Build Feature: Paul Cheshire’s UK Nissan V35 Skyline

With Paul Cheshire’s Team Falken/Team Green S14.5 now taking up residence in Sweden, it was time for him to turn his attention to a new chassis to run in this years BDC season. Paul decided to take the plunge and go for a car that hasn’t been used for professional drifting in the UK until now – the Nissan Skyline V35.

The car started it’s life as a 3.5 litre V6 auto model. A clean and solid example!

As well as a chassis he’s never worked with, Paul decided to opt for an engine he’s unfamiliar with also – Toyota’s 2JZ-GTE. It should be a pretty powerful one by the time it’s finished, with a target of around 650 BHP.

One of the first and most important things on the to-do list was to bring the weight down. As standard the V35 is a pretty heavy lump, so almost every single bit of that lovely interior had to go!

After stripping down the engine (and most of the front end of the car) and fitting a front sump, Paul did a trial fit to see where the engine would sit in the bay.

A little more cutting and stripping later, the car was trailered off to Nickson Motorsport for a full cage to be made up. It looks fantastic!

With the cage complete the Skyline came back to the workshop, where Paul got on with fitting the new  bell housing on the gearbox, fitting the gearbox to the engine, and placing the engine into a more finalized position further back in the bay. This turned out to be a pretty long and fiddly job, mostly due to having to get around clearance on the clutch master, steering column, sump, subframe, and the exhaust and inlet manifolds.

He also started seam welding the front wings.

After a set of custom engine mounts, gearbox mount and an oil sump were made up, the chassis seam welding finished, and the underside stonechip primered – it was time to get the car rubbed down and ready to be painted inside.

While this was going on a bunch of parts turned up, one of the most interesting being this GT35/86R turbo, with a HTA billet compressor wheel and WRC metal bearing case.

Finally the Skyline hit the booth and got a fresh coating of white paint inside the cabin and engine bay!

With the car back after it’s painting Paul started work on re-fitting and trimming the dash to fit. Check out the sweet custom fabricated centre console for the switches and gauges to go!

He also got started mocking up the cooler locations and pipework!

A set of shiny new HSD coilovers (of which there is a big selection to choose from for you car in the Driftworks Shop!) arrived and were mounted up to the car.

Finally we’ll leave you with this shot of a 18x12j ET20 Rota GTR-D wheel test fitted on the Skyline.

This is turning into one hell of a project, and it seems like it won’t be too long until it’s out on the track for testing!

If you’d like to read even more about the build and keep up to date with it, head on over to our forums and check it out at: https://www.driftworks.com/forum/drift-car-projects-builds/124180-team-falken-uk-650hp-v35-skyline-g35.html