Quick Update: Kenwood Sound Cruising System, Pre-Wired!

A while back, I had done a blog post on the optional Kenwood Sound Cruising System that Nissan offered on several models of the R33, including the GT-R.

The brochure has passing reference to the Kenwood system as an option (red box)

One question I had, however, upon solving the mystery of the blanks on the interior A-pillars, however, was whether Nissan provided a specialized wiring harness for cars with this option.

what you get with the Kenwood system for the tweeters

My finger pointing to the cutout

I had previously looked very closely at wiring diagrams for the BCNR33, and they suggested that the wiring harness for ALL cars, indeed had leads going up into the A pillars, whether or not the car was equipped with the Kenwood system. My car did NOT come with this option.

The easy thing to do, of course, would be to pop open the A pillar cover and check for myself, but I was always too lazy to do so - until last weekend, when I was at Nissan Prince Shinagawa on another quest to find more parts for my car.

Once talking to the technicians there as to the Kenwood system, and inquiring whether that location was indeed the best place to place tweeters at, they immediately called over one of the mechanics who popped open the A pillar cover, and we found this (red arrow) terminal clip on both sides of the car:

Ignore the other wiring, that's for the aftermarket Navi... I think...

In my excitement I forgot to take a photo, but the BACKSIDE of the A pillar had a large "X" marking the spot behind the cut-out.

So, this is exciting - it suggests that ALL BCNR33s (and possibly other R33s) are pre-wired for tweeters in the A pillars.  Now I know the purists will say that, such OEM wiring is subpar and needs to be replaced with the latest hi-end oxygen free wire yada yada, but 1) this is a car, a very NOISY car, and 2) so long as the wires can carry a signal, why bother with extra cost when the wiring is already there??

Oh and also, many people will claim that it's not the brand of the wire, but the thickness of the copper gauge of the wire. In which case, I will have to choose my tweeters carefully I guess...the problem is that here in Japan, there aren't many shops that have speakers on hand to listen to, other than the name brand "average" aftermarket speakers like Pioneer, Sony, Kenwood, etc...  Anyone have any recommendations? Would prefer separate components that can be heard over the drone of the exhaust (and yes I plan to get a separate amp for the front speakers too).

Controversial Interior Mod?? (gasp) Bling?

Yes folks, I'm pretty sure some of you are not going to like this one. But hear me out!

Truth be told, this post was also long in the making - not only did it take 3 months for this made-to-order part to be made, right after I did get them I didn't have time to install them before taking the GT-R in for its new transmission.  Then, various business trips etc. have kept me from finishing the install and posting.  In any case, excuses are done, here is the post.

Now I realize some people will think this is not tasteful, nor functional, and others will call it "bling" (hence the title), but for me, I always felt that Nissan just had not gone quite far enough to differentiate the R33 GT-R from its non GT-R brothers.  So I took a clue from what Nissan did for the BNR34.

Perhaps to detract from the lower grade (harder= cheap?) interior plastic (than the 33), the R34 GT-R has nice aluminum side sills which scream "GT-R" the moment you open the door. Just in case you didn't know what you were getting into, I guess.

Thanks to EJ for letting me post these both.
From: http://www.jdmautolink.net/2012/10/kick-panel-door-sill-bnr34-2.html

On the other hand, the R32 and R33 GT-Rs have, in deference to (or perhaps because of) their heritage as the fully factory tuned versions of the non GT-R forms of the R32/R33, these ugly cheap/cheap looking plastic door sills with "Skyline" inscribed on them (i.e. we don't need bling to sell the car?).

Now while there WAS a dealer installed option for aluminum side sills (called "kicking plates" in Japanese) for the R33, which you can find on the used market, they still look cheap to me.

From: http://minkara.carview.co.jp/en/userid/679019/car/579033/4441853/parts.aspx

And the aftermarket offers carbon fiber and leather wrapped versions too.

From: http://stores.ebay.com/yachant2011?_trksid=p2047675.l2568

From: http://stores.ebay.com/TOP-GAITERS-BOOTS?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

As long time readers know, I've done some DIY LED mods to the interior, using red LEDs in the ignition key surround and door handles to match the red motif on the Series 3 seats and door cards.

And of course, I troll the internet constantly looking for ideas and products that could improve my car - lately though I have been looking to improve the interior, which is where I think modern cars have a huge advantage over older cars. In other words, I want to modernize, but without taking away the essence of Skyline-ness.

Enter "G-Corporation" - I had found these guys about a year ago, but didn't launch this project until June.  That is, I placed my order with them in June but was told that these would be made to order - so first they would be getting new parts from Nissan, and then doing the work, and the final product would take a couple of months.

Anyway, these guys are LED specialists. And the product I found was this (although this was an R34 version) - LED "kicking plates:"

From: http://www.g-corporation.co.jp/product/ledsp/index.html

But this photo only shows what it looks like in the dark. I wanted to see what they looked like in daylight, but seeing the photos of their other samples I figured, why not, looks pretty good? So I went ahead and placed the order.

So finally, when I got the box earlier in the week, even though I knew I couldn't immediately fit them, I opened up the package to see what the product looked like.

Excuse the mess, I was excited! But the aluminum plate and lettering DO look a bit small...

Here are a couple of photos, closer up:

You can see the lettering is clean, and consistent with the font that Nissan used - looks awesome actually!

Underside shows that the entire LED assembly is sealed off with a rubbery compound. 

As for wiring these pieces up, this was easier than I thought, because I had earlier, in installing LEDs for the outside and inside courtesy lights, already created a circuit that was hooked up to the auto dimmer/fade out circuit of the car.  So it was a matter of going in and finding that circuit, and wiring up the leads from these scuff plates, hoping that they would also 1) turn on only when the car was unlocked, and 2) fade out when the car was in motion or not being used.

Not the best photo, but you can see that after I wired the door LEDs into the ignition key circuit, I used these quick disconnects to keep the installation clean.  For these scuff plates, I simply added the leads downstream, so each is wired into the wiring connected to the door LEDs, so everything is removable without damage to the original circuit.

After a bit of contortions and swearing, I managed to get it done, but first I made sure it was working:

Here I am testing it on my lap...

After confirming that the wiring worked, I just pulled off the old ones and snapped these new ones in - this is not the best picture but I think you get the idea:

Hmm. Maybe I need some mood lighting in the footwell too, like my Lexus?

Ok here is a close up on the passenger side, the red metal can above it is the fire extinguisher I keep next to the seat:

It looks like the "SKY" is brighter than the "LINE" but to the naked eye it looks even!

So yay or nay? A subtle, modern touch, I hope? Anyway as this car evolves one task will be on reducing the level of cheapness the interior has. I have some other projects coming up so stay tuned!

NOT HAPPY.... But New Parts Make Everything OK

Long time readers will recall an incident from last year, when a water hose feeding the OEM oil cooler burst, leaking coolant everywhere, causing lots of white smoke to emanate from the engine bay, scaring me into pulling over at the side of the expressway, and calling for a flatbed truck to haul me to Mine's. See below for the two water hoses feeding the oil cooler (underlined in red).

Here is the link to that post. And here is a close-up of what burst:

As I explained in that post, even though I'm thrilled with the craftsmanship of the Mine's engine, and the performance nature of the custom VX-ROM, I've had several issues with some engine peripherals since the installation... a leaking water line, turbo oil lines breaking twice, and now this burst hose.

Also in that post and also in the conclusion, I hinted at some "goodies" that ended up not getting installed.

But it was all ok, Mine's got the car fixed and everything seemed to be fine.

However, when Nissan Prince was getting ready to install the GETRAG kit, they found this (and again, apologies for poor photo quality, I had to scan in the print-outs Nissan Prince gave me):

Surface rust only perhaps, but still ugly.

The engine starter, covered with surface rust.  And the rust was coming from above, right where Mine's had replaced that leaking hose. Hmm. Not happy - why?

Well, take a look:

Red arrow is the hose Mine's replaced

But it's THIS hose that's leaking now!

Now, while my car never had any problems when I turned the ignition key and the engine would crank over, the mechanics were worried that, eventually, if the coolant dripped more and the rust spread, then there could be a detrimental effect and the starter "might go bad." Sure, sure, whatever. BUT, to me this was a legitimate reason to replace the starter with a new (or in this case, a rebuilt one). A new one was crazy expensive but a rebuilt was less than $200 if I recall correctly, so I had them install one while the transmission was lowered and that area was easily accessible.

And, I figured this would finally be my chance to install this:

Full SAMCO heater hose kit.

I had actually ordered, and obtained, this SAMCO heater hose kit in BLACK from my friend Wouter, in order to go for a stealthy look in the engine bay. However, with the car at Nissan, while I could have mailed in those black hoses, I simply asked Nissan to get and install what they had in stock, which were the normal blue set (reordering a black set would take a few weeks - from overseas - and I was too busy at work to send in mine) in order to get the main job of the transmission swap done ASAP.

So, now the underside looks like this:

Uh, wait a second, that's not exactly what I had in mind...

So I was under the impression that this heater hose kit, replaced the two hoses that had leaked. Apparently not (the mechanics had called me and told me this, but I figured might as well replaced everything that is old and likely to burst anyway).  So, eventually I will have to find some silicon hoses to replace these going into the OEM heat exchange.

In the meantime, I'm happy to report that the car now starts up like a motorcycle - i.e. very little resistance, it just fires up very quickly.  So in addition to the 6 speed, the car now starts up like new and has some blue bling where most people will never see it.

Look What I Found...from the NIssan Prince Tokyo Motorsports Divison Blog

In doing some research on the N1 bonnet and the bonnet lip, I stumbled upon this:

From: http://ameblo.jp/nptms/entry-12069011157.html

Taken from the Nissan Prince Tokyo Motorsports Division Blog... must have been a slow day, or actually since Koyama-san who writes the blog is a 33 owner himself, must have decided this looks kind of cool...

Actually, I have to agree, a black hood/bonnet DOES go well with the KR4 silver... Obviously after the GETRAG install they were transporting the car to the paint shop to paint the N1 hood.  Nice to see that they add ZERO miles in the process, and use a proper flatbed too!

I'll have more on the hood, and the paint job soon. Before that though, a somewhat BLING thing I added...

Update... Changing Out the (Robson Leather) Shift Boot

As I hinted at in my last post, the one thing I did not like about the NISMO GETRAG transmission kit upgrade for my car was the shift boot that had to be custom made by Robson Leather for the R33.  While Robson Leather products are fine (I have some of their carbon products on my car), I was not happy with the stitching color (I would have gone for red or black), and the leather they used felt, frankly, a bit cheap, almost "pleather" like.  It didn't have the nice leather smell, either...Oh and that snap button... WHY?

Anyway, I was told at the time I picked up the car was, that the R34 shift boot did not fit the R33 because the cut for the base was different for the cars.  I didn't really know what this meant, but figured it must be how the boot is connected to the base. Conversely, the R33 one wouldn't fit for the GETRAG because of the pull up switch for reverse, which necessitates a cut out (and thus the snap button) in order to be able to fit the boot over the shift lever.

Since I had found success with replacing the OEM shift boot and parking brake boot a long time ago - in fact back in 2006, before I even started this blog - I went back and checked to see which company I had bought the set from, and to hope they were still in business and I could order a modified one to replace this Robson set.

I found that RedlineGoods was still in business, and after chatting with the owner Mike a bit, ordered a black leather, black stitch shift boot modified to fit the R33 base. Or so I thought.

Looks and smells great!

About 10 days after I placed my order (as you can see pricing is fantastic!) I received the shift boot in the mail. Just like my parking brake boot, the leather LOOKED like leather and smelled fantastic (i.e. expensive).  

I should note that, one reason that Robson Leather's leather may not have smelled like leather is that Japanese consumers generally do NOT like the smell of leather, and so car manufacturers do their best to eliminate that smell from leather interiors. (Really!  Have to "fix" that on my Lexus...)

Anyway, once I had a free evening I went ahead and unscrewed the BNR34 shift knob from the lever, then by removing that one screw behind the ashtray, disassembled the shift boot surround, and also removed the center console in order to get access to the hand brake boot (oh and I had to repair the switch for the rear diffuser fog lamp too).

See those metal clips? Have to remove them first

First order of business was to remove the metal clips holding in the Robson Leather shift boot from the surround.  Note, yes, one clip was missing...

After removing these clips, all I had to do was peel off the leather and begin installation of the Redline boot.  Simple, except...

Ok, something doesn't line up...

Unfortunately, it appears that Redline had sent me a standard BNR34 boot, not one modified as requested (and paid for, actually). This meant that I had to punch my own holes to get the boot to fit on the pins properly.

As for the hand brake boot, that was relatively straightforward - all I had to do was remove the Robson Leather one and replace back with what had been there previously, the 10 year old Redline one.

Just make sure the metal ring fits snugly... will "snap" in.

The end result looks like this:

Done! Wait, something still doesn't look quite right...

Much improved (I think)! Note, no more snap button - strategic use of Velcro is a much needed improvement. Although, it's interesting how the 10 year old Redline handbrake boot has more sheen compared to the brand new shift lever boot.  I will try to use some leather cleaner/preservative on the new boot and see if things don't even out. If not, I will simply order a new hand brake boot.

Also I note that the OEM, original handbrake handle itself looks very shiny. I actually have a solution to this, hopefully I will be posting that soon!

Finally - for those who care to comment - do you think I made the right decision with the black stitching? I was thinking about red stitching in order to match the "R" logo and the red LED lighting I've done to the key surround and the doors (as well as the OEM red material seats) but thought a subtle, OEM look would be more in line with my car...

NISMO GETRAG Conversion Kit for R32/R33 GT-Rs

This post was a long time in the making.  Back in August, I posted this hint - I was being vague on purpose as to what my car was at Nissan Prince for:

Two boxes full of goodness!

A close up would have revealed:

Here is a REAL close-up! 

For those who guessed correctly, yes this close-up of the boxes that the transfer and the transmission came in would have revealed what was going on! Yes folks, it's the NISMO GETRAG Conversion Kit for the R32/R33 GT-Rs!

Turns out, these Conversion Kits are "made to order" - so I had actually placed my order back in June but it wasn't until August that the parts were all ready to go. So really, this whole process started back when I did this post about NISMO's engine oil. You didn't really think I went to Nissan Prince for just an oil change, did you?

(The reason I installed a new gearbox was, as longtime reader stj88 guessed in the comment below, my OEM gearbox was on its last legs. I was having trouble shifting from 3 to 4, or 4 down to 3, so I would sometimes skip 4 altogether and just shift into 5th directly from 3.  This had been going on for the past 2-3 years but had been getting progressively worse. Plus, it felt to me that the transfer was slipping too...)

Then, although the installation of the Kit itself only took a week, not only did a custom part for the Getrag take longer than expected (the Robson item below),  I got lucky with the N1 bonnet, which required having the car in the paint shop for awhile, plus I was away for a couple of weeks, so from start to finish the car was at Nissan Prince for about a month.

For those who want a refresher or just more information about the GETRAG kit, check out this link on NISMO's English website.

In any case, here is what the Kit looks like:

From: http://www.nismo.co.jp/en/products/competition/mission/getrag.html

In addition to the transfer case and the transmission itself, the kit comes with a BNR34 front driveshaft, a "NISMO" r32/r33 rear drive shaft (somehow I doubt anything special was done to it), and BNR34 transmission mount and cross member. There are other bits and pieces too as explained in the NISMO link above.

I actually had the dealership take photos of the work during the install. Unfortunately, they appear to have wiped the computer clean, as the jpegs could not be found. But, they HAD printed out some small photos which I scanned back in - hence the low quality, but I think you get the idea:

About to start work- still with old hood/bonnet (I can tell)

Lower the old transmission

Close up of old transmission

Side view

Old clutch removed

Here is a better photo of my old transmission, removed, that I took:

Waiting to go to a good home...

New clutch installed

Those magic words

Very pretty!

When I arrived to pick up the car, the first thing I saw when I looked inside the car was this:

Note the shift knob boot - custom made by Robson. Too bad they didn't ask me about what color stitching I wanted...

A closer inspection of the shift knob shows:

Call me weird but I don't like that GT-R logo there... wrong font for the BCNR33!

Lastly - before I could get in the car and drive home, they had me sign an application Nissan is going to submit to the department of motor vehicles on my behalf- changing out the transmission is considered a major change to the car, so technically my car is no longer a "BCNR33" - it's now a "BCNR33改" (the character is read "kai" from 改造 (kaizo) meaning modified so it's a BCNR33-kai). The paperwork they submit demonstrates to the authorities that the gear ratio has changed but is still within x% of normal, only weighs y more kgs, doesn't change the overall dimensions of the car, etc.

Ok so enough of the install - the all important question - HOW DOES IT DRIVE?

Well, it's like being in 1/2 lower gear in the 5 speed, all the time. Acceleration of the car is instantaneous. Expected when the rear ratio is still 4.11:1.

The engine is turning at above 2000 rpm at most speeds, meaning that that it picks up quickly, acceleration comes on much more quickly, but yes probably worse gas mileage and noisier on the expressway.   Does it bother me? Honestly, yes a little. But I'm not about to spend another 450,000 yen for NISMO's 3.916 gear set, which if you look at the graph, really only changes things by about 500rpm or so.

I guess to make it perfect, I would really only want to change 6th gear to be an overdrive to allow for relatively quiet and low rpm cruising on the expressway - right now it is a literal "point and shoot" weapon even in 6th, given how quickly the car accelerates. The other gearing is fine as is.

In any case, I was told that I have to break this new transmission in - and that this would take about 1000kms.  Given how little I drive my car, not sure how long that will take, but it DOES give me an excuse to take the car out more often.

There are other small details that bother me too (in addition to the stitch color I mentioned above).  The gear shift itself is tall - remember for the OEM gearbox I had installed NISMO's solid shift gear shifter which is 7.5mm shorter in length and gives a more solid feel when shifting.  Not sure who makes a short/solid shifter for the Getrag box but will have to see if I can find one.

Anyway, the fun continues as I break in the gearbox and make the necessary improvements!

In my next post I'll go more into detail about that N1 bonnet...

Update - I Got Lucky! (aka Additional Work to be done at Nissan Prince Tokyo)

For any of us car guys living here in Japan, Yahoo Auctions is basically a way of life. You can find some pretty good deals, if you know how to search, happen to have the money, and move quickly enough to bid and win.

The stars DID line up for me last week. I hadn't spent time on YA in a while, figuring that while my car was at Nissan Prince Motorsports I didn't need anything extra.

Until I found this going for an initial bid of 1 yen!

Ok so why are you excited about a black hood Aki?

So what, you might say. There are several BCNR33 hoods being offered on YA any day of the week. That is true, however THIS one is really special.

First, it's an OEM Nissan hood.  Second, the seller claims it was unused. Third, it's for an N1 spec car. This explains the holes at the leading edge of the hood, predrilled. I am not sure if there are any other differences between the standard car or the N1, but OEM and unused were VERY attractive features for me!

5 holes...hopefully this means no one else bids... but I was wrong.

Caveat on the UNUSED - due to storage there are some scratches so the seller said "no OCD people." Oh well...

Extremely clean - definitely hasn't been used and is paint ready!

I actually had planned on installing what Nissan calls the "Hood Top Molding" (or hood spoiler or bonnet lip as I've seen it on English language forums), so I had purchased an OEM one a long time ago. 

Here is the part number...note the "U21" is the code for KR4, as these are pre-painted!

double checking it's the right color!

However I had never gotten around to installing it.  I had been meaning to have my hood repainted, not just because there were some rock chips but also because it appeared that someone had, at one time, sat on the hood and left a slight crease in it, right above the right headlamp.  But, when I asked for quotes to fix it, the answer was always "it'd be easier and cheaper to repaint a used non-damaged hood or a new one." I had actually bought a cheaply priced used hood at auction previously, but it turned out that it also was banged up.  So, the Hood Top Molding stayed in the box all this time.

But when I saw this N1 hood at auction, I had to get it.  The buy it now price was 40,000 yen, so despite some others trying to get it as cheaply as possible, I simply bought it at the "buy it now" price.   However, I was still a bit nervous that, photos aren't everything and people don't always tell the truth when selling stuff at auction.

Earlier today (Monday) however, I got a call from Yamazaki-san at Nissan Prince Motorsports. The hood had already arrived (I had bid on Friday!), and further, it was as described - a few scratches and a small dent but nothing that couldn't be relatively easily fixed, it has to be painted anyway! To test the fit, and to double check the quality, they already replaced the hood on the car with this N1 one, and the car is now being sent to the paint shop. Hopefully there are no issues but I will post here if there are!

Meanwhile, I've sent the Hood Top Molding to them so hopefully it arrives on Wednesday.

Oh, and Yamazaki-san mentioned that the work (the Nissan/NISMO part installation) for when the car was actually taken there for, was already done, so now all that was left was this bodywork. Good timing!

So, when I pick up my car (whenever that is), I will have not just the part I mentioned installed, but this hood newly painted, with Hood Top Molding, so the car will LOOK better than when I dropped it off, and one long standing blemish which annoyed me every time I looked at it, will be GONE.

Stay tuned for more updates...