A Very Wet Day At QR

Well on the weekend we all headed out to QR for the second Queensland Raceway Breakfast that I organized for Hardtuned.net and all i can say is.... what? purely because I can't hear a thing because I was that waterlogged!!! The rain as much as I love it it was suppose to dissipate by Thursday but being typical Queensland it did not and it continued and continued.

It Rained all of Friday night and all of Saturday. We had two events scheduled and that was the breakfast and then a motorkhana myself and Sean arrived pretty early to find locked gates but thats because we were just early one of the QR staff arrived shortly after and let us in.

I was getting a little concerned that we wernt going to make numbers because of the rain, but pleasantly I was proved wrong and everyone started to rock up... I'm pretty sure it was all down to how good the breakfast is!

The morning unfortunately wasnt free of drama, Me having snapped an earth screw and Nathan having his keys locked in his Silvia by someone but thankfully one of the guys that rent a garage out there had the right tools for the job and go us out of trouble

Now ill say one thing as I drove out of the pits and onto the track I was thinking that with the amount of water on the track it wasn't going to be much fun at all and end up with us all being called back in but as i got a few laps in and started to find a balance it was actually quite an awesome experience doing 140+ down the main straight in a downpour what isn't to love?

Through out the entire day the weather was not consistent at all as it would rain one minute the next it would stop and then it would just bucket down, At one point it was raining that hard that i had my windscreen wipers on full and i was thinking we would be pulled off the track but to my amazement we wernt.

I had a few big sideways moments mainly coming out of turn five and one going into turn six but that's nothing compared to Kristen who had a huge moment coming down one of the middle straights and doing a 720 spin!!! she did tremendously well to keep the car on the track and pointing in the right direction.

A few other people had a few off's and one of the guys actually beached himself going into turn six with Kristen behind him.

Well thats enough talking.. I really dont have any photos to post up but i do have my in car footage so that should make up for it!

I really don't have anything watchable from the motorkhana unfortunately but hopefully the next one that shall be a different story, but even though it was quite wet i did end up finishing off the proxie 4's i had on the back :(

but at the moment Im running these on the car because i needed legal rubber!!

Gram Light 57 Pro's in 17x8 +30 front and 17x9 + 30 rears

As always stay safe!

Bev

Clutch Kicking the 180 into the next gear

In Just over a months time QR will be holding the first Matsuri event ever held in Queensland now for those of you that some how do not know what Matsuri its "Festival Of Drift" it originally was started by Team Orange Boss and Owner of Ebisu Circuit Kumakubo for the one purpose of bringing all drifters of all skill levels together to share in common their love of drifting, to share stories, experiences and to just plan socialize in a motorsports venue.

Now for many of us a trip to Japan is out of the question and we cant all share in this experience due to financial restrictions, family commitments, work commitments... the list goes on and on.. a few months back some brilliant person down south thought why don't we bring Matsuri to Australia so those that cant go to J-land can at least get a taste of it down under.

Now to date there has been two so far run in the country one being at Winton and the other at Mallala, Well the people at Queensland Raceway have finally cottoned on and have decided to host their own Matsuri with 24hrs of non-stop drifting!!! starting for most at 12 noon Saturday till 12 noon sunday.
For those lucky first one hundred entrants (Myself and Nathan included) get to start at 10am.

It is going to be a huge weekend (October 8th and 9th) for us most likely spending all of Friday packing the cars, tools, parts and then getting an early night (Yeah right ill be lucky to sleep 1 hour) to be at the track first thing around 5am on the Saturday to unpack everything and get situated then slide the crap out of our cars until the next day. Then pack up on the Sunday Afternoon so I'm not with out doubt that the Monday after will be spent sleeping.

For entry forms and entry lists check out > http://www.qldraceways.com.au/main.php?menu=qrd01

Now the whole point to this little spiel is the reason why the 180 has been booted back into gear earlier then anticipated as a drift car and not a time attack car... well the simple fact is Silvie is my daily drive and with her current track record when going out to QR well its not the best one!!! so why not build the 180 into something specifically for the one thing? well at least temporarily until we can sort out a more balance setup between sliding and chasing that clock around lakeside and QR.

So let the first part of the build begin!!!

As i said in the last post we left the warehouse on the Saturday night with a mission and that was to pile a crap load of parts into the old faithful falcon to get a good start on preparing the 180 for its quest towards twenty-four hours of punishment!!! well maybe not twenty-four hours non-stop because Ill end up crashing for few hours in the passenger seat (I apologize in advance for the Snoring)

So this is what we ended up with

Parts!!! ignore the GTR Junk above

                                                                         -180SX Reo

-S13 Front Coilovers

-S15 5-stud. Brake and hub assembly

-Front and rear strut braces

-S13 Manual Tail shaft

-S13 Overflow bottle

-S13 Side mirrors

-Assortment of nuts and bolts

-S13 Clutch Slave

-S13 Fan Shroud

-S13 Dash

-SR20 Non-Hicas Power steering pump, lines, reservoir and bracket

-SR20 Top and Bottom Rad hoses

-Assortment of silicon joiners and pipes..

-Assortment of other parts!!!

GTR Cooler pipe setup for S13 - ignore black pipe

1 pair of Advan Racing 17x8.5 with la mans tyres

Ok well that was the parts we Jammed into the back of the falcon with all the tools we needed!!! I swear the amount of parts we jam into the back of that thing is ridiculous i think we should take up playing Tetris as a profession.

not to mention the parts still left in the halfcut like the power steering rack that was originally a Hi-CAS rack but Nissan being Nissan you can change it to be non-hicas hence the non-hicas bracket for the to mount the non-hicas steering pump.

first things first the GTR parts that are in one of the photos above were living in the boot of the 180 since we did a engine swap in a GTR awhile ago.. well they had to go and to prevent leakage a 180sx hatch rubber was installed

the most important part to be installed... hatch rubber.

 Next was to pull out the old S13 struts, hubs and the stuffed power steering rack

Poo Rotar, 4-stud hub and strut

 Yes different side.. but gone!!!

 Old destroyed rack removed.

New goodies installed.

  Wheels on

Nismo Engine mounts installed on engine.

Bearing and rear seal in good nick

 Just incase you've never seen the bodacious rear of a SR20DET

Bonnet off and engine bay ready for poking in the motor and gearbox

 Gearbox back on the motor ready to be lifted into the car.

 Kristen making sure nothing is a miss

 All in!!!

Crossmember meet engine mount, engine mount meet crossmember!!

GTR Cooler pipes test fitted.

Engine Loom all connected and through firewall.

 Ohhh hello Mr cooler pipe!!

 looking like an engine bay!!!!

So much torque it wheel stands!!!...

First time in over a year thats its been on the ground with a motor in it.

S15 Radiator installed.. problematic though.

Strut brace on

Front end all together!!! needs tweaking here and there.

Well apart from a few little niggling problems the front end is complete being the only problems are the s15 rad fouls on the bonnet as does the strut brace so they will get changed, another thing that you may also notice is the front bar is sitting lower then it should due to it fouling on the Reo so some alterations will be needed so the front bar sits right.

But apart from all of that which we can fix, the front end is done... well.. we still need to install the GTR FMIC but couldn't as i forgot to grab it.. gahhh.

All in all we made a load of progress with the car in pretty much one days work. As far as assembly goes it was maybe 8 hours worth of work, one thing that i did forget to take photos and mention is the dashboard installation but that can come later on as we assemble the rest of the inside.

As for the rear end we have a cradle coming with a mechanical diff (unsure if its a 1.5 or a 2 way) and a few other goodie and fuel tank to go with it but once we have everything we need ill post up about it.

As for now I would like to say thank you to the man that has made all of this happen in such a short period of time without him i would still be sitting here staring at that Matsuri poster dreaming about going instead of actually having my name on the list and a car that is fifty percent towards being complete, I can not be more appreciative then I already am for all of his help with this and Silvie!! Nathan my friend you sir are just purely awesome!!! without you I would be but a dreamer. Once again from the bottom of my heart thank you so very much :)

I would also like to thank Kristen for coming down and giving us a hand because every bit of help is appreciated and doesn't go unnoticed you are also awesome!

Well guys for now that's all five posts done in one night!!! I hope you are enjoying the recent additions to my blog and don't worry as there will be more to come!!!

this coming weekend we are holding the Next breakfast at QR and the first Hardtuned Motorkhana so I am sure that ill have a something else to write about on sunday.

As always

Stay safe my friends!!!

Bev!!

Halfcut strippage.....is that white panels on the 180??

In the post about the wing we put onto Nathans Champagne car I mentioned Whole Sale Car Parts and all the cool shit we tend to get from there well we were in need of a second engine and gearbox so we could finish off the CA to SR conversion on the Gray 180 so we could move it on well that was the whole intention of going down to see dave was to get a normal dirty looking halfcut but whilst down there we were eying off some white goodies that we had seen before and had considered getting for my type X.

That of which consisted of a Origin front and rear bar, Type X skirts and front quarter panels (as the shell had green hideous fiber glass ones) well they found them self in the back of the falcon so they could soon Cristen the type X

Well we had no room in the shed out the back to strip this half cut so Nathans Dad ended up taking it down to the shed which just happens to have my 180 sitting in it so what were we to do? not put the guards and bars on?

First things first

We started to strip this halfcut and found quite a few little.... oddities to say the least.. such as the ERG system being retained.. or so we thought!!! some crafty little ways of getting past sharken in Japan (Japanese roadworthy)

 Before the strippage

Engine Harness and oil line for gauge relaxing on the top of the motor

 Detachable.... Ummmm pipes and what not..

 Be free SR20 Be Free!!!

Up up and UP

 Hmmm rebuilt S15 T28BB

 Gearbox seperated - Had a Domestic Japanese Exedy

(Just a quick note for those playing at home, Exedy dont paint the pressure plate pink in japan like they do for the Australian market)

Before finalizing on this specific halfcut we had the guys at WCP start it up and it sounded lumpy!!! we tried to convince ourselfs that it was because it had vacuum leaks and nothing but a dump and front on it.. well when we got it back to the shed we had a better look first of which was via the oil filler and hey look!!! rocker arm stoppers hmmmm promising so off came the rocker cover and hello Tomei Poncams!!

Hmmmm 256 poncams and rocker stoppers!!!

Well that was Majority of the halfcut stripped and we had a enough of that for the moment so we thought we would have a fiddle with the 180sx

It started off that morning looking all gloomy and green like so

Someone had writen "I wish my wife was this dirty" on the back window

But low and behold we had some goodies for my filthy girl

White 1/4 panels, uprights, clutch master cylinder, Nismo clutch pedal

New body bits and pieces

Not long after we had bolted all the front on and aligned it

Front quarter panels on

Uprights ready to go on

 Uprights on with horns removed

Front bar on

 Standard bar removed.

 New rear bar on.

We also installed the Nismo clutch pedal and the master cylinder with the lines.

after that we realized that it was getting to dark to do anymore work and we all had enough of breathing in dust and being covered in it so we headed off back to Nathans parents place on a mission!!!

I mentioned before that we originally got the halfcut for the gray car which is in the shed at Nathans parents place... we sorta stood there looking at the car.. then at the motor near the half cut then finally looked at each other and went... whats the point in lugging the motor back to the other shed then lugging the motor slated for the 180 back to the warehouse.... it was just silly.

So Project Origin X got a big clutch kick and jammed into the next gear!!!

But thats another blog post 

Till then as always stay safe!!

Bev!!!