Lonewolf Online

Ice Crystals on the Roof of my Skyline

Monday 11th February 2008  

As I went out to the car this morning, I was greeted with a sheet of ice all over the windows, then I noticed the sun glistening in this beautiful crystalline formation on the roof. I just had to take a picture to share (see attached).

 

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This post is filed under Nissan Skyline by Lonewolf at 4:02pm

Wreckage Photos

Friday 1st February 2008  

After a lot of thought I have decided to release a few pictures of what was left of my Honda Civic after the car crash I was involved in two years ago this month.

In February 2006, as I was driving home from work down a quiet B road after my late shift had ended (11pm), an oncoming driver lost control of his vehicle and ended up on the wrong side of the road, on a blind corner. Both my car and the oncoming MPV were doing between 55-60mph which resulted in a combined impact speed of 110mph I was hit head on.

Luckily I’m still here to tell the tale and still recovering from my injuries which you can read more about here.

This is what’s left of my Civic, not a lot. I didn’t see the wreck myself, but I’m told that there wasn’t a straight panel to be found. See how the exhaust is flattened? That was due to the car lifting off the ground during the impact and landing with considerable force. The boot lid is a few inches clear of the rest of the bodywork, as are the doors; the whole car is banana shaped.

 

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This post is filed under Car Crash, Injury and Recovery, Honda Civic, Nissan Skyline, Photography by Lonewolf at 9:03pm

Servicing at Abbey Motorsport

Saturday 17th November 2007  

The Skyline must be feeling a little unwanted as I haven’t driven her since my wrist operation in September. She has been treated to a full check over and service ready for winter at Abbey Motorsport. My brother-in-law was kind enough to drive us down and back over two weekends.

While she was at Abbey, I had new brakes fitted all round - DBA discs with Ferodo DS2500 pads on the front and standard GTR pads on the rear. I also had the brake lines replaced with Nismo braded lines for added braking efficiency - the GTR is a heavy car and needs all the stopping power it can get.

I have also finally had the exhaust gas temperature gauge replaced. The old one broke about 8 months ago, so now I am using the VeilSide gauge I purchased at Japfest 2007.

(Un)fortunately Abbey found the cause of my faulty boost gauge - the heater core was leaking coolant onto the electrics! This incurred extra cost as they had to dismantle the climate control to replace the entire heater matrix. While they were at it I asked for a full air conditioner service and recharge. I also had to have a new boost controller fitted to replace the soggy one.

I have also fitted (myself) Piaa silicone windscreen wipers ready for winter and new Piaa Xtreme Cool Blue White Light headlights so I can see driving down the country lanes on my way home from work.

Now I have my GTR back on the road, I can start saving up for the next service!!!

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This post is filed under Nissan Skyline by Lonewolf at 8:45pm

VeilSide Titanium Teardrop Exhaust

Wednesday 23rd May 2007  

I bought a VeilSide exhaust at Japfest last Saturday from Nemesis Performance trade stand (with a huge reduction in price) and it has just arrived.

We spent this evening fitting and testing it, we had a little problem with one of the hangers being not high enough but we got around that easily enough. It has a loud, deep burble on idle which I love, it sounds great on full throttle and the overrun is fantastic (pop, pop, bang!, pop, bang!) however for a daily driven car the normal cruising speed is defining inside the car :(. I am looking at getting a silencer insert for it as will as sound deadening in the boot (which I will first have to make water tight as it leaks - what is it with Jap cars and boot leaks :roll:)

Just waiting for a dry day where the engine is cold to install the VeilSide Exhaust Temperature Gauge.

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This post is filed under Nissan Skyline by Lonewolf at 10:46pm

Thrills and Spills at Japfest 2007

Sunday 20th May 2007  

Japfest is one of the UK’s largest gathering of Japanese Performance vehicles, and this year was set to be the biggest Japfest ever. There were plenty of high performance cars on show, including Ten of the Best, Driftworks and loads of other power cars.

I have only previously been to one other Japfest in 2005, in which car clubs were the main emphasis, however this time it seemed to be more on the tuning companies and track shows. Not that I’m complaining mind you, we all love to see the Driftworks gang tearing up the tarmac!

A few spills this year, the first I saw was a Honda NSX spinning into the tyre wall then rolling over. Good job Honda’s are safe as it was a fast impact. Car is a write-off but luckily the driver walked away seemingly uninjured.

Zen performance were looking very fast on track until the scooby engine blew up in flames, not sure what happened as we only saw the smoke. Everybody looked OK though which is the main thing. Only a few minutes after they had cleared that up another car decided to catch fire in exactly the same place - this time it was the Whifbitz RX7. Shortly after that another one went up in the pit lane. We don’t know what that was though.

Trade stands were packed all out, but I did get a load of Meguiars stuff and I managed to secure a VeilSide Titanium “Tear Drop” exhaust for my GTR as well as a VeilSide Exhaust Gas Temperature gauge to replace my faulty Blitz gauge. Now I have no money

With all this action going on, plus all the show cars I took over 900 photographs on the day, filling up four CF cards. Took all of Saturday evening and most of Sunday to process them! So head over to the gallery NOW to see my Japfest 2007 Photos.

 

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This post is filed under Events, Nissan Skyline, Trackdays by Lonewolf at 5:13pm

Strange Lights in GTR (Part 2)

Monday 30th April 2007  

The light in the roof of my Skyline remains a mystery. So far the best idea is that it is some kind of map light or pace notes light. This was suggested by Jim from the GTR owners club.

The red light is for night vision, the green light aids visual enhancement to see map details and the mirrors create a polarizing effect so that the light does not reflect off the dash or windscreen.
You can Read the full post on gtr.co.uk.

I have finally had chance to test this theory, and I can say that as a map light this is very impractical. The light is barely bright enough and is in totally the wrong position.

The light is bright enough when it leaves the slots, but by the time it reaches the mirror it would be too faint to see whilst driving. I have been outside for about 2 hours so my eyes were pretty accustomed to the light by then.

The beam of light is also far to narrow, it is like looking through a letterbox. The position of the dash and the windscreen rule out some kind of map holder there, as there is not enough space.

The position of the beam of light is also wrong, you have to look up to see the map.

The mirror can be adjusted up and down, however you can’t adjust it much or the light gets stopped by the slats and breaks up.

I used my proper camera (Canon 350d dSLR) for these pictures as it is far superior to the little one at low light levels and one thing I did notice on the pictures is that the green/red are split, not combined. The red only accounts for a small fraction of the beam.

 

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This post is filed under Nissan Skyline by Lonewolf at 11:44pm