Ken's 1989 BabyZilla

[TheyKilledKenny]

WORK IN PROGRESS

CAR - '89 Nissan Skyline GTS-T

The car was imported into Canada Dec. 24th 2003 by Bikefan Co LTD out of Ichinomia City, Japan. The car came with a Momo steering wheel, HKS pod filter, Apexi front sway bar, 3 inch cat delete exhaust, 4 inch muffler, Tien struts, clear corner markers, GTR wing and side skirts.

My buddy Mike bought it on May 28th 2004 with 82000KMs and had 300zx rotors and calipers put on to pass inspection. He drove the line for about a year and added a HKS BOV and a CompuStar alarm. He bought his GTR in 2005 and parked the GTST in storage until April 19th 2006 with 87250KMs when I bought it off of him.





First thing I added was a north american wet cell battery as I didnt make 5 minutes down the road before it died on me and needed a boost. Soon after I replaced my drivers side window switch with one Daryl sourced, it didnt look cool to lean over to the passenger side to roll down the window.

I added some Work Emotion XD 17's in Aug 2008.

[TheyKilledKenny]

In the fall of 2008 I started to notice that I my oil pressure was starting to dip down, and eventually I had a nasty leak draining out of the bell housing. Rear main seal was completely gone and I was losing about 1-2L of oil for every 40 kms I would drive. The next step was a major rebuild project. Unfortunately at the time I had very little automotive repair confidence and I had a well known shop in Edmonton do the work. Raymond at SilverStone MotorSports installed the following components:

OS Giken super single clutch
N1 oil pump
Tomei 2.2L piston kit
Jun oil collar
Crank machined
Block bore
Tomei metal head gasket
N1 water pump
Cylinder head port and polish
Jun brass valve guides
Jun valve springs
OEM gaskets
Tomei 264 degree pro cams
Power Enterprises timing belt
Cusco oil catch tank
Tomei fuel pressure regulator
Koyo Racing radiator

He also removed my HICAS and A/C, then flushed my transmission gear oil.

[Oakville]

Nice! I'll be keeping an eye on this!

[JosiahP]

subbed to this

[TheyKilledKenny]

In the fall of 2010 I got sick of driving a sports car with dinged up and sun bleached paint so I decided a paint job was in order. I went to a few places and got estimates all in about the same price range then settled on a body shop ran by my sister's friend's father (Allan). He seemed pretty high on his dad's shops work so I rolled with it, plus they live down the block so why not right? Big mistake.

I did most of the prep work myself. I went over the body with 220 grit sand paper, then 400 grit. I spent 3 solid days making sure nearly everything was near perfect. I sprayed some windex on the emblems and rear spoiler mounts then took a thin paint scrapper to remove them from the car. The bottom rail on the car used by the stock jack was pretty bent up aswell so I took a pair of vise grips and straighten it out on both sides. The body under the doors and behind the rear wheels was in fairly poor shape, it had some rust forming from all the rocks flying into it over the years. I put a wire wheel on my 5" grinder and buffed off the old paint and rust in those areas, then sanded it completely smooth. The only areas I didnt sand were the inner fender rails under the hood and a small bit of the fenders by the corner markers. I brought it in set on getting it painted black again when at the last minute I decided Id go with something different. I always see black skylines so I thought Nissan's bay side blue from the R34's would be kick ass.

So I brought it in late October before I headed up to Fort Mcmurray on a three week job, expecting it to be done when I got back. When I dropped it off I proudly showed him my sanding work and told him that there was the odd spot that still needed to be done. Allan said they would go back over it and make sure its good. We also worked out a deal that since I was going to paint the car a different color that he would do the door jams, top side of fender rails, strut towers, radiator support and the under side of the hood and trunk for $XXX more. He sent me photos of the progress as it went from primer to paint, everything seemed fine and dandy. I got back home in early to mid November and proceeded to pick up my "finished" car.

Previously I had asked them not to put on my side skirts unless I was there to show his prepper how to install them. I went there and they where put up, except that they didnt use any of the mounting hardware, his dumb ass prepper just taped them up. I pointed it out and Allan says in a prickish tone "well we'll take them off, and you can put them on". I walked around the beast once and quickly noticed a large run and adjacent pinhole on the driver's rear quarter. I told him I wanted this fixed obviously and all of a sudden I was the bad guy. Alan barks at me saying that they did a great job and that I was being difficult. Maybe he thought that because Im a little younger (26), that because Im a neighbour, or the brother of his son's friend he could screw me....Not this cowboy. I started yelling "You call this good work? You left a 4 inch run in my paint and a pinhole and call this good work? How can you pass this off to people as finished." He just started walking away saying "just leave it, we'll fix it."

Another few days go by and I get a call its "finished #2". I go to the shop hoping to pick up my car, and this time I decided to give her a good once over. There was a decent sized chip (dime sized) in the front fender where it V's down to the corner markers that I had left for them to sand. They left the chip and painted over it. The old paint on the inner fender rails and rad support under the hood was peeling pretty bad, so of course they painted right over that too without sanding. For some reason there was quite a bit of air tool looking grinder marks where the studs from my wing go into the trunk. These gouges were done on the new paint, and not painted over. I guess the dumb kid prepper over torqued the nuts on the studs holding my wing down and tore the stud out of the spoiler. They epoxy'd it back in, but it still doesnt explain the missing paint. Well another shouting match started about the quality of their work. He says "I never would have took on this project, I only did it because your a family friend. It looks good and thats what counts, we've fixed it once now you have to pay." I replied "You said you would do the remaining prep work but obviously you guys just painted over my work. Most of it does look good, but how can you leave chips, gouges, and peeling paint and call it good work? It would have taken 30 minutes tops to finish the sanding, If I would have known I would have brought it somewhere else and paid more money." He replies again "leave it, we'll fix it."

I finally got my car back on November 16th 2010 with 2 inches of snow on the ground, just in time to park her in heated winter storage. Was a fun drive with summer tires. When I finally picked it up they somehow blew a fuse and I had no wiper blades or rear brake lights...great winter driving combo. I told them about it and another screaming match later they sent their mechanic buddy from the shop down over to solder the under hood fuse so I could make it to storage. Best part was the verbal exchange:

Allan - "Everytime you come here something is wrong"
Me- "Fack off" a=u

His dumb prep kid left my old tweeter on the passenger door panel off, I didnt bother to mention it as I was so happy to get the hell out of there. Moral of the story is never go to TopLine Auto Body in Edmonton.



Prepper kid with black hat, and painter.



As Ive been working on my car this spring, Ive noticed a few other things they screwed up. When I was putting on my new spats (car never had them) I saw what looked like peeling paint on the very bottom of the rear quarter by the rear bumper. I picked at the "peeling paint" to discover that was in fact painted over prep tape. Wow thanks guys, you left me a nice loonie sized bare metal patch right behind my rear wheels. It was already starting to rust a bit so I sanded it down and gave it a spray. They also failed to push my lock cylinder on the passenger side door all the way in.



The paint does look very good, and what they did do good, they did good. However what they did bad, they did really bad.

I got Ming Shine to add a clear 3M hood bra on June 23rd 2011. I also got them to put some on my smoked corner lenses. I notice when I was sanding my car that most of the chips were on the part of the hood that bends down between the headlights. I had them add a 18" wide patch across the hood to cover a area in where I found 90% of the chips.

MORE PICS TO COME

[m_melen]

wow, that engine is as blue as mine. choice.

[TheyKilledKenny]

The next thing I decided to tackle was the interior, I started by gutting the inside.




First thing I did was make a new speaker deck because mine was pretty much petrified. I used the old one as a tempplate and traced out its pattern on the new particle board. I put in new JVC 6.5" speakers in the rear and made the rear deck to fit around the new speaker covers. I added some black carpet and attached it with Nashua's spray. I also replaced the air filter in the rear fan, the old steel mesh filter fell apart in my hands. I used a cutable house furance filter from Home Depot/Rona.






Next I moved to the door panels, my old fabric on the doors wasnt holding up too great. I had some cross overs in my doors with screws going into the particle board in the storage area in the doors. Again I used the old ones as tempplates and cut new ones out of the board I had left from the speaker deck. I gave her a blast of black paint, and put her back in with the mouting hardware and Nashua's spray glue. I also replaced the old raggety speaker mounts with the OEM mounts and covers for a cleaner look.

OLD

NEW


I replaced the fabric on all 4 door placards (front/back) with Jackson pilot marble tweed. I attemted to glue this on myself however I found it difficult to position it perfectly so I let the professionals at Trevor Brown Upholstery do it for me. I prepped the panels by giving them a light sand so the adhesive would adhere properly. I also removed my headliner and sun visors for recovering in J. Ennis chino black velvet. I sanded down all the old gray plastic sun visor clips, both overhead light enclosures, rear view mirror, and holy sh*t handles then painted them with Kryon black spray paint. I also painted the plastic on the sun visors themselves. The pictures of the headliner make it look a lighter color than it really is.






I replaced the front speakers, tweeters, and cross overs with JVC 6.5" components. I decided to sink the tweeters into the door panel because having them sit on the outside doesnt look as good.

I installed a 330mm Sparco 383 competition black suede steering wheel on to my existing momo style hub.

I also put in blue LED lights I got from DAN666 on SAU into my dash, driver side window switch, and climate control. The gauge cluster was easy but the lights for the hazard button, rear defroster, etc... are really finicky. For the climate control I had to drill out the plastic screw-in style light holders to get the new longer LED lights to fit behind the buttons.




I also painted the rails the front seat belts loop over, and my passenger seat rails. I had to weld one galvinized steel cushion/ass support frame that broke.

My old setup didnt have a gaitor boot ring to hold the boot into the console trim. Instead there was a Reactive boot and knob put on. It looked like sweaty bum.



I put in a new Sparco black leather e-brake handle, this required a little modifaction. First I had to hack saw off about one inch of the steel part of the handle to get it to fit. Its really c*nty to get the steel rod and spring that moves the latch to release the brake back into positon with the new thumb button glued on to the rod with red loctite. Took a while but I got er in, and she looks good. I also put in new textured black leather boots, and a carbon fiber Sparco shift knob.

[TheyKilledKenny]

wow, that engine is as blue as mine. choice.

Ya I like blue Im going to pop off my cam and timing covers this winter and give them some red rattle action.

[cschepp]

This might be a weird question but second set of pics down what the heck is that thing in the middle? I have never seen that before. Is it a skyline part I'm assuming? Anyways very curious. Could just be the angle it's on as well

[GodZillaa]

did he died? hah jk, very nice r32!

[m_melen]

LOVE the interior work. That's my next project

[TheyKilledKenny]

This might be a weird question but second set of pics down what the heck is that thing in the middle? I have never seen that before. Is it a skyline part I'm assuming? Anyways very curious. Could just be the angle it's on as well

Thats the fan by the rear window, the picture of the rear speakers shows it with its cover on.

[TheyKilledKenny]

I also replaced a bunch of smaller stuff aswell. I changed out the hood, trunk, and door rubber stoppers with new soft ones. I also got a new hood support rod clip and grommet because I never had one, I used to keep the rod in the trunk lol. I changed out my old rubber radiator bushings with some new ones to hold my koyo properly.

When I used to wash my car I would have to make sure to spray from front to back when passing over the windows. My weather stripping was shot, so I swapped it out with some new ones. With the combination of new weather stripping and door stoppers, the doors close nice and quiet now.

In summer 2010 my engine would start to misfire and run on 5 cylinders when hot. After talking to a few people the concensus was that I had a crack in a coil that would expand when hot and distrupt current flow. I changed out the OEM ones with some Splitfire's and the problem was gone.



Also that summer I decided to put on a new muffler. My old cannon had some of its shell ripped out from around the weld on a hanger plus it sounded too high pitched and tinny like a Honda ricer. I put on a HKS hi-power stainless muffler with a 4.75" diameter tip with my 3" exhaust leading in. It has a nice deep exhaust tone now.




I had a nasty crack across my windshield. I got a chip in summer '07 and the first cold night of that year the chip turned into a crack...lesson learned. I get my chips drilled and filled from now on. I replaced my windscreen with a new nissan oem one and also ordered a new moulding.

I always had a annoying vibrating noise whenever the heater ran, so winter '10-'11 I decided to hunt it down. I found a sh*t ton of debris in my blower motor, which was throwing it off balance. You can find your blower motor behind your glovebox on the far left side. It looks like a black vertically mounted cylinder, just open it up and clean it out. I also removed a bunch of old wiring when I put in my new speakers, I took out a old amplifier under the passenger seat too.

Blower debris:

Wiring:


Also in winter of '10-'11 I turned my attention to my headlights. I ordered a 8000k 55w HID kit and H1 adaptors. I went to install the adaptors and they wouldnt fit into the low beam projector housing without some dremmel grinding. I started grinding a bit than realized all the dust was getting stuck inside, even with compressed air the dust would never come completely out. I decided to take the headlamps apart, I stuck them in the oven and gave them a 20-30 minute bake at 200 degrees. The bake makes the gasket maker gooey and then you can remove the glass with some force and a thin flat head screw driver. With the lights apart I decided to spray the inside components red. I chose red because it contrasts the blue well, and because Im planning on painting my cam and timing covers the same hue aswell. Wiring the HID's in is very simple, just cut the two wires going to the low beams from the headlight harness and wire them to your new HID lights.






I did notice by doing this the light doesnt reflect aswell off the red as it did off the chrome, the headlights arent as bright at night.

This spring I followed the guides off SAU and Marc's build and rigged up my new walbro 255lph fuel pump to 14V battery power. Again this was a simple mod, I just ran a 10 gauge (red) power wire from the battery back to the trunk. I put an 30 amp inline fuse around a foot down from the battery. Soldered new power and ground wires to the pump. I spliced the relay(chassis) ground to the pump ground. I used the smaller diameter blue and silver wire as my ECU switch wire.





I get 13.60V to 13.61V average.

[TheyKilledKenny]

I am now focusing my attention on the engine. Im gonna pick up a Greddy FMIC off a local guy once he's back in town. I have a Z32 MAF, 650cc Deatschwerk injectors, and a Greedy Profec boost controller in the mail. Im adding all of this in preparation for a nistune install and tune but the postal strike is slowing down the process. Its not like I could go anywhere for a couple of weeks anyways lol.





MORE UPDATES SOON

[RWD_GTR]

i liked this thread untill you painted the headlights.