Beer Baron

lol, if you think you are going to import a car as a 'retail' importer and drive it for a few months and then profit on it I wish you the best of luck. it's hard enough these days for guys in the industry who have relationships with all the providers you need to deal with along the way. so if you think you can make the numbers work then knock yourself out, go chase that dream and make that fortune on importing used japanese cars retail....

impossible to say really and impossible to prove/disprove.

hehe, glad you enjoyed it. it's one of the cool things about the JDM car and something you should do at least once... it sounds wicked as you sit there on the 4,500 limiter then it just erupts as you let off the brake 'switch'. try it with the MFD on accel G and see what kind of G force you can pull, I personally have gone over 1G in accell on launch. just don't get addicted to it as you may find one day the car cries enough! but once in a while to cheer you up when you're feeling down, or when at the lights next to a ferrari etc is allowed... it will certainly put a smile on your face and raise the pulse a bit...

yep 100% correct. get the car with the QLD rego. bring it to NSW. take it to a place that does blueslips. it will be good if you have the original compliance paperwork (consumer info papers, import approval etc) but you may be ok without it. after blueslip purchase a CTP green slip, then take both to the RTA and you are good to go...unless you get pinged for a vehicle identity check, if that happens you just have to make an appointment and go there so they can check numbers match etc. then back to the RTA and finish off your rego.

the government does not own the land at oran park. it's been in one family for a long time now.

I reckon that's pretty fair. $1500 per day for each of you. that's a lot of track time. hey a single set of RE55s costs more than that and to use 'em you still need a car and a track. so putting it thaty way it looks good.

I notice the speedo was not working. better complain to the hire place about that.... hehehehe.

yeah fair enough, it makes sense. I think it is 04 when they had the facelight, new lights and front bar and the interior changed a little too with different recaro's etc.

what you want will be a pretty tall ask. iinet might be able to do it. don't forget though you'll need a phone line too and line rental is a bitch, of course you can go "naked dsl" which they allow you to not have a phone line but you don't save much $$.

well in other news the Beosound 5 is up and running. still getting used to it but I must say it is kick ass! pics soon.

but he's going in 2010?

nice little vid dane. one small piece of advice. try and mount the camera head up a bit higher if you can so its kind of at what would be head height and angled down a little so then you'll be able to see your footwork and when viewing it it wont feel like you're crouching in the back of the car! sounds wicked too mate.

lol, well that is different! I had never seen anyone fit a fuel rail on an otherwise standard car, but I have trawled through lots of cars at auction that have cleary had lots of good parts on them that the owner removed but left a few bits behind that were either too much hassle of just not worth much $. I know the oil cooler is a nismo option. it's just not many people would order the car with it unless they had some mods or trackwork in mind. it's a nice piece to have though, and every car should be looked at on it's merits. stuff like that is only a guide, some cars have bits and are amazingly well looked after and mint condition, some others are completely factory standard and thrashed to death. so there are no hard and fast rules.

cool. so I am right that the facelift EP3 with the different lights/bumper/etc is 04 onwards? I am a long way from being an EP3 expert I might still go for a 02/03. if I find and buy a suitable car I will let you know asap. thanks Paul.

honestly I would keep going with what power you have now. lack of power is not the problem right now. it's lack of expertise in car set-up, tyre set-up and driving. get a grip on the chassis tuning, suspension, tyres, pressures, and driving it how it is now. once you've gotten the best time out of the current power then go looking for more. extra power is not going to help with a car that is already trying to kill you with the power it has now.

I can't believe all the guys using old ones were sitting with their eyes shut and their hands over their eyes shouting that batch fire injection and wasted spark ignition is acceptable from a $1500 ecu in this day and age, and with no temp compensation as andriano pointed out you are risking massive changes in acutal AFR as air density changes so much with temp changes. in this day an age why you would use an ecu with only 4 ign and inj drivers on a six cylinder car is beyond me. there are plenty of good choices for fair money that can PROPERLY run a 6 cylinder engine without having to resort to batch fire and wasted spark. like trent says that pretty much limits their use as a decent entry level ecu for 4 cylinder cars only. their new model if it has at least 6 drivers for inj and ign will be more useful but at $3,000 it has some pretty stiff competition....

good stuff little buddy! go to miyajima too if you have time. it's a nice daytrip.

good stuff mate! you must be pleased to get it out there.

not interested in doing the 04 model EP3s? or did the have the facelift during 03 sometime? I'm keen on one of the later EP3s with the slightly updated front end. just can't remeber off the top of my head if that occurred in 03 or 04 model?

you should have come and introduced yourself. all the guys are friendly and we all like meeting other enthusiasts who are interested in what mark and russ have built. glad you liked it it's actually probably not got as much power as you might think! well, certainly a lot more than a cup car I guess.... and yeah it would be even faster on slicks. but there is still time left to get on semis. it's only done two real meets so far and 1 or 2 other small tests so there are still a few little bits and pieces to iron out. it is impressive though to consider how fast it is on small 265 wide road legal yokohma A050 semi slicks. they are doing a good job of keeping it on the black stuff! but to be fair hibbards porcsche is pretty special and it's a GT2 and of course they really get the most out of their nice wide slicks. and most 996 cup cars run around in the low-mid 40s at eastern creek. and yeak marko, that's not a cup car. cup cars are built by porsche motorsport (inc integrated cage etc) and as a control class very few changes made by their owners/tuners. we ran a 996 cup car for a few years in prod sports. they are super fast for what they are. certainly a 996 GT3 cup car is much, much faster than a stock GTR but they should be, they are purpose built race cars and run on slicks and when new a 996 GT3 Cup Car was about $250K. they are not stupidly powerful though. most 996 cup cars only put out around 280rwkw, but they have a very nice torque curve.

it's genreally a sign of a car that was quite heavily modified in jaopan at some point and the owner returned it to standard to recoup more money before selling the car at auction. they remove stuff like aftermarket wheels, turbos, intercooler, ecu etc. stuff that is fairly easy to remove and/or valuable. stuff like fuel rail they often leave as it's too much hassle to plumb back in the standard one and fuel rail is not worth much to sell second hand so they leave it. another hint is the oil cooler, not many 'standard' cars would have had an oil cooler fitted.

fairly neat looking car, but it's missing the series 3 front bar/front lip which is one of the nice features of the S3. having the front bar replaced is odd, especially replacing it with a less desirable and cheaper one. steering wheel looks pretty worn for a car showing 50kms but it's possible owner wore a ring or something. did you end up having mark hocking source a car for you or did you buy on from someones stock? if it was an auction car what grade was it? other than those things it seems ok in the pics, but as with all cars you can only tell a good one from a bad one in the flesh.

yeah it's 2 X hyabusa type thing. similar to the hartley V8 ( http://www.h1v8.com/page/page/1562068.htm ) and I think a couple others that now have a V8 using 2 hyabusa heads. and it's NA. still I would guess at least 400hp and probably as much as 500hp even NA and the car couldn't be more than 400kg. not a bad power to weight ratio!

dammit! missed that gem. how many did you buy funky.... be honest...

have you driven it on track yet ben? any times?