Hi-Rev Speed Shop

I thought I’d better write an introduction to the Toyota seeing as I’m starting to work on it!

I bought it back in September 07 off eBay for £1500. In the photos it looked pretty clean and I figured for the money I couldn’t lose. When I picked it up I was slightly disappointed, there was a dent on the passenger wing, a scratch across the bonnet, some flaking paint on the drivers door, the drivers seat and steering wheel were very worn and there were parking “marks” on each corner of the car. Oh, and the horrible standard 15″ wheels were appallingly bad.

The good news was that it drove brilliantly. The air suspension seemed to work perfectly, including the Sport button that firms up the suspension and adds weight to the steering and the V8 engine pulled hard and sounded great, apart from being slightly tappety, and the auto box worked seamlessly.

On the homeward journey, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out which Kanji symbol operated the climate control and I couldn’t make the stereo work either, both of which operate via the EMV touch screen computer which also works as a TV and Sat Nav system (but not in the UK without conversion) which is pretty nifty for standard fit in a 1991 car!

So I had a list of things to do:

• paintwork
• worn interior bits
• figure out computer
• sort out wheels

I got Rob O’Neill (O’Neill Mobile Paint and Dent Repair) to knock the dent out of the wing while he was patching up some damage to the front of my GTR and did a cracking job considering it was in an awkward spot.

I decided not to takle the other paint bits yet as it’s pearlescent white and VERY difficult to match up and I don’t want to have to go to the expense of doing entire panels or worse, the entire car so I settled for just giving it a good polish using Menzerna Final Finish products from Polished Bliss.

I then bought a set of 17″ Work alloy wheels (again off eBay) with tyres for £400 and they totally transformed the car. Here’s the before and after shots:

The wheels really suit the car and totally transform it.

As you can see from the above, I had the headlights apart to try and tidy them up as they were yellow and dull. I found a great “how-to” article on Soarerworld but I didn’t do a great job of resealing the lamps so now there’s condensation appearing in the lense. Bugger. I also discovered that you get 99% the same results from just polishing the outside of the lense (at least on my lights) so if you have a Soarer, try that first before taking them apart.

Next, I tried to figure out how to work the EMV worked but after a while it was clear there was some kind of fault with it. I got in touch with Luke Gomer who diagnosed that the EMV computer had probably failed (and maybe other stuff too) so I sent it off to him for repair and a recon off the touchscreen itself for about £250 plus p&p. Unfortunately, this didn’t cure the fault completely, but Luke diagnosed this as being due to a fault on either the TV or the navigation unit so after unplugging these (they don’t work in the UK anyway) the system sprang into life and demonstrated that the aircon needs regassing. D’oh.

The next job that has sprung up unexpectedly is that the power steering pump now groans and the steering is very inconsistent. I’m planning to rebuild that today using original Toyota parts. I phoned the Toyota dealer near where I work (Lindop Brothers) on Monday, gave them the frame number off the car and had the bits on Tuesday for £44 (seal kit and bearing). How good is that? A 17 year old grey import and parts available from a main dealer in less than 24 hours. I was impressed.

Once the PS pump is sorted, I can MOT the car and start using it as a daily driver and take the GTR off the road to fit all the bits I’ve collected. Or, due to fuel prices, I might sell the Soarer and get something a bit cheaper as a daily driver. We’ll see how it goes!

I’ve had my new wheels delivered for the GTR: a lovely set of RAYS Engineering Volk Racing TE-37 in bronze. For reference, they’re 9.5×18 ET12 and running brand new Goodyear F1 Asymmetrical tyres.

I’ve wanted these wheels on a white Skyline for as long as I can remember. I love the look of them, they make the R33 look much more aggressive.

I got these from New Era Parts (I can’t recommend them highly enough).

Let me know what you think.

So here’s the run down of my Nissan Skyline GTR project.

I bought the car last year for £8995 from Samurai Performance near York in almost standard condition and with only 110,000 kms on the clock. The car was already fitted with TEIN Super Street coil-over suspension, an Apex’i AVC-R boost controller and HKS Super Power Flow air filters.

I immediately added an HKS Silent Hi-Power cat-back exhaust system along with an Abbey Motorsport big-bore catalyst replacement pipe and Apex’i PowerFC replacement ECU and Commander all of which was fitted and mapped by RC Developments.

 I *should* have got a baseline reading on power before and after the exhaust and ECU swap, but I was too eager to get the work done. Let’s just say that a GTR with the standard exhaust and boost feels pretty strangled and not all that impressive (although still quick).

I’d agreed with RC Developments that they would set the boost below 1 bar as the standard GTR turbos are ceramic and have a tendency to shear the exhaust wheel above this boost threshold (I already knew this and RC confirmed it).

On picking the car up, it felt very quick and so it should: the boost had been set to 1.3kg/cm2 (just under 1.3 bar) on the AVC-R, which I reset myself to 0.95. When I got home I realised that although my standard ECU had been put in the glove-box, my standard but perfectly usable exhaust and, more importantly, the catalytic converter wasn’t in the car. A call next day to RC Developments confirmed my worst fears: they’d chucked it in the skip and would have to source me a replacement at their cost. 6 months on, I’m still waiting for the replacement exhaust and the TEIN c-spanners I ordered off them for £18 plus VAT. Clearly as things stand, I can’t recommend RC Developments although to be fair, the mapping appears to be spot on.

In February, I attended a dyno shootout with a load of Subaru Imprezas at Dyno Demon and managed 375.5 bhp at the flywheel. The Scooby drivers complained that they were down on power compared to previous runs, but I was happy with the figure I got.

The only concessions to looks have been a real carbon fibre spoiler blade and end caps (Nismo replicas) from New Era Parts. I was so impressed by the delivery times from Japan as well as the cost and customer service that I bought myself a set of RAYS Engineering Volk Racing TE37 wheels in bronze, the ultimate GTR wheel, in my opinion. When they arrive, I’ll be posting plenty of pics! They do go against my “cheap” philosophy, though. Oops.

Hello and welcome to the Hi-Rev Speed Shop! What is this place all about? Well, I’m a petrol head obsessed with going faster, reliably for the lowest price possible.

 I have a couple of project cars on the go and I’ll show you how I get on improving them without resorting to thousands of ££££’s.

Because I’m a bit odd that way, my project cars are not what you’d expect. My daily driver is a 1996 Nissan Skyline GTR (R33) and the car I’ve chosen as my weekend warrior is a 1991 Toyota Soarer 4.0 GT Limited. I know what you’re thinking, I’d be better off swapping them around. But where would the fun be in that?