J_Red33

I gather you're on about the BMW. In that case I very much doubt it, but I don't really know. Having said that if it was me putting fuel in that car it wouldn't have been anything other than pure 98 - or even 100 - octane petrol. It does state in the manual that it is ok to run it on lower octane fuels & her father use to run it on that all the time ("It's all the same" he says...) so there must be some adjustability in the system, from having driven it on low octane though I think it relies heavily on the knock & O2 sensors for this. My girlfriend now runs it exclusively on Mobil 8000.

Been doing a bit more research, I think maybe the information I'd read up on/heard about was a bit too generalised. Specifically the issues I mentioned are more to do with producing ethanol from things like corn cobbs, straw as well as the remaining fibres from sugar caine, not the molasses. The general name for this is cellulosic ethanol. To extract the sugars from these they need to be cooked at a fairly high temperature to first extract the sugars before being fermented with yeast. However if you've ever been a beer brewer, which uses the same process to produce ethanol/alcohol you would know that the yeast requires a set temperature range to turn the sugar into alcohol. In cooler weather you may need a heat plate as the temperature required for a lot of brews it between about 21-28 degrees. The yeast they use to make ethanol requires 35-40 degrees to work & even working in places like Queensland, if you want to produce a lot of ethanol in a fairly short amount of time it is going to take a reasonable amount of energy just to get it up to the working temperature required to produce the ethanol. With Cellulosic ethanol production, the amount of energy required to both cook & then ferment to produce ethanol means that not much more energy - if any - is produced than was required by a dirty coal power station. Places like Australia & Brazil (Brazil does both) are some of the few that are doing it the other way & producing it directly from sugar however, it's being argued that this will also start jacking up sugar prices you see in the supermarket long term. The amount of land required is also a major issue. Brazil has also now had to set some major land limitations to stop the ethanol producing companies from clearing precious forests/eco systems & as of February 1, set a 90 day period of a 20% blend limit of alcohol in petrol due to a lack of supply. They have not reached their land allocation limit, but considering they already use 1% of the nations land & the limit is 7.5%, it is quite clear the demands for land just to produce energy are going to be quite high in the future. Sugar based ethanol is definantely a lot better with the amount of energy it requires being only about 1/8th of what it produces, but it's not perfect.

I guess if you can get them for 10 bucks on ebay all you need is a bit more of that velcro. Not a bad idea.

My bad, thought it may have made sense though

Buys 1 system for $100 & sells another for $250 Someone got a good deal!

As far as different fuels go I've almost only ever run my R33 on Untimate or 8000. However my girlfriend & I have experiemented with our other cars. Her E46 BMW 318i - The 115Kw 2.0 twin cam manual model, not a wheezy old 1.9 the series 1's - is a particularly fussy bugger that will ping like crazy on anything less than 98 octane fuel (it just about stopped in its tracks on 1 tank of 91 she stuck in it once), but there is only one fuel that it has ever truely liked & that is Mobil 8000. Every other fuel including BP ultimate & United E85 makes the engine seem unresponsive especially at low revs, & it will sometimes ping with these fuels depending on the conditions. I thought it may have been just 1 BP station was giving inferior fuel, but since she moved in with me from the inner South eastern suburbs to the western 'burbs the pattern has remained the same. The reason for this I can not say, but it could be that the fuel that Mobil is selling just hits the sweet spot for the Beemers tuning. There could obviously be timing issues with the E85 blend, but the reason for BP fuel being different raises a few questions. At the other end of the spectrum my 100KW 4AGE engined Corolla loves 98 octane fuel, but is not particularly fussy what fuel I put in it even though I run a fairly advanced base timing of 18 degrees & it has 10:1 compression. The only fuel it seemed to have trouble with was Vortex 98 & even then the main problem was that it seemed to suck that tank of fuel a lot faster than usual. I can not be 100% on this one though. May try it again this week, if the problem is not repeated then I may use it more often since they have a servo in a convienient location for me. Just a little point that needs to be made. While Ethanol is considered greener than regular petrol & its a renewable resource, it is not by any means truely green. A little known fact that sugar companies as well as the government fail to mention is that there is a significant amount of energy required to turn the sugar into ethanol, enough that the difference between producing petrol & ethanol isn't as far appart as these companies would like you to believe. I won't for a second argue that it's better to do nothing & paying increasingly higher rates for petrol that is getting harder to find, but this stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be. Only 5% you reckon with the O2 sensor? A few weeks after I had my exhaust put on my 33 my economy all of a sudden bombed from an average of 13.5L/100km to about 15L/100km. Turned out my O2 sensor was dead & pulling it out of 1 dump pipe & placing it in another was enough for it to stop working. I could see raw fuel coming out the back especially when it was cold. Went & bought a new sensor & within 2 tankfulls of fuel it was doing UNDER 12L/100km being driven the same way it was before & not an ounce of smoke, so that works out to about a 20% reduction in fuel consumption just from changing the sensor. Paid for itself within a matter of weeks.

Damn that sucks, use to park my line there fairly regular, no one obviously likes the little GT bagdes that much. What the hell do these wankers do with a pair of GT-R badges anyway? Stick them on their commo so it's 'fully sick'

Thanks for organising a great get together guys. I would just like to apologise to a few people for my rather rude/sudden departure last night. Had been to the doctors only a few hours earlier to have an ingrown toe nail cliped & the pain had started to hit quite hard, wasn't feeling too good. Hopefully I'll have my line fully soughted out soon (if I can ever stop finding things to do to it), would be good to go to a cruise/meet in the thing

Finally have a result. Went & visited a company here in Adelaide called Manta Racing & got some genuine Bilstein dust covers. I had been to this shop before about getting the shocks but they had to get them from Germany = long wait. Had a quick chat with the owner & it turns out that only an official dealer has access to these parts. The best bit was they are normally $15 each, but he only had a second hand set in stock which he sold to me for all of $5 each! Not in bad nick, couldn't really refuse at that price. They're designed to attach to a Gland at the top of the strut & the guy in charge (I believe his name was Steve if my memory serves me correctly) said to me that you do not need to attach them at the bottom. As far as bump stops go, for some reason they are able to get genuine Nissan ones dirt cheap too at only $15 each. However I was also told that they probably would not need replacing, apparently he's only ever had to replace them on one Skyline & regularly works on them. May even put a couple of them in the car tomorrow if I get time. As far as where people in other states can get these from goes, their source for Bilstein parts is in Victoria, NOT Sydney. Hope this helps a few people out.

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How much was the clutch line going to be? I'm keen for one of them too.

Shouldn't be that bad on a Wednesday night. At worst you'll have to park on Halifax st. which will help work off that Schnitty anyway My woman & I are keen. Been a while....

Whiteline don't even appear to have a listing for these now anyway. There was one other thing I had seen mentioned was that you should be able to get bilstein branded covers/stops. May have to call back the shop I got these from & see what they say. Got the impression the guy selling them to me hadn't been there that long.

Hi there everyone. As the title states & I am currently chasing some replacement dust covers & bump stops to suit my new Bilstein/King spring package & am going to be running them at stock ride height. The suspension shop I bought them from didn't really have anything to suit & another shop I have been to gave me the option of some steering boots, but they could not provide suitable bump stops. I have also tried the local Nissan dealer but they were outrageously dear so that is out. From the threads I have sifted through it appears that pedders has something that may suit & someone else used motorbike shock boots (motorcross style bikes I assume), but no mention once again of bump stops. If anyone out there is using any of these solutions I'd appreciate your comments of how well they worked + any other good ideas Cheers Jared

Take it somewhere where they can plug in a consult & read the codes that way. I had the same problem with my Hicas & it turned out to be the steering sensor, however this is not the only cause. There are several threads already with quite a bit of info on this.

Not so much prevent brake fade as improve braking response. That & you'll be getting rid of hoses that are now a minimum of 12 years old for 33's Only way to cure brake fade is with bigger/better quality rotors, pads & fluid + improved airflow in extreme cases.

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Wasn't a coil over kit, nor that extreme in price, but were still talking hundreds of dollars extra. Just the standard Bilsteins with King springs same as what Car Torque was quoting on. Nothing against Manta, they almost sounded like they knew it was a bit expensive, possibly because they would be a special order, where as Car Torque can get them from Sydney within a week.

Just an update on this. I got a quote back from Manta, without actually stating the amount I will just say it was significantly more than Car Torque. They also would have to be ordered/built first in Germany, no stock what so ever & at least a 6 week wait! I will say they were the only ones who actually called me back though without me having to chase & they're not exactly short on business so it was nice of them to get back to me. Also the lead with Autosport turned out to be a dead end, Gary (aka Sydneykid) doesn't supply these kits anymore period. So Car Torque it is

Yeah would be good if it ran street meets fairly regularly, would come down to the amount of people turning up I guess & how much some locals bitch & moan if noise does turn out to be an issue (there always has to be one or 2. I wouldn't think there'd be a shortage of willing participants.

^^ If the speed boats are making that much noise on a regular basis, surely it's not that big a deal for drag racing to occur once a month, especially with the sound barrier that would be around it. Really want this to happen as well, would be nice just to take my line down to a drag strip just to see what it does. Not that I'm expecting heaps.... still would stop me being curious.....

Yeah doesn't hurt to shop around though. Have found out that Autosport Direct has got direct contacts with Gary (Aka Sydney Kid) & is also going to get me a price for the same package. Manta called me back today just to let me know they were so busy they forgot to get me a quote Lol. Was nice of them to let me know just the same.

Heard those kinds of noises with stuffed Catalytic converters many a time (they break up with old age), though I wonder if that even has a Cat...... Vote for heatshield here too.

Hi guys, been doing a bit of reading on here with this & a couple other threads. After having had my R33 series 2 broken into nearly a couple of years ago, after I got it back on the road the HICAS started to play up. Initially it started happening intermittently & once the HICAS light came on as I was straightening the car up out of a low speed corner & ended up crabbing down the road. Killed the ignition re-started the car & the light went out again & the car drove straight. Eventually it was doing it all the time. In the end when I started inspecting bits, I looked at the steering sensor & when I went to check out the circuit board, there were several dry joints for the wires to the HICAS module & also a broken/blown track. Initially I had suspected that the break in may have caused this damage but now I think it was just coincidence. I repaired the soldering & track damage, but to no avail, I still had an error. I tried running the diagnostics as shown on these pages & it didn't work, so eventually I took it to an old friend of mine who ran his diagnostics tool & got the error code 'steering sensor not present' I then decided to check the control module to make sure that wasn't also damaged, & it turned out to be spotless. So without further delay I installed the brand new sensor I'd purchased (it was cheaper to go a newie than a wrecker!) & now it all works again like new! I have also tried running the diagnotics again & it worked first shot! A couple of extra notes: -I have never had a problem with heavy steering. I do not know if the pressure switch for the power steering has a role in feeding info to the HICAS in these cases as really, it should not be noticeable if HICAS isn't meant to work below 80km/h, I'd say the HICAS light is deviating people away from the real issue, which may in fact be what's happening up the front end, or there may in fact be 2 issues. -I have also had a speedo that was cutting out intermittently (also dry solder joints & now fixed), but was not affecting the function of the HICAS. I have never had an error for the speed sensor as the speedo gets its feed from the ECU. -I very much doubt that heat is an issue when the capacitors are rated at 105 degrees. From having worked in the trade, I have seen this problem in many electronic modules that were all built around the same era (especially early 90's) with the same brand of capacitor regardless of where they were mounted. The main module also hangs in the boot with a parcel shelf & a layer of sheet metel to help protect it from the hottest point in the car. I'd be more worried about my speakers if there were that much heat under there. I hope a few of you out there find this info useful. Cheers Jared

Refer to my original post.... Sure is Having done a bit more reading, I think I'm more likely to just go standard bushes for now if I get them, adjustable ones can also place un-natural loading on the arms potentially causing them to snap. Definanately want to get the subframe alignment kit if I can for now. Yeah have been considering this too. Do want to experiment a bit & see how it feels just after a shock & spring change, but may do this also. Prehaps I'll buy the lot & fit it in stages depending how hard it is.... Am also currently awaiting a call back from Manta about the shocks & springs. Will be interesting to see what price they give me.