My 1995 GTR project thread.

[cortexx]

OK - so i made a gopro video over the weekend but am not going to post it because after viewing it it's possible that the wrong type of public service offical could possibly do more than voice an opinion so ill make another tonight of me NOT driving the car

[Kunzz]

Can you host the awesome video and set it to private, then give the password to people who ask via PM?!

Would love to hear it with you driving the car!

[cory]

Amazing build .... I've always used a small piece of rope or the exhaust springs works well on snowmobiles

[cortexx]

Ok small update

Finally got around to installing the tomei fuel pump in the tank , whole job only took 45 minutes - one of the easier jobs (helped by the fact that everything came apart as if it had just been assembled).

And an added bonus that the pump that came out was a tomei (or at least it looked identical to the one i put in. So now i have a used one as a spare . probably wouldnt have bought a new one if i new the one in the tank was the same .

[PurpleStreak]

Nice, how did your assembly end up hanging in the tank? Was it perched at an angle or move about at all?

[cortexx]

It mounts just like the oem unit , it slots down into a bracket that sits in the back of the tank , the pickup dangles down forward and slightly to the right (drivers side) . Once you take it apart it becomes aparent where everything goes , i didn't take photos because my tank was about 20% full and i didnt want to risk the electronic discharge in my camera causing a mini mushroom cloud of flame and death. Plus I got some help from Ross at Brantford nissan - thanks for the ramp and the special tool for removing the ring . you dont actually need this but it sure makes removal a ton easier .

[PurpleStreak]

Ahh you had the lock ring wrench?? My lock ring looks pretty awful after I punched it open and closed.. Any chance you can get the part number stocked by North American dealers for future reference?

I could see the bracket clearly and the long tab slid in most of the way..just wasnt sure how secure it had to be..and yeah I've never been more paranoid about fire possibilities!!

[cortexx]

Actually my friend at the dealership had the wrench , it's commonly used on alot of nissans . Ill get the part# when i see him next .

When you slide the pump down it kind of plops in place , as you push it down it becomes very apparent when it has seated itself .

If you do this make sure you yank the FP fuse and start the car to relieve line the pressure , i didn't because i forgot this step and got a gasoline facial for my absent mindedness . Also make sure you remove the Negative lead to the battery , and remove the gas tank filler cap to releive any tank pressure . You really do NOT want any kind of sparks or arching.

I would also drop a large towel around the opening and get a container to drop the pump assembly into once you pull it up , you don't want gas all over the trunk as it will stink for ages. I used a large empty cat litter box to dump it all in.

You will probably need a new gasket as the old one miraculously seems to double in size once removed and is near impossible to reuse.

I know it's obvious but the less gas in the tank the better

BTW dont drop the wire to the sender unit into the tank or you will need long arms to fish it out after

[cortexx]

Stardate 4th June 2012 ....

Time for an update and some pictures.

Just a few simple things completed , last winter the installation of the oil cooler required the removal of the inner liner in the front wheel arch so i decided it was about time i reinstalled them. This is what it all looks like with everything hanging out so to speak .






Doing this of course means I restrict the path of air through the oil cooler unit so i set about modifying the inner liner to allow a certain amount of airflow to persist after refitting the parts . The inner liners were first cleaned in my wash tank to degrease them and remove any other crap that shouldn't be on them , then i drilled several holes using a hole saw and a dremmel to tidy up the edges , this is how it turned out.







The plastic being 17 years old and having suffered 17 years of grit , junk and other debris being flung at it from the wheels didn't look too hot . So I had a product that we use on ABS and NYlon ATV bodies to improve the appearance of the plastics. It is available at Royal Distributing and is an amazing product .



After spraying it on the plastic liberally , leave it for a minutes and wipe it off and the plastic moulding looks soooo much better .

[cortexx]

Next task was to address the issue i have with the cars tendancy to eat front tires . The car was lowered quite substantially while in Japan and sits on a set of Zeal function coilovers . I really like the ride quality of these shocks and want to keep them but the negative camber at the front HAS to be fixed. After around 12,000 klm here is what one of my Dunlop Direzza starspecs looks like ..



As you see the front inner tread has somewhat disappeared leaving a bald band around the same width of my mountainbike tires on the inside of the tire. This would explain why the front wheels scrabble to obtain traction in the wet , and the car tramlines like a butterfly suffering from ADD on mildley uneven roads. My traction contact on the front wheels has effectively been about 2 inches wide instead of the full tread width on the front.

After doing a bit of research and seeing what was available these Cusco front adjustable upper arms seemed like the best bet . I also looked at the driftworks units and also the nismo ones but i like the heavier duty cusco ones that were fabb'ed in one piece. The Nismos address the issue but are NOT adjustable , the driftworks units came in 2 pieces possibly leaving them weak to torsional twist of the upper assembly.

Here is what I got :--







Now these units weigh at least double what the original factory units weigh , but are ALOT stronger and the workmanship and design of the adjustable mount is very high quality. Once the whole assembly is installed it can be adjusted in place without even removing the wheel . You just unscrew the 8 hex screws and slide the plates in or out on the arm to amke your adjustment. Great for track days - drive to the track , jackup , adjust race then adjust them back for the drive home.

Here is what the OEM setup looks like :-



When removing the large bolt on the OEM arm , place a jack under the lower arm to keep some tension on the shock/spring assembly . This ensure the bolt slides out with minimal force , and also ensures that you don't get that large vertical arm pop out and break your shnozzle while your sat with your head in the wheel arch .



once this is out (takes a 17mm socket on one end and a 17mm wrench on the other to stop it spinning), you can push it up out of the way . You then slowly drop the jack and the arm , shock assembly will be able to to pulled towards you so that you can squeeze a 17mm socket and 3/8 breaker bar in to release the 2 pivot bolts in behind the shock.

Once they are out the arm pulls out and compared to the cusco - this is what we have :-



I jigged the new arm against one of the ones i took off and it turned out the cusco ones came already set the same as a factory arm so i just went with the next adjustment that gave me less camber .

Thankfully the cusco arms came with new bushings already fitted , didn't really want to jerk around trying to remove the originals and press them into the new arms. As you can see the extra strength through design is apparent in material thickness and extra bracing fillets.

Install is the reverse procedure of removal , start by attaching the new arms at the rear and inserting the 2 bolts at the rear and torquing them up , It's a good idea to level the arm off at roughly the angle it will sit when you tighten them so that you dont cause excess binding in the bushing. I coated the bushings with fluidfilm to provide some lubrication for assembly and also to provide protection for the rubber bushing itself.

The vertical arm pushes back into the arm by slowly jacking up the lower arm and guiding it into position. The bolt that attaches here is larger than stock , requires 19mm socket and wrench to tighten.

This is what the finished assembly looks like :-






The front rims with the worn tires were put on the rear of the vehicle and the even worn tires from the rear moved to the front. This is what is visible once the rims are on and the car again ... easily adjustable as you can see without rim removal.

[cortexx]

On looking at the front geometry it's apparent that the upper arms moving the top part of the wheel on an outward arc is going to affect the tow in (or out ) of the front . In fact it makes the front toe out a little each side . Needing to drive 60klm to Brantford nissan for the 4 wheel alignment i didnt want to lose any more rubber on the way so I aligned it old school

No pics for this because it was now dark outside, pretty late and i wanted to get it all done.

Istole a piece of my kids sidewalk chalk and drew a horizontal line across the tread of the tire on both front wheels , drove down the driveway and back and looked at the line. Line was intact on the outside of the tread but gone on the inside , Reason is too much toe out so I adjusted the steering arms to give slightly more toe in and wrinse / repeated 3 times until the chalk line wore evenly across the entine tread width.

This gave me a pretty close adjustment for the front alignment that i could drive 60 klm to get it properly done .

That was done today :- here is the before and after printout from brantford nissans lazer alignment equipment . (Green is good)

[cortexx]

After this was complete a test drive proved how bad the original setup really was , I now have no more tram-lining , no more wheel scrabbling on hard acceleration and the steering is alot more precise and positive. I can let go of the wheel and beat out the gearbox up to 130klmh with no hands on the wheel and the car is perfectly straight.

Once these tires are down to the wear bars ill retire them for some new rubber , maybe something different ...

One problem that i have is that the tires now worn the way they are provide noticable vibration at higher speeds , to be expected really and i'll just have to stay under this speed until new rubber is installed .. I assume they will last the rest of the year or around 20,000 on this set which for 150 compound tires + my driving habits is nothing to be upset about

[cschepp]

Paul just take the from tires off and flip them around so the camber wear is outside. Youll get atleast another season or two out of them lol

[frankiman]

can't,
they are unidirectionnal

just do like i did, swap the front are rear wheels/tires

[collector240sx]

can't,
they are unidirectionnal

just do like i did, swap the front are rear wheels/tires

What cschepp means is to take the tire off the mag and switch side. Taking the tire to the other side means that the inside will become the outside.

That's what I did on my girlfriend car since she had some camber wear, I was able to use the tire to the point it looked like a slick.