JimX

I've seen someone on another (unnamed) forum try to tell everyone that brakes are too important to do yourself and that you should leave it up to the "professionals". Whether changing rotors or pads or bleeding the system or reconditioning the calipers. I've been doing my own brakes for over 15 years (the lot except the master cylinder, including reconditioning calipers) and I've never stuffed up like that. If you know what you're doing, can you really trust anyone other than yourself?

I experimented with my Dec Air settings. They were set to **** 10% 10%, and I changed them to roughly 5% 5% 5% and now it seems to stall easier. I don't know if **** means the function is switched off entirely or if it means 0% (I didn't take note if the first step was 0.1% or 0.0%) but either way it was better the way it used to be. But not much coz it stalls either way. I also took note of how much throttle was on percentage-wise when my foot was *just* touching it. It came up around 6-7%, so I think if you were going to set the Dec Air position to be 5% you may as well set it to 0% (or vice versa). Hehe I just looked over what I wrote and it looks like I've been censored

Ferraris don't use turbos. They don't need a synthetic oil. I think it's dodgy marketing on Shell's part personally Also note that on Castrol's site, they advertise the mineral-based 25W-50 as being used in Victor Bray's drag car. What they don't mention is he changes his oil between runs - again the temperature/viscosity tolerance is much less important than in cars where it needs to last 5000km or more.

Can you tell me some more about the pressure regulator? Like, how is it different from stock? And how do you know it's Apexi if it's not stamped with anything?

What does Ne1 and Ne2 actually mean on the Dec Air setting? Edit: I know they mean +fuel, but what's the difference between the 2? And if it constantly adds in fuel at idle, wouldn't it be the same thing as setting the lowest throttle point higher?

I've only used Castrol Formula R in my car since getting it, both 5W-30 and 10W-60. The only differences between the 2 I've found are slightly less power and economy, and slightly higher oil pressure with the 10W-60. The oil pressure with the 5W-30 is fine though, it touches on 7 or 8 when cold (especially when revving) and sits on about 2 when warm/idle. The 10W-60 seemed to go off the scale when cold (probably 8 or 9) and settled down to a bit above 2 when warm. I might try 0W-40 next, but I think it's pretty expensive. I'll see how the pricing is next oil change.

Damn, I got off work early today and I forgot to go to the Commodore wrecker to see if they fit. I'll try to remember to go this weekend. My injectors look virtually the same as sil21jun's (but from that angle it's hard to tell if they're exactly the same).

The thing is a keen eye can always spot the difference between old and new paint. Even if it's the exact same colour, you'll never get it perfect. I can always spot resprayed panels, unless the old paint was only like 1-2 years old. The old paint on my Commodore was 5 or 6 years old, and there's no way to get new paint to look the exact same as paint that old. If nothing else it was the only panel without any stone chips on it Like I said, the guy that bought my car looked over it very very carefully from all angles in broad daylight and he couldn't tell. It's probably just one of those things where if you know it's there, you can tell, but if you don't, you can't.

So they're not the same as Commodore plugs? Where do you get the "2 female pins" from? When I had a look a few days ago it seemed the pins on my clip are already approximately the right size and shape, just the clip was stopping them going on. So if I just remove the old clip and push the pins in, then silicon it up, that should work?

Thanks Jay, I'll give them a call (when I have money, a long way away )

Air Flow Meter. It sits behind your air filter if it exists at all. The ECU uses it to measure the incoming air and adjust the fuel mixture accordingly.

How old is it? Is there a receipt? Just interested in how much warranty is left.

BG Automotive at Meadowbank is where I got my Skyline resprayed after I got rear-ended. Phone number 9807 6502 or 0414 842 652. I think it should usually be done in around 2 weeks or less. The place I got my Commodore done at is out of business, but he was also quite good.

A full respray is usually around $3000 or so. More if you want funky colours (pearl etc) or a more than average amount of coats. I've had experience of a well-done paint blend on my previous car, and I have to say that YOU will notice it, but no one else will until you point it out The paint in the resprayed area just looks a little darker/newer, but unless you are very carefully looking for it, you won't notice it. At one point I managed to dent the rear passenger door fairly badly, and I replaced it with one from a wrecker of the same colour without respraying it. The guy that bought the car looked the car over very carefully but didn't notice the colour change from either the paint blend OR the door change, even though to me both stuck out like a sore thumb.

My main problem is I don't know how to work the S-AFC. I don't know if the numbers (I think it's -10 to +10 or something?) specify adding/subtracting fuel or air. Like, is setting a positive number adding in more fuel, or telling the ECU that there is more air going in than there really is? Also, I'm guessing that you would change the -10 to +10 scale into a 0 to 20 scale, otherwise you'd get some funny results (ie, how would you add/subtract 0.67 on anything on the middle baseline of 0?) I'm only going to do this IF I feel motivated and bored enough, mostly so I can see how smoothly it will run with the bigger injectors. I guess worst case scenario I will just leave the tuning as-is and just drive it straight to the workshop for tuning thereafter (whether S-AFC or PowerFC by that stage). That is if it will even fire running that rich.

1 bar boost=215rwkw with front-facing plenum and bigger cooler. 0.8 bar boost=166rwkw with factory plenum and smaller cooler. If it was a straight 20% power drop from decreasing boost by 20%, I should have been making 172rwkw at 0.8 bar.

Sydneykid, I don't think there I am losing anywhere near 40rwkw. If I was then it would be making less power at 1 bar than it did at 0.8 bar before. At present I'm making 215rwkw @ 1bar, when it was 166rwkw before at 0.8 bar. Both these figures after the S-AFC was tuned by the same guy on the same dyno to around the same AFR, possibly even a little more conservative now than before. If I got a linear power increase from the same boost increase (which I know isn't so, but just for argument's sake) then in theory I should only be making around 208rwkw at 1 bar boost. But I'm making almost 10kw more than this, and this is with something strangling it in the upper revs. If the front-facing plenum has cost me 40rwkw, then the cooler upgrade and shorter piping has gained me over 50kw. I don't believe this is true for an instant.

Well, it's 3" from the front pipe back (including cat) so I'm not so sure a 3" dump is going to give me that much of a power increase. But if it did nothing other than smooth out the power curve in the upper rev ranges it'd be worth doing. I'm saving my pennies as we speak

Plenum is a home-made job I bought off GR8NES. The old cooler was around 500x300x50 I think. The new one is 600x300x70. The old one had bad angular end-tanks as well, which is another reason for the upgrade. Still running stock injectors, but I have a set of RX7 injectors ready to go in, which have been flow tested and I'm definitely putting them in the proper order It's running ok for now with the stockers, I'm contemplating saving up for a PowerFC before I put them in. Or at least replacing the dump pipe with a 3" one to help with the surging/dipping in upper revs. If I feel enthusiastic one weekend I might just put them in anyway and see how they go, then swap them back again on the same day, but I'll need some advice on how much fuel to cut from the S-AFC to make it run the equivalent of before. The front-facing plenum makes this a viable experiment, because I'm stuffed if I would bother removing the whole intake just to swap the injectors in and out for something to do

Could be a weak wastegate spring. Try replacing the actuator with a stronger unit, or adding some bed springs

When I got mine the diode was burned out (common problem). I couldn't see the point in having the diode in there other than to preserve the LEDs in case some moron wired it around the wrong way, so I just replaced it with a bit of wire. Been working fine ever since, although I have 1 or 2 dead LEDs (not an entire "bank" of them though).

I got a bit of leftover paint from my respray. It's not proper touch up paint, and as such I can't use that Langka stuff to rub it back with. I just dabbed some on, let it dry, then dabbed a bit more on, etc. It's now almost flush and so harder to notice. But because it's metallic, it'd be noticable even if I did get it flush. If you want proper touch up paint, try the various auto parts shops. You might need the paint code off your car, or maybe just telling them it's a silver Skyline might be enough for them to find the right one.

High idle will affect your economy a lot if you do a lot of stop-start traffic. Try getting it down below 800. Other than that, just do the usual stuff - replace plugs, clean injectors, etc. Does the R30 use an AFM? If so try cleaning it with some electrical contact cleaner.

A GOOD paint shop will charge around $300 for a panel or front/rear bar. This includes blending the paint into the adjacent panels. You can probably get a quick respray for less but you will probably notice the difference in colour. You can try one of those scratch repair places, but in my experience they will only touch non-metallic colours, because they can't get the touch-up paint to blend properly on metallic paint. You can also touch it up yourself, which I've done on mine for a couple of scratches it's picked up. It's easily noticable if you look at them, but if you just look at the car overall your eyes don't get drawn towards them and you can't really notice.

Steve, the cooler I had before wasn't the factory item, it was just a smaller front mount with fairly long piping back to the factory plenum. So I think the comments on throttle response are valid. Bigger cooler plus shorter piping equals better throttle response than small cooler with long piping back to factory plenum.