Beer Baron

they do have helper springs (mine do anyway). you're right, they are much more expensive than the others compared though, mine did cost less than $6.5K (but I agree that's not really relevant), but that price is Japanese retail which is often infalted to allow some wiggle room. they accept a normal coil over spring, I think 60mm or something, so choice of spring is whoever you want, eibach, tein, cusco, ohlins, swift, whoever. haven't needed them serviced in aus yet, but 7 years ago I had a set of teins rebuilt here in aus when no one said it was possible. everyone said "you have to send them to japan, throw them out, can't get the seals etc" well a local suspension shop specialising in motorbike suspension quickly made a tool to get them apart, measured the oil viscosity, bought the appropriate shock oil, added valve for re-gassing, went to a rubber o-ring and seal place and matched up the seals and bingo, rebuilt teins that were as good as new. if it came down to it and I really couldn't get them rebuilt here it's not hard for me to have them sent to japan and repaired and in fact ohlins japan pricing on shock rebuilding is pretty reasonable, I've had one set done in japan. but I would bet a local motorbike shop that deals with a lot of japanese motorbike ohlins could do a basic rebuild on them easily. mine are nismo branded, but they are ohlins flag R. just different colour and nismo sticker set.

in fact the best advice I can give is don't listen to me at all and get along to have one of the NSW instructors in your car. they can quickly and easily tell you where your going wrong and correct it on the spot. and unlike me they know what they are talking about. I've always enjoyed instruction from aaron macgill so see if you can get along to one of his days. dean canto was good too but not sure how many private days he gets to as instructor atm.

sorry I might have not explained properly. I didn't mean you need your hands glued to one place on the wheel and like I said you do need to move them when recovering from slides etc, but the main thing when starting out is it's best if you can to keep them pretty much where they are and not move position like ando does to get leverage over the wheel when approaching the corner. you need to do it to break bad habits. I know I did years ago. many people have that bad habbit of moving their hand over the wheel before a corner. it's not a good thing. you're right you do often need more lock in a road car than a dedicated track car F1 car etc. anyway I didn't mean watch vids of F1 drivers to get an idea of good technique, but serious drivers driving road based track cars on tracks we know. have look at berry for example. once you get rid of the bad habits then you can work on a technique that suits. some guys will happily cross and uncross even in opposite lock, it's not really comfortable for me so I need to move grip, but you want to be entering a corner with your hands in the right place and adjusting a little if need be. there is a big difference between 'shuffling' a bit and reaching one hand over to the other side of the wheel to join up with the other hand pre corner. I thought that is what we are talking about? generally hands stay near the 10/2 or even 9/3 mark for good control of the wheel. and sure if you need 2 turns of lock I don't expect someone to somehow mange to tie a double bow with their elbows! if you can do it though please teach me how!

good stuff I told you it's better with VDC accidentally disabled....

some 18 inch TE37s will fit and as duncan said the enkei GTC-01s fit but I would go for some 19s if you're after a set of track rims. 19inch TE37s fit fine and give a bit more clearance and you can still get good semi's in 19inch like RE55 and dunlop DZ03G etc.

yep, seat and harness us the next step mate. you will be able to use your hands and feet for steering and working the pedals instead of hanging onto the wheel and bracing with knees etc to stop yourself sliding around. you definitely want to try and keep your hands fixed on the wheel. no feeding it through, watch vids of serious guys, unless you need more than 1 full turn (should never really unless you're in a massive slide) then your hands shouldn't move. I would also suggest try some different gearing. you spend a lot of the bottom of the track in 2nd. try 3rd. it often feels slower as you are not revving the nuts off it but you can often gain some corner speed. worth trying, the stopwatch will tell you whether or not it's faster. you could certainly probably take turn 2 in 3rd and hold 3rd between 2 and 3 and 3 and 4, and maybe snatch 4th just going up the bridge or hold 3rd if need be. not sure what diff ratio you have though and of course that will affect things. from the S it'll be 3rd or 4th, then 3rd into the left hander before the flip flop with usually a short shift to 4th just before the flip flop then hold it flat over the top (depends on power of car and gearing of course) short shifting to 4th up before the flip flop just settles the car down and means you can hold it flat over the top or close to it. and then usually 2nd or 3rd coming onto the straight depending on how good the corner speed is.

well i run these in my 32 GTR. they are excellent shocks for the money. some may claim they are not as good as the sweedish made ohlins and that may or may not be the case. but they performed well when tested on a shock dyno and more to the point perform well in my compromised road/track car. they can be rebuilt if needed without too much problem for me and for their cost they are as good as anything else near them in price. all alloy shock body, remote canisters all round, decent size pistons and separate bump and rebound adjustment, they are nice and light and have height adjustable at the lower mount and the lower spring seat so you can adjust height without affecting stroke. http://www.carrozzeriajapan.co.jp/ohlins/4w/flag-r.html

there were no real "hot" laps that day. it was tyre testing and sorting out a few little thing. mark was making his undies brown from about the second lap onwards due to those little bugs getting ironed out

my personal opinion of the momo sliders is pretty low. I have a pair and they are less than excellent. I've now replaced them with cobra sliders which are about $70-$80 for a set and much nicer. the momo ones I had the seat 'rocked' on the little balls that are inside the slider. side mounts are just a piece of metal bent and drilled. the momo one are nice, but if they are expensive I'd go the cobra ones or there are heaps of other brands out there (most race places carry 'generic' ones which are fine). steel ones are good and strong but bloody heavy, they can make mounting easier in a road car though as they are very thin. to be strong enough the alloy ones have to be quite thick which is fine in a race car where you have more room but can be a pain in road car when you have a wide-ish seat and some door trims etc to deal with. anyway, if you can fit them go with some kind of alloy side mount. as far as using the side mount to change the angle of the seat it's not exactly on the fly adjustment though. most installations you cannot access the inner bolts when the seat is installed so to 'adjust' the angle of the seat you have to pull the whole thing out, change it's position and bolt back in. there are rails that do have angle adjustment though. the ones for the carbon kelvlar recaros in my RX7 actually have two levers, one to slide back and forth and one to tilt forward and back. it's quite nice, but I've never seen it replicated on any other seat rail set-up. my advice would still just be get the custom base adapter/frame made up and made as low as possible. you fit the cobra sliders to that, and then side mounts of your choice (I would either go cobra or even better is to buy the same brand side mounts as the brand of seat you have as they will fit nicely together and give you the most useful range of adjustment, they are all slightly different).

1. So, reliability and fuel efficiency aside, why aren't there more rotor engines? because only one manufacturer sells them in production cars. and even then generally in only one model. and since the end of the FD RX7 only in a RX8 which is a very average package. that's why there isn't more of them. there are still many of them though. 2. So, reliability and fuel efficiency aside, why aren't there more rotor engines? well reliability and fuel efficiency are a big deal to most people. so does there really need to be any more reasons? for people not worried about those 2 things they are very popular. 3. What about AWD. Why hasn't Mazda created a crazy lightweight AWD rotor to compete with the GTR, Evo and STi? well they haven't bothered with AWD but as far as a 'crazy lightweight rotor to compete with GTR, EVO aqnd STi?"... well it's called the FD RX7. late models (2000+) and in particular the spirit R and the RZ compete pretty well against the other big boys of the day (R34 GTR, 2000 model STI etc). They weigh as little as 1210 kg, come with carbon kevlar seats, alloy guards and bonnet, bilstein suspension, 280ps twin turbo engines (which have a great sequential turbo system that gives great low down torque and good top end). and they are a 2 seater from the factory. having owned both RZ RX7 and a R34 GTR, I'd say both cars with say just a cat back exhaust, the RX7 is the faster and more fun car. the R34 may run slightly better qtr or lap times due to higher grip, but a good driver could probably equal it in the RX7 and the RX7 is a much 'sportier' car to drive, much more fun than a stock GTR. and with the usual stage one mods (more boost, ECU, intercooler upgrade, full exhaust) they both put out around the same power, possibly even a little more with the rotor (around 250rwkw with those mods). and being a good 200kg lighter than the GTR they feel pretty lively to drive. they do have a lot of flaws and negatives as well (most of which I'm sure are covered in this thread) and any engine is only as good as the car is bolted into.... (look at the RX8.....) but as far as 'why do they suck'. well the answer is they don't suck. why would you think they do? ps 13b is a twin rotor, not triple.

yeah the T518Z is pretty strong mid and top end. I can only imagine the T517Z kits for SR20 must be about as responsive or more responsive than stock and even they should make decent-ish power.

yeah, go the trust turbs! the T518Z on an SR with a good manifold and exhaust and a nice set of cams and tune I reckon will be pretty hard to beat bang for back and a very good trade off in response vs power. should make 250kw on a stock bottom end and head (with cams) with 22psi or so and a good tune. and with E85 and some bigger injectors maybe 270rwkw or so? that's pretty decent power for a car that's pulling hard from 3,000 or there abouts.

looks like i'm on the right track with going 256 inlet and 264 exhaust with 10.5mm lift on both. should be a winner. I just reckon the tomei's with 256/256 and 11.5mm lift is just a tad too much lift on stock springs if you want to rev a bit (and I do, like 7500+). the T518Z is a sweet little turbo. they make pretty decent power and give a good midrange too. In the above set-up making 190kw at 1.1 bar the only thing I can think of is feed it more boost. or perhaps that particular dyno reads on the conservative side. that is easily eliminated by just going to a dyno day somewhere else and see if you get any 'magic' power. if you do then forget about it. if you don't get any gain on another dyno then perhaps it's turbo holding it back or maybe the tune?

well i have used OEM on a number of my cars. splitfires on 2 (about to be 3 next week) and other branded chinese ones (like superspark, JJR etc). my experience. most OEM ones have been fine, but I did eventually develop a missfire in one car that was fixed by a set of splitfires. I've never had a splitfire coil fail and used them in one of my GTRs for a number of years. and one set of them I bought was second hand so used for who knows how long before I got them. they are good quality and work just as promised. I can't honestly say they give any more power over a properly functioning oem nissan coil. the problem is though most of our oem coils are pretty old and not at their best so it's not un-usual to get an improvement when switching to splitfires. as for the other 'brands' with the various colour chinese made coil packs. my experience has not been so great. they worked ok for about 10 months, then 1 failed. luckily they do have local service cause you might well need it! in their defence the coil was tested and promptly replaced. things were fine again for a while. now they again have a light miss that goes away when I swap them out for a set of OEM coils. so we'll see what happens from here. i won't name the 'other' coils as it's not really fair as they have at least stood behind their product. but it's still annoying having them fail and take your car off the road. for the money they are I guess reasonable value. but I do think the splitfires are a better product. are they $XXX better? I can't say for sure.

how farken lucky is kimi falling into 3rd after homoton binned it on the last lap!!! d'oh! don't know if I'd call that senna-esque.....

ps, I want to run around 22psi out of the T518Z and want around 250-260rwkw, possibly even 270 or 280 on E85 (but will need bigger injectors for that). considering this is a budget hack not too keen on doing anything to the head other than chucking in some cams. even probably buy a set of used ones that's how cheap this car is! I just don't know which way to go? the mild duration but big 11.5mm lift of the tomei poncams (which they claim is fine with stock valve springs etc up to 7500)? or go with a nice fat 264 duration but a more conservative 10.5mm lift. would love some advice.

very timely question. I'm currently looking at cams for my SR20. stock head, valves springs the whole lot. running 555cc injectors, z32 maf, trust T518Z, uras mani, nice big exhaust, trust cooler, putting out 230rwkw at about 1.2bar. but should make more with some tuning. I wanted a set of HKS SS cams, 264/264 with 10.5mm in lift and 10mm ex lift. (sadly these are now discontinued from HKS but second hand come up every now and then) other option is tomei cams which are 256/256 duration with 11.5mm lift both in and ex. the lift on these ones worries me a bit with stock valvetrain. the option I'm leaning towards is greddy easy cams which are 256in with 10.5mm lift and 264 ex with 10.5mm lift. thoughts? Dave, your set-up looks awesome, what cams and turbo etc are you running. did you spend any time dialling in the cams with adjustable gears? and if so, any gains from adjusting the cam timing?

JJR and similar (in fact nearly all) GTR front pipes are too small for my liking, especially for a 30. they are only twin 60mm pipe into a single 75mm pipe. the HKS ones are twin 70+ into 80+ (can't remember exactly, could even be 85). think of it like this, if you were running say a 2530 or a GTRS on a RB20 or SR20 you wouldn't run it with a single 60mm front pipe would you? you'd want at least 3 inch (74mm) and probably 80mm. I think twin 70mm or 75mm is about ideal for a GTR. getting the gas out is pretty important performance wise. the tomei dumps and the HKS fronts match very well size wise. they were one of the only front pipes I could find that would mate up to the tomei dumps without a big step down in size. you are right it's not cheap though. the extra money though over the trust kit I reckon is worth it for the ease of fitment! the trust ones really are a bit a cnt to fit. anyway, keep your options open.

yeah I agree 3.9:1 would be as far as I'd go too. 3.7 with the current ratios will have you reaching some astronomical speeds in each gear though. 1st will feel like 2nd almost. punch it in to one of the many drag/gear ratio calculators out there.

well I am a snob and only ever fly JAL to tokyo, but fk me ragged at $438 return inc tax I could be willing to fly jetstar via qld and korea, and LA to osaka, then catch a bus to tokyo. i mean that's about a grand cheaper than JAL last time I checked. on the other hand, like I said I am a snob! lol.

I love it mate!!! LOVE IT! I have a strong desire to change your user name to "Mad Professor"... lol. it's going to be a winner, no doubt in my mind at all. most people would still be 'thinking about it' at this point (me included) and you are almost finished. hell you might have to make one for me soon. it has a lot of good things going for it. sleeves are good, spacer means you can keep original engine# or even use an n1 block if so inclined (though waste of money really in this case), plus everything else block wise is 26 so no need for sump adapters or extra tensioners etc. just have to deal with the extra 20mm of spacer (belt wise I mean). apart from that it should be pretty somple and should take up less space (height wise) than a 30/26 too, plus from memory it has better rod/stroke ratio too and has a nice square bore/stroke ratio too so it should still rev. you the man!

they are good but have a few draw backs. 1. price (they are quite expensive) 2. fitment, with dumps that long they are a cnt to fit (so either more mucking around, or more cost depending on DIY or not) 3. weight, they use very thickwall stainless and they are very, very heavy. this can be bad if not hung and supported properly. 4. being a unique length you cannot mate to another front pipe or vice versa if yours get damaged or you want to change for some reason. also with it going onto a 30 they may be an even more bitch to fit with the head being that much higher than on a 26. the trust set-up is a good piece of gear performance wise though. after trying a few combos and looking and many my current favourite is tomei expreme dumps with HKS drag type front pipes. the tomei dumps are the biggest bellmout design around, and that's what you want. you want to allow the exhaust gas to expand as much as possible, as soon as possible, so a big bell mouth into a 70mm+ pipe is a good way to go. even more so with the gas flow of a 30 behind it all. something to think about.

looks ok to me. my advice is ring or email UAS and send those pics. they will be able to help/advise/replace depending on what they think it happening.

yeah you need a clutch to suit the getrag input shaft. the 34 GTT or 33 GTST box is not a getrag. the 6 speed GTR box is completely different and input shaft is different size and splines. to top it off the old nismo 34 GTR clutch kit came with a new input shaft for the getrag box as they were a known weak point (twisting I believe) so you may be unlucky and find that the previous owner had a nismo clutch and now you'll need a clutch to match that particular shaft. hang on, just realised you just want to align the clutch before you fit it up yeah? you actually still have the gearbox to mate up. well some driveline place should have a clutch aligning tool that will fit the getrag type clutch. sorry for the useless rant above! lol. shouldn't be more than $20 or $30 for a getrag type clutch alignment tool.

I didn't compare it to USS grading? buying any car unseen is silly. and no one I know with any sense places any stock on auction gradings. they are used only to get a rough idea of whether or not a car is worth INSPECTING. not to decide if it's worth BUYING. that decision is made standing in front of the car looking at it properly. at least with auction gradings the description and grade isn't being written by the bloke selling the car. basically my point was yahoo is just like ebay and just as dodgy.... if not more so.