SKYLINE R32 GTR – Improved by EDS

Good day all!

Like I said in my member introduction, we are currently doing a "Restomod" on a 1992 R32 Skyline GTR. The purpose of the build is to make a promo car for our shop, to display awesome parts we can have access to, in various events. Don't be fooled, this won't be a trailer (or garage!) Queen, it will definitely have a lot of stuff hiding under the hood, and will be registered and driving on the Canadian streets.

So I will start slowly and show you the early stage of the build. This is the car as we bought it. The paint was pretty rough, but underneath it's really one of the cleanest, no rust shell I've seen in Canada. The engine was barely in running condition thought. I even had "surprises" when I've opened the engine, which I'll talk later in the thread.

If you can't wait to see more pictures of the project, we are really more up to date on our Facebook page, but it is only in French right now, as most of our current market is from the French part of Canada. We are translating the album to english right now, but we are looking for a way to post it in both language efficiently.

Here's the link to our Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/elegantdriftshop/ You'll find a dedicated photo album for the project called SKYLINE R32 GTR – Improved by EDS.

This is it for now!

Thanks,

Frank

So next step was the teardown and cleanup so the car could go to the bodyshop while we work on the engine in our shop! As you know, the process is pretty much straightforward as you take off parts, you put aside what won't be put back so you can make some money selling it... also clean and inspect everything so you are sure that you won't have any surprise when the time will come to put everything back together! Here are some pictures of the teardown and cleanup!

Enjoy!

Comments are always welcomed :)

Frank

So the car is now gone at the body shop for the body restoration and painting!

We are now ordering all the parts and goodies to do a proper "Restomod" of this Godzilla! Here are some of the OEM stuff that we will install, as we are going to keep a OEM(ish) look!

The car will be at the body for some time so we have the time to take care of the engine in our shop! Here's the engine installed on the stand, waiting to get taken appart by us!

Come check back for more infos and pictures of our project!

Frank

The teardown of the engine is now done!

The engine is now at the shop to get his new bore of 87mm and a good cleanup. The engine head will have new valve guides and the valve seat will be redone as we are going to get brand new valves in the head! Decking will also be checked/adjusted to make sure the HG seals tight!

We did inspect for cracks as it's a known problem on the RB26 that they crack between the headstud holes and water jackets. Everything was fine for our engine!

More to follow!

Frank

To avoid any dangerous torsional vibration, we couldn't simply use a 25 years old OEM Damper. So we decided to go with a FLUIDAMPR that will be kept in place with a ARP bolt.

Where I'm from, everyone has is own opinion about Viscous Damper, some good, some bad. Pretty much everybody use the "good ol' ATI Superdamper" but we decided to actually use the Fluidampr to see if it's any good! I'm sure we won't be disapointed. Fluidampr have a pretty good words for their own products, a lot of information is on their website about how it protect from Harmonic Vibration under various RPM points!

Any of you have experience with this product?

Frank

Quick update!

We have decided to give a chance to a ECU MASTER EMU w/ CAN for the brain of our engine. It's a fairly uncommon plateform in our part of the globe, a Pro Drifter is using it with his SR20 and he said he like it. I guess we'll see by ourself!

The thing that scares me is that we might not have enough resolution in the Fuel and Ign map. Also, I don't really like that you can't actually delete and add rows and it's a bit sketchy when you want to modify an existing RPM or Load point. But for the rest, I should have enough Input and Output to drive our RB26!

It's been a while since I've posted an update! Well, last week I've assembled the block with awesome parts from Nitto Performance Engineering! The 2.8L Stroker kit was our choice for the engine internal, so we could acheive our goals! I've paired this kit with ACL Race bearing for the rods and main, as well as ARP Main cap studs and headstuds!

I'll let the picture do the talking...

Cheers!

Very nice build thread! What were the "surprises" you found in the engine upon teardown?

Oh yes, I really like where this is going. The 32GTR is always going to be one of my absolute favorite cars. Looks like you're treating her to a good tickle up too.

I've been doing a bit of reading on the ECUMaster ECU's recently, as I havent had any experience with them before, and for the price, they've got a pretty unbeatable featureset. Having drive-by-wire, proper coil drivers, and wb02 controller, they sound pretty epic. Might have to spec one out for my truck and have a play!

Can't wait to see what it looks like when its back from the bodyshop. Are you keeping it the original colour? Painting the enginebay too? What plans have you got for the interior? So many questions! ;-).

Hey Matt! Thanks for your comments :)

We did found out that the previous owner had already did a rebuild of this engine, but he probably lost a main bolt as one of them was a different style compared to the others (didn’t came out of a nissan engine...) and there was also another main bolt that was broken in 2 pieces!

Zac, we do enjoy to properly treat the Skylines that come into our shop! And this one being our shop project, it’s gonna get the full royal treatment!!! For the color, i’m going to announce it on my next post! You’ll need to be patient to know ;) I’m going to give you a hint... the engine bay will be painted black, and the rest of the car will be painted a different color... what original Skyline color came like that?

For the interior, it’s going to be OEM as much as possible, the center pillar gauges will be modified to accept new gauges inside it. We might change the steering wheel as well.

As for the ECUmaster ECU, it does pack good features, but I think the maps lack a little bit of resolution (16x20), especialy for our project that’s going to see around 9500RPM and heavy boost level. We’ll see how it turns out. I’ve never worked with it before as well. Played a bit with the program, it pretty simple and it gets the job done. A nice product I’ve seen from them is their PMU. Never played with it either, but I’ve read very good feedbacks.

If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask!!!

Frank

Love the build so far, look like a clean chasis. Also the shop you guys have is immaculate.

Well, it's been a while. The car is back from the body shop since a couple of month, but we haven't really got the time to work on it! A couple of things has changed, we are gonna go with the ECUMaster Black as there are so much more features. Also we finally decided to color match the engine bay instead of keeping it mate black. We also added some carbon fiber parts here and there...

There was a lot of time put in this restauration. Our friend Math did an awesome job and put a lot of time and effort, and it shows. We also cleaned all the old OEM nuts and bolt and found a place that do some zinc coating, it's awesome to work with hardware that looks as good as new! Here's a couple of photo of the bodywork :

That was peak skyline. Sounds like it will be a very stout engine. Unless the engine has very fiddly intake harmonics I can't see map resolution really being a problem?

Hey Michael! Yeah, I was pretty inexperienced back then, now I can say I will be more then okay with that resolution haha!