MBS206

Just hire a trailer for the few times you go to the track... Also, those new cars, all great and fast, until one sensor goes on the fritz. Was just helping the guys near us prep for the 6 hour at Bathurst. Had issues with TCS wanting to be on permanently (and kicked in). New yaw sensor as it had crapped out, that fixed the fault codes, but issue still present. Final fix, bleed the brakes... It decided it was upset with brake pressure when TCS was trying to "control the car"... And that was in a car already 14 years old but full of euro electronics... All those modules are great, until they start doing stupid things...

Should have bought Reese's from skid control, a quick buff and polish and I'm sure the charring marks would come out (I heard it was stolen and lit ablaze )

Yeah I nearly did the same at one point, I got confused before I posted earlier ha ha ha

Nekminit, O2 sensor has failed and new plugs end up fouled

Guy across from my work races (just did 12hour and doing 6hour at Bathurst) uses PowerTorque in Brendale, and work has used another place in Seventeen Mile Rocks but I can't think of their name off the top of my head sorry.

Did you mix up pictures Brett? The OPs photo is missing stuff, another photo was posted with all parts showing, but that person saying parts missing.

Looking at the photo posted by OP, the pad retaining pins aren't going through the pads to begin with. Those pins also look super gunked up. They need to come out and be cleaned on a wire wheel. It does look like one pad is removed, and that may be why the pad retaining pins aren't through the pad on the other side.

Interesting on the need to add more fuel, as it started running lean with better spark. In my mind, having incomplete burn, means not all of the fuel has been burned, which means you'll have excess oxygen in the exhaust, and an O2 will read lean. This is why misfires end up reading lean, even if it's from excess fuel. I'm genuinely curious now as to why with better spark it's showing leaner every where, as I've always understood it to be the other way around. I could see it getting a bit leaner as it's coming onto boost, as it might be coming on a bit earlier with a nicer more complete burn, but this would only show if the last coils were unable to do the job properly ever, and hence that section of map never got reached to be tuned, but across the board needing more has me baffled :S

Install a louder exhaust. Don't press the middle pedal. Problem solved...

Interesting read... I know my R33 has a couple of spots of rust (very minor, mainly boot floor, and a spot in the roof). Towers etc were all good 2 years ago when it was given a rough spray... And I kept this car < 2km from the beach for 6 years straight, it has spent another 4 years sitting in a paddock, including going 1.8m under water in a 2017 flood... I'm just going to not look too closely in these areas moving forward... Ah well, I guess it'd be a good reason to tube chassis the front end

I have a dog trainer sitting beside me. She says that's actually not a hard thing and she'd take that over teaching tech to stubborn people who don't get it. 😛

You see, you say "it's easy", and I understand what you mean, as it is. When youre good with computers. Remember half these places are started/run by mechanics/fabricators. Most of them don't understand/know/get technology at all. They can do emails, and process an order in Xero. But they're not quick at it, and even then, Xero can be too much for some of these people. Getting them to setup, and workout their own workflow, it ain't going to happen. However, maybe you could setup a demo system, and show them how it could dramatically change their business, and reduce overheads, while improving customer experience, hence enable them to grow their customer base and reduce order turnover time. Once you've got the demo, now you can sell it to them it's why any good software company, needs good sales people, who can talk the talk to end customers who don't get the software, they go in, understand the business, and provide a solution. For the most part, software doesn't sell itself... Nor do most other systems that help improve things, it's mostly guys showing these people what can be done and blowing their mind

Sounds like they have no process to review and chase up things internally...

Just turn the power down, and drive it hard, with less worry. While it's great to set an amazingly fast time and win a competition, from someone who has busted a few RBs, give me a pretty much stock RB25, good tyres and good suspension, with good brakes, and I'd rather do session after session, track day after track day, than be breaking and fixing and worried about it. On a pretty much stock R33, I put Project Mu pads in, fresh brake fluid, serviced the engine, and threw a set of semi slicks at it. Car was then double entered at Wakefield Park. (Me driving, and Shell, the owner of the car driving). Last sessions of the day were extended, and ended up like a fast driver change in put lane. Only thing that popped up, was at the end of the session, on the cool down lap, brake pedal went long, and then vanished on the way down pit lane. Give me that any and every day,ultiple times a year, than spannering on a car all the time... My R33 with the 25/30 in it would make the rear semi slicks a touch too hot just trying to put pour down down the main straight of OP GP. also it only made the third session before it made the loudest of loud knock knock jokes that sent a flag marshal cringing, and Duncan listening to it at put exit, while I drove into pit lane also one of my earliest Memories of Duncan and Neil, ha ha ha! So yes, breaking shit has its upsides

Right foot is for when it's raining. Lots of 20+psi tunes have a 14psi spring, which 14psi is going to be plenty in wet/slippery times. Apart from a higher setting for street daily runs / drag runs, and then a lower setting for track use / long mountain runs, I PERSONALLY don't see the point in multiple boost settings. And that's coming from someone who used to run multiple settings... Fuel economy again for daily, just go light on the throttle, and dont even bring it fully onto boost for what you'd have as the low setting... Means right foot controls boost, and fuel usage, and means if you want POWAH!, that you just flick your foot, not a switch and your foot.

This has been my experience, until this Kona EV I have now. Adaptive at the longest distance has me uncomfortably close at 100kmh. Set it to minimum distance and I can nearly reach forward and touch the car in front... Also has a spastic about things in the left hand lane beside you. And you can't follow vehicles around a corner with it on if you're below the set speed or it loses them, and then finds them again. Being EV, it accelerates f**king quick and brakes bloody harsh. I do think it needs to go see Hyundai and get the sensors checked/aligned. Once that's done, I can hate adaptive cruise in that vehicle 100%. On topic of adaptive cruise, I'm adamant the Kona has an option in the menu on the dashboard to turn it off. Needs to be done while parked. It's in the driving aids section. Would be interesting if EV can turn off but the Petrol you can't.... It was really nice though today on the motorway when it was bumper to bumper. Still lots of like speed off then slow down, which if I'm manually driving I just leave a big gap and try to maintain speed with only slow adjustments.

In the mechanics world, I think most fail to learn these days as they learn at places like a dealership, which primarily replace huge chunks, and roll the dice of "throw parts at it" as the computer does a lot of the diagnostics for them / it's the troubleshooting flow diagram from the manufacturer. Then there's the issue of, some people can't put aside personality, and work on different communication styles. But seriously, go meet 50 apprentice mechanics, most think they're top shit and don't want to listen, and at least half of the 50 are also stoned... The tradies teaching don't have the patience or time to put up with the shit. It's one thing, on a quick thought, that banning all the shit like hazing, and being al PC, is that the young ones don't know to stop being a smart aleck, and just listen, as they've got nothing to fear, except being called the wrong pronoun

Had to go back and check this wasn't me ranting about engineering... The part that is even more saddening, is that most teaching degrees, full time, is about 12 hours a week of contact. Write a few fluffy essays and be done with it. I always struggled at uni when I first tried a million years ago. Because it was just shit thrown at you, with no application. However, I learned a lot on my own, by wanting to do things for me, and always wanting to know the what and how. 6 years ago I started back at Uni part time. I still have 9 subjects left after this semester as I work full time (actually more hours than full time). What I see today, is the workload is so full on for the kids, they learn how to regurgitate information, but not a single one of them knows how to apply that information, and use it as knowledge. In reality, Uni gives you the basics, and is MEANT to teach you how to then be able to learn on your own (question, research, and apply). When I finish my degree, I'll be qualified to do the job I'm already doing. The reason I'm sticking with it, is so if for what ever reason I ever leave my current workplace, someone else will hire me as I have the piece of paper. Most companies, you can have 25 years hands on experience. Don't have that piece of paper from 25 years ago? Well, you're not getting hired. I have a guy on my team, he has a Double Degree in Maths and Science, and a Degree in Comp Science/Engineering. Really awesome hard worker. BUT... I can't just give him a problem and let him figure it out. EVERYTHING has to be meticulously scoped, thought out, and put together, and then he'll just write the code for me. I may as well use ChatGPT by that point in time! Flipside is, I'm having a conversation with the company owner on how to do something new with our products to solve a specific problem, while keeping our system as generic as possible (IE, we don't have ten different firmwares, and you choose which one to load to do a specific job, and we dont do custom modules in our software for specific customers), and while having this active conversation, I've already devised four different ways to solve it for proof of concept, and the pros and cons of each method! Anyone else listening is still trying to understand the problem... Those people still listening are the ones on paper that are "smarter than me"... The struggle is definitely real finding ANYONE half decent. Hence, I understand why small workshops struggle. Most people don't have the passion, or drive, to do jobs the boss wants to offload. Nor do they understand / care about the cost of their own f**kups. Hence why workshops will continue to be shit at housekeeping things like responding to emails, or understanding technology and making it work for them.

Wheel bearings. I've had two cars do it like that. One was a Honda Jazz. Horrible just loud deep noise, exactly as you describe, sounds like road noise but 10 to 20 times louder. Second was our Subaru Liberty GTB. Exact same thing. The part that made this one harder to diagnose. The wheel wobble didn't exist. "Sealed" bearings that dried out, and got silly loud. Way to identify, is have someone stand on road side, drive past at about 60. Turn around, go back the other way. Side that's louder is your bearing issue. Diffs typically have a higher pitch noise than the sound of road noise. So far had 3 wheel bearings go on 3 different cars, only one went whomp whomp whomp like Duncan said. Funny part, it was a Ford Falcon that did it! Bahahaha

One of the biggest problems for these shops to grow, is the boss is the one who knows how to do it all. Finding someone who is even remotely competent, and wanting to work, is half the problem as to why they don't hire people. Especially in Australia, where for years the mentality was pushed that you couldn't earn a dollar unless you went to Uni. So everyone went to Uni, and all the dumb shots went into trades. Now the pickings for GOOD young trades people is quite slim. I met a group of 16 to 21 year Olds, wanting to become boiler makers and fabricators. Don't worry about teaching them the 3,4,5 rule, these guys don't even know how to read a tape measure... They were some of the "best" applicants for the course...

Engineers Hat On: Knowing the speed that Microcontrollers operate at, back in the day, and these days, if Link have found a benefit in the quality of the way an engine runs by moving their code to a faster MCU, than Link needs to get it's engineers to go back and make their code more efficient...

I think one of the big reasons the new owners might have more luck, is they have an actual track record of monitoring noise levels, and rectifying each one of them. Well, that's what Pheasants Wood/MDTC was like when Gary owned it, I suspect the present owners (And new ones for Wakefield) will be acting the same way, as Pheasants Wood had some hard neighbours to please, but they managed to do it! Also, interesting, a month or so ago, Labor vowed $1 mill if re-elected to get Wakefield reopened... The Libs/Nationals just vowed $5 million for Wakefield to reopen if they get elected... Side note: no matter which way you vote, those Many Blood Sucking Creatures (Poly-tick-sions) are just in it for themselves!

I think @Duncan was looking for the parts you've likely removed for the Blow Off Valves Brett if you're looking to part ways with them.

You forgot doing RNP down to Wollongong, then heading out to Albion Park and going up Mac Pass, OR going up Jamberoo mountain road, out to Moss Vale and then highway down, OR, before getting to Moss Vale, drop back down Kangaroo Valley to pop out at Nowra, and then come up through Tarago, or down to Batemans to use Braidwood/Kings Highway. Definitely longer than the original drive...

Not 100% across this half shaft in particular as I haven't removed one, but it will be pretty much the same as others... The surface the seal rests on on the half shaft itself can also wear. If it starts to wear down, it's not going to mate and seal properly. When doing the seal, you need to be checking the inner and outer surfaces it mates to, are in good condition too. Is the oil weep 100% coming from the half shaft seal location? Have you checked the breathers/vents aren't blocked? Blocked vents will bust an axle seal/make them weep. This could be why it only showed after a drive, as it needed to heat up and pressurise first (diff unable to breath)