POR-15 (Thanks Archeic_Bloke and your SkyLife blog for the idea!). Now, my car is white, and I didn't want black wheel wells (the white colour also makes it so much easier to see!) so I nought some WhiteKote as well from PORCanada. Lots of scrubbing, cleaning, wire brushing, masking, etc. and waiting for warm enuf temperatures I was finally able to get it done. Two coats of POR-15:

Then two coats of WhiteKote after curing for a week and scoring with skotchbrite pads:

Shouldn't have to worry about rust or chipping any more! Will do the frame rails etc later.
Also finally got around to installing my oil cooler. Never want to put fittings on braided hose again! Had to work by feel to get the relocation plate on the engine block, that was a PITA. Fabbed up some supports for the cooler and installed it in front of the passenger side wheel well. This is how it will sit:

First attempt at mounting brackets, these turned out a bit flimsy so I went back and remade out of thicker stock:

I also cut a square opening in the fender liner and fixed some SS mesh to allow for air flow and to prevent rocks from being thrown onto the cooler. I didn't want to mount my oil filter up high, so I modified the mounting bracket and installed it thusly:

This way, I can drain things a bit more completely when changing oil and don't have to worry about spillage when taking the filter off.

[flipridah17]

Great update!

Yes POR15 works wonders. I wanted to paint underneath of my car to prevent it from rusting.

I'll wait for your update to see how you will be doing it.

[Messiahlee]

the brakes look great man.
Soo clean

[tommyboy]

[QUOTE=ColinR33;425666]It's actually 3M Di-Noc Carbon Fibre Film, it's a self adhesive film, I just made sure the whole surface was lightly scuffed. No additional coating needed. You can feel the "weave", but it's not real CF. Figured this would be easier (and a lot cheaper if I f'd it up).

where do you get the 3M carbon fibre film?

[JDMotion]

great job man!

[bellis_GTR]

Awesome work ! It's better to do it your self any ways. It feels better

[ColinR33]

where do you get the 3M carbon fibre film?

I ordered it on line, can't remember the website, but if you do a search you should be able to find it no prob.