Earlier this year my HR31 skyline was involved in a T-boning and ended up looking like this.




I was a bit upset as I had owned the car for 13 years, and it was a particularly good example.
Anyway, I remembered an old Skyline club member who had an HR31 that had been in his garage for 5 years, so a deal was done and I became it's new owner.



What will follow is my struggles to get it A, running, B, roadworthy, and C, finished.

The one thing that made me pursue this particular car is that it has a GTS-R engine installed.
The HR31 GTS-R is a homologation special made by Nissan for the purposes of Group A racing in the 80's.
It came with an R version of the RB20DET, a twin cam, 24 valve 2 litre straight 6, which means it had a factory tubular manifold, a giant To4e turbo, a larger throttle body, lighter flywheel, R specific ECU, and a few body addenda, (spoilers etc)

Only 800 were ever made, so this engine is rare, and they were only available in the Japanese domestic market..


The car actually came with 2 GTS-R engines. 1 well blown up, but it gives you a better look at the manifold.
What you can see here is the heatshield the covers the manifold


Cover removed


Oops


This will gave you an idea of the -R turbo against a standard RB20 one


Which makes it one laggy S.O.B.

Hooks

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Shame about the red one , the black one looks nice and being a rare model its going to be a sweet ride when finished

I remember reading about your car getting t-boned on skylines australia.

are you going to get the gts-r aero kit aswell?

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nice ride

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Well, im glad you weren't injured. but its so sad to see such a awesome machine like that get ruined

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Slappy's Car Blog

Man, those first few pics are painful. Nice new ride tho, hope to see some nice updates on this.

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Benny, going to get the GTS-R wing, but I love the wank value of the front autospoiler, so that will stay.

As mentioned above, the car has been sitting in a garage for 5 years.
Subsequently, the inside of the fuel tank looked like this




It doesn't look that bad in those pics, but trust me, it is


The trailer we used to move the car didn't have a winch, so it had to be driven on and off.
when I checked out the car the fuel pump was dead (wonder why )
so I put in a new Walbro intank.
This is what it looked like after the trailer on/off thing



So out came the tank


And a cleaning we will go



What can't be seen in those shot is the cuts on my hands from the razor sharp baffles and my subsequent swearing when fuel got into those cuts.

Here is a little piece of 80's gold unearthed in the boxes of crap that came with the car


Hooks

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I didnt realise you had an autospoiler.... they are much better.

I wish they had autospoilers on the DR30's aswell

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Yeah, love the autospoiler.
Heavy though.
Best thing is they actually work to stabilize the car.
Had a switch operated one on the red car, but this car is an upmarket GTS-X. it comes down automatically at 80kph and goes up around 60kph.
Ooooh, luxury

Hooks

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Ahh, Hooks, one door closes and another one opens mate Now you have the ultra-spesh GTS-R goodness

BTW did you get the tank boiled out by a radiator specialist or something, or did you clean it out by hand?

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Im guessing from the comments about cutting his hands, he did it himself. What did you use? That tank looks super clean now.

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What ever happened to the red car? From the pics, it looks fixable...

Used a lot of the good stuff off the red car on the black and sold it off.
Over the years I had collected a few rare R31 bits which will make an appearance.
I wanted to use all the old school 80's stuff(like the turbo timer above) and have up to date suspension wheels etc.
I didn't get a shot of the black car on its original wheels, but here they are on the red car


Hooks

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Very cool.

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- '71 Datsun 240z.....L28ET here we come

For those of you who are unsure of what we're talking about when mentioning Autospoiler, it's the bit with all the ugly stickers in this pic


it folds up flat behind the front valance.

Hooks

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Now you see it...


..omg where did it go?!!

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Next up, suspension.
The R31 Skyline had the first version of HICAS 4 wheel steering.
If set up correctly it is just noticeable.
But a combination of 22 year old shocks, and wheel aligners that always adjust the steering the same way....is not so good.

How it works is the diff is bolted to a cross member that also holds the trailing arms for the rear independant suspension.
Here is a pic of it out of the car


The problem is the whole crossmember is pivoted by 2 small rams


allowed by deformable bushes on the crossmember


And a big rubbery bush on the back of the diff


These all need to be rounded up, and in the case of the crossmember bushes, beaten into submission, and placed thus


These will be replaced by some wonderful products from the Z31 club (America)
Diff hanger


And crossmember bushes


The Z31 and R31 rear suspensions being almost identical.

Hooks

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good to see you were able to find such a rare car, I also remover my Hicas from my HR31. I didnt think to do anything with changing diff mount. what are you planning on using instead of the hydrolic rams? got any info on the diff mount so i could find one?

Have you weighed that bucket yet? Free HP! Nice R31. We can't get them in the states for a couple more years...

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83' DR30

What a glorious day that will be...