hrd-hr30

how close it will be depends on where you sit... R32 GTR has telescopic column anyway, so you'll have some adjustment to play with as well. I used to prefer flat wheels, but have been converted to the closer wheel position with deep dish wheels over the past few years. Its personal preference though. On my soarer I have the column fully extended, a 3" dished wheel and a 2.5" spacer off my old rally car. Its only just close enough after all that!

That's very cool. But I've always had a soft spot for the ugly Datsuns. Dave Gaines runs a budget 240K sedan rally car very, very quickly up here, proving these things are a good base for a rally car. Look forward to some action pics/videos

lol SantaFe's certainly aren't trucks!

the manual is only rated to a maximum of 1200kg

reality stepped in momentarily... I see its back out the window again now though with the good old "don't even know it's there" chestnut... XR8's have the same driveline restricted tow ratings. 1200kg manual, 1600kg auto. 2300kg auto with tow pack and load levellers at a max of 80kph. They don't belong in a "good tow car" thread for towing race cars, unless you're happy to tootle around at 80 on the highway getting in everyone else's way, while sucking down the juice like its going out of fashion.

meanwhile their volume selling large 4WD has been in desperate need of an engine update for over a decade. The ZD30 was below par when it was released, 13 years later they barely surpass the Great Wall or Sannyong 2litre diesels FFS. Even the cheapie tradie D22 Navara did away with the ZD30 5 years ago. And D40 Navaras have been more powerful than their bigger more expensive Patrol stablemate for 8 years now.

I'm sure it will tow well, and be perfect for those who want a petrol V8. Its just that Toyota sales figures show there's not very many of them.

I can't help but think the money Nissan Aus wasted on the Y62 RHD project would have been much better spent updating the diesel engine in the current Y61 GU. There's a much bigger market for them than in large petrol V8 luxobarge SUV's. Escallating prices of the old ,no longer in production 4.2 diesel just prove there'a market for a Patrol with a better engine than the grenade. And the old 4.2 is nothing to write home about - all it's got going for it is that it doesn't grenade. Give it something comparable in power and torque to the Landcruiser 70 (150kw 430nm) and watch sales pick up! Even a detuned version of the V6 in the Navara (170kw 550nm) could easily do that. GU already has everything else going for it over Toyota's 70. Even if they had to make it a bit more palatable for the soccer mum crowd with IFS, it would still be better than this Y62 thing.

A little exaggeration, but it is a reach. They left the shifter in the LHD position. Nissan Aus had to pay for the development to RHD when they insisted on selling them here because Nissan global had no intention of selling it in Aus, and it looks like a bit of a shortcut to keep costs down.

OK who stole all the bitumen out of the track? fess up...

New Patrol isn't going to sell much over here if Landcruiser sales are any indicator. Somethign like 94% of LC200s sold last year were diesels. That's people voting with their money. There's about 7.2 people who want a petrol V8 4WD. And the Patrol's RHD conversion is a bit tacky - you need the front passenger to put it in Drive for you for starters.

hamilton's changes every week anyway

I'm hoping the sexy and slippery narrow body Sauber works. It would be nice to see them up the front some more this year. Hulkenberg's one of the good guys too. But I would really love to see Jenson or Perez win the chamionship the year that Hamilton left... lol

I didn't read the earlier part, but it doesn't matter because when you say something is free, you remove any restrictions on it. If they want Open cars to use original suspension mounting points, they fail at rule writing, which takes us back to my first post in this thread:

That WTAC suspension rule must be last years, because the current rules say suspension is free in open class. Close, but IPRA rules actually say devices for lateral location are free for live axles. They're not required to keep the original panhard, and I've never seen one do it.The thing they do is with the trailing arms. They must retain all other components that locate the rear wheels (apart from the lateral location device) and all original pivot points (no slotting), but additional longitudinal rear suspension arms are allowed with new mounting points on the body. So what they do with the upper arms is use such a soft 'elastomer bush' made from foam so that the original arms have no effect and add new upper arms.

lol the old 3l Nissan ZD30 earned the nickname 'Grenade' among Patrol owners. It had less problems in the smaller, lighter Navara, but still had them. The D22 version of the 2.5l is severly de-tuned compared to the D40. Something like 100kw ws 140kw. The D40 2.5 is pretty impressive. No idea about how the D22 version feels to drive, but its got a bit less than the old ZD30 put out. What do you want for $28K? Throw an $800 chip at it and you'd be in business.

oh no...

they don't even really offer significant discounts to IPRA who have had contracts with Yoko for control tyres nationwide for over a decade! with this increase in "demand" count yourself luck if they don't jack the prices up! Or if you can even get enough tyres for the event for that matter.

A blown Lotus would be very hard to beat in Clubsprint I reckon.

rules have been ammended. changes to hatchback wing rule, min weights, and a few things for clubsprint including allowing any car to be turbo'd or blown in Clubsprint pandering the to 86 crowd...

my best guesses: Nemo - no b-pillars, it must be more than 350mm wider than stock, probably 300mm rear overhang, possibly too light? no lights. probably other stuff. Tilton Evo looks pretty well OK to me. MCA S13 - too wide. Front and rear aero overhangs. Scorch Racing maybe rear overhang. Top Fuel S2000 probably ok RE Amemiya RX7 looks ok Adan Hi Octane R34 definitely front overhang Pulse Racing Evo front overhang Notaras Evo probably ok. Panspeed RX7 looks OK Cyber Evo probably front overhang and maybe width on their new 2012 splitter

waiting for complaints of supply problems on popular sizes/compounds near WTA time as everyone tries to buy thier 3 or 4 sets... and the accompanying screams of favouritism/unfairness. lol might impact IPRA too - their Nationals are only a few weeks before this, although less likely to be using softs...

I'm not surprised they have to use Yokos.Last year every class of the Yokohama WTAC was won on Hankooks. Not great for the event's naming rights sponsor. They should at least offer a decent discount on their products to entrants though - no mention of that in there... But what I think is - they are still really crap at writing rules. Not that it really matters because they've never enforced them. And the weight limits heavily penalise RWD for some strange reason... 1150kg minimum weight for RWD in Open, but a FWD can be 300kg lighter!!! WTF? I do like that they've reigned in the Clubsprint rules which people were taking severe liberties with. Hopefully the rules are enforced from now on.

ebay - engine gaurdian $129 they can also control thermo fans with user defined on/off temps. some models monitor oil pressure as well.

I'm going to go against the grain here. All those things the others have listed are all perfectly legitimate ideas for a race car or something seriously built that sees alot of track use. For a novice starting out, you don't NEED any of it. You certainly don't need data logging or a fancy expensive dash. The first gauge I would fit is water temp. Coolant system is the most likely thing to give you problems. If your car gets too hot, you'll be likely to get some knock if the thing is making a bit of power. Or if it does drop the coolant and overheat, the first thing your likely to know about it is when you see steam - by then it could be too late. I prefer the thermocouple gauges as they do not introduce more points of failure like those GReddy style in-line hose adapters do. They also have audible alarms that are user-defineable so you don't even have to keep an eye on the gauge - just concentrate on what you are doing until you hear the alarm. And they're not expensive. I put one in every car I own - my Patrol, my daily Soarer as well as track cars - for the same reason, normally the first you know about your car overheating is when its already too late. Oil press and temp - there's heaps of GTST's doing track days with great longevity. Oil temps are pretty closely related to water temps anyway. If you're really worried, fit an oil cooler. After that there's nothing much you can really do, so why worry about it? Its track days and sprints probably doing 5 laps at a time, not racing around for half an hour... With pressure - unless something serious goes wrong, you're not really going to have a problem. And if something serious does go wrong, even a big red idiot light is normally not going to save your engine. I've been sprinting various cars for the last 12 years or more without any engine dramas. And only 1 of them has even had an oil cooler - and only because it was there when I bought the car. Best insurance is to use a decent full synthetic oil IMO. And that does not mean you need Royal Purple or any of those brands with big internet rep points. Just a full syn Castrol or Valvoline has always been fine for my cars. Don't worry about buying all the gear - just make sure the car is in good mechanical condition (particularly hoses and brakes), do the usual RB25 prep things and get out there and have fun. Leave the fancy dashes and dataloggers to the race cars.