Sydneykid

I would never use a brand new engine in a race car, too many casting and machining stresses still in the block, crank and heads. Give me some stress relieved engine parts that have done 100,000 k's or so, been hot and cold so many times there are no stresses left. Makes a far superior package in the build. Ditto gearbox cases and shafts. If we applied an hourly rate to the work required to fit something that doesn't belong and compared it with the cost of bolts ons for an RB25DET, I know who will come out in front value for money wise. Don't try the "but he does it using his own labour, so it's free" rubbish. Nobody's time is free. If he worked overtime or got a second job, did the same hours and spent the money he earnt on an RB25DET it would piss all over the LS3. Cheers Gary BTW, push rods belong in suspension not engines.

I am going to have to challenge all you brake whores to a braking contest with my standard R32GTST callipers, 340 mm DBA 5000 series rotors and Hawk pads at an all up cost of ~$800. I know I win the value for money equation easily, but I bet I also win the G force challenge as well. Cheers Gary

Do you guys really think I am going to make a statement that I can't back up? My own RB25DET 322rwkw standard internals, which last time I checked on the engine dyno was ~530 bhp which is more than 500. The LS3 in a current Corvette (we have one for local racing evaluation) on the same dyno makes 294 rwkw, which is less than 322 rwkw The 600 hp is an American dream. Shall we move on to torque; The LS3 shows 480 nm on the dyno, which equates pretty closely to the 550 nm as per the Corvette at the engine The RB25DET shows 514 nm on the same dyno, which is more than 480 nm. The killer is from 4250 rpm to 6750 rpm the RB25DET has more torque at every point. This is real world stuff here, we are not playing with some American brochure designed to sell Corvettes to cowboys. Cheers Gary

Pleased excuse the harshness, but I just gotta ask WHY ? The engine produces no more BHP than an standard internals RB25 The engine produces less torque than standard internals RB25 The chassis is nothing special, there are plenty of choices that would be much lighter, wider and lower with superior suspension lay outs. The finished product is such a bastard it will be worthless when you sell it, you would spend less on RB25 powered one that would be worth twice as much. In summary, to me it's a bad engine choice in a bad chassis choice and, for all the work you are going to have to do it also a bad financial choice. Cheers Gary

Hi Ryan, there are 275 PM's in the inbox and not one of them is from you, so I have no idea what it is that you want. So I sent you a PM asking exactly that. Cheers Gary

My experience has been exactly the opposite, I have had 4 x GCG ball bearing high flows all tuned by a crappy tuner (me) and laggy is most certainly not a word I would use, not even remotely close. Against any measure they have all been super responsive. The Stagea makes well over 0.5 bar from a standstill against the torque converter at 1800 rpm, on l;aunch it leaps up to 1 bar instantly, that's a pretty good indication of the total abscence of any slowness of boost build. Don't always blame the turbo, sometimes it's not the real cause of the problem. Cheers Gary PS; that also applies to blaiming the middle man (the poor old Group Buy co-ordinator) who does it for nothing.

Let's dig a little deaper than the "this is better than that" simplicity, because there is no magic in a boost controller. What's happening here is the wastegate is opening earlier when controlled by the PFC BCK in comparison to the same wastegate being opened by the Blitz IDIII. Looking at the boost curve it indicates that even as low as 0.2 bar there is a difference. Think about that, at less than 3 psi there is wastegate creep. That tells me the wastegate actuator spring selected is far too small or it's not delivering its rated pressure. This diagnosis is supported by the manual boost controller (simple bleed valve?) trace which show the symptomatic over shoot and then taper off of boost as the rpm rises. What we don't see here is what the maximum achievable boost curve actually is. What the turbo is capable of when there is absolutely zero wastegate creep. The only way to achieve that is to lock the wastegate closed and log the boost curve up to the target boost. Then you know exactly what is possible out of that engine/turbo combination. It is entirely possible that an even better result is achievable. As any experienced tuner will tell you, getting the right rate wastegate actuator spring is the first step in achieving decent boost control. That way the boost controller only has a small amount of work to do and hence the best chance of perfect boost control. Personally I would spend $5 on the right rate wastegate actuator spring rather than spend $400 on a boost controller. Cheers Gary

Hi Anthony, what Datalogit software version are you using? Cheers Gary

Wrong R34GTT, which is 2wd, has forks on the rear shocks. 4wd (GtR and GTS4) front shocks are much shorter so as to make clearance for the front driveshafts. Cheers Gary

The R32GTST back then was pretty light, RB20DET, small gearbox, no roll cage etc about 1180 kgs with a little fuel and no driver. So over 200 kgs lighter than an R34, it had some pretty sticky development tyres on it as well. Plus the R32 speedo was a little happy compared to the Power FC Commander. It will be interesting to compare it with the PI data now, although an extra couple of hundred kw's make the comparison a bit difficult. Cheers Gary

As most guys know I use my Stagea pretty much daily and I tow the race car with it. So I needed a turbo upgrade that would give lots of torque and handle the temperatures generated by 4 tonnes (Stagea + 2 people + trailer + R32GTST + spares and tools). I wanted to keep the rpm down at the same time, as using lower gears generates a lot of heat in the auto trans, which has an upgraded cooler of course. I didn't want to have to rev the engine to get the boost to make the torque and outright horsepower was not a consideration. I also wanted 100% reliability, it's not much fun if the tow car turbo dies on the way to or from a race meeting. Plus it had to be a half day bolt on solution, I don't want to spend time on the tow car that would be much better spent making the race car faster. So my choice ($1750 on the Group Buy) was a GCG Ball Bearing high flow. However I used an RB20 turbo to take advantage of the smaller compressor cover for faster boost build. It fits the above criteria perfectly, makes a bar at under 2,000 rpm, went on in a few hours, with zero mods and hasn't given one ounce of problem. Cheers Gary

What I would do (and have done several times) is to use Bilstein shocks with the standard springs. Using the additional circlip grooves in the Group Buy Bilsteins you can lower the car to the ride height you mentioned. You get the height plus a comfortable (still sporty) ride and greatly improved handling from the superior shocks. For drag racing you don't have to raise the car up, it's completely unneccesary. If you wanted the absolute maximum then you might want to adjust off some camber, but that's a simple job to do while you have the car jacked up to change the tyres at the drags. If you aren't changing tyres, then you needed bother changing the camber. If you wanted to improve the handling even more, then swaybars are the go. They are easily the best handling upgrade value for money and they won't adversely affect the drag racing. Cheers Gary

The shocks are quite different lengths, plus the springs rates are much high for GTR's (and GTS4's) due to their higher front weight. Cheers Gary

Where the upper control arm and the traction rod are bolted to the upright (hub) there are rubber bushes, generally called the outer pivot point. They are pressed into the upright (hub). So you need to remove the uprights (hubs) from the car to press them out. They are the same physical size as the inner pivot points which are located in the arms. Cheers Gary

Nobody is ignoring you. We get 40 to 50 PM's and emails a day, sometimes I have to actually do some work so I don't get to answer every PM and email every day. But I can assure you every single PM and every single email gets answered in the order in which we receive them. Sticking posts in innapropriate threads won't help you jump the que. Cheers Gary

My library has the following, they are a good place to start; Tune to Win - Carrol Smith Drive to Win - Carrol Smith Saloon Car Race Preparation - Nigel MacKnight Performance Handling - Don Alexander Competition Car Suspension - Allan Staniforth Race Car Engineering & Mechanics - Paul Van Valkenburgh I have found that there is no one book that covers all suspension areas, the ones that may on the surface appear to be out of date still have lots of relevance and even the heavily scientific ones have some basic stuff that anyone can grasp even if you ultimately ignore the formulas. Cheers Gary

Nobody is ignoring you. We get 40 to 50 PM's and emails a day, sometimes I have to actually do some work so I don't get to answer every PM and email every day. But I can assure you every single PM and every single email gets answered in the order in which we receive them. Sticking posts in innapropriate threads won't help you jump the que. Cheers Gary

Nobody is ignoring you. We get 40 to 50 PM's and emails a day, sometimes I have to actually do some work so I don't get to answer every PM and email every day. But I can assure you every single PM and every single email gets answered in the order in which we receive them. Sticking posts in innapropriate threads won't help you jump the que. Cheers Gary

True for the rears, but not the fronts. Cheers Gary

You guessed it, it's a pain in the ass job, you have to remove the uprights (hubs) and stick them in a press to remove the old bushes. I use the Whiteline rear camber kit ($125 on the Group Buy) and the 2 piece bushes just push in with your fingers, then it's just a tap with the hammer to fit the crush tubes. Cheers Gary

I never said that the parts were crap, they do exactly what they are supposed to do, but you need to aware that you can't simply bolt them on and expect a perfect result. It wouLd be like fitting a good turbo to your car and then not tuning it. You will get a crappy result, but the turbo is still a good one. It's been a while since I did a Cefi, from memory it was 360 mm front and 350 mm rear. Check it via the rake, it should be 10 mm nose down measured at the sills, just behind the front wheels and just in front of the rear wheels. Cheers Gary

Let's start off this way, Robbie won last years Drift Australia Championship and I can assure you his car had bump steer correction carried out. Millen's car in the US Drift also the same. Using the parts is not the issue, it's what you do to correct the issues they create that's important. I have no idea whether the Jap guys do proper set up, all I know is they should. Jap circuits are extremely flat, plus they use tarmac not gravel likes we do, so bumps may not be the issue that they are here. But they are still an issue no matter where the track is. I bolded and underlined predictability above, because that's exactly what bump steer takes away from you. Lossing a drift because the car hits a bump and steers itself is not what I consider a good idea. Maybe less guys would hit stuff if they removed the unpredicatablity. Cheers Gary

So how was the 11.00 decided? There must have been some reason for choosing it. Pumping up the old safety chestnut is all very well, but I bet when the 11.00 was decided on "road cars" that were capable of getting under that didn't have traction control, launch control, 4wd, 14 airbags, progressive cumple zones, 300 kph tyres, 6 spot front and 4 spot rear brakes etc etc. Way back I raced at Castlereagh and did a mid 10 in my road car, with all the required safety gear at the time and I can tell you for absolute certain that I would be a whole lot safer in a standard R35GTR. Just as the speed of standard cars has moved on so has the safety of them. So if the line in sand was originally based on safety, it still needs reviewing. Cheers Gary

My favourite event of the year. In the R32GTST with 235 rwkw we were turning into the right hand kink for the Chase at 230 kph, no need to back off. Then it accelerates a little more down the slight incline before the hard braking for the Chase itself. I haven't done the Mountain Straight Hillclimb for 10 years at least, I always luck out and get the Essess Hillclimb. I am trying to keep that weekend free so we can get there, in either car, it will be fun. Cheers Gary

Cheers Gary