[Phil №❶]

All this time, I've been blaming my lack of skill. 

BTW, Have you thought of an intercooler at all for your engine. Hy seem to think it's worthwhile. 

[agentr31]

yeah, no need yet... VL turbo didnt have an intercooler stock, while it has a bigger turbo, its not being pushed, and it only has the stock injectors and NA ecu.

im running low boost (7.5psi actuator), while it would be benificial i dont feel up to the task of making the piping up, and i got those silicone joins really cheap along with the 3'' piping

if i were to intercool it it would need to have 2.5'' piping and i cant get those joins cheap

the thought is there on the other car this one doesnt last long... and its not the easiest car to have a cooler on, the S3 front end is much easier to hide a cooler in!

[agentr31]

time for some pics!


put the new shoes on! they BADLY need tyres! also my lawn got damaged last weekend after i had a few beers and a mate stopped in... bloody peer pressure!



did this for shits and giggles, i thought it looked tough!



picked up a set of Ti wheels for $160 from a wrecker on the sunshine coast, my dad found them by luck, he stopped at the servo next door, got a feed, then saw an N16 pulsar cheap, went in and asked the price, then saw those bad boys sitting up in the roof on the mezzanine floor!



after LOTS of love one looks like this, i should have another finished tomorrow...



MMM goodies, and more coming too! thats almost the whole rear suspension bushes, im just missing the sway bar link bushes, they are coming next week


went to do the LCA's and i only wanted to weld on 3 50x50mm plates one under each bush and a central one, last time i fitted new bushes the LCA started bending because IMHO they are a bit flimsy, then couldnt find anything fast besides these, so they went on, THEN the press broke, so i spend 20 minutes welding them on for nothing! ohh well looks tough

[Phil №❶]

Great pics, keep 'em coming. 

[Dazzler]

Great pics, keep 'em coming. 

 

Always impressed by your handiwork 

[agentr31]

cheers guys, not far off being on the road, just needs a computer, then hopefully in a few weeks it goes off to get a 3'' exhaust and i can get a mod plate/roadworthy/rego.

[Doggie 1]

It's all coming together nicely. 

[agentr31]

cheers guys, whilst it was not the plan to have the orange one on the road, ill use it as a test bed, if it all works good, the maroon one will either get an R34 neo turbo and manual conversion OR another rb30et with a high mount and some form of deacent turbo, external gate ect ect.

on the weekend i tried the VL turbo computer in the R31, and its dead so my suspisons about it were confirmed, so i have 3 options,

1 - sit on gumtree waiting until a good VL turbo computer comes up.
2 - ebay a chipped computer from some bloke down south.
3 - i modify my spare ECU to take the turbo chip from the VL turbo computer (requires me soldering and de-soldering a chip and a board)

i might take option 3 and see how i go, if that fails, then its wack new plugs in of a higher temp range to help stop the fouling while its not registered, and wait for a VL turbo computer.

[agentr31]

Did the front LCA bushes, and ball joint boots.  repco are slack, 4 times ive asked them to get the rear sway bar link bushes, 4 times they have been there waiting, and 4 times they have not been there upon pick up... they even ordered in the front LCA bushes and STILL dont have the rear sway bar link bushes. Off to stupid cheap for some superpro ones i think.
 
I also did the UNI's in the tail shaft... they were just starting to go, they had the beginnings of the chatter marks on them when i pulled them apart! probably got them just in time, no pics. was too lazy


pics of how to do the front LCA bushes with out a press, using tools/objects lying around and a vice, just remember the front bushes differ from the rear, they are stepped, and only go in one way..


Removing the old bushes, i used my BMW motorbikes exhaust clamp, a socket, and 2 sockest placed 180 degrese apart in the arm to help stop it crushing (instead of welding a strap to it)take note you only need to push it out 5mm and it only comes out ONE way. a bit of WD-40 helps get them out too, and dont forget to clean up the holes with a bit of emry tape.

 
here is the installation of the new bush, i kept the two sockets in the arm still to stop it deforming, then used a 30mm to go over the small side of the bush BUT sit on the lip of the control arm, then a tow bar to push nicely and firmly on the bush to get it home.

 
$7.10 gets you one of these bad boys from Nissan, may as well do them as they are almost always nearly stuffed unless you have done them before, just use a soft drift like so to tap the metal ring down over the ball joint (so you dont strike it with a hammer and damage it). dont forget to wipe all of the old grease off the ball joint and add some new grease to the ball joint.

Air compressor was broken and hard to get to, so i didnt wire buff up the arm and paint it matt black, sucks... but here is the finished item, $70 and a grand total of 1 hour gets ya one less thing for the authorities to pick on.

 

[Phil №❶]

Coming along nicely, and some good tips too. 

[agentr31]

i did that for the skyline club, and it had a few more expletives in it, but i thought it may help somone on here one day, i mean, a bush is a bush right! im getting through it all slowly, still have the other car to do one day! and more wheels to polish lol

[agentr31]

ahhh been busy as!

computer... as previously discussed, i attempted to mod it, highly unsuccessful...

i removed the chip, soldered a socket on, then FAIL, didnt work, so i looked on ebay at a guy that modifies them and sells them for $200, looked hard at his pics... showed another chip fully removed, nothing to loose aye... i chopped it out... STILL DIDNT WORK, many F & C words later and a beer... i wacked it all in the shed and left it alone...

anyway i went to the tech info section BAM shows you exactly what to do... all i needed to do was extend a jumper 3mm to the next hole *face palm*

i did it, works properly now! so i fully modded an ECU with pretty much guess work and a stroke of luck! saved $200 straight up!

then this happened, all 4 wheels finally got finished! now for tyres, i can get falken ZE912's for $125 a tyre, might roll with them! i've always had good experience with the falkens, instant smoke, heaps of howl on the hard corners, and deacent grip for the price!

[agentr31]

ohh i did the plugs too, even asked for them by model number at repco,  had an old mate from wayy back with me getting plugs at the same time, he suprised i could recall the numbers off my head, considering how long its been since ive owned an R31

[Dazzler]

  Ian 

[Phil №❶]

Keep up the good work. 

[agentr31]

cheers guys, i just cant wait to have it all registered, insured and on the road!

[Just Rick]

agentr31,what did you use on your alloys,was it Autosol and a buff,now that they're up to snuff if you use Calfornian Purple,it's easier than getting the buff out all the time

[agentr31]

long drawn out process, takes 1 carton of tinnies per wheel lol

i used a 'renovator' style multi-tool (bosch to be precise) with 320 grit pads, sanded all the machine marks out and the laquer off, back to bare alluminium, then hand sanded 400, 600, 800, 1200, 2000 grade wet paper (makes hands all shrivled and funny) takes about 1 hour per grade of paper... then when i was satisfied, hit it with the buffing wheel and white compound, then some brasso just to get the black compound off and touch up where its a bit dull.

TBH its not perfect like when you send them away, but its 99% there, i probably neeed to run the buff over them again just to get the spots i missed.

[agentr31]

oh and this california purple, i might have to investigate! if its better than brasso ill be a happy man!

[Just Rick]

Much better than brasso I think,if you let the wheels get back to what they were,or should I say as dull as they were,it would take a couple of goes with the CP original,but it is basically wipe on a few rubs and wipe off,thats what we use on the alloy of the trucks,but it will only get very minor imperfections out

[Dazzler]

i used a 'renovator' style multi-tool (bosch to be precise) with 320 grit pads, sanded all the machine marks out and the laquer off, back to bare alluminium, then hand sanded 400, 600, 800, 1200, 2000 grade wet paper (makes hands all shrivled and funny) takes about 1 hour per grade of paper... then when i was satisfied, hit it with the buffing wheel and white compound, then some brasso just to get the black compound off and touch up where its a bit dull.

Far out, brussell sprout! You sure put some effort in!  I wouldn't spend that long on my whole car!

[agentr31]

california purple might be the way to go to keep the shine on them, they are about as good as 1~2 year old alcoa's atm not quite that new look unfortunatly there was a touch of existing pitting that i couldnt remove from wheel weights/sitting for god knows how long...

lol dazzler, thats why i stated 1, 30 can block per wheel to polish them, i get fridays off now due to the amount of leave i had owing, and the fact that somone at work that is a contractor just wouldnt let it go and kept bringing it up to the boss that i had not taken leave in a long time... i have a bit of spare time to mess around with things!

long drawn out process, takes 1 carton of tinnies per wheel lol

[beerman]

No leave no life brother....... 

[Mike SX]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2451931/Car-colour-heat-sensitive-paint-changes-depending-weather.html

[Dazzler]

Wow that's different Mike!

Wouldn't that be a great prank to play at a car wash!

Gee, what have you done to my car dude?? 

[agentr31]

that paint would be awesome if it lasted longer... BUT being in the UK... with all the cloud cover, i dont think it will get exposed to much UV

No leave no life brother....... 

not always, TBH i live by myself, i have no reason to sit at home twiddling my thumbs... im not taking a week or two off to do nothing by myself... harsh but its the truth.

[agentr31]

the cracked tail lights have been annoying me... i dont want to go putting my 'afterburner' lights in it, so i went to supercheap, bought some altrex body protective sticker, and wrapped the tail lights with that, its clear has a 3 year warranty and made the lights looks really shiney again lol.

pic of the after burners, they are going in the maroon skyline, although i COULD, put them in the maroon one, modify all the chrome strips to suit it, as i dont have the boot garnish for them and put the series 3 lights in this one... i CBF doing it at this very point in time lol

[Dazzler]

"Necessity is the mother of invention"

I don't know what it means but it sounded appropriate 

[agentr31]

100% appropriate!

i invented a way to fix it, with out going to the extreme of new ones!

[agentr31]

cluster all fixed!
 
a common problem with the R31 and most other locally produced cars with a VDO cluster is the odometer and trim meter stop working, this is due to this little gear being made from rubber in the factory, the local ford wrecker sell the gears for $10+gst, its a fairly easy fix, just requires the cluster to be stripped down and pop the new gear in the side making sure you have removed all of the old gear (or it jams up and breaks again), another problem is the board cracks where a bolt goes through it... this causes the temp gauge to stop working. an easy fix, all you have to do is scrape the coating off the PCB, and solder a jumper in around the crack! ohh and it has a full tank of 98, to prove the fuel gauge works properly!

pic of the stuff used to fix the tail light!



job done!