Beer Baron

of course. a 32 crank with a collar fitted = 33 crank. many people just buy the 33 crank as it's quite cheap and you get the larger oil pump drive flats AND a brand new crank (no chance of it being bent or worn). one is no better than the other. they both have the same size drive flats and should be around the same clearance between pump gear and the drive. but that depends entirely on the manufacturing tolerances of both the pump and the crank/collar. what they are talking about is making a new collar (not yet on the market) that has smaller gap between the pump drive and the pump inner gear. the problem with that is I do not know to what tolerance the pump gears are made. if you make a collar to have a clearance of say .002 then what happens when the gears are only manufactured to a tolerance of .005? you would find some might still be a bit sloppy and some may be too tight. so you'd really need to be making the collar AND the inner gear together to be such a tight fit and have very high quality control or manufacturing tolerance to make it work. but if you are going to all that effort what you need to do is make a splined collar, and a splined inner gear (like a 2JZ pump). then sell a kit of collar and inner gear, or even collar inner and outer gear as a set. then you have no more problems. personally going to the effort of basically matching collars to each pump is probably not worth it. they are talking about buying a reimax gearset, then tossing the inner gear, buying a new (matched) collar and inner gear (with the flat positions moved half a tooth - which is a good idea) and then fitting. it's a nice solution but would cost a shitload and still doesn't address the problem that you have 2 small flats driving the oil pump. yes the fit is tighter but it's still not half as good as a splined drive set-up. if you really want to spend coin wait until someone has the spline drive set-up available.

well basically yeah buy a WB02 to keep an eye on things, but the consensus is an E85 tune done with a little bit of wiggle room in the AFR and not 'on the edge' timing wise is fine to use with the varying caltex brew. best to talk to your tuner though and find out what he's comfortable with but personally I wouldn't be too turned off. just keep an eye on the WB02 after fill-ups and you should be fine.

sorry mate, don't have the pn. have previously just bought used ones and fitted them. it's so much nicer than one that's had the sealing lip cut off and then replaced with the restrictor. also makes it a shitload easier to fill from jerry cans etc as you have a full size hole. it's no longer a requirement for compliance (thank god) as people finally caught up with the times and realised we haven't had bowser available leaded fuel for about 20 years so making people fit restrictors to prevent them using leaded fuel (which is not available outside of avgas) by accident was just stupid. someone handy with fast should be able to pull out a part number, failing that the usual guys bringing in wrecks etc may have a spare one. I think around $100 or less for a second hand one is the going rate. little bit of mucking around to fit as they go under the inner guard but not hard. if you have one that has a suspect seal on it I'd go that route.

yeah well explained. so basically with the nismo inner arm mounts due to how they are inclined a bit towards the front of the car you can run arms with less offset yeah? so the 'twist' is taken up in the bracket not the arm? I like the idea of nylon bushes. I like your djr81 mk 3 arms, with short length and less offset. I guess it explains why the cusco arms live longer as with more offset they effectively steal a bit of castor in favour of keeping their bearings from failing. I wish you could just purchase the bloody nismo inner mounts separately. I guess the LCA is useful too but if you already have say ikeya LCA's it's a lot to spend just to get 2 brackets. I have seen what looked like modified standard brackets before too and to go 1 step further I've seen a 32 with 33 style upright and upper arm which is an even better solution as you can adjust both sides of the arm however you wish to give it camber whilst keeping it moving through a nice straight arc.

well in that case it's almost certainly the fuel filler neck. under the old compliance scheme(s) cars complied here had to have their normal (big) filler neck fitted with a reducer to our tiny un-leaded size ones. these are often fitted poorly and often leak. you need to remove it and get it re-fitted and sealed properly. it's not a big job and can be done DIY if you like. other option is buy an un-cut filler neck and fit that (even better, it will NEVER leak then).

just in case you were somehow in doubt the best option is either get yours repaired or buy a pair of used standard ones. nismo ones would be the other option if you are planning more power down the track but they will not run with your standard ecu so you'd need to get an aftermarket ecu and a tune just to use them. so really a waste of time at this point. again just buy a used pair or get yours repaired.

bit of a tough one. the big puffs of black smoke like that are usually detonation but then the big spray of white following is oil burning. I don't have sound hear so a bit hard for me to see when exactly during the run the smoke occurred but crank case pressure or valve stem seals is a possibility as i a blow turbo oil seal but the big gulps of black smoke first is usually a big detonation event/missfire. how is the car running now? what's the idle like? any further smoke?

that sucks mate. I bet you're fcking spewing the towie didn't get there. probably would have meant all this extra damage didn't happen. not a good run but hopefully it all gets fixed easily enough.

yeah by all means tidy it up a bit. but I wouldn't bother modding it extensively. plenty of people using them and they work very well and produce good results. they may not be the prettiest but the dump seems to work well with the turbo.

yep, the benefit of the split wastegate pipe is a bit debatable. having a big bell mouth design means allowing the gas to expand immediately exiting the turbine housing which is great flow velocity and flow. don't modify them. if you really want split pipes just switch to HKS ones and flog the tomeis. personally though I would just stick with the tomei's.

you must be loving the falc. as much as i love our stupid jap cars nothing beats a car that is ground up built for racing like the falc (or like a GT3 cup car etc). everything is simple, well laid out, easy to work on etc. they are a dream to run next to a built up road car. and I would be lying if I said the sound didn't give me tingles...

go nissan F1...

hell yeah you should ahve bought it!!!!!! you know esprit is just about my favourite car (shame the road going ones are pretty ordinary in the power stakes). where was I when this came up, I would have impersonated you and signed you up before you knew what happened. for your own good of course....

I'll echo what the other guys said. front upper arms are a pain in a 32 if you plan on running decent castor and camber at the same time. the castor basically subjects the upper arm to a twisting motion and it flogs out whatever bush or bearing is in there. depends how hardcore you want to go and what the budget is. I'll give you 2 options. budget option: get standard front upper arms cut and shut (shorter = more camber) and add adjustable bushes to fine tune (whatever brand you want). also add some grease nipples so you can lube the bushes with arms on the car. get some whiteline swaybars front and rear (I agree with DJR, I had them on one of my 32s and only ever ran full soft front and full hard rear, tried other settings but just made it want to push understeer into the corner and mid corner) get cusco castor rods. good value, have proper 3 piece steel rods ends (not cast) and have good dust boots. and are cheapish. the $$$ option is: stick with the upper arms mentioned above, or run the noltec arms (may be out of production, I have a set and they have by far lasted the longest, they are a sliding style arm and have grease nipples built in, keeping the bushes lubed seems to keep them alive much longer). The cusco arms are fixed length and are ok (i have them on my other 32) but not fantastic for the money, same goes with the ikeya upper arms. get some front lower control arms. ikeya are the best by far and incorporate new castor rods too so you don't need to buy others. this means you can adjust camber with the lower arm too, and even get a bit more front track if you have an adjustable upper arm to go with it. get either cusco sway bars (good option, lightweight, not too expnesive but not adjustable), or if money is no object get the ARC bars (stupid expensive but excellent and come with rose jointed adjustable links which work very well - i have these on my other 32). as far as brands go, all the cheap chinese arms that are dog bone shaped are pretty rubbish. they are usually too long so when you wind them in the two ends touch inside the cuff which means they need cutting, on top of that I've had one set and the bearings lasted literally about 300km on road and 1 track day. they look like they use skateboard wheel bearings! jap brands, basically all the ikeya formula gear works well and is built to withstand nuclear blasts. most of the serious track cars (that aren't restricted by rules) use their arms in aus and in japan. I have supplied heaps of guys in aus with ikeya gear and they last long enough to go from car to car... cusco gear is a bit more entry level but these days is nicely made and well designed and lasts pretty well. fairly good value. ARC sway bars are nice but their other suspension gear is a bit dated now. well they make nice strut braces but they do the job no better than your average $100 one. not sure strut braces even count as suspension parts... most of the other brands I steer away from. there's some good 'boutique' type brands like nagisa auto etc but basically everything you need can be bought from ikeya formula and/or cusco.

to be honest mate the going price at the moment for an average to nice 03 model auto is around $22K mark. yes yours has a couple of bits on it but they don't really add to the price. all they do is make it easier to sell at $22K vs one next to it without those bits. trade in at a car dealer you are most likely looking at around $18K-$20K. sad but that is what they are worth now. makes them a good value buyers car. the simple fact is that they are just not in high demand and there are lots to chose from. supply and demand dictates the prices like everything else.

exactly, they can and do crack. it's a bit of a lucky dip. grain structure etc, fatigue is impossible to predict without serious testing so if you're building a big motor it makes sense to do as much as you can to keep the thing from cracking. N1 blocks are definitely stronger than standard blocks. early model R32 block can be good too (partly due to the castings but also partly because by now they are well 'seasoned' over many heat cycles) but again you can get a bad one. the best way to make it strong is something like the PREC that builds on the factory girdle or the grout filling if that's suitable for your engine (or even both). a mate has even cracked his GT ($$$) block (also between 3 and 4 on the exhaust side) but it was precipitated by a fairly big hit into a wall at eastern creek that would have damaged it without it being obvious at the time. the best thing about the PREC is that it doesn't wear out so you could theoretically use it in build after build after build.

I can find quite a few examples of cracked 26 blocks with 400-450kw. it's a bit of lucky dip. it's not exactly 'common' but it does happen. mostly between 3 and 4 and if it's bad other stuff can go down with it costing you more money. I'm not sure about how much strength the 26 sump has. it's part of the problem in that it's one big heavy piece that also contains front diff which is transmitting torque through to the front wheels. with no bracing through the centre. completely open. there is no doubt for a high power high revving engine the brace like the PREC adds a lot of rigidity and definitely helps with bearing wear in a big power big rev engine. yeah grout filling is great but the fact is you can only go so high before you are left with no water galleries and no more water cooling. fine for a drag car but just not practical for a road or track car. the point is if you only fill a bit you only get a bit of the benfit. to really stifen things up you need to go to the top of the water galleries. but it does work quite well.

exactly. need to set it's position with a timing light. no way to tell you where exactly it goes. you should always mark it before removal to at least get you close to where it was when replaced. every car is different.

guys, I'm pretty sure he's joking..... but 100% it will need new valves (it would be near impossible to bend them back correctly). and probably new valve guides and valve stem seals too. that is of course providing there's no piston damage etc.

yes don't buy a nur expecting a rocket ship but they do have some nice gear on them and as people pointed out their resale is rock solid. considering a nur in aus will fetch between $80 and $90K depending on condition and a standard 99 GTR will fetch $45-$55K and you get the idea. The carbon bonnet is very, very nice (but not really any lighter than the alloy stock ones), the other little bits are nice and the N1 engine is nice but they are still a pretty pedestrian car in standard form. any standard GTR has far more handling and grip than it does power so they are a bit underwhelming stock. but as little as a boost increase, ecu change/tune, exhaust and you suddenly have 230kw (or more) at the wheels and they sound better and suddenly feel like a sports car.

yeah many a man has binned his power FC after being told they are too old, too simple, etc to be sold a "better" ecu that makes the car go backwards. power FC are not the most feature packed but they sure can run a car well. the thing is the smart of an ecu are not always displayed in the raw figures (cell resolution, inputs, outputs, etc) there is still a bit of dark art in the processors and the software underpinning how the ecu works that means 2 ecus with the same specs can run a car very differently. and for nissans the power FC do a bloody good job. currently I have 2 R32 GTRs. 1 with motec and 1 with power FC. the power FC car starts and idles better than the motec and with the hand-controller it feeds me info on knock, temps, sensor etc. the motec car does run beautifully and is tuned very well but i miss a few of the basic things the power FC gives me (plus the fact I have datalogit etc and can easily tune it myself). If I were starting from scratch in any GTR first ecu would be power FC every time. they just can't be beaten on performance for dollars and every man and his dog can tune one to half decent result.

would like to be able to park my F40 next to my mclaren F1 though for the days when I need to take 2 chicks with me....

nup, F40 for me too. even better go the hardcore F40 GTR or LM or whatever gay letters they put on the hardcorey one. for many years I wanted an F40 bad enough to make my balls ache. then I turned 13 and it got better. but I do still have the odd urge to sell my house and live in an F40. as I constantly remind my girlfriend you can sleep in a car but you can't fking drive a house.....

yes, but you don't sit back and do nothing and wait for the fines to escalate. when he said "not nominate a drive" he didn't mean you just do nothing, he meant you fill out the form stating that you cannot establish who was driving the vehicle at that time on that date as the vehicle is shared between a number of staff and/or loaned to customers etc. then you pay the 'fail to nominate fine' and that's it.

good talk kids! i'm going home now.