JimX

Hills Motorsports have a custom front-facing plenum which flows evenly for all cylinders. I imagine most expensive ones would be similar. At the other end of the spectrum there's the cheapass type which I have, and I do think it starves the front cylinders of a little air than the rear. But that only means these cylinder runs richer than normal, evidenced by a little more popping/backfiring than usual. The engine is still running rich enough overall that the rear cylinders aren't leaning out. I still get more overall power out of the engine and much better throttle response so while not perfect, I still think it was more than worthwhile despite the uneven airflow.

How much are Endless pads and where do you get them? Do they fade easily?

Yeah the more I think about it, the more it was just because the rotors were too small on the Commodore. The Skyline has MUCH bigger brakes, and the car is like 100kg lighter too (compared to VS V8). 550 degrees still isn't very hot to have your pads fade, but I'm guessing it would be a lot harder to break that barrier on a Skyline. I think I will consider Ultimates again for my next set of pads Although the dust is VERY annoying to me. Are the RB74's any more or less dusty?

Most window components are riveted in on most cars, to save space and time/money. You should be able to drill the remnants of the old rivet out and put in a new one.

Looks neat! Though I'm wondering if curious passengers are going to press it if you forget to tell them what it does! (and if your bastard mates will do it anyway just because they know what it does ) Edit: Trying to start it with the engine already on reminds me of the time I was driving the company car to pick up the mail (XF Falcon panel van). I tried to start the car and it wouldn't start. Then every other time I went to start it I just got the horrible grinding starter motor gear noise. I was about to quit and go ring up my work, when I opened my door and heard that the engine was running!

Woohoo! Thanks to the advice of Ronin 09 I managed to fix it without removing the headlight assembly OR resorting to the hammer I took both globes out, put the highbeam one in the lowbeam socket. For some reason the light was now shining higher up than in the highbeam socket. Very weird indeed because I would have expected it to be lower if anything. So I adjusted it to the correct height and left it in there. I then put the low beam globe in the high beam socket and it also shone higher. But now I could adjust it to normal height. So it's all good now. Very weird all over! I'm still going to look at getting new blue/white globes, but now I'll know that if I can't get the alignment right I'll try re-mounting them and/or swapping them around a bit.

The ratchet may not break, but it might turn into a sloppy bitch like one of mine did. Using an extender bar on a ratchet is just so... bush mechanic

Pushead, which wrecker? Just Jap in Kirrawee (Sydney) don't have any seatbelt stuff at all.

Ronin 09, good idea. I was looking at replacing the bulbs with whiter/bluer ones soon anyway (not actually tinted blue, blergh!) so I might do a bulb swap with one that I know is good to see if it's the bulb itself throwing the alignment out.

Hehe, speaking of scaring pedestrians, I once scared the shite out of some bogun fat chick in my old XY Falcon with worked 302 Windsor and no mufflers. A bunch of boguns decided to meander across the carpark in front of me doing 5kph. It wasn't a pedestrian crossing, so I got a bit pissed off especially since they were in single file and walking slowly. When the last one (fat chick) was right in the middle of my car, I floored the accelerator and slipped the clutch a little to inch forwards about 5 cm. She just about shit her pants Don't think I can get the same effect happening again with the 'line Well, maybe if I moved forwards 1 metre instead of 5cm

My seatbelts are crap. They lock on the slightest incline and don't retract very well. Can you buy the factory belts anywhere? Failing that (they're probably illegal) can anyone suggest a good brand/type to replace them with? Also, I've seen photos of some Skylines still in Japan, and it seems that it has that small plastic bracket to help stop the belt from digging into your shoulder. It's a common thing on some coupes, and I feel that the Skyline's seatbelts would be a lot comfier with it on. Why on earth did they remove it for compliance?

Where can you buy good quality oil from in 20L drums? That is the cheapest way to buy it apparently. Edit: Erm, not "the" cheapest, obviously, but probably the cheapest while still remaining somewhat practical.

Same problem as mine? Have you tried the hammer?

Forced induction cars don't need backpressure anywhere near as much as NA cars. Because the turbo forces more than 1 atmosphere of pressure into the cylinder, it's pretty well "sucked" out by the lower pressure atmosphere behind it. It's also the main reason why extractors are more suited to NA cars. Not really because NA cars have more to gain from the extractors, but because turbo cars have less to lose from an inefficient exhaust manifold design. I think 4" dump would be too big for a normal street-driven GTS-t and sap a little performance, but I think the same pipe would absolutely kill the performance of any normal NA car.

To all those people wanting to put extenders on their ratchets - my advice is don't. It will probably work several times, but it's not healthy for the ratchet at all because it's relatively delicate inside. You should buy a "breaker bar" which is about $40 from a good tool shop, which is designed for this purpose. It's about half a metre long and works really well with extenders. Because it's a lot longer than a normal ratchet a lot of the time you won't even need the extender.

I haven't seen a Skyline that doesn't do it Edit: Oh, if it blows lots of black smoke, this too is normal and nothing to worry about. I met someone who drives a turbo Audi and he thought that all Skyline engines were in sh*thouse condition because of all the smoke he sees them blow, I had to educate him that it was just unburnt fuel because of running hella rich.

Who did the article? Where is it? When was it done? What testing methods did they use? How old was the fuel they tested? Maybe it was just a dud batch of fuel? Did they do regular testing of several batches over a period of weeks or months to make sure that it wasn't a one-off? I would think that Shell would have something to say about this article if its claims were unconditionally true. Not to mention that as I said originally, Shell would be in a lot of trouble for false advertising. I'm sorry, but if I have to listen to 2 claims about Optimax, one from Shell themselves that Optimax is minimum 98RON, and one from "some guy" who remembers "some article" saying that it's less, then I'm more inclined to believe Shell. Until I see evidence to the contrary I'm not going to change my opinion either. I really hate FUD.

My left highbeam points straight into the ground, even on its highest setting. On the lowest setting it just points even more into the ground (2 metres in front of the car instead of 5 I guess). All the other beams are spot-on, it's just this one that doesn't do what it's told. I had a fiddle around with the bulb and I could aim it correctly if I held it at a funny angle, so it's possible that something's wrong with the mounting mechanism. It's very hard to work around there without pulling the whole light out, so I think I'll do that next weekend. Just wondering if anyone else has had a bad headlight aim problem like this before and what the cause might be? Luckily the right high beam illuminates enough on dark roads to get by, but it is damned annoying having no left high beam!

Last night on the Cumberland Highway from a set of lights a yellow Monaro decided to go for it. The thing is, I was talking to my gf and my mate before the lights went green and I didn't even know there was a Monaro next to me until I saw him launch from the lights. I said "why didn't you tell me there was a Monaro next to me, I would have gone for it" They didn't notice it either I just took off normally and went up to the speed limit. It sounded like the supercharged version and didn't take off too fast at all. Even with my 2 passengers I would have totally destroyed him if I had taken off properly. An old Toyota ute next to him also floored it on takeoff and didn't do too badly all things considered, but I'm 99% sure the Monaro was looking to race me rather than the ute because he then did the typical "change lanes in front of the car you just beat" thing.

I had Whiteline swaybars and bushes on my Commodore and the thing handled like it was on rails. After that it actually went better through the twisties than my mate's VFR800 motorcycle (if anyone knows this bike, that is no mean feat!). He was able to shoot out of the corners quicker, but if we went into the corner at the same time, I had to back off to avoid riding up his arse I'll be getting at least the swaybars again for the Skyline as soon as I can afford them (I'm not so sure that the bushes are worth the money at this point). One question I have though is that the adjustable rate bars seem to be "smaller" than the extra heavy duty ones, and yet still cost more? What's the point of getting the adjustable ones then, when the uber-thick ones cost less? I had the uber-thick ones on the Commodore and I never wanted them any thinner under any sort of driving conditions.

Err, what? Who told you that? Look at the Shell website. If they're lying, someone's gonna get sued for false advertising.

Wha? Wheel bearing rubbing against brake? Do you know where the wheel bearings are, dude?

That just sounds rude!

Ed, cool! Btw, I hope no one thinks that I wouldn't rather have an R34. I just wouldn't pay double for one. When the price comes down, I'll happily trade up

I'm only referring to the photos and specs, but so is Tony. I've seen them up close in person, but never been in one. Are they *really* twice as good in power, braking, handling, comfort, etc as R33's? If so, why doesn't the appearance reflect this?