Extremely valuable LM Limited
The Kyushu☆GT-R Meeting 2023, held on 22 October 2023 in Kumamoto Prefecture, attracted many Nissan GT-R owners from the so-called second generation onwards from the R32 model. We spotted a blue Nissan R33 Skyline GT-R, LM Limited among the many participants. When we asked the owner, Mr. Kawamura, for his cooperation, we discovered that it was an astonishing tuning menu.
The secret to its beauty was the thorough replacement of new parts
The distinctive body color, called Champion Blue, was created exclusively to commemorate the car’s entry in the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race. Moreover, with its exclusive sticker and N1 bumper, it was clear that Mr. Kawamura’s car was an LM Limited, of which a total of 98 are said to have been produced (some theories exist).
Many of the visitors had noticed that he had kept the car in such a beautiful condition, and when we asked him about the secret to this, he gave us a surprising answer.
“I replaced as many parts as I could with new parts to bring it as close to the condition of a brand new car as possible, back when this car was sold!”
As many parts as possible have been replaced with new ones, including the air cleaner box in the engine compartment, the cooling fan, the coolant tank, the piping around the fuel, the main harness, and the ABS unit. In the interior, the dashboard and air conditioning unit have already been replaced, as well as the members on the body.
“I’m going to do a body restoration at the end, and I have all new parts for each molding and weatherstrip for when I do.”
The secret to the beauty of the car’s appearance, which is a sight to behold for everyone, was Mr. Kawamura’s thorough attention to detail in restoring the car to new condition.
The look is stock, but fine-tuning has been carried out
And this was not the only thing that surprised Mr. Kawamura. Although the basic appearance of the car is stock, the engine, transmission, and differentials have actually been thoroughly tuned. The engine was tuned using an N1 engine block and NAPREC’s menu. The coils and injectors are stock R35 GT-R parts, and their positions have been optimized by Duratec. However, the piping and parts layout were also done by the factory settings.
The transmission is a Getrag conversion kit, also newly acquired. Furthermore, the differential was replaced with a Nismo carbon LSD. “Fine-tuning while keeping the stock look and restoring the car to new as much as possible” is the tuning theme of Mr. Kawamura’s car.
We asked a simple question: where do you keep the stock parts you’ve collected so far?
“The stockyard is in Fukuoka, my birthplace. It’s what we call my parents’ house. I used to send all the parts I bought there. But some products are no longer manufactured and are no longer available, like very expensive headlights. I always kept only those important items on hand and moved from place to place as I moved.”
translated by DeepL