NAME: JARROD BIDDULPH-WALL // AGE: 26 // LOCATION: AUCKLAND OCCUPATION: CEO AT MMS MOTORSPORTING SERVICES NZ LTD

NZ Performance Car : Hi, Jarrod. Tell us how you wound up in the car scene.

Jarrod: Hey, NZPC. When I was growing up, my parents started a business importing and selling Japanese performance cars, well before the likes of Fast 4s & Turbos existed. Dad would come home each night in an early Evo, VR4, Familia GTX, Skyline GTS-T, Starlet GT, etc. — just anything that he had on the yard at the time that he could sell to young kids with money. I always begged him to take me for rides in them, and it cemented my obsession with ’90s Japanese performance cars.

How did you end up owning a GT-R, and why this one?

I don’t know exactly when, but I realized that the GT-R was really the absolute pinnacle. I got obsessed with the history of them dominating motor racing in the early ’90s. Through a pretty large string of cars in my early 20s, I made enough money to be looking at buying an E36 M3, and then I realized that for not much more I could actually get a GT-R. I ended up hunting for around a year before I finally found the absolute best example I could buy for my money. It already had a Link ECU and a certification for the coilovers, and had only done 120,000km. I didn’t want to pay the tax for sub-100,000km cars because I always intended on driving the car and not selling it. Ironically, I ditched Dad’s Father’s Day lunch to go and pick the car up, as the owner was putting it on Trade Me the next day if I didn’t lock it in.

As values continue to go up on cars like this, was the goal always to modify it?

I don’t really know what the goal was to start with, other than knowing they were going to skyrocket at some point and I needed to keep it as stock as possible while still enjoying it. All the interior mods were more because it allowed me to remove the stock seats, wheel, and gear knob, which are all immaculate, and preserve them while still enjoying the car. As it turned out, the GT-R price boom kicked off about six months after I bought it, and would have easily put me out of the market if I hadn’t been able to lock this one in.

What was it that provoked the full engine rebuild?

I had never intended to do much to the engine, other than keep an eye on the oil pressure, knowing that they had a weak oil pump and could lunch motors. As it turned out, one day I gave it a bit of stick away from a mate’s place, and, about 30 seconds later, it completely died on me. The standard ceramic turbo wheel had disintegrated throughout the motor, destroying just about everything it could. The block was a complete throwaway, so Ethan from Hi-Power [Performance] sourced a standard short block for us to rebuild with rings and bearings, etc. That motor then turned out to be slightly out of round, giving no choice but to go forged oversized pistons to compensate. While the motor was out, I basically said I wanted it to be completely bulletproof, make 300kW, and spit flames. I ended up with two out of the three, due to coil packs quitting on the dyno and us leaving the motor at a very conservative 250kW at all four. The main thing for me is the fact that under the bonnet the motor looks bone stock, down to the factory air-box.

Will you take the build further, or are you pretty happy with where it is now?

At some point, I would like to put some form of drop-in cams in it and go back on the dyno for the rough 300kW, but it’s pretty low priority with plenty of other garbage in the driveway taking up those funds. I am still planning on restoring it one day, so I am collecting stock trim components and other bits and pieces as and when they come up before they become completely unobtainable. It’s faster than my mate Scott’s non-forged turbo E30, so that’s all that matters to me.

Fair call, Jarrod; it’s all about the balance.