New Zealand Datsun Club

As most will be aware MADDAT has gone to a new home which is tipical of me when i finish a project so thought I'd post this up to show what I'm upto now.

Original plan was to buy my dream car R32 GTR and shortly after buy a project 1200 coupe.

So I bought this:
94 R32 GTR.
I had to have a white one and had to be a 94 as they have a few extra goodies and a few bugs ironed out from the earlier ones, found one in Auckland and had pre inspection check done and got it shipped to chch, trouble free motoring! Well so I thought.

After about 3 hours of ownership knock knock knock.......
Gear box out, subframe out and sump off. Crank out and big ends shot. Some charlie had the sump off and when they put back on used way to much silicone and it broke off and blocked the oil pick up. Crank got polished and checked, metal sprayed seal surfaced and back together with ACL race bearings, heavy duty R34 GTR clutch and new cambelt tensioners seals etc.
Then off for a tune:
Pulled a health 420hp at rear wheels on 15psi but.......
was popping dip stick out and started tapping.

So motor out:
And found this......
So there goes any chance of a 1200 coupe any time soon, also have a baby on the way so Datsun WILL be a few years down the track now.

I will be having a little fun with this build though. I have that mind set of do it once do it right so motor will be forged and hopefully 500+ hp when it's finished.

Should be together and drivable for next Akaroa cruise -i'll park ages away from all the cool cars
have to return that trophy somehow

I see the odd R32 GTR around, and now that a lot of them have been crashed or parted out most of the ones left seem to be tidy and looked after.

Very cool, huge road presence. Love it.

Thanks, I've always loved them but could never afford one. Something about the wide guards 2 door coupe with a powerful motor that sounds grouse.
In buying this and hopefully holding onto it for a long long time I'm thinking one day they will become more rear and sort after if I keep it tidy.

I'd love one of these. But stories like yours make me a bit glad I can't afford one. A $500 datsun engine rebuild is chump change in GTR land.
Josh (Mspec) has one too. (Assuming he still owns it?) They're such a smooth quiet, yet ruthlessly fast car. But you can hear the radio at 100m/h, and driving them doesn't make you tired.
Was it just one one slug that had that damage? Or all of them?
I'm sure I read somewhere that damage like that is from an engine being overheated. The piston swells up hard against the bore wall, forcing out the oil, and causing the two surfaces to gall one another. (vertical lines perpendicular to the gudgeon pin)

Best of luck with the rebuild.

Hey Bart

Yea I wish it was a $500 rebuild, be more like 10k when im done
Damage is on all 6 pistons and bores caused by detonation. If you look closely you can see at the det marks on the top side of the piston. This causes the piston to swell and also breaks bits off the sides which go up and down the bore and turns the bore into a cheese greater. Ill keep a piston to show you sometime.
Has a Apexi power FC ecu tuned for jap fuels and the guy who imported it must have chucked 91 or 95 in it and thrashed the pants off it. I new better and got it tuned but damage was already done
Id say he new about it before he sold it as he told me he had complied at and only driven it to and from compliance but what can you do.

Shel be a beast when its done.

What are the valve guides and the head like?

DJZ wrote:What are the valve guides and the head like?

not to sure, will be getting checked, im replacing valves and springs as part of the process.

you can do quite a bit these days, with the new laws regarding selling second hand cars even private sales are covered by a consumer guarantee, whereby the old owner can be held responsible for whats happened to you. especially given the sump had been removed and replaced, and the silicon etc. unless he sold it as an end of life vehicle or as is where is you WILL have re-course to take him /her to small claims to recover some of the costs.

2 doors wrote:you can do quite a bit these days, with the new laws regarding selling second hand cars even private sales are covered by a consumer guarantee, whereby the old owner can be held responsible for whats happened to you. especially given the sump had been removed and replaced, and the silicon etc. unless he sold it as an end of life vehicle or as is where is you WILL have re-course to take him /her to small claims to recover some of the costs.

Thanks, I thought about it at the time but he had as is where is in his recipt etc and couldnt be bothered with the hassle. He didnt really want to know about it but I managed to sqeeze $500 as a good will payment out of him which covered the bearings but at that stage I didnt know the motor was shot.
Had pre purchase check done which ive never done on a car before so thought I had it all covered but still slipped through.


Onward and upwards, will have a new motor at the end of it with enough power to put a smile on my face im sure.

What oil pump do you plan on running?
There's a 500+ page thread at skylines Australia about oil pumps. I read the whole thing back when it was only around 360. Back then people were rating the Nitto pumps over the other big dollar brands.
do you think there's a chance that NZefi caused some of the harm?