Pediigru

I've spent the last few weeks trying to strip the shell down as much as possible to find any hidden rust and to have the car sent off to the panel beaters. It will be good having all the rust cut out and being painted professionally, Even though i would have liked to do it myself. For the most part, It's just a rolling shell now. There is still the glass in, although I have to get the windscreen removed as it's damaged now unfortunately. There is a massive crack on the passenger side of the window. I picked up these Recaro fishnet seats awhile back and have been considering getting them re-upholstered with the rest of the interior. Still on the fence about it. I'll do an update on the interior at a later date as currently it's all inside the car in boxes.

I managed to get in touch with one of the previous owners and they sent me some pictures of how this car used to look. Looks like this car has had a hard life before it ended up in my hands.

I figured i'd just throw this in for comparison, This is a picture of the new turbo. This is a picture of the old turbo, next to the new one.

Now that I can work on this again, I thought I'd start with the engine, considering it was already out. I'm planning to stick with the L20ET that came with the car, From my understand it has some good old mystery cam in it, and a flogged turbo. I picked up a new wastegate for the steel wheel 25det turbo i picked up awhile back. But here's a photo of before i started to clean up the engine, and below was afterwards. I'm planning to go with a Speeduino engine management system, So I'll be able to get rid of that massive AFM box in front of the turbo. I'm still waiting on getting a new fuel rail as the OEM one is a mess. Looks like the 25det manifold may need some slight adjusting aswell as it looks like it'll hit the transmission. I've also got an SR20 throttle body i haven't put on yet as well. I'm pretty happy with how the engine is looking now. It's far from done though. I need to replace a handful more gaskets, Paint the valve cover, Get the new fuel rail and injectors, and some more manifold studs for the turbo, attach the throttle body and finish running the lines for the turbo.

Well it's been awhile since I've posted an update in here. I've finally moved house and had time to move the R30 over to the new place. She wasn't looking the best as I'd started stripping it down again. Put some wheels on her, took out all the loose shit and flat towed her home. The grind continues.

It was Andrews before it was Wilson's but yep. It's coming along.

So now that I have the engine and transmission out, I can start cleaning and degreasing everything in preparation to clean up the engine bay and engine itself. I've got to get the strut tower rust in the engine bay fixed up so I've been focusing more on getting the engine and trans cleaned up and what I'm going to have to replace in it. The trans itself cleaned up pretty well. I'm not sure if I should paint it or not yet. I want to ditch the blue and go black or dark grey instead. And either paint the gearbox black or dark grey to match. Otherwise I could probably just clean up the trans and leave it with that metal cast look. I'll pull it apart and check the condition of the internals before I put it back in, Are L20ET Gearboxes supposed to be this small though. Seems tiny compared to the RB or SR boxes I've dealt with in the past. It looks like the head on the L20ET has been rebuilt somewhat recently although I don't have photos of that. I'm still in the process of cleaning everything up but as i'm now moving this week, I had to put some of the engine back together so I wouldn't loose anything during transport. Test fitting how the cleaned up intake manifold will look, (Although it's not %100 done yet. It's still pretty dirty and i still have a few block off plates to make.) Here is me test fitting the new rb25det turbo along with moving the AFM (still have to make heatshield and work out the best rotation.). The 25det turbo looks like it'll work well. I'll have to modify the dump pipe for everything to work with the L20ET and the R30 Chassis but I planned on redoing most of the exhaust anyway. I also have an SR20 throttle body that plan on putting on the intake and that will remove the (in my opinion) horrible factory throttle setup. I'm going to either find or make a better 90 degree bend pipe for the turbo as this sticks out a bit much for my liking. Trying to keep everything clean and tidy in the bay whilst keeping the L20ET not looking too obvious. The main engine thing i am looking for now is either NICS 20DET Injectors or VG30ET Injectors and then most likely a billet fuel rail or something that looks neater than the factory setup. I'm currently on the fence about getting the exhaust manifold and rear housing ceramic coated. But I'll probably come back to that in the future. The next update should be in the new place with more space to work in and not on the ground hopefully aswell.

Yep LHS is through the firewall side but not the wheel arch side and the RHS has cracked on the engine bay side. The firewall looks good so its just the strut towers.

So thanks to the long weekend, I had some time to finally pull the engine out. I started by dropping the driveshaft, exhaust and then the gearbox as I didn't have much room to go back once I had the engine lifted up. Ended up having to drop the front of the car down to get the engine over the front radiator support but i got it out in the end. There wasn't much left connected to the engine by the time I dropped the gearbox and power steering as I'd already removed the manifolds. Believe it or not, This is the first time I've pulled an engine out of a car. I've done manifolds and gearboxes before but never a full engine so i guess there's a first for everything. The mighty L20ET doesn't look too bad honestly so I'll probably just clean it up, degrease and repaint it and put it back. There's some work still do be done to the manifolds and turbo though and I'll have to redo some coolant lines for the new turbo but I'll most likely do that before i put the engine back in the car. Unfortunately its gonna have to sit on this tire until I get an engine stand when they are on sale next. I'm going to try and clean this engine bay up a fair bit over the next 2 days, fix some rust and then paint the whole thing again with the factory 002 white. It should turn out pretty good. I'm also going to need a new power steering pump as this one doesn't work anymore. How half the driveway is looking at the moment, Trans and gearbox out with various parts of r30 floating around the place. Hopefully I can get the bay sorted out pretty quickly. I'll properly underseal all the underneath and put in the s13 front suspension whilst i have everything up and out just to make my life easier.

Definitely. The ends of the wing will need a little love and repair but I'm planning to put it back on afterwards. I also have some R31 endcaps that look the part and fit pretty well so they'll go on as well after I've painted everything. When I pulled of the intake piping, I found pieces of metal wiring all through the turbo and intake, then on the pressurized side before the intercooler i found this jammed in the side. I have no idea how or when this got in there but it must have been before i got the car. Explains why it would boost at around 4500 though I'm surprised it boosted at all. The turbo sounded like a hair drier when it was on boost and that explains why.

So here we are today. I've pulled mostly everything off the engine. I have the exhaust out and driveshaft out. And I'm planning to remove the gearbox today or tomorrow and then last the engine. I'll repaint the whole bay whilst i have everything out and just give the whole thing a general tidy up. The intercooler piping was horrible and I'm going to be putting in a new front mount intercooler and radiator and tossing up the idea of putting an oil cooler in as well whilst everything is apart. Unfortunately I still don't have access to a garage so keeping track of everything is a bit of a mission. I also worked out why it sounded like a hair drier and I'm surprised it was even making boost. there was a stud missing on the intake manifold and the turbo had pieces of metal all through it and in the intercooler intake piping. Here's a pic of the old l20 turbo versus the new 25det one that is going in. I'm also going to be putting in a new fuel pump at the same time as well as relocating AFM, tightening the AFM spring and putting new injectors in. I'll also be cleaning up the intake manifold and removing the rest of the EGR system that's left. Hopefully the next update will be the engine and transmission out and the bay being prepped for paint and the engine work being done.

So throughout owning this car, I've been trying heaps of little things to get it running better on the engine side of things. I've replaced the sparkplugs, coil, distributor, ECU, rewired a bunch of the loom and although i got it running and boosting, it just felt.. off.. I was blowing oil out the back of the valve cover due no a dodgy gasket as well which wasn't helping my cause. Cold starts are rough. It will idle like shit and then suddenly come to life. So I decided fuck it and started to take the entire engine out. I checked the valves and timing to make sure nothing was wrong there when I replaced the gasket and everything seemed in good working order to me at least. The engine bay is not a pretty sight. I also picked up this steel wheel 25det turbo to put on and some thermo fans from a Primera, Just have to make them fit with a new radiator. Doesn't look too complicated but it will be the first engine i would have pulled out but i guess we have to start somewhere.

So this is how she's been sitting for awhile. I lost motivation to work on the R30 over winter and didn't get much done. I got a set of KYB shocks for the back but they're a laughing stock over the Monroes it had in it, So i just gave the Monroes some good old one way Makita treatments until I order the new TSD shocks. I already have the whole front end conversion waiting to be put in when I take the engine out. She was drivable but barely so it was mainly for just rolling it around the driveway. As you can see, I've had to sand down a lot of areas and bog in a few dents. to get everything flat but it's coming along well. the rear wheels fit nicely but i may put a higher profile tire on later down the line. Once the weather improves I'll start prepping for final paint as well as removing the old exhaust, gearbox and engine for some TLC Over-all though it's looking a lot better than when it came off the trailer and it actually drives now. Although I have no power steering. The next update will be up to date and how it stands to this day (21/10/2020)

Well now the interior doesn't look so bad it really shows how bad the exterior looks. There's a few holes and dents here and there but i don't have time currently to panel the entire thing so it'll just be fix what i can for now and come back to the rest later. Pulled off the front panels and boot, removed the Adthree wing that was on it. That 3m sticky tape works good for keeping stuff on alright. Boot starting to get sanded down and filling in the dents and popping out the ones I can. I'm doing to ditch the SKYLINE rear badge as this one is pretty toast, I may see if i can fix it up later. The back of the car really cleaned up well. Sanded the surface rust down, hit it all with a converter and sealer then hit it with a high fill etch primer that will be sanded back down later anyway. There's still some dents that have to be filled but it's easier to spot these with the primer on than the old 002 white. Whole exterior sanded and primered. I'm going to redo this pretty soon and remove that last bit of Trim and do the bay and everything at the same time. You can really see how dented that passenger door is so I'll probably just end up getting a new one. I'm planning to re-underseal all under the arches and underneath of the car. Did a single medium coat of flat base white just so it's not ugly. This is going to get sanded down so I'm not to worried about the remaining dents and other problems. I also test-fitted the new rims on the back and they'll fit pretty good once I have the new shocks and such in. When I properly repaint the car I'll be doing the interior, exterior, door jams and engine bay as well as the boot so everything should look pretty good once I've gotten that far. The bumpers are a bit scratched but they should clean up pretty well. the front bumper has a layer of bog on it for some reason but I'm sure I'll work it out. Next up is undoing everything I've just done and stripping the engine bay and getting ready to pull the engine out and see what's going on. By this point in time I've replaced a few of the engine pieces and got it running but it's very rough and sounds like a hair drier. New coil, sparkplugs and dizzy cap later with a new ECU got it running.

So we decided to tackle some of the interior pieces whilst we had everything out and apart. Even though I'm going to have to put it in and take it out again later it was wort hit for the pics alone. This was before we found the paintbrush under the carpet and when we were still taking everything out and apart. Thankfully no rust on the inside anywhere that we could find. The carpet and interior wasn't in terrible condition, The front dash is going to have to be pule out and repainted as it must be a replacement. Someone had cut a plate for gauges which was horrible and I have plans to replace. The next photo was after I had cleaned everything up and put in the floor mats and placed the seats back in. I gave the door cards a clean and put in an R31 center console lid as it fits with minimal modification. I also managed to get the passenger side windows working. Turns out the loom under the driversseat has a dodgy ground connection which stops the windows from working. Testing paint on some of the plastic interior pieces to see how they would turn out. I think they look pretty good so I'll do them all later down the line. The bottom half of the rear seats is horrible and worn as you can probably see in the first photo of this update. I got curious to see if I could make the R31 Passage seats fit and it turns out they do! It will take a little modification but they fit and look pretty good so I will have to get some in the future when i revisit the interior. The red seats that i got in the car are pretty worn so I'm planning to replace them with some Recaro fishnets for the time being. As you can see, The R31 floormats and bottom half rear seat fit pretty well and look the part too. I've put some of the interior back together for photos and to have less stuff in the shed. Next update I'll begin prepping the car for paint or at least primer and a basecoat to seal it from the weather as I'm in the process of looking for a lockup. The interior should clean up pretty well when I can come back to it and redo everything properly.