Mark's GT-R Build

[Mark Setter]

But I have a question. Should I plan on sanding, priming and painting the splitter, or should I polish and wax the gel coat and leave the surface unpainted? I am planning on using bed liner paint on the under side of the splitter since I know I will be repairing it, since the car is a street car.

Any suggestions on which way to go for the top side of the splitter?

 

[Jared V]

But I have a question. Should I plan on sanding, priming and painting the splitter, or should I polish and wax the gel coat and leave the surface unpainted? I am planning on using bed liner paint on the under side of the splitter since I know I will be repairing it, since the car is a street car.

Any suggestions on which way to go for the top side of the splitter?

If you mean by painting the same as the body color my opinion is I prefer it dark or black to compliment some other accents you might have on the car. I avoided having a carbon splitter for the reasons you state regarding it being a street car. I know I will bash mine up. The carbon splitter does look nice but not practical on a car with 3" of clearance on PA roads.

 

[Mark Setter]

I decided to polish the gel coat on the top half of the splitter rather than paint it black. I am using truck bed liner on the underside. Originally I was concerned that the gel coat black would not match the black used in powder coating the rear diffuser, but I will use the splitter black as the color chip for the rear. Using bed liner makes the inevitable repairs to the splitter easier. I have the first coat of bed liner sprayed and it looks really good.

 

[Mark Setter]

I am back in the shop and had the help of my good friend, Dr. Jim Fraser, a master car builder from Michigan for a few days. I was able to add body filler to the under side of the splitter to get a smooth junction going from the splitter to the floor pan, then taped off the under half of the splitter and painted the under side with truck bed liner. The upper half I buffed and polished the gel coat as a final finish.

 

[Mark Setter]

I had to remove inches from the body above the splitter to get the stance I was after and get the clearance needed for a street car. This also meant removing the same amount from the aluminum body supports. When it came time to mount the splitter, the fiberglass "bracket" used to connect the splitter to the body that was provided with the car was no longer useful. The vertical body section below the "snout" ended up being 7/8 of an inch and the fiberglass bracket was 3 inches. As a result, we made some aluminum brackets to provide that connection. The best body alignment was achieved when we were able to put a little tension on the body panel just ahead of the wheel well and these brackets were able to maintain that subtle pressure on the panel.

 

[Mark Setter]

With the splitter mounted, the body profile looks much better.

 

[Mark Setter]

Now we can finally re-mount the radiator and the AC condenser. With the splitter now inches above it's previous position, the radiator was repositioned with an increased angle but we were able to get a close fit to both the splitter on the bottom and the front clam on the top. It ended up with the radiator having a 45 degree angle to the splitter providing the best fit. We had to remount a few items in the front, like one of the horns, but overall the area looks very similar to the way I had it before the front end modification.

In looking back, I would STRONGLY RECOMMEND this area be addressed as one of the first items in a GT-R build. Although there is a great deal of work to modify this area. it would have been much easier to do this before putting items in the front.

 

[Ken Roberts]

Hi Mark. Thanks for showing how to adapt the guts of the Impala OEM mirrors to the GT-R mirror housings. I just finished doing mine. Here is some additional info on the parts needed for electrical connection.

Here is where to buy the connector and nine pins needed for the Impala switch.
Delphi 10 Way Cream Metri-Pack 150 Unsealed Female Connector - EFI Connection, LLC

Here is the Impala switch part number. #15261340. It can be bought on E Bay shown here.
15261340 | eBay

You can also buy a ready made pigtail but it's very expensive. #12101762 or AC DELCO PT150
12101762 | eBay

 

[Ken Roberts]

Here is the connector pin out and the wiring schematic. Disregard the mirror heater circuit as these mirrors don't have that feature.

I can email the wiring schematic as a PDF as well if anyone is interested.

 

[Mark Setter]

Hi Ken: Thanks for sharing this info on the mirrors. I am just getting ready to start the body aspects of the car so your timing could not be better. I am presently working on the air intake. I don’t know if you remember, but I started out with a K&N filter system that was small in diameter and you suggested some ways to go bigger. Thanks for that suggestion. I will soon be able to show some photos of the new air intakes. I appreciate all of your help.

 

[Mark Setter]

I finally have made it back to the shop after some travels. At the last report, I finished mounting the re-located splitter and re-mounted the radiator. Now I need to get all of the hoses and wiring re-connected. Hardest things first, and that would be the AC hard lines.

I was able to use the previously fitted hard lines, but they required some significant "massaging" and some new support locations.

 

[Mark Setter]

When I re-mounted the radiator, it needed to be as close as possible to the "floor" of the space, that being the splitter surface, and as close to the front clam as possible on the upper edge. Having moved the splitter up more than 2.5 inches required the radiator to be mounted at a much more acute angle. I had a third consideration in the mounting..... I wanted to use the same coolant line tubing, if possible.

I was able to get all of these accomplished, but it required having the stainless coolant tubes be up off of the splitter surface. No problem, but I had to made some support brackets.

I also had to re-mount the horns. Not as easy as it might seem because the front clam "nostrils" get really close to the brake system reservoirs and the horns as you see them in the photos.

 

[Mark Setter]

Next comes cleaning up the wiring and hose layout in the front.

 

[Mark Setter]

I was able to spend some time today to get some of the wiring cleaned up in the front area and get the battery put in place.

 

[Mark Setter]

I ordered some fog light buckets from H and I am getting ready to install them. I have to say that H makes fantastic pieces. These buckets have a top edge that matches the edge on the bodywork, to easily facilitate the install process. The forward edge is pre-trimmed to make the install precise and bulletproof.

Thanks H for making these parts available to us, but also for making them exceptional!

 

[Mark Setter]

I just retuned from the Hot Rod Power Tour. Great event! I was walking thru the parking lot at the Birmingham, Alabama location and saw a number of people gathered around a car in the parking lot. There are A LOT of AWESOME CARS that run on the Power Tour, so to find a small crowd around a car suggests that this must be something special. It sure was. There was Will Campbell's SLC.

Will has an outstanding example of this really special car.

 

[Mark Setter]

I have received a few requests for information on my exhaust system components, so I thought I would send what info I have to everyone. The mufflers and Cats are from MagnaFlow. You can see the measurements to zero in on the size. I don't know the product numbers since the fabricator ordered all of the hardware. I wrapped the Cats in header heat wrap to improve the performance of the Cats and to reduce the heat around the axles. These are race Cats and the muffler has no restriction. You can literally see right thru it from the full diameter of the inlet to the full diameter of the outlet pipes.

 

[Mark Setter]

The photo does not show it as well as I thought, but the diameter of the muffler is 6 inches and the length is 14 inches.

 

[Johan]

Looks great Mark, very nice.
Where did you find those square heat shield plates?

 

[Mark Setter]

I made the heat shields out of aluminum, adding Second Skin Audio fiber heat barrier then adding Lava Shield. I am using them to protect the shift cables from the heat of the exhaust, the wiring at the back of the motor and the coil packs from the exhaust system.