djr81

Have a look in the current issues of Auto Action - there are some very good deals going for Arai helmets. Make: Arai Model: GP JET 2 (Open face) Purchase price: About $700 from memory. Personal rating: Bloody excellent. Light weight, comfortable & good crash rating ie SA standard not Australian standard. Liner is fire retardent but does not remove. Makes you look like Astro Boy which is always a bonus. I use an open face helmet simply because full face ones makes me claustraphobic. Attach a pic: (if you can be bothered). Sorry too lazy, but try www.revolutionracegear.com.au or similar.

Thanks for the offer, Trent. He has some bits & I have enquired about some others. So will give Costa first bite. Cheers Richard

But someone has to be declared winner of the F1 summer series. Inevitably one of the teams runs wonderfully well in testing & then when they rock up to the race the speed has suddenly gone missing. Arrows used to do it really well.

The progress of the aero has been hampered by them having to move/change/stuff around with their wind tunnel. So they are taking pain in terms of progress. By modified, do you mean complete with Renault badges?

Drift shop Australia. Believe the blokes name is Costa. www.driftshop.com.au But as I understand it he is just starting on the Moonface gear. So an email may be the best bet. Just get in line, cause I have first dibs.

I think I will give the rear spacers a go first up. See what it does. May even get to back out some rake angle again. Woo hoo. With the spacers you don't have to press the ball joint out of the arm hence they are cheaper/easier to buy & fit. Also I thought (Probably wrong again) that the blue spacer was the only one available for the front of the R32 GT-R.

So what is the difference between the pro kit & the ordinary kit for the rear? BTW, the Australian distributor for this gear is trying to get onto SAU as a vendor. No having much luck....

Well no seamless shift gearbox doesn't help. Also, they have a heap of work to do on the aero. Engine should be the best in the business Chassis - well I am not sure they make much difference any more. There is basically no front suspension to speak of. All of them have massive torsional rigidity. With a Renault engine the weight distribution must be good. Only think left is the rear suspension. So, who knows? Hopefully Adrian Newey.

By my rough as guts calculations: I have assumed they are just torsion bars. spring rate for torsion bars varies with the fourth order of diameter ie mm^4. But it is a long time since I have been to uni, so I may be forgetting something.... Anyway the numbers are: Front Cusco 24 od, 20 id. mm4 = 171,776 Whiteline front 22 od. mm4 = 234,256 ie Whiteline stiffer by 36%. Rear. Cusco 30 od 25.4 id. mm4 = 393,769. Whiteline 24mm od. mm4 = 331,776 ie Cusco stiffer by 19%. But that does not take into account any adjustability in the pick up points on the lever arms....

From the blurb they look like the lessen the front roll couple (ie raise the roll centre). Which is good in one way - makes for less front roll & therefore better front tyre grip. On the flip side you don't get the weight transfer to the rear which may well promote more understeer. You would therefore have to expect the better front tyre camber outweighs the lesser load transfer front to rear....

Do they have an English option? Can't make head nor tail of that lot.

I do. The only advantage of the Nismo unit is it automatically returns the oil to the sump & it has no external breather meaning no oily film all over your engine bay. Cams only requires 2 litres for proper competitionc ars. They don;t care so much for Sprint events, hillclimbs etc.

If you can get them for the rear & assuming they reduce the roll couple (ie raise the roll centre) I, for one, would be very interested. Subterrestrial roll centres are a side effect of McPherson strut suspensions when lowered too far. Hopefully the Skyline suspebsion doesn't do this. Unfortunately I have been far too lazt to measure up the links & actually plot the roll centres front & rear. Baron, what diameter are the Cusco sway bars and are they solid or hollow?

The spacer goes just above bottom arm on the outside lower link. It physically moves the pivot point thus changing the inclination of the arm & hence migrating the roll centre.

I posted something similar a while back. Got nothing by way of a reply. I have thought about it in the interim & come to these conclusions. Having a roll centre inclined going forward is good. It transfers load to the rear tyres & lessens understeer. Unfortunately, on a GT-R there is too much roll to begin with. So lowering the front roll centre more will only increase the cars body roll. The down side of this is less grip due to the car rolling over the edge of the tyre. But it might just work is you can also dial in some more -ve camber at the front.

Hmm, maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I don't remember Murray Carter ever driving an HR31. I thought it was a DR30? Chris Lambden (Not sure of spelling) had an HR31 in Beaurepaires (Spelling not getting any better, is it?) colours. He now is editor/owner/something important in Motorsport News fortnightly magazine/newspaper.

Hmm, having done the two mods in turn I would strongly recommend you do the camber adjustment BEFORE the caster adjustment. The amount of -ve camber the caster adds is suprisingly small when you have a quarter of turn of lock on. Certainly much less than the one degree or so a camber kit will offer. Skylines need -ve camber at the front to generate cornering grip, otherwise you just end up with an understeering pig. Also, if you haven't already you need to get the cars roll under control - which means sway bars & dampers. Any even half serious track day will consume tyres at a far greater rate than even a large amount of road travel. Once a month is a lot of track time as far as tyres are concerned. You wil probably chunk the tread blocks - hence I would suggest getting yourself a proper track tyre even if it is only a Falken or Federal or similar.

C'mon it is alright & the WASCC put in a big effort to keep competitors happy. Kolb is a bundle of fun as is Shell. Anyway, you could try the likes of Laguna Seca, try finding the old Surfers Paradise circuit, maybe Imola, Monza som eof the defunct GP circuits. How about Donington? You could post the images if you'd like.

Stop me if you have seen this one before....

Not sure if by R32 or R33 you mean a GTS-T or an R. In any case I would nominate an R32 GT-R. They aren't too expensive. There are plenty of them about & upgrades are equally plentiful. In terms of cost there isn't a whole heap of difference between, say, uprated suspension for a GTS-T or for a GT-R. So why not go the GT-R? Best of all a gutted, light weight GT-R will be much, much quicker around the track and particularly on a hillclimb than any of the other cars you have listed.

The only real issue with ethanol blended fuel is that it has a different density & therefore your AFR's change - making them leaner. I think the number is about 3 to 4 % from memory. So you have to be careful.

Apparently you can spec them up with either. I was just trying to get a feel for which may be better.

Well they all change their prices randomly. BP is no different. Anyway why do you hate them so much. Just think where we would all be if BP didn't sell 98 Octane?

Thanks Baron (gees, fancy running into you here). Ok, well cusco list one. They also mention two differnt activation angles 35 & 45 degrees. Can anyone shed some light on the difference? Cheers Richard

I have been told repeatedly (Ok, I am not very clever) that a good option for a track GT-R is a front LSD. Mostly people refer to it as a 1 way (obviously a 2 way at the front would be stupid). On checking the Nismo cattledog they only list a 1 1/2 way. Are we talking about the same thing here, or not? Secondly, can anyone offer up an alternate brand other than Cusco?