Beer Baron

yeah baby!! have you given up on trying to kill yourself on a trike? lol man it will be fun. how about a steer? the deal is if I can fit in it I get to have a go!? it would be a great piece of gear. still rotor power?

well I can tell you know I wish I had bought a "plastic pig" Grp A walkinshaw a few years ago when a mint condition one was $40K... it's the one 'collectible' holden I would own. I don't know why but I just love them and probably will end up with one at some point. hero car from when I was a kid I guess.... long live the plastic pig. try and deny you love it! go on, you know you want one. shame an average one is $80K these days. I would hate to think what a 1 owner, no kms, collectors one would be worth... I shouldn't worry too much though as I would want to drive it not tow it places and look at it... http://www.carsales.com.au/all-cars/privat...&__Qpb=true http://www.carsales.com.au/all-cars/privat...&__Qpb=true

hey I only said that stuff about it being less gay to make you feel better as you were holding your full size parasol indoors and looked like you were feeling a bit uncomfortable... as far as fatz 30th goes have you put that roof fire out yet might? you might want to get on to that one soon. If you keep putting it off you may come home one day and find a red hot turbo sitting on a pile of melted shit that used to be your house... on the plus side I guess it's not too hard to start again when you live next door to bunnings.

that's the spirit! imagine the after party for that one!!! webber as F1 world champ... I should shut up now and stop jinxing it. bad beer baron.

you should know.... it's worked on you more than once...

yeah I saw she bought a neat white little GTI-R Pulsar, has some good bits, LSDs, Close ratio box etc. if set-up well and with the right bits they are a good little car. 1200kg, good SR20 with quad throttles, all the good bits etc, AWD they are pretty competitive. their real downfall is the lack of popularity means there is no big amount of aftermarket support or knowledge pool like you have with other models like EVOs WRC etc. she seems to be a good driver so hopefully she does well.

well I'd love to see him race again, but I do kind of have mixed feelings about it, and I did have my thoughts that he may have too. you know there is a small chance that he'd come back and suck at it and that would really put a dampener on his amazing record and career. his average must be a podium about 50% of the times he finished a race or more. of all the people who've ever retired he is the one I'd love to see come back, but I'm not sure this is the way I want it. I'd love him to sign a 2 year deal or something and try for one last WDC. god knows there was a couple where he was bloody close. maybe he could make up for those near misses. but at the same time, once it's done. it's done. he had a good run and then retired whilst still at the top of his game. it's the way to go. no one wants to be remembered as the bloke who hung on too long only to become the old bloke back marker with the sore neck muscles... lol. anyway, forget schuey. he's had his WDCs. come on webber! this is a big a sniff of one as you are likely to get mate. button and brawn don't look like they have any magic pace left to come, as long as you can stop vets taking points off you, and have him keep taking points of button you are in with a big chance mate. COME ON!!!!!! Get fired up old son. TURN LEFT!

well big buddy, if webber is in with a WDC shot going into the last round I will come with you. lucky I just spoke to the GF and told her schuey is out as she told me she was planning to buy us both tickets to the singapore GP to go watch him one last time... that would have been a bit of a bummer.

forget that! do what Russ (giant) did, get a nice (or pair) of racetech seats and have a base made for them. and away you go. you could probably get a pair of them for $4000 inc the fabrication and install and some harnesses. (depending on model). and they are probably the best race seat maker out there. very nice designed, comfy and safe seats. and well priced. the only downside is they are made by bloody kiwis! but through 'em a bone I'm sure they could use the cash....

I know it's old news now but I noticed that sammy had posted up clear footage of the acco at the end of june, she's also said she wont nav again. and I wouldn't either. the first thing SHE said was "are you ok". the first thing he said was "yeah I'm ok (no question about her) and where was the f**king call". well there was the first chicane call, then the 100 meter chicane call, then the 'get off it' call. how much help did he need, and instead of just trying to wash off as much pace as possible and plough straight into the plastic barrier it looks like he has a nice tug of the wheel which sets the car into a massive tank slapper and points him straight into the tree. yeah he'd be pretty shaken up after a big acco and could be forgiven for a few fks and cnts but she had the decency and presence of mind to ask how he was, all he did was basically this was your fault. he must have had his ipod on max if he missed those chicane calls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePgtXQEHxWE...feature=channel

I live in west shinjuku coco ichi. I make curry there. any strength you want from 1 if you just want little flavour up to 10 if you want your eyes to water.... and not just your eyes either.... they give me a room in the back for sleeping. it's quite nice. anyway, I think this thread has run it's course. Ben makes some good points. Sure if a broker charges $1000 then all you pay it $1000 over what the other costs are, and if they are good there are places they can save you money. I know just from relationships I have built with various providers of services I can get lower prices with higher volumes and as a broker your customer can take advantage of that and sometimes save more than the fee they paid you. but I'm sure you agree there most certainly is 'retail' compliance cost and 'wholesale' compliance costs, and many car buyers/exporters will have 'retail' or 'one off' FOB price and 'wholesale/dealer' FOB price for their services. even things like customs brokers, tow truck drivers, alarm installers etc will all lower their prices if you do a lot of business with them, and a few bucks saved here and there sure does add up. especially on the cheap cars. anyway, you do at least agree with me that in this current climate the average joe with know real knowledge of car importation or automotive business as a whole has little chance in buying a car RETAIL from japan and then bringing it out here to drive for 6 months(!!!) then sell for a profit. it's very unlikely in the current market. and I didn't take any offence to your post. maybe I am a bit pessimistic sometimes. but when I see people like the original poster who thinks he must be the first guy to discover a japanese website that exports cars and is going to bring some in and make a fortune, well I can't help but want to lay out a little bit of harsh reality for them. it's hard enough right now for guys who are smart, experienced, passionate, and have good contacts to make a decent living importing cars. so for most others the only way to do it as a one off is a fluke. the biggest barrier right now is the used car market here in aus. it doesn't matter how cheap he reckons this evo is in japan (plus if it already has an extra 180,000JPY on it as you point out then it's not really 'cheap' anyway) if he cannot easily sell it here in aus.

ok, I just caught up. the ol' pain in the neck eh? poor schuey. man I feel bad for all the blokes who have dropped everything and bought tickets, flights, accommodation for the next few races hoping to see the master race again. imagine how pissed you'd be. book time off work, shell out $5K on tickets etc only to find out you are in for a boring ass race at valencia.... GO WEBBER!

so what did I miss? is massa back or what?

sounds to me like a simple case of 'tramlining' generally when you go to large 9and more importantly wider) wheels and tyres you get tramlining where the car wants to follow irregularities in the road surface. it's generally worse with very high performance tyres and semi-slicks but does happen with other tyres too.

tony's car has a few tasty mod now, a bit more power than stock being the big one I guess.

yeah sadly in aus we are a bit limited for choice. the japanese cars had 3 options levels. base, premium, and black edition. the premiums in japan had the upgraded alarm, upgraded bose stereo, dark wheels, bridgestone tyres but still had the same seats as the base model. and the black edition was a premium but with the red insert seats. maybe buy the premium and hope down the track someone with a base model will want to swap seats with you...

the curves will be the same basic shape but when speed is the bottom axis there is no way one of those runs could be in 3rd and one in 4th.... doing the run in different gears moves the curve along the graph. so the lower the gear of course it will make more power at a given km/h. peak power should be the same, but not at the same speed in every gear. otherwise you'd have a gearbox full of the same gears!

lol, new import rules. it was changed 5 years ago! but Pauls advice is spot on. you can import and comply R32s under raws and early models will cost you more as they require more work (side intrusion bars need to be added, they are factory on post 92 models). so as he suggests it's cheaper and easier to bring in a later 32 than an earlier one. to be honest if you want an R32 project car you could buy a rough one in aus that is already complied, imported etc for probably as low as $15,000 or even less from a desperate seller with a less than perfect car. even if you bough a GTR in japan for say $5K it would be more than $15K to have it imported, complied and on the road. personally i try to avoid importing cars with an 'on the road' value of less than $20,000. purely because there are a number of fixed costs with importing. it gets to the point that the actual money you are spending on the car in japan becomes such a small part of the total cost that you are way over capitalising on that car. buying really cheap dirty cars to bring in is not worth it. you can buy them already here and save the time and money!

nice one fatz, yeah PI is cool but it's no oran park... pits and shit are nice though, and you'd see a lot of that in your sh1t box..... and as if that's your favourite hat. your favourite hat i currently use to keep my nads warm when I'm on the thunderbox... and yes oil cooler probably would have been a good idea.......

depends on the budget. cam gears give a nice little gain for the money. plus if you do later get cams they are useful for getting the most out of your new cams too.

I would guess nearly $1000 of earls fittings and line there. does look very nice though.

the arc airbox gets it's air from the same place as the pods would. it just has filters stuck to the outside of the box. it is nicely made and does have nice little alloy bellmouths in there but I don't think it has any advantage over a pair of pods. and a pair of pods with a heat seperator so they can only draw cool air from behind the headlight I would say is better than the arc box. also, the arc box is very heavy, and that weight is right up the front of the car and quite high. i used to have one. I now am back to apexi pods and happy with that. also, if you want the noise, you need the pods.

lol, well people must think I'm the most negative mofo out but I'm just trying to give people some realism before they think that their fortune lies in the boot of some japanese car sitting on a wharf in osaka. if there is one thing i know about, it's importing cars and I have imported cars into this country by all means I can think of, pesonal import, old LVIS scheme, new SEVS scheme, old 15yo rule, new pre-89 rule, test cars, race cars about the only one I haven't done is cars for the disabled. and in the past I've used brokers, acted as a broker, used exporters/agents, acted as a exporter/agent. and used importers and yes been the importer. the simple fact is, you are a RETAIL buyer whose knowledge of the importing world is very small. wholesale importers and I mean good ones, have connections with other importers, they have strong relationships with buyers in japan or maybe even have their own buyers, the know how to get the cheapest shipping and transfer costs, and the best treatment, they know how to get cars cleared quickly and have a great customs broker who they use all the time (or even are one themselves), they do stuff in bulk and save time and money as they buy many cars, and they have good base of clients and even they are stuggling to make money in this current climate. importing cars relies heavily on a number of things. exchange rate. this is simple, the worse our dollar does against the yen the more it costs to buy, and this increase is compounded further by taxes (GST and Duty down the line). demand in japan. this one is a bit against us at the moment on some models as japanese people are not upgrading cars as quickly or as often as they used to, so local competition is high atm. demand from other importing countries. don't forget you are competing against guys exporting to canada, UK, new guinea, NZ, nigeria, etc etc. this goes up and down a lot. demand from other aussie importers. this matters a lot as they will be after the same models of car as you. Local demand in aus for imported cars. at the moment it's pretty low, things are still pretty tough here right now, and the cars already in aus are heavily discounted. boom years of healthy importing means there is lots of stock in aus. these are the main ones and they are the factors that you can't really change. if it was that easy to just buy a car from it's website at the retail price, bring it to aus, pay retail compliance, register it, drive it for 6 months and sell it at a profit then pretty much every import enthusiast I know would be doing it. we'd all be driving and owning cars for free. the reality is the moment you import and drive a car it's value goes down in most cases. unless you can source cars at auction and know what you're doing (ie know what price to bid on cars for good profit) and have a buyer who knows what he's doing inspection wise (to ensure you get the pick of the crop) and have a relationship with him so he gives you cheap FOB for all this work (since he knows you'll buy dozens of cars per year), and you must then comply them yourself or have a contra deal with other compliers or at the least a wholesale deal with other compliers. if you can't have all that, you can't expect to make money from importing and selling cars. 8 years ago you could do it. not many people had the balls to import back then. people were scared of risking $10s of thousands sending money to people in japan. but guys who did were buying cars retail, from auctions and even off yahoo, half the time sight unseen, and some of them were rubbish. they could then get them complied cheap as and sell them quick as demand was crazy back then, lots of dough around and no p plate restrictions. you could make $20,000 on a supra back then that you bought for $10K. these days guys are lucky and happy to make $3-$5,000 on a R34 GTR. and remember they have to invest say $40,000 of their money, plus loads of their time and hard work, and it's high risk and they still only make around 10% profit. hardly great money. you are about 10 years to late to jump on the importation bandwagon my friend. the only reason to import cars these days is for your personal use, and go into it knowing you may even pay MORE that a similar local car, but you get wider choice, and if you have a good exporter you can get a nice quality car. just don't expect to save $10,000 by doing it.

mark and russ's R32 I'm fairly sure was still rego'd when it ran that time in the HPI chart, and still competed in road events like dutton etc, but I'm pretty sure mark and russ weren't exactly using it to get the shopping. which is my point. it's kind of hard to define what 'street driven' means. I mean most of those cars you could go and register and drive a km or 2 on the street. but I'd say none in the top 10 would be 100% street legal and defect free should an enthusiastic police or EPA officer chose to go over them thoroughly. this is why most records are just defined by rigid class rules that are not disputable, like tyre type etc.

yeah I cannot believe more people do not die at the isle of mann TT, spectators, officials and just people minding their own business included. it's mental.