Hello everyone, after recently losing everything because my phone took a shit, I've decided to make a build thread here.
I do have some pictures backed up, but i am pretty much going to be starting from scratch.
A little background, been a member for a long time and owned my first s- chassis even longer ago. After graduating from college and being miserable living in the DMV area, I made a huge decision to move back to Japan.
I was working for a Japanese corporation in Kanto and was getting burnt out, because if you don't know, the younger "Salary Men" in this country work crazy hours. Either way, took a contracting gig in Yokosuka and didn't look back. This allowed me to actually enjoy my life outside of work and get back to cars.
After selling my Supra, I was on the prowl to find a Bayside Blue R34. Timing could not have been worse for me as I was relocating soon to Kyushu (southern island) and prices were steadily climbing for these cars. (literally every week)
Last picture I have of the Supra
So for the R34 there were some checkbox's that needed to be hit:
1. Bayside blue
2. No accident history
3. sub 100k km
4. Vspec
5. No rust
6. Something that wasn't price hiked like crazy
After looking at a bunch of cars I was ready to just give up and compromise on the color. Went to plenty of dealership and auctions, here's some I was considering...
Then after all the searching I found the car, I moved super aggressively on getting it and after some back and forth I was able to buy the car below what I was willing to spend. I was pretty nervous because this was basically sight unseen as the car was coming from Nagoya.
About a week later it showed up. It was very dirty and had a couple of problems, but overall I was pleased.
Cons
- The MFD screen was bad,
- Car would misfire sometimes at low RPM,
- The suspension felt bad,
- Wheels were not my taste
- Oil was leaking from cam covers
- Paint was fading on the hood, tail light, and quarter panel
- Driver side seat was worn out
- Steering wheel and shiftknob pretty worn out.
Pros
- Clear corners and side markers
- L.E.D. tail lights
- Optional nismo oil cooler from factory
- New navigation unit
Some pictures when it first showed up
I went to work almost immediately, started diagnosing and souring the parts I needed. First the MFD screen I hunted down from SHARP, surprisingly they still manufacture these. Was pretty straight forward on how to swap, its a common problem on the early models that these would go bad. The later kouki models used TOSHIBA screens.
Next on the list was the suspension. Not only did it feel like shit, but it was noisy as well. The car came on some newish blitz zzr coilovers which are garbage (do not buy these). After diagnosing all of them, I found that the front right was the culprit, the shock had no rebound and was leaking oil from the seals. The only good thing I have to say about these coilovers is that you can buy replacement parts for them. The shock "cartridge" can be disassembled from the entire unit and replaced as a whole, which is kind of convenient if you like to do things yourself. With the coilovers working properly, the car still didn't feel right, like it was trying to oversteer. I went digging and found that the sway bars were replaced by some aftermarket purple ones with adjust ability. I have no idea who made them, but I ordered some nismo ones and chucked them.
After that, I bought the gasket set for the cam covers and some new spark plugs and got to work. There was a puddle of oil in the spark plug galleys, which sucked, and also found out that some coilpacks had cracks. I decided to just replace them with better ones for piece of mind. I went with the OKD plasma coils.
Everything on the car was now functioning properly and it felt great. But the wheels were really killing me, they just did not fit the car. I found a nice set of Volks and bought some Rays lug nuts too. The Yokohama A050 tires are pretty noisy, great grip tho.
Been keeping an eye on the auctions for used aero because I like the plastic stuff more than the replica FRP. I managed to pick up a set of sideskirts, although they were cracked in some places. I wasn't too worried about it. Picked up a hood also, and had it repainted
R's meeting was coming up and I had been looking forward to it for months. I made plans to take the car up to Kanto for the week, but needed to get to work, it was going to be a pretty lengthy journey so I had to make preparations. The car needed to be raised because I didnt want to worry about hitting stuff on the trip and to clear the ferry ride. The battery had to be replaced just for insurance, the old battery had been in there for about 4 years so I think it was time for a newer better Optima yellow top. The battery is located in the rear like R33's, but with a whole bunch of shit covering it, took a couple of hours just to change this thing out. The steering had some play in it, and I was thinking the rack bushings needed to be replaced. I bought some Nismo ones and changed them out, what a night and day difference. I bought some Nismo B pillar covers to cover the worn out plastic that irritates me.
R's meeting inbound!
Finally got to Kanagawa and met up with my very good friend. We went to Oomori factory and made a run up to Daikoku, had a blast at R's meeting, really going to miss this guy. A couple of pictures from R's meeting, this R33 was on point and the nismo one you could eat off of. I bought some random stuff, and MCR even gave me a cool pen.
Back home, lot of mileage was put on that week.
Thats it for now, if you made it this far, thanks for reading, I will try and update this regularly.