djr81

1) new rotors +pads front and rear (had to replace them anyways) Make sure they are properly heat cycled & bedded in. 2) Bought some 5.1 dot brake fluid. Chuck that shit in the bin & get some Motul RBF600. 3) new engine oil and plugs in already (well tomorrow) Clean your air filters. Go with a FULL tank of fresh petrol. You will be gobsmacked by how much it uses. Get a GOOD tyre pressure gauge & use it. Take some blue insulation tape. A few basic tools (Spanners etc) can come in handy as can a small supply of oil/coolant & particularly power steer fluid. Also rags & some window cleaner is usefull more often than not. Put a coat of wax on it before you go because it will finish the day covered in sh!t. Makes it alot easier to clean afterwards....

Check that the outside air temperature sensor is working. It is in front of the radiator. Put a hairdrier or something on it to warm it up and/or use a thermocouple to check it is getting atleast a half decent air temp measurement.

Ah, ok, my mistake. As far as I know Frank Gardiner's M3 owed pretty much all the mechanical stuff to the factory. There wasn't much of what you might call local development - just tuning. As for the Sierra, well in '87 ours were an embarrasment (Other than Mad Andrew Miedecke spelling!) but by '88 DJR & others had their act together. Moffat's were always imports, ie Rouse built for '87 & Eggenberger from then on. Brock's were Rouse cars. A mate of mine worked for a dealership owned and/or managed by John Clelands brother. He bailed him (john) up one day about the 92 or 93 Bathurst race when Brocks tailshafts leapt into the cabin & scared 7 shades of shite out of him. The in car of that is priceless. Cleland also tells a very good story about him winding Kim Jones up about having to drive in piss stained overalls.

Yeah I sort of had thee feeling that they deliberately specced it so as to not threaten the M3. But it won at Bathurst, which the M3 never did....

Well for my 10 cents I don't think that the Gibson cars gave second best to anyone in terms of build quality & speed. The 32 proved that & the 31's were produced by the same people. Plus Freddo's cars had some useful cheater components, like the dodgy front spoiler & the intercooler as a start.... It must have been '88 that Grice turned up to Bathurst driving a Commodore in a Nissan racesuit! My vague recollection was the the Bathurst yearbooks (Not the Great Race annuals, the other ones) had a brief rundown of the ETCC, but not a great writeup on the Nissan's. BTW, how is Win Percy nowadays. Last time I heard he had badly hurt his back?

Get your hand controller & go through the settings menu to the maps. They are, like Baron said 20x20 maps. Just record the values in each box for each map.

Pros? They are fully sik, bro. Cons? They are illegal & entirely unnecessary. Do they do any damage? To the atmosphere, yes. To your eardrums, probably. To everyone elses serenity, definately. do you still use exsisting 02 senors? If you want. Do they increase performace? Relative to a proper system, not really. Also do they require external waste gate? No, but they are much more common on an external gate. Im just using the standard dumps with twin 2860r turbs and I think they just have internal wastegates.... 2860's have an internal gate & a half arsed divider between them. If you get yourself a half decent dump pipe (eg a HKS or some of the longer types if you are going for a new exhaust) you will get the most of the benefit of a screamer pipe without all of the hassle. It will be legal & wont compromise performance. You have two turbos - you need a pair of dumps. I have a question. How did you decide you wanted something you know nothing about?

I don't think he means he has no sway bars currently - I think he means would aftermarket ones help? The answer to that is - a bit, but not as much as you would think.

Can you please provide some more info on the control arms - ie what brand/where did they come from etc?

Front one full soft, rear one full hard.

I find it interesting that everyones focus appears to be on the longevity of the turbo & the exhaust manifolds. Has anyone bothered to enquire about what this stuff does to the life of your exhaust valves? Burnt valves, anyone?

Hmm, maybe the people involved in the awards included some of the following in amongst their criteria: Weight (RB's weigh a tonne) Emissions (RB's particularly the 26 are a "dirty" engine) Noise (er.....) Fuel consumption Torque etc etc etc There is far, far more to building a good motor than just a hedline output figure. I, for one, am glad that a manufacturer such as BMW still make a straight six - there are very few people who do. That they make a twin turbo version of the same is something to be celebrated. Just have to convince them to put it in an M3 instead if that dumb arsed V8 that they are wanting to use. The M series cars were a much better thing when there was less of them - hell the M3 used to have a four, the M5 a 3.5 litre straight six.

What everyone has missed is that the spectator wasn't crossing the road during the rally. The unfortunate woman was killed when one of the group N cars lost control BEFORE it had reached the start line of the stage. Two other people were also hurt. For the record the driver was Gonzalo Alenaz.

Mobil 1 5W50 is very good stuff. In fact one of the best oils around. It is fine for your car.

Actually, I always thought Kim Jones' periodic brain explosions were good for a laugh. Better yet was one of Gary Rodgers replies - "They cam down here like a bunch of sulking schoolboys." Gold & far better than the usual PR inspired/officialdom friendly content free blather you get nowadays.

Just look it up on Nengun. They posted them up after I asked about them a while back. I got sick of the DBA 4000's I had been using cracking all the time.

My 10 cents - just pay the rego. It will be much less painfull in the end & not much more expensive. By the time you take the time off work to go over the pits & go through all the hassle & costs it is just easier to take the pain of 6 months rego. The licensing/inspection system is an all day effort at the moment & the $10 Eric the Ripper chucked at it from the budget won't fix the problems in 6 months. Add up the costs for new plates, transaction fees, time off work etc etc etc & see if it does actually add up.

The "windtunnel is out of calibration" excuse has been fashionable since the Lotus team used it in 1988 to explain why their car was so hopeless compared to the McLaren. At the time they didn't have forty bazillion tonnes of CFD wizardry to confirm things, however. I agree with you about Schumacher. I never rated him & I cannot for the life of me explain why Toyota waste so much money on him - maybe they would be better spending it on an interesting road car? Nah. Trulli is atleast occassionally fast. Also I am not sure Williams has the same degree of outright pace as last year. Reliability crippled them then as did rear tyre wear, but can you honestly see them in the running for a podium place at the Monaco GP in a couple weeks time? Put that down to the Toyota motor not having the same grunt as the Cosworth. Even Alonso couldn't turn this years Renault into a winner - but he wouldn't be scrapping for 9th place atleast. Nor firing off the track every other lap.

Well the Honda outfit has been a horror story all year, hasn't it. I guess finishing laps down means your Earth Dream is that bit more attainable. You have to wonder how they produced a car that is slower than the year previous - even then it looks waaay ugly under brakes & in general. Jenson Button paid how much to stick with them? Toyota has been the usual story of tipping vast amounts of money down the shitter. Not sure how many people outside the factory are surprised at that. They are only just hanging on to Williams & Williams drivers line up is still less than stellar - if you apply the relative speeds of Webber & Rosberg from last year... Arguably you could do the same at Renault. What price a contract for Webber now?

Gees McLaren are leading both the constructors & the drivers championships (1 & 2) four races in & you reckon they are writing the season off? Maybe for Renault & Honda, but I think Toyota are still going to have to work hard to maintain their place.

The harder rubber is always going to be a gamble - particularly for McLaren as they seem to be easy on their tyres. Whilst you are right in saying they hadn't much to lose (But look how close the BMW of Kubica got to Alonso in the end!) nor did they have much prospect of a big gain. It shouldn't have come as much of a surprise that the track rubbered in over the weekend - there again McLaren, like the other teams, will have done approximately a billion laps around the place. So they should have known exactly what to expect. I struggle to believe that the harder compound is ever going to be a better - quicker - option. The prospect of bolting them onto Lewis' car for an early second stop defies logic somewhat as not only would the tyre need to be quicker (it wasn't) it would also need to make up for the extra fuel ie 20+ laps worth as against a basically empty tank. I guess the inherent problem was that McLaren lacked lap speed. When you have to start being "clever" with tyre strategy you are really acknowledging you are in trouble. Far better to hose the opposition with outright pace. Anyway, go the Super Aguris!

Well I was always a supporter ever since he had the um, intestinal fortitude to run a Mitsubishi Starion at Bathurst. Particularly so when in '94 he put in a brilliant double stint to drag the number 15 HRT Commode back into contention after some noob called Lowndes had bunkered it and put it in grave danger of going a lap down. Lowndes got all the cudos & the factory drive, but Jones was ever bit the star on the day. Also don't forget the beautiful Audi A4's they ran in Super Touring. BJR has always been somewhat of a busted arse outfit. The budgets are nowhere near what the likes of 888 & HRT run. Take for example the recent sh!tfight of the Alcon control spec disc rotors. On the one hand you have Kees Weel banging on about how there can't be a problem because all the teams change the rotors between each heat & on the other the Jones brothers saying that they always used to run only two sets for the whole weekend.... Hell I would buy some merchandise to help out, but they haven't organised any for 2007!

Was it just me or did anyone else notice how loose the back end of Hamilton's car was? Also, wtf were McLaren thinking when they bolted hard tyres onto Alonso's thing for the middle stint. I want whatever they are smoking.

Looks like Brad Jones is retiring. Hopefully he will have one last go at Bathurst & then go back to arguing with his brother on a full time basis. Atleast he signed Wills instead of Besnard. http://www.teamboc.com.au/news/?id_display=150

Have you decided which leg to affect the fake limp with?