Sandman
Challenge Accepted
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2013
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- Age
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- Location
- Melbourne
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So this is going to be a long post but it will cover the last 6 months or so.
Some people know I had a C33 Laurel I was building for the first half of the year for drifting. The project took a lot more time and money than I intended it to do and I never actually finished it. So in early June I get a call from my best mate on a Friday night saying 'found this R33, lets go 3 ways in it, part it out and make some good coin'. I had a uni exam at 9am the next morning so said, yep whatever I'll put in just don't disturb me for the next 12 hours.
In the next few hours they hatched the plan for me to use this rather than the Laurel as it was so clean and was basically ready to drive (the Laurel still needed a lot of work and money at this point) They got it very cheap ($3200) as the kid who had it had no idea about the car and the motor comp tested all over the place between 75-120. No idea why on the comp test, its certainly not that low. So as it stood it was a stock R33, with a boost tee, no tune, cut knuckles, a bolt in half cage and a front mount intercooler, genuine Bride drivers seat and adjustable rear arms. + a fibreglass GTR bar snapped in half. So the next day I went to my mates place, went fck it lets use this and went and slid it round his back paddock.
Between this and first track day was around 5-6 weeks, I parted out and sold the Laurel and amazingly got pretty much all my money back with a few parts going in to the R33. Also in that time the R33 copped a new Plazmaman intercooler (had purchased for the Laurel) and cooler piping. Sold the half cage, stripped the interior, removed the boost tee, got a full 6 point cage, added new RPM 6 point harnesses and added the Bridge rep passenger seat from the Laurel. I also zip tied the GTR bumper back together as it looks much better with it, even though I was well aware it probably wouldn't last the first track day. With the rollcage I can no longer run a cluster so now run a Greddy digital display for the vitals which reads off the ecu.
How the interior started, basically street car with a half cage.
Stripped
Best photo I have of the cage
Sound deadening removal in prep for paint
New cooler piping
So The first day driving was the Vicdrift practice day on July 21st at Calder park. First couple of sessions were a bit rough, as at this point I'd done the drift skills event in a mates 'street' R33 back in March but that was it. By around lunch time I was getting the hang of it and was happy with my efforts by the end of the day. I did jump over a big kerb at the back esses though which finished off the ziptie bar. I will replace it over christmas.
Second track day was September 14th, no real changes in between the events other than getting the interior painted by Rhodes Smash Repairs in Ferntree Gully. The second day of driving went well too, was confident and happy with my improvements on my driving. Towards the end of the day a couple of nuts did come off the dump pipe but that was the extent of the issues.
Now we are nearly at present time, the next event is Driftx which was the weekend of 23-4th November. Unlike all other track days run by Vicdrift, Driftx is 2 days of open track. So before this I had to patch up a couple of small things like the dump nuts and changing from bonnet cable to pins as the RH front tyre had started rubbing on the release wire. The bonnet already had holes for pins so it was an easy job. Driftx was a monster weekend for my group of mates with 8 cars in our bigger group. 4 cars finished the weekend. My mates R32 did a head gasket on the Friday night so was out for the weekend, so he shared his Dad's 180SX (LS1 powered) for the Saturday until the diff blew at around 5pm. Saturday night was then spent pulling the diff out and then driving out to buy the wrong diff before we raised the white flag for the 180 around 1am.
My car on the other hand performed fantastically all weekend and with it still being stock power used only 5 pairs of tyres in around 12 hours of track time over the two days. Highlight of the weekend was taking my 85 year old Grandad out for 20 minutes or so which he loved. He's always been a car person but had never been to the drifting before.
So before the next event in Feb, Winton Matsuri I have decent off season ahead of me. I will be replacing the standard turbo with a brand new highflowed turbo from Intense turbo. This should make around 230rwkw on 98 and eventually 330 or so on E85. For now I need to upgrade the ECU (undecided on what to yet), new injectors and tune. I also have big BCL wing which will replace the GTR wing on it currently and buy a new bar so it doesn't look so hack on the track. The whole rear subframe will also come out for new bushes and bracing etc. At some point the car will also cop a set of Shockworks coilovers but thats probably still a little while away at this point.
This took me so much longer to write than I thought it would but hope someone enjoys the read.
Some people know I had a C33 Laurel I was building for the first half of the year for drifting. The project took a lot more time and money than I intended it to do and I never actually finished it. So in early June I get a call from my best mate on a Friday night saying 'found this R33, lets go 3 ways in it, part it out and make some good coin'. I had a uni exam at 9am the next morning so said, yep whatever I'll put in just don't disturb me for the next 12 hours.
In the next few hours they hatched the plan for me to use this rather than the Laurel as it was so clean and was basically ready to drive (the Laurel still needed a lot of work and money at this point) They got it very cheap ($3200) as the kid who had it had no idea about the car and the motor comp tested all over the place between 75-120. No idea why on the comp test, its certainly not that low. So as it stood it was a stock R33, with a boost tee, no tune, cut knuckles, a bolt in half cage and a front mount intercooler, genuine Bride drivers seat and adjustable rear arms. + a fibreglass GTR bar snapped in half. So the next day I went to my mates place, went fck it lets use this and went and slid it round his back paddock.
Between this and first track day was around 5-6 weeks, I parted out and sold the Laurel and amazingly got pretty much all my money back with a few parts going in to the R33. Also in that time the R33 copped a new Plazmaman intercooler (had purchased for the Laurel) and cooler piping. Sold the half cage, stripped the interior, removed the boost tee, got a full 6 point cage, added new RPM 6 point harnesses and added the Bridge rep passenger seat from the Laurel. I also zip tied the GTR bumper back together as it looks much better with it, even though I was well aware it probably wouldn't last the first track day. With the rollcage I can no longer run a cluster so now run a Greddy digital display for the vitals which reads off the ecu.
How the interior started, basically street car with a half cage.
Stripped
Best photo I have of the cage
Sound deadening removal in prep for paint
New cooler piping
So The first day driving was the Vicdrift practice day on July 21st at Calder park. First couple of sessions were a bit rough, as at this point I'd done the drift skills event in a mates 'street' R33 back in March but that was it. By around lunch time I was getting the hang of it and was happy with my efforts by the end of the day. I did jump over a big kerb at the back esses though which finished off the ziptie bar. I will replace it over christmas.
Second track day was September 14th, no real changes in between the events other than getting the interior painted by Rhodes Smash Repairs in Ferntree Gully. The second day of driving went well too, was confident and happy with my improvements on my driving. Towards the end of the day a couple of nuts did come off the dump pipe but that was the extent of the issues.
Now we are nearly at present time, the next event is Driftx which was the weekend of 23-4th November. Unlike all other track days run by Vicdrift, Driftx is 2 days of open track. So before this I had to patch up a couple of small things like the dump nuts and changing from bonnet cable to pins as the RH front tyre had started rubbing on the release wire. The bonnet already had holes for pins so it was an easy job. Driftx was a monster weekend for my group of mates with 8 cars in our bigger group. 4 cars finished the weekend. My mates R32 did a head gasket on the Friday night so was out for the weekend, so he shared his Dad's 180SX (LS1 powered) for the Saturday until the diff blew at around 5pm. Saturday night was then spent pulling the diff out and then driving out to buy the wrong diff before we raised the white flag for the 180 around 1am.
My car on the other hand performed fantastically all weekend and with it still being stock power used only 5 pairs of tyres in around 12 hours of track time over the two days. Highlight of the weekend was taking my 85 year old Grandad out for 20 minutes or so which he loved. He's always been a car person but had never been to the drifting before.
So before the next event in Feb, Winton Matsuri I have decent off season ahead of me. I will be replacing the standard turbo with a brand new highflowed turbo from Intense turbo. This should make around 230rwkw on 98 and eventually 330 or so on E85. For now I need to upgrade the ECU (undecided on what to yet), new injectors and tune. I also have big BCL wing which will replace the GTR wing on it currently and buy a new bar so it doesn't look so hack on the track. The whole rear subframe will also come out for new bushes and bracing etc. At some point the car will also cop a set of Shockworks coilovers but thats probably still a little while away at this point.
This took me so much longer to write than I thought it would but hope someone enjoys the read.