gts4diehard

I was out there watching on the day but left before the incident, I met a few people and put faces to names and saw some really nice cars. I know hindsight is always 20/20 but from my experience going to a few track days as a spectator and participant at QLD raceway and lakeside raceway (john fraser driver training sessions) I have to say I was surprised to see the 'racecars' mixing it with the road cars and the numbers of cars on the track sometimes. I can't remember anyone running racecars in the same sessions with roadcars with such performance differentials at those track days, fast cars were always run with cars of similar lapspeed. The rules at those tracks was the same as it was on Saturday, 'you pay for your car' and you were damn careful not to hit anyone elses or get that close just in case. One thing to remember is that it is afterall a track day, not a race, few people run sponsored cars and can risk going 10/10ths all the time and potentially crashing, especially when they are paying for the car! One of the rules they used to run on those trackdays to lessen the chance of cars coming together was 'no passing on corners' which of course isn't as much fun, but after all they were track days and people like to drive their cars home. They also used to only run about 6 cars at a time so if anyone was a schumacher there was enough of a gap that that it would take a while for them to catch up(bearing in mind the drivers were similarly matched). And after each of the sessions if any of the drivers were much faster they would be moved to faster groups; idiots were kicked off the track. I do remember a few incidents at these trackdays but they were all car vs wall/armco rather than hitting anyone else. From all accounts the ZX was going pretty hard but I find it pretty hard to believe that the brakes failed (but were fine afterwards) WITHOUT giving any warning beforehand. If guys want to drive 'racecars' 10/10ths as though they are in a race then maybe they should be running with other racecars and drivers who know to speed up in pit lanes ... I don't think that one would go down well with anyone! certainly not the big boys... and if race car drivers do know to speed up in pit lane then that just further supports the mX drivers reaction, he wasn't a race car driver and it wasn't a race - don't expect non-racers to know how racers think when it's a track day!

also before you have a go, it might be worth checking the bushes in the rear hubs(where the links connect to). Just put the car up on stands and hold the rear wheel at a quarter to 3 and see if you can make the wheel move. If it moves at all there's more than likely some wear in the hub bushes, and probably some in the hicas if its stil there. I replaced all those bushes in a GTS4 a while ago and you could feel the difference when driving once they were all replaced. the car felt very planted and no more squirming.

Hi I have the front subframe/crossmember and rear subframe from a R32 GTS4 for sale. They will fit the R32 GTRs also. bare frames ONLY, no suspension links or bushes fitted. The rear subframe came out of my old 1990 R32 GTS4 when I replaced all the bushes in it. Front subframe is from a front cut. Located in Canberra. Ft crossmember is in good condition but has a bend on shroud near a castor rod mount. Rr subframe is in quite good condition, no damage - minus subframe bushes. Both for $100, pickup only. message me if interested. Stephen

Yeh its a funny thing with some of the dealers, it's like they don't want to make money. This was real strange to me when I brought my '32's over from NZ in '99, where the Nissan dealers were actually selling imports. The NZ guys were only too happy to take your dollars from you and help you out. When I was in Brisi the only Nissan dealer that was helpful was the Moorooka dealer and they were really quite good, getting hold of all the parts I wanted, even including those window rubbing strips for the doors. I don't know if they are still keen on imports as I have been in the ACT for a few years now but they are worth a try!

Just cruising the NZ car sites and saw this for sale at a dealer, not sure if NZ new or JDM one.... 4000kms for $129,000 NZ http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/C...n-203722946.htm If it was a matter of simply bringing it over on a ship then it would be a bargain at around $103,000 Au.

One of my workmates bought a Mazda 3 diesel, they were very impressed with it. Mind you she wasn't coming from a Skyline, and this was in comparison to a Honda Integra but the thing sure has some torque (360 nm) and I think it came with the sports suspension - well the Mazda 3 version of sports anyway! 6spd manual from the MPS versions.... not sure if you can still get them though

The cradle bushes near the doors are silicone filled, if they're stuffed its fairly obvious, the rear ones are solid rubber. When I replace my cradle bushes the front were stuffed but the rears were still ok, no tears in the rubber and looked good. It is harder to tell if the rears are gone. I replaced all four and even though only the fronts were stuffed it was noticeable under hard acceleration out of corners that there was a positive difference. Didn't notice it at all when driving normally though. If the cars a long term proposition then I would do the cradle bushes if not then you would probably get away with the pineapples.

Just shows what happens when you focus on the fast bucks from the easy sellers (big suvs etc), and not on the future. It's a crazy situation because if you look at the car range GM makes, they have access to a huge range of vehicles, including small economical cars (from their Euro brands etc) and it makes no sense that they didn't make the most of it! There are a few car makers in trouble but not to the extent of GM and Chrysler, just shows how mismanaged the company was.

check RDA for some info, other than that the suppliers site would be a start... 2 articles here about it.... http://www.rdabrakes.com.au/index.php/technical.html

I think people are forgetting the most important part of Nissan's 7:29, the driver! Cars don't drive themselves yet or though maybe the R40 GTR in the future might! How many people are ex- F1 drivers? 7:29 is not an everyday GTR time, it was done by an ex-F1 driver who had put in a massive number of laps around the ring. Most people even if they did the same number of testing laps would not come close to that time, Nissan's driver showed what the car is capable of, if someone knows the car well and has the SKILLS. Porsche can't say the car isn't capable of that because their test engineer can't do it! Porsche either needs to get a better car or a better driver!

Should be an interesting year for GM and the other US makers according to this article....GM must really be stuffed (even more than they have been in the last few years) if GM can't even wait until Feb to be bailed out, which is only 10 weeks away. It would really be a shame to see this impact our manufacturers since the Australian companies are actually producing a decent product these days. http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23...from=public_rss General Motors chief executive Rick Wagoner said the US automaker would need state help before Barack Obama takes over the White House in January, telling industry publication Automotive News that time was of the essence. "This is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently," he said, calling on the Government to "overshoot, not undershoot" the level of assistance. His call for support came as GM shares lost 23 per cent yesterday after analysts at Deutsche Bank said they expected the stock eventually to be worth nothing at all. "Even if GM succeeds in averting a bankruptcy, we believe that the company's future path is likely to be bankruptcy-like," the bank said. Mr Wagoner said the entire US auto industry was suffering, with sales expected to be down by more than three million vehicles next year in the face of the global economic downturn.

Was just checking out some details for Bathurst, and came across this site, http://www.drivebathurst.com/, is anyone here going to run their cars in this event? looks a bit expensive but given the opportunity would be a good blast! It would be interesting to see how some of the newer GTRs would go on the track.

lol.... I take back part of my comment then, regarding '3rd gear', I may have been a little harsh. Porsche just needs to take a better driver to the track before they dismiss the times of others, maybe Sabeen could do better, didn't she go around in about ten minutes in a diesel transit! I can imagine it now - a future Porsche Headline....'Nissan Nurburgring time is fake!' with the following attached .... Grandma could not get near the time of 7:29, recording a time of 25 min, on a sunny day using slick tyres! Officials say that the time is impossible to attain despite Grandma being a talented Ford Fiesta driver ....

Item: R32 Front subframe, off of R32 GTS4 will suit GTR (not sure about the 2wds) - minor dent by castor rod mount on one side. Age: R32 - oldish Condition: good - note: No suspensions links or anything attached to it. Price:$75 To Fit: (What car) R32 GTS4/GTR Item: Rear Subframe, off of R32 GTS4 Age: R32 - oldish Condition: good, silicone bushes removed - note: No suspensions links or anything attached to it. Price:$100 To Fit: (What car)- R32 GTS4/GTR Item:RB20 injectors stock (6) Age: R32 - oldish Condition: - came off a working engine, have been sitting for a while, will more than likely need a clean Price: $25 (for all 6). To Fit: (What car) - R32s with a stockish RB20 Item: front brake hoses (rubber) Age: 3yrs old Condition: as new, still in plastic bag, Price:$35 for the pair. To Fit: (What car)R31, were for a R31 TI (auto) Location: Canberra Contact: PM if interested Comments: Will post brake hoses and injectors, buyer to pay packaging and freight, Pickup for the subframes. Cheers Stephen

1) ex formula driver vs test engineer 2) GTR developed pretty much for that purpose 3) Corvette and next Viper are even faster - if I were Porsche I'd be more upset about losing to these two! 4) Porsche - build a new car with technology and performance that matches the price! 911 is a great car in its various guises but its time for the evolutionary development to stop and the revolutionary to start! so can't get past third gear, hmm..... 16 seconds slower than the Porsche, out of 7min 38 works out to be about 3.5% slower, so even if you test with a lesser driver, and use only half the gears available it is only 3 % slower than the Porsche - I'd say that makes the GTR even more impressive! Porsche 911 - 'No other car will ever have its number!'.....might be time for a whole new car and a less desperate ad campaign because the 911 is getting seriously owned!

hey, this might have posted somewhere else but I couldn't find it, but can the R35s really be registered now? check this ad.... http://www.carsales.com.au/used-cars/deale...amp;Make=NISSAN

GM lost $15 billion in the first 3 months of this year, at that rate '07 is gonna look like a good year. They nearly went under last year - and Ford is feeling it too, cutting jobs here already.Should make the vette a bit more collectable, can't see them keeping all their sports models when they need to sell something that the public actually wants with the petrol the way it is. The vette sounds pretty awesome, but then to Australians it will be pushing an extra $100K over the GTR, and to me it still boils down to the 'best bang for buck', which describes most GTRs since the R32. Me I'd take the Rouse Mustang over the Vette, it looks like a really fun car! check out Clarkson's 'The good, the bad and the ugly' vid. The Mustang sounds like a good deal.

I'd check all the things mentioned, but the fuel doesn't sound too bad for the power at the wheels, my old r32 gts4 (man) ran 10 psi and driven around town only used to get about 350kms on a tank, and had no where near that power figure. It would do 10kms a litre on the highway though - as long as you held a constant speed. Maybe your mates don't drive through the same traffic you do, stop start and hard driving is a real killer e.g. one trackday I used a whole tank on only 105kms of driving.

just a note on car batteries, they should be able to be recharged if they flatten, sounds like the ones you had were old, if a battery discharges to often it oxidises and can't be recharged fully, if it happens a few times then the battery gets stuffed. I worked for a battery warehouse for a little while, and when the batteries went flat in the shop they would be sent back and recharged by 'large' battery chargers ( the sort that look like a heavy duty welder), restamped (on the end of the terminal) and then sent back to the shop. The batteries still carry the 2yr warranty but you shouldn't necessarily think the battery is 'brand new' when you buy it, because it could already be old and have gone flat a few times too. Take the car to an autoelec and get them to load test the electrical system, from memory if the battery drops below 9V when cranking then its pretty much had it.

go Tamiya! 'GOLD' series electric motors and instant torque will make the cars of the future fun - as long as they aren't all selfdrive and speed controlled by the NSW parliament!

Talking about economics, I remember a term called 'competitive advantage', i.e. countries take advantage of the resources they have to improve their returns, i.e. we are in a huge country with not many people, where the minerals and farm produce aren't close to ports, and our cities are large and spread out with dodgy public transport systems. One of our advantages is our 70% of fuel we produce that we should be using to our benefit, so we can move our products as cheaply as possible and provide services over our vast country as cheaply as possible. We need to take advantage of everything we can, otherwise we will have no manufacturing industry left... Australia faces big issues in the future, no rain = crappy agricultural returns, expensive manufactured goods (with higher input and transport costs) = lost sales and closed industries and manufacturing goes somewhere else, and digging holes can't last for ever. Nuclear power stations are making a comeback, especially in the countries that are big buyers of our coal. Competitive advantage is the main reason everything is made in China, their competitive advantage is their cheap labour. We can only hope that the Chinese become as consumer driven as the West is, so that they demand higher wages to buy their own plasmas and their costs are forced upwards. The world is in for some interesting times in the future, water shortages, food shortages, rising sea levels, the need to shift energy production from fossil to renewable means... if only we can export our solar power Sounds a bit gloomy but there are huge opportunities for those companies that come up with solutions for the current issues, but for the time being I think we have to pretty much accept that we will all be reaching into our pockets more and more.

I think the coupe looks pretty damn good but still $170k for any car is a lot - Nissan or Holden. I got into Nissan Skylines because they had Euro performance or better and because they weren't pretentious - I looked past the badge, looked at the racing heritage and saw it as bloody good value - even the GTSTs had 4 pot brakes - a brake package for a commodore back then was a $3-4K extra. Skylines and GTRs have alway represented great value performance, something that I don't think a $170K HSV really offers. Compare Japan to Oz, not even Nissan is that pretentious to overprice their cars to their normal model or against the Euros(and atleast the GTR performs better than most euros) Take a V36 Skyline 4 dr, its under half the price of a GTR - meaning a family car with 200kw for about $40K AU and the GTR $80K AU. Nissan 250GT to 350 GT is 2.5 to 3.7 million yen (about $28K au to $38k au) An SS is a pretty quick car these days and looks pretty good, not too bad for a sub $60 K car, BUT I don't really see three times the 'value'/performance in the HSV, maybe if it was the 'FJ' I might feel differently - about it being unique! Too me this HSV just makes the SS look like a bargain, whereas the GTR looks like a bargain in its home country (twice the price of its family models). HSV is really cashing in on blind obsession with the marque. I have nothing against the Au cars either, and I think the VE isn't too bad a design, they did a pretty good job with the design $$ but we can't really call it ozzie made when all the control is from Detroit. The VE is what they should have made when they did the VT, not the US soft look and dodgy IRS variant they came up with. Even the latest Ford is an ok car, but maybe a little too late like the VE. Both these companies have always had some pretty high tech at their disposal but they never seemed to share it with their Au subsidiaries, mind you even the Japs dished us out the crap models. If GM gave us their best and priced it at $100-120K (ie. an AWD ZO6 Corvette with 4drs) then it really would be something. To me a $170 car needs to be in the same league as the others, or it really is just hype! I really can't see someone getting back the extra $100k over an SS in the future when the petrol is $3 /litre. And I suppose thats the difference - I look for a good value performance car - now, not some theoretical value in the future because at $170K you'd have to do that, otherwise you'd buy an SS and throw $50 K at it.

theres a set all about Bathurst, with one dvd just about the turbos, some video shops have it still for rent. http://atlanticdvd.com.au/index_stuffer.cf...id=3355~content this is the one with the gtr 'Great Race Vol 4: The Turbolent Years Bathurst 1986 - 1992'

Did a quick search but didn't see any comment elsewhere about the 2009 Cadi, so .... Just seen a few sites about the Cadilac being the fastest sedan around the Nur, 7:59 seems legit so far... should spark some interest in the brand before it hits OZ again. Not sure about the looks but it certainly would be hard to miss! maybe this might provide the incentive for a Nissan to make a 'GTR' based sedan! http://www.wheelsmag.com.au/News/Cadillac+...ing+record.html http://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/-cad...59-ar57237.html Maybe Nissan should take it to BMW and Mercedes too... couldn't be a bad thing could it?

fuel and sparkplugs are the usual candidates. IS the bad running all on the same tank of fuel? never discount the fuel especially when there is a shortage of the higher octane stuff around at the moment, who knows what the gas stations with premium really have in their tanks! maybe some octane booster or injector cleaner may help out here, fairly cheap and easy to do. On the older skylines with original coils a common fix (as mentioned above) for misfires was to gap the plugs to 0.8 instead of 1.1 to make it easier for the 'old' coilpacks to generate the spark, however since you have new coils (assuming the other electrics are ok) then you should be able to run the std plug gap. copper plugs are fine to run in these engines, you don't need to go to the expense of platinums as the plugs are fairly easy to get at. another cause could be the signal that the coils are getting to fire the plugs - maybe a crank angle sensor issue. fairly unlikely as the car is still not too old, more likely to be a plug or fuel issue. The car isn't running any high boost numbers is it? it may need a different grade of plug if it is.