Gaijin

Reading your thread Mike, is as exciting as doing it for real! there's a way to save cash eh... RX8 struts not grunty enough? Are they what you have passed on to me earlier? Cant remeber what they were off... Great to see thread and project up and away again!

Hey, the rack end was the HICAS rear steering thing the car had. Best ditched I reckon. Took the whole thing out, weighed maybe 10+kgs, and put a straight bar that accepted the same rear steering arms. Hey presto, toe adjustments. Its got a face finally Its all stock I promise. Cut and paste exercise required, as gaurd is 75mm north, Gnose outta place. Red line is average effort to show where the cuts are. Cut bumper out and move forward to keep the same distance to the over-fenders as a stock zg front. Cut the lower section of the gnose to form to new gaurd Cut the newf.glass headlight cones out, blend with gnose headlight thingies. Butcher! Make a re-inforcement to the chopped gaurd to mount to gnose around the headlight areas. Make it all look factory fresh and un-molested? Hope the hammer/dolliers are more skilled than this jpg editer.....

. There aint no panel beatin' starting until the cars ride height is set front and rear. As a requriement for the street, min. 100mm clearance is required. This was my starter, front and rear lowest parts hanging off the car. Rear oval superflow type muffler looks ok. Sure takes up some height.... Take the rear struts out, RR tire sitting on the roughly cut gaurd. LR doing same to stock inner gaurd. Clearance about right. Heaps of suspension geometry going on. Note the wee chop into the chassis to ensure max lowering efforts, and no chassis hitting suspension parts. Take into account sag and we have penty of suspension travel available. better remember the dimensions next time.... speaking of a travel limiting device, Rear struts, B4.s revalved with 300lb spring For the front, oilpan the lowest (ergh, this wont last long , better thing about a gaurd/sheild?). Wound the front up, using the full strut section moving out of the strut housing, keeping the overall travel the same. I finished with 110mm ground clearance to the under side of the oil pans lowest point. Sus arms are horizontal roughly eyeing. To sort the castor situ with wheel lagging in the gaurd space, dug these japanese castor arms/tension rod from Import monster a while back, when it was affordable with rates. Nice quality stuff, plenty of beef. They offer a little more total length than the modified stocker. It still isnt enough. Will get the stock modd'd ones lengthened again. Wheel further forward, but lets keep going. It would probably be prudent to get a hold of a castor/camber gauge, would make life easier. Hello, a change of face? frog face

Right, the car sits at the next venue, on the outskirts of Auckland where the panel beatin' rates are much less than the usual joints, not to mention their outstanding skills with sheet metal, raging enthusiasim etc etc. Remembered why I waited for ages to get the car in (mostly my fault), once I walked back in with the car, top crew from first and second impressions. Enjoyed checking out the other classics? and reviewing their butt welding, no added rod/metal. = little to no body filler used. Lets see what they can manage with this old girl The fuel rail didnt fit the standard er34 squirters in, so holes machined out, and new collars made to suit the new bosch 6 hole 600cc injectors er34 squirters sold on, good time for a quick + (crap) pic. A few oldies also hanging about. Looks like lots of $ spent on these. Front gaurds dont have any internal support nearest the door. There is still the existing panel closer to the front wheel. Once together & bolted on we can see if its too flimsy.

Thanks for the support people! Anyways, after so much toying around, its time the car started going hammer and tongs with the hammer and dollys. Picked up thanks to John.

Plenty of work to go, Panel Paint Electrical/ECU install Interior ECU Tuning and brake/suspension setup Cert WOF/REGO more or less...perhaps not much considering the journey so far... Anyways, Tried the lock to lock with the steering using the MR2 PS rack. Looks like 2.8-ish turns of the 2nd hand Momo wheel purchased off Ebay.au a while back. I will measure up the angles of the wheel at full lock, something the drift crowd increase for greater tail out action. More recently, after a chat with Ricky Cooper (races a nice L series NA 240z in Auckland), I was keen to have a look at some fibreglass parts for Gaijin for the two usual reasons; - lose some easy pounds - save money at the panel beater but also picked up the great feature of (in the case of the front gaurds) moving the arch 75mm further forward, which will allow much greater castor angles. This will give me more camber thru steering change, and a greater self centering effect with the steering. V8 supercar will run 8 deg+ roughly (did 8 years ago when I turned the spanners for Team Kiwi). The current castor arms may not be long enough for this, but this is an easy cut/remake/TIG up operation. Current rough install position a little way out. Also picked up a bonnet, which is a light (for glass) unit, covers the inspection panel, has mounts included. Headlight buckets are moulded into the gaurd, metal originals are on Trademe. Overseas shipping not a worry Also check my other listings for more S30 bits PM me for manufacturer of these fibreglass parts inc. bonnet and other body parts.

. Local USA old school Road Race Rally Ltd. Ron has helped me with shocks and bushes. Bilsteins, revalved, 200+ lb (cant remember) springs, spherical bearing top mount, ajustable threaded collar height - so a show 'dumping' of the car another 70+mm - not safe for road use... Ron also sweated out the old rear subframe bushes for harder types, two rear points have eccentric bolt for further camber change point. Bushes didnt come in plain non adjustable variety, and were economical.

Yeah, thats a good point, it doesnt read well at all. Ill try again. In a much earlier post, I may have attached a brake spreadsheet showing calcs. I inputed a max pedal force, which was 35kg * 9.81 =xxx another input was max decceleration, which I reckon to be best at 1.2G (slowing down), with some half decent slicks on, on the race track. This 35kg on the pedal was used as a lowly figure, since the wife also would like to drive Gaijin, considering it doesnt have a booster. So it should be easy to squeeze the brakes, at some loss of pedal sensitivity, ie. the ability to continually recieve feedback from the pedal, and to adjust the force on the pedal to maximise the braking opportunities. This feedback back to the foot, ie. the resistance to pushing, reactive force, is best left 'clean', without any other 'brake system' inefficiencies, such as brake pedal deflection, twist, brake bleeding issues, brake line expansion, etc etc etc. I guess its like the torsional rigidity of the s30 chassis, or any vehicle chassis. Effectively always a spring, with its own natural frequency of vibration. It will have a determined spring rate, can be found by several methods. The more ridig the chassis is in torsion, the higher the spring rate can be used on each wheel. Ensuring that each wheel does the moving , not the chassis. anyways, hence the beefy pedal. happy to get fat in a few small areas, for what I reckon as good potential gains (for the crazy and perticular driver that is). If in fact the applied pedal loads (say the 35kg at an assumed 1.2g decel.) are too 'light', and too 'touchy', it is easiest to either; - change the MC sizes to a different bore size, and then fine tune the front/rear split using the brake balance bar and/or - change the pedal ratio to something a little lower, like 5.5:1, so less leverage onto the MC, which means a 'harder' pedal, which may take applied pedal load to something like 50kg, at an assumed 1.2g decel. This gives me more range in applying a pedal force, which gives me a better sensitivity, better for racing on the very limit. Hope this is more clear, sorry for being cryptic, having strong chemo for angry cancer, so meds are making my brain take many short cuts when typing this tech? stuff out.

The brake pedal see action , probably because I have a tendancy in cars to quicly decipher the worst points of it, some cars have pedal that twist under heavy load, for Gaijin, the pedal loads for an assumed acheivable (slick on yeah) 1.2G, was around 35kg pedal force. It bugger all, set low in fact so the misses can also engage in driving. It will lose out in sensitivity on the other hand. Change the MC sizes a fraction and you are away. An adjustable pedal point would also be cool, damn, got me thinking again. Yeah pedal may see some lightening efforts too, uzi should do it

The club in progress Speaking about welds 3" SS pipe between resonators, middle of exhaust -ish Tiller of HMS 'Gaijin' Autogauge rev and smokey speed meter 3 - 6 other 60mm pending. 3 on dash, 3 mounted in glovebox behind the lid. these didnt fit. Left one is not what I want, its r34, mine requires a R33 gtr for some reason as on the right. Eh? Ron Millan getting all bushes into rear end, and shock manfacture. Top spherical mount, lower to rubber mount attachement on hub assembly. With left over 4" ally intake pipe in hand, an intercooler top up tank, mounted higher than the rest of the coolant in the system. Get rid of some aeration issues - Noticing the radiator connect only tack welded. handy

You may have the hit the nail on the proverbial! Perfect, almost a titanium colour, off silver/light bronze. drool

Attempting to decide on paint and external appearance is daunting really, easy to make or break the cars looks. Here are some cars that take my eye, that may look similar in some ways to what we can produce. In no specific order, apologies already if links break plenty of lovely s30's ive missed out on, cant post them all...sorry Ive not got the gnose, so thats out for now. New chrome front bumper. 2nd hand chrome rear, avg condition Chrome or painted? Flares 2 tone to body? Out to take more high res pics tomo and the local photoshop expert tomo.... Also looks like one of santas elves has been identified as Mike Lucas (thanks Mike - hugely!). Will begin play with bonnet gas strut mod for the fibreglass lid arriving next week from Wayne Croft, he makes them, along with other fibreglass goods for zeds, spoilers, gaurds etc. Christchuch based.

Oil blow by 2 litre catch can in, with lovingly welded bracket. Hoses attached and completed. Shroud made for the rear of the radiator to intercooler. It is structural, holding the cooler, along with a bottom support, all in ally. Bosch cobra water pump for cooler sitting in its home. This is a stock order pump from USA, from a GReddy type R BOV in its possible home. Will recycle hot filthy air back into the turbo intake, for max response, and turbo spooling The cooler is made of 3-4mm plate ally, so we can fit directly to this, with maybe only a little strengthening required. and everything STILL fits under the stock bonnet... Intake pipe nice n tight The whole lot there is rubber mounted, so no cracking. Wouldnt mind the JP style hundreds of welds style inlet pipe, using sections. Sure looks fat next to the little engine The car is out of here next week, so the clock is ticking! Next mission, PANEL & PAINT

Getting back to the business end of the car; Electric water pump arrived with controller. Mounting under the intake manifold, probably. Its the bigger 110l/hr, with fan on the back. Controller is micro-processor. Very 80's... I jest, but it will be a good addition to the car. Turbo timer, whatever! Run the pump once the engine has stopped for a few minutes. Good solid fast trips to the corner shop then. Enough of that for now, 10" fan fits ok. Will get two in there. My pikes peak escudo sized K&N is too big to fit now intake pipe roughly done. Ill play around with this later this week. Ignore the coolant hose yah. Grill aint looking too bad considering. Would prefer the Fairlady version, mesh style. Perhaps someone has a new/nice one in their garage they could sell to me? swap, please, hello?

Right then, its been such a long time between posts, thought best to update the situation; ER34 rear bushes from Noltec. Trademe have some reasonable prices for these. Frank De Jong is the contact, helpful, delivers for free too. There is a few missing, kids eh. Rear subframe bush ready for transplant. Rear camber arms back in. Bought off trademe, for a sniff over $100, the welding was poor. Ground the welds back, re-tig'd them, and sent back to the Xrayer man for OK. Phew. Dont expect the stock ones to pass certs, WOF etc. Only the sway bar to go back in, more or less. Oh yeah, struts as well. Ron Millan in today to measure up. Better lose that hand bud. Big dog tailshaft hoop installed. Tailshaft by Beatties, spec'd for 700hp. Nothing re-used from old skyline, as itll be too weak for thrashing. Hoop required for certification. Hard to see, but, handbrake mods to bracketry. Single cable to twin, made custom mount.

More nostalgia. The mk 1 plans called for NA. It was the L series build up, aside from the L24 stocker seen previously. L28 stock insides, cleaned up, Mikunis 40PHH, ex manifold 6-2-1. elec ign. May have made 180 flywheel hp's. Carb rebuild....gaijin would be quicker to build than those carbs. But the sound ! Something a turbo will never acheive.

Thought best to get some panels on to work out some colours for the car. Got the right front gaurd roughly on, prob a little low. Steel gaurd will be sold, and a fibreglass one in place. Chucked the spoiler on, Rolled it back for a rough ride height = ok. New bumper arriving from santa- thanks Mulderghini! We sprayed up the gaurds in primer to get less contrast with Photoshopping when doing colour schemes. Or probably just my wobbly eyes. cant ignore the left side. Ive picked up a full nolathane bush kit for the rear including more adjustment opportunities, on all sus arms and subframe to chassis mounts. Sway bar adjustments also provided for. Ill get these in once im out of bed.

Getting exhausted, another mention of the existing wastgate point, welded up. Wastegate dump 38mm enters into main exhaust after 1 metre. Gas flow less turbulant there = less back pressure = more power Keep it tight boss could wrap it in heat wrap or get some coating on.

To gauge the clearance between ground/lowest parts, exhaust back up. its a 3" SS mandrel tack TIGed into posi for now. Centre muffler lowest part but will sit about 30mm higher than as unsupported here mind Rear Sus arms are shooting for the stars, thats enough bump Cut away the lovely quarter I welded in a few years back, and some cables. oops wheel in at max squish (smaller temporary) cap screw the gaurds into place, and hey presto, Full bump including er, bump stop and at about ride height and same Can move this around a bit with coilover heights, but looks about right. Comments please oh yeah 125mm total wheel travel.

More engine bay stuff; Got a GREX/Greddy oil filter re-locator from JP off Import Monster (which does cars, motorbikes, 2nd hand, vintage stuff etc, just recently, got a Z432 for sale with 85km, going for $135kAu - yeehaa, and a nice,clean ZG a snip at circa $80k au. The market sure lives on strong in JP. NISMO clucth also a jp 2nd hand item, about half the weight of stock flyw. Ill kill the water pump and blank this part off, pull the thermo out and run elec pump & controller. Biff on a cam gear for the exh.? Hello, f.glass 1" wider front zg flare, sitting rough. This gaurds ok, but the other will be the bog sculpture. Rickys f.glass gaurds sure look tidy, especially that the arch is 75mm forward, great for big castor angles.... and for the rear this what we got Better get back in and finish this flare install , get mr suspension in to measure up.

Getting back onto the engine bay completion, plenty of the fiddly bits to go. Firstly, its biffed back in, the cam covers have been given a rub'n'polish and the coil cover some nasty never dry gloss black. Perfect then. The new wastegate position (Tial 38mm - hopefully its big enough), which was changed from an underneath pick up on the ex manifold to a top position for flow reasons. Had heard that boost creep would be gauranteed from some dyno tuners, on the same engine and similar turbo. Moving it up means gas flow doesnt need to do a 180 to get to the gate, just an easy? 90 deg change. Bottom hole TIG'd up. 90 deg elbow welded to the comp housing outlet, clearance ok to ex man, but will require some heat sheilding to help intercooler do its job. Comp housing clearance to bonnet? Dunno yet, have tried and seemed ok, but once gaskets etc are all on it may start a rubbin'. Oil catch can arrived after waiting a few MONTHS for it to turn up from kazakstan...hmmmm Quality looks good though, solid, 2l capacity (right for track racing then according to Motorsport NZ). This will also get hot, being on the , er, hot side. More heat reflection required then. Squirter bottle pinched from a mates car, and chucked into the corner. Well hello, the flares have just turned up, surely not from Kazakstan as well? Better get over and do some trial fitments....finally

Right then, This is a boring post. Firstly, with the plans for a daily driver, think about things I like in a car. - Clean windscreen! The squirters are from unknown jap donor car. 4 sprays. Looking at gauge options, they are suprisingly few. Autometer, usual fare, but are rather typical? Autogauge, but unsure of longevity of them Looked at plenty of American units, but they are oldschool, check out the Cyberdynes, WTF! Would love some DEFI, but yikes, rather not sell the real daily driver to get 'em. Need 2 5/8" for centre console, and 5" for dash. Dash installed and cut outs made for the roll cage around the pillars. Will look around some more before purchasing. Hmmm whats going on here. Decided to ditch a mechanical driven water pump and go electric. ECU will run this. Will gain hp's, more so when its not running at full effort. Davies Craig 110lt/min arriving soon. So will have 2 water pumps for sale, one being underdriven (new 'N1 type' one), using a larger pulley. Takers?

rb26 water pump. Should have gone and bought a Davies electric pump instead. Focus.... Anyways, checking out the exisiting front brake options, it started with the stock er34 (same as s14/15 r32/33/34 sumitomo 4 piston) But Herberts had a neat looking disc and hat available cheap, which would mount to 4 stud s30 stock hub, using stock sumitomo's. Solid mounted hat to rotor. But Id wanted a bigger disc, with an ally 5 stud hub, which was not gonna work as a combo, without breaking out the mill again The disc was light for sure though. Club member may be keen? But the Arizona Z car stuff, was the ticket. Bolts together, US/NZ rate at $0.87US, it would be very hard to beat it for the $ outlay. Probably too easy now. Hat-rotor still solid mount, not floating. I Overspeced the rotor to HD, increasing the rotor thickness and number of internal cooling vanes. Increase heat soak potential.

Some progress of late. stock er34 injectors replaced with Bosch 550cc x 6, which will cover me for some way over 400hp's at the wheels, turbo/engine strength permitting. Gaijin back from the brake hose crew, and it looks neat. Wilwood master cylinders have replaced the Trojans, only due to difficulty in finding the resevoirs for them. Groan. Just for luxury sake, a rear proportioning valve position is included in the rear pipe line inside the cabin. Ignore the interior sound deadening, efforts from the past require restarting. The engine bay completion continues...

Right, more detail shots. - Petrol tank. Standard unit modified. Pic has details. Welds have sealed tank. Will add POR15 type tank sealant internally. Carter lift pump pushes fuel through low pressure filter into surge tank. Not shown. Then EFI bosch pump draws from surge tank, through high pressure filter to fuel rail up the braided lines. When the tank is in the car, it looks completely standard. Access through the existing spare tire wheel bay, with a flat cover over the top. No spare tire then. So the surge tank is not connected to the main tank, and the extra vol is. Just testing... - PS rack/cross member mods, in case your interested. Pic shows the mods, new mount for the bottom seat of the rack, a braced top mount, and a cut out for one of the PS lines. Rack is a Toyota MR2 job, so not exactly a limo turner. Similar car weights, so shouldnt be too over assisted, can change the PS pump revs through new pulley, will adjust this a little way. - Rear tire/brakes completed. Rebuilt, new discs, calliper seals, hoses, project mu drift pads and plenty of BBQ black to hide the crud. not exciting unless its making smoke...eh