Hi there, my name is Rob, I live in Australia and I have owned this Pulsar now for close to 5 years. Over the years I have had it, it has seen many changes! Some have stayed, some have been changed or upgraded and some have gone.
It has been by far and away the most fun car I have owned, and I have owned a few.
I will admit it was not the quickest thing when I got it, it wasn't purchased with that intention anyway. But, what appealed to me was the somewhat European styling (for a Japanese car) and the general shape. That is a bone of contention amongst other earlier model Pulsar owners...but the fact is that it shares the badge so thats that!

It started life as a simple daily driver, but me being me I wanted it a little more sporty. So I had the dealer fit some 17" wheels and tyres. It had 16" chromies on it, blech.
It had some lowered springs already fitted, but on the stock struts they quickly failed. And tinted windows...that was the extent of the mods.

This was her when we go it:

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First thing I did was to liberate the intake a bit, so I made a simple CAI to get a bit more air in there, and I also knocked up a strut brace to help the handling a bit:

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Next, I extended the CAI and decided to get a bit more adventurous with the TIG, so I made a stainless steel intake which replaced the stock airbox:

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That was all good for a while. I enjoyed the throatier roar it gave the car, it sounded faster! lol
But, the mod bug had bit, and bit hard. But, instead of biting me in my wallet, it bit my DIY side and made me want to make things....performance things!

I was unhappy only with 2 aspects of the car, it was underpowered with the stock Nissan QG18DE mill, whilst torquey, it lacked balls and needed a bit more something to get it going.
And the brakes, the drum at the rear and the tiny fronts made pulling the car up in a hurry a bit of a task.
I decided to tackle the brakes first.
Those drum HAD to go, so I got to researching what I could and couldn't fit. As there was no factory option offered by Nissan Australia for rear discs I had to get to fabricating my own. (I later found that the Hatch rear beam and brake assembly will bolt in :( ) I settled on U12 Nissan Pintara rear disc calipers and discs and some custom brake brackets.
The Pintara handbrake (e-brake) cables were also used, luckily they were a pretty good fit.

Here is it in the testing stage:

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And tidied up with a bit of paint and some new braided lines, I also came into a few dollars so I bought some coilover suspension (more on that later):

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Not only did I do the rear brakes, I decided to beef up the fronts as well. I once again did some research and I was able to fit some slightly modified 300ZX 4 piston calipers and some R32T front discs. The discs were machined from 280mm dia. to 272mm dia. so that the calipers had clearance.
i gave them a facing to remove the "Nissan" raised logo. I had to do this for clearance between the wheels and brake calipers.

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Once again, braided lines were fitted to the new fronts. I used a master cylinder from a Nissan U13 Bluebird, as it had a larger piston and bolted straight on.

I then turned my attention to the car aesthetics, so I modified the stock grill and later on the front bumper too.
Here is the grille just done:

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I also picked up some aftermarket tail lights (altezza style) from Malaysia (ebay) and fitted those as well:

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From there the car stayed that way for a while...then the power bug hit!
So, I decided to utilise the welding skills I had a fabricate the parts to turbocharge the engine.
Many prototypes and testing was done. But I got there in the end...I ended up making everything needed to fit the kit. Intercooler pipes were fabricated from stainless steel. The 2nd gen manifold was an uneven runner style.
A Garrett T25g turbo was selected and when all fitted netted a encouraging 171.5 wheel HP. (128kW) The fuel system comprised of a WRX fuel pump, 380cc/min top feed injectors and and Apexi SAFC2, which worked with the factory ECU.

Here was the engine bay then:

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And after a bit of tidying up, this what it looked like before replacing the turbo and manifold for a new design:

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In the meantime I decided to make a new manifold and fit a larger T28 turbo.
So I got building some new stuff....

Will update soon!

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