Finally - Install of the Veleno LED Headlights (How to)!

So even though I myself was one of the first to post about these headlights, and had placed an early order, until now I did not have the time to do the install.

But that changed over the reent Golden Week holiday. 

First order of business was to move my cars around so I had the garage space free to work on the GT-R. 

Step 1 - move the Skyline Nismo out from its parking spot underneath the GT-R.

Initially, I thought this would be enough. But then reading my own old posts on headlight removal, realized I would have to pull the car out and jack it up, in order to remove the front wheels and thus get access to the fender liners.  Yep, the headlights have one bolt on the side that requires either bumper removal - ideally - or some tricky access via the inside of the fenders (and bumper removal is a major hassle). 

But before I lowered the car, I went ahead and removed the 3 part Silk Road front diffuser.  And as you can see, this car is no garage queen. Check out all the scrapes and bits of plastic coming off. Time for some repairs soon I think!

Step 2 - I then lowered the GT-R, and then opened up the hood to do a visual inspection of the headlights and surroundings, to make sure I would have all the tools I need ready to go. (socket wrenches, screwdrivers, etc. Not rocket science but helps to have it all lined up ready).

Given that I needed more space in the garage to jack up the GT-R, this meant Step 3, I would have to move the Lexus into a nearby parking lot.

Despite my recent troubles with the original PPF application to the Skyline, all is well that ends well - the car looks fantastic and is an absolute blast to drive!

And of course, I had to take one last picture of the car with the original Xenon headlights in action! Gonna miss the blue discharge warmup!

Not sure if this is due to heat but you can see some cloudiness in the lens cover. Maybe I should invest in a lens cover replacement kit?

Relatively big box from Veleno...

That contains one box for each headlight within.

Inside each box, lots of styrofoam padding. No scratches or problems that I can find...

With the Skyline now parked outside, I went ahead and moved the GT-R into place, jacked it up, removed the right front wheel, then started to remove parts to get access to the right headlamp.

Hello, nice looking carbon fiber intercooler piping...

Lined up next to each other, the OEM on right and the VELENO on the left.

Here is another annoying issue. The hoses for the HKS oil cooler. There HAS to be a better way to route them, they are so ugly.

First challenge of the day. Why two sets of harness adaptors?

You can see the double cuts are on the left for the grey, and right for the black ones.

So it turns out, that at least for my kohki/series 3, the supplied black connector connects to the OEM harness. The supplied connector then has separate leads to the high beam and low beam on the LED bulb side.

Took a bit of a firm push, but then "click" into place!

Oh and this piece of masking tape - I guess they just wanted to make sure the inside of the parking light space didn't get dirty or something.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And now for the left side.  This one is a complate pain, becuase the HKS oil cooler sits right under the headlight, meaning access to the side bolt is blocked by the oil cooler.  This necessitates the need to partially uncliip the front bumper cover, being very careful not to apply too much pressure.  Then use a screwdriver to quickly remove the bolt - a socket is too big, but luckily the bolt has the Philips screwdriver cross pattern on the head...

And if that wasn't enought, I realized once I removed the headlight, or tried to, that again because of the oil cooler, the ignitor box and its bracket had been relocated into a spot right on the core support.

Lots of patience and some really thin spanners and socket wrenches were required to get the box off...

Finally.

But then it was again another plug and play, and then bolt the new headlight back into place. Front bumper trick included in reverse. 

With nighttime coming quickly, I did not have presence of mind to try out the lights by taking the car out for a spin, but a quick check on the neightbor's house across the street revelaed these LEDs are unbelievably bright, like spotlights. Sorry no photos but will take some next time!

Let's Talk Tires!

Ok so as I mentioned in my post where I described taking the car to Nismo Omori Factory (again), I mentioned that in addition to getting the biannual Shaken done, I also needed to replace the tires.

When the 33 GT-R first came out over 25 years ago, the OEM tires were either the Bridgestone Expedia S-07 (on the V-specs) or the Bridgetsone Potenza RE010 (on the standard car).

Traditionally, the Nissan race cars of this era were on Bridgestones too.

I took this photo of the LM racing car at Nismo Festival 2017

Taken at Nissan Global Headquarters Gallery

Also at the Gallery

Nismo has confirmed with me that traditionally, their recommended street tire used to be one of Yokohama Tire's top sports tires being offered at that time. As shown on the CRS cars.

I took this photo at Nismo Festival 2017 - the Advan Sport is Yokohama's Maximum Performance Summer Tire 

Couldn't resist posting this, so clean!

Next, I have to figure out what polymer coating they use...

And yes, I've been on Yokohama Advans since I got my R35 brakes installed... back in 2011!

Metadata date is October 15, 2011!!

But about 7 years ago, Michelin started making inroads with Nissan... witness their gigantic trailer parked at last year's Nismo Festival, for example.

The Super GT cars began wearing Michelins around 2013.

The new e-dams Formula machine... wearing Michelins!

And then suddenly Nismo started to use Michelin tires on their CRS cars too.

My Lexus IS-F came OEM with the Michelin Pilot Sports, so I know that they are good tires.  But then I stumbled on this video.

And if it's widely acknowledged that the Pilot Sports 4S is even better than the Pilot Sports...

However, just because Nismo now uses the Pilot Sports tires, doesn't mean I do.  Putting price aside, I decided to do some research and compare the PS4S against the two tires I would normally decide between, the Bridgestone RE71R and the Yokohama Advan A052.

Interestingly, I found that on TireRack.com, they consider the RE71R and the Advans to be "Extreme Performance Summer Tires" ("Hyperfocused on extreme dry grip, but gives up wet traction, confort and life to get it") while the PS4S is a "Max Performance Summer Tire" (designed to "deliver the highest combination of dry and wet traction along with reasonable ride and treadwear").

In other words, the Extremes are for track/dry weather use, while the Max tires are for great all around use (except obviously snow and ice).  Normally I would agree that, since I never drive the GT-R in the rain, I could focus and buy one of the Extremes.  However, there were 2 things to also consider - what if I got caught in a downpour or end up on a road up in the mountains still wet from the day before, and second, is there a Max tire that has just as good dry performance as an Extreme tire?

Now, for those you who question my research at TireRack.com -while their categorization is useful, what I'm really interested in are the ratings by actual owners. Somewhat like how we check Customer Reviews on Amazon or feedback given in the App Store, I tend to disbelieve what the "experts" say - even in famous magazines or youTube channels - because most of the time those people are given some kind of financial incentive to not say anything negative about the products they review.  The average consumer, however, is usually much more truthful because it's their experience and money. In fact I usually go to the negative reviews first, pissed off consumers are usually very informative (if not entertaining)! But I usually go along with what the majority say.

So first the customer experience on the RE71.  Overwhelmingly, most people seem to buy these tires for track and/or autocross use.  For those who do drive with these on an daily basis, these tires seem to not be as good in the wet as they are in the dry.

Second, what about the Advans?  Very few reviews on the A052 but again the majority of reviews reflected track/autocross driving. Just in case I also checked out the reviews for the AD08R, the successor to the tires on my car, but the feedback was similar.  And the overall rating, like the A052 and the RE71, showed only "good" and not "excellent" subjective wet performance.

Ok then what about the PS4S? Well first, this tire showed "excellent" in both wet and dry performance, but the reviews showed that overwhelmingly, this tire is not for the track. Some of the users who used this tire for the track had problems with premature wear, and some even outright mentioned the RE71 as a better tire on the track... and especially in the dry.

So in conclusion, the PS4S appears to be the best high performance street tire. And, given that I can currently get these tires at about half the price of the others, I can convince myself to go with them, even though I'll likely never drive in the rain, and I've been itching for a track day.  If I ever get back to do a track day, I will have to mount some Advans or the RE71 (purchased as cheaply as possible) on my spare set of wheels (LMGT4s).

Incidentally, if pricing was comparable amongst all three tires, I would likely go with the Bridgestones, given their OEM association when the car first came out.  Never mind that I don't take the car to the track these days and I don't drive it much (and when I do, and I wouldn't do so in the rain anyway).  Just wearing JDM best might be good enough...

Stay tuned! Another post coming soon! Stay safe everyone.

Happy New Year! Lots of New This Year...

Yes friends, 2020 already. Can't believe it seems like yesterday when I blew my engine at Fuji Speedway and then really started my R33 GT-R adventure...that was back in 2007!!!!

Anyway as I write this, my car is still at Nismo Omori, but I also have some real news.  You may be wondering why I've been so patient with them - well actually it's because I WANTED them to keep the car while I rebuilt my house! Or should I say rebuilt the garage I keep my cars in, and the house on top of it! By asking them to take their time with my car, I am availing myself of the most secure GT-R parking in Japan, if not the world!! (Theft of our cars is on the rise, even here in Japan...)

Most of you already know that a few years (ok, 11 years) ago I moved out of Tokyo (and high rise apartments) into Yokohama so I could have a house with a garage for my cars.  Unfortunately covered and shuttered garages can be hard to find but I did it (ok my wife did).

The R in front of the old house.

However, about a year ago the wife and I decided to rebuild our wooden framed house - it was old, getting leaky, the insulation was terrible (cold in winter and hot in summer!) and with the prospect of a large earthquake that is predicted soon for the Kanto area - we decided to rebuild with a steel framed house, with concrete panel walls and modern insulation.  This required a complete tear down and building from the ground up, but it also meant that we could build large pillar-less spaces.

So, I would be able to finally plan for a large garage that would be able to not only display my cars but also provide space for me to work on them - whether polishing up or actual mechanical work.

Up on ramps, then low rise jack... you can see how it's really two single car garages next to each other. Very narrow too!

The garage spaces were fairly narrow, designed to contain one car each - meaning I could only open up a door on the one side of the car that happened to be facing the arch connecting both spaces.  Further my old house's garages had ceilings that were 180 cm tall. Car friendly, but not SUV or tall people friendly.  And I definitely couldn't jack up the car too much and work underneath them.

Also, I could not enter the garages from inside the house - I had to go outside and open the garage doors.  There WAS enough space in the corners and along one wall to store stuff, but otherwise it was best described as cozy.

On moving (out) day, the last thing I moved was the GT-R!

And yet I made it work - most of my mods for my GTR I did in that garage!

Anyway, the new garage has space for 2 regular cars/SUVs parked nose to tail, and another smaller car on the side, plus the ceiling is 3.4 meters tall. I've equipped the garage with various electrical plugs (for future EV and commercial grade A/C unit too!), taps for hot and cold water, plus I can view the cars from inside the house. I know this blog is supposed to be about my GT-R, but I'll blog about how I equip this garage for the GT-R too!

Here are some photos showing the teardown of the old house - and some showing the new build.  I'm happy to say we are moved back in (builders work quickly in Japan) but because of some issues with the new garage (OCD strikes again) I'm having the builders redo the garage floor to my exact specifications.

Pretty much the entire old wooden house built on top of the garages is gone

Only thing left are the concrete walls

All debris removed, the land cleared and leveled, steel columns to the bedrock installed, most of the foundation in place.

Showing steel frame - could not believe how fast the frame went up!

From back of garage to street

From front to back. Yes, another garage door shutter in the back. Window is for my ground floor office.

The day before delivery of the house, these guys are rushing to finish...

Looks good but it wasn't perfect!

As you can see we are still in the process of moving in. With all the boxes cleaned up there would be lots more floor space. I HAD to wash the Lexus though... 

You can get a sense of how wide the garage is. Two cars easily fit but I'll likely put cabinets/workbench etc,
along the right side wall.

After those corrections are made, the next step will be to protect the floor. Then, I'll bring the GTR back and then I will start designing the garage properly to support a much more excellent car centric garage lifestyle.  2020 is going to be a great year!