Wilson's R32 GTR Project Build

[clandestine]

Hi All,

My name is Wilson and I have been with this forum a long time ago with a 1991 Skyline GTS-T which was sold to another user on this forum named A18. I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did.

Anyways, fast forward to today, I have been through several cars:
1988 Mazda RX 7 FC3S
2000 Honda Integra Type R
2011 Subaru WRX STI

I recently sold my STI for the purpose of reducing some debt and after searching the market for a car, I started looking at Skylines again. It's always been my highschool dream to build one and I wasn't satisfied owning the GTS-T.

I purchased late June 2012 this 1990 Skyline GT-R from a mechanic in Richmond that claims to be a "skyline specialist". Of course like any purchase of an old car, you should do your due diligence and get the car inspected. I kind of overlooked this process as I trusted his status as a mechanic and expected quality work done on the car. Unfortunately this was not the case as I will describe the bad below. I must say though, BUYER AND SERVICE BEWARE of Koju Takeda of Takeda Enterprises.
Instead of ranting, there's nothing much I can do now, just never bring the car back to him.

Here is my build thread, starting off likely with maintenance:



This picture shows the paint better than it appears, it will need a full detail.

Came with:
"Rebuilt" (claimed) engine with less than 5,000kms
First oil change (Motul 8100) included with the purchase, but used a crappy $2 oil filter
Air filters
Nismo Air Filter Arms
New HKS turbos, which after inspection was stock housing with claimed HKS internals (not sure yet)
Apex-i full catback exhaust including testpipe
HKS Camshaft
Compustar 2-way alarm
Tecnomagnesio 5-spoke 17x9" alloy rims
Nismo Copper mix clutch and flywheel

The bad:
Leaking Rear Hicas Pump (from engine bay)
Leaking coolant lines from the turbos
Leaking oil dip stick holder (it appears to be bent and hammered, will need full replacement)
Possible leaking of rear differential
Slow leak on the transmission casing (middle of the car)
Fuel line to the fuel rail was leaking fuel due to oversize hose installed

Unfortunately it did not appear like this when I reviewed the car prior to the purchase. I took it back to him to fix a couple times without resolution. After the "fixes", I noticed several clamps that weren't put back on securely, nothing in the engine bay appeared to be wiped down or brake cleaned after the service and thus I was not impressed.

Moving forward, my personal mechanic who has shop in Richmond, Evogarage, will be handling my car and has made several fixes to the car to ensure it still runs.

Currently on order:
- Used HKS Hypermax 3 Coilovers (from GTRC member Derek240)
- Driftworks Hicas Full Eliminator package
- Driftworks Steering Rack full metal bushings
- Driftworks Front and rear differential solid metal bushings

I will also post several pictures of the repair, if I have time to visit my mechanic when he performs it.

Thanks for reading and sorry for the long post!

[MarusGTR]

I think you found a little gem, even with the blemishes. I have slow leaks on mine and I just try to think of it as free rust proofing (you can actually see that it's been like that for years, stained portions of the front subframe are mint while the rest it more weathered lol) Just keep an eye on the fluids, most of those leaks are from non-critical dried up gaskets.

I just love stockers, hopefully you wont go all coolio. Enjoy!

[Sri-LanKING]

can't wait for more

[clandestine]

July 29, 2012:

Got a few things fixed today, and here's a picture of my leaking problem. This was only 2 days of accumulation, I wish it was just old seals.


The hicas system has been giving me a lot of problems and was pretty scary. It feels like I am always fighting the car when I was going high speeds. It has been fully replaced now with the Driftworks total eliminator kit! I have also removed all the lines and linkages related to this system too.



Oh look one of my tension rods is bent and the bushing is gone. No wonder why when I hard brake the car pulls sharply to the left!


One of my dash lights was burnt out so my mechanic was nice enough to replace all the bulbs with LEDs.
Also when we installed the new Alpine deck, we noted that there was no music playing because we soon found out there was no speakers!!
Like seriously wtf, how can you sell a car and tell me there's no music cause the deck doesn't work yet really, there is no speakers.


We also fixed some burnt/melted wires in the cluster related to the car alarm phew!


My HKS Coilovers have arrived, just waiting on some suspension linkages before I install them.


I spent 10 hours detailing my car with Meguiar's clay bar, Menzerna Power Gloss and Micro Polish compounds with a Porter Cable finishing up with P21S Carnauba Detailing wax.


A little present to myself:


Finally, a big shout out to David Ying of Evogarage - www.evogarage.com for helping (and continuing) to help fix my skyline. While it is his first R32 GTR service, he has taken the time to do research and parts lookup for me. While I wish I could do a lot of the work myself, I find myself without much time as I am an auditor usually working long hours. He has done a great service for me and continue to trust in his work and recommendations.

[clandestine]

What's going to be installed for this weekend:
Driftworks Front Camber Kit
Driftworks Rear Lower Arms
Driftworks Tension Rods GTR
Driftworks Traction Rods
Driftworks Lower Arm Bushings
Driftworks Solid Subframe bushings (x8)
Super Pro Steering Rack Bushings
Ultra Racing Front Lower Tie bar
SPL Pro Z32 Rear Shock Pillowball Bushing

HKS Hipermax Pro Coilovers finally going in.
Front/Rear solid diff mounts


Car is waiting to go into the shop for the weekend:

[Oakville]

You must be super excited! looks like quite the haul.

[felix yuen]

Alot of those problems u claimed are just normal 20yr old car problems
Especially it is a gtr..... It must have been driven hard in his life.
But after those minor things are fix.... It should be a very good car !

As regards to Koju claiming that it has a rebuild engine ...... Knowing Koju for the last 7years .... I can claim that he is a very reliable guy, he prob got the info from the Japanese auction sheet and just translating that to u..... But buying an used car always have some type of risk and u just gota trust the seller and in this case, Koju trustedthe Japanese auction house.

Nice to see a new owner of a gtr in Richmond and can't wait to see you car on the street one day !

[clandestine]

Alot of those problems u claimed are just normal 20yr old car problems
Especially it is a gtr..... It must have been driven hard in his life.
But after those minor things are fix.... It should be a very good car !

As regards to Koju claiming that it has a rebuild engine ...... Knowing Koju for the last 7years .... I can claim that he is a very reliable guy, he prob got the info from the Japanese auction sheet and just translating that to u..... But buying an used car always have some type of risk and u just gota trust the seller and in this case, Koju trustedthe Japanese auction house.

Nice to see a new owner of a gtr in Richmond and can't wait to see you car on the street one day !

This car has been insured in BC for the past 6 years according to ICBC. In addition, Koju claimed he had rebuilt the engine himself and that there were HKS turbos built for 400 hp. Shortly after, they did not exist as there was only the stock turbo housing and then he told me after there were "HKS internals".
While I should have gotten an inspection done for myself, I relied on his expertise as a car mechanic and his reputation.
If this happened in my industry, we would have things like Enron and Worldcom happening.

Edit:
The main problem I had was that I paid a premium on the car where he justified the price due to the rebuild of the engine to be about $6K worth and the turbos worth about $3K and the new nismo clutch worth $1K.

So subsequent to the purchase, the car (and continues to) leak coolant (from the turbo feed lines) and oil (from the valve cover and other related areas). In addition, upon deceleration, there is a cloud of blue smoke that follows me, indicating that the valve seals may not have been changed. These are things that I would expect to have been done if a rebuilt was performed.

As such, my car should not have had a valuation more than 9K at most.

Here is a pic after 4 months of oil, coolant and transmission leak. You cannot tell me it is due to old age.

[leeaspin]

Didnt know you bought a gtr wilson...from seeing all of your past cars...this thing will be a monster! Hope you keep it and build it man!

[MidnightBlue]

How did the HighCas delete go in?
was reading some people have a PITA time installing it

Nice build man, beautiful car

[clandestine]

Didnt know you bought a gtr wilson...from seeing all of your past cars...this thing will be a monster! Hope you keep it and build it man!

Thanks, so far that's the plan!

How did the HighCas delete go in?
was reading some people have a PITA time installing it

Nice build man, beautiful car

The hicas did have some trouble going in, not so much the removal of the bars, but the removal of the entire lines and pump took a bit of time.

So the suspension pieces are in, and it is amazing!

Acceleration increased by atleast 25%. The replacement of the subframe bushings and the diff mounts to solid steel means that there is no loss of energy upon acceleration, and response is much improved.

The steering rack bushings were a must and the steering is much more precise. The car feels far more safer and much faster now. Pics will be up shortly.

Small issue though, the driftworks brand seem to have a lot of fitment issues. Perhaps quality control isn't good?
For instance, whenever you were to install a piece, the hole would not line up exactly. In one situation, the right front UCA bolted on with some modification but the left front UCA needed a lot of grinding due to the part being about 1mm larger than the other.

[clandestine]

[MarusGTR]

That looks awesome! Mind telling me if those aluminium caps where the HICAS pump used to be have any purpose? I didn't have any in my DF kit and I don't recall what I did with the mounting points.

Edit: ...wait lemme guess, those mounting points are the diff bushings? Sorry if it sounded half-retarded, I haven't dealt with the rear diff / subframe bushings yet.

[nimblestix]

Very clean looking car bud! Keep it up.

If your up and running, come to a meet, or if your not into crowds pm me as I am always looking to meet owners here in BC. we can grab a coffee or something.

Cheers!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[clandestine]

That looks awesome! Mind telling me if those aluminium caps where the HICAS pump used to be have any purpose? I didn't have any in my DF kit and I don't recall what I did with the mounting points.

Edit: ...wait lemme guess, those mounting points are the diff bushings? Sorry if it sounded half-retarded, I haven't dealt with the rear diff / subframe bushings yet.

Yup you got it, upper and lower solid diff bushings!

Very clean looking car bud! Keep it up.

If your up and running, come to a meet, or if your not into crowds pm me as I am always looking to meet owners here in BC. we can grab a coffee or something.

Cheers!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Always down for a meet, sent you pm!
I noticed (except for the big revscene) that I didn't find many GTR owners meeting up (not like nasioc, 8th gen or vancivics) haha. Let me know the next time you guys go.