R's Meeting 2026! (I think the R33s are starting to be big...)

So friends, apologies for the lack of an update. The usual work excuse, but if you've been following me on LinkedIn and Facebook, you will see that I have been quite busy at NISMO working on expanding our presence overseas.  That's all I will say for now...But meanwhile, the GT-R life continues. As in, this past weekend we had the R's Festival 

Note that they had a photo from last year of me, Craig and Dino on their website this year! (this year, with all the rain I don't think I saw any official looking photographers...)

While it was mostly the same as last year, for some reason it seemed to me that THERE ARE A LOT MORE R33 GT-Rs all of a sudden?

On the way to Fuji Speedway, we stopped off at one of the 7-11s nearby and...

Rare blue one, and the silver one on some classic wheels

Both the blue one and this other silver one were running the R35 brakes!

And then as we pulled into the West Gate at Fuji Speedway:

A LeMans! and a white one in front of it!

As well as this red 400R and this silver one that looks very similar to mine

Once we parked as walked toward the festivities, first we saw this Skyline Japan... wow

And then the transporters used by HKS and Mine's. Note the Mine's transporter license plate has a "33" in it as well...

And then a GT-R democar on a transporter, which was...

yes, another R33 GT-R! 

of course another R33, but this one had an R34 GT-R rear wing. Can't say it looks bad, but I don't think this car ever came off the transporter so maybe Meiku were ashamed of it? :)

First cars on display as we walked from the parking lot was, of course, the Omori Factory cars. Both R33s! Of course the 400R (someday I will drive it!), and the CRS.

And even though I work at Nissan Motorsports & Customizing (NMC - the parent company of NISMO and AUTECH), I swear I had nothing to do with the car selection...

Walking around, I ran into some old friends from Nissan who were passing out flyers for this - 

So these are R35 NISMO prints, as created by Morita-san, the NMC chief designer.  Every NISMO road car - he's the guy behind how those cars look different from the standard car.  Only 35 of these R35 prints will be sold, of course, with a price tag at 230,000 yen, at the upcoming NISMO Festival on December 6.  For each one sold, Morita-san will be on hand to personally sign each print.

Speaking of Morita-san, I found him signing some other artwork at the Kusaka Engineering tent:

A true legend, and consumate gentleman!

I need to get him to autograph something on my Skyline NISMO!

As usual for these kinds of events, there were some talkshows as well - the two I saw featured the actual legends behind the cars, as well as the legendary race car drivers who did battle in the R32, R34 and R35 GT-Rs!

Don't let anyone say they are the father of the R33 or R34 GT-R - here are the real gurus.

This talk show had, left to right, Hiroshi Taguchi (R32 GT-R product specialist); Kozo Watanabe (R33/R34 Chief Engineer); Masatoshi Yoshikawa (R33-R34 chassis/testing chief); Hiroyoshi Kato (Nissan's top test driver); and Motohiro Matsumura (father of the SR20DET engine as well as primary powertrain engineer of the R33/R34 RB26DETT - and ex COO of NISMO - oh and R33 GTR owner).  Just in case you missed it, in my previous post,  I was able to sit down and chat with both Watanabe-san and Matsumura-san.

As for the racing drivers, my buddies Katsura-san and Sunako-san were joined on stage by Keiichi Tsuchiya and Takayuki Kinoshita. I'm sure most of us have seen Kinoshita-san on many, many Best Motoring videos.

I would have to say that Tsuchiya was there just because? But the other 3 did talk about how they used to race the R32, R33 and R34, and how each race car was different. Strangely the background photo for most of the talk was Sunako-san's yellow Prince Tokyo Taikyu race car:

Meanwhile, I was going around meeting with old and new friends:

with Kobayashi-san from MCR (and Ugajin-san from NISMO)

Basically, the 2 guys who built my car - Watanabe-san and Mine's owner Niikura-san!

And then I got to hang out with the race drivers, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that Kinoshita-san is a really, really nice guy!

Connected now, must learn from this guy too.

It was raining pretty hard and I wanted to beat traffic back, so I managed to leave a couple of hours early. But on the way out, I found these:

I know this car...

And then I found this, which was REALLY interesting. Who makes this exhaust?

Close up for research purposes...

Anyway, all this R33-ness got me inspired.  The next day, I picked up my own R33 from the dealer (it seems I might have a faulty G-Sensor? Inconclusive...) and drove home in the rain! (weather has been almost non stop rain these days...)

Super clean here...

And yeah, I am too scared to go fast in the rain when expressway traffic is slowing ahead of me - and I am taking a photo...

So next post?  Don't know but meanwhile here is my car as it is drying off in my garage:

I use a power air dryer thing to fling off most of the water...

Hint - I really need to do something about the mess in the garage. Changes coming soon and I will post here when I can share!

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!