Soarer-Dom

After yesterday’s success, I decided to go ahead and plasti-dip the R34 like a real car-person. It was a year ago in early February when I asked CarThrottle what colour to paint my B-Pillars since they were looking a bit rough. After taking the CT’s advisory, I headed off to SuperCheap Auto to get me some paint from the team that I was much acquainted with, having needed to source many tools for my car project.

Last weekend I traveled up north to my hometown in Northland, in the North Island in the Southern Hemisphere. I had my tools up in my parents garage, and my car had been running a bit inefficiently so I figured it was time for some new spark plugs. I’m not an expert on spark plugs and never planned on writing about how to replace spark plugs or what to look for, but I took too many photos.

During the mid 1980’s Nissan was developing two engine families which would become the basis for the 90’s Japanese sports cars. These were the RB straight six and the VG V6 engines. In turbo form, these engines were on the edge of 280HP - the limit of what was the Gentleman’s Agreement at the time. Although they are best known in sports cars, the RB and VG were also used in more family-friendly sedans such as the Cefiro, Laurel,Skyline, Gloria, Cedric, and Leopard - the Cefiro later jumped from the RB to the VG.

I see this coupe parked here quite often so I decided to park next to it. I had often thought about selling up my sedan and getting a coupe, however I was recently told that the sedan is pretty much just an extra pair of doors added onto the coupe.

Top: 14” shakotan style. Typically deep-dished chrome and black. Middle: 16” usually mesh-inspired designs or 5/6 spoke (see below). Bottom: 18” drift-style, usually dished or concave. The early 90’s was somewhere between today’s drift scene, and the old zokusha/shakotan style. Hondas of this era are neither genre, thus the most popular style is 16” wheels. What do you guys prefer? Personally I wouldn’t go for the period-correct s3x-spec style so I left it out.. All right, all right - there’s a picture at the bottom. You happy now? 22” flush-faced chromes.

Last time I talked about the differences between small-format and medium-format cameras. Today I will talk about choosing lenses for your DSLR. This is a tutorial that I wanted to write a year ago, however circumstances led me to putting it off until now. Above we have two of my 3-piece essential kit: my “pancake” lenses. They are compact, lightweight, prime lenses. The lens on the left is a 20mm ultrawide, the one on the right is a 50mm, and the other part of the trio was used to take this photo and is a comparatively large 100mm macro.

Last time I talked about the chassis codes. This time in this short guide I will talk about the models and clear up myths about the names that have spread like wildfire about this well-yet-little-known car. Wikipedia has been known for false information, and the Nissan Skyline is no exception. Since everyone knows about the GT-R, I will omit the special versions such as the V-Spec, and focus more on the non-GT-R models that are still relatively unknown to many of you.

While these are rather popular everywhere else in the world, it is rare that you see even one for sale in New Zealand - I should know, I spent 3 years looking for one. And just when I’ve run out of funds, a whole bunch of them came up in various conditions.

I saw a bike in a liquidation sale - a 1990 Kawasaki GPX250 like the one pictured. I read very good reviews, however they are about the GPX250R, and I assume it is for a late model Ninja, not this old thing. Does the R mean a higher spec like Honda’s RR? Or is the 250 the same as the 250R? Anyone had any experience with these in the past?

Here is a car that I believe is worthy of its own post. It is an all-original, turbo, HNR32 in great condition, with apparently “one lady owner”. What makes it really special is that it is a turbo, coupe, GTS-4 that hasn’t been modified. It has all-wheel-drive, and also HICAS four-wheel steering. That means that it will corner like a dream, and you still get mad acceleration.

I found this online a few months ago and posted a couple images up here on CT. I forgot to post the rest of the pages, so here they are. Fun fact: There is no “R34 GTT”. A GTt would be a 2 litre turbo R34, but Nissan only produced an n/a version of the RB20 for the R34 model. The only turbo R34’s are the GT-R or 25GTt. Fun fact 2: Nissan released an R34 GT-V which had the uprated brakes, suspension and gearbox from the turbo models, but it was naturally aspirated.

With bodylines reminiscent of a Subaru Alcyone and a front half resembling an AE85 Levin, the Nissan Sunny RZ-1 is an often forgotten FWD sports car featuring a twin cam CA16DE. Factory output was a mighty 118HP, while the 0-60 time will have you waiting in anticipation at 10 seconds flat. There was also a single-cam turbo version along with a Nismo-trim model, each of which made no more than 120HP. So there we have it, an under-powered FWD 80’s sports coupe but at least it looks cool.

A cheap car where you slam it and it instantly looks good.

Alright. So today I have one of the dodgiest tutorials for you Skyline owners - or RFknB’s since you’re reading this. The Nissan Skyline is one of the easiest cars to modify, and today I will show you how to hide those pesky warning lights so you can now assume nothing’s wrong with your project.

Yesterday marked round 6 of D1NZ marking the end of the drift season for 2016, and as such I went along to see not only the sport of drifting, but the variety of highly modified drift missiles in the competition. While Cole Armstrong (in the bright green G35) took home the victory in round 6 after battling it out in the last round against Dylan Woolhouse, the overall winner of the 2016 season was Curt Whittaker with his R34 Skyline. Now let’s get into the interesting stuff; the cars.

The top one is the hideously ugly Nissan Leopard. The bottom one is the average looking Nissan Cima. The Leopard has heritage as Japan’s police car in the 80’s, while the Cima was produced as a top-of-the-range luxury car to rival the Toyota Crown, and both share the Y32 model name. But that’s not all they have in common - they both have the Nissan VH41DE V8 quad-cam motor hidden inside that homely exterior.

So here we have the marked police cars of New Zealand. I don’t know what that Kingswood is doing down the end there - probably getting pulled over for having too much beersies mate, or maybe his mullet has grown too long. The orange and red are highway patrol high visibility. The big question: Is it a Commodore? Yes: You might just have a police car on your tail. No: It’s not a cop.

I know that some of you right now are eager to type into the comments section “A four-door R34”. Some of you probably will. It’s a common misconception that even the most knowledgeable Scandinavian car-nut gets wrong, and I don’t blame you - it takes a bit of digging and research to understand what it all means.

Following on from yesterday’s story about buying my first set of wheels, I have created a guide to help you make sure you get the right wheels for your car. Below I have constructed a checklist to ensure you don’t end up in a situation like mine.

The Honda CRX is a famous name. It is known as one of the best drivers’ cars to come out of the 1980’s, and many examples have been tuned to crazy numbers. In the early 1990’s, Honda decided to create a follow up. It was given updated styling, a VTEC motor and all models came as a hard top convertible as standard. The particular model I am reviewing is somewhere near the top of the lineage with a B16 twin cam and electric roof.

This is one of the most requested tutorials, especially on Nissan Skyline forums and facebook pages. This scenario tends to happen a lot: Someone sees a car for sale at a great price and they decide to buy it. Then they either realise its an automatic, or they knew it was auto and planned to convert it. Now it’s time to stop saying and start doing. Parts you need:

In this tutorial I will show you how to install lowering springs into a RWD Nissan, and how to install coilovers (adjustable suspension). While this tutorial covers Nissans, it may be applicable to other auto manufacturers.

As a good follow up to my story about driving through mountain roads with no brakes, I will show you how to replace or upgrade the brakes on a Nissan. While this tutorial is mostly aimed at RWD Nissans (Skylines, Cefiros Stageas, Laurels and Silvias) made during the 90’s, it may apply to other vehicles. The naturally aspirated Nissans were given 2-pot floating brakes, while turbo Nissans were given 4-pot fixed brake calipers. If you plan on increasing the output of your Nissan, then it is a good idea to upgrade to turbo brakes first, especially since they are a direct fit.