warps

I wouldn't be towing a loaded car trailer with an X-trail. I used a Forester XT (similar size and weight) for towing the RX2 on a 550kg trailer, and it was no fun. There was plenty of power there, but it never felt stable, and the trailer pushed the car around a bit. Fair enough it was a crappy trailer with a too short draw bar, but the fact is that for regular towing, you can't beat a solid heavy vehicle that's made for it. X trails, Rav's. Foresters etc. really aren't up to the task safely IMO. My new trailer behind the Pathfinder is in another league. Load the car wrong, though and you certainly know about it (FWD this time with all the weight over the front. Have to load it a lot further back than the RX2 was). Considering you're towing a R33 GTSt, you'll just be asking for trouble trying to tow it behind anything like a forester / x trail etc. They may be stable with a box trailer, and you might even get away on a short trip with a well balanced car trailer, but anything involving speed, corners, bumps etc is only going to end in tears. If the towing vehicle isn't manufacturer rated to tow the weight you're planning, your insurance won't pay if you have a crash. You have been warned. Don't become a statistic

DO NOT USE A RATTLE GUN TO TIGHTEN A CRITICAL BOLT. EVER Now I have your attention, do not use a rattle gun to tighten a critical bolt. Ever. rattle guns are about the least accurate tightening tool there is. They have 2 settings: loose and overtight. Nothing in between. They are great for undoing tight bolts, and are good for quickly nipping up bolts, but any bolt that matters should be final tightened by hand with a torque wrench or better. As for stopping the crank from spinning, well that's pretty much been covered above.

But how many 44's can you fit in the boot?

12kg? Fark me what are they making them out of these days? Our pram would have been flat out weighing 5kg fully dressed. As I said, once folded up it was a breeze to lift in and out of the car. Bloody easy to use, too. Besides, the hatch has the same access as a station wagon, so I can't see that being a problem. The crap you're likely to drag around int he back of a station wagon is more likely to damage your paintwork / interior than the stuff you normally put in a hatch or sedan. When you have the space, you end up using it eventually. If you want ease of access, the simplest way to put a baby into a baby seat is a decent sized 2 door car where you can step into the back, and sit down next to the baby seat. Much easier than leaning into a car to fiddle with belts etc. Been there done that. Just glad my kids can do most things for themselves now.

unless prams have grown substantially in the last dozen years, they will fit nicely in the back of a WRX hatch. I had an MY02 sedan when my kids were 4yrs and 18 months, before that I had a Magna and R32 GTSt (which my wife took interstate with the kids). Make sure there's enough room in the car to have the baby seat facing backwards for the first few months (the R32 needed the passengers seat folded forwards to fit) but the kids grow out of that very quickly. There's enough room to fit even the widest pram in the back of a WRX hatch with the back seats up. I don't know what sort of prams are being talked about here, but we used a convertible pram / stroller that folded away to almost nothing. You DO NOT need a station wagon if you have little kids. If I didn't have to tow a rally car, we would have 2 small cars, the WRX and probably a diesel golf or even sh!tbox hyundai I30

Ah fuggit. I'll just set up the cockpit / G25 on the 50" plasma and break out GPL for some good 3 pedal H pattern action. Was hoping to use GT5 to get the young bloke used to the concept of a clutch and gearstick before letting him loose in the rally car (turns 12 next month and can legally drive in motorkhanas). At this rate, he'll be on his open licence before GT5 comes out, and the R35 will be available for sale in the classic cars section of the game.

I couldn't wait for the WRX sedans to come out, since the hatches were so damn ugly. I didn't think it possible, but the sedan is even uglier IMO. I ended up buying the hatch and am loving it (09 model with the proper suspension, tyres and power) I don't think the sedan is any more practical than the hatch, and in fact you lose a lot of flexibility with load carrying. The hatch suits our family duties perfectly, and has taken a few big loads with the back seats folded down. Couldn't have done that with the sedan. Also, the sedan is 150mm longer, so harder to fit in my garage with the 6m long car trailer in front of it. Looks? All I can say is they look heaps better in the flesh than on paper, but then again I've spent my whole life driving boring, ugly cars, so I don't have a need for cars that attract attention.

Sorry to dredge up an old topic, but I'm in the process of buying a new Graytronics amplifier for my rally intercom (as I sold the unit with the last car but kept the headphones) With the Exchange rate the way it is, the PRO amplifier is just a shade over $100 delivered (from UK). If you want a complete unit with headphones as well, they are about $220 delivered. Pretty bloody good buying, I think. They are now made by this mob (see link below). I don't know if this means that the quality will change - will know soon enough, guess. http://www.rallyintercoms.co.uk/

Coz 20 years ago the owner knew that this would be a classic in 2010, and would only be worth serious money if totally unmolested, unlike the throusands of grey imports which would be flooding into the country. Yes, yes we all have 20/20 hindsight. I suppose that anyone daring to modify an Aus delivered R35 is a muppet also?

What's happening there? Are you running an event, or just a play day? Are FWD shopping trollies allowed? By the way, NDSCC (gravel rally club) membership is $30 a year. If you can't afford that, I'm surprised you can afford to put petrol in your tank

As I said, based on sound, the BRM engine wins hands down. I said nothing about reliability, or any other features. Yes, it was a pig of an engine, as were the later H16's. But the noise!!!

Of course if it's sound we're talking about, then this 1.5L V16 supercharged Yes, I've posted it before. No other engine sound can make the hairs on my neck stand up like that. The ferraris cruising around Runaway bay baseball fields today while the kids games were on (mmmm - scary ) did sound pretty good tho, but I digress.

Honda RA166E / 167E / 168E I know they're only 1.5 litres, but these engines did the same to F1 as what the R32 GTR did to Touring cars in Australia. That is all

I dunno. I'd be over the moon to have an R35 sitting in my driveway.

Agreed. Much as I loathe the little prick, I have to admit he has some talent. Give him a couple of years to develop some maturity and he might make a top notch driver. Even over the last few races he seems to be settling down a bit, or maybe people have learnt to steer clear of him on the track.

Not being familiar with the V series skylines, I don't know what is adjustable in the suspension. At the minimum, toe adjustment at the front is possible. This would most likely be set to slight toe out for better turn in. If anything else is adjustable, then it's worth talking to someone who knows about track day setups. Take it to Jon Siddins at Labrador for a wheel alignment. He knows track cars well (has competed eleventy times at Targa in a wicked fast 240Z, and spends a lot of time at Lakeside and QR). He usually runs fairly conservative setups, but they work. Good for cars that see occasional track duty. Tell him what you want (honestly) and he will accommodate you. I'm not suggesting you should be fitting coilovers. They aren't always the answer, and as I have said time and time again, a decent set of springs and shocks set up properly will beat most off the shelf coilover setups. If your springs and shocks are healthy, then that is probably enough to go and have some fun. If you've upgraded front and rear sway bars, then the balance shouldn't be too far out. If it's spearing off the track in terminal understeer, then there could be a problem with chassis alignment, or you could be pushing too hard. Many cars are built to naturally understeer, as this is easier for the average Joe to deal with. It shouldn't be too hard to drive around the understeer nature though, so I'd be surprised if the car was naturally an understeering pig. I wasn't just talking about skill behind the wheel, but also attitude. Again, I don't know you, and am not trying to have a dig at your ability. However, it's fairly common for people to push too hard and break something / fall off the road. Remember, there's no sheep stations at stake. "Start at twleve tenths and back off till you stop crashing" works well for factory drivers, but isn't much fun when you have to constantly fix a broken car, or spend most of your track day watching from the gravel trap.

Tracking straight has nothing to do with a suitable wheel alignment for track. If there is any adjustment, then a track setup would have a bit more camber, possibly slight toe out at the front, and more castor (if that's adjustable). These will all make the car track worse than you good "street" aligmnent, and probably wear tyres a bit uneven. Quite a few people will do this for track days (again, assuming the car has adjustment) I'm going out on a limb here but how experienced are you at driving? Have you spent many hours belting cars around a race track, or is all of your experience from playstation? Not meaning to be offensive, it's common these days for track day newbies to go balls out, because that's what PLaystations teach us about driving. In the real world, this translates to cars sliding off tracks regularly. Of course there's nothing wrong with spitting the car off the road once you're going as fast as the car is capable. However, just because you went off doesn't mean you reached the car's limits. If it were a standard car with healthy suspension, I'd suggest to learn to drive it properly. If it's happened since changing suspension settings, I'd suggest you might have upset the balance of the car. In either case, running different spec tyres front to back is only going to mask the real issue, and should be considered as the last option. Initially, maybe try to keep the red mist at bay, and learn to drive the car fast. This won't happen on one or two track days though, and you might even need to take some driving lessons. I'd be surprised if the V series of skylines had inherently bad handling traits on a race track. They may not be the best behaved car out of the box, but if it's spitting you off the track regularly, then look at your own driving first. Just something to ponder

Hi all. I just got a flyer from Von Bibra Nissan at Southport. They are having some stock liquidation sale or something this weekend, and have the 1992 Bathurst winning GTR on display there. It's happening Friday 15th Oct, and Sat 16th Oct. Thought some might be interested in going to check it out.

If it's a genuine rally vehicle, and not just a dodgy way to drive an illegal car on the streets, then head over to BMSC to find out more. http://www.bmsc.com.au/forums/ There have been several discussions about rally rego (these are gravel cars, but the tarmac rules may be similar as far as rego goes). I know that the Vic's seem to do some weird stuff when it comes to rally cars and legislation. You're more likely to strike people who have done the hard yards over at BMSC.

Yup LAkeside's noise restrictions are ridiculous. When I went there, I talked to the noise meter guy (because I was black flagged in the first session for excessive noise - too much wet fart in the Vtec Honda ). The guy told me that there were so many cars going over in each session, it was impossible to black flag them all. Must have been at least 30% of all cars on the day got went over, and some of them were not that noisy at all. QR is much better - they let the top fuel dragsters run there, so nothing on the track can possibly be any louder. I remember doing an autocross, sitting in my stripped out angry RX2 rally car at the start line, hearing the drag cars running over the noise of my own car. Now THAT's loud!

Yeh the rally mode in GT4 was crap and unrealistic (none of the real life techniques seem to make a difference), so I don't know if it's any better in GT5. Drifting doesn't do a lot for me, so I haven't wasted any time there either. I'm not good at either type of driving IRL, but I take to gravel much better than tarmac. Haha must be my finnish heritage. As for lap times, well you won't be seeing any of my times in the top 1000 (top 1,000,000 maybe). Besides, the best sim racers don't waste their time on playstations. They're too busy racing in I-race leagues or similar. Oh, Jonboy, someone made a patch for GPL where the view turns with the steering wheel (ie the further you turn, the further into the corner you look). I think it was adjustable up to a max of maybe 30 deg. Everyone who tried it soon gave it away (me included) as it tended to make you feel car sick . Someone was playing around with another patch which links to a web cam, and tilting your head would make the FOV turn into the corner. I never did see how that panned out though (escuse the pun)

Personally I wouldn't drive a game without wheel and pedals, but as you may have guessed, I'm a bit of a realism nerd when it comes to driving sims. Expect your times to go backwards when you switch to a wheel and pedals - you'll wonder why you torture yourself so much. After a while your times should match what you were achieving with the controller, and you might even beat them (although that may not necessarily happen). The whole experience will be a lot better though, so it's well worth it IMO, and you pick up more of the subtle cues of the game that you just don't get with a controller. Oh, and big head turns at high speed are a part of life if you're a fully sik drift god or rally nut Oh, by the way, I was being sarcastic about driving from bumper view. I use cockpit wherever possible -that's half the fun of the game. Of course things like the steering wheel not turning full lock are a bit annoying - I'm surprised they haven't got that properly sorted.

Yeh, me too. Coz, like, I always drive my real car from the front bumper. I'm sure it will be more useable on the 50" plasma - but a zoom function would still be nice. Or won't we have that option either?

A well sorted, well driven ANYTHING will spank a poorly driven EMO. My first outing on the dirt in the Hoonda saw me beat an EMO 10 and a few WRX's (admittedly none of them were that well driven). Still, a win is a win.

Hehehe that's so true - I couldn't agree more. I'd love to hear some of the excuses people come up with. That's why I've always stuck with the 2WD's in the forest - at least I always have an excuse for being slow. It's funny how many hektik track cars are being built these days, and a lot of then only mask the owner's lack of skill. In the whole time I've been competing in motorsports, I've never once felt that the car was holding me back. Of course I've made improvements to make the car faster (but usually that's a side effect of trying to make it more reliable, safer or easier to drive). I'd rather get to the point where the car is truly holding me back before making major upgrades. Those bloody excels are a pest and a menace. Same thing in the forest with a couple of well driven ones showing the way home to big $$ AWD's. I think there are dart boards all over the country with Excel pictures plastered over them. Oh - that XT does indeed appear to have some mumbo. Brave person to punt one of those around Lakeside (or any race track, in fact)