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Wheres all the Old School members?

13K views 191 replies 69 participants last post by  trbobrk 
#1 ·
02-03 members, where you at? Atomic, WickedG35, MP2050, Fray, GDubinVegas, tnpartsguy, seneb, domiken, freaktroll, midnightg20, 1999g, rlman41299, etc?

Anyone I missed? I know some of us are still around.
 
#142 ·
Ah okay Nelson. I remember seeing that advertised. I'd be afraid to drive it given the price-- and would want to put it in a museum to just stare at it. Plus I already know I don't do well with RHD here in the USA. It sure is pretty though! The engine layout is interesting-- What I observed from staring at it is: no ABS, no cruise control, A/C line on the other side, wiper motor on the other side, different wiper fluid res, less emissions crap, much shorter throttle cable (not the obnoxious loop we deal with for LHD) and the really small battery too! So for import it wasn't required to change the speedo to mph? Is it because of the more than 25 year old age thing? I know a friend imported a Volvo from Canada and the cluster was changed to mph from kph and documented as such when you check the carfax even.
 
#143 ·
Yeah I contemplated the wisdom of buying a collector car for a sometimes daily driver, but decided it was worth it. Don’t plan on making many major changes to it, and if I do I’ll keep the stock parts just in case. The engine bay is certainly going to take some getting used to. The wiper fluid thing is kinda silly sitting up there, but since there’s no ABS, they had room for it. Also, I believe there are brake cooling ducts in the fender wells, so they couldn’t have had the reservoir down where ours are located. I never use cruise anyway and ABS is more of an annoyance when you’re used to pumping brakes if sliding. Don’t plan on driving it on ice anyway since it’ll be a summer car. I’ll definitely need to pick Colin’s brain on questions that are sure to come up. You don’t need to convert the speedo due to 25-year rule, but I’m thinking I’ll need to convert the headlights. Although I’ve heard that some Primera headlight lenses are plastic, so it might not be so easy as getting a set at the junkyard and baking them open to swap beam shields and/or fluted lenses. I know I’ll want to figure out the clutch cable part number for RHD so I can have a spare. Never know when those can snap, and it has always come at the worst time for me. Anyway, it should be a fun learning experience figuring out all the differences.
 
#144 ·
Cool.

I tried buying that car when it was for sale in Japan last October. I'm glad it went to a good home.

P10 Primera headlamps are glass. I haven't converted any of my JDM headlamps, they are fine as is. H4 are real bulbs so the light is pretty good and the cutoff, although going the wrong way isn't really an issue because they don't throw much light up and to the left for signage. They throw no light up and to the right, so if you do need to read signs for whatever reason, a little high beam will solve that. They don't make LHD versions worth putting on because Europe uses a whole different radiator support and I wouldn't hack up the car to install them. Only LHD Asian country is Taiwan, and well Taiwan is weird because it was actually the Yue Loong Motor Company building Nissan's designs that they sort of changed. And G20 lamps although would technically would bolt in are literally garbage in every way.

Autech don't have ABS just because. I don't think a lot of Primera actually have it. I've been lucky 2 of mine do. Air ducts would fit just fine under a washer bottle if you wanted to move it for whatever reason. You'll slowly find out how many little things they added to the G20 to make it nice. Then you'll stop caring because yours is still 10x better even though objectively it isn't.

I have a spare clutch cable just in case. 30770-50J01 I ordered two, but only one came because a 2nd would have taken an extra month and half and I needed the other parts in the order sooner. I'm glad I did because ordering parts from japan is slow with the coronavirus shipping problems.

If you need anything, just let me know.

Next time I drive to Florida or SEMA I should stop by and say hello.
 
#145 ·
I don’t know if I qualify as an old member...not too many posts, but I’ve been on here for at least15 years...I quit driving my P10 out of depression/disgust. Spent three months on the body and repainted myself back in 2011. Went to the store and got hit by a grandmother driving on the road in front of the store, when she was t-boned by a guy driving a stolen truck...she spun around twice, clipped a light pole, went all the way across the parking lot and then rear-ended my car...and pushed it into the building I was parked in front of... so managed to mess up the trunk, bumper, rear quarter panel, hood, and front bumper...all from what was probably a 10mph collision..

So with the virus time off from work, I started looking for things to fix. Love driving this car, but it’s just an effing mess. I replaced the fuel pump, filter, distributer cap and rotor, and it still drives like a champ, just no brakes, lol...

I think I can manage everything except the passenger quarter panel. The old girl got hit right on the corner, so the light is f’d, and the quarter panel is pushed in, which also messes up the trunk, which now doesn’t close all the way.

Hoping someone here will just give me an easy/reasonable fix, or assuage my guilt in getting rid of her. I’d love to drive the G every day, but afraid my wife will kill me if I spend my time fixing it instead of the rest of our house, or a million other things...thoughts?
 
#147 ·
Yeah I figure I’ll have tons of questions for you. Part of my decision to buy it was based in knowing I have a few good resources for info when I get stumped. The info on the headlights and clutch cable are much appreciated. I’ll try to track down a clutch cable ASAP so I have a spare. I already know I need to replace the battery, but it’s a 40B19L series, which is basically a golf cart battery. Can I get a larger size like is used in the G20? I’d rather have an actual car battery if possible.

And yes, if you ever come through Boise be sure to look me up. We’ve got a spare room and I’d love to pick your brain on all things Primera. Would love to see yours at some point as well.
 
#148 ·
Yes, but.
So that battery you got has the JIS pencil posts which are like between 3/4 to half the size of the SAE terminals. If you switch to a standard battery you can get easily in the US, you'll need to do something about the cables.

Negative is easy enough to replace with another cable, because it just goes from the battery, to the frame, to the engine. But the positive goes directly to the starter and is bundled with the whole engine harness stuff so unless you remove the whole thing and replace with the other version, you'll likely need to cut off and replace the positive battery clamp. Alternatively, there are pencil post adapters, that clamp to the SAE battery, and then have a second JIS post. Neither will be 100% original so you have to weight what you are willing to live with.

You can get the little JIS batteries here, they are just more expensive and harder to find. The original Prius had one for the starter.

The metal tray itself is designed for either the big battery or the small battery. You'll just need a new clamp and threaded hook to use the hole in the side of the tray instead of one the comes up from the middle. Also there should be a plastic liner, I'm not sure if it is the same as a g20.

My new favorite battery for the Primera is the 96R. It fills the tray of my Tm perfectly, and also fits my euro spec p11 GTSE (uk size 075) which has a different method of clamping and had a plastic cover that goes over it. Ford uses them in some modern applications so they should be available. Costco US didn't have them when I was looking around, but Costco Canada did so I snagged a Kirkland one up there last year.

As far as needing a bigger battery, when JDM Primera is off, the car is off; there is not alarms or other junk running. My T4 has the little battery. I leave it for weeks and it starts fine.
 
#149 ·
Good man, thanks for all the info! Looks like the 96R can be found quite a few places, so I'll run with that. Need to wait until it gets here though so I can turn in the core. Hopefully it will start to get off the transport. I assume the guy has a jumper pack just in case. Finally loaded it up on the transport yesterday so now I have to wait until next Friday to take delivery.

Hey Colin, have you ever found any solid numbers on how many Autech Versions were made? I know it's gotta be more than the 20 number being advertised, but I've never been able to track down an actual number. Autech doesn't even have any email contact info for me to check with them, although I think I've heard they aren't responsive anyway.
 
#150 · (Edited)
No idea. Not 20.

When I bought my first JDM Primera, I wrote a letter to Nissan customer service in Japan asking the date my car was made (cause I'd give it a birthday party every year for my baby), and mailed it to their headquarters in Yokohama. You know first class mail is only like $1.15?

Anyway I waited and they came back and said sorry we don't disclose information outside of Japan. I couldn't be bothered to have someone in Japan ask the same question because I think they would tell people over there, but just not the round eyed gaijin.

When I asked the same question of Volvo they were like that is a foreign car, we don't know but we can find out. Then few days later came back with April 26th 1995. So my trbobrk has a birthday, but none of my Primeras do; although I do know the months.

My English primera, I don't remember if I asked them the date or not. I did ask how many GTSE were made and they factory is Sunderland said we don't keep track. And like a week later I saw them promoting that they had built a million Jukes or Qashqai so some such nonsense and I'm like oh so now you keep factory records? I know it was built in February, and first registered on 3/31 which is funny because according to my research the GTSE was supposed to be on sale starting April 1st so I think the dealer snuck it in a bit early.
 
#153 ·
Ok I thought I might have seen a page that said 400 when translated in Chrome, but the translation was a bit off so I wasn’t sure that was what they meant. I’m also not sure they actually made them in 94 and 95 or just 94. Mine is supposed to be a 95 but some of the Japanese documentation the imported sent me says 94.

That’s funny that they don’t want to share info with outsiders. Keep the mystique in-house. So do you still have your turbo brick? I was thinking you had that before your first P10. Didn’t your silver/red P10 get crushed by a tree or something? That thing was so nice.
 
#155 ·
I've done the heat gun trick on the old cars, looks fine for a while, but it damages the plastic and looks worse later.
Recently I started using solution finish. I did the bumpers on the racecar late October, still looks good. I might touch it up again just good measure. Follow what this guys says.
I bought it directly from the manufacturer, in California. Amazon has it, but I don't trust them to provide genuine products. I read their reviews. It appears to be all over the place from people that probably didn't do it right. Some people say it is better if it doesn't get wet for a few days, otherwise it might get rain spotty. I put it on the car then immediately drove to Vegas for SEMA so it was dry for a week before I returned to Washington rain.

TL; DR Colin has 5 cars, all RHD. 91 Tm, 93 T4, 94 Tm, 98 GTSE, and a Volvo, and a P10 trailer? so maybe 6 although I'm getting rid of one soon.

The original trbobrk was a 86 740 turbo wagon that I owned in high school 20+ years ago and traded for my first P10 in 2001. In January of this year I bought a T-5R wagon, a car I've always wanted since it was new and I was in elementary school? It was my wallpaper in windows 3.11. But since I was a kid and didn't have $40k to spend on a european luxury car when I didn't even know how to drive...well anyway I got one now. I've never actually seen it though because it arrived in Canada to my importers place on the day the border closed, lol. I might try to go up there soon and bring it down now that it is old enough and even though they keep renewing the border closure 30 days at a time, I think I can get an exemption for official essential trade purposes.

The silver/red (the "sexy beast" according to G20chick) car was indeed squished by a tree in 2006. I had teh11 at the time and it was at my parents house waiting for me to turn it into a track car and windstorm came and down Doug fell. I saved the engine and put it in a new 93.5 shell (Amateur Cipher) in 2007 and drove that daily until 2014; it was a gutted out track car with Autech bits, and carbon everything and never went on a track because I was still building it while being a poor college student. I saved all the good parts and scraped the g20 shell in 2016 upon getting Zenki (super lightweight because no crash safety pre 10/91) Tm from Japan. I've got all the parts transferred over except the gearbox which I'm still fighting; apparently g20 and primera gearbox mounts are different? Who knew? Not me until I tried to lift the gearbox in place last weekend and it didn't fit and also tweaked my back at the same time. I've brought it to the West Coast Convention twice now even though it was slow and auto. It has all the cool stuffs, caged out, gearbox now, engine stuff is next. Maybe I'll put that 20v in it I bought for it in 2011.

I also bought a 98 GTSE in England with the flippity floppity paint, drove it around for two weeks in 2017, put it on a boat. It isn't legal here, so it lives in Canada and I visit it like a deadbeat dad couple times a year to wash the dust off. NHTSA so far has said no to my show and display petition; I'm trying to appeal their decision.

I also bought a T4 (Attesa) as a winter beater even though it showed up after winter was over for the year. Meanwhile Zenki chucked its crank pulley and shredded its drive belts a few weeks before the 2018 National SR20 convention so Attesa got subbed in at the last minute and I took the heaviest and slowest p10 ever made out of the track. Then went and got a slice of Key Lime Pie in Key West, then drove home. Following winter was 3 feet deep so I'm glad I had her AWDness, but then she got rear ended last summer. After a year of fighting with the insurance company, I've finally settled on that. I get discouraged everytime I see it, it remains unfixed, and for sale soon as I have the motivation to take some current pics.

I also bought another Tm, this time a 94 so it has all of the new stuffs; even has p11 steering wheel and turn signal stalks. 13k miles on it so it is the brand new daily beater for not driving anywhere because I'm stuck in pandemic lockdown. It is weird having a brand new car again. Probably get another 20 years of driving out of it.

P10TRLR is a trailer that will match my Zenki 91 trackcar. I started this crazy nonsense in 2013, and not much happened until recently when all the metal work got done. Imagine two trunks back to back. Needs paint.
 
#156 · (Edited)
Thanks for the info on the solution finish. I'll check it out. Need to see the Primera in person so I know what's been done to it. If they tried to paint that part, I may need to paint it in order to cover up the streaking. If it'll restore without paint, I'll go that route.

Wasn't TL for me, and I did read it. I like car stories. Especially liked the part about the T4 cross-country trip with track/pie. You're braver than I am to take a car with that many unavailable parts on a cross-country road trip and back. You've also had lots of bad luck with your cars. Hope you're all set with the new Tm now. I vaguely remember seeing a pic of the P10TRLR back when you were starting it. That was around when I stopped frequenting here much, I think.

My first car was a Volvo, too - a 1980 240DL wagon in mustard yellow with the brown vinyl seats. I loved that thing, even though it was heavy as a dump truck and had moped-like horsepower. Got T-boned right in the driver door in my high school parking lot my junior year though. Probably saved my life since it was built like a tank.

After that I had a 1985 brick red (non-turbo) 740 wagon for a bit, but my sister ended up taking it off to college. A 1986 white Subaru GL-10 followed that, which was my first turbo car and my first absolute lemon. So many overheating issues and coolant leaks that I think I only had it for about a year. It was fun to drive when it was working, and I still miss the cool digital cluster with the little turbine animated graphic when it spooled up.
19727


When I went off to college in Buffalo, NY (I'm from Bend, OR originally) I got my first Nissan. A blue 88 Pathfinder SE, which I absolutely loved and it got me hooked for life (on 80s/90s Nissans anyway...they'll never get me back on newer stuff until they come out with something that has angles on it again). Had that for a few years before it overheated on the freeway at night and I wasn't paying attention to the temp gauge. Ended up warping the block and was beyond salvaging. Still got a pretty good sale price for the body since nobody can get older vehicles back there without tons of rust and mine was in perfect shape. Sold it to the mechanic at the dealership who was going to swap the motor out.

Was in a pinch for transportation so I had to get something quickly after that, and I basically stumbled on a 5-speed (all of these up until this point have been 5-speed) KH2 93.5 G20. Loved everything about it, and had it for a few years until I moved back west. That was the car that I had when I joined Gnet in 2002. Did some bolt-ons and started learning about cars with that one. It was getting some rust spots from the Buffalo winters and I found a really nice condition KH3 95 P10T on eBay, so I flew down to LA and drove it back to Boise. Swapped a few parts over, then sold the 93.5. That was in 2005.

Fifteen years, a wife, two kids and two houses later....still driving the same car daily. Whenever my wife tells me to get something "from at least this century," I remind her that my P10 shows my loyalty and it should make her feel more secure in our marriage to know I'm not a guy to trade stuff in for newer models. I like what I like and I won't change. Now, I've cheated on my P10 (not on my wife) a time or two along the way...89 K5 GMC Jimmy, 02 Isuzu Trooper, 74 International pickup...but have always kept the P10 as my daily. My wife has an 08 Pathfinder LE and I have a 93 Pathfinder XE for winter. Only reason I haven't been on here in forever is because I had swapped over a W11 Avenir motor with S4 cams and T28R turbo back around 2009, and the thing hasn't caused me any problems in the last 11 years other than a burnt-out clutch and leaky power steering hoses. Also, kids have kept me pretty busy and not thinking about car stuff as much anyway.

Was about to get my car repainted a few weeks ago since black swirls, fades and just generally sucks. I swore I'd never get another black car. I was hunting around online for Autech parts to add to it before repainting it if possible, and I found the Autech Primera. After debating myself for about two weeks about whether it was worth it to take a big step down in power and luxuries to own an authentic Autech, I finally decided to just do it. If I had some land like I assume you must, I'd keep both of them. But I don't so my other P10's gotta go. There's another member on here, John (space1) who lives about 2 miles from me and is interested in it, so I may still get to see it driving around and know it has a good home. I just won't try to race it.
 
#157 ·
Took delivery last night around 10:30pm. Battery was dead as a doornail so we had to jump it to get it off the truck. Ended up looking for a 96R today but it's too big. The one that came with this thing is sooo tiny. Here's a comparison of it side-by-side with a 96R. The 96R is wider and longer.

19728


I ended up having to get a 36B20L/NS40ZL. It's a powersport-sized battery. It's made by Yuasa, which is a Japanese company, so at least that's cool. I was afraid I was going to have to run one from Lowe's that said "Lawn and Garden" on it. The battery tray on this car is exactly that size too. The plastic tray is an exact fit for both width and length and the metal tray is the same width but about a half inch longer. It's funny because it has the holes in the middle of the plastic tray to potentially accommodate even smaller batteries, but the holes aren't drilled through the metal tray and if the center hole was used for a battery tie-down post the battery would have to be like 2 inches wide.

19729


Looks like the previous owner installed an HID kit on it, which is both kinda cool and kind of a bummer. The light output is excellent though.

19731


Thank goodness for Google Translate camera feature. Although apparently it thought the paint scratches on the inside of the fuel door were kanji/katakana characters.

19732
19730


Now I've gotta go get it all registered and whatnot. More questions to come, guaranteed! Did I see you post somewhere else that the FWD Primera brakes are different than G20 brakes? I'll probably need to get some soon.
 
#158 ·
As far as I know, the 2.0 fronts are the same as G20. 1.8 fronts are same as nx2000 brakes. AWD rears use the same pad as G20 but slightly different. 2.0 FWD rears are really different. Same rotor size, but the caliper is small. I think it might be the same as old S13s If you need pads, I have what I pulled from my Tm.

I don't know exactly what they put on Autechs.

If it was me, I'd swap everything for 280/278 and be done with it. It will fit under 15" wheels, which I know you don't have the original 15" 5 spokes but yeah they would fit if you want.

For that you would need:
P11 torque member bracket, or some altimas
A32 torque member bracket, max or i30 don't matter
P11 front rotor, or A32 if you 5 lug
04 Spec-V w/brembo option rear rotor, or A32 if you 5 lug.
P10 G20 rear calipers. Biggest expense
US eBrake cables. Biggest pain in the ass to install.
And pads in your favorite flavor.
And toss/cut/bend the rotor shields.
And if you've gone this far, stainless goodridge lines. Your rubber lines are probably shot anyway. My 91's looked horrible. I'm too scared to look at the others.
 
#159 ·
Yeah, I was planning on doing the P11 front brake upgrade anyway. Hoping to get my calipers powdercoated while they’re off. And I definitely should upgrade to stainless brake lines while I’m at it. Never done the lines before so that will take some googling to figure out the bleeding process. Do you know what model of Goodridge lines will work? Doesn’t look like they have G20 available. I would think the same year Altima since I’ll be using P11/Altima brakes (up front, anyway) but I’m not sure on line length. MacPherson strut mounting points would be different I assume.

Might just leave the rears as-is and try to find pads for them.

And you’re right, I’m starting to see all the little tweaks they made on the G20 to make things better. Things like the fogs going off with the headlights, pass-through rear seats (mine has basically a piece of Coraplast corrugated plastic covering the opening in the trunk), passenger door keyed unlock that opens all the locks, etc. Still super fun to drive though. I have flipped on my wipers by mistake like 10 times when turning. Like a nüb.

How’s your race car project coming? Saw on FB that you’ve got your T4 up for potential sale. That’s kind of a bummer. I started stalking the Gnet group again (via my wife’s account this time since I don’t have FB anymore) so I can try to get back into the game. Been out for so long that I can’t remember hardly any of the stuff I used to know. Half the time I’ll search for an answer and see that I either already asked it or already answered it myself like 10 years ago.
 
#160 ·
I just used P10 fitment. Mine is the early model that bolted to the spindle, for which they gave me an adel clamp and I just tossed them and zip tied it cause I thought it laid tighter and better out the way. I have rear coilovers without line holders so that end doesn't matter either, once again zip tied to something. I think I got them from tirerack. They sell them anyway.

Yes, the wrecked T4 is for sale / has sold. Whatever. If I find one in a better color and sunroof and ABS maybe I'll buy another one. But otherwise, meh.

The Zenki racecar is on blocks waiting. With SR2020FL postponed I took the break in the action to finally do the auto>5spd swap. Gearbox is out, my Frankensteined b13/93.5 G20/96 G20 pop out resistant VLSD gearbox won't go in because the mount is different on a Primera, waiting for japan to send me one ( I was going to reuse the G20 mount).
 
#161 ·
Got most of my suspension swapped over from my old P10 tonight (braces and bars). Still need to do coilovers. It came with what looked like Tein/KYB SR Special combos. Springs had no markings on them but they were Tein green. Nowhere near as low as my Teins on my other P10 though.

There was a Diamond KeePer bubble decal on one of the windows, so I googled it and apparently it’s some kind of Japanese car wash/coating method. It’s ridiculously shiny, so I’m hoping it isnt all part of a system where if I stop taking it there to be coated, it starts flaking and gets dull. Basically it looks like they wash it and clearcoat it with each visit. Would explain the gloss, but might also explain why the paint looks newer than 81k Kms and the rest looks older.

That gearbox sounds like a nightmare. Hope they get your parts quickly. You guys have a track up by you? Nearest one we have is just a drag strip...no real course to speak of,
 
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