1988 Nissan A31 Cefiro

[rohan]

After draining the old coolant and refilling it with the fresh stuff, it was on to the next pivotal step; starting the car up again.




Despite having been charged for a couple of days, the battery in the Cefiro was completely dead after so long that not even the lights worked, if I recall correctly. So it was out with the current battery, and we then pillaged a working battery from my parents' old Corolla hatch.










With a few minutes of spanner spinning, the battery was hooked up to the leads in the Cefiro.






And then came the big moment; firing up the engine. I neglected to have a video running at first for some reason. After a second or so of cranking the ignition, the RB20 roared into life. It was idling quite high and somewhat roughly, but for a car that hadn't been used for so long, I was expecting it to be a lot harder, particularly with such old petrol sitting in the tank.

After running it for a while to let the engine settle in, as well as moving the coolant around and getting the oil warmed up, I decided it would probably be easiest and best to just grab a new battery from Repco at Port Adelaide.

I took a few photos of the cars the guys turned up in. Prach (in the 2 photos above) has this 1997 JZX100 Toyota Chaser. With a custom tuned computer and some extra boost, it makes around 200kw at the rear wheels, which makes overtaking very easy.






Adam has a cool little Mazda MX5 Clubman, with a 1.8 litre turbo engine making 114kw at the rear wheels. You know a car is small and low when a Corolla hatchback looks kinda big in comparison. I haven't been in it, but considering how light the car is standard at 1010kg, the handling must be similar to a go-kart.While Prach's Chaser obviously makes more power due to a 2.5 litre 6 cylinder 1JZ-GTE turbo engine, it's also much heavier, tipping the scales at around 1500kg.
















Marek drove his much more practical Mitsubishi Pajero 4wd on the day, which we jumped in to head over to Port Adelaide for the new battery.






Spotted this nice Ford Falcon FPV GT-P at a set of traffic lights.












After lugging the battery back to the Pajero, we headed back to my place.




This bright orange Ford Escort on a trailer caught my attention.




Pulling up at my house, you can see the size difference with the MX5 and Corolla more clearly.




So with a new battery installed, I started the car up again, and let it run for a while, before carefully easing it down the driveway and onto the road, for the first time since September 2010.

After getting it warmed up first, the engine only stumbled a bit as I very carefully took off in first gear up the street. The wheels bearings or something related made a bit of a scratching noise at first, but it had stopped by the end of the street. I puttered around the block a few times until the oil was up to temperature, then pulled back into the garage for the oil change.

Here's a short video of the engine running, and me going for the first drive.


[/quote]

[rohan]

Marek then backed the car out into the driveway so we could set a few things up to drain the oil.












Just after getting it back into the garage, one of my other friends Daniel turned up in his Nissan Pintara wagon. It's quite a good sleeper, running a CA18DET engine from a Nissan 180SX, the car makes around 160kw at the wheels. Certainly enough to surprise some V8 Commodore owners.








The guys then got some wheel chocks, stands and a hydraulic jack, so the car could be lifted up to drain the old oil.

[rohan]

After the car was dropped down back onto all four wheels, Marek started pouring in a few litres of fresh oil.






Once it was topped up again, he started the engine again to let the new oil spread around a bit.






Following about 5 hours of hard manual labour from everyone except me, the Cefiro was back on its feet, finally ready to just be driven after such a long hibernation.






You can see a bucket half-full with the old oil sitting on the concrete.










Coming up in post #12; on the road again.

[rohan]

After making the big step of getting the Ceffy up and running once more, I was finally able to start driving and go to different places in it, which hadn't happened for a very long time.




First up was getting some fresh petrol in the tank, although on the way my girlfriend Sally and I stopped off at the Semaphore Fish Palais, which was about to close down. We picked up a few things in preparation for an aquarium, including a stand which just fit into the boot.








I then headed over to West Lakes, babying the car at low revs with the dodgy old petrol until I got to the Shell petrol station, and topped up a third of a tank with some V-Power premium fuel.




After being in the garage for so long, there was a distinct layer of dirt and dust on the car, and given my lack of health and energy, I decided to drop the car off to get washed while we went into the shops.






With the Cefiro's heavy duty clutch not being the most user-friendly, when I handed over the keys to one of the attendants, I warned him that the clutch was pretty gnarly. He brushed the comment off with a wave of his hand, saying 'We drive lots of different cars all the time.'

He then proceeded to stall the car trying to move it into one of the wash bays, which was kind of funny considering his response to my advice. I was just bringing my camera up to take a video and missed it, but got him scraping across one of the bumps, after getting some advice from his boss about the tricky clutch.



With the car cleaned up nicely over the next half an hour, a couple of days later, I headed over to a crash repair shop to ask about respraying the bonnet and front quarter panels on the car. The shop had done the respray on my boot and bumper soon after I bought the car, and did a good job, so he had a walk around to make an estimate on the cost.








Here's a closer look at the scrapes on the front left quarter panel and bumper. It's not drastic, but enough to make it look untidy, and along with the bonnet, was something I wanted to get fixed up and resprayed.










Back in the garage after the wash, the Cefiro looked much brighter with all the accumulated dust and grime removed.










It was good just being able to run around doing relatively mundane activities like going to the shops.












Late one afternoon I drove to the local Foodland, and took a few photos from different angles in the carpark while I was there.










While the car generally looks a plain creamy white, it does have a blue pearl running through that shows in direct sunlight on some angles.






I was also finally able to go and visit a friend at his new house, although the 'natural' driveway at the time wasn't the cleanest area for parking.










With the Cefiro coming back into frequent use, and my general health improving, I figured it was time to continue on my initial plans to modify the Cefiro to how I wanted it.

Coming up in post #13; the second round of modifications begins.

[Speedle]

Great car, looks like a fantastic barge. Stance and wheels look ace. Good to see it hitting the streets after it's little sleep

[rohan]

Since the Cefiro was now getting driven regularly, although still somewhat gently, I thought it would be a good time to take the car to Boostworx to check that everything was running ok, replace a few bits and pieces, as well as install a front-mount intercooler.

For some reason I hadn't consciously noticed that the coil pack cover on my engine wasn't there, I mean I knew it wasn't there, but hadn't thought about it until my dad mentioned it. So one afternoon I headed over to Nisswreck to pick up a replacement.




There were a few cars lined up in their yard with expensive windscreen stickers from SAPOL.






So after waiting a few minutes while someone rummaged around out the back, I headed back home in my friend Prach's JZX100 Toyota Chaser, and stuck the cover in the Cefiro's boot along with a few other bits.

[rohan]

After ringing Shaun at Boostworx to discuss what I wanted done to the Ceffy, a few days later I went over to the workshop so he could have a look at it, and see what needed to be done in regards to trimming the bumper, installing and fabricating the intercooler and piping.
















When I bought the car, it came with an HKS 300x600mm intercooler and a bit of piping, among other assorted parts. I was wanting to keep the look of the car fairly low-key, and have the cooler sitting behind the front bumper. I've seen quite a few Cefiros with a huge chunk of the front bar cut outto fit a large intercooler, with shiny metal piping sticking out underneath the car, something that would probably attract unwanted attention from SAPOL.

After talking to Shaun about it, we went back out to my car, popped the bonnet and he had a look inside to see how much room there was for one. Considering that I wanted to keep the front bar intact, there was no way the 300x600mm one I had was going to fit without some major hacking. Not wanting to do anything drastic, I decided to just get a smaller 200x500mm intercooler instead, which would fit behind the front bar without any major cuts into the bodywork.




There was some piping from the other intercooler that could be used, but I wasn't sure how much could be used, and what might need to be fabricated to fit correctly. After sitting around for so long I thought it would be good to also flush the coolant system, change the fuel filter, put new spark plugs in, replace worn rear brake pads and machine the discs, put the 'new' coil pack cover on, and finally doing a test and power run on the dyno. The car was standard power-wise apart from the exhaust, so besides checking that it was running properly, I was interested to see how much power it was making.

There are always a few interesting cars around, this 32 is a good example of a huge shiny intercooler. Definitely something that would need an aftermarket front bar to fit.





After dropping the Cefiro off and handing over the keys, I left the car there while they did the work on it for around a week.

[rohan]

In the meantime I went to Japanese Import Spares to get a more subtle 'Nissan' rear light garnish, to replace the CEFIRO one in big capital letters which I found too obvious.




Pulling up in the car park, there was a purple Cefiro sitting out the front. A cool looking and different colour, but the panels had certainly seen better days.








Inside the JIS workshop, there are loads of new and used performance parts all over the walls, floors and racks, to the point that it's hard to know where to look at first.

Plenty of suspension options on the rack here as you walk in.














Some very nice BBS mesh rims which I would love for the car, but at $2600 for the set, probably not the best use of funds.






After asking one of the guys there about the rear light garnish, there were actually two options for the 'Nissan' one, dark red and light red. With my car at Boostworx I couldn't just go out and look at it, so after a couple of minutes of thinking and my girlfriend Sally suggesting it was the darker one, I bought it.











Coming up in Post #14; the Cefiro at Boostworx.

[rohan]

Thanks.

A bit over a week after I dropped the Ceffy off at Boostworx, I got a call from them saying that everything was pretty much finished. I'd asked them to call before doing the dyno run as I wanted to see it in action myself, so I headed down to the workshop with Sally to see and get photos of the car almost ready to go.

Pulling up in front of Boostworx behind a tough looking dark green JZX100 Toyota Chaser...




...this stunning bayside blue Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R immediately caught my attention.




Unfortunately as you can see, there's a defect sticker on the windscreen. More about that a little later.









I was wondering what the defect was for as it looked rather tame. After taking a few pics of the GT-R I walked into the workshop to see how the Ceffy was coming along, and saw it first in the line up on a hoist.

[rohan]

The front bar was out on a stand being trimmed to accommodate the new intercooler.












After cutting out some of the fins in the front bumper, a couple of the guys tried fitting the bumper on again to see how it looked.






The bumper went on fine, but the little bits of plastic in the side openings looked a bit untidy, so it was off with the bar again for a bit more trimming.

[rohan]

While I was waiting, I had a bit of a wander around the workshop to look at some of the other cars that were there.

This Nissan S14 200SX was sitting on the side, and if memory serves me correctly it's been there for quite a while, and doesn't look to have been driven recently.




Turning through to the adjacent workshop, the closest car was a bit of a surprise for a company that mostly deals with turbocharged Japanese imports; a 1950s Dodge Custom Regal, parked next to a much less surprising Nissan R33 Skyline, and a Nissan Stagea.












Walking back into the main workshop, one of the Boostworx guys had driven his R31 Skyline up near the hoists. It has a rather substantial amount of engine modifications, and from memory the power is somewhere around the 300rwkw mark running E85 fuel.






This Datsun ute looked to have an RB20 shoehorned into it.









Parked behind the black and yellow S14 was this Mazda RX-3 racing car, looking pretty tough with flared arches and wide rims, which I think are Watanabes.




There was another R31 Skyline there which had a rather serious-looking twin turbo setup.




Out on the street was a clean Nissan S13 Silvia.

[rohan]

After doing a lap of the workshop, I went back to my Cefiro to see how things were coming along. With the car up on the hoist, I took the opportunity to get a few photos of the underside of the car, which I'd never really seen properly before.






With the last fins on the bumper trimmed off, it was time to re-fit and properly attach it to the car again.










The standard side-mount intercooler looked rather small and sad sitting all by itself on the concrete.








While I was waiting I took a few more random detail shots.

[rohan]

With the front bumper back on the car, it was time for the dyno run.

[rohan]

[rohan]

At just under 140kw at the wheels it's not going to break any land speed records, but for standard boost and tune it's not a bad power figure.
















And as promised earlier, a little more info on the R34 GT-R that was parked outside when I turned up. Despite looking relatively sedate, with a front-mount intercooler and different rims, it turned out to be anything but. I can't remember the exact details, but with the T51R turbo setup it had on the RB26, it was making roughly 600kw at the wheels. Which makes my 139rwkw Cefiro seem like a toy in comparison.

It was apparently defected on the way back from Mallala after a track day. The owner was pulled over on the side of the road by the police, and the officer went up to the car to have a look. He started by pressing on the boot, saying that since the suspension was stiff it was illegal, and once he saw the aftermarket performance catalogue under the bonnet it was sticker time.

[rohan]

After closing the bonnet on my car and driving off the dyno, there was an odd rattling noise coming from underneath the bonnet. Having a look at the engine bay again, the new intercooler piping was fouling on a few of the radiator fan blades, so there was a little bit of plastic trimming to be done to rectify the problem.


























After a few minutes spent removing a couple of centimetres from the offending fan blades, the Ceffy was good to go.

It was good to be jumping back in the driver's seat again, and I enjoyed giving it a boot down the expressway, with the volume now turned up a bit on the induction and turbo noise side of things. It was also good knowing everything had been checked out, so I didn't have to worry about something going wrong from old fuel or bad spark plugs. So it was good to steer it back into the garage at home, ready for some proper driving soon.

Coming up in Post #15; more daily driving.

[Lewis]

That's a great looking car - great thread, too!

[rohan]

Following the appointment at Boostworx, I was feeling much more comfortable driving it, knowing that the mechanical side of things were ok. But with the black bonnet, I was still kind of edgy driving it around during the day, since it made the car stand out so much. Turbocharged Japanese imports get enough attention from the police without attracting them any further with mismatched panels.

So a couple of days later I started driving a bit more, albeit keeping an eye on the rear view mirror.




Coming home from my girlfriend's house one night, I stopped off to fill up with petrol, and quickly took a few shots of the Cefiro under the lights.






As you can tell in these photos of the front, it needed another wash after being at Boostworx and then parked outside in the rain since.








After topping up the tank, I headed back home again.

A couple of days later, I went into the garage to take some close-up photos of the scratched and mismatched front left quarter panels and bumpers, in preparation for getting it resprayed. The front left corner was the worst off, with a scrape and gouge along the front and top of the wheel arch, as well as lots of scrapes on the front of the bumper.










The side bits of the rear bumper are a darker shade of cream compared to the rest of the body and rear bar.






I then headed over to Supercheap Auto to grab a few things I thought would be useful to keep in the car; jumper cables, a small socket set and some cable ties. I stowed them in the boot along with my HKS intercooler and 'Nissan' rear light garnish.

[rohan]

Later that afternoon toward sunset, I thought it would be good to get a few half-decent shots of the Ceffy with its newly modified front end, and not in a petrol station at night. Since it was still quite dirty, I grabbed the hose to give it a quick rinse, but due to the cold and brittle plastic on the tap, the spigot broke off as I was pulling the garden hose across the front yard, which put paid to that idea.

I threw a bucket of water over it and tried to take some of the grime off with a sponge, but lacking in energy and with cold fingers, I thought it would be better to just grab a few shots with a streaky bonnet than nothing. So I grabbed my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens, and made the huge one minute trek over to the local Foodland carpark, and quickly snapped some shots as the sun went down.






































As I was wanting, the new matte black front mount intercooler is very subtle, and you wouldn't really know it was there unless you were looking for it really.




Coming up in Post #16; bonnet swap and respray quote.

[rohan]

I had been pondering for a while what to do about the black bonnet, and was thinking a respray would probably be best. I had looked around for a white bonnet, but Cefiro spare parts and panels can be hard to come by, so I wasn't having much luck.

Clicking around facebook one afternoon, I saw that local drifter Christian Pickering actually had a white Cefiro bonnet up for grabs in a 'garage sale' photo album. He hasn't had the easiest time with his health either, fighting and beating cancer a few years back. He was still competing in drift competitions between bouts of chemotherapy and surgery, and even managed to place second in the 2007 Toyo Drift Australia Series.

[youtube]



After a couple of quick messages, I organised to buy and pick the bonnet up from Nisswreck the next day, where it was sitting on a Cefiro front-cut. He was about to head off to Japan for some drifting at Ebisu, so reduced the price a little for a quick cash sale before the weekend.


After seeing a couple of his drifting videos the next week...

[youtube]


[youtube]



...it reminded me how much I would love to get over there myself one day for some sliding. He's got the reverse entries down pretty well by the looks of it.

So after hooking up a trailer to my parent's Commodore, I headed over to buy the bonnet and bring it home. I took photos of the load and trailer on the day, but unfortunately I seem to have neglected to actually copy those photos onto the computer at the time, so I only have pictures of the swapping process.

I used what was likely an excessive number of ropes to make sure the bonnet was tied down and secure in the trailer, before carefully making my way back home again, keeping an eye on the trailer in the rear view mirror to make sure it was ok.

Unhitching the trailer from the car, I pushed it to the back of the garage and spent a few minutes unraveling the maze of ropes.














With some help from my girlfriend and younger brother, the white bonnet was moved into the backyard for some cleaning, followed by unbolting the black bonnet and putting it in the trailer.