Sydneykid

Shock absorber technology is the darkest of arts in race cars, it is full of closely guarded secrets. If I had time, I could write 20 pages on shock valving and the differences in philosophy. But I seriously doubt that anybody would read it, I also doubt that 10% of the readers would understand it and even less would change their opinion after reading it. I will try one day to write a brief synopsis that will be audience friendly. Like many high end parts, the Jap branded shocks sometimes aren't actually made by their branded company. For example the top end Aragusta shocks are made by Ohlins in Sweden, not to be confused with the Ohlins made under agency in Japan by Carrozzeria/Soqi. Subaru use Bilstein in their top end cars, B4's and STi's. Many TRD shocks are also Bilsteins. There are also rebadged Spax, Sach, Donerre, Penske, Boge, DeCarbon etc etc. So you have to be really carefull, just because a shock has a Japanese brand name on it, it doesn't mean it is made by them. cheers

Firsrly HICAS is not there to "help your cornering", HICAS is there to try and make the casr understeer at all times when sdriving at 9/10ths. Nissan designed it that way as it is safer for the Wallies. When they get into trouble the HICAS is supposed to make the car understeer, so instead of spinning off backwards they plough straight ahead. The ploughing action itself reduces the speed, so if they do go off they hit things at a slower speed and the front airbags/seatbelts work. If you spin off backwars/sideways, the airbags and seat belts have less chance of saving the Wally's ass. Back to your question, you have got it......."when taking lines the car tries to correct you, then you correct the car, then the car corrects........." So instead of a nice smooth line around a corner at 10/10ths, it ends up being a sequence of jerks and corrections. If you are already at max G force, the jerks will cause the car to loose traction completely. So you have slide, correct, slide, correct, this is both detremental to lap times and confidence sapping. Adjusting your driving style doesn't help, all it means is you have to go slower or suffer the momentary losses of traction. You can't control the car accurately with the throttle or the steering wheel when this sort of stuff is going on. I have never ever seen a Skyline race car with functioning HICAS, once you have tried it you will understand why. Hope that clarifies cheers

Personally I don't think it has fuel pressure or flow problem. It goes richer at around 170 kph. If it had a fuel pressure regulator or fuel pump problem it would continue to get leaner. It looks to me like it has been deliberately tuned that way. As others have posted, go back to the original tuner and talk to him about it. Tell him the readings and your concerns and give him the chance to respond. cheers

It is a total waste of time looking at A/F ratios produced by a slow and narrow lambda sensor, especially if you don't understand what is going on. Some things you need to be aware of; 1. the standard ECU turns the fuel off when you are coasting, that is not LEAN running. In fact the engine isn't really RUNNING at all. 2. the closed loop (cruise and idle) target is around 14.7 to 1 (stoich) 3. the standard (slow and narrow) lambda sensor does not react to changes in A/F ratios very fast. For example if you floor it, by the time the lambda sensor catches up you have moved 100 metres down the road and are going 40 kph faster. 4. the standard lambda sensor has no heater (a fast and wide lambda sensor does). This means it has no temperature compensation, so the readings are not very accurate outside normal exhaust gas temperature (that's both hotter or colder). 5. the sensor circuitry in the Apexi turbo timer is very simplistic, nowhere near as accurate or fast as those found in a proper wide band A/F meter, as used for tuning on a dyno. 6. the standard ECU is several thousand times faster at recognising changes (load, throttle position, rpm etc) than the standard lambda sensor is at recognising changes in A/F ratios. So by the time the lambda sensor sees an A/F ratio change the ECU will have moved on many many times. 7. Nissan knows all of these shortfalls in the lambda sensor, that's why the ECU only runs closed loop at cruise and idle. Where the changes in inputs are very small and slow. That way the lambda sensor can keep up. My advice, turn off the A/F ratio display and get on with driving. cheers

This is the default ignition map for an RB25DET via a Datalogit screen grab. Have a look at the low load/rpm points and compare them to what you currently have. cheers

You need to be doing about 40 kph, so it had better be a long/steep hill. cheers

It is actually very simple, try whatever you like, then get a pyrometer and measure the tyre temperatures (inside, centre and outside of the tread). That will tell you whether you have too much camber or not. Based on 5 years of racing Skylines, a 550 lbs per inch front spring with a 27mm front stabiliser bar and 8 degrees of caster shouldn't need 5.75 degress of negative camber. Even with very soft low frequency bump rates in the shocks, it simply isn't going to roll enough to need that much camber to maximise the tyre contact patch. The bottom line, the tyre temperatures will tell you. cheers

Looping the lines is fine, the rear stage of the pump is just pumping the power steering fluid all the way down to the back solenoid, then back to the front solenoids and through the cooler. The cooler itself is a simple loop of aluminium pipe, just in front of the radiator on the drivers side. By doing that you are disconnecting the HICAS OK, but you are not saving the 20kgs or so of weight. That's the only additional advantage of removing the complete system. cheers

There are standard rear camber adjusters on R32/33/34 models on the inner mount of the upper control arm. This is a picture of an R33/Stagea one; This is from the rear, you can just see the adjuster bolt up near the fuel tank; Just make sure it is set to the minimum negative camber setting ie; the longest distance between the mount and the wheel. If it is and you still have more than 0.5 to 1.0 degrees negative then you need to get a set of adjustable camber bushes. Refer to the Whiteline/ Bilstein Group Buy thread for your particular model for more details (including prices). cheers

Great result. Good to see that there is plenty of injector duty left, what fuel pressure are you running? cheers

The bracket is for mounting the brake line and/or the ABS sensor wire on some models. cheers

As per my post, I think 3 rotors should be included, as in Cosmos 20B. There is no class for them at the moment. I don't have a non OEM gearbox, so the rule change suggestion doesn't affect my car directly. cheers

Race wins, lap records and championships told me. cheers

I have no idea where they get 1320kgs from, but it isn't correct. I have the Japan exit weight for mine and it was 1265 kgs, that's a standard 1990 model R32GTST M Spec 2 door with aircon. It had no ABS or sunroof and a little fuel in the tank (not much). This is an extract by funkymonkey on R32 specs http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...9&hl=definitive As you can see it quotes 1260 kgs, so mine is no super lightweight. Add an 85 kg driver and you are at 1345 kgs, that means 64 kgs of lead to be added to a stock standard R32GTST. cheers

100kgs cheers

They way I look at is from a performance perspective, not a cost one. I don't think you can write rules that stop people spending money, they will spend whatever they can afford. The rule writers are obviously of the opinion that the ability to change to a non OEM gearbox is a performance increaser, that's why they handed out a handicap for doing it. My view is that an high stall speed drag auto is worth more than 150lbs in performance, I chose 200lbs based on the weight/performance index. I am simply saying that 150 lbs is not enough and that 200 lbs is a more accurate reflection, I don't think you should be attacking me on the basis that they don't need a handicap at all. That is already decided and agreed and included in the current regs. If you want to argue cost (which I think is a valid argument by the way) then you need to do just that. I should emphasise that I am not asking to run a LIGHTWEIGHT R32GTST, all I am asking is to run a STANDARD WEIGHT R32GTST . So I don't think is is either fair or accurate to tell someone with a standard R32GTST to go and race in another class. Because that's what the current regs say. cheers

My 20 cents....... The standard fuel pump has a one way valve that stops the fuel draining back to the tank when the pump (engine) is turned off. It sounds to me like the replacement pump doesn't have the one way valve fitted and ALL of the fuel is draing back to the tank. This means the pump has to prime for quite a long time just to fill up the hoses, pipework, fuel filter, fuel rail, build up 36-38 psi of pressure and finally get to the injectors to squirt. The prime timing on the ECU isn't long enough for this to occur as it is designed for the standard pump with a one way valve, which take almost zero priming. To fix it, take the one way valve off the standard pump and put it on the JECS pump. One other thing to check. The standard fuel pump failing is most unusual, they are a very hardy device. It MAY be that something caused the pump to fail and is contributing to your problem. The most common I have seen lately is squashed fuel lines, where someone has lifted up the car on a hoist, or with a jack, and squashed the fuel lines against the floor pan. I would have a good look under the car, follow the fuel lines form back to front and make sure that they are in good condition. Hope that helps cheers

Having had a look at the standard weights for R32/33/34 GTST and GTR I would like to change that to; Minimum Weights: 2 Rotor – 2300 pounds/ 1045kg 3 Rotor – 3000 pounds/ 1360kg 4 Cylinder RWD – 2300 pounds/ 1045kg 4 Cylinder AWD – 2400 pounds/ 1090kg 6 Cylinder RWD – 3000 pounds/ 1360kg 6 Cylinder AWD – 3200 pounds/ 1454kg Non-original OEM transmission permitted (e.g. Power glide in a Supra), but will be assigned a 220 pound penalty (100kgs) I believe that the 94 kgs is a much fairer/more accurate reflection of the weight and performance separation between 2wd and 4wd. It means a straight off the street R32GTST with an 85 kg driver doesn't have to carry ballast. R33GTST and R34GTT would make that weight with the common/relatively inexpensive weight reductions and an 85kg driver. I have added 3 rotor, because someone seems to have forgotten about Cosmos with the standard 20B. The current penalty for a non OEM gearbox of 150 lbs is nowhere near the achievable performance gain and we should be encouraging the use of OEM parts wherever possible. cheers PS; Personally I don't care that Supra's will have trouble making that weight limit, they have a 3 litre engine to make up for it.

Who the hell told you 550/400 was a good spring rate for the track? Maybe if you are using slicks, but certainly not road or R type tyres. I don't think we have ever run 5 degrees negative camber, even at Philip Island (big G forces, long/fast corners) we only run up to 4 degrees maximum. But I can't recall 5 degrees anywhere, the braking would be terrible. The Japs don't seem to know much about stabiliser bars, their shocks are very simplistic in their valving, anti squat and anti dive adjustments are alien to them. The concept of changing the roll couple by adjusting the ride height goes totally against there basic philosophy of lower is always better. So they try and do EVERYTHING with the springs, this means rediculously high spring rates. We use springs ot hold the car up, stabiliser bars to control the roll, some antidive geometry in the front to control the dive under brakes and a lot of antisquat in the rear to improve the corner exit power down. We adjust the ride height to alter the roll couple. It comes down to whack some rock hard springs in there and they don't have to worry about anyhting else, it's a quick and easy bolt on solution. Remember good mechanics in Japan charge like brain surgeons. Now that might work on billiard table smooth surfaces, but we don't have any of those, our tracks are rough, full of ridges, not at all smooth and fast times require much ripple strip jumping. GTR's are more of a smooth turn in, trail brake, late apex and early power out style of chassis. Use the 4wd traction to make the straights longer. Antisquat is the amount of suspension geometry resistence to squat under power application. If you have too much rear squat, it transfers the weight off the front wheels and you get understeer as a result. If you have too much antisquat the rear goes very stiff under power application and you get power oversteer. Antisquat is adjusted by changing the angle of the rear subframe, placing polurethane bushes above and/or below the rear subframe. In the race cars we have stackable bushes so that we can adjust the antisquat. My "30% antisquat" comment represents 2 small bushes at the front between the subframe and the chassis and one large bush below the rear of the subframe. This is fairly similar to the Whiteline kit (pineapples) which has 6 bushes. Some people have had problems reading/understanding the Whiteline instructions for the rear subframe bushes. Courtesy of Emanuel, I have numbered the bushes in the pictures and numbered the corresponding bushes in the Whiteline instructions. If you are lucky I have got them right, it is so much easier when I am actually doing it. Please do a quick check just to be sure. It's a bit hard to draw #3 as it goes above the sub frame, which you can't see in the picture. The bushes that go above the subframe have cuts in them. This is so you can slip them over the bolts/studs and don't have to remove the whole subframe to do it. Cheers

Hi Al, the standard shocks don't control the standard springs very well when they are new. Asking well used shocks to control lowered springs which are at least 25% higher in spring rate is a bit optimistic. To save duplicating the labour I would do both springs and shocks at the same time. cheers

Nope, fronts are supposed to be 83159, rears are corect at 70191. I am working through fixing all the listings at the moment. If you have 83139 please PM me and I will arrange for a swap. cheers

You can swap rear cradles from a turbo to a non turbo, the floor pans are the same. cheers

Bilstein ran out of shocks in Australia for the R32GTST and I was going to close the Group Buy accordingly. But Germany found a handfull in stock, so they have been airfreighted to Australia and arrived last week. The exchange rate was good enough so that the airfreight cost was covered, so no change in the Group Buy price. This means I can keep the Group Buy open for a bit longer. But don't delay too long, there are not many sets left. We could be looking at a 5 to 6 month wait for the next production run. cheers

Sorry, I received 25+ PM's last night, filled up the message box. I have cleared some space today. Yep, there are some R33GTST Bilsteins left, springs are made to order by Whiteline, so no problems there. Price would be +144+144+476+476+free freight = 1240 - 5% = $1178. Just confirm the order via PM, transfer the funds into the Jamex bank account, let me know the receipt number and we are under way. Don't forget to include your name, a delivery address (not a PO Box) and a contact phone number for the courier. Thanks for supporting the Group Buy cheers