Beer Baron

yeah difference is minor. the HKS ones seem to have a little more power potential and response difference is negligible. I prefer the HKS ones but I admit it's hard to justify the price premium over the generic ones for what you get. the good thing with the HKS ones is they come with good actuators, fasteners, gaskets etc. some garret retailers add cheap gaskets with their kits, some add good ones and some add none at all so when pricing kits you need to check what exactly you get for you money. some 'kits' are just 2 turbos completely bare (ie not even actuators included).

yeah it looks great mate. I hope it's going really well. unfortunately they will definitely think we are hill billys anyway, I mean compare eastern creek to fuji speedway.... our tracks look like they were built on farm land next to garbage tips... wait a minute, they were..... still they won't be laughing too much as you round them up under brakes at turn 2....

no worries. to be honest I've never used the RS650 or RS651 kits and in fact I think only the RS651 is still available. I've only used the RS520/521 kits and used a fair few and they are great. Definitely without the serrations it will alter the oil flow through the plates and I'd say the ones with serrations will lock up a lot harder even though you end up with less surface area as they are able to dissipate the oil. you can see the patterns on the 520/521 kits alternate between plates with some running concentricly around the disk face and the next ones running out from the centre. it must make them grip better. I'd say you'll be happy with the RS521 kit and they are a great bang for buck mod. it's the same kit for 32/33 and 34 GTR as long as they are not the active diff models.

exactly most of the guys on here seem to be assuming it will be an aussie car that will win and basing their times off that.... yeah the OS cars are un-known in this neck of the woods but as marlin pointed out some of them have very serious power to weight ratios and very accomplished drivers. things could get very interesting if any of the OS challengers are firing on all cylinders so to speak.

the HKS dumps and HKS copies are not all that good. far too small pipes and very short merge anyway. got for a nice big bell mouth style dump. the tomei ones are the best. if you can't afford them, get some 34 GTR dumps which are a small improvement over the stock 32/33 gear. seriously with what you were going to spend on x force dumps and JJR manifolds I would just spend that whole budget on a set of good dumps (tomei) and re-use the factory manifolds. if you really want manifolds the tomei ones are excellent but of course you pay for it.... 90% of the others are not worth buying at all and most will eventually start leaking etc. all of them radiate out more heat than the stock ones which is not good either. so keep stock manifolds, buy tomei dumps. problem solved.

does your key have the factory immobiliser in it or not? I'm guessing yes by your need to 'program' it. they can be fairly easily by-passed though.

big ups for coming all the way across for SL. good luck in selling the laurel too, it's a great venue to try and do it as there will be lots of potential customers and they get to see it perform on track too. hope you do well mate.

I'm pretty sure friday is timed. it's part of the event after all.

yeah there are definitely some outright copies of greg's sump adapter getting around as it was by far the best of the locally available product... I know greg certainly didn't copy anyone elses for his design and then there are other tricks like material selection, sizing and spec of fasteners etc. He takes it in stride though as I think he knows that people who bother to research know that his product stands up on quality and price to other imitations.

I have to agree about webbers missus. she must have some great negotiation skills...

yeah I wasn't implying you had any nasty intentions. I know 99% of people would be interested to know where they are to take a few pics and respectfully enjoy the cars but sadly there is that 1% out there somewhere. I was just trying to explain why they would never want that info posted on a forum or the like that's all. I wasn't trying to be funny either.

and eps, you should have bid more on that black manual turbo soarer. best combo there is available and will always command a premium over others. I know of one nice black, manual single turbo one in aus though. belongs (or belonged) to kip wightman (nova radio 'personality'). I bought my old UZZ32 Active off him and he replaced it with a beautiful black late model, manual. if you ever come across it, buy it!

yeah mate, black and midnight purple are the 'money colours' in 34 GTR. not 50% premium but there definitely is a premium for those colours. mainly due to lack of supply. The more common the colour generally the less desirable. bayside blue is a bit of an exception, there is heaps of them but they are still sought after. yeah bayside is not my favourite 34 colour. actually the silver/grey is my favourite. I'd take black over blue too and you are right the blue does date the car a bit as a late 90s auto-mobile. still had to beat gun metal grey on a 32 though...

yeah well done to mark. nice to know after all those years spooning with marlin he still knows what to do with a woman! he must be very proud and I'm glad everything went well with the two little ones.

yeah thinking about it more you could be right. I still think around 33/34 for pro, maybe a 35 if the track is really slow. open shouldn't be much more than 2 seconds or so off that pace. maybe 3 seconds? come on brighty, I'll cheer for you mate!!!

not sure. I've only ever bought them direct from work japan. with the rate how it is currently they are about $125 + post from japan. still not bad. they are nice nuts.

lol, Ian from hi octane is helping the OS guys with organising transport etc for them. as for where the cars are at any given moment I don't think that knowledge would want to be made public as sadly there are people out there who would see it as an opportunity for theft or vandalism either of which would be devastating to the event and peoples image of our country.

i'm with marlin. if track is good 1:32 will win pro. if tracks off it could be as 'slow' as a 1:34. so maybe middle ground of a 33 will be on the money. eastern creek does vary a bit depending on track condition. open class maybe 1:36 to win on a good day 1:38 on a slow day. club is an interesting one. I'm not really sure but I'd guess the top guys will be in the low 40s. maybe a dead 40 or 41 will do it.

I know of another design about to come to market that incorporates the adapter with re-designed main caps and a stronger girdle. of course it looks similar to the designs posted already but is different in a few key areas and I know for a fact the guy making it has designed it himself. it's not un-usual for people to come to a similar conclusion to the same problem. I also recently saw the one out of one of the first ever RB26/30's made. this RB26/30 was made at least 10 years ago (memory a bit hazy). it belonged to joe at SSS here in sydney and would be close to one of the first 26/30s made in the world especially in a 4WD application. it was hand made (not machined billet) and a fair bit different to the above designs but you can see where it was going. anyway, I have no idea whether spool copied rips design or whether they did their own R+D and just came to the same solution. regardless of that without some patents in force it will be hard to legally stop them.

these are the work ones. steel, open ended, another good budget option at around $100 a full set of 20...

marlin is on the money with the project mu nuts. they are teh shit. the rays daytona ones i sold to ant are just as good too and are my favourite nuts. not nearly as hairy as marlin's are and screw heaps better too. you may find the rays ones a bit cheaper than the pmu ones. I certainly don't think I sold ant his for anything like $400.... for those on a budget I use the plain, open ended but high quality (brand name) steel nuts. they are very strong and quite cheap around $30 per set of 4. will last forever if treated right. the high quality alloy nuts are better than the cheap ones. some even use an heli-coil like insert for the thread but none are as good as the top quality steel ones like the pmu or the rays daytona. these are the budget option: Work also make nuts that look identical to the rays ones pictured above and again reasonable in price.

as tempting as it is to buy online to save some cash the most important thing with a helmet is the fit. it's by far the most important. it doesn't matter if it's the best made helmet ever if it's not the exact right size and fit for your head it won't work as intended. I guess you can always go try some on at your local shop and then once you've found the exact size and type you want stooge them and go order it online and save money that way. but yeah, basic message is fit is the most important aspect.

don't tease me roy! god that would be good. an interesting choice but not without some merit. I mean webber is certainly a big enough 'name' in F1 now having won races and been in the sport for a long time. plus these days you have to look pretty hard to find a team mate that can keep up with alonso and not get all messed up by his mind games and nasty tactics. webber is probably one of the drivers would could deal with it and perhaps with having been previous team mates they would even get along?!? I would love to see it.

the one you want is either 3843S-RS520 (45ft/lb) or 3843S-RS521 (75ft/lb). for your car I'd go with the RS521 kit.

they are the prices for the 'cheap' cars. the good one are still about $10K up on the 'low' prices you quoted except for your VII price which is about right at $70K. obviously Nur etc will fetch a bit more and it varies a lot depending on condition, km and spec. my only advice is buy a good one. if you can only afford one now cause they are in the 40s think twice about buying one. they cost a lot to keep in peak condition and even more to modify and if you are buying at the lower end of the market chances are yours will need some work in the near future. don't forget they are 10 years old now. most with genuine kms should be around 80,000-100,000kms which is a lot for a performance car IF it's not been looked after. if it's treated well there's no problem but that can be hard to gauge once a car has been through a few owners and most have by now. I reckon right now a budget of $55-$60K will get a really nice GTR. either pristine low km model of your colour choice, or a well looked after 1 or 2 owner modified example. anything less and you are buying from the bottom-ish end of the market. never a good idea for prestige or performance cars.