MBS206

If Duncan got "a" trickle charger, he'd still have about 10 cars going flat a week...

Yes, letting batteries go flat, and then recharging them is not kind on them at all. My above was more around as the batteries age on. Going flat and recharging them very quickly shortens their life span.

And since the flush you have a blown head gasket? Have you lifted the head off yet?

So many people don't notice it, as batteries decay slowly over time. Two big reasons people end up noticing and needing to replace batteries: 1) The cold weather. The cold not only makes it harder to turn the engine for a few reasons, but it also increases the batteries internal resistance. So this means you need MORE power to turn a colder engine, AND the battery has a lower limit on how much current it can provide. 2) Something gets modified/altered/added in the wiring, typically an aftermarket accessory, like a dash camera, or an alarm etc, and this adds a small amount extra onto the battery, and pushes it over the edge in its failing days. But if you hadn't have read this thread, and just pushed through, chances are you might have made it through this winter, just. But come next winter, it would have been kapoot. But the fact you changed it out now, means you've instantly noticed how much nicer it is for starting, and will be less worry for you that the engine won't start now.

Not just stop start. New modern cars with their stupid "smart" alternators. Even funnier is watching cars when you drop them into eco mode. A lot of them don't crank the alternator up to full charge for very long at all. EVs and how they charge their 12V lead acid battery is even worse! Also, you should never disconnect the battery, on a running car. The voltage spikes can break things. Basically while it's a "battery" it is also considered a "Capacitor" within the charging system, and helps to keep those spikes non existent. Yay for alternators being inductive.

I could probably pull a few logs out of the servers at work, would show it happening a lot. My job is in vehicle telematics, and I spend more hours than I'd like in data analysis/review for various reasons.

I find most vehicles dip into the mid to high 9 volt range, even with a good battery. Hitting the low 9s, and especially hitting into the 8s is pretty indicative of a dieing battery. The other part to look at is the battery voltage after the battery has been fully charged. They should be sitting at 12.8V, as lead acids are dieing, they head down low and lower. Often getting as low as 12.0 - 12.2. You'll start seeing this when the engine is cranking over slowly. Interestingly, depending on the vehicle, when batteries get really bad, you can see some REALLY funky things going on. From very low voltages, to higher than 16V too. Something I totally didn't expect! This part of the super low and super high voltages I've been seeing on motorbikes, I need to do some further studies on cars. I suspect cars will act a little bit different though for a couple of reasons.

And other times you just need to go buy bigger injectors?

Sounds heat shield related. But odd that it does it at that exact RPM. That RPM is also very close to the cam switch over point coming off idle, and I've had both Subaru, and Toyota's rattling before when they've been having oil getting up to the variable cam control, and always right on the low RPM switch over point. The Toyota one I've had is mainly just on start up.

Welcome aboard! Is your Skyline auto or manual? I'm assuming manual. Does it have any mods done yet?

He obviously had his reason for flipping you off. I wonder what it was...

HPA do an interesting video on tuning, and Adrian shows on the dyno, moving from 10:1 to 12:1 (And I think even 13:1) and the power moves SFA. However, a couple of degrees of timing has a HUGE impact. Exhaust side of things will more be the length of the exhaust and how many bends and turns you have. The straighter you can keep it, the better. By a lot. Oh, and getting the diameter right. Bigger isn't always better. Going to big can actually lose you power.

I have to say, most people I see on the road fit the bill of atrocious drivers. Whether they be cowboys in their dual cabs, bogans in the Commodores, or the soccer mums. Pretty much most people on the road put zero freaking thought into driving. Barely look further up the road then the end of their bonnet, and have never even thought about how catastrophically wrong shit can go, by doing what they all deem as normal driving. Especially their late braking, racing to stopped lights, and sitting half a foot off the bumper of the car in front at 110km/h. Wanna know what's even better? By the time their kids get to be old enough to learn to drive, they've already got in the back of their brain what is normal driving, how annoyed you're allowed to get at people etc, and then their parents who actually have zero freaking skill at driving (Even though they constantly say "I've been driving for 20 years and never had an accident!") teach the little twerps how to drive, or should I say, how to make a car move. Literally watched a parent teach their L Plater, on a 4 lane freeway, that you just slam the brakes on, and push your way over, even with a B Double bearing down on you, and that's how you should drive, rather then, just keep going to the next exit. Same shit happens all the time for side streets etc, watching numpties pull dumb shit turns pushing across 3 lanes of traffic, rather than just go up the road another 30 seconds, and take the next turn that'll get you to the same location... Oh, and the damn right lane bandits. Or the retards driving along with their headphones in, and can't hear the ambulance or fire truck right up their ass about to run them over... Pretty much, people drive on the road, like ego centric f**ks, and don't actually think how dumb shit their driving is, how it could easily kill them or someone else in a split second, or at the very least, how they're driving is contributing to all the shit they're bitching about on the road, like shitty congestion!

GU dashes are also know, especially on the tach, to have issues with one of the caps and another module for the power supply, and it will cause tacho to drop, also happens on the odo/Speedo too. It's why you never trust a GU patrols Odo, as when the Speedo drops out, the odo stops counting too...

Amount of time you're being observed by law enforcement is so minute, that you could be a dumb shit 90% of your driving time, and never lose a demerit. You could also be the best driver ever and still get hit with a fine. When you realise how quickly everything turns from "Wee, we're having fun!" To "oh f**k oh f**k oh f**k", you start to realise the only way to be a good driver, is to not be doing anything dumb or unexpected by normies on the road. You want to go fast, go to the track. Someone there in a 1990s slow POS will also show you how bad of a driver you are as they lap 10 seconds per lap quicker than you can in a car that should be considerably faster.

This is a stupid reason to get a car. I thought someone mentioned something about not trying to be pretentious... Flexing is same same, you just think you're cool doing it.

Some people love to enjoy the car, and that's the love. Others prefer being covered in dirt, oil, grease, sweat, and cuts and scratches instead of getting to drive the car. 😛

Low ball him cause it doesn't have a Samsonas in it...

Woah woah woah, don't forget the crowd that hate doing this shit, but love modified cars AND paying others to modify them. At which point, go buy Dose's R33

While doing the timing chain, fix the indicators too...

The sodium acetate, mixed with citric acid, doesn't actually buffer each other. Interestingly though, if you used Sodium Acetate, and acetic acid, THAT becomes a buffer solution. Additionally, a weak acid that can attack a metal, is still a weak acid that can attack a metal. If you don't neutralise it, and wash it off, it's going to be able to keep attacking. It works the same way when battery acid dries, get that stuff somewhere, and then it gets wet, and off it goes again breaking things down. There's a reason why people prefer a weak acid, and it's because they want TIME to be able to be on their side. IE, DIY guys are happy to leave some mild steel in vinegar for 24 hours to get mill scale off. However, if you want to do it chemically in industry, you grab the muriatic acid. If you want to do it quicker at home, go for the acetic acid if you don't want muriatic around. At the end of the day, look at the above thumbnail, as it proves what I said in the earlier post, you can clean that fuel tank up all you want with the solution, but the rust that has now been removed was once the metal of the fuel tank. So how thin in spots is your fuel tank getting? If the magazine on the left, is the actual same magazine as on the right, you'll notice it even introduces more holes... Well, rust removal in general actually does that. The fuel tank isn't very thick. So, I'll state again, look to replace the tank, replace the fuel hanger, and pump, work out how the rust and shit is making it past the fuel filter, and getting into the injectors. That is the real problem. If the fuel filter were doing its job, the injectors wouldn't be blocked.

Yeah, but the country is turning to a bit of shite at the moment... (Majority of work is NZ'ers, and we have an office in NZ I deal with daily...)

If it came off a Skyline you could easily have sold it for $500 to someone wanting OEM parts to return their car to stock. Not sure if that market is in the Stageas or not.

It sounds "expensive" when compared to a mass produced tow bar that gets imported from China, but if that's all custom fabrication, then I think where you've ended up, it's a pretty good price! Considering some people will pay thousands of dollars for a few intercooler pipes to be welded up!

I think modifying any car, has to be because you like it, OR, you have an end goal to do XYZ. EG, build the fastest VW Golf in the country etc. So, if you're not setting out to do crazy things like break a specific record, or replicate some certain car, then as mentioned above, find the car that you really like, and modify it. Why? Well, modifying any car isn't a sound logical thing to do it. You do it for the fun of it. And if you want it to be fun, you need to start with something you really like. For some, that would be something like an R34 because they saw one in The Fast and The Furious franchise, for others it'll be something entirely different for some other reason. For me personally, why am I here, nearly 20 years later? I loved cars, all cars, and I wanted a car that drove a certain way, I was about to drop the coin on modifying a VR Commodore (Because I grew up in a family that taught me Commodores were the only cars worth owning). And just before I did that, a friend handed me the keys to an R33 GTST he'd just bought that was pretty much bone stock, it drove EXACTLY how I wanted a car to. Nice handling, the right amount of straight line zoom zooms, and hell, I loved the way it looked. I looked at the R32, it wasn't for me, I looked at the R34, it wasn't quite for me either, mainly because they were too expensive Price is also why I never bought a GTR back in the day. But I loved the curves of the R33 GTST, interior suited me over the R32, and wambam, thank you ma'am! I bought one. And in the essence of "return on investment" and "Sound financial planning", I've been making the dumbest mistakes ever since. Also, I know of a specific mortgage broker on these forums who has a very well modified R33 GTST making great power for the street and track... Then you could modify it with adding a Samsonas gearbox, Bosch motorsport ABS system, and go have some sick fun! Oh, and then you'll be able to help him get me my next mortgage, because that, like modifying a car, is probably a stupid financial decision for me at this moment the property I want...