Some Increased Publicity... Plus Photos From the Cutting Room Floor

As most of you probably noticed, during the last couple of weeks I did a Speedhunters post where I described my multi-month "clean-up" of the engine bay.  Also, my friend Alessandro did a very nice post on the car as he had come over to help during the light bulb replacement project.

But there were several photos that didn't make the cut. So, I decided to post them here.

First, in preparation for the Speedhunters article, I actually had considered re-wrapping the HKS oil cooler hoses in black plastic spiral wrap.

First, I had to cut this zip tie away.
You can also see the SAMCO radiator hose on the bottom and the weird white spots on it that eventually convinced me to replace it!

It's too bad I couldn't use this in the end. Cheap and easy!

Here's how it looked after I finished the re-wrap. Looks OK, but a bit odd at the same time...

So what do you think? Should I have stuck with the black wrap or did I do the right thing with the clamps?

Speaking of clamps:

Mysterious package from China. And yes, Japan Customs opened to inspect it!

Since I wasn't sure if I should go for anodized silver or black, I ordered both!

 Did I make the right choice by going with the black clamps in the end?

Yes, that is probably 20 years of accumulated gunk!

 As mentioned earlier, when I had Alessandro come over to help, the first thing we decided to do was to replace the silicon SAMCO radiator hose with a new one.

But, SAMCO pricing in Japan is ridiculous, so I went ahead with this one from SARD

Here is Alessandro helping with the clamps.
Incidentally, he later went crazy with metal polish on the Koyo radiator. Thanks Ale!

I was researching new clamps for the radiator hose and a friend told me about some good ones made by Mikalor. So, I went ahead and ordered some.

While nice Stainless Steel, the ones that arrived were scratched up.

They also seemed to not be as shiny as they should be.
Maybe I need to polish them in my free time?

So yes, I gave up on these and went ahead with the ones included in the SARD kit.  We then turned our attention to trying to remove the front bumper, for the headlamp bulb article I did recently.

Here is a close up, looking up from inside the turn signal space, one we removed it.
You can see the ballast for the Xenons.

And of course, having removed the undertray I had to clean it. Simple Green is the bomb!

Rusted license plate stay

 In removing the bumper I thought we might have to remove the license plate stay. So off it came, and we noticed it was quite rusty.

I've resprayed it with anti-rust paint, this will have to do until I get a new one.

So that is one more new part to have to reorder!  Anyway, I am now working on my next Speedhunters post, and will of course provide some more behind the scenes coverage to appear here on the blog. Stay tuned! And thanks everyone for the comments made on the Speedhunters post!

Modernizing the Front Lights (Part 2)

Happy New Year everyone! Hope 2017 is a better year for all.

Anyway, as you recall in my last post I swapped out a first generation T10 LED parking lamp, as well as the OEM D2S Xenon bulb on the left front headlamp, for new units from Philips - both rated at 6200K in color and supposedly brighter than the norm.   

The results were promising

So, next on the list was to access the hi-beams and replace those too.

Wouldn't it be nice if all three bulbs gave off the same color?

Unfortunately, in order to access the hi-beam bulbs, the front bumper had to come off (by design - as reader Sam T commented in the previous post) because each of the headlamp housings are secured on the side by a bolt that is located directed directly under the upper side part of the bumper.  My friend (and BNR34 owner - check out his excellent blog HERE) Alessandro kindly offered to come by and help - I know from past experience that this task, while relatively simple, goes by much faster with two people.

See how compact Japanese garages are? 

So after driving it up onto ramps, I jacked the car up.

Safety first! Placed jack stands under the car.

Then I crawled underneath to unbolt the 3 piece undertray.

Truth be told, this was AFTER I cleaned it up, there was a lot of grease and oil on it! (see next photo)

Meanwhile Alessandro was busy removing the front grill and the two turn signal assemblies. And while I was under the car, I went ahead and removed the front lip spoiler as well.

Note, only the right side air duct came off. A rusted bolt prevented me from removing the one on the left in similar fashion. Something to resolve in the future!

So after removing the front undertray and the front lip spoiler, we realized that we did not have to remove the entire front bumper cover. This was because I have small hands and fingers which allowed me to access each of the single bolts on the sides of the headlamp housings. So instead of removing the bumper cover entirely, we only had to undo the two bolts on the left side to loosen the bumper cover in that area.

Green points to where that single troublesome bolt resides for the left side headlamp assembly.
 Orange is where I reached into to access that same bolt on the right side.

Then, all we had to do was to remove the nuts and 1 bolt holding the assemblies onto the frame of the car.

Green arrows point to the bolts and nuts that were removed.

On the left side, all that was left to be done was to replace the high beam H1 bulb.

You can see the base of the H1 bulb.

The OEM H1 bulb.

And here are the OSRAMs. Compared to OEM they are blue tipped.

And so how did these compare? Given it was still dusk, it was a bit hard to tell initially, but the photos show the difference (which admittedly is not drastic):

With OSRAM

Without OSRAM

Being winter time, the light quickly faded soon after and I was able to get the following photos:

The left front (right on photo) has been changed out, and is whiter than the OEM on the right (left on photo)

In the dark, the difference is more distinct - whiter, and more crisp with less distortion.

So, while not really close to the white of the Xenons or the parking lamps, you can see there IS a difference between the bulbs. First, the OSRAMs appear to be slightly whiter; second, the glow of the light given off was crisper, if that makes sense.

At night, to be honest I could not really tell much of a difference - the biggest difference was how bright the parking lights are now - with the garage door closed there was hardly a difference between them and the Xenons!

In any case - there is still room for improvement. So, I will continue to monitor light bulbs in the hope that one day, I can get an H1 bulb that is whiter AND brighter...

Final Mod for 2016! Modernizing the Front Lights (Part 1)

So as I couldn't have my last post for 2016 lead with a photo of a GM product, I decided to close out the year with one last post with a legitimate parts mod for my car.  Normally, I would try to post this onto Speedhunters first, but given my inability to handle a camera properly, plus given the subject of this post, I was sure there would be lots of people pointing out the inaccuracies behind my understanding of automotive lighting, so I decided this blog would be the better forum. Oh, and having this post be the first of a two part series doesn't exactly help either, especially when I currently have no idea how it's going to look when all done!

This is the photo from the Speedhunters post that got me thinking about an upgrade

Anyway - several years ago, I jumped on the LED bandwagon and purchased two generic “T10” bulbs for the R33’s front parking lights.  Immediately, they gave a brighter and whiter light.  And then honestly I forgot about them until I saw the above photo. Given advances in LED technology, both in color and brightness, I decided it was time for an upgrade.

Currently, aftermarket LED parking, lamp, OEM Xenon and OEM high beam H1 bulb means 3 different colors... will it be possible to get all close to the same shade of white, while not diminishing lighting performance?

For me, part of “really paying attention to the details” in parts for my car begins with gaining knowledge through research.  And lots of it.   So I began reading up on automotive lighting and LEDs, with the goal of replacing the parking, low and high beam with the brightest bulbs (legally) possible.  Unfortunately, brightness (measured either by wattage or lumens) is not the main factor most sellers of aftermarket bulbs advertise. There seems to be a fixation on color, commonly measured in Kelvins (K).  I found most aftermarket bulbs are in the 6000K to 8000K range (i.e. bluish white to purplish white) in an attempt to get that “HID” look.  But “whiter” does not necessarily equate to “brighter.”  And for me, for safety related items it’s always function over form, although in the context of modernizing, I DID want a bulb that was whiter than a standard halogen bulb.

So the challenge was to find the brightest AND whitest bulbs possible.  This meant finding reliable sources that give objective figures on characteristics such as brightness.  

X-treme Ultinon series from Philips - the 130 lumens T10 bulbs are extremely hard to find!

I finally settled on these bulbs for the headlights (HID - D2S) and parking lights (LED - T10).  Not only is the brand reputable (with warranty, etc.) but the packages both list the lumens and Kelvin figures and coming from the same manufacturer, my bet was that the Kelvin rating was consistent across both bulbs. 

Unfortunately, it seems that at the present time, no major manufacturer makes an H1 bulb (whether halogen or LED) with a Kelvin rating of 6200K.

 

So, I took a chance and bought these "H1 bulbs" with a claimed color of 6000K and brightness of 80 Watts off of Yahoo Auctions Japan.  I figured that as OEM was rated as 35W, these should be more than twice as powerful.  There are actually many other designs now with cooling fans and fins, but because I wanted to keep the watertight seal in the back of the headlight housing, I chose to gamble on these which have the same dimensions as equivalent halogen bulbs.  So, my focus at this point was on the BASE of the bulb - this would have repercussions later.

The first step was to gain access to the rear of each of the headlight housings.  Even though this is a car born in simpler times, access was not as easy as it could be, although still simple compared to modern cars (at least my daily anyway). Or so I thought.

Green arrow - twist counterclockwise to remove the parking lamp bulb. And yes, I see all that dirt there too!

I was able to remove the airbox on the front left, which gave me some access to the front left headlight cluster.  I decided to swap out the parking lights first.

The existing LED parking lamp. You can see that only one surface, the yellow face, lights up.

Lit up, the LED casts a bluish white glow. Which turns out to be a weak purple as you can see in the leading photo above.

Here is the new Philips LED - it looks very futuristic and cool!

Lit up. Not only a whiter light, but in all directions. Can't tell from the photo but it was blindingly bright!

Success! See how much brighter the left front bulb is!!

My fingers are small enough that I was able to access the existing LED lamp, but it didn't help when I tried to remove the outer cap to access the headlamps. 

That's because there is this anti-tamper Torx screw at the base of the cap.

But after showing the above photo to some friends in ClubR33, the invite-only Facebook club I am a part of, they educated me as to which Torx wrench I'd need. So, I immediately ordered a special Torx wrench set, after which I was able to swap out the OEM DS2 bulb for the Philips bulb.

Front left bulbs (so right hand side of photo) are not just MUCH whiter than the ones of the right front (left side of photo), but the color appears to be the same for both the low beam and the parking light!

Note, I did consider using an LED to replace the HID bulb, but given the possibility that the light disbursement from an LED bulb might not work effectively with this old school HID and its reflectors, I stuck with HID (for now). I think that was the right decision.  I was pleased with how the light appears to be the same whiteness.

I haven't taken the car out on a dark unlit road yet, but a quick visual check at night, out of the garage lighting up the house across the street, revealed no major difference I could see.

So the last step was to replace the H1 hi-beams with these LEDs.


However, I discovered that the headlight lens assembly only allows a BULB that is shaped EXACTLY like an H1 bulb to pass through. So despite my ensuring that the LED bulbs had an H1 bulb BASE, these bulbs themselves could not be fitted. Back to the drawing board. And no, I'm not going to modify the headlamp housings in any way.

Some online research suggests these bulbs outperform the equivalent top model from Philips in terms of brightness and sharpness of light!

Luckily, a few hours on the internet and more advice from friends in ClubR33 and I seem to have found a solution for the H1 bulb issue - stick with a halogen bulb, just a high performance one which hopefully has not only better light output but a cleaner, whiter appearance as well to match.

The other issue was that, even with my small fingers, I could not access the bulbs directly from the housings. So, I will likely have to remove the headlight housings to do any kind of swap.

In what is a first for me, as I write this I don't know how this will turn out. Early in the new year, I will finish this job and post the results. Stay tuned, and Happy Holidays everyone!

Inaugural Club R33 Brisbane Member Meet

So yes folks, even on vacation I do R33 GT-R and car related things. Case in point, last week when I vacationed in the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia, I realized it was quite close to Brisbane... and that Club R33 had several members who live in Gold Coast as well as Brisbane.  

So I reached out, and then suddenly a Club R33 GT-R owners meet was on!

First however, I wasn't going to show up in some econobox. Being Australia, I figured I should rent something ADM... something not only made there, but uniquely Aussie. So I ended up getting this:

Holden Commodore SV6!
This is the last Commodore series to be made in Australia, from next year they are all imported!

Dual Exhaust hints at performance

Healthy looking V-6 engine, rear wheel drive!

Unfortunately, I could not believe how cheap the interior was, for a "Premium" level car - fake and poorly done carbon fiber everywhere, pleather... and the entertainment system blanked out and then rebooted itself once...

Anyway, on the appointed day Mark was kind enough to pick me up at the hotel I stayed at in Surfer's Paradise, to lead me to the "Hungry Jack" at "Upper Coomera" wherever that was.

I felt like I was home all of sudden...

One thing I noticed... Wow the 33 sure has PRESENCE on local Aussie roads!

Anyway, we soon arrived and we found the others had already arrived.  Since I had my Nikon DSLR, I immediately started taking photos. I'll let the photos tell the story...

Here, Mark checks his phone to make sure we are at the right spot, given that there was a 944 in the mix
(more on that later).

The mutual admiration has begun...

And in particular, Rhys and his ex-Targa Tasmania car!

Ok, I hate those "replica" wheels. Cast and heavy, unsprung weight places undue stress on suspension components.
But, I understand these are temporary which is good...

Full welded in CAMS 6 point roll cage. Total fighter plane cockpit!

Ok now this is getting interesting. 

Loved this custom catch tank! Nice detail on the vents!

Very clever placement of the oil cooler. Love the custom brackets!

And of course, the all important ClubR33 sticker. Required for all serious BCNR33 owners.

Mark's car. Love the number plate! 

Interior is mostly stock, including that GINORMOUS Series 1 steering wheel.

Now this is cool, I loved it! Apexi N1 dual flow exhaust. Looks almost OEM from afar, but sounds amazing!

Glenn's car. OK, I was impressed. Super clean!
And yes I even checked the BACKSIDE of the Enkei wheels... no brake dust!

Love the color of the engine covers? Me too. Glenn tells me it's a Holden color, "Prussian Steel Grey"!
And yes I noticed the wrinkle paint on the surge tank too. 

I was interested in these stickers. Apparently no longer in stock at Nissan (I checked here in Japan).
Hopefully I can get one of the Club members to scan them and we can reproduce one day...

Clean + Sticker = extra 100hp!

Tox's car. Looks ordinary from here but note, the tracker on the front grill for track days...

Also running those Enkeis! Except none of the OCD clean that Glenn displayed.

This was AMAZING. Anyone know what this is?  I've seen it only in old Nissan Skyline option catalogs.
It's the base Unit for the "Holographic Marker"

Upper left - the unit is called the "Holographic Marker" - the Unit sends out two beams, orange and green - and when viewed in the dash mounted "Combiner" - orange shows where an obstruction is, while green is 10 cm away. Supposed to help in parking...unfortunately Tox doesn't have the Combiner so we couldn't see how it worked.

Timm's 944 was impressive too. His brother Tom's 33 is "undergoing treatment" so they arrived in this.

Have to admit, very nicely done. Most of the paintwork was done when the engine was out of the car.

As Rhys left early, we asked Timm to take this memorial photo. 

As there were a few members who could not make this meet, I hope they will do so at the next one, whether I am there or not.  Actually, it's my hope that people read this and start organizing their own events, so that we start having Club R33 meets all over the world!

How cool would that be? R33 FTW!