When you’ve always had a soft spot for the Z-Tune, but don’t have the bank account to match, you do what you can! Read on as we give the abridged version of the 2yr build of our 1999 R34 GT-R from oddly styled misfit into something more pleasing to the eye and capable on the street.
Since my first R33 GTST, I’d been a “Nissan guy”, but it wasn’t until my brief love affair with a series 2 R33 GT-R V-Spec that the infatuation really set in. I was in my 20s back then and it was obvious I was going to lose my license or go broke if I kept daily driving these things, so I did the sensible thing and sold up, but told myself I’d be back when maturity and finances allowed.
It’s now late 2015, GT-R prices have slowly been falling, and the Nissan itch is still as strong as ever. I’m actively tracking the S13 by this point, but it’s a dedicated race car, and the time is right to buy a weekender, so the hunt begins! I looked at quite a few cars and its obvious time hasn’t been kind, everything is really showing its age with rust, crash damage, or questionable mods and treatment.
Carsales alerts are configured for price and ks and when a notification tells me something new has met the criteria, I’m pretty skeptical at first glance. The mismatched bonnet/bumper/guards and boot lid all say “crashed”, but the ad reads well, the mods list is fairly limited, and after an initial enquiry the current owner appears to be sensible bloke.
It’s a 3hr drive to inspect so more photos are requested first, the owner is very accommodating, even though I’ve straight up implied the car is crash damaged, but every pic he sends gives further confirmation that he’s serious when he says the visuals are simply a styling choice and the car is actually very clean and straight – right, I’ve gotta go see this for myself…
I’m not the easiest buyer and I go over the thing with a fine-tooth comb while grilling the seller for details. He’s immensely patient throughout, and I even go as far as to comp test the car in his driveway – the numbers are spot on. The car has a few minor cosmetic blemishes and I spot a small oil leak, but otherwise it’s genuinely in good condition, as expected with a paper trail and odometer reading of just over 85ks.
We make a deal, I pack up the spare parts in the accompanying vehicle and we head for home. Reality sets in as random motorists smile and wave as I cruise along the highway, I’m back in a GT-R. It’s a little stiffly sprung and you forget how convenient cruise control is, but it otherwise drives quite nicely as I settle in and enjoy the drive home spending the time to familiarise myself with the car, I cannot stop playing with the MFD, so cool.
I give the car another more thorough inspection at home, removing trim pieces, covers, and anything else that might be hiding something nasty, it really does seem like a good egg. I get straight into replacing some seals, addressing the leaking catch can, and doing a full service of all fluids. The bumper, bonnet, guards, and boot are all removed and sent for painting while I sort a rear spoiler, some high mount stands, and a swapping out the fiberglass lip and undertray for an OEM V-Spec item. One thing that does hold me up is trying to source guard liners, the previous owner has misplaced them, and I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it ends up costing a bit over $700 to have some used items shipped from overseas.
Everything comes a back looking excellent and I get into carefully refitting, I also opt to get the headlights re-cleared while it’s all apart and paint the Greddy air guide black to match the theme. While the guards are off, I source, paint and fit some appropriate looking mesh as per the factory look and swap out the coloured wheel nuts for some fresh black units. – It’s coming together nicely. The wheels will need some attention though as the original bronze can be seen in a few spots where the paint has been chipped off.
With the exterior mostly sorted, I crack on with acquiring the parts needed to bring the car up to around the same power level as the Z-Tune had from factory. My memory is hazy, and I’m sure someone will correct me, but I recall the prototype used the Z1 engine making around 600bhp while the 19 production Z Tune’s used the Z2 engine which was rated at 500bhp – I settled on 500+rwhp as the target. At this stage the car only has an exhaust, ARC airbox, a bit more boost, and basic tune, which although similar to the R33 GT-R I had previously, seems awfully slow for this car.
The budget doesn’t allow for a 2.8L stroker and a V Cam and while we all know a good modern single is better than twins, I want the car to look legal, clean, and be semi period correct so the call is made to stick with twins. I’m on the fence about -9s vs -10s, but decide to take the punt on being able to stretch -9s, against the advice of SAU, with the idea that suitable supporting mods (cams, valve springs, cam gears, flex fuel setup, etc) will make up the top end difference and allow me to keep the response.
I end up diving down the efficiency rabbit hole a bit deeper than intended and basically going over the entire intake and exhaust tract refining everything as I go. I made a few trips to the dyno in this phase, testing to confirm the upgrades are working, and even win a friendly bet with the tuner that big, enclosed pods will outperform the factory airbox fitted with a panel filter (The ARC box long gone by this stage). On the big K&Ns the car picks up an extra 13kws and few PSI in the top end.
A custom exhaust is mated up to the lovely HPI dumps/front pipe that come with the turbo kit and I go as far as sourcing N1 cast factory manifolds to gain a bit more efficiency to keep it period correct and remove the risk of cracking from the Tomei units it comes with. Cams and cam gear adjustments end up being worth a solid 30kw and 500rpm response and are done last, allowing us to get the best from the turbos – the car finally spins up a bit over 500rwhp on 23-24psi.
On top of all that, I spent a sold chunk of time during this stage dressing up the engine bay with new fasteners, oil cap, different air guide, painting/powder coating or replacing items so they looked right or fit better, the list goes on but the end the result is a fairly neat and mostly factory looking engine bay.
Brace yourself for a big ol’ pic dump! The full mod list, including all power mods, is provided below.
Next, it was onto the interior and a few other aesthetic items. Those wheels were still bothering me so they were sent off to be media blaster and powder coated. Unfortunately, the media blasting was a bit heavy handed, in part due to the high adhesion of the Rays factory coating, and the resulting powder coating was not as perfect as I’d wanted. It was better than seeing pain peeling, but the orange peel effect was noticeable to me – Ideally, they should have been stripped again and done in 2pac.
Drop covers were used to protect the factory seats while high quality reproduction floor mats were added to tidy up the interior. I also removed the old boost gauge, changed the gear knob to a GT500 unit, installed V-Spec pedals, swapped in a simple and clean head unit, fitted a mirror cover to match the carbon ascents around the car and popped in the obligatory Nismo lighter (for maximum street cred).
With the hard work done, it was time to enjoy the car, taking it on gap runs, cruises, to car meets, and even braving a run at Winton, which didn’t go too well but I’ll get into that in a moment. Now that I’d decided the car was “mostly done” the wife commissioned some professional pics which came out quite nicely and allowed me to take a step back from the constant work and spending to just enjoy what I’d created – I really never did get sick of looking at it, but there was a problem…
Every time I used the car in any way, I’d either find something “wrong” with it that needed fixing, a squeak, a rattle, something aging etc, or would actually cause a bit of damage/wear and tear through general usage. An early morning gap run with the boys had me loving life as we listened to the anti-lag pop and bang on downshifts pushing an Evo X through the hills, but when I got home I realised the car had been a tad too low for the roads and had rubbed a hole in one of the guard liners, which I knew would be painful to source again.
A basic street race with a mate in his GT-R, on a closed road of course, resulted in a ton of stone chips which was another $1500 to repair, as the front bar and lip had really copped it. That meant carefully removing the bar again, always a risk with fibreglass, so it could be properly repaired – it was that bad.
The track day at Winton was carefully planned, I towed the car there and used a special painter’s tape on the lights/front bumper as suggested by the Porsche club guys to help minimise any damage. Unfortunately, the tape literally ripped sections of the clear from the headlight which had to be re-cleared and didn’t “quite” come out as nicely the second time. To make matters worse, I’d grossly overestimated the tyres capability as I’d only been driving it on the road, at the track they just were not up to the task at all. The car lapped slower than the Silvia had and seemed down on power. It was later discovered that either the tuner or I had somehow dropped a bolt into the intake which had been slowly destroying the compressor wheel, so that had to be replaced, and the intercooler professionally cleaned, thankfully the core had caught the debris and the car had zero change in compression.
I loved the car, but owning it and maintaining it was really stressing me out. how could I enjoy it properly and not lose my mind in the process? Plus, I’d quickly come to realise just how capable the chassis was in putting power down and was already thinking about the next 100kws and a sequential, more costly endeavors. Around this time, we purchased a rural property, up on the hill with gorgeous views, but situated over 3ks down a dirt road and up a long steep dirt driveway, this was no place for a GT-R and the call was made to sell it before I lost my mind completely trying to maintain it.
The market had shifted by this point and R34s were really starting to climb in value, not to the heights we see today, but safe to say it ended up being a sound investment. Even though it was only a base model GT-R with bolt on’s, it didn’t take long to find a buyer with the car making its way down to Melbourne where the engine met an untimely demise after the new owner decided to have it retuned – I’ll never know the full story of what happened there. After that it popped up again on Instagram with a new owner, a 2.8L, and some R35 brakes, before being sold to a broker and, I’m told, shipped to a new owner in the US and that was that.
I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to build and enjoy the car, it really was gorgeous, and it’s always nice to tick something like that off your list. It did help me learn something about myself though, it seems I am happiest behind the wheel when I’m at the track in a car that I care a little less about. So, the S13 stayed, and was later joined by an 86, and while I haven’t ruled out owning another GT-R or something similar, that might be more likely when my racing days are done.
The final mod/spec list looked like this and after browsing that please enjoy another pic dump and a few vids.
Z tune style guards (bodyform), added mesh to vents
Z tune style bonnet (jsai)
Z tune style bumper (bodyform)
Mines style mirrors
Nismo style skirts
Nismo style rear pods
Nismo B pillar garnishes
OEM V-spec front diffuser, painted satin black
FRP carbon look high wing stands with oem rear spoiler, blade painted satin black
Headlight and parker globes (crisp white/slight blue tinge)
Headlights re-cleared
19×10.5 Rays TE37s with 275 rubber
Black wheel nuts
Endless 2 piece front rotors with standard Brembos
DBA rear rotors with standard Brembos.
BC ER coilovers
Subframe bushes
Rear swaybar
JSAI pod enclosure
Big K&N pods and adapters
KTS Suction pipes (custom modified, extra nipple removed and smoothed, painted)
Custom AFM delete pipes
Aeroflow joiners for the above
Modified Twin Turbo pipe with divider, painted
ZSpec fastener kit
Plazmaman Pro Series 76mm Intercooler
Full length FRP radiator air guide
Garrett GT2859R-9 Turbos
N1 manifolds with freshly painted manifold shields
HPI 3″ dumps
HPI 3.5″ front pipe.
Fully custom 3.5″ vband exhaust, “high flow” cat, magnaflow mid muffler, Apexi rear muffler
ARP headstuds.
Cam gears adjusted for response
Custom catch can, properly baffled internally and plumbed to intake as per factory
Aero flow 400 series hose for catch can
ID 1000CC E85 Safe Injectors
Splitfire coilpacks
HKS oil cooler
Walbro 440LPH E85 Safe Fule Pump
Haltech Platnium Pro, running Map sensor
Haltech Flex fuel kit (tuned for 98 and E85)
Haltech oil pressure kit
Haltech wideband kit
Haltech mini I/O expander
ATS Twin Plate Carbon Clutch
Drop sheet style seat covers
Full V-spec pedals, including footrest
Nismo GT500 Duracon gear knob
Front and rear speakers
Pioneer head unit, bluetooth hands free kit
V-spec sensors on MFD (EGT and Intake Temp)
Nismo branded floor mats
Nismo lighter
Carbon rear view mirror cover
Whilst I did a lot of this build myself, special thanks go to Matt Simms for his assistance with the build and the tuning. If you’d like to have Matt give you a hand with your RB, you can find him at the link below, tell him Dan at NCR sent you.
Matt Simms Performance
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did 🙂
