djr81

On the upside someone has taken over from Tyrrell as the rightful place for really obscure Japanese sponsors to call home. Never understood why Zent didn't back the Toyota F1 team, they used to sponsor their Le Mans efforts....

Nice work Baron. Love the Super Aguri Logo on the sleeves.

http://www.simmonswheel.com.au/range.html# The FR19 can be had in various offsets & with a number of different coloured centres.

As often as not it will crack the paint adjacent to where the guard is rolled.

To be fair, F1 is basically a soap opera for blokes.

If you are suffering from too much rear brake bias the cheapest short term fix is either a higher coefficient of friction pad on the front or a lower one on the rear. Nothing like doing the job properly, however....

Oil surge will happen if you don't have enough oil in the sump. So over fill it. You don't need a baffle. Stock one should outlast the rest of the engine. Stories about N1 pumps only surface when the install is done incorrectly, don;t worry about it. Also, when you get back to the pits leave the motor on with the bonnet up & let it idle for a few minutes - this keeps things circulating & will help cool it all down.

So have you got any good photos of the Grice/Percy GTS-R that they campaigned in Europe in 1988? I only have ever seen a couple of small ones. As an aside if you do a compare & contrast of the front spoiler of that thing with Freddie Gibson's GTS-R you will see that someone wasn't playing by the rules......

I had a look last night. They are grade 8.8. And, yeah, sorry I meant fine or coarse not UNF or UNC as like you say that is the imperial equivalent. Real men use Whitworth.

If that is all it is the job is very easy. Just pull the one out of the other side & take it to a proper fastener store (Not Bunnings). They will sell you something like an M12x25 & a M12x50 machine bolt probably in either a UNC or a UNF thread. Should be a grade 8.8 or better. Anyway the blokes at the shop will be able to tell from the markings on the bolt. This will cost you all of $5 to get sorted.

Yeah, well I reckon the coolest car was the 81 XD from DJR. Was the sport sedan any relation to the Whitackers Peanut Slab Group A Sierra the used to turn up at Bathurst with Gianfranco Brancatelli (or something similar) Best turbo change story I have heard was from the 88 race when the Jones/Shiel Starion needed a new turbo which the mechanics did DURING the race. Faaark.

I doubt you would get a sheet load of people wanting them. They don't do anything other than repalce the standard ones & are non adjustable. The Whiteline gear is adjustable & for most uses appears to be fine. I am looking for a set, however...

The model would be great, but effectively the Whiteline kit makes the arm a fixed length - just shorter. I think what it needs it a slight twist in it so that the caster induced load in compression that occurs on the upper link bushes is reduced. But without the model that is just supposition....

For the group C fans, try this: Group C had to die - there was FAR too much dodgy shit going on & far too many arguments. Peripheral port anyone?

I would have liked DJR to have campaigned the 4WD Sierra Sapphire.

Yep, I just rang Repco (listed as the vendor on the Noltec website). Got the usual answer: Nup, never heard of them.

There are a couple of points universal to most workshops: They almost always slag their competitors. They are universally sick & tired of tyre kickers & wannabees wasting there time with no hope of affording what they are enquiring after (Not you, just in general). Best bet is to find a good workshop & develop a relationship with them. At the end of the day you should be paying them for their expertise, not to learn on the job at $70+ an hour.

The missing bolt will be the same as on the other side of the car. From memory (depending on which of the two it is) it is a 12mm dia machine bolt with an additional lock nut. Pull the good one from the other side & go and find the same at your local fastener store. As long as there isn't any major damage you will be fine, but I would replace both bolts in the upper, outer position as a minimum as the remaining one will have been well stressed.

I thought you need to include a "turbo equivalency factor" or similar. eg a 2L motor with a turbo got its capacity multiplied by 1.4 (? - from memory). So it ended up as a larger motor.

Bout half the retail for the Whiteline kit $166. I was going to mod them (bore them out) to fit the whiteline inner pins, otherwise, yeah you don't get adjustment.

Some random points: The VN Group A car was not homologated with 500 cars. Holden couldn't sell the things & so ended upmaking only 300. The remainder of the good bits such as the motors went into HSV VP's. The Sierra in its non evolution form ran in the ATCC in 1987. By the time Bathurst rolled around the 500 specials had been built & homologated. They had larger turbos & an extra rear wing, amongst other things. All of the cars had to have a base of 5000 & then the manufacturers could offer an evolution of 500 for homologation. Best example if the VK Commode which ran in with a 308 motor in 1985 until the blue SS was built in sufficient numbers for 86. So 5000 GT-R's had to be built before the 500 (56) - Nismo versions were built. That Nissan didn't make particularly good use of this was odd, to say the least. Maserati also homologated their Biturbo model, or tried to. Mitsubishi did the Starion, Toyota the Supra. Rover the 3500, Jaguar the XJS, Volvo the 240T, Ford the Mustang. You could homologate parts seperate to the cars, eg the 6 speed Hollinger gearbox used in the GT-R's, or the 9" diff DJR used. DJR's success did not rest solely with the Stone Brothers. Neil Lowe had them winning ATCC's before Ross & Jimmy came along. Also at the other end (After they left) the Dunlop tyre thing made life really hard for the EL's - then came the AU. There was a complicated formula where engine capacity meant you had to run at a certain minimum weight & also then were allowed to run certain size tyres (2" larger in rim size than the homologated car, so GT-R's got to run 18" rims, Sierra 17's) The attached photo is of the "world class" ATCC field in Tassie in 92. All 12 of them.

Mmm, think I will get myself some Noltec bushes & bore out the outer one to fit the camber adjustment pin. They look to be better than the whiteline kit because they have collars on them...

No more full of sh!t than the rest of us. I suppose the indicator of how the Gt-r's would have gone in another team is to see how Bob Forbes got on with that car & then with the VP Commode in the years that followed (Morphing into WGR in later years) I don't hink that given the way DJR ran their Sierra's anyone could say it was all the Gibson teams brilliance. Look at how they got on before & after the GT-R... For me the closest thing to a fully blown Group A special is perhaps the M3. It owed practically nothing to the povvo 3 series by the end.

Actually I think it was something like eight of em... The car was for Moffat & Harvey, bought from Brock after the both of them left his employ. Problem was, because Moffat didn't enter the WTCC he didn't score any prize money. Thinking about it if I had the money I would have something like a second evolution of the 2.3 -16V 190E Merc. Didn't go, but it made the Walkinshaw VL Commode look sedate. Here is the short version of the factory Jaguar XJS in Australia. Entered for the 1985 Bathurst 1000. Finished 1st & 3rd. Retired. The results speak for themselves.

For my 10 cents worth, a mu figure in the in 0.3 to 0.4 range sucks dog's balls. I would be looking for something with mu of atleast 0.45.