warps

Did you pay for said tuning? If so then rip the stickers off, or tell him to pay for the advertising space. Fnk rude if you ask me.

Agree, Matt. It's a big conversion hence costly (expect to pay $15-20k for all the parts and even then it isn't just a straight bolt up proposition) I've got a K24 powered EK4 that's being built as a circuit car. Can't wait to get to the track, but the ones already racing over here are pretty damn quick. Mine's just the stock K24 with ECU, exhaust and intake, but already puts down over 180hp at the wheels, even with a 7000RPM rev limit (I have no idea why they limited it so low - 500RPM less than the factory limit).

Yes the Hondas are fun to drive. Don't waste your time putting them on the dyno though (seems to be a bit of a habit of yours there??) as you'll be disappointed. Hondas have reasonable straight line performance, but they handle very well, and are extremely chuckable. For your budget, I would go for (in the following order:) EP3R - some are under $15k. Top gear claims these to be the best Type R Civic ever (built in UK, still use proper suspension - a "traditional" Honda) DC5R - Occasionally see them as low as $12k Same running gear as the EP3R, but a bit bigger and heavier DC2R - older, using the older B18 engine. These are still a great car, but finding a non thrashed one will be very hard and they seem to be the same price as DC5's EK4 - you can get one under $6k and they're a nice car but a bit underpowered. Also hard to find a standard one that hasn't been thrashed EK9 - Don't waste your time. The Type R tax on these is overwhelming. Yes, they are a good car but only if you just *have* to have one due to their rarity I put the EP3 and DC5 first in the list because they have the K20 engine. This is streets ahead of the b series, which in their day were a fantastic motor. The K20's have massive potential for power (300hp N/A, 600+ hp boosted) so are a natural choice over the B's. There are a couple of K swapped DC2 and EK's around at the moment around the $10-12k mark. For the cost of the conversion, this is pretty good buying, and a good way to get a bit decent straight line performance. Yes I admit I'm a bit of a Honda Fanboi (bought a gravel car 4 years ago and liked it so much I now have 3 of them). they are extremely well engineered, and almost bullet proof, so even the thrashed ones hold up very well. If you want to fang around corners and not worry too much about 12 second quarters, then the Hondas will fit the bill nicely. As far as FWD goes - well if you can handle being ridiculed by some of your mates, then go for it. Take one for a drive (even on a track if you ever get a chance) and decide for yourself. The guys who race them claim them to be the most RWD behaving bum dragger out there.

The only thing to worry about is the spring popping out of its seat under full droop. Even if there is a mm or 2 of clearance on the unloaded coilover it won't matter. There is no need to preload them. The only time this will make any difference is with the wheel off the ground, and as I said before, only of the spring can move so much is drops off its seat. If you can rotate the springs then this isn't normally an issue. Preloading the springs the way shown in the video above will affect the ride height of the car. Normally a few mm won't hurt as long as the ride height is pretty close to right (ie springs, coilovers etc are matched). A far more important issue is to ensure they are even from left to right. This is best achieved by corner weighting the car. This can have a much bigger effect on handling than whether the springs are captive.

Depends on the design and loading. A bent member in compression / tension (as most diagonal braces tend to be) will be much weaker than a straight one (look up Euler column buckling if you want a bit of an education), regardless of the bending method. Again, too many variables to say whether it will have a noticeable effect in your case (without looking at design / proposed loading etc.) Press bending tends to reduce the section width (y direction), hence the Iyy value will be less, so in theory will be weaker in bending. In practice, this effect may be negligible so not worth worrying about.

* I mean "Man, was that a good movie"

Without looking at the tables I'd think that for a given diameter (side) and thickness, square would be stronger in bending, tension and possibly torsion (though I'm not 100% sure on the last one). It will weigh more though.

Good answer, Jas-25T Also round will have uniform strength in all directions, whereas square won't This can cause problems in some situations (although not likely to be a major issue in your case) Shouldn't you be chasing strength vs weight? Personally I prefer to work with square as it tends to be more flexible from a design/manufacturing point of view in terms of joins, attaching to things, drilled / bolted connections etc., and easier for manufacture. That's only one part of the equation (wearing my manufacturer's hat as opposed to engineer's hat)

Yup A caged Evo 3 PRC gravel car just sold for $6.5k last week You could have sold off the rally spares and recouped a couple of grand of that money easy. Cheap motorsport.

With a race car with a crappy tune and animal clutch you don't have much of a choice. I had a group N Daihatsu charade rally car like that once. Yes, despite only 57kW at the wheels it was a pig to drive when cold (stuck with using factory sensors on a very old F7 Haltech, and a bitey 3 puck clutch). Once it was warm it drove like the (underpowered) shopping trolley it was. I was happy to sell that gutless POS. Still, if you can drive the car without having to warm it up first, then that's always your best bet.

Did you know that when you could hire V8 statesmans (many years ago) on a cold start you could apparently hit the rev limiter before the oil light went out? A friend told me. To answer OP question, don't waste time sitting in the driveway idling. Cars these days (ie for the last 30 years) are designed to drive off as soon as you start them and build up oil pressure. Drive slowly / lightly until it's warm then go nuts.

Problem is, OP says his 33 is a lot sloppier than others he's driven (IIRC - a while since I read the full thread). If that's the case, then start with bushes and joints as they're consumable items and likely to wear out. If it isn't the bushes, and the chassis is indeed as flimsy as OP says, then we (he) have a big problem. Why is the chassis so loose? Putting in "cheap, bolt-on" braces will only partly mask the underlying problem, and will treat the symptom but not the root cause. This will never end well and I strongly suggest finding the root cause of the problem before it can be properly fixed. The bolt on braces may improve the car, but it will still be only as good as a standard car. Where's the fun in that? /reliability engineering

Great marketing ploy. Thing is, the average gamer can easily rack up a couple of thousand hours of practice on GT5/6 and hone some of the essential driving skills (assuming they're using a wheel and pedals). This can make the transition to a real car much easier than someone who might have done 3 track days in his NA Silvia but has no other race experience. I'm not about to suggest that driving GT6 is anything like the real thing, but there will be certain skills you pick up and can practice which will translate fairly well to the real world (throttle control, transition to brakes, where to look, working on corner exit speeds etc.). Of course if someone has even a fraction of the training time on a proper race track (lets say 500 hours, for example), they would be streets ahead of said gamer. As for people rising from feeder categories (Karts, FF, etc) I totally agree - these people have to be a better staring point than the average gamer with no real life experience. Unfortunately, as top level motorsport shows us, it isn't the most talented drivers who get chosen, but the most marketable ones. You need to bring a lot more to the table than just raw driving talent. If that were the case, I'd have been driving WRC for the last 15 years* *No I lie. I'm a hack behind the wheel (real or virtual) and proudly so

And you'd be competing against 6L V8's, pushing 600hp +

4.5 SUPERCHARGING: Supercharging is permitted under the following conditions (i) If a supercharger/s is recognised as standard production for the model, and all the following conditions are met, the restricting orifice referred to in 4.5(ii) need not be fitted. • All components associated with the induction system must remain operable, in situ, and unmodified. • There are no additional components associated with the induction system fitted. • Maximum inlet pressure and engine static compression ratio must remain in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications for the vehicle. • The engines swept volume is not varied from standard by more than 2%. • A boost monitor, as specified by CAMS, is fitted.

Safest to talk to your local eligibility officer - one phone call should answer most of your questions. I'm not 100% certain about the vinyl wrap, but my interpretation of discussions on this subject tells me it would be OK. The reasoning is to try and keep the cars looking relatively standard. Engine mods are relatively free - as long as the engine is a Nissan I6 configuration. Boost monitoring is only required if you want to get around running restrictors, in which case you have to run stock boost (and stock turbos, I believe). Otherwise the restrictors pretty much limit your boost. On that note, the restrictors will choke the RB26 something awful, and you'll probably have a useable rev limit of 5000RPM and about 350hp MAX. You'd almost be better running a 10,000 RPM NA RB30 with wild head work. On the exhaust, the following extract from Schedule B seems to indicate they are OK: be fitted with sideways or rearward-facing exhaust outlets. If rearwards, the outlet/s shall be between 100mm and 450mm above the ground and shall not protrude more than 150mm beyond the rearmost portion of the automobile. If directed sideways, the outlet/s must be located rearward of the midpoint of the wheelbase. In any case, they shall not project beyond the maximum width of coachwork or terminate more than 50mm within the plan view of the adjacent coachwork One thing to be aware of regarding the 3J regs, unless the regs say you can do something, you must assume you can't. Not the other way around.

Without knowing what your car has had done to it, some of the main sticking points for IPRA eligibility are: Elastomeric bushes must be replaced with other elastomeric bushes (maximum hardness of 90). In other words, no rose joints unless OEM (eg sway bar end links if originally used) Control arms must be OEM, and can not be modified You CAN reposition suspension pivot points in the crossmember to achieve camber changes etc (up to 15mm??). Must run "upholstered" door trims (ie no bare alloy. I believe that if they are covered in vinyl then this is OK - possibly fake CF wrap on alloy sheeting might be OK No floor mount pedal boxes unless OEM There are plenty of other rules, but these seem to be the most common ones that trip up cars from other classes Some light reading http://docs.cams.com.au/Manual/Race/RA26-Group-3J-2014-1.pdf

Yes and yes. Hondas seem to be the choice at present, and their double wishbone suspension makes them easy to tune, so they're about the most neutral FWD out there. I regularly hose RWD guys in gravel khanacrosses, but that's where the FWD's really shine. The one time I took to Lakeside in my gravel car I was miles off the pace (118KW at the flywheel and gravel spec setup will do that) but I had an absolute ball. IPRA might not be the best source of a "cheap / fast" car unless you actually want to compete in a race series (in which case, the by all means go for it). A good, competitive U2L IPRA car will generally cost somewhere between $20-30k. Without the restrictions in IPRA you could build something faster for much less (thanks to the IPRA tax). Cheaper cars do come up fairly regularly though, and I've seen several sell for under $10k (not lap record holders, but pretty quick and plenty fun nonetheless) If you can score a K powered EG or EK Civic, or DC2 Integra set up for track work then you will do very well, and plenty of potential to go extremely fast. A decent K20 engine will make well over 200hp at the wheels, probably closer to 250 (don't quote me on that - I haven't actually been involved in any K20 race engine dyno sessions).

Lol at the silvia As others have hinted, keep the camry, party at Uni, then start saving like crazy when you get a job. Once you have saved enough to buy a GTR for cash, use the money to buy property instead. If you're still wanting the driving fix, get a cheap track car and fang the crap out of it at track days, autocrosses etc. Nothing you do on the streets can compare to all out racing / rallying. Don't waste big $$ on a high performance street car when you can't access more than 20% of its performance on the road. Even a cheap / moderately powered track car (Silvia, MX5, Civic etc) will put a much bigger smile on your dial than accelerating to 60 in 2 seconds from traffic lights in your mega dollar street cruiser. If you manage to sort out your finances and can afford to drop big $$ onto a street car, by all means do so, but don't make that a high priority.

Dammit! The hub is 146.5 diameter. I was happy to take a 1mm cut off the hub flange bit that might be getting too much.

Thanks PN-Mad and many internets to you. I'll buy you a beer next time you're up this way. The flange thickness is spot on, but I fear the 144mm ID may be too small for my needs. I'll head down to the shed later today to confirm. Fingers crossed

These are the dimensions I'm after F.T. is flange thickness (preferably to within 0.5mm or better) I.D. is the inner diameter of the mounting flange

Thanks but I already have the dba catalogue with those specs. The dimensions I need aren't listed in the catalogue. out of interest how much would you charge for the plain version of those rotors (ie not slotted or drilled - I don't need the bling). Pm me if you prefer.

Thanks. Will prepare a sketch in the morning.

gold coastI need the thickness of the mount flange, and inside diameter of the mounting face ie the biggest diameter hub flange the rotor will fit over. I can do up a sketch in the morning to confirm the exact measurements I need to clarify