Sydneykid

I use the black Longacre wrap, I buy 100' roles (yep, I use it lots). Cheers

I am getting a few PM's about this upgrqade, so I thought I might bring it back to the front. Cheers

I have a DAYZ exhaust that I am sure would clear. PM me and I will send you a photo of it on the Stagea. Where are you located in Sydney, as freight will be killer. cheers

R33GTR rims on mine 17 X 9 X 30 mm with 245/40/17 tyres. Clear OK at 355 mm fornt and 345 mm rear. Even with a big load, race car on the back + spares inside. They need around 1.25 degrees negative camber at the rear though, which is around 0.5 degree more than I would prefer. Front is OK at 1.0 degrees negatice camber and 5 degrees caster. cheers

The ACL's run positive deck height, so same result as the JE's. cheers

The intercooler is in the standard location The radiator is mounted lower. You can see that in the underside front shot. Hence the need for the remote header tank. Plus it is mounted slightly further rearward (towards the engine). Over the top of the radiater is the air inlet for the turbos. They feed from a full width (of the radiator) box which has the air filters in it. cheers

Around $150 Wrap them for $70, it works better (ie; retains more heat). cheers

JE Pistons in mine. But it doesn't matter what brand. You need a slight piston dome, so look at the spec sheets and pick one. Then select a head gasket thickness and machine the head & block to achieve the target compression ratio. cheers

I would have input 48.5% to reduce 720 cc down to 370 cc's equivalent. cheers

My 20 cents worth. I have current subscriptions to both Zoom and HPI, have had for years. I always pick up something useful from each issue. I read each issue twice, the first time is a simple read through of the articles. The second read is where I pick out particular articles and read them closely, try and absorb the details. I look at the pictures very carefully, I generally pick up something from the pictures that isn’t mentioned anywhere in the words. I guess I am what could be termed a “technical” reader, the rice stuff leaves me totally cold, ditto the stereo stuff. So, keeping the above in mind, my beefs are; 1. I don’t think you can publish a credible magazine and at the same time sell products that are used on the cars in that magazine. You are hardly going to see a critical article on Ottomotto products. If I was an advertiser I would not like the obvious bias towards Ottomotto products in comparison to mine. 2. The car variety in HPI is a problem, there are just so many GTR’s, GTST’s and Silivias that you can have in one magazine (let alone 3). There is a limited variety of the RB and SR engine theme around. That’s why you will find them pushing other brands, the current 1JZ/2JZ engine promotion is an example of that. HPI, in particular, and Zoom are trying to get people to buy/modify cars with those engines in them. 3. The articles are getting more superficial, shiny engine, polished pipework, chrome knobs. I know it’s my particular area, but where are the articles on suspension? I really get sick of the “it’s got XYZ coil overs, so it handles like a dream” rubbish. They can afford to get into the detail a bit more than they do. An example is the Nissan/Nimso day in Japan featured in the current HPI issue. I would have liked a look under the bonnet, suspension, brakes etc of quite a few of those cars. That article looked like it was a grab bag of glossy photos, but where was the editorial content? It’s a big once a year event, surely it was worthwhile getting their local staff writer to cover it. 4. In a similar vain, they need to tone down the what I call “fully sick” approach. Where every single modification is THE best. I know it’s a tough line to tread, if you are critical of peoples’ cars, then they won’t want them in the magazine. But it does wear a bit thin when you read that a T51 is a spot on turbo choice for a 2.5 litre road car. 5. They are aiming higher and higher in the car modifications, if a car hasn’t got 600 bhp it’s hardly likely to get a mention. Where are the cheap and easy 20 rwkw upgrade tips? They have to keep in mind that not everyone can afford to have Top Secret build them a car. More importantly they have to keep in mind that not everyone WANTS Top Secret to build them a car. They may have personally moved on from what made the magazines a hit, but they need to keep in mind what their “average” reader wants. 6. Drag racing and drifting, that’s all the competition that they talk about. There are plenty of great imports racing in Targa Events, where is the coverage of them? They only cover the cars and events that they are personally interested in. Is it because the other events are too technical for them? Or they think their readers aren’t interested? Well maybe they should ask. 7. They have a section for “Technical”, but it is getting less and less technical every issue. Martin Donnon is quite capable of writing technical stuff, but he glosses over many aspects. Is that his choice? Or is it being toned down by the editor? Personally I would like to see him set free at least once in every issue to get as deep as necessary on a technical aspect. An example, I really liked reading the turbo compressor map explanation he wrote about 3 years ago. It would have been great if he could have continued that, write an article on the compressor maps of recently released turbos. Or simply finish the job and do an article on turbine and wastegate size selection. Enough from me, I might complain, but I still find them the best source of local info around. It’s just that they could be so much better. cheers

Machine the head and block to get the compression ratio you want. Mine is 9 to 1 with a slight dome piston and 0.8 mm head gasket. The combustion chambers are 62 cc’s (standard is 64-65 cc’s). I retained the standard squish. cheers

Hi Howie, from memory the R34GTT Nismo Bilstein option was 15 mm lower than standard, similar height to an R34GTR. You can have the additional circlip grooves added (same as the Group Buy) if you want to go a little lower. I would suggest 3 grooves at 8 mm apart as a maximum. That will give you the potential to go down 24 mm from where they are now (ie; 39 mm lower than standard). They handle best around 350 mm front and 340 mm rear (ie; 30 mm down from standard). So the second additional groove would be the go. If you want to go that low you will need camber kits, so please keep the following in mind when lowering yours. This is what is usually needed for each height increment, note that all measurements are centre of wheel to guard; Standard (new) height is 380 mm front and 370 mm rear 360/350 mm needs only the standard rear camber adjusters 350/340 mm needs 1 front camber kit and 1 rear camber kit 340/330 mm needs I front camber kit and 2 rear camber kits cheers

What model Skyline? cheers

Yes they will “fit” as in bolt on. But an R33GTR is around 180 kgs heavier than a R33GTST over the front wheels and as a result have different spring rates and heights. Plus the damper rates will be wrong. So they will “fit”, but they won’t “work” properly. cheers

PM Sent cheers

OK SOMEONE BUY THEM If you look at the wheels, wanna know more, wnt more pics... ANYTHING.. just ask. Really want them sold please.

Bump How's $750 ono? Come on, need thm gone, need the money

Hi Sam, the bump stops are usually OK if the dust covers are. So jack it up and have a look at the dust covers, if they look OK then there's a good chance that you won't need them. Quite a few guys have bought the dust cover and bump stop kits anyway. If they didn't use them they got 90% of their money back (10% restocking fee). Which is ~$10 + freight, cheap insurance if you end up needing them. Save waiting around for a couple days with the car up in the air till they arrive. cheers

Back seat and rear parcel shelf out. cheers

You mean the engine is all Volvo. cheers

I drove one a few weeks back to the workshop for a suspension engineering upgrade. It was raining in the morning and it was really weird, it doesn't torque steer because it cuts the power (traction control). So I tried to drag off my own Stagea (up to the speed limit) and got destroyed. It had like 10 fwkw, just kept cutting the power to stop the wheelspin. When I modulated the throttle it gots its traction control all in a twist. It was the same on corner exit, give it a squirt to fire it away from the apex and it did the power cut thing. Waiting ....... waiting........OK lets go now. If I had one, the traction control would have to go on day 1. Then it might be OK for me, but dangerous in the wrong hands. Power understeer city. My verdict............needs 4wd. cheers

Daniel you have a PM (or two) cheers

The standard R32 style upper control arm is 190 mm long, centre of the outer bolt to the centre of the inner bolt. Using the off the shelf adjustable, offset, outer bush (Whiteline etc) reduces that to 184 mm. This gives around 2 to 2.5 degrees of negative camber on an R32 with a ride height around 355 mm centre of wheel to guard with around 6.5 degrees of caster on a 2wd and 5.0 degrees on a 4wd. That is usually enough camber/caster, provided sufficient anti roll is used (larger stabiliser bars), for most circuits. High speed circuits with long sweeping radius curves (eg; Philip Island) need slightly more camber. So we use the off the shelf adjustable, offset bush (Whiteline etc) in the inner of the upper control arm. That reduces the length to around 180 mm. This gives around 3.0 to 3.5 degrees of negative camber on an R32 with a ride height around 355 mm centre of wheel to guard with around 6.5 degrees of caster on a 2wd and 5.0 degrees on a 4wd. This 180 mm upper control arm length length seems to have been the minimum that ALL of the R32 camber adjusters have been made to. All of the brands of upper control arms that I have measured (Noltec, Nismo, Ikeya etc) all stop at 180 mm or longer. So choosing one brand over another to get more negative camber is pretty much a waste of time. As is choosing adjustable arms over bushes in the standard arms. cheers PS; if the car is a little lower, you get more static camber, but then if you wind on some more caster you loose that extra camber.

480 cc = 480 bhp (in a 6 cylinder) 480 bhp / 1.34 = 358 kw 358 kw - 65 rwkw losses = 293 rwkw. We have actualy snuck 315 rwkw, but with slightly higher than standard fuel pressure. cheers

So many questions, the answer really depend what power output that you are chasing. Let’s try a numbered approach; 1. Why do you want use an RD28 crank, they are no stronger than an RB30 crank 2. Nizpro make a full width crank girdle, damn expensive though. We have used the standard crank and girdle up to 950 bhp. That using ARP main bearing studs. 3. RB30 harmonics are GROSSLY overrated. To cure the tiny harmonic that they really have, you can use your RB26 ATI damper or simply overbalance it. 4. Off the shelf Argo I beam rods will do the job, as per #2 above. 5. The 4wd sump adaptor adds a fair bit of lower block rigidity 6. Sorry I have no idea about temperature and block filling. Since engine temperature it is a factor of horsepower X efficiency I can’t see why an RB30 would be any different to an RB20/25/26 at similar power levels. 7. I can’t say as I have ever seen any differences in early/late/turbo/non turbo/ Skyline/Commondoor blocks. They have all measured up the same for me. 8. You won’t need 2.5 bar (like you did in the RB26) to make the same power in an RB30. It’s actually pretty linear, so around 2.1 bar should do it. 9. The extra 500cc’s takes away some of the “bigness” in the cams. What’s a lumpy overlap in a 2.6 litre is quite a bit smoother in a 3 litre. I’d give the 280/288’s a go. 10. Always keep in mind that an RB30 will make the same power at 7,500 rpm as an RB26 does at 9,000 rpm. I think that about covers it (tip = number the questions, it makes it easier to repond) cheers