Sandman's R33 Skyline Drift project

[Sandman]

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.

 

[Deuce]

This took me so much longer to write than I thought it would but hope someone enjoys the read.

A good read. Thanks.
*cough* 304" turbo swap *cough*

 

[VS 5.0]

Thumbs up for grandad.

Also pleased you sorted the zip tied handbrake.

 

[Sandman]

A good read. Thanks.
*cough* 304" turbo swap *cough*

Lol I've got enough cars which can take that, wanted a simple car and engine suited to drifting

Thumbs up for grandad.

Also pleased you sorted the zip tied handbrake.

Yeah the whole handbrake assembly was replaced with a stock unit, that one only worked momentarily which was a pain unless it was parked anywhere that wasn't dead flat. That said it was actually welded, I have no idea why there was zip ties on it.

 

[Deuce]

Lol I've got enough cars which can take that, wanted a simple car and engine suited to drifting

And a heavy motor over the nose isn't your best move either.

 

[Batca]

Good write up mate, look forward to the next one

 

[vr304]

And a heavy motor over the nose isn't your best move either.

Turbo LS engine would be a better swap if he was to go that way

 

[Deuce]

Turbo LS engine would be a better swap if he was to go that way

Not as cool though

 

[Sandman]

So summer kind of snowballed for me with this car. I was actually going to skip the Summer Matsuri this year, but with it being Vicdrifts only Winton event (there is usually a summer and winter event), the hustle was on to get a stack of things done on this. So between Christmas and last week a stack of work was carried out to totally change the car. The rear subframe was removed, braced and solid mounted, painted with all bushes replaced, Hicas eliminated completely along with new Shockworks coilovers all round. New adjustable rear camber arms and LCA's changed back to standard just for simplicity.

On the driveline side there was a solid amount of work done, new highflowed OP6 turbo by Intense turbo, Link G4 ECU, Plazmaman top half plenum & fuel rail, 1000cc Bosch Injectors and a Walbro 460 intank pump. This all to support its new diet of E85. Being very pushed for time and fairly new to RB's I ran into a few problems with the line setup and missed my first tune date, which was booked for Wednesday the week out from the event. Some more hustling to fix issues I managed to get a tune spot at G-Force Race Solutions, who fixed up a few things and got the tune on the car. Unfortunately due to time constraints we ran out of time to sort out the Mac valve for boost control so was just running on Gate pressure and pushed out 315kw on the hub dyno. The power comes on quite late, but pulls fairly strong when it gets there. Once I get the Mac valve hooked up and tuned to suit it should see around 350kw and come on between 2500 and 3200 ish rather than the aspirated looking power curve it has now. The car came off the Dyno around 1230 on Thursday before getting a quick wheel alignment. Friday was meant to be a morning of patching up little things like boot pins and rolling guards, but due to having to hire a car (which wasn't ready on time) and borrow a trailer we ended up leaving late and missing Friday arvo drop off.

Despite all the changes the weekend went amazingly well, car performed flawlessly, although felt very different and required a bit of re-learning. The handbrake also wasn't enguaging so I had to improve my scano flicks and more aggressive driving. Saturday was 40 something degrees and not really ideal weather for driving but luckily as we had a few garages between me and my mates and some water sprayers we were able to cool the cars down reasonably between each session. Sunday was a much nicer temperature and even had some rain, a few passenger laps in mates cars too, just to fill the day further. Unfortunately in the second last session of the day going into the esses I messed up my entry and understeer off the track, normally not an issue, but Winton had placed a massive tyre bundle on the outside of this corner (to stop dirt drops is their theory) which I ended up hitting and dinting my guard. Luckily it was a pretty soft hit (below 40) and only damaged the guard, but a bit annoying seeing as the tyre bundle didn't really need to be there at all, or if it was 5 metres further even, I wouldn't have hit it at all. But on a corner where I'd be entering at around 130ish, to only damage the guard is a win. Before the next event in I guess march I need to mount my intercooler a bit better, put my wing on and get some bash bars made up along with tidying up some wiring too. So enough to keep me busy.

Painted and braced subframe

New coilovers

Engine bay before

Nearly finished engine bay

Garage setup, 6 cars in 4 garages

Tried being artsy

Judging by the angle of the smoke, I think I've just spun here, but it still looks cool.

Tyre bundle damage

 

[villn808]

Just read first post, that’s so cool getting ya grandad out there! Car progressing nicely man. Would love to do something like this.