1988 Nissan A31 Cefiro

[rohan]

After buying the dvd and a D1 sticker sheet for fun, we headed back home, stopping on the way to take a few photos at sunset.











With some nicely lit photos in the bag, I headed for home.

[rohan]

With a couple of friends having a bit of time off work one sunny afternoon, we thought it would be a good opportunity to do a few bits and pieces on our cars, something that hadn't happened for quite some time.

Before I left home I had a bit of a look at how the current grille was attached, and took a couple of photos of the two.






I then headed over to Daniel's house and parked in the driveway.

[rohan]

Prach's Toyota JZX100 Chaser, which you'll probably recognise from previous posts.



After picking up a rolling R31 Skyline shell from crash repair shop owner Cameron, who used some parts for his FB wagon, Daniel pulled out its speedo cluster, as the one in his Pintara wasn't particularly accurate. The new one would prove to be spot on when we tested later that night.

[rohan]

Both mine and Daniel's cars have fairly minimal exhaust systems, so are quite loud, while Prach's Chaser has a couple of mufflers, and in comparison you can hardly tell it's running. Cue some gentle encouragement from us for some straight pipes while he had a look under the car.

[rohan]

I'd also brought my WRX radio control rally car for some fun. At only $15 from K-Mart, it was definitely a good buy, and goes quite fast and far for such a cheap plastic toy car. Still not great on dirt with only rear wheel drive though, so Daniel's very sick daughter Ella rescued it while Prach was 'driving'. i.e. crashing into things and getting stuck.





Like me, Ella has a long list of pretty critical medical problems. As you can see in the picture above, at the time she had a naso-gastric tube for medications and fluids. Due to a childhood stroke and related issues, she aspirates fluids into her lungs.

You can read more about her serious health struggles in the pdf document linked below. And if you're feeling generous, a donation towards this project to help her would be very much appreciated:

www.sayso.com.au/weddings/pics/TheMissEllaSkyeProject.pdf

[rohan]

Since I bought the Ceffy, I'd been asked a few times about the offset on my Buddy Club P1 rims, but I'd never actually gotten around to removing them to find out. And since I was thinking about getting some meshies, I figured it would help to at least know what the specs were on my current wheels. So while we had some tools out, Daniel jacked the rear of the car up, and started loosening the wheel nuts. My arms are much less suited to that kind of grunt work, so I helpfully took photos and played with the radio control car instead.

I'd brought along my little GoPro HD camera, and set it to take photos every two seconds while we were working on the car. It made for a cool little time-lapse clip of the process.

[Soopahfly]

Kalimba. Nice ;D

[rohan]

Yep, good old Windows 7 sample music. I'll probably buy some royalty free music to use for background in other time lapse clips.

[rohan]

With the rear wheel off, we had a look inside for the stamp with the wheel specs; 17x9, with an offset of +27.

[rohan]

Then it was on to the front.





The R33 brake upgrade earns its keep in the hills, the coilover is losing some fluid though.



The fronts turned to to be 17x8, +22.

[rohan]

With the wheel specs noted, we moved on to replacing the grille. After Prach spent a couple of minutes fiddling with a few screws and clips, the old grille came out quite easily.



It kind of looked like a hillbilly with no front teeth when I closed the bonnet to see what it looked like without anything there.





The new one was pretty easy to snap in place, and a few minutes later the Ceffy had a markedly altered front-end appearance.

[rohan]

Once we'd got both cars sorted and ready to go, Daniel and I headed up to Japanese Import Spares on the way to the hills, for a more informed look at different rims, sizes and offsets.

[rohan]

There was a sedan sitting at the warehouse door with the front wheels on ramps, and a couple of guys working on it. I didn't have a good look at the time, but I think it's a Toyota JZX80 Cresta or Chaser, a model I don't recall having seen on the roads at all.




The style I'd most taken a liking to were these kind of mesh rims. There are so many variations of similar styles that I'm not 100% what these are, but I think they're Work Stitches.



I had a look at the specs; the rears were 17x10s, -23. A full inch wider than the P1s, and with a negative offset, they would be very hard pressed to not stick out the guards like a 4wd. But we rolled one outside to see how it looked next to the car anyway.

One the way through the warehouse, one of the guys working there asked what car it was for. I said a Cefiro, and he had a bit of a 'That ain't gonna fit..' expression when I said it. Which is a fair point, the 17x9 P1s are pretty much flush with the guards as it is.

They did look good when Daniel rolled it across the rear wheel arch.





There was no way they would fit without some serious guard rolling, but it was fun to have a look anyway.

[rohan]

Back inside, we had a look at a few more rims that would fit our respective cars.

They have new stock coming in frequently, if you wanted to browse some parts, have a look at their website: japaneseimportspares.com.au/home/

[rohan]

After a bit of a poke around and with daylight fading, we started to head up towards Tea Tree Gully and into the foothills. After a fairly busy day physically, my stomach wasn't all that pleased with me doing more than usual, so I was feeling rather off for a while on the drive up.

Having syringed a couple of cups of water through my jejunostomy feeding tube before we left, the fluid had made its way south, and before we drove up into the hills, I stopped at a tavern for a few minutes.




With sunset fast approaching, I jumped back into the Ceffy, and let Daniel take off in front of me. His Pintara makes around 160kw at the wheels compared to my Cefiro's 139kw, so he does have the upper hand power wise. Although I'd already been on several hills runs at this point, both by myself and with my girlfriend Sally, being able to head out with a mate in another noisy turbocharged car was awesome.

So we wound around some of the twists and turns for quite some time, enjoying the power, the fresh air, and the sounds of spooling turbos and crackling exhausts against the trees and rocky hillsides. Driving in the hills was enough fun to take my mind off feeling sick; although this generally doesn't work if you're in the passenger seat. By the time we made it into the small town of Gumeracha, the sun had just set, which meant there wasn't much light left for photos.

So we both pulled into the carpark adjacent to the town's main oval, and I grabbed my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4, and started rattling off some shots while there was still enough available light left.

Without a tripod or enough time to use one anyway, I just pushed the ISO up on the camera, while opening up the 50mm to let as much dusk light in as possible. It was really quite cold by this point, fortunately I had a jacket in the back of my car to wear, but Daniel was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and didn't find standing outside in the chilly hills air particularly comfortable.

So here are some of the quick snaps I took of our cars.





























After getting thoroughly frozen while standing outside taking photos of the cars, and the sky darkening too much for handheld photos, we headed back to Adelaide.

[rohan]

When I bought the Cefiro, I was under the impression that it already had a HICAS lock bar fitted. But while taking the rear wheel off, Daniel pointed out the fact I didn't actually have one. So the week after I made a trip to Sleeka Spares to pick up a lock bar kit.

www.sleekaspares.com.au/


One thing I like about visiting import/performance workshops, is that there are usually at least a couple of interesting cars around whenever you go. Walking across the road, I saw this late 1990s Toyota Corolla Levin coupe sitting in a yard opposite Sleeka Spares, a model that is very rare here.



There were a few carcasses walking through the gate, including this Toyota Celsior which had certainly seen better days.



I wasn't expecting it, but there were actually two Cefiros sitting in front of the shop, clearly both track only drift cars.

[rohan]

The pink and black Ceffy belongs to Kelly Wong, one of the shop owners. A very small minority being a female drifter, she takes it to the track for some sideways action quite often, here's a short clip from Mallala.







Once inside I had a bit of a look around at the parts and stuff, and then bought the lock bar kit.

[rohan]

The Cefiro was becoming a daily driver now, and I drove it around to places fairly regularly. Sally and I visited a couple of friends who run a hip-hop/breakdance studio, and while they practiced I mucked around a bit taking photos using the mirror and reflections in the window, which made for some interesting shots.

[rohan]

A few more random photos.

[rohan]

I got the itch for more hills driving after puttering around the suburbs, so on a decidedly grey afternoon I made my way up to Gorge Road, and proceeded to increase my fuel usage threefold.

It began raining fairly soon after I started to drive further east, which made the drive a bit different to the others. After the first section of Gorge Road it settled down a bit, and I pulled into a lookout area as the sun came streaming through the fast-moving clouds.









While I do like having my car nice and clean, there was a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing the Ceffy dirty and dripping wet, with the exhaust burbling away as I snapped some pics; it's made for enjoyable drives like this.