Nissan not so Skyline 350GT
Discussion
I'll keep the intro short but sweet. I've had a lot of jap scrap in my short driving career, but even after being diagnosed with bowel cancer 2 years ago at the age of 27 I still struggled to keep a car longer than 6 months.
That was until I got my 2004 Nissan Skyline 350GT, more so recognised as the Infiniti G35 over in the states. My criteria for cars always seemed to stray towards needing to be Japanese, RWD, more than 2 seats and a better power to fuel consumption ratio than my old IS200. This fit the bill, the downside? Automatic, this was my first automatic and I was sceptical I love it, for regular running about nothing beats an auto. I am now just over a year into ownership and I still love it, albeit a manual swap is much higher on my wanted list now.
So, before I get into the rundown of mods, what am I doing? What do I plan to do? Well, I have taken this opportunity that life has ever so strangely offered and I am now wanting to document both my illness and my car passion alongside it. I have had any problem you could imagine throughout my cancer journey, but I am still confident I will kick its arse and in the mean time why not use all the free time to make a stupid car and shine light onto living with said illness at a young age.
NOW! Car, as purchased, very much stock and a bit sad looking.
The car mostly remained stock for the first couple months of ownership as I was still mostly recovering from having my stomach cut open. Other than replacing a few worn out control arms and the completely worn through Y pipe I was just enjoying driving.
Once I was more mobile and physically able... I really should have still been resting, I gave the car a thorough service and cleaned up the arches. The arch lips are another times problem...
Now onto the wheels. The stock wheels looked nice, but they definitely looked too small for the car, typically I would prefer some "real wheels" but a set of Rota GTR's popped up for a good price and so I snapped them up and threw some cheap tyres on to get me to Japfest 2024
Wasn't a fan of the bronze, so painted the wheels silver. Much better I reckon.
So June time last year, I had an emergency hospital visit. Now this was interesting, I knew I needed surgery again due to my bowel getting itself squished somewhere it shouldn't have been. Cool, up until a Doctor, who I only saw once in this 4 week visit told me I had a couple of weeks left to live, ah... okay interesting. This certainly was not the case, but it also definitely opened my eyes up once I was released.
We decided to do things that you put off for the future, deciding to have a kid, going to more shows/coffee mornings, buying those car parts etc. knowing now just how easily you could be told you may not have the chance to do said things. Alongside with being retired on ill health this gave me the kick to finally do those trackdays I have always said I was going to do, not quite yet though.
So towards the back end of last year, I ordered coilovers. Nothing too fancy, just some adjustable Tein's for the looks and the hopes that they would perform better than the 20 year old stock setup on track. I also had a Blitz cannon sat in my shed for years and as the backbox had seemingly fallen apart from the inside out and was really rattling away, I popped the car down to NAW Automotive to have the Blitz cannon custom fabbed up from the Y pipe back.
We can agree this car is very marmite, I will happily admit the front end was very much lacking, well style. Browsing the old Facebook marketplace, I saw something very interesting, an aftermarket front bumper for very cheap. I bought it instantly.
Fibreglass is a pig, the bumper was old stock and had been sat in a warehouse for 10ish years. I got straight on it, getting all the mounting points drilled and cut out.
That was about it for 2024. 2025 started out a bit bumpy, having another week in hospital, but thankfully not as eventful as the last one. The plan was to get the car about show ready as by this point I still hadn't made the choice to start documenting myself and so car shows were my main focus as me and friends have gone for almost 10 years now. Early 25 the bumper got painted, great match considering and the fitment was also pretty okay, but the change to the car was massive.
Other than cleaning up of the car, OH! and I painted the wheels black over winter, this didn't stick, they went back silver very shortly after. The car was pretty much at a point I was happy with.
And it was about this point that work had made the decision to retire me. Family had mentioned I should write a blog about my journey, but I always kept to myself and never seeked 'attention' or sympathy. But realisation hit that I have a blessing in disguise, I can be home as much as I want when the baby arrives but also I can let my creative juices flow and commit to doing so. The fact I can shed light on living with Cancer but also share my journey with silly cars is and will be a great outlet to keep me distracted and entertained.
I do hope people join me on this journey. Today was the start of my track prep as I have just fitted the Accelera 651 Sports and I am now actively searching for a trackday (evening) to get back into it. The focus on changes for the car as of now will be driver mod more than anything.
THANKYOU! Speak soon, Ben.
That was until I got my 2004 Nissan Skyline 350GT, more so recognised as the Infiniti G35 over in the states. My criteria for cars always seemed to stray towards needing to be Japanese, RWD, more than 2 seats and a better power to fuel consumption ratio than my old IS200. This fit the bill, the downside? Automatic, this was my first automatic and I was sceptical I love it, for regular running about nothing beats an auto. I am now just over a year into ownership and I still love it, albeit a manual swap is much higher on my wanted list now.
So, before I get into the rundown of mods, what am I doing? What do I plan to do? Well, I have taken this opportunity that life has ever so strangely offered and I am now wanting to document both my illness and my car passion alongside it. I have had any problem you could imagine throughout my cancer journey, but I am still confident I will kick its arse and in the mean time why not use all the free time to make a stupid car and shine light onto living with said illness at a young age.
NOW! Car, as purchased, very much stock and a bit sad looking.
The car mostly remained stock for the first couple months of ownership as I was still mostly recovering from having my stomach cut open. Other than replacing a few worn out control arms and the completely worn through Y pipe I was just enjoying driving.
Once I was more mobile and physically able... I really should have still been resting, I gave the car a thorough service and cleaned up the arches. The arch lips are another times problem...
Now onto the wheels. The stock wheels looked nice, but they definitely looked too small for the car, typically I would prefer some "real wheels" but a set of Rota GTR's popped up for a good price and so I snapped them up and threw some cheap tyres on to get me to Japfest 2024
Wasn't a fan of the bronze, so painted the wheels silver. Much better I reckon.
So June time last year, I had an emergency hospital visit. Now this was interesting, I knew I needed surgery again due to my bowel getting itself squished somewhere it shouldn't have been. Cool, up until a Doctor, who I only saw once in this 4 week visit told me I had a couple of weeks left to live, ah... okay interesting. This certainly was not the case, but it also definitely opened my eyes up once I was released.
We decided to do things that you put off for the future, deciding to have a kid, going to more shows/coffee mornings, buying those car parts etc. knowing now just how easily you could be told you may not have the chance to do said things. Alongside with being retired on ill health this gave me the kick to finally do those trackdays I have always said I was going to do, not quite yet though.
So towards the back end of last year, I ordered coilovers. Nothing too fancy, just some adjustable Tein's for the looks and the hopes that they would perform better than the 20 year old stock setup on track. I also had a Blitz cannon sat in my shed for years and as the backbox had seemingly fallen apart from the inside out and was really rattling away, I popped the car down to NAW Automotive to have the Blitz cannon custom fabbed up from the Y pipe back.
We can agree this car is very marmite, I will happily admit the front end was very much lacking, well style. Browsing the old Facebook marketplace, I saw something very interesting, an aftermarket front bumper for very cheap. I bought it instantly.
Fibreglass is a pig, the bumper was old stock and had been sat in a warehouse for 10ish years. I got straight on it, getting all the mounting points drilled and cut out.
That was about it for 2024. 2025 started out a bit bumpy, having another week in hospital, but thankfully not as eventful as the last one. The plan was to get the car about show ready as by this point I still hadn't made the choice to start documenting myself and so car shows were my main focus as me and friends have gone for almost 10 years now. Early 25 the bumper got painted, great match considering and the fitment was also pretty okay, but the change to the car was massive.
Other than cleaning up of the car, OH! and I painted the wheels black over winter, this didn't stick, they went back silver very shortly after. The car was pretty much at a point I was happy with.
And it was about this point that work had made the decision to retire me. Family had mentioned I should write a blog about my journey, but I always kept to myself and never seeked 'attention' or sympathy. But realisation hit that I have a blessing in disguise, I can be home as much as I want when the baby arrives but also I can let my creative juices flow and commit to doing so. The fact I can shed light on living with Cancer but also share my journey with silly cars is and will be a great outlet to keep me distracted and entertained.
I do hope people join me on this journey. Today was the start of my track prep as I have just fitted the Accelera 651 Sports and I am now actively searching for a trackday (evening) to get back into it. The focus on changes for the car as of now will be driver mod more than anything.
THANKYOU! Speak soon, Ben.
Westley22 said:
Cool, up until a Doctor, who I only saw once in this 4 week visit told me I had a couple of weeks left to live, ah... okay interesting. This certainly was not the case, but it also definitely opened my eyes up once I was released.
I am sorry to learn of your illness. Due to what's going on in my life I've listened to BBC Radio 4's Inside Health and for five shows they're spending the first 10 minutes or so discussing the Assisted Dying Bill from the medical angle. In the first of the five programmes, about three weeks ago now, they discuss how accurate the predictions of how long someone has to live with respect to the '6 months to live' bit of the Assisted Dying Bill.
Regarding Automatics I drove less than 2,000 miles between MoTs, I've a motorcycle as well, but at the weekend after a relative had cancer treatment last week and with another relative visiting, and after a comment made by a Radiographer at the hospital, I thought I'd take the cancer patient out for lunch which then became taking them another 70 miles down the road to visit their surviving sibling while they're both still around. I've got used to easy, accessible torque in the car and on the motorcycle but a few times I found myself in a too high a gear and having to change down. So this weekend, with perhaps much going on in my head, and being an infrequent and probably not as good a driver as I like to think I am an automatic may've saved my embarrassment at not being in the right gear at the right time.
I like those Nissans. The thread sent me off to eBay to look at Stageas.
sherman said:
Infiniti parts are a nightmare to get ahold of.
Theeemrs very little support for them since they pulled out of the UK market.
350z parts are usually ok to get
Nissan have a habit of only stocking parts for cars until they are 10 years old and then no longer make the bit.
Oh dear. I better stop daydreaming about Stageas then.Theeemrs very little support for them since they pulled out of the UK market.
350z parts are usually ok to get
Nissan have a habit of only stocking parts for cars until they are 10 years old and then no longer make the bit.
The photo of the car in the car park with the modified front bumper shows how compact it is compared to newer cars.
te break getting cancer at any age, much less at 27, but carrying on with the things you love has to be the way and if you're off work you need something to do or you'll go nuts, and what better than shopping for bits for your car and a bit of gentle spannering 
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff