Finally! The Ottawa R35 crew assembles!

After an eternity of talking about it the local owners finally got together for a cruise.  I'm also proud to say that for a change it is not me organizing this but a young man by the name of Adrian who took the initiative to set it up and get people to show.  So nice to just be a participant for a change.  

We met at 8am at the Ottawa Trainyards Starbucks, warmed up on coffee (it was 10 degrees Celsius) and chatted while everyone showed up, then went for a nice rip through downtown Ottawa along Rideau St. to Gatineau Park.  6 cars participated: Travis Hill from Switzer/OB Prestiege showed up with 2 cars (Switzer ClubSport and AMS Alpha 9 time attack car), Bao and his P600, my car, Peter from Hunt Club Nissan in one of their used GTRs, and Adrian with his stunning GMG 2014 Premium wi cinnamon interior.  Weather was chilly and overcast but sitting in my car and following a parade of loud, stinking, belching badass R35s made me all giddy inside.  Yes, this was not an NSX meet, not a S2000 meet, not even a Skyline meet. It was a R35 meet. So much win.

May is OMGZILLA month :)

Back in January of 2004 I started a little forum devoted to the Skyline GTR scene in Canada.  By scene i mean myself and about 12 friends who were interested in exploiting Transport Canada's 15 year automobile import exemption law.  What this law mean is that any 15 years old car that was built for foreign markets are allowed to be imported into Canada as long as it passes provincial safety and emissions tests.  It was a law aimed at car collectors and enthusiasts who brought over the odd Morgan, MG or split window Beetle.  What the Feds didn't realize is that starting in the late 80's, Japan started a domestic arms race of sorts for force-induced high performance cars.  This arguably started with the Nissan 300ZX, through the MR2, Supra, NSX, included oddities like the Subaru SVX and Mitsubishi GTO and culminated in the big daddy of them all, the R32 Skyline GTR.  By 2004 these cars have become legal on our streets and this little forum I started on the back of NEO240SX.CA grew into the 40,000+ members it has today.  

I've long sold the forum to my good friend Daryl Henwood of RightDrive Parts, and nowaday enjoy the freedom of just being a moderator. One thing Daryl does annually (aside from Annual Skymeet) is the GTRCANADA CALENDAR.  As luck would have it, I was honoured his year by having my car sected as the May feature GTR. 

What a difference 1.5 years make

Took the GTR to work today for the first time this year and parked in my spot.  I always enjoy taking pics of my vehicles in front of that plain red brick wall.  

Snapped a pic and enjoyed how she looked.  I thought it would be cool to do a direct comparison of how the car looked in Oct. 2012 compared to how it looks today.  I'm loving the subtle differences visible (front lip, skirt, rear wing, wheels, stance).  Too bad the iPhone 5 didn't capture the exhaust and CF diffuser fin very well.

Godspeed rear wing install

 

Last fall on a whim I decided to purchase the Godspeed carbon fibre rear wing from a fellow member on the Facebook R35 GTR OWNERS CLUB.  Matt just upgraded to a duckbill rear trunk lid --also something I really liked and was also debating about purchasing, but he had the wing up for sale at a price I couldn't refuse.

It arrived in December last year and sat in the basement for the winter.  During that time more group buys came and went for the duckbill and I was really getting buyers remorse and thinking of selling.  I posted  in a couple of forums to see if I could find any buyers but there weren't any takers (probably because I wasn't making much of an effort and didn't even bother posting pics) so today I decided to just go ahead and just install it.

I followed this thread for instructions: http://www.gtr.co.uk/forum/121137-step-step-fitting-rear-wing.html

I opened the trunk and used a heat gun to soften the glue and remove the gray stickers (yes stickers) covering the screws holding the trim cover in place at each wing end.

After removing the 6 Philips screws, the trim was removed to expose 6 more #10 nuts.  Those came off quickly and now I'm faced with removing that @&$#%^[!! centre pillar.  What a pita.  Took almost an hour, a heat gun, a long x-acto blade and some intestinal fortitude to pry that thing loose. After that you unplug the brake light wire on the right stand and voila the wing comes right off.  

I brought it indoors where more heat gunning was needed to remove more gray stickers to expose the Philips screws holding the trim piece that hides more screws that secures the brake light.  Some wriggling and it comes off easily enough.  Everything was reused on the CF wing and then it was reinstalled back on the car.

When I first tested fitted the wing, it seemed really warped and didn't want to go on the oem stands.  Slowly I cinched everything down and it ended up looking great. --like oem but CF with a pronounced duckbill upsweep at the trailing edge.  I really like it.

 

Spring is here!

Last Friday I decided it was warm and dry enough to finally pull the cover off the GTR and fire her up for the first time in 2014.  I have to admit that it's like Christmas morning for me when I roll the car cover off the car. For some reason, just having the GTR hidden under cloth makes me almost forget that I'm the lucky owner of such a great toy.

After a quick victory lap around the neighbourhood, it was time to get down to business.  First thing on my to do list: fluid change.

Oil, filter, front and rear diffs, tranny flush and fill.  Thanks to my buddy at Pentosin, I was set up with FFL-4, a huge improvement over the standard (and pricey) Nissan fluid.  

On my wife's urging, the powerful but noisy Endless MX72 pads were swapped out for oem Nissan ones.  I don't plan to run many hot laps on the track so these will be much more livable and keep my wheels less dusty.  I also swapped out the oem exhaust for a 90mm T1R stainless unit with Ti tips.  There is not much performance gain in an aftermarket exhaust, so I thought I'd be happy with oem (plus keep the car quiet and more in line with the GTR's "gentleman's race car" mission statement) but a great deal came up that I just could not pass up.  I love the sound, the workmanship and of course  the looks!  The bigger tips really fill out the rear openings aggressively.  I'll have Ben Linney at GTC do a retune as soon as it warms up enough for me perform a few 3rd gear pulls.

Next on the agenda was a quick visit to Derek at Autovation to install a new set of shoes: Advan GT.  I picked these up used from Peter Pang of NextMod in Markham.  These wheels were on his show car but became useless once he went with the LibertyWalk widebody.  These babies are finished in what they call "hyper black" but is really a polished metallic gray finish on the spokes with a polished stepped lip.  They measure at 20x11 and 20x12.  I had my Michelin Pilot Super Sports and TPMS sensors transferred over from my old ADV7 deep concave wheels.  I admit I'm such a ADV fan that I had serious second thoughts about doing the swap, but afterwards I was completely sold.  Love the new look, and love the extra JDM tyte points.  The fact they weigh almost 1/2 that of the ADV1 is not too shabby either. :)

More footwork

Ride height.

This is something that seem to obsess car guys for some reason.  IMHO all cars that roll out of the factory is too high.  The ride height is set at the factory to accommodate a variety of market demands (road conditions, the need for the car to work well year round and not to allow the tires to rub the bodywork in extreme conditions causing damage to the bodywork).  Very rarely are they set up to allow maximum performance or appearance.  Japanese manufacturers seem the worse, Germans the best and the rest somewhere in between.

The GTR comes from the factory with incredible performance credentials. The CBA lapped the Nurburgring in 7:38 at its debut and has continually dropped lower and lower in subsequent updates to the current insane 7:08 (with the Nismo Edition with the N-attack package).  I can't help but think the times have dropped due to suspension black magic and ride height adjustments.  Ride height drops the centre of gravity, allows the car to hook up better, improves aerodynamic efficiency by controlling undercar turbulence and makes the car look sweet.  

When I bought this car the first major purchase for it was an HKS GT570 kit.  This was from a guy in the maritimes who was a distributor with extra inventory he had picked up when HKS stopped its North American operations.  It was a smoking hot deal, made better by the fact he threw in H&R springs for free.  These springs dropped the car an inch all around for an aggressive slammed look.

Before:

After:

Springs are nice if you just want a drop you can live with and not lose the car's cockpit suspension controls.  I liked the looks but with my aggressive ADV1 wheels which pushed the front tires to the extreme outer edge of the wheel well, I was having a lot of rubbing issues when I went over ANY BUMPS on the road.  It was so bad I started looking into new wheels that had more negative offset to bring the wheels deeper into the well.  I eventually removed a couple of wheel well liner screws in the 10 and 2 o'clock position to stop the rubbing but big dips still sucked.

After 4 months I had enough, bit the bullet an ordered the KW sleeve kit.

It's amazing what the change in spring rate and careful ride height adjustment will do. The car rides comfortably and feel noticeably tighter on turn in than stock and eons better than the H&Rs.  Never looked back and highly recommend this for anyone.  The best part was I am able to get the car corner balanced and dialled in a very useable (and mature) look to the car.

Final results:

Performance done, now to address how she looks!

I love the stock looks of the GTR. it's functional, purposeful, mean.  It's not a pretty car, but weapons are not pretty.

I rarely feel that anything aftermarket could improve upon what designers and engineers have perfected in wind tunnel hours, but when you see what's been done to race cars to improve on the original design, you get ideas.  

After seeing some GT1 and GT3 cars in action, I decided I wanted side skirts with the stepped lip.  I also wanted a conservative front chin spoiler. In comes Stillen.  I'm not a fan of their parts in general but their one big advantage is the fact they do a lot of parts in glorious, flexible, give 'em hell urethane. A couple of calls later and the skirts and lip arrives at my door.

I dropped the parts off at Fiore at S&G Autobody and $300 later they return in perfect oem gray to match the rear valence.

Before:

After:

Interior:  

The worst thing about CBA (early generation cars) is the ugly rubber trim around the switchgear and center hvac controls.  My good friend Daryl at RightDrive parts is also the exclusive Canadian dealer for RSW carbon parts from Japan (www.carbonart.ca).  He set me up with the perfectly form fitting pieces that fit like oem.  I like these over what's offered on EBay due to the fact the cut outs for the buttons on the centre console are so precisely done you have holes for each individual rectangular button.  To me, that's a sign of craftsmanship.

More power: SBD700 kit by Speed By Design (OKC)

I was so impressed with the customer service and pricing by Chris Riggs when I bought my catted midpipe that I went back to the well again in my quest to release as many ponies as I can from the stock turbos.

My priorities for this project is: 

1. Keep everything safe.

2. Keep everything easily reversible.

3. Allow me to optimize what remaining performance has been destined from the factory.

4. Keep the car's personality of the "gentleman' sports car" and not make it overly loud, smelly or spew fireballs on the highway.

For my goals there are many kits out there: HKS GT570, Switzer P600, AMS Alpha 6, etc.  Most if not all of them are basically rehashes of the same idea...opening flow from intakes into engine, more rapid expelling of spent gases and a tune to optimize everything passing through.  All of them involve some intake in some diameter, a midpipe with cats deleted and more noise.

Chris supplied me with the remaining portions of the SBD700 kit which consists of:

-decatted cast downpipes (piping from the exhaust manifold back)

-3" GotBoost intakes

-SIR 1000cc injectors

-Walbro 290 LPH drop in fuel pumps (for E85)

...and for no other reason than for my own personal satisfaction I installed a pair of GFB adjustable BOVs to help me announce my presence on the road ;)

All were installed with the help of Lee and Derek at Autovation in a day, and then the fun began with Ben Linney at GTC in the UK who did the custom tune.

Having never built a car like this before, the tuning process was very interesting and fun (though probably not so much for my neighbours on Second Line Rd).  With the Cobb AP, you are able to do live datalogging which allows you to record engine parameters on the fly, map it to a data grid and email the results to Ben who is one ocean and several time zones away.  

After a few days of this he came up with my final tune: 1-valet/Eco mode, 2-low boost 91 octane, 3-high boost 91 octane and 4-high boost 94 octane.  In the final map, I'm putting down 620 at the crank and if I choose to run E85 will achieve the holy number of 700.  I have no intention of using E85 since it's a pita to get in my city, so I'm very pleased with my results.  Car runs like a dream with a more aggressive growl.

On the rack!

One thing about living with heat cycled Rcomps is that they feel like hockey pucks in the cold. Noisy, skittish, no fun at all. At any time I felt like the car wanted to commit seppuku and toss us both into the ditch.

I did my research and found this to be the proper alignment specs for street use:
FL camber -1.9, toe 0.0
FR camber -1.9, toe 0.0
RL camber -1.75, toe 0.0
RR camber -1.75, toe 0.0

I also bought a set of Michelin Pilot Super Sports in 285 35 R20 fronts and 335 30 R20 rears. The rears look ridiculous. Derek was once again the man and got them installed and alignment dialed in perfectly. What a huge difference!

Springs, midpipe, clear corners, oil change

So off the car goes to my good friends at Autovation for the first round of mild mods.

Before that I installed the Mickey Mouse stuff first: clear front corners (literally 2 mins to pop off oem ones and pop in the JDM clears), and I jack her up and swapped in the ADV1 7.1 wheels (20x11 and 20x12) with their steamroller Toyo R888's. Took it out for a spin and immediately realized how much I hated the Toyos. First off, I intend for this car to be just mildly upgraded, and it must be stealthy and everyday livable. The tires made the car skittish, tramline, and LOUD. Holy crap they were loud. It also didn't help that I am still running stock exhaust so the only thing I hear is road noise. Ugh.

The next day was spent at the shop where Lee and Derek installed the H&R springs. These drops the car about 3/4" for a more squat, aggressive stance while still maintaining the oem cockpit suspension setting control. Once they are on for a good chunk of time I will go back to get an alignment done to street settings. Lee also installed the SpeedByDesign catted and resonated midpipe. Interesting thing: the MP appears to be about 1" too short, but it was discovered (actually I had to call Chris Riggs in OK) that the oem rear exhaust section has up to 2" lateral play so we were able to pull the section up to the midpipe and it all bolted up nicely with the supplied gaskets. This frees up a lot of pressure which allows the car to make easy power once tuned. I love the sound! I want to maintain some civility so the stock exhaust stays but I'm a sucker for the look of Titanium so I installed a set of burnt Ti tips by Rexpeed.

Final thing is an oil change with the suggested Mobil1 5W30 and we are good to go!

Godzilla comes out of storage today

It's Easter long weekend, there still snow on the ground, but thankfully the roads are clear. Called my broker and started up the insurance on my R35 today and decided to wake her up from her long winter's nap.

Right away I wanted to install the ADV1 7.1 deep concave wheels. They are 20x10 and 20x12, GTR specs. Got them with Toyo R888 and TPMS from TheBison on GTRLife. They are a really cool design. They are true 3 piece, but all the rivets are hidden inside the wheels (they face the hub), and the valve stems are hidden as well, so you end up with this slick, monoblock look. I love the concave rear face.

I also swapped the license plate and front dtrl lights with LEDs and installed the RSW CF interior panels. Love how they transform the interior.  For those looking for a oem quality CF interior, you cannot go wrong with these.  I cannot speak for the less expensive versions available through Ebay but the RSW are just beautiful.  You pay more for them but IMHO they are well worth it.  I can't believe I was thinking of wrapping them before.

I also dropped in the HKS filters --fastest performace mod ever..30 seconds per side lol.
Next week: SBD catted and resonated midpipe, clear corners, Rexpeed TI exhaust tips, H&R springs.

Today is March 5. 2013...Happy 3/5 Day!

I help to run the R33 tribute page on Facebook and last Sunday I was asked by its creator, Aki, to run a contest for 3/3 day. We did a little poll of our fave uploads last year and the winner was made into the new banner:

That got me thinking...I wonder if the R35 guys know of this little numerology thing the JDM owners are into? The GTR owners like to gather at Daikoku PA on Aug/6 for Hachiroku or "86" day, and likewise the GTR boys do the same on 32, 33, 34 and 35 days. I posted a thread on nagtroc here: http://www.gtrlife.com/forums/topic/82323-today-is-march-5-2013/


To celebrate I did what any owner would do and that is to shower my baby with gifts. First arrived my SpeedByDesign catted and resonated midpipe:
It will replace the straight through midpipe that came with my (yet uninstalled) HKS GT570 kit. I am hoping to up performance without the nasty noise and drone.

Next to arrive was my set of 20x11 and 20x12 ADV1 "7.1" forged 2 piece wheels. I picked them up with fresh Toyo R888's and TPMS from TheBison on NAGTROC for an incredible price. To be honest they were not my first choice. I wanted Advan GTs or BBS LMs for my car but they are hard to come by and mucho dinero. I made an offer on the ADVs based on what I would pay for wheels that were not my first choice and surprisingly he accepted. I'm glad he did because when they arrived they were glorious.

Carbon goodies from Japan

After being on the fence for 2 months, I finally decided to pull the trigger on some subtle carbon fibre highlights for my interior.

One thing I never liked about the CBA GT-R ( which Nissan must have known since they corrected it with the DBA) is the cheap, black rubber background for the radio/ac controls. It's RIGHT THERE in front of you, why couldn't Nissan do something about it from the getgo? The car is jam packed with technology and yet the one thing that stares you in the face every day is the cheap centre control panel.

I knew I wanted something in flat black (dry) carbon, but couldn't decide on which solution. I spent a lot of money getting real replacement CF door panels and console made for my NSX which did not age well. The console spiderweb-cracked after a few summers and the door switchgear panels warped. The bolts holding them all in place popped out after a while too. Very frustrating. My philosophy is nothing beats oem. i prefer a wrap or a adhesive panel fitted over the original console. I looked at the DBA console but found out its just a well made stick on piece. I looked into fake CF wraps, but I saw a few jobs and didn't like the risk of creases or them pulling apart after a few years of extreme temperature fluctuations.

I decided on a set of window switchgear and centre console piece from RSW of Japan

Their pieces are really well made --as good as anything from the factory. Theres a review by David Yu of GTROC HERE

eBay also have a lot of Chinese made CF stick on pieces and even though they were cheaper by about 20% I saw a couple of them on other cars and they did not have the same fitment, sported rough edges and generally cheapened an already cheap interior feature.

So a quick text message to my good friend Daryl at Tunerlab, $570.65 via PayPal and these arrived 2 weeks later:

Tribute to my R32

This was the one that started the madness.  My first GT-R, a beautifully done, almost stock 1989 BNR32 that inspired the advent of GTRCanada.com, signalled the wave of RHD JDM supercars to Canada, and most importantly, gave me kms of driving pleasure.

It was one of the very first brought into Canada legally under the 15 year import law, beaten only by my buddy Justin's nearly identical gray BNR32 by a few weeks.  With it I learned everything I know about the R32 to date, turbo cars, JDM tuning and the ins and outs of importing one for Ontario roads.

The car was found by my friend Martin Skye of Skyeservice SPL Imports in Japan and brought over in the winter of 2005.  I cannot explain what a thrill it was seeing it on Canadian soil, (covered in snow on the lot in Markham, Ontario) that very first time.  Unreal.  The culmination of months of emails, lost auctions, lost leads and frustration.

She came with period correct Blitz boost controller, GReddy FMIC and A-pillar gauges, Nismo N1 bumper ducts and side skirts, R34 inspired red valve covers and very rare Work RSZ-R 17x9 wheels shod with Toyo Trampio 255 40 R17's that I sourced separately from Yahoo auctions.  I had her inspected and tuned up at C-West in Yokohama prior to shipping.  

Incidentally it also helped a well known automotive writer named Colum Wood with his career in a small way as he found out about my car and did a little piece on it for a local newspaper. This eventually got him a job with Modified Magazine.  He currently works for Autoguide.   Here are the raw pics he took for the article. I'll try to locate or scan it and post it up here.

Buying the R35, or how I've learned to love the fat girl

After I had sold my modified 1992 NSX (see my NSX Blog here) I thought I would be happy with a 2008 Honda S2000 Club Racer (aka CR).  I owned the CR for 2 months, spent some time at the track and really appreciated its Lotus 7 like simplicity. However, in the end I craved for something greater.  I got the CR through a trade with my 1996 Skyline GT-R V-spec. I thought wanted something LHD and cheap to maintain and run on the track. I tried to like the little S2000 but the call of the GT-R was just too loud to avoid. Thus, just 8 weeks into its ownership I decided to sell it and my hunt for the R35 began.

First of all I will admit that the R35 was not high on my shopping list.  I was really looking for a newer, unmolested NSX, hopefully with the 2002+ facelift and a supercharger. I love the Honda and still think it is one of the finest automobiles ever made.  I checked NSXPrime for a few months, negotiated with a couple of prospective sellers but never found a perfect fit.  The NSX market is not like your usual used car scene.  These cars were built in small numbers and owners feel like they have a piece of history on their hands.  As well, a seller's perspective is always different when they are approached by a motivated buyer vs. them placing an ad in the media and hoping to find one.  Everyone was asking too much, even with cars I knew the history of and what they had paid previously!  Sheesh.

As well, being a Skyline guy, I had the typical RB26-powered GT-R owners' "attitude" towards the R35. It's a very capable car with assessible supercar abilities but it was not a true GT-R. It's too big, it's too heavy, it's LHD, it's not powered by a small inline 6.  It's got a face only a mother can love.  However, the more I searched for alternatives: Audi R8, Lambo Gallardo, NSX, Porsche 911 Turbos, Lotus Exige, even other R32 or R33 GT-Rs, the more sense the R35 made.  I started to appreciate its owner's community (GTRLife.com), the aftermarket support, and the fact the car takes really well to mods.  Also it would be nice to own a car built in this decade (lol) with a warranty and all the modern gadgets like GPS, voice-activated controls and that sweet mutltifunctional display.  The decision was made to go look for one.  

My only criteria was that it must be within 1 day's driving distance, low mileage, not a 2009 (with their inherent tranny issues), and hopefully either Gunmetal Gray, Titanium (very rare colour) or Silver.  Right away the obvious choice was there.  A car with 21,000 kms in gunmetal was located in Kingston, 200 kms away.  I emailed the owner, a nice mature guy who owns a bus company in town And who had originally bought it off the showroom floor in Montreal.  It's seen the track 2 times, and he's kept all receipts and work history.  Pics were offered up and we negotiated a price.  Coincidentally my cause was helped by the fact that another Ottawa doctor had wanted the same car but was BS-ing around with him over the price, which pissed him off enough to make him want to sell it to me.  Two weeks later on Oct 21, 2012 I hopped on a Viarail train to the Kingston and returned in the afternoon with my latest Godzilla.

 Pics he sent me:

  

Here she sits in my garage:

Gone but not forgotten: