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Mike’s 1991 Nissan Skyline GT-R

Filed under: Featured Cars and Projects,Performance,r32
by Alvin G @ 5:53 pm on June 30, 2020

 

Mike R acquired this gunmetal (KH2) 1991 Skyline GTR last August from our friend Sean and his team at Toprank International Vehicle Importers. It goes without saying, if you are in the market for a vintage Skyline (or any JDM car) IVI is the place to go.

 

Z Car Garage is familiar with the Norcal Skylines group and fellow Skyline R32 owner Kurt W. referred Mike to us in addition to an endorsement from Top Rank:

“One of my main concerns in purchasing a 25+ year old vehicle that was never manufactured in the US, was support. Who can work on this thing to perform maintenance and upgrades? I spoke with Top rank about it quite a bit prior to purchase and they had recommended Z Car garage. The car was in great condition and mostly stock when I got it. With the goal of being an all around fast street car, I started acquiring parts and placed a call to ZCG to start the first round of upgrades.”

 

Chassis

We discussed installing a big-brake kit, suspension, Haltech and a few others issues we handled for Mike. Here is the Project Mu 4-wheel big-brake kit:

 

We also installed the Ohlins DFV coil-overs, shown below are the stock R32 calipers:

 

 

With a few modifications the Project Mu kit was installed:

 

Some close-ups of the Project Mu setup:

 

We adjusted his coil-over setup and set the ride height followed by corner-weighting the car according to his weight. Further suspension mods included Whiteline Sway bars, Cusco strut bracing and SPL titanium HICAS eliminator kit. All interior panels were trimmed for a clean finish with full alignment services.

Performance

Mike was also interested in replacing the factory ECU so we upgraded to a Haltech Elite 2000 with the R32-plugin adapter. The full installation also included a wideband controller and smoke-testing the car in preparation for dyno tuning:

 

Greddy FMIC:

 

The Haltech combined with Apexi intakes, Nismo downpipe, Tomei Titanium exhaust, Greddy FMIC and PRP R35 Coil kit, netted 340hp/284tq at the wheels with Rob’s tuning on 91 octane:

 

Enjoy the dyno video below:

 

 

Since his last visit, Mike has added R34 GT-R Seats, and a sweet set of Volk Racing TE37 SL custom gloss black wheels (18×10.5 +15), wrapped in Michelin PS4S tires measuring 265/35/18.

 

Mike also relocated the battery to the trunk to make space for a Leaskspec radiator overflow tank and Radium dual catch can setup:

 

In addition, a Haltech IC7 digital dash was added to monitor vital engine parameters. The IC7 dash ties into the CAN box of Elite system:

More Power

 

Mike has been happy with the upgrades we made but like many of us the desire for more power inevitably hits:

“The car has been running flawlessly and the goal with these mods is to support the addition of a single turbo kit that Zcar will be installing this August. The turbo kit consists of a Full Race Twin scroll T4 manifold that will be mated to an EFR 8474 turbocharger.  Twin Tial 44mm external wastegates will bleed off the excess exhaust gasses.”

 

Along with the turbo kit, we will be adding: PWR radiator, Samco radiator hoses, Tomei Type B Poncams, fuel pump, Radium fuel rail, fpr, ID 1050X fuel injectors, along with a custom intake and custom intercooler piping with a Tial q50 BOV. The goal for this round of upgrades is 500whp on low boost and 91 octane fuel.
“All of the work performed at Zcar had exceeded my expectations so far (and I’m very picky). Looking forward to the start the build and make some power of the next few months.”

We really enjoy taking care of many Norcal Skyline owners.  Welcome to ZCG family Mike and thanks for trusting us with your R32! Enjoy The Boost until you return!
More pictures in the gallery below:




Matt’s R32 Skyline GT-R

Filed under: Featured Cars and Projects,Performance,r32
by Alvin G @ 2:16 pm on March 6, 2019

Photo: Patrick Lauder

 

Matt O is the lucky owner of this 1991 Skyline GTR finished in (TH1) Midnight Blue Pearl.  When we first met he wanted to bring the car in to ZCG for a quick checkup. We looked over it, ran a compression check and also made a plan for his next visit.

 

Matt acquired this California-legal R32 from our friend Sean and his team at Toprank International Vehicle Importers. It goes without saying, if you are in the market for a vintage Skyline (or any JDM car) IVI is the place to go.

  
 

In March of last year Matt came in for a Haltech Platinum Pro. We have installed many of these and it’s a great foundation for adding power to the R32.

 

We performed all the prep work and ran a the boost sensor to install the Haltech.  Whenever we take on these cars we always run a smoke test to ensure there are no intake leaks present.

 
 

On the dyno, results for the baseline run (left) followed by Haltech on 91 octane. Despite having a healthy engine/turbos the power levels were fairly low on this car. The culprit: weak actuators not allowing the car to hold boost. Matt will visit us again for new turbos and acuators so it will get a big jump in power. We are big fans of Haltech and now he’s prepared with the right engine management system.

 
 

Next, we installed a few suspension upgrades supplied by Matt followed by a full alignment:

 

Cusco T/C rods, rack bushings and toe-link/rear control arm setup:

   
 

T/C rods

 
 
 

The R32 had a set of SSR SP1 wheels and Matt wanted to change the look with a fresh set of new wheels: 18″ Volk TE37 finished in bronze.

 
 

We mounted/balanced his RE071R tires and the Skyline looks sweet:

Photo: Telstarlogistics

Matt has been Enjoying The Ride in the R32. Here he is at Laguna Seca:

 
 

We even caught Matt out on a local drive! Here he is parked next to Naveed’s R32 (story coming soon):

 

Thanks for bringing your Skyline to us Matt. We look forward to more boost! Catch more of Matt’s Th1 R32 on his Instagram