djr81

You will find that only when you get the cars handling sorted can you really get stuck into the brakes late in the braking zone. To this end a set of slotted DBA 4000's & some DS2500 are a very good start. Match it with a Cusco brake stopper (The firewall flexes a scary amount on r32's), some Motul RBF 600 fluid & some braided lines at the front & you will have 90% of the braking performance of the flash gear for less than half the price. Just remember to absolutely mash the pedal at the start of the braking zone - that is where the time is to be found, modulate the pedal carefully & not use too many revs on the heal/toe downchange Good thought. Be careful with the oiling system, however. Best bet is to trundle down to your local technical book store & buy yourself something like Carroll Smith's Tune to Win, or similar. Once you have garnered a fundamental understanding of what change affects what you can combine it with the extensive posts on this website as to where the R32's sensitivities lie. Mostly this is rake & camber adjustments. Also a cheap data logger will tell you whether or not a change has improved the car & importantly where. I would recommend starting with the stock gear then once you find it is limiting your lap times then go for an upgrade. You will be able to recoup a fair proportion of your outlay as people do chase the R32 gear. Remember it is about how much fun you have, not how much bling you have or how much money you spend. That and invariably someone else has a quicker car. Hell I have turned up to sprint event & found old F3000 cars entered.

A car set up for the track with R compounds & the suspension tweaked to handle/grip well on the track is no longer huge amounts of fun on the road - mine isn't any more. For pads as good a starting point as any are Ferodo DS2500's. I just bought some for my R32 & will give them a run shortly. They have good friction coefficients, work ok from cold (for hill climbs etc) & don;t cost the earth. In go faster order you should be doing the suspension then the motor & then the brakes. My 300rwhp will beat a number of 400rwhp around Wanneroo simply because it is set up better. Of course sh!tloads of hp never hurts your lap times... I don't want to rain on Roy's parade, but for me setting the car up & figuring out how to go faster is as much fun as doing the driving. Paying someone else to do it sort of defeats the purpose of the exercise.

Sort of. By circuit racing do you mean sprint events/track days or actual racing? If the latter which category are you intending on running in? I ask this because the category rules may well go a long way to defining what it is you are able to do to the car. With regard to wheel sizes there are a couple of things to note: Basically the wheel diameter is largely dictated by the rotor diameter & the caliper size. A 324mm rotor (ie from an R33 GT-R) will fit in a 17" rim where as if you go an inch up (to 350mm or there abouts) you need 18" rims. (There are some exceptions) When selecting a wheel for circuit work get the lightest one possible - this usually means an Enkei, Volk or similar. Note that a 17" will be lighter than an 18". Also a 17" tyre is much cheaper than an 18" in the same width.

Can I pose the following question (Please don't take this the wrong way, as it is intended to help) Set what up - the suspension, brakes, motor? The start point needs to be for you to figure out what you want to do with the car & how far you want to go with making it biased towards the track/drags or whatever. Then you need to consider how much money you are prepared to tip into the whole thing (Both initially & on an ongoing basis). Only then can you really start to make decisions on the set up. A bit of clear thought now may save you a heap of money & allow you to enjoy your car much more. To use Roy's point as an example - if you are doing sprint days the $5k spent on a brake upgrade can be spent on other things (Mostly tyres & suspension) to make the car lap a whole lot quicker than just with a brake upgrade. To use another example - the amount of -ve camber, rake & roll bar settings for the same springs/dampers will change depending on what kind or tyres you use eg roadies or R compounds. Learning how to drive a car better is one of the best methods of going quicker (I don't know how much track work you have done, perhaps heaps, perhaps not) as well as being the most fun. To this end a cheap data logger (eg a G-Tech RR at about $500) can help improve your braking no end by allowing you to look at how well you are modulating the pedal, particularly on down shifts.

Um, the RB74's I use on the front generate far less dust than the pads I use on the rears - which are Bendix ultimates.

Steve, You probably wont get many people who have tried both, me not least. I have a new set of DS2500 about to go on my car. Not used them before, so here is hoping they are good. The have (from the spec sheet) a really good friction coefficient, low compressability, but I am not too sure how moisy they are, nor how much they eat discs. Anyway, have alook at the following for some tech info/graphs etc on the Ferodo gear. If you can find the same for the ebc gear then you can make an informed decision. Cost for the full set (front & rear) was about $450 for a 32 R. Blurb for Ferodo pads: Ferodo DS2500 is a club race pad that can be used on the street and for light track use. This compound produces some noise on the street, but retains good cold friction, and has an MOT of around 1,000 degrees F. It also has 35% less compressibility than competitive products, giving it very good pedal feel and modulation characteristics. DS2500 has an average friction level of approximately (0.50) which remains constant at any speed, and at any temperature up to 1,000° F. The main characteristics of DS2500 are: -Race developed -Performs equally well on heavy and light cars -20% less pad wear than competitive products. -Minimal bedding-in. Supplied ready to use. -Disc friendly. -Consistent friction level with changing temperatures and speeds to give optimal pedal modulation. -High friction level at low temperature (good cold braking). -High friction level at very high temperatures. -35% less compressability than competitive products (racing pedal feel). -Less noise for increased driving comfort There is a friction coefficient graph at: http://www.motorsportworld.co.uk/frame-det...=/manranges.asp The EBC blurb reads: Designed for premium street driving offering better brake effect at loads and speed. EBC Greenstuff has a high initial brake effect and gives drivers confidence from first application of the brake pedal. There is no such thing as a NO DUST pad. The very nature of how a brake works requires that some dust be generated to avoid rotor vibration (shimmying). The EBC pad creates less dust and dust is more easily washed off than most. All pads create more dust as they are bedding in especially if rotors are worn. Nominal friction coefficient 0.55. For heavier faster cars and vehicles above 200bhp we strongly recommend Redstuff which DOES offer much less dust.

Just count the number of shops allowed to comply each model on the DOTARS website then multiply by 100 per year. Last count I think every Skyline ever built had been exported to australia.

The other problem with the front end is if you run a reasonable amount of -ve camber the tyres don't fill the guards like they should. It now looks undertyred at the front with 255/40's on it

The other thing to be a little careful is with too much caster the front of the tyre can (& will) rub on the guard liner. Not earth shattering, but just something to be aware of. With more caster the inclination (kpi???) of the upright changes, ie the bottom moves forward. With more negative camber the top outer link effectively moves forward thereby partly cancelling each other out. So you get a longer wheelbase for your money. Mmmm, LWB GT-R, just like a Fairlane, really.

First up - thanks to all for their input - this has turned out to be a rather illuminating thread - somewhat better than the usual "which BOV is the sickest sounding" It is not just the length of the arm that the accuracy of manufacture is important for. You need the two bush housings to be parallel & also there is an offset built into the upper arm that makes the outside of the arm forward of the rear of the arm - so that needs to be accurate as well. A few other things (Mostly my opinion about stuff): 1. The Whiteline caster kit gives you compliance but not adjustability. This is why I am running a rod. Maybe if I could weld a thread up to the fat arsed offset bush & link it to the turnbuckle on the caster rod... 2. Early R32 GT-R's run very little caster & the different models carry different amounts (more on the later ones). Also GTS-T's are different to GT-R's, so please be careful when talking caster as it is model specific. The whiteline track setting for caster on an R32 R is only about 2 degrees (from memory). 3. Bump compliance should be about maintaining tyre adhesion, rather than avoiding suspension geometry issues. Unfortunately, in this case the caster needs to be reduced to prevent the top bush from shitting itself. Probably less of an issue with Whiteline rods as they have more compliance. My ride height of 350mm front should be enough to not to have to worry about it. 4. For my ten cents worth using upper arms with a sliding, bolted interface is a recipe for pain & suffering. I would hate to think what would have happened in my case if I had have been using such things. 5. The combination of a big yump (bump that goes down) in the right hand corner of one of the local tracks will pretty much always put the front suspension on the bump stop. Combined with a reasonable amount of lock & you have a heavily loaded suspension. So it would pay people to have a think about their local track & decide if their circumstance is similar. Less caster or a compliance bush instead of a rose joint may be needed...

Up to you, but I wrecked the bush during the course of one track day. At $300 per kit plus fitting I can think of better ways of spending my money. Guess I am going to have to wind out some caster....

Have a look at the fun way in which the spindle (Vertical arm) has moved forward relative to the upper link - about 3mm. Apart from killing my caster adjustment it has barked the upper arm & squeezed the rear bush & ferked it. This is on the LHS ie the unloaded side at the track. Haven't had time to check the other side. How can I stop this from happenning again?

Count me in if you can do it for $100.

Unfortunately the easy things to remove tend to be at the wrong end of the car. GT-R's are front heavy & the spare wheel, HICAS rack, jack, rear seat are all at the wrong end. If you are looking to reduce weight the best gains are made not so much from the interior, but from uder the bonnet. So bin the air conditioning system. Dump the HICAS piping & solenoids. Generally chuck out anything that doesn't have a go fast function. Get a smaller battery, for instance. Also, don't forget the wheels & tyres. 17" rims & tyres will usually be lighter than their 18" equivalents. Savings in unsprung weight are pure, unalloyed gold.

Mine was number 42 in that event. I can't afford a fancy paint job (Or a Veilside spoiler), so it is just plain Jane white car. Doesn't even have a shopping list stuck on the side. can I claim it looks more like a race car when I remove the front number plate? The red, white & blue car belongs to Jamie Wholagan & his dad. Haven't seen it since Meelup last year when it lunched a gearbox. Should be at the next round in July (I think), so give us a yell if you are there. Be happy to talk rubbish about cars..........

From memory the year before last, ie 2004. It was before they instigated minimum weights for engine components & hurt the engine horsepower...

Good to see someone has finally posted a time for Wanneroo My short course time from last effort (Jan 2006) Car: R32 GT-R Power: 305rwhp Brakes: standard size slotted rotors Suspension: slightly lowered & with bulk understeer. Tyres: Bridgestone tyres Time 57.84 (In the dark - I am afraid of the dark...)

I'm from Western Australia (you know, the bit on the left), so I guess My preference counts for nothing...

Yeah, Nissan dominated through superior technology, just after Ford dominated with superior technology & BMW dominated with superior technology and so on. The GT-R is slower around Bathurst than a V8 - Murphy did a 2.06 a couple years back. It is more about the regulations than the inherent ability of the cars. Also, it is not about technology. The teams use any amount of technology: from their CNC milling machines, their Finite element analysis computer stress calculation systems, their data logging systems etc etc etc. To say that an engine is advanced because it has 4 valves per cyclinder is a phurphy. An FJ20 has 4 valves per cylinder - are you saying that is advanced? The point made at the time (And since) was that another manufacturer would bring relatively little to the series in terms of viewers/crowds/ money etc whereas a marked change in something as fundamental as engines would mean a massive cost & development burden to the remaining teams. That point is still valid today. To be honest how interested do you really think Toyota would be in V8 racing. forget NIssan & Mitsubishi, neither of them can afford it.

Allegedly! - the whole thing was investigated by the FIA & Toyota found guilty. They thoroughly deserved what they got. So you can probably drop the allegedly if you want. IMHO it was one of the most egregious examples of cheating you would ever come across.

2.

Bloke - it is an RB26, with a mechnical (ie not hydraulic) valve train. It's the valve train. They all do it. Be proud of what you have.

How quickly people forget... The driver in question was Denny Hulme. The 1967 Formula One Drivers Champion, amongst many other things.

Measure from the centre of the rim to the underside of the guard. Absolutely, unreservedly, yes. It is probably delicate because of a lack of rear end grip. Fixing the ride height will banish some of the -ve camber at the back end & better tyres will grip better to start with.

Hope that is not quite right. My car was imported in March of 2005 & is still in the compliance workshop...