JimX

How can anyone confirm something as general as that, even if they lived in Japan? Maybe they live in a neighbourhood where no one, or everyone services their car properly. Whether or not my Skyline was serviced properly, the engine is still in better condition after 100 000km than my previous V8 Commodore's (at 80k km), which definitely was serviced properly. I have not owned a car whose engine was in better condition than my Skyline's, that's all that counts. I could be fed any story as to whether or not the previous owners had treated it properly, but it wouldn't affect the condition of my engine today. My car gets the full synthetic oil treatment every 5000km and hopefully that will be enough to see it through another 100k km or more.

Because they are bastards. And no doubt they stole it anyway, so it's not like it cost them anything.

Hippy, you're right, if the accident isn't your fault and you can identify the other party then your insurance company should take care of everything and not charge you a cent. Famous have a fautless claim clause which does exactly that. IMO asking someone to fork up the excess even if the accident isn't their fault, and then refunding them once they get the money from the other party is exceedingly dodgy.

I got a copy of my policy even before I had paid I got the quote and told them I'd take it, but would pay next week. I was expecting to get a copy after I'd paid for the policy but it arrived in the mail 2 days later. I'd say yours was a one-off mistake or Australia Post losing mail.

There's a much cheaper version of that dialler here: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...&category=31250 It's not the cost of this thing that puts me off, it's the screwing around with the wiring and disassembling my dash. The S-AFC was easy to wire up but still a pain in the arse for me because I'm such a lazy bastard Getting motivated to do it was 3/4 of the job. Installing this dialler I dare say will require much more disassembly of your dash, or else it'll be within hand's reach of any thief and able to be yanked out quite easily.

Check your alternator's voltage output, could be too high. Although you'd most likely blown something else by now if the voltage was too high. hmm.

My blood is boiling. I reckon if I caught someone doing that to my car I would be on the 6pm news the next day. Hope you find the shits and give them what's coming to them.

Dash, central console gauges, or look under the bonnet. The whole front bar is different, not just the indicators. The wider body is only due to the guards, the chassis itself is the same width. A very very small minority of GTS owners put the wider guards front and back too. Why I don't know but I did see one (a non-turbo, at that!) in the Prestige Motorsports mailing list a while back.

An intercooler won't keep your turbo cool as it's installed after the turbo. An oil cooler would be more useful for keeping your turbo cool, but still it's generally overkill for a street-driven car.

The main problem with R33's is they are getting a bit old and are starting to get the usual old car problems. That includes worn synchros on the gearbox, timing belt, water pump, brakes, fuel pump, turbo, etc. However the engine itself is quite strong, the engine usually does not leak or burn much oil at all. Test the engine compression and if it's good on all cylinders then you've got an engine good for another 50-100k km (or more). I have a '95 model that's just clicked over 100 000km (based on the condition of the interior and engine I believe it hasn't been wound back) and the only thing "wrong" with it is it crunches on 2nd gear (and sometimes 5th) when cold. Aside from that it feels like a new car to me. Losing power between gear changes could mean a badly-adjusted bov or a sticky clutch, I don't experience such power loss on my car (atmo bov). No maintenance is required on turbos. If yours is in good condition and you treat it properly (using good quality synthetic oils and letting it cool before switching off) then it should last as long as your engine. The big problem is being a second hand car means that the previous owners may have not treated it well.

I just spoke with the guys at Famous again and I confirmed my 2 doubts - my car isn't listed as "limited use" (it's "daily" even though I told them I only drive it around 3 times a week, so that's good), and also I am able to choose my own repairer. So it's all good and I've now paid for the policy.

So where's the website for Navtrak?

Hills Motorsports in Castle Hill (Sydney).

The runout is 30mm and they start off at 32mm. You should machine them and measure them properly with calipers, because there's no way to tell if they're worn out or not otherwise.

Don't waste your money on the coolant until you're sure the leak is fixed. You can get by with tap water, as long as you don't get caught in a lot of heavy traffic and don't go into the snow or something (for the boiling/freezing aspect). Water will corrode your engine faster than coolant, but in the very short time you'll be using it until you visit a mechanic the amount of corrosion will be insignificant.

It's actually spelt "Navtrak". But even after searching for that on Google, I can only find a few references. I found 2 links to "http://www.navtrak.com.au" but that URL doesn't work. Maybe they let their domain expire. I can't find any telephone numbers either.

I'm wondering if we can get a group buy together for some sort of tracking device. Also hopefully a reduced yearly fee if we do it as part of SAU.

Have they been machined? How thick are they?

AFM sux? So, you get your fuel for free then? I like AFM's. If you need more power than the one you're using can handle, just get a bigger/better one with more resolution. MAP will almost always use more fuel than AFM with everything else equal.

If you can find one, try to get a GTR front-cut, which will have the GTR box and brakes already included. It should cost around $10k. I'm not sure of the amount of work required to get that all to fit into a GTS, but at a guess I would say a lot. The GTS-t box can handle upwards of 250rwkw.

Have a look at www.greddy.com, they have online manuals for most of their stuff. I can't specifically find the Profec e-01 manual, but perhaps it's the same or at least similar as the Profec A or B.

The oil/air separator doesn't allow the crankcase to "breathe", it's the holes in the cam covers which do that. Whether you have them feed straight back into the intake or plenum or through a catch can or separator or even just a breather filter is irrelevant, in all cases it still "breathes". Busky2k's description sums up the oil/air separator's function perfectly, there is no need for a "correction".

The main reason why our old carbie-fed cars did not run well in cold weather even with the choke on is because there is not enough energy in the spark to ignite the fuel mixture. This can be directly because the ignition coil wasn't up to the task, or more commonly, because the carbie is not atomising the fuel enough. ie, cold fuel clumped together is much harder to burn than a fine mist of warm fuel. So you could fix it by either cleaning or re-jetting your carbie for better atomisation, or getting yourself a higher energy ignition system. Try cleaning your injectors and checking your spark voltage. I'm not sure how you'd do the latter, so start with some injector cleaner in the tank and see what happens. Also maybe check your TPS, it could be a mixture issue.

Unless you do the ultrasonic clean, there's no use in removing them to "clean" them. There's no other way to do it. Well, I guess you could high-flow them with lasers, that would also get them clean. But costs even more.

If the coolant definitely isn't leaking out of the radiator, pump, hoses, etc (ie not leaking onto the ground through the engine bay) then it's going into your engine, simple as that. But check all the above again, as has been said it could be a leak that only happens under pressure. I had a similar problem on my Commodore because it had a leak around the rear water jacket gaskets. Fortunately this meant it was a fairly slow leak (lost maybe 1 litre per month) and it was going straight into the rear pistons rather than the oil and simply burning off immediately as it seeped through. I don't know if Skylines have a similar potential water jacket gasket problem, but if they don't then it would have to be the head or head gasket. Whatever the case, it's time to visit a mechanic.