Sorry but have been busy building an aircraft....

Sorry I haven't updated this blog for a few months as I have been busy building an aircraft in my garage. I am planning on entering the Suncoast Classic Rally in Queensland around July 2009 so will update this blog once I have finished building the plane and start getting the Skyline ready for the Rally.

If you want to know more about the Rally go to ...

http://www.suncoastclassic.com.au/sc08/overview.htm

If interested in aircraft as well as fast cars check out my blog on building the plane at...

http://building-a-searey.blogspot.com/

Paul

on the road again....

All sorted out.... I got onto X-treme Motorsports at 17 Ingham Rd in Townsville and they were great. Not only did they have an R33 castor rod but they also fitted it for me for only $75 all up! So many thanks to those who responded to my post on Skylines Australia and special thanks to Paul at E-xtreme Motorsports for his help. Make sure you go and see Paul and the boys for parts and modifications or just a chat if you are ever in Townsville. Check out their very good website at.......

http://www.x-trememotorsport.com/index.html.


Now onto Mission Beach!

the trip so far.....

The trip has been great with the R34 running sweet.... until Mt Isa. The route so far with stopovers listed below.....

Perth - Geraldton - Carnarvon - Exmouth - Port Hedland - Broome - Fitzroy Crossing - Kununurra - Katherine - Mataranka - Camooweal - Hughenden - Townsville.....

At Mt Isa I had the tyres rotated rear left to rear right and front left to right front (due to rotation direction) as they were wearing a little on the insides as Skylines often do but what drama that turned out to be. I told the tyre guy what to do and went to get some food. On my return they hadn't done anything as they told me that if they rotated the tyres they would run in the wrong direction! I told them that's why I told you to remove the tyres from the rims and turn them around and balance them! Anyway after 1.5 hours we were on our way again however not long after leaving Mt Isa I noticed that the R34 was pulling badly to the right under brakes. After having a look underneath I found that the after market adjustable castor rod had broken at the adjustment nut. Did the tyre guys jack the car up on the castor rod? Who knows. Hmm thats not good but had little choice but to keep going and try and find a factory castor rod in Townsville only 883kms away! The car drives perfectly except some scraping on the plastic underguard as the wheel moves back under brakes and that little problem with the pulling to the right under brakes but not uncontrollable.

Made it to Townsville but having problems finding one here so have put a post on Skylines Australia as I have noticed there are quite few Skylines, 180SX cruising around so I hope one of you are checking the forums regularly otherwise its another couple of hundred k's up to Mission Beach!

Will update blog when R34 is sorted......

Tweaking the R34...

When I imported the R4 I knew I was going to drive it to Queensland across the top so I thought that I better make sure we were going to make it. It had travelled 86,000kms with no evidence of the timing belt being changed so in addition to the timing belt we changed the....

water pump

coolant

fan belts

diff oil

trans oil

oil

oil filter

air filter

fuel filter

left hand rocker cover gasket (common on RB25s to leak)



plus I just couldn't help but tweak the performance a little by fitting....

quick shift kit to the auto trans

full stainless steel exhaust including dump pipe and hi-flow catalytic converter

front mount intercooler

lowered coil over suspension

17"alloys with Yokoama 235/45/17's on the front and 255/40/17's on the rear

adjustable castor rods

front camber kit

iridium spark plugs

splitfire ignition coils (highly recommended for R34's as they have a problem with factory coils)

Bel RX-75 radar/laser detector (these are great with cameras and highly recommended)

Uniden GPS (so we don't get lost)

Cruise Control.... it wasn't an option on Skylines for some reason.

We are taking a 20litre jerry can of Premium fuel as not sure how available Premium is in the middle of nowhere and in case we run out... also 20 litres of water for drinking and in case we spring a leak. We only have a space saver spare so I have also chucked a couple of those emergency tyre repairs in a can...... not sure if they work but we'll see if we get a flat!

Also on board is a good toolkit in case I have to fix anything... not likely in a Skyline but you never know....

Next blog.. the trip to Queensland!

Across the top in an R34 turbo sedan

Of course not many people would drive an R34 from Perth to Queensland across the top but then again why not? Those of you that own a Skyline know that they are unbelievably reliable with great overtaking abilities and fantastic to drive. You may be asking why am I doing it? Well in December last year my wife and I decided that we have had enough of Perth's cold winters and needed a bit of a change so we bought an absolute beachfront property at Mission Beach in North Queensland approx 165kmh south of Cairns. If you look on a map it is just about the furthest point you can get from Perth.

After selling Autoworx in May we worked flat out for 4 months getting our house ready to sell. As I have already sold 3 houses and 4 businesses myself before I also decided to sell this one as well. Unbelievably we sold it in 2 days with an unconditional offer and a 3 week settlement!! Even I was surprised... all up it cost us $229..... yes $229 which includes registering a domain name for a website we set up and 3 newspaper ads.... we didn't even put a sign out the front! I know Real Estate agents don't want to hear this but YOU DON'T NEED THEM! In a future blog I'll be giving you a few hints about selling your own house but in the meantime PLEASE have a go yourself..... if it doesn't work out then maybe use an agent but if you do it right I GUARANTEE you will sell it yourself..... I saved $20,000.

Anyway getting back to the R34.... I specifically imported the R34 to drive across the top. I like the look of the sedan and there s a little more space for all the crap I knew my wife would want to pack in.

Next blog I'll let you know what modifications I have done to make sure we make it all the way to Queensland.

Stay tuned....

Finally....

I know its been a long time coming but I have finally got the Skyline on the dyno for a tune. I was trying to get Lumpy (ex Hyperdrive) to tune it again but he is so busy running his drift team that he just couldn't do it. I ended up getting Andrew (new owner of Hyperdrive) to dyno it instead. He asked what sort of horsepower I was chasing and I said that 350 - 400rwhp would be nice however I was more concerned with a safe tune than horsepower.

We ended up with 326rwhp with full boost of 16psi coming on at 3500rpm and great mid range power. I am extremely happy with this as I always said I didn't want much lag and a lot of response which is why I didn't go overboard with the size of the turbo and installed Tomei Pon Cams. Andrew said that it would easily make 350rwhp with this turbo but there was problem holding boost as when it gets to 16psi it bleeds off to 12psi and he thinks the wastegate actuator may not be strong enough to hold boost so I will have to have a look at that soon..... not that I am really worried about it as it goes REALLY well and I am extremely happy with the way it drives, sounds and feels.. isn't that what its all about?

Next blog will be about my move to North Queensland driving across the top in our R34 turbo sedan..... yes another Skyline..... I love em!

Went for a 450km drive this morning

As I have to do 1000kms to run in the new engine I decided to get up at 4.15am this morning and go for a drive. I hadn't decided where I was going to go so just jumped in and started heading towards the city. As I was driving along I thought it would be good to go inland a bit before heading over to the coast and back to home in Duncraig so I headed towards Armadale and when I got to the Brookton Highway I turned left and headed towards Brookton. I ended up turning right at Brookton and heading back to Perth via Narrogin and Williams. All up I did approx 450kms and as I have already done approx 50kms I am now half way there with the run-in.

The engine is running real sweet and feels really strong. Lumpy did a great job with the run-in tune and he limited the revs to 5500rpm on the Power FC just in case I couldn't wait and decided to go a bit silly! For those of you who don't know what entails a good run-in you are not alone. The only experience I have had with running in engines is with aircraft. We had to replace the engine in our Cessna 210 a few years ago when it spun a main bearing (and thats another interesting story as it happened in-flight!) so I read a great article tiltled "Don't baby your engine" (go to http://www.casa.gov.au/fsa/2002/sep/36-38.pdf if you want a good read). It's a great article and makes a lot of sense so what I did was cruise along at 110kmh in 5th at 3300rpm then dropped it back to 4th bringing the revs up to 3800rpm and cruise at that for a couple of k's and then revving it out to 5500rm before changing back into 5th (going a little faster than 110kmh!). I did this repeatedly and also made sure to wind it out in every gear when starting off. Next step is an oil change and then another 500kms to finish the run-in.

Not sure where to this time but I'll let you know.

New engine is running!

It's been a long wait but finally the new engine is in and running. We fired it up last week but it was blowing clouds of black smoke out the back due to overfuelling, I thought by fitting the standard ECU that it would run OK so I would be able to run it in but that theory didn't work! So I connected the Power FC back up and Alistair from Autoworx said I could adjust the injectors (I have 740cc's) temporarily to wind them back from 100% to 50%. Once we did that it ran fine and got me home. Certainly feels revvy!

I then called Glenn Campbell (Lumpy) who used to own Hyperdrive in Perth. He is the guru for tuning Power FC's and he did my last engine which produced 300rwhp without much modification. I have known Lumpy for years and have followed his career with interest. Since selling Hyperdrive he now owns and manages a drift team and competes in the national Drift series. He is getting a few sponsors on board due to quite good success and is always looking for more so if you are interested contact me and I will forward you his details.

A couple of days ago we put it on the dyno and did a run-in tune. I now have to do 500kms and then an oil change and then another 500kms and oil change before we can get it back on the dyno for a full tune. I think I will be restricted on horsepower due to the relatively small Garrett turbo I have fitted but my theory was that if I was unhappy with the output I could always change the turbo.

I will let you know how the next dyno goes.. hoping for around 350rwhp so we'll wait and see.

Flying the Searey

A while back I mentioned that I was going to buy and build a little kit Seaplane. I went to Sydney recently and flew the Australian distributors (Rob Loneragan of Searey Australia) Searey. Rob took me up in his own Searey that he built back in 2000 as a demo and for his enjoyment as he loves flying and Searey's in particular and I can see why.....

What a beautiful little aircraft!

We took off from Bankstown airport and followed the river to Sydney Harbour where we flew at 500ft all the way to the coast. The harbour bridge stands at a height of 440ft so at 500ft you can imagine what a birdseye view we had flying over the southern pylon.... it was spectacular!

I also took some video footage including taking off and landing on the water that I will load onto Youtube or somewhere shortly and provide a link so you can check it out.

My kit is leaving the US at the end of August and should arrive around late October/early November.... can't wait....