Sydneykid

I agree with Boz, roll it out of the pits when the air is cool and blow the competition away with a super quick time straight up, demoralise them. If you, the team and driver, know your stuff, then the car should be the best it's going to be. As the day wears on, the car and the track just get slower. Also you run the risk of the weather conditions getting worse or someone dropping a sump full of oil. More importantly, for a workshop, I think it shows how good they are. They turn up with a car that's ready to go fast that has been prepared in their workshop. I think turning up with a fully prepared car is a very good thing promotionally. That the mechanics have done the job properly back in the shop. That they haven't had to work on the car all day in the pits is a good sign. Plus a good time early on gives potential customers reason and time to talk to you during the day. You can't sell your product if they only find out in the results the next day because you did it so late in the day that they had already packed up. Slow early and fast late may not have been deliberate on this occasion as the weather got better as the day progressed, until the oil down of course. Cheers Gary

I throw your rocks back It was raining in the morning, it was then wet with partial dry lines, then it was dry. But then a Wrecks dropped it's oil everywhere. So no chance to get a full dry run hence reasonable to assess a faster time was likely. Cheers Gary

Is that fronts and rears? On the Improved Production Car we get a full season's racing out of DBA5000 series rotors with HT10's and even then they are not shot, but we change them in the off season anyway. On the Production Car the DBA5000 series rotors did the whole Bathurst 12 hour and still look OK for a couple of hours more. Cheers Gary

What's magical about 1.4 bar? Is it for bragging rights with your mates? Because it's useless for anything else. You could make 225 rwkw at 1.4 bar or 400 rwkw at 1.4 bar, depending on the turbo and what restrictions you have removed. So a little more information will be required, like what the power target is, what do you use the car for, a budget perhaps. Cheers Gary

Engines rock, hump hoses take up the rocking motion. If you only have one joint between the engine and the intercooler or solid mounting of the pipework, then a hump joiner is a good idea. If you have 2 or 3 joins, then most likely you won't need a hump joint. Cheers Gary

OK now I am confused, the VIP look I am familiar with is low and wide with dish. The camber is not the look itself, it is an unwanted (undesirable) consequence of trying to achieve the look. Which, with a bit of engineering, you can remove. Cheers Gary

For shorter drive shafts have a look through the Nissan range, lots of them are splines interchangeable. Stuff like LHS Cefiro into RHS S13 to faciliate wider wheels, an R32GTST cradle into R32GTR etc etc. A bit of homework and I doubt that you would ever have to get a drive shortened. Cheers Gary

I think you missed what I said, re read it and you will find that the top of the wheel ends up in the same place. So the wheel won't hit on the fender any more than it does now. Cheers Gary

The Tuesday is OK for us locals, so I'm in. I'll leave it to the interstaters to make their own comments. Cheers Gary

I am not bickering, well trying my best not to anyway. What I am trying to do is challenge your thinking. Let's try this; I have no idea what the underneath of a Y33 looks like but based on other Nissans....How about a 10 inch wide, -35 offset wheel, with a 15 mm (outer guard) pull, a 5 mm (inner guard) push and 5 mm (top of wheel) camber correction. It uses pretty much the same components, just with a bit more engineering thought put into the suspension geometry. The "wheel flush with guard look" would be the same but it wouldn't have the stupid looking camber angles and it might actually drive. Cheers Gary

The cheapest method is to pull the plugs and check their colour after a dyno run. Cheers Gary

My experience with building RB race engines (9 years and over 60 of them) is that all valve springs need shimming. Regardless what brand name is on them, they have minor differences in seat pressure, every head is different. Then you add in the differences in valve seat height accross individual heads and the variations in seating become more obvious. No spring manufacturer could possibly make a spring that is going to have the same seat pressure on every valve in every engine, so to do the job properly you need to shim their bases. We're not talking about thick shims here, less than 1 mm is common, occasionally 2 mm. Sometimes the reverse is required and we machine the spring bases in the head to decrease the seat pressure. Obviously we aim for a higher level of precision on a race engine, but that doesn't mean the same process isn't followed for a road engine. Cheers Gary

No the 2wd swaybars are different diameters to the 4wd bars and different shapes. Plus the Group Buy bars are unique to Jamex (they paid for the enginering), they are often in unique sizes and have extra adjustment. We don't make them for anyone else, the swaybars we make for Whiteline are their standard catalogue line. Bars ordered today are shipped tomorrow, orders over $500 are freight free to anywhere in Australia. PM me for further details. The Group Buy Bilsteins have additional circlip grooves added (they have 2 grooves standard) so you can set the height you want before you fit them. There are 6 grooves 8 mm apart and I can tell you the height that you will get from each groove. Cheers Gary

It's not a matter of liking it or not. The fact is there is no real engineering in it, I could achieve the same look in an hour with 4 bits of 4 x 2 instead of springs and shocks. It would probably handle about as well. Real engineering would be achieving the "style" and making the car driveable at the same time. Anything less than that is a cop out and the word "engineering" should never appear in the same sentence as VIP. That's the real problem I have with the "style" it's a lie, a fake, a shame, phony, it's deceitful because it gives false belief to people who think you can have that "style" cheaply and a real car at the same time. Real credibilty would belong to someone who can engineer in the "style" together with true daily driveability. Citroen did it 50 years ago, copy their engineering solutions and you would revolutionise the VIP world. Cheers Gary

They're not Supras, it's a bespoke drag chassis with some plastic over it that looks sorta like a Supra, if it's dark and you squint a bit. You could easily change it from Supra looking plastic to Camaro looking plastic in less than an hour. Cheers Gary

It has a "gearstick", two in fact, mounted behind the steering wheel. It has a "clutch", two in fact. "And all", do you mean a clutch slave cylinder, thrust race etc? It has them, they are just electronicaly controlled because us humans move our left feet too slowly. Cheers Gary

No....surely not. Why would anyone in their right mind "engineer" something that is so obviously wrong? If they were truly "engineering" it, then it would be right. It looks to me more like a dump it on its ass exercise and who cares about the consequences. Properly re-engineered, you could dump it on its ass and have the correct geometry. 75 mm is more than the standard bump travel (zero bump stop contact) on a Stagea. 75 mm places the rear lower control arms at an angle which results in 4 degrees of dynamic camber change with full suspension movement 75 mm results in a minimum of 2.75 degrees of rear static negative camber 75 mm causes 3 mm of bump steer on the rear at a modest 50 mm of compression 75 mm places the front lower control arms at an angle which results in zero increase in NEGATIVE camber on compression 75 mm results in a minimum of 1.25 degrees of front static negative camber 75 mm causes 1.5 mm of bump steer on the front at a modest 40 mm compression And you don't think that screwing up the geometry like that going to increase tyre wear? Not different, just worse. Cheers Gary

Do a search on here mate, there's lots of reports... You'll also read what people do with them once they replace them.

Inlet manifold or exhaust manifold? Cheers Gary

That's why the cars I engineer win events, I worry about every little detail. That's why there are over 160 guys out there with Group Buy kits in their Skylines and Stageas, because I cared about every little detail when I was engineering them. But when they get there they go slower. Seems like it This topic is about making bits from 1 car (R33GTST) fit into another car (Stagea), that's 2 cars not 5 or 6. Not everyone has that luxury. The OD of the metal top hat spring seat is 75 mm, the rubber sits around it. If you use a spring of lesser ID (60/62/64/70 mm) then it will contact the top hat as the rubber compresses. Tip.....if you want a consistent spring rate for predictable handling and don't care about NVH, then you should remove the rubber spring seat. It has a spring rate all of its own that affects the main spring rate on initial compression and final rebound. Which are precisely the times you want maximum shock absorber control of the spring, having 2 quite different spring rates (the spring itself and the rubber seat) makes life unnecessarily difficult for the shock absorber. Cheers Gary

"Needed"....such an interesting word. I agree with not "essential", but if you want better response and more power at lower boost then I say it is "needed". I have a simple rule, if the head is off, port it. If the head doesn't need to come off, then don't take it off just to port it. Cheers Gary

R33 what? R33 rear shocks only? Yes they will fit and they will work OK for a while, as long as they are in good condition. R33 Springs? Nope they won't fit, wrong dimensions R33 Strut tops? They won't fit either, wrong stud pattern. What we are talkibng about here is complete R33 shock/spring units and they definitely won't bolt straight in, for the reasons above. Cheers Gary

So you admit that they don't fit. But wait there's more............ What do you suggest they do when the standard Stagea rear spring seat is 75 mm and the coil spring in the coil over kit is 60 mm, or 62 mm or 65 mm or 70 mm? They are all common coil over sizes. They have to change the springs? Oh look, another reason why they don't fit. Cheers Gary

Pick 5 Stagea people and I think you would be proven wrong. That's your problem, the average Stagea owner is more educated on what is good and what is bad than the average punter. Talk to your audience, on the Stagea thread don't treat the readers like idiots. So it's slow then and lacks traction. All that proves is they are doing worse than you, not that you are doing it right. Wow, you better tell BMW and AMG and Porsche and Jaguar etc that they are doing the impossible. So tell me, when you buy your V35 or M35 how are you going to use "coil overs" in the rear? Because the people who really know are aware that "coil overs" is simply a description of the layout of the springs and shocks. That Skyline R32/33/34's and Stagea 34's come with coil overs standard. Much fun for all Cheers Gary

Tell me then how you fit R33 rear strut tops with 115 mm bolt centres into a Stagea that has 80 mm bolt centres? That's because I am usually (but not always) right, it's called runs on the board. Cheers Gary