Saturday, June 22, 2019

Dropping My Car Off at Nismo Omori Factory!

Remember how I described in my last post how I had to get the paperwork fixed? Well, I figured I might as well for a reason that will be clear in an upcoming post, which has almost nothing to do with my car.  So I took the car to my go to guy, Ninomiya-san at BeAmbitious a few weeks after meeting with Takasu-san, and then 2 weeks later Ninomiya-san called me to tell me it was all done.

So, I called back Takasu-san about our previous conversation and he offered that his guys could take a close look at my car - do a complete shakedown by first replacing all the fluids, then test driving, after which Nismo technicians would come up with a list of things that could be improved, repaired or perfected.

HOW COULD I SAY NO?!

So, I took a morning off and picked up my car from BeAmbitious...


Damn this car looks good!
 And then drove over to Nismo. Found a spot open next to a classic:

 And then went inside where I met up with Takasu-san again - apparently Omori Factory is currently FULL with customer cars - they were doing me a favor to accommodate me.  After some pleasantries he had Ochiai-san, the guy who would probably actually work on my car, take me outside to inspect my car.

Here is Ochiai-san explaining my car's body rigidity to my friend Takashi who picked me up from Nismo
Ochiai-san had some interesting things to say about the choice of injectors on the Mine's engine - he immediately saw that the injector sizes were 600cc, and not the 555cc (pink color) ones he would have recommended.  Said that larger injectors might cause excessive gas to be injected - which yes I knew - and that too much could result in fouled exhaust gases leading to premature failure of the catalytic converter. Which is spot on - or at least the fact that the HKS cat didn't seem to last long, on both occasions I've installed one since the Mine's engine.

He also didn't like the Garage Defend panel, saying that it prevented the snorkel from getting enough air into the engine.  I explained this one was for looks only and that I had in fact, developed my own panel with ram-air. And that my friend Tom had also made a nicer version and actually recorded a difference in air temperature!

Along with this mod and the other things he saw I had done, he was impressed - it sounds like most R owners in Japan that bring their cars to Nismo don't work on them too much....

In any case, I am on pins and needles as I wait to get the phone call... and then hopefully some very good news and not much bad news... we shall see. I told them I was in no rush.

Which means people visiting Nismo Omori Factory over the next few weeks might see something like this:


Thanks to my friend Matt B who's visiting from the UK and dropped into Nismo! Will have to catch up in person next time!!

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

A Quick Visit to NISMO Omori Factory...

As long as I've owned my car, I've never had my car actually worked on or even inspected by the guys at Nismo Omori Factory. Granted, I've had many many different Nismo parts installed on my car over the years, and Nismo trained mechanics (the guys at Nissan Prince Tokyo Motorsports Factory (Yamada-san in particular) as well as Ninomiya-san at BeAmbitious) but maybe it's not quite the same? 

Time to find out! A few weeks ago I received an introduction to Takasu-san at Omori Factory, and went down to visit him. I show up at the appointed time, and had to park next to this very nice Nismo Z34. 
Cannot believe how small my car looks next to the Z! Maybe it's the angle?

After the pleasantries, I first made clear to the guys at Nismo that I was a regular working man with a growing family - i.e. I'm not going to be able to spend as much as some people and reproduce a Clubman Sport car. And in any case, I am not going to change the way my car looks  - I just want to see what they can do to fix/improve/modernize.
Master Mechanic Takasu-san checking out the Mine's engine...
I know my car intimately - both good and bad - and so what I thought was going to be a short conversation ("how about this?") turned into a long one.  Truth be told, to make the car perfect/brand new would simply cost too much. Basically anything Nismo Omori does is NOT cheap - whether engine work, body work, restorations, etc.  And apparently more and more owners throughout Japan (as well as a select few from overseas) are now contacting Nismo Omori with the same thing in mind - can you make my car better/newer/more special. So basically, Nismo has no incentive to give me a discount on anything...(time to start playing the lottery?).

Here is the view walking BACK to the public area. Love that R30, and that 33 is actually PURPLE, not black!
As a Nissan employee, even though they didn't give me a corporate discount (yet...), they DID let me walk around and check out some cars they were still working on (Ale's car, for example) as well as a very special R34 Z-Tune from Australia. And of course the cars shown above - most of which had come in for body work - except for the R30 which is being gradually rebuilt from the ground up (this time it was for an engine refresh, previously it was the body, maybe next the interior....??)


Just LOVE the way my car looks. Classic lines, smooth body, still looks fresh.
Unfortunately for me - Nismo Omori in the end told me that they could NOT work on my car - at least in its present state. You see, as an OEM manufacturer they apparently can't take any short cuts. Takasu-san had noticed that my shaken (registration) papers weren't quite up to par.  This is because when I got my GETRAG 6-speed installed, I had failed to properly re-register my car - technically it's no longer a "BCNR33" but a "BCNR33-kai" (BCNR33改).  At the time - it just didn't seem important and no one at the inspection center seemed to care.

Anyway - I guess if I really want Nismo to take a look I'll just have to fix the problem - take the car in and get the paperwork sorted and then see what Nismo believes they can do to improve the car...hopefully I can get this project started soon. It sure would be interesting to see what they suggest I do to improve my car.

Sunday, June 9, 2019

Real Life History: The Nurburgring Car in the Flesh!!

So anyone who's an R33 GT-R fan knows that the 33 was the first production car to lap the infamous Nurburgring in under 8 minutes - 7'59" to be precise. (FYI, the BNR32 did so in 8'20" but it was a struggle with the car understeering heavily and the brakes not up to par...)

As a result of the 7'59" lap time, Nissan engaged in a media campaign which highlighted this 21 second difference, starting with this TV commercial:


And here is the promotional video that was shown at Nissan dealerships all around the country when the car went on sale:


I've never been interested in any of the pre-production GT-Rs, 33 or otherwise, until now.  That's because this week at the Nissan Gallery at Nissan's Global Headquarters, I spotted this being displayed (cars that are stored in the Nissan Heritage Collection at Zama are rotated on a 2-3 week basis):

Initially, I have to admit I was more interested in the Z31 - haven't seen one since I was a teenager back in the USA.
 I thought the 33 was just another AL0 silver R33 GT-R...
But wait a minute - what's up with the red brake lamp in the bumper??
That's when I decided to read the plaque up front and...
HOLY TOLEDO!

So this is the ACTUAL CAR that did the 7'59"!! Factory test car, chassis number 000055!

I posted these photos to my Facebook account, and I think some of my R33 Facebook friends were just as excited - some of them were asking for more close up photos... so I went back down later and took the following. (Note, I did NOT open any doors or step over the barriers - hey I follow the rules!)

You can make out the padded rollcage showing in the left A pillar and front of the roof lining.
Better view of the rollcage - and barely used seats. Note the degradation of the door rubber though.

Best view of the rollcage set-up
Ok but I also heard rumors of other mods other than just body rigidity improvements (plus a cage would be needed presumably if they crashed on the track so it makes sense from that perspective too). So I walked around to see what I could find. Obviously not allowed to pop the hood, but I have an idea for that in the future...

Brakes look like the OEM 4 pot Brembo calipers

Note how the caliper paint looks messed up, as if they spilled too much brake fluid when bleeding the brakes. However the Brembo logo is still white, which means the caliper didn't get as hot as I had on my car - better driving by the pros probably lol.
Underneath the car - I did look under the FRONT side as well, but it looked very OEM. The rear underside, however, was interesting:

Note the oil cooler on the right

And this exhaust. Looks OEM - 2 pipe muffler, but from the down pipe to the muffler itself that looks like about 90mm...!

And what about mileage? How much has this car run?
Oh, the 300km Speedometer is interesting...

10,416 kms!
And if you look closely, looks like they installed extra padding for the driver's left knee and right knees. Check out this post and you will see it.

Anyway, I'm still curious about what other mods this car had. From what I could see, looked pretty stock except the exhaust pipe suggests not all is stock in the powertrain. Maybe a personal visit to the Heritage Collection is in order soon.

Meanwhile - here are a few more photos for Z31 fans. Pretty cool car, considering at the time it was sold I thought it was a bloated, tech loaded and slow car.
That turbo scoop and pop up lights are pure awesome!

T-Roof, leather seats... and auto transmission. Yeah, rich housewife's car
Please, someone tell me what this "Bodysonic Amplifier" is!!!

Actually, thanks to Mr. Google I know what this is. Very cool feature! Ah, the 80s....

PS - I found an article about Gan-san and his trip around the Nurburgring in a 33...enjoy!

Saturday, June 8, 2019

Why the Silence??

So yes my friends, I have been very very bad about posting here. And I apologize.  But I have two good reasons.

The first, as many as you know, is that for the last 2 years I have been working as an in-house lawyer at Nissan. Yes, Nissan Motor Company. And, as a senior lawyer in the company, if you have been following the news since last November, it's been a pretty busy time for us.

In other words, my work has been keeping me extremely busy.

The second, is that I am rebuilding my house, and that means each weekend we are meeting with the builders and the architects.  I plan on doing a series of blog posts to show the difference between the old and new house, with emphasis, of course, on the garage!

Meanwhile, I have some fun stuff coming up for my car, and the R33 GT-R in general. Appreciate the patience as I will have some blog posts coming up later this week!

Aki