I plan on eventually having 2 JDM cars. My plans right now are my current Skyline plus a R33 GTR which is my favorite of the 3 R chassis GTRs.
A friend of mine was wanting to know what JDM wagons/hatchbacks are legal to import right now that are performance orientated. Not much. That is more of a mid 90s thing. In the course of looking I found the 7G Eterna XX-4 which led me to the Galant VR4 of that generation.
Has a twin turbo version of the FTO engine (minus mivec), same transmission, same AWD system as the previous car but upgraded (with the 4 wheel steering that the EVO didn’t get from the 6G Galant). Since it wasn’t a competition car anymore, the Lancer is, it has a lot of nice luxury options. Unlike the 8G the car is still light.
So it has an awesome sounding V6 with twin turbo and 8000rpm redline, manual, 3100-3200lbs, etc. Sound great. Unfortunately they are rare, however on the list they go.
The car was designed and sold during the height of the Japanese bubble. When the Japanese were still making VERY Japanese cars and filling them with every tech possible and overbuilding them. This car has every tech bit short of the touchscreen infotainment + GPS the Mazda Cosmo had.
As a funny note a version of this chassis was used in the US Sebring. Yeah. Imagine if Chrysler made a Sebring like this.
http://www.bcdsm.org/forum/index.php?topic=20193.0
Some info on the car.
Aside the regular sedan there were also two different liftback options and a pillarless sedan. They made a kind of Legacy-Outback version as well:
R33/R34 GTRs have appreciated out of the hands of us mere mortals like all but the most pedestrian air-cooled 911s, and E30 M3s before them...if you don't own one already it's too late now.
(Glad I'm not into any of those cars a whole lot or I'd be heartbroken)
GameboyRMH wrote:
R33/R34 GTRs have appreciated out of the hands of us mere mortals like all but the most pedestrian air-cooled 911s, and E30 M3s before them...if you don't own one already it's too late now.
(Glad I'm not into any of those cars a whole lot or I'd be heartbroken)
You can still get a R33 GTR for less than $20k USD.
http://www.rightdrive.ca/model/nissan/skyline-gtr-r33/
That is canadian dollar prices and from a dealer who marks up a few more thousand than the methods i use would. My importer has only a $1800-$2000 fee on top of auction prices.
$20k is around what my budget is. I've been saving for quite a while (5 years of setting money aside) for one but if it's like $30k+ by 2018 I have no problem buying something else. The funny thing is I could buy 2 or 3 of these Mitsubishis within my budget. If I forgo a GTR I could get one of these and a Silvia or STI and if I ditch my daily driver have have a 4th car and drive a differnt one to work each day lmao. Unfortunately then space is a concern and I have a normal persons house with a 2 car garage. No drive way too! However this is the advantage of having no wife I suppose.
In reality I would just get 1 more jdm car and save the remaining money.
The current GTS-T skyline I have was when my budget was $6000. I sold my motorcycle and used the money to buy it. That is around what I expect this Galant to sell for.
What's maintenance and parts supply like for an R32/33 GTR here in the States? There are several R32 GTR's running around Denver now....
docwyte wrote:
What's maintenance and parts supply like for an R32/33 GTR here in the States? There are several R32 GTR's running around Denver now....
I can't mention GTR but I can mention for the GTS-T. The parts availability is actually WORSE for my car than GTR because the RB20 was only used in the R32.
All in all parts availability is good for mechanical bits and poor for trim. I have no been stuck searing for a part yet and i've basically had to rebuilt the entire front end of my car after an accident.
Prices for parts are mostly inexpensive because nissan parts shares a lot of the consumable bits with the cars that are sold in the US.
Sites like frsport and ebay for example have most everything. Ebay has been my source for trim bits. RHDJapan can get everything but it's going to be imported and therefore more expensive, though shipping from Japan and Australia isn't as bad as you would think. Usually "jdm" parts for cars are marked up when sold in the US as it is taking that shipping into account so I had no sticker shock.
Recent purchases I remember off the top of my head:
Fan Clutch - $600 <- extremely expensive part but probably the only overly expensive mechanical part on this car.
Complete gasket kit containing all gaskets on the car - $150
Passenger vent (interior trim) - $60
Timing kit + Nismo N1 Water Pump (belt including tensioner, idler, spring) $380
Speedo Cable - $129
Nismo Trans Mount - $70 (non-nismo is like $40)
AFM - $100, soon to replaced by Z32 version which was ALSO $100.
Water temp sensor (same part as even on the new 370z) - $30
Trim that goes bad are in particular the window liners and weather stripping. If you want ones made for a skyline they are expensive though I don't recall prices.
This car has been easy to maintain and reliable so far. The cooling stuff needed all replacing including the sensors for the ECU. Since replcing those the car has run like a top. The GTR has the same parts here.
btw I should say the fan clutch and SOME chassis specific parts can take like 7 days to get here. However a lot of places stock RB parts because they are popular in swaps. It's only going to get better as more cars come over and as places begin stocking parts for these cars.
Aftermarket is good of course like with any similarly popular enthusiast vehicle.
The Speedo cable which is chassis specific i got within 2 days, I was impressed.
SOME Nissan dealers will order OEM parts for you.
edit: forgot to mention coils are expensive ($500) as well, but they last a while. Also if you are handy like a lot of people here you can do the LS2 conversion
