Thursday 29 September 2016

Rays Engineering SUPERVOLK - 15"

Rays Engineering, Super Volk.
15x6.5JJ +18
4x114.3
Monday the 17th of June, 1985.

Sounds familiar? That'd be because I wrote a very similar post a whisker over 11months ago, covering the 14" SuperVolks I'd just restored to run on my AW11.
The time since has been tremendous.. and I still love those little wheels on the AW11. 

Instagram shot from last Saturday. Yep; no real intention to change these wheels anytime soon...

So. The set at hand. The "New Old Stock set of 15's" mentioned in the post above.
One inch bigger... half an inch wider... a little lower offset... and never been used. Thirty-plus years of just sitting around...
Picked the set up off Yahoo Auctions Japan sometime... err... 18ish months ago? They're a damn classic - I couldn't say no..!

Repeating what was no doubt covered in the previous post: they're a one-piece cast-hollow wheel, with a centrally-mounted valve filling the tyres through those hollow, pressurized spokes; properly directional (the wheel used for this photoset is a left-side wheel); and a recipient of a Good Design Award when introduced the year before. It was those hollow spokes, I'm sure... 

Tapped hole for the specific valve, hidden behind the centrecap...

One pack of two valves for each pair of wheels, with instructions..

Two caps and a cap removal tool for each pair of wheels..

SUPER VOLK. Love the packaging, as always..

The simple domed caps, and familiar Rays Engineering cap removal tool...

...*all together now*...

The original SUPER VOLK spoke decal, I hadn't bothered reproducing for my other set...

Love that little curve/radius where the spoke rolls up onto the lip of the wheel...

The angled leading-edge of the spoke, designed to cut at the air within the wheel.. pulling air past the brakes. The fact this actually gets noticeably more brake dust than the back of the spoke? It's definitely doing something.. 

SUPER PROGRESSIVE MONOCOQUE AERO WHEEL. SUPER VOLK

...aerrrooo wheeeeeel...

The cap removal tool is designed to simply hook in, and pull on the back of the cap - not lever on the face like a screwdriver on the edge of a paint-tin!

A look down one of the hollow spokes; paint coverage quickly fading away...

Reverse of the wheel. A flat mounting pad, perfect for redrilling; and the original silver wheel spec decal. 

RAYS ENGINEERING. Artisan spirit, we are obstinacy.

A better look at those valves again, with the classic RAYS marking on the cap.

Now for a little period advertising: a nicely-done series of magazine ads in 1984/1985...
Very strong two-page fold-out advert, with two of the three available colours. Getting mileage out of that Good Design Award...

On a second-generation, A60 Toyota Supra (Celica XX); showing off those hidden valves...

A neat technical illustration of the tyre inflation; a little artistic license used for effect, as obviously only the spoke with the valve actually fills the tyre.. 

Surprise use on an Audi. Upmarket intentions...

A little more relatable, on a pair of awesome little 3rd-gen 'Wonder' Civics....

...and last one; a properly epic shot of the hollow spokes, and full advantage taken of that Good Design Award. It might be little too abstract to get a readers attention when flicking through a magazine; but hell.. even folded we're looking at a 'GOOD' 25% the height of the page! Love this advert.

Done. 
One of my absolute favourites. 






Click here for a link through to most of the wheel-in-detail posts to date.

Wednesday 14 September 2016

..and its VERY basic equivalent.

Well how about that.

As mentioned in last week's red R31House 7th-gen Skyline wagon post; Australia does still have a decent supply of these things, despite what seems like everyone's best efforts of scrapping every last one. These local wagons may be a far cry from the Japanese-market Passage GT more often than not; but as a basis for a similar project.. they're MORE than on the right page.

So...
Early Saturday afternoon. Bayswater, Melbourne, Australia. It's fifteen degrees, overcast, with rain on-and-off.. as we head into Spring.
Quick browse through one of the usual go-to wrecking yards while on my way past... and what do you know:

...it's the R31House red R31 wagon's very basic equivalent. Its slightly-challenged cousin.. but a relative nonetheless. The three million Yen shy of its RB26DETT-powered potential...

A very basic 1989 R31 Nissan Pintara GLi wagon - in red!
If you sorta-kinda-maybe blur your eyes.. maybe.. yeah? Same thing, right?!

Being a Pintara (rather than a Skyline) there's unfortunately a CA20E four-banger in place of the RB30E six, but again.. as a basis for a similar project, it's a non-issue. Essentially this is a straight, rust-free, R31 wagon... in red. The potential is there.

Sadly that ship has sailed for this particular example. While that's a "why would anyone care?" moment for most people looking at what is a ~$500-nugget Pintara wagon... in years to come? Urgh...








Thursday 8 September 2016

The red R31House wagon..

..I'm not the only one who's woken in the middle of the night, with the sudden need for an RB26DETT-powered R31 Nissan Skyline wagon?

Well it's your lucky day!

R31HOUSE - Japan's go-to for anything 7th Skyline - is selling their 2016 Nos2Days demo car: a thoroughly warmed-over, November 1987 R31 Nissan Skyline GT Passage wagon.

The cherry-red repaint covers a comprehensive sampler of R31house aero parts, including this nice little reveal on the vented carbon bonnet..

It's just a bonus that the base car looks to have been a tidy, loaded, GT Passage wagon.
Coming from a country that never offered a sunroof for the local R31 Skylines (short of the dealer-fit units in the odd sedan); that glass roof-window gets me excited. Turbo, 5spd, passage wagon.. with a sunroof...? I was already on-board....

5stud hubs courtesy of the R33 brake-upgrade; and the modern Work XSA-05C - carefully measured and ordered for the perfect fit.
A set of 17's probably wouldn't have been my first thought for something like this; but alongside the Recaros and extensive colour-matching.. it all works well.

Star of the show, standing-in for the original RB20ET single-cammer: a late RB26DETT sporting a HKS GT-SS twin-turbo setup. I imagine it goes alright...!

The price for all this wagoney-Skyline goodness, from what'd have to be the most reputable tuner in the world of R31's? A whisker under three million yen.
Even (personally) coming from a country that flooded itself with locally-assembled R31's, and as someone who was heavy into this chassis when they were five-for-a-dollar; that is seriously not bad. Justifiable. I'm genuinely surprised it's not dearer....