pixel8r

Rather than edit my original post, I just thought I'd take back a few things said about shannons. I believe once insured with them they will honour your insurance etc. and are apparently very good to deal with for claims etc (what i've heard). I was just "voicing" my concerns, which dont appear to be valid. I will stand by my comment about people who own modified stageas will more than likely be an enthusiast about their car. But a lot hangs on one's interpretation of "enthusiast". So what i've realised is that I dont have any problem with Shannons - the company. I just dont agree with their stance on who they insure... and most of that comes down to their advertising. I think their TV advertising is very misleading and I'm sure its resulted in a big increase in calls where people have been turned away. I wont be going with them because, well...I cant. Enthusiast or not, they've refused me so I have no option.

It depends how far you want to go. If all you want is to run 11psi or so, get a piggyback (SAFC). Even go 2nd hand cause its way cheaper - you'll get a SAFC2 for around $200-250 i think...worked for me But if you want to upgrade your turbo etc (no point running more than 11psi on the stock turbo - it wont last long) and are chasing something like 250rwkw or similar, then you'll be way better off with a full ecu. Ask yourself how far you want to modify the car and how much the extra tuning is worth to you, and go from there... But for anything up to say, 180rwkw, a piggyback will be better value for money IMO. The extra tuneability of a greddy ultimate may net you a few extra kw and fuel economy, but is hardly worth it for the extra money you spend on it. Hope that helps...

Very much looking forward to seeing the results of this!! So will this mean you need to change gears using the shifter or will the auto work as per normal? Going from the discussion a while back about whether the auto will be fully supported or not, SK mentioned it probably wont be as smooth in all situations or as nice on the gearbox as with the stock ecu... I guess with the shift kit its not as silky smooth as stock anyway (though not rough either) and the gearboxes are strong enough to handle it - as evidenced by the auto skylines running aftermarket ecu's. Will be interesting to see what gains (right across the power graph) you see by just changing the ecu. Another 20awkw perhaps? You might be at the magic 200awkw fairly soon...

I think I can relate. I went from a silvia turbo to the stagea so I kinda know what its like. The silvia turbs used to lose traction very easily in the wet, had to kind of go gently up to 60km/h. The stagea is just so much more stable and easier to control in every way, mainly due to the extra weight and AWD. Still I sometimes miss the nimbleness and acceleration rush of the silvia (even though the stagea is only a fraction slower). My current saga with the stagea is how badly it deals with hot weather. I'm slowly realising the turbo is way too big for it and all the driving around off-boost or trying to build revs to reach boost in 35+ degree weather is getting me very annoyed and frustrated. I was warned by many people on here though so I should've listened to them instead of the "turbo specialist" who told me that the GT30 would be more responsive than a GCG highflow...whatever. I've figured I could probably sell the GT30 for about the same price as it costs to get a Garrett GTRS new so all it would cost is the labour to change it over (and maybe a couple bucks for gaskets?) - very tempting. would breathe some life back into the ol' wagon and give the GT30 to someone who would hopefully have funds and a more suitable car and get more from it than I have. The car is great when on boost, but the problem is that in hot weather the engine isn't as responsive off-boost so it takes an awful lot longer to even get to 2500rpm I find I'm pushing the car almost to its limits to keep up with other cars who are just casually cruising along enough griping from me though...way off topic sorry...

I was recently told by some guy in the skyline section that a stagea running 16psi would still be a big slow "whaling boat" and couldn't beat anything... if only they knew hey... Great effort mate! All the best with the next upgrade...making us all jealous!

Just Car $1150 rating 1 - I'm 26, and my wife is 23 (JCI put the youngest driver as the policy holder). Just Car do have higher excesses but usually lower premiums and lower requirements than all other insurers I know. I've tried calling shannons 3 times and each time they've told me where to go (not an "enthusiast" or some crap) so I just returned the compliment. Not going to waste my time with them again. What happens to all you guys insured with Shannons when it comes to make a claim and they turn around and give you the "you're not an enthusiast" dribble. I dont know too many people who own a modified Nissan Stagea who aren't an enthusiast about their car. I've been to cruises, an sau photoshoot, and have spent way too much money modifying the car but apparently its just not enough to rank in the shannons elite. Yet my brother who used to own a ford xr wagon with exhaust was able to insure that car with them no worries...go figure. Any company that wants to turn away good customers is not one that I want to deal with... I've had no claims or fines either btw...very clean record (touch wood) Anyways, +1 for JustCar. Never made a claim so unfortunately I cant comment on that...but I'm with them becuase of how easy they are to deal with. They dont need to know where the car is parked during the day, just the basic details and thats all. Other insurers ask way too many questions IMO, makes me nervous about what they will ask in a claim....say the car was broken into and I happened to be parked in a bad spot during the day that I hadn't told them about when I signed up? Comes down to who you can trust I guess. fingers crossed.

Traction control should be plenty enough in the wet. Snow mode will just make your car reeeeally slow on take-off.

You dont even need to win. Even if its a close drag it would be a nice result IMO

Yes that would be more correct. Apparently they are built by hand so knocking off 1000 a day might be a bit extreme...

Not sure how similar this is to the "snow" button in stageas? In the stagea the snow button basically forces it to start off in 2nd gear. This is basically to ensure you get traction on slippery surfaces since the car wont accelerate as quick off the line in 2nd etc. Traction control works similar to ABS but the other way round. Ie. where ABS tries to apply the brakes on and off to maximise grip when stopping, traction control will accelerate on and off to maximise grip when your foot is on the accelerator pedal. Pretty sure this traction control system only works when the car is accelerating, so it wont necessarily help if you're in a skid or anything - that depends on your ability too. Basically, here in australia snow mode is virtually useless (unless you happen to drive in snow - i'm guessing you wont be anytime soon). So leave the snow mode off and for safety leave traction control on unless you want wheelspin Interestingly the RWD stageas have traction control but the AWD ones dont. Almost impossible to spin the wheels with ATTESA though so the Nissan engineers probably deemed it unnecessary

Spot on. I think its a little above 7psi, somewhere between 7 and 8psi but you were close enough Do some more searching and you'll find out how to run ~7psi all the time by grounding the black wire going to the boost solenoid. Or better still get a turbotech manual boost controller off ebay for ~$40 and run whatever boost you want. Dont go over 10psi with the stock turbo tho.

Yep, rear windscreen. Stagea is the same - Kinda makes you look around at all the other cars with external aerials and think how ugly external aerials look...

I dont know all the theory but its something to do with the magic the stock ecu does when it knows air is being plumbed back into the intake (ie. from the stock BOV) - so it works out the mixtures based on that air being available on top of what the AFM is reading... So if its calculating this extra airflow and its not there (as with an atmo bov) then its gonna be stuffing up your mixtures. Aside from the stalling, you'll also notice that even on cars that dont stall, the fuel economy will suffer a bit with the atmo bov compared to the stock one. Its the same reason - your stock ecu cannot accurately get the air/fuel mixtures right if you have an atmo bov. You can take the word of this tuning place or you can take the word of 80+% of the guys on here who have had the same issues as soon as they installed a bov that vents to atmosphere. swap it back for the stock one and the problem disappears... Ask yourself it its worth the trouble and the cost of an aftermarket ecu + tuning.

You're probably not running enough boost for the front mount to be any more efficient than the stock one. Still, it could make a slight difference. Do they come with a front or side mount as standard? Usually with our older stageas, going from the standard side mount to a front mount means using more piping to make the distance, which also means slightly more lag. Not that much but if you're still running stockish boost levels it may be noticeable. Why not pick up a turbotech manual boost controller? Very cheap and will allow you to set boost at 10psi (or whatever you want) and will spool up quicker than the stock setup (assuming the stock setup is similar to s1 & s2 stageas). you'd need a boost guage as well in order to set it up. If your turbo is the same as the RB25 one, then you'll want to keep boost at 10psi or lower. oh, and make sure your air pod has adequate heat shielding if it doesn't already cos with no heat shielding it'll perform worse than with the stock airbox and panel filter...the engine bay gets very hot so you'll need to make sure its sucking cold air from outside the car.

I think you'll find that the differences between japanese-tuned suspension and australian-tuned suspension has more to do with the roads in each place than the engineers. I love the term "built for australian roads" - in other words, have the suspension as soft as you can possibly make it so as not to spill your drink every 5m when you hit a pothole or some piece of badly cracked bitumen. Our roads (at least here in SA) are bumpy and extremely crap. On a good quality flat road, my stagea is more comfortable than just about every other car i've been in. It kind of just glides along, no seasickness etc. But give it your average adelaide road and the suspension is less than perfect As far as the article is concerned. Most of the aussie car reviewers are so brainwashed into aussie cars its no wonder it only scored 3.5/5.0. They were probably just confused because they couldn't work out what model of holden it was...

Dont mean to ruin it for you but there was a big difference between the Gen3 (VT and later?) SS's and older ones. Even today's stock executive model V6's could probably beat some of the pre-gen3 v8's. The most they had was around 220kw at the flywheel so its still a nice win for your stag, but the newer SS's are more like 260kw so the stag would need to find an extra 40kw from somewhere and still keep the low-mid range power. Like I said before, its not that hard to do with mods, but in the case of ausis's MN35, with just an exhaust and a touch more boost than stock its not looking good. My car would have ~250kw at the flywheel at the moment and given the right conditions (cold ambient temps etc) I would probably have a chance but it'd still be iffy. I could be wrong but I think the outside temps make more difference to turbo cars than non-turbo. So if its cold your car might go really well and win, but if its hot it may fall way behind, whereas the v8 will not be as affected either way... someone mentioned weather before...actually if they'll still run the drag in the rain, then that is by far your best bet. you'd leave him spinning his wheels on the starting line while your car will have almost the same acceleration as in the dry. AWD FTW!!!

The stalling is likely just because you have a BOV that is venting to atmosphere instead of plumbback. So a search on the forum - been covered many times. Pretty sure it can be fixed by tuning with a piggyback or replacement ecu. I'm also pretty sure you'll get better performance from the stock one and wont be attracting attention from authorities and from pedestrians who will hear the pshhht and turn around expecting to see some teenager in some fully sick ricer... your choice i guess

unfortunately I think with only an exhaust (which will raise your peak boost to about 9-10psi?) you may be disappointed against a SS wagon. With the s1's and s2's it seems to take at least 160awkw and then some to get anywhere close to a SS sedan and I imagine the wagon isn't much heavier. I'm no fan of holden v8's btw, but they are a solid performing engine and the only performance advantage our stagea's have when stock is that they are AWD, so you'll "smoke" him in the wet but not in the dry. Not that its "hard" to beat a stock SS - a stock Autech (s1 or s2) would have no trouble at all Still, you do have a chance so go and show them our wagons are capable of

me too, me too! Firstly, welcome to the world of modified stageas. Number one point to make is that the stock turbo will shatter at around 14psi and send pieces of ceramic etc. all over the place - basically you dont want that to happen. Keep it at or below 10psi and you'll be fine. Aftermarket turbos with steel wheels wont have this limitation but they also wont be anywhere near as responsive as the stock turbo either. If you just want to run 10psi, then all you need is exhaust, boost controller (another vote for the turbotech - get it off ebay - fantastic product for a fantastic price), apexi SAFC2 & tune. Some optional extras are R34 SMIC (s2 stageas come with these standard), shift kit (i have one and love it, not as smooth as stock but still comfortable), apexi panel filter ($80 as mentioned in another post) - i have one of these also and they work great. Beware of K&N they are oiled and can mess up your AFM (which can be cleaned) and also they do give higher airflow but this is because K&N filters are actually a very poor filter. Your call in the end though I've had one before in a turbo silvia and had issues with the AFM from it. Small nipple near the plenum, driver side. I think you found it already? most people tap into the wires running the light surrounding the cigarette lighter. as others have said, waste of time unless you also make a cold air box/intake for it. These will actually perform worse than the standard panel filter if sucking in hot air.BOV - dont need to replace the stock one. It'll be fine. If you want the whoosh sound, you'll probably want to avoid driving near cops anyway. A couple of things here. Any FMIC setup will require cutting into the chassis (illegal & irrepairable - if u get defected, you'll need to get it engineer approved before its legal again), unless you get one that has a return feed for plugging into the stock piping. These are expensive, as are any replacement SMIC except for the stock ones. My advice is to go for the larger R34 SMIC which will be fine up to about 160awkw (after that its still ok but wont keep temps near ambient) and if you need more than that, go for a water spray kit. These kits can make your SMIC more effective than any FMIC so well worth the money. (btw anyone who feels like installing a manual one for me that I can activate by pushing a button, including payment, please pm me!) Exactly what I did. Make sure you get 2 mufflers. Most people that have gotten a resonator & 1 muffler have complained of drone (including myself before I got the resonator swapped for a mid-muffler). The mufflers should be straight-through so virtually no restrictions anyway. Stageas sound awesome with a good free-flowing exhaust! Up to you. I've got one and think its great but can be fairly clunky when the car is under heavy load (ie. particularly when a/c is on and in 35+ degrees etc)...but under normal driving you likely wont notice it. I'd recommend going for a ride in a stagea that has one fitted first if possible. Turbotech!! on the other hand if you want two different boost settings selectable from in the cabin, then you'll need an electronic one. Be aware though that the 2 different boost settings will require 2 different Apexi SAFC settings and both need to be changed manually. The SAFC2 (blue screen with buttons) wont work for this - you will need the later model SAFC2 (blue screen with turny knob). Either way you'll completely bypass the factory solenoid. On a side note, if you want more boost for now, the factory solenoid normally switches boost from 5psi to 7psi at around 4500rpm. If you want it to run 7psi all the time just short the black wire that goes into the solenoid plug. ie. cut the wire before the plug (not the solenoid side, the ecu side!) and ground that wire (not the plug end) on a chassis bolt. There's one right near there behind the airbox that works well. This mod worked for me but if not sure, do it in such a way that you can reconnect it to the plug wire if it fails. It obviously wont give you more peak power since this is already at 7psi. It'll just give you a bit better low-mid range boost. Good luck with it

Mine is a panel filter...but I'd say the material used is very similar. Dry type is definitely better than oiled IMO. Also I read somewhere that oiled air filters are illegal...?

Would steel wheeled turbos give a different on-boost sound? (not that this has any relevance to R33s/R34s)

Its definitely not paper. They are a red colour with the big apexi logo clearly visible from the top (in white). Its more like a mesh-like cloth - it looks like a paper filter since it is "folded" like a zigzag the same as the standard filter, but it is a very fine mesh that would be about 4-5mm thick at any point. I bashed mine against the driveway a few weeks ago to shake out the dust from a recent trip to the yorke peninsula (incl dirt roads). Now just yesterday I vacuumed it out to make sure it was really clean and I've noticed an improvement in that the car feels free-er and seems to struggle a bit less under full throttle/load. I just think that this slight difference proves that the filter must catch a lot of dust/etc in the fibres and is obviously very effective at what it does. I originally bought it 2nd hand just over 12 months ago. Very happy with it

shell vpower racing (previously called optimax extreme or something). It contains 5% ethanol as far as I know. not to be confused with the normal shell vpower which is 98RON and contains no ethanol.

Cheers, thanks for that! The underside looks like new but the top has a few straggly bits on it...no holes or anything like that though and it looks generally in pretty good condition still...

Hey, I've got an Apexi Panel Air Filter (in standard air box) which I bought 2nd hand mid last year. I've hit it against the ground etc from time to time to get the dust out of it etc. But just wondering what the lifetime of these should be? Should I be replacing it or can I just vacuum out all the crap and keep using it for years? I can go and take a photo of it if that would help...