my R story

In Jan I had to go to europe for a death in the family, so I made the most of it by bringing back some LHD e-code headlamps. 

LHD euro lamps installed. RHD on top for comparison.
Not only are the lights of the correct traffic handedness, they have a better cutoff and beam pattern than the JDM lamps.

Unfortunately last year we had pretty much zero snow in the GTA so I didn't get to test the car's potential at all. I really hope that will change this coming winter!

In mid Feb I took the dash cover off to see why none of the aftermarket gauges were working. 

what I pulled out

what I put back in

After cleaning up the wiring, I realized the sender for the boost gauge was fried so I ordered a new one and that fixed the problem. The other two gauges (I think they're water temp and EGT) still don't work and I haven't cared enough to track down the cause yet. So I just left them unplugged.

I also discovered another random thing. The case around the a/c evaporator was cracked and letting air escape. Air pressure at the vents was really poor even on the strongest fan setting. I taped up the crack and that helped a lot. Still weird. Why would anyone touch that?

At the end of March the clutch blew. Awesome. I was driving on the 401, cruising steadily in 5th gear at 110. I went to accelerate and all I got was slip. I had never beaten on the car or driven it aggressively at all up to this point. Guess all the track abuse finally caught up to it. I managed to baby it to work and I ended up leaving it in the parking lot for about a month while I picked out a clutch and waited for it to ship.

At the same time, my friend pointed out to me that the radiator's plastic end tank was leaking, so I threw a Mishimoto aluminum rad into the shipment.

For the clutch I decided to go with an ACT HDSS (used a Maxima kit, which is identical to their GTiR kit). Took about 3 weeks to get it from California. 

Took another couple months to get the time and space to do the install, and I owe my friend my life for doing it at his work. The previous owner had used Redline 75W90 in the tranny, which is a big no-no as this is a GL-5 gear oil incompatible with brass syncros. So we refilled the tranny with Redline MT-90 (which is GL-4) and put fresh Redline 75W90 in the transfer case.

Fast forward to August, aka last month.

With the car almost ready to roll out with the new clutch, I figured it was a good idea to do the front brakes. 

I ended up using EBC Greenstuffs pads and Brembo blank rotors, OEM size. I do not plan on tracking this car and for the street this setup is more than adequate. Especially in the winter, where the Greenstuffs' less aggressive compound will let me better modulate the brakes on snow and ice.

With the mechanicals pretty much out of the way for now, it was time to add some goodies.

I went down to Buffalo and brought back a roof rack and some bike carriers.

I went down there and bought these totally blind, since I had no idea if the fit clips would fit on the Pulsar's roof line (they were from some older usdm car, nissan or toyota or something). 

Luckily they did. Awesome.

In August I transformed my car into a VW GTi for a day and put it into VAGKraft, the country's biggest VW/Audi show. 

omg wat is dat

The last thing I've been working on is getting better illumination for the back roads at night.

I ordered a set of Hella Micro DE projector foglamps and a set of Hella 500FF driving lamps.

Each set comes as a complete kit with switch, relay, and wiring. 

First thing was to find a decent place to mount the switches. I wanted a clean factory look so I decided I would put them in the center stack alongside the hazard and defroster switches.

But the Micro DE projector kit comes with a huge ugly switch with red and green leds under the button. Too bad it's not 1989 anymore.

So when I was in europe I went scrapyard hunting for an N14 Nissan Sunny rear foglamp switch (all N14s in europe have rear fog lamps). I finally found a car with an unmolested center stack and grabbed the switch and harness-side connector.

hella switch and oem switch side by side

hella harness now tied into the oem switch

The hella driving lamp switch was small and clean enough to keep. I put it into one of the blanks.

installed

I then layed both harnesses on my floor to help me figure out the best way to route them in the car.

After routing the harness, my friend made me some awesome brackets out of 1/4" aluminum bar to mount the driving lights to the rebar. The foglamps also attach directly to the rebar. The existing holes had to be enlarged and the plastic brake duct trimmed to clear.

result

I'll post some beam pattern pics when I get a chance to take them later.

I'm pretty happy with the car as it is and I don't intend on doing anything else to it before the winter. I just want to enjoy it finally.

Once sorted, the car has incredible grip on loose surfaces, in the wet and on snow.

I forgot to mention that I got an alignment for it, with a decent amount of rear toe out to help the back end rotate. 

The car requires a lot of patience and, being 20 years old, a lot of understanding. But when the thing isn't broken it's really fun!

nice writeup, turned the car  to a vw-lol, do you have any pics of the dash cover- car really looks good

how did those rims turn out for you?

Wicked write up I would love to see some of those beam patterns I've been wanting to mount some offroad lights on my car and maybe even get like a light bar on the roof for more lighting :P

rims were good  i sanded them and my friend helped me paint them

ill get winter spec pics in a few months =)

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i put up the beam pics. you can find em here
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and i got a new paint job yesterday =)

Woah that's some good lighting I'll probably get some driving lights too now :D You also should've done a low beam + fogs and high beam plus fogs.

Awesome man, i can see you're using it well! Great stuff!

Hey what's the difference between the hella 500 and 500ff? And what made you buy one over the other one? Cause I was looking around the other day and I saw them both the 500FF was $10 more thent he regular 500 so I go online and look at the specs. And to me according to the website looks like the normal 500 has a better light spread with more range :S http://www.myhellalights.com/index.php/default/auxiliary-lamps/halogen-lamps/500-series/hella-500-driving-lamp/ http://www.myhellalights.com/index.php/default/auxiliary-lamps/halogen-lamps/500ff-series/hella-500ff-driving-lamp-kit/

The FFs are free form reflectors with a clear, non-fluted lens. This means the beam pattern is created in the reflector (as opposed to being created by the lens). The FFs are said to collect the light more efficiently because of this.

Dunno how true any of it is but that's the story, anyway. 

Also, the 500s (non FF) I saw when I bought mine didnt look as new/updated as the 500s in your link.

I haven't seen the two side by side so I can't comment on which is actually better. I doubt theres a huge difference.

got some cool fog early the other morning

Do you have the model number of that rack? I'm looking for a rack for the car.

I bought it used so I have no idea what the model is.  It's just Thule's base rack system.

Try browsing www.rackattack.com to see what kinda stuff is available. They have lotssss of stuff on their page.

finally made a clutch bracket.

did mine a bit differently from the one-piece twist design

took two pieces of mild flat bar and bent them into L's then welded em together

all i can say is wow what a difference.

not only do i not have to worry about the bracket ripping off at the spot weld one day, the clutch disengages wayyy easier now! guess it helps when all the power is going to the mastercyl and not into flexing the pedal bracket

if you dont already have one...   do it.

Great stuff! Your clutch pedal bracket assembly brace design will likely be way strong enough for sure. Others should check this out as our cars have this as a weak spot.

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EDIT: here's a pic of a broken clutch pedal support bracket with the broken spot welds and sideways collapse of the part evident; it can be seen that the angles for pedal actuation are all wrong; consequently, the clutch mc rod doesn't travel far enough straight forwards to actuate. The clutch pedal got really spongy and took off towards the dead man's pedal just before the sudden collapse.Right mouse click 'View Image' to better see where the few spot welds broke from the firewall.
Nasty to weld in there to repair it via the instrument cluster hole after cutting out the old one, fabbing a replacement bracket, and welding via that instrument cluster and all the wires.
Better yet, an alternative method to re-spot weld the stock bracket if so desired seems to be to go down via the front windshield wiper area under that plastic cover in the engine bay to get to the back of the firewall and spot from there once the replacement is clamped into position on the other side. lol the brace makes so much sense. I'm pretty sure nissan start making them braces like that after a while along with a bunch of other gusseting etc for rally motorsports applications. Seems there is a pdf out there somewhere of the factory racing modifications for the gtir.>>

Anyone who has a squeeky clutch pedal, or, if the pedal is already going a bit sideways when depressed, should do this. My clutch pedal bracket assembly broke. At first, your clutch may not depress fully, you may miss a couple normal shifts and eventually the pedal can fall sideways and you;re left with no clutch and have to match the revs closely at low rpm to make it home or tow.

The brace transfers the support from broken spotwelds on the firewall [you can't get at easily to fix when broken], to the bottom support for the dashboard and steering wheel shaft support bracket just above your knees that is fairly easy. After getting it in i had an extra inch at least on the pedal at the top and clutch action was off the floor where it was when purchased.

A super fix, will you be making any more?

I'd buy one if you were to make anymore because like what 91GTiRgrey said my pedal squeeks and has a lot of play and I do miss a shift here and there even though clutch pedal is fully down

I Literally took a piece of thick sheet, Drilled two holes and twisted it with pliers and a vice. You can make one yourself for like $1.00, or free if you have any sheet laying around.

My pedal had a lot of sideways flex. Now it's rock solid. My clutch throw is dialed in so tight now.

^^^ it's true.

and while I'm confident that my design is superior to the twist style (my pedal force doesn't act through a torsionally stressed piece), i didnt really consider that other people would actually want one. so i didn't make a jig for it or anything

given the above about how easy it is to make one yourself I doubt anyone would want to spend money on my version anyway

for it to be worth my while to make more it'd have to cost 40 or 50 bucks

I'm in for 50$

man how can a ski rack look so good!?  I just don't get it,  but it really makes the car!   and I have made a simalar brace out flat bar,.  I just need to install it ;(

winter mode (finally)

Awesome looking GTIR mate. any change you could post some closer pics of the roof racks? Does your car have mounts for them already or do they clip onto the window frame? Cheers