djr81

The following sites have some info on the Wilwood range: http://www.wilwood.com/Products/001-Calipe...0-SL6/index.asp and also the Hispec range: www.hispecmotorsport.co.uk Brembo stuff is here: http://www.hrpworld.com/index.cfm?form_pro...&action=product I couldn't find the pad sizes used by Endless, but if it is race track cred you are after Larry Perkins used to use them at Bathurst to go the whole race without a pad change. That is pretty much the 4 (5) suppliers that come to mind. I too have a predilection for Japanese gear - it always is supplied with all the bits you need & is engineered beautifully. Just gives the wallet a hell of a pounding at times. I have formed the opinion that (on 17" rims) the R33 rotors (ie 324mm x 30 front) with either a 4 or 6 pot front caliper and a pad size of 132mm long or larger. This would give braking at about 25% over and above the stock (R32) set up - providing it is matched correctly to the rears. I struggle to generate one gee under brakes - even with the motor doing its best to help. To be honest I am getting sick of being hosed by Westfields and the like. Also I don't want to bolt up all the bling for my engine till I can figure out how to stop it properly.

$500 for fronts & rears is good buying, well done. Do you have a working temp range/friction coefficient? Good stuff. Please let us know how you get on. I am in the throes of working out which way to jump on a brake upgrade (hence all the stupid questions). Many people over here in WA use the Wilwood calipers, but I am not sure about the lack of dust sealing. Also there are a number of different types/sizes of Brembos being used with various degrees of success. Not sure I have seen a GT-R running Endless over this way. Getting reliable information in WA (let alone country WA) is bloody difficult. Reading the last issue of Zoom they referred to the Hispec range of calipers which look to be a good thing. Can't comment on pricing however. Not sure why RaceBrakes seem to be pushing AP aswell.

Cheers for that. What it means is that there is little to no diference in the actual pad sizes between the Brembo calipers & the Nissan versions. The gain in braking performance is mostly due to the increase in rotor size. The after market vendors usually use the pad length (Eg 114mm, 127mm etc) to help identify the caliper type. They also use the width of the rotor & number of pots as key indicators of the sizing/performance. As an aside if you buy pads out of Racebrakes half the time they send them out with backing plates off a Supra.

Which lock kit did you get? If it was the Tomei one you disconnect the solenoid valve which (I surmise) stops fluid being pumped tot he rear steering rack in any case.

Sounds like a yes to both questions then. It makes sense that increasing the front brake torque without changing the rears will lead to an imbalance. (Pad temperatures aside). It is just that I have seen a number of people offering brackets to allow the front calipers to fit up to a larger rotor & no one has complained about suddenly locking fronts - so I thought it best to ask. In any case the cycle rate of the R32's ABS is so slow that I wouldn't trust it to unlock the brakes in time... Can I take it then that to accomodate a larger piston area the bore of the master cylinder will have to increase with a proportional increase in pedal pressure?

The pad I measured was from the R32 GT-R with Nissan calipers - as I said 114mm in length. Most of the aftermarket calipers suit a range of different pad sizes, anywhere from 114 at the lower end to 152mm. I was trying to identify what size pad went with the R33 Brembos so as to make a comparison on braking torque due to the pads rather than due to the rotor size. "it is actually the piston sizes in the caliper that will make the difference." - hence the question - does the master cylinder need fiddling with when converting, say a six pot caliper?

Question for those running Brembo's and/or aftermarket brakes on their GT-R's The stock R32 front pads measure 114mm in length. What size are those to suit the R33's? Also for anyone having modified their car away from the standard Nissan calipers two questions: Did you have to make any mods to the master cylinder to compensate for larger/more numerous pistons in the calipers ie to ensure you still had a proper pedal over the range of the brake application. Did you make any mods to maintain the front/rear brake bias - this is particularly aimed at people who are using a larger front rotor.

An open face helmet will be fine if that is what you want. I use an open face Arai because I get claustrophobic in a full face helmet. It should be to the relevant Australian Standard (or an FIA standard such as SA2000 or just recently SA2005). See schedule D of the CAMS manual for a full listing. They don't have to be very expensive, but remember cheaper usually means heavier & in an accident heavier means more damage to your head. Depending on how serious the event is you may need such things as a level 2S CAMS license. No big drama. Most important thing to remember is - HAVE FUN. Most people suck really badly when they first start - it is only by practising that you get better. Look after your car - particularly your brakes & if others are coming to overtake you stick to you line & allow them to go around. It works much better that way. So enjoy yourself, talk to your fellow competitors & if possible follow someone around the track who has been there before and knows which lines to take through the corners.

Most of the cars running in the Speedeventseries use R compounds. There is just about every type of car entered - the only notable absentees tend to be FPV & HSV's. Point is that it is a great way to get you & your road car involved in competition. Having said that Gary Wests' F4000 Lola wasn't on R compounds - he used slicks to break both course records. How does 46.44 seconds for the short course & 52.26 for the long course sound?

No that is for the clutch booster. The power steering reservoir is next to the air filter box in the engine bay.

Don't fret too much about the slight tick in the engine. All RB26's do this - it is because they have a mechanical (ie shimmed not hydraulic) valve train.

Um, it was Scott's first go & he was running on road tyres. Not sure about four seconds, but R compounds certainly do help your lap speed. Point is to go out and have fun. The SES mob are as friendly, interested & helpful bunch of people as you will come across. So get involved!

Just by way of comparison (& maybe to give some people an aiming point) have a look at the following times from the speedeventseries held at Wanneroo in December last year. There are times available for both the short & the long circuits. http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results....03/12/2005.BARB There is a four wheel drive class as well a heap of others. If anyone has been bitten by the motor racing bug the next event is at Wanneroo on the short course in February.... The calender is on www.speedeventseries.com For one, I wouldn't mind the company. There were only three GT-R's there last time which itself was an improvement... Just remember, you don't get faster sitting at home on the play station.

Look at it this way - the stock oil temp gauge on a GT-R is in the range of about 70 degrees to 150. If you are just cruising along it settles at about 90 degrees. So you would infer that 90 degrees is a good aim point for the oil temp.

Dan, This may be a bit of a long(ish) shot, but from memory the front diff has a breather attached. I think (From memory, again) that the end of the breather pipe bolts up to the underside of the induction manifold. If you can find this & trace it, it may be possible to get some fluid into the diff via the breather. Just a thought. Richard

Even though it is not transmitting power, the diff is still going round. So if there is no oil in it, there is still a large likelihood of it going bang.

Front diff (like the back one) is not connected to the ATTESSA reservoir. It doesn't have one at all. If you are hacing probs with the 4WD system check the error codes on the module under the parcel shelf.

The pineapples are an addition to the silicone bushes. You don't actually replace the bushes, just fit the pineapples over the outside. I only know this because I had to ask the same question the other week. It is a pretty simple job.

Brett, Quick question: are you using the short track or the long track. Just that I have never driven on the long track at night. The exit of Shell & Kolb would be interesting in the dark...

For anyone looking for these explanations (& alot more) the best starting point is the Garrett website www.turbobygarrett.com The site has a number of tutorials that leads you through the nomenclature of the various bits of the turbo & better still helps explain the effects of having, say, a larger A/R on the compressor wheel.

A couple quick things: Think of a corner as something you take in four parts 1. Brake. 2. Turn in. 3. Mid corner - 0% TPS or close 4. Corner exit. The only part of the corner that the anti squat characteristic has an large impact is in the last bit, ie power down. It wont make any real difference in parts 2 or 3 & only marginally in part 1 (Anti dive takes care of part 1) Data logger is just a 3D GTECH RR using an exported csv excel file. Highly recommend one for I think about $500. It is probably worth the exercise of sitting your car in the drive way & then applying say a quarter of lock of steering. This will give you a bit of an idea as to how much (or how little) the caster affects the camber. The result may suprise you. Best bit is it costs nothing.

Fair point about it being viewed as a whole. I guess I was trying to break it into more discrete lumps to help explain things. From trying to set up my car I have found that the caster angle needs to be set up before the camber - because adjusting the caster changes the camber, but not the other way around. Thats with rods, not bushes, but we don't need to go there. What I would happily kill for is a model of the front end of a Skyline that allows you to determine the total -ve camber over a range of conditions and settings.(ie the combined effects of caster, camber, body roll & everything else). Can't ever see this happenning, however. From peddling my 32 I have found that it is not worth trading more +ve caster for less -ve camber - atleast on an R32 this tends to make the front end grip go away. However as the 32's run much less caster in the first place it isn't necessarily apples with apples. I don't claim to understand the tyre wear issue for 33's either. For me I have found that unless you are bagging the rears the fronts will wear more quickly. On the track and on a road/race compromise set up mostly the wear is to the outside of the tread face (for both R compounds & road tyres). Because of this reason I am happy to run -ve camber to deal with front end grip and worry less about wear on the inner edge of the tyre. Also, if you have standard rotors/calipers it is difficult to consistently lock anything up on the track - making the degredation in straight line grip due to -ve camber less of an issue than it may be (more so for R compounds than roadies) Have a look at the data log screen dump of a nothing burger lap of Wanneroo. You can see that the lateral gees (green) is much more than than the longitudinal (red) gees. (Blue is the rpm which needs recalibrating). Point is the brakes cannot generate as many gees as the tyres can handle - so the compromise is then weighted towards making the thing corner. The fact that I need some bigger brakes is a whole other issue. Just what I have found to try to illustrate a different compromise for a different car.

If it is traction you are after then you will be needing the rear to squat. Squat/anti squat & anti dive (for the front end) is not a first order issue when it comes to cornering. Best not to worry too much about it in relation to this issue. But (Always is one) if your setup is prone to power on understeer introducing more rear weight transfer (ie more squat) will exacerbate this problem. Fitting pineapples is neither hard to do yourself nor too expensive to get someone else to do it for you. May be best to put them in the neutral position first & then make a judgement call, rather than pre empt it at this stage (Just my humble opinion) As for the camber/caster issue. I found that when doing a wheel alignment on my car (an R32GT-R) that introducing more caster via the caster rods reduced the amount of static camber the tyre had. So I would expect similar for your car. Of the two (Caster/camber) the camber you are running is more important. Castor only has an impact (a beneficial one) when steering lock is applied, ie you get more -ve camber by running more +ve caster but only when you turn the wheel. Most cars (I assume for R33's) have some degree of camber adjustment - so you should be able to get atleast some without bushes. Having said that & if you have to make a choice I would recommend some camber bushes in preference to the castor bushes. Both is better again.

To answer these in the wrong order... Don't use a shifter - if you want to do it this way get yourself a set of wide nosed multigrips. They lock in place making it much less likely you will damage your car or yourself. The blokes at the pits don't really care about the rocker panels (Technical term), but can get a little worried about bent up chassis rails. They also get a bit concerned with signs of rust in the rails & particlarly if they have been bent & refilled with any sort of body filler.

It is quite easy to compare prices for gear between Nengun & Greenline. Obviously then you go to whomever is cheapest as both have a good reputation. Not rocket science, really. For the stuff I ordered Nengun happenned to be cheaper. I recently ordered a few grands worth of gear through Nengun & it all arrived - the only slow stuff was because there was no stock with the suppliers. It arrived without customs duty - possibly something to do with the way it was marked up on the packaging...