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| It fits PERFECTLY under the Bendpak lift (at the tray position set to the same level as when the GT-R is parked up there) |
The wait is over! The Skyline is back (or rather, I finally got to drive it home!) and tucked safely away in my garage at home.
I can finally start drriving this car and breaking it in! Midorikawa-san from Nissan Prince Fukushima was kind enough to come down with it on his car loader, in exchange I handed off my GT-R for him to take care of now - the biannual shaken is due, and yeah why not make a few changes while he is at it?
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| See you in a month or so! |
So what work did I have Midorikawa-san at Prince Fukushima arrange for me?
First, I had pre-ordered the vehicle-specific NISMO LMGT4 wheels in gloss black, so even though I really like the OEM wheels, I went ahead and swapped wheels, using the same tires. Note, it's important to keep using these tires as they were developed by Sumitomo tire (i.e. Dunlop) especially for this car, based on the compound they developed for the NISMO R35 GT-R.
Before:
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| Note silver colored lug nuts |
After
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| And with Nismo racing lug nuts! To be honest, having my doubts about this look... |
Second, as you know I tend to be a bit OCD when it comes to protecting and caring for my cars. So naturally, right after I ordered the car I started researching paint protection film shops here in Japan. Yes, for the GT-R I had found a local place that does this for Porsches, but the guys at Nismo have very high standards and recommended I talk to Midorikawa-san. He recommended a local guy in Fukushima who he swore did better work than most of the shops in Tokyo and Yokohama, having done a comparison (and who applied PPF to Midorikawa-san's own R34 GT-R!).
So while the Skyline was at Watabe-san's shop, Midorikawa-san kept me entertained by sending me these progress photos:
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| Yep, had the entire hood/bonnet wrapped... |
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| And the entire front bumper too of course. |
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| Oh, also got smoked (to the maximum degree allowed under Japanese law) film applied to the headlights, fog and DRL! |
And, they were not wrong about Watabe-san. The attention to detail is good, and for a unique car like this we aren't talking pre-cut patterns but bespoke film cutting. When the car came back to Nismo, we inspected his work just to be sure.
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| Check out how awesome that smoked film looks! |
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| I tihnk you can see how white the lenses look here, before film was applied. |
You can see here that in addition to the hood/bonnet and side fenders, he did a good job on the front bumper - cutting around the Nismo logo.
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| Can't tell now... time will tell if dirt and bugs cause build-up and the film to start being noticeable |
In addition, I had him wrap the Skyline Nismo specific side skirts, and to make sure that all body pieces like the front and rear bumpers had protection extending all the way underneath the vehicle, to the further extent possible.
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| Watabe-san himself showing me how far the film extends underneath |
There was also some film applied to the interior, in high wear/risk areas.
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| You can make out the line where the film ends |
Finally, he found some smoke film that matches the dark chrome on the windows, which he applied over the standard chrome inserts on the door handles. He also found film that could be applied over the Nissan logo on the front grill (some sensors are behind that apparently).
Ok then so what work did Prince Fukushima do?
First, they installed this Alpine digital rear mirror with built in dashcam (model number DVR-DM1000B-IC). Or rather, it is a dashcam (with front and rear cameras) that is mirror shaped as it uses rubber bands to loop onto the OEM mirror. I am going to tinker with this as I think there could be room for improvement, but for now this works great. Alpine does provide proper windshield mounts for popular vehicles, but apparently the Nissan Skyline is not one of them.
Second, some cosmetic stuff. First the fake carbon Nismo door inner protectors on the insides of the doors (so if you have a habit of using your foot to kick the door open... it protects the inside of the doors from scratches). Then, one Nissan dealer option - the auto fold mirrors. For some reason, the feature of having the door mirrors fold automatically when you lock the car, is not an option avaialble from the factory. Weird.
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| Apparently a real pain to install. |
More cosmetic stuff - note that the external door mirrors on the Skyline Nismo are just painted black with a red sticker. Anything gloss black risks getting scratched and showing such scratches, so naturally I had them install the OEM dealer option real carbon fiber mirror covers. Putting those red stickers on to make it look like how it was before, but just in carbon, was a nice touch. Same with the trunk spoiler, I changed that out from standard black painted plastic one to the dealer option carbon fiber spoiler that is available on lesser Skylines.
