scathing

The next NSCC event is actually a Breakfast drive, and that's only open to paid members. The lunch cruises are open to all, and are still worth going to.

Before I continue with this discussion, would you agree that a turbo setup with no BOV spools down faster than one with a BOV? Having never driven a car without a BOV I can't say from personal experience.

Actual wavelength detectors are illegal (aside from WA). GPS units with "points of interest" are legal. Of course, they're only as good as the marked locations are accurate and up to date, and they won't pick up mobile ones (they do tell you where cops frequently set up though).

An interesting (but old) article for when Autocar tried to meet the production car lap records for the Nurburgring. They took: Caterham Superlight R500 Nissan Skyline GT-R (probably an R33) Porsche 911 Carrera RUF CTR II Source

http://www.nissansportscarclub.org/

Pretty damned easy. They're one of the most popular imports around, so whether you just join in the latest round of wrecking a S13 someone's crashed and taking bits off that, or getting it from a shop, you should be able to locate anything you need.

The last NSCC lunch cruise I lead went down to Kiama anyway, so I'd probably want to make this one a little different and add some variety. I don't know if they'd want to head south. Just looked at the NSCC calendar - there's no mention of a lunch cruise this weekend, so it looks like I won't have to make those kinds of choices.

Sorry guys, we're going to have to switch me to a "maybe". I might be leading the NSCC lunch cruise this weekend (I got asked on Monday, but I only bothered re-configuring my mail client today). Of course, it is open to all so I could wrangle it for them to go to the 'gong as well.

You're going to have to unpack that for me, and explain how air flowing in a different way can also be applying force in the same direction as when its not flowing in this "different" way.

Not enough. I could see Lindsay Fox buying the first one off the boat, but then the man's a collector. And the occasional guys who like the car and have the cash to spend, but not enough to make it a viable business. But then, the article talks about Nismo in Europe and I made it quite plain my response was in that context. There's a much higher population density over there, and a greater number of the wealthy. And, given that the import culture seems to be the automotive youth culture du jour, it could succeed.

Yep, Macquarie Pass. Albion Park, at the base of the Pass, is about 20-30 minutes south of Wollongong. And the pies at Robertson (at the top of the Pass) are some of the best I've ever had.

318i's are gutless unless you get a really old one, when the cars were light. Anything from the early 90's onwards has too much weight for the motor. The BMW will probably handle OK (depending on your definition of OK), but it'll also be tired and your repair / maintenance costs are high. A Silvia wouldn't be too bad. I'd rather take an SR20DE Silvia to an RB20DE R32 GTS. Just a smaller, more nimble car. Interior's a bit low rent, but not a horrible place to spend some time. If it doesn't have to be RWD, I'd say get a Pulsar with an SR. The last of the SSS' are going for around $15K, and you can probably get an N14 SSS or Q for $10K or so. They're Aus delivered so parts, servicing etc isn't an issue. And they're a reasonably handling car that don't really attract the attention from the cops, especially if you shave the SSS badging so it looks like a granny car.

I should be there. Anyone interested in going to do Mac Pass with me while we're down there?

I haven't looked in to it enough, but the way I see it when you've got compressor surge you're applying a force to the blades that it otherwise wasn't designed to take. The force itself might not be as strong as when the turbo is on-boost, but the compressor wheel is designed to take load in that direction.

It depends on your perspective. Nissan has enough of a motorsport heritage in Europe (Le Mans, Nurburgring production car records, Paris Dakar) for them to be able to pull it off. It might be harder to sell to the older generation (who will still stick by their BMWs and Porsches) but Gran Turismo has done more for the GT-R nameplate than its various real-world motorsport victories (like Bathurst, the Nurburgring 24 Hour, etc). To the younger rich, the fact that a R34 Z-Tune should spank a stock 911 Turbo, while being cheaper than a RUF or Gemballa, would probably help it sell.

What info were you after? I don't know everything there is to know about the Impreza AWD system, but I do know that it runs 3 mechanical diffs. The centre is a LSD, and the front is an open diff on all WRXs and early STi's. Not entirely sure about the rear on the entry models. I know the STi's have alreays run rear LSDs though.

RWD cars don't necessarily have to be less "grip" oriented than AWD cars (I assume you mean tarmac racing). AWD is only really useful if you have a surfeit of power, or you're dealing with low grip conditions. Otherwise, the extra weight and its location, plus a loss of steering feel, can be a detriment to handling with no real traction benefits. For example, my car has more grip than power. On the track in the dry, I can pretty much punch out of a lot of 2nd gear corners and every 3rd gear corner burying the throttle as soon as I touch it. I don't have to ease it in - I can just mash it. That's on street tyres. On semis, those second gear corners are flat stick too. So for me, a 4WD drivetrain would be near useless. I'd lose some of my steering feel, gain some torque steer, and add another 50kg+ (mostly to the front of my already front heavy car)....but I'd see no benefits in traction. I could compensate by replacing the final drives, but then I'd lose time from the constant gearshifts.

Not any shonkier than the rest of the magazine. Even if you didn't know that T28s ran steel wheeled turbos and called bullshit about their comments on the blue S15's stock blower, they were all crapping on about how they were setting their cars up for "good" track handling with big rims and stiff coilovers....in the same edition were John Bowe pans all the modified GT-Rs for not having enough suspension compliance and being a detriment to the handling of the car..... Like I said. The magazine was a great concept, but the execution was so poor it was like the Anti-Playboy. Its the kind of magazine where saying you only bought it "for the articles" will get you less respect than buying it for the pics.

I'd take an asymmetric AWD any day. Rear biased if it can't be completely adaptive. Ideally I'd want an Evolution style drivetrain (with full active diffs), but I'd take a GT-R style ATTESSA over the front-biased Euro econobox stuff, or the symmetric Subaru gear.

I've driven a couple of different Nissans (Pulsar, Silvia, Z, Skylines), and all of them have had excellent pedal placement for heel-toeing. They all feel pretty similar, and its as if Nissan did their pedal placement just for people like us. But yes, head room can be an issue for taller drivers in a Silvia. If you're going to set it up as a dedicated track car you'd replace the seats, which means replacing the seat rails. That might help a bit.

I've had occasion to play with one in my car, and its OK. Screen's a bit narrow but it seems accurate enough. The guy I borrowed it from ran it in his S13. The "hp" measurement is actually impressively accurate. There was only a 5% difference between what he pulled on the Unigroup dyno and what the G-Tech calculated (he used the official weight out of the service manual, plus an estimate for his own weight, so the error margin could even have come from the fact that he didn't properly weigh his vehicle). If I wasn't looking at buying one of these in the future, I'd probably get a modern G-Tech Pro SS.

I'm not a big fan of ASM either. Then again, I'm not a big fan of the Autosalon culture that I feel is pretty much ruining the car scene. They constantly talk up their various cars, but in an unsurprising result half their field in their "car of the year" piece broke down at Wakefield. They look nice (I guess) and pull great numbers on the dyno, which seems to be what the young folk of today aspire to. Oh, and that they can "drag and drift" (I don't know how it'd hold up drifting if they keep breaking stuff time attacking) even though most of the owners are bench racers.

I got up to Page 4 before I gave up in disgust. The thread goes nowhere, aside from the usual prattle of semi-pubescent children.

The thing is, most of them also know the GT-R is a "cut above" theirs. So its no loss of face to rate those cars. It'd be like someone comparing an R34 GT-R to a Porsche 996 Turbo - there's no problem with giving props to a car that's significantly more powerful and expensive as a road car. But, troll those WRX guys on how a Pulsar GTiR or Evo goes against it, and you'll probably get a similar response to when people start talking about (Supra or RX-7) vs GTS-t on here and the little kiddies take the bait.

I've run an MY02(ish) WRX in my Z from a 1st gear rolling start (we both took off, watched to see if the other was going to punch it, and then both did). Neck and neck up until I backed off at around 110km/hr (which I realise is nowhere near a quarter mile). While this takes out the glass drivetrain problem in the WRX, my car also has a lack of off-the-line traction. If my Z can keep up, it won't stand a chance against a GT-R. Once you factor in launching, and the ability of a GT-R to do a redline clutch dump more than 3 times.....the Impreza will be behind the 8-ball trying to reel it in.