SMOKEYV35

i work for a company that is the largest remarketer of insurance claim vehicles in australia - i used to work in the salvage department which involves dealing with all the insurance write offs that the insurance comapines pay out on and then onsell. ever since the GFC hit, denied claims went through the roof, because a lot of people got into financial trouble and did all sorts of weird and wonderful 'jobs' on their cars. as a result, if it is a single car claim (ie, no other car was involved in the accident), the assessors scrutinise the claim to the nth degree. so trust me, if you think you can get away with it - think twice - they've seen every single thing at least once before, and you will not get away with it, and you WILL get black listed for life. remember, it is the assessor job to find reasons to avoid paying out a full claim, and to undervalue your vehicle.

unbelievable. i'll remember to send a thank you in 12 months time when my insurance renewal bill comes back around and the premium's have gone up.

just got one of these myself, brand new from access autoworks for $69....but they definitely have a nice weight to them and make the gearshifts feel a lot silkier.

so am i to assume based on that firs post, as there doesnt appear to be an entrant list or and event specific 'pre-registration' process, it will be first in best dressed for the first 80 cars belonging to current SAU financial members to pass through the gate on the day - anyone beyond that parks with the public on the street?

Ash, are places full for the show? i am considering becoming a financial member soon - but i'd definitely do it now if i can get a spot in the show!

got a trust/greddy shifter knob (heh) - noice and heavy, hope it slips through the gears even better now

the rolling shots are awesome! but, i dont know anything about photography - but it seems like the static shots in the carpark, the lighting is a bit out of whack. the light is hitting in all the place you don't want, and making the car look quite dirty and scratched up - which obviously isn't the case based on the rolling shots.

awesome, save the date! what class would a stagea go in to?

HICAS lock bars?

yep with rails on the car. probably should have made it clear, but the drop sheets were to cover the car, not the garage floor! can try get pics but proably not going to show all that clearly.

resprayed my roof rails on the weekend. used a product called 'bumper black' which i have had a lot of success with before. it is a black paint that has an inbuilt primer in it, and goes on with a textured finish very similar to powder coating. it is fantastic because it dries fast, and because of the textured finish,it hides imperfections very easily. it is also extremely durable. i'd highly reccommend it for anyone who's rails are looking a bit faded or mottly. i'll be doing my wiper arms with it this weekend. EDIT: quick tip, if you do this, make sure you mask off EVERY part of the car that you don't want this stuff on. it gets airborn and travels for metres and metres. my garage floor was covered in a powdery residue afterwards. i went to mitre10 and bought a few plastic drop sheets from the paint section, cost about 2 bucks each. tape those down with masking tape and dont leave any room for error because this stuff will find it's way in! it was esp important for me as i have a white car.

i guess, to put it in perspective, this is one of the most heavily modded stagea's i've seen for sale in oz - and it's asking 22k.....gives you a yardstick to measure by http://firesport.com.au/98-nissan-stagea-r...s--ad138439.htm

if the build plate is saying it's silver, then shouldnt you be able to find some silver paint on the car somewhere? quick way would be to try lift off the shifter surround, it would be unlikely that anyone would ever paint in there during a respray. end of the day, if you're happy with the car then so be it. value is all about a formula of price vs perceived benefit. if you however feel that you would not have paid the same amount for a heavily modded RS4S, then you have grounds for legal compensation - although you will have a hard time proving it. an extreme example would be if you bought a $450,000 Phase 3 GTHO that was SOLD AS a Phase 3 GTHO, but turned out to be only a mockup - even though both cars perform their intended duties equally as well, only one has the desirability as a collectible, and as such you should be compensated as you weren't sold what was described or implied. an auctech 260RS in my mind is a collectable because they will never make any more, and even though you can mock one up quite easily to the exact specs - it is will never be a 260RS. if you tried to seek legal compensation though, any lawyer would just point out that it has been so heavily modified that it no longer retains its value as a collector piece, and that the mods are worth more than the selling price anyway - so you'd probably lose.

i had 225's on a 10 at the end of the day, if you're not prepared to live with the compromise, just cut your losses and try again. they are hawt rims, but if you're going to have to molest your gaurds, run excessive camber that chews your tyres up, and leave your lip heavily exposed to gutters and stone chips (trust me this happens, the rear lips catch all the stones that fling off the front tyres and it puts pits all over the lip) - then i'd sell. if it were a drifted out s13 i'd just say 'bash away and make the car fit the wheels', but it's a bit different with a nice late model car......

you should try fitting them up, jack one corner up and put a big block of wood under the tyre and let the car back down slowly - you will compress that corner enough to see if the camber will bring it under the gaurds. guys are right, camber does amazing things. my LS400 had 19x10's hanging out the gaurds on stock suspension, with the coilovers in, i was looking at getting spacers just to get them out more! i reckon i gained about 25mm of clearance from just lowering. they should be pretty easy to sell though if you don't want the hassle. even get in touch with import monster and see if he will do a swap for some less agressive rims - he has offered me this before.

1.5 inches.....you can generally get around 50mm of flare on a gaurd without cracking the paint or 'duckbilling' them - any more than that and it's respray time. sounds like you should have probably done a bit more research on your offsets before you lashed out unfortunately..... ........i'm sure a GT-R owner will give you good money.

i ended up getting full comp through Just Cars for $870 - with 17.5k agreed value, all mods covered incl rims and stereo. pretty happy with that.

wow this thread was misleading.....should be 'i am building a toy r34 fronted stagea.....' got me all hot and bothered for nothin! admittedly the toy does look good, but the real thing would have been insane. good luck with it!

i had a r31 skyline - it was an auto n/a from factory, i manualised it and turboed the RB30 - the vaccum controlled cruise control never missed a beat, it was as good as it ever was with the auto.

http://www.glassylite.net.au/ the trick is the 'nano sealant' - but just be careful with your quanitities, they give you SFA in the kit, so you need to make it all last.

i'd be interested to see this too. i've been doing a 2 hour commute to work on the freeway the past few weeks - RS4S - it is one of the hardest cars to maintain constant speed!

a buzzing sound with feedback through the stick goin from 1 to 2 sounds like it could be worn synchros - pretty common as when people are thrashing the car, they crash through the synchros from 1st to 2nd trying to 'live their life a 1/4 mile at a time'. if that is what it is, it won't need to be replaced until it just becomes a problem - which it will, and it will get worse. best to get it diagnosed by a transmission place, they'll be able to take it round the block and tell you straight away. if it is this, you can try putting some redline shockproof through the box, and i've also had success in the past with a nulon additive that comes in a white tube (name escapes me). if you want to try protect it even more, double clutch it when you can be bothered on up shifts and down shifts through 1 and 2, it slows the box down enough to not have to use the synchros.

my understanding was that the heat of excessive boost is what kills the ceramic wheel - so you get hairline fractures forming on the exhaust wheel which eventually give way sending fragments flying off at 10000000rpm - i guess my question is - if that happens, will it automatically lunch the turbo - or is there a chance that only small pieces have come off and the turbo could still be functioning, just not at an optimal rate (slower spool). and that those small pieces could be what is causing the rattling, as they are stuck in the front pipe and blowing about in front of the mesh on the cat. could also explain why the sound goes away under throttle as they are getting blasted up against the mesh. doesnt sound like i'm going to get a confident answer......looks like it'll be a case of getting under the car after work tonight. crap.

achieved a bit for the weekend: - fitted PIVOT speed meter and PIVOT shift lamp - fitted red LEDs to the dash - now all interior lights are red - sprayed rain gaurds gloss black and fitted up - took back surface rust on rotors and sprayed them black with VHT caliper paint - put on some hubcentric rings, has got rid of vibration at 100km/h - used glassylite on the UV affected headlights (these things were shot, so yellow that i was trying to source replacements but this glassylite stuff has took them back to brand new - best 40 bucks i've spent on the car) i have a list of 'to do' stuff, so it's getting shorter each weekend - but the more time i spend in and around the car, the more i find! its tough being OCD!!!

hey guys, car has developed a tinny rattling sound at idle. it seems to go away with throttle, and then as the revs drop it rattles again. i got under the car and held one end of a screwdriver to everything i could think of, and the other to my ear - and i suspect it's related to the exhaust. it could be something simple like a loose heat shield or a stone caught behind a shield......but i'm also worried it could be something more sinister - like little bits of ceramic exhaust wheel bouncing around in front of the mesh on the cat converter....... stock neo turbo has been running 11-12psi off the EBC.......is there any other way i can diagnose other than dropping the exhuast in front of the cat and seeing what comes out? its my first experience with a ceramic wheeled turbo, so any insight would be good! for example, if the exhaust wheel does sh1t the bed, does it do it all at once, or will the blades break/chip off slowly.....? because the car is still boosting reasonably strong, only paranoia is making me question it.... cheers! Mat