Snowman

Prologue forecast - windy with showers - 16C. Sounds like a great day for standing around watching everyone.... Can't wait to see what the next few days will look like!

You know the sad thing is yesterday I was diagnosed with a hiatis hernia so I almost might have to start becoming a health freak. Mind you they say one of the biggest killers for me is coffee and I'm not giving that up for anything! LOL That's along with spicy food, fatty food and alcohol - which means if I was to take all of them out of my current diet I'd be left with just the water I drink each morning in the shower. Anyways - will worry about all of that AFTER I get back from my week of fun.

If you want to track it I say go for it. It has a good engine and turbo's already that can stay for a great track/street set-up so you are ahead already. So what if it's a NUR - they really aren't that amazing over a V Spec II other than the numbers of them so if it's a known good car then I'd say thats a great place to start for a track toy. For parts #1 you need is an oil coolers (I know the N1's got one but not sure about the NUR's? If not get one 1st with a remote filter point). From there an exhaust, cam gears, nismo clutch and Power FC. With good tyres and some decent skill thats going to be a low 1.20 Sandown, sub 1.50 PI car right there. Brakes and shocks will improve the feel of the car and give you more confidence if not a massive drops in time - but good shocks will improve even your street driving feel (stock R34 shocks are pretty harsh). But keep things like the stock air box (upgrade the filter), fuel pump, intercooler and injectors as they don't need to change and will keep the car looking stock.

Oh man - I'll miss Targa Fest - all these secret things I didn't know about! Oh wells - still pumped for the coming weekend. Friday can't come fast enough.

I've put my Tom Tom in the same place as Jeff - it also means I can now have the GPS on and still see the MFD functions. It's no big deal. The car as a car is amazing and I can live without a built in Sat Nav, auto headlights (I just leave mine on as they switch off as soon as the car is off), auto wipers and an SD card slot. I will try and get an iPod hooked up but if I can't I can live with playing MP3 cd's. Anyone who needs the above things doesn't get what this car is about so really shouldn't buy one anyways as it's the wrong car for you.

Whilst you are pulling the car apart see what's involved in hooking up an iPod to one of the ADM ones too

The Webber pitting 1st thing though was most likely a pit wall call based upon the best possible scinero of getting a team win. It's not the first time thats happened - I remember a few races where teams clearly stated that pit strattergy would go to whom-ever was in front at the 1st corner before. It does seem slightly harsh though given the lighter fuel load gave Vettel a better crack at pole but you can't blame the team for doing it. But there is no doubt this is Webbers best year ever to have a chance at that 1st win and I can see the team will help him get it now that they have one. The car looked good in both wet and dry and in theory can only improve on the Brawns. Utter fail on the call at the start for Alonso though. I was watching the early lap times and it was something like 5 laps from when the safety car came in before Webber in 2nd had enough of a lead to pit and fit back in the top 10 (based upon 30s which seemed about average) so surely Alonso had 5 laps of fuel. 10th at the end of lap 5 would have been a whole lot better than 20th.

Changing front diff's is a tunt of a job too!

I'm sure it's not the 1st and it won't be the last. These things generate speed so effortlessly and I'm sure there are going to be plenty of owners who have no idea about cars but think the car will do it all for them. My first thoughts when driving one was - plenty of people will hurt themselves in one of these!

Argh! I thought this was on the 16th. I can't make the 23rd The R35 DECA debut will have to wait.

The Willall Racing one I posted is made locally and it's very good. (I have one) PM Martin Donnon (he has posted a few spots up in this thread) for details.

If you are doing 2 days with the same guys as me my 100% advice on cars would be 1st the Golf, then the 135i. If I go back again it will be in the Golf - they are amazingly good around that track and the DSG just means one less thing to think about on your 1st day there (rather than thinking about the whole gear-shift on the wrong side of the car thing). When I go back next year I'll be getting the Golf (unless they have a GT-R by then! ) But the 135i is fun. Short wheel base so its much more twitchy than the M3's I've driven so it keeps you on your toes.

Don't read too much into the pre-season testing times for these cars. I have a mate that works for the Jet Alliance GT1 team (Aston DB9R's) and I remember him telling me that the governing body uses the testing times to try and even out the field by giving extra ballast etc to the fast teams. So as a consequence they used to do all of their pre-season testing on 5 year old slicks that were half useless to make themselves look slow. Actually I just remembered they did it by determining the size of the restrictors they all had to run.

2nd hand V8 Supercar rotors

Yeah I'm not going to upset Nissan just yet. They have been nice to me so far and I'm also trying to get them to give me a 370Z for Dutton NSW this year, and maybe do some more in the future so whilst I'm working on all of that I won't be shitting on them (but usually I'm first in line for a good shit!).

Has anyone priced up aftermarket pads/rotors etc yet? My initial enquiries are around $5.5K for Alcon Rotors with Endless pads all round. Better than the $10K stock set-up but I'm used to paying $50ea for my R34 rotors so its still quite a shock to me to this stage! LOL

Spending $800 and 15mins of your time fixes the sound issue in the R35's though! eg - http://videos.streetfire.net/video/GTR-R35...e-vs_185167.htm (good comparison between stock v midpipe swap) or - http://www.viddler.com/explore/GTRBlog/videos/63/

I went April 6th last year. Sure it was wet for most of it but it was open all day and I did all the laps I wanted. But then a week earlier the whole thing was covered in snow so it is a risk. I'll (hopefully) be back around the same time next year

Yep - he was the only guy in the field that couldnt even start propperly back when all the cars had LC! LOL

Hey Sav - what tyres were you running last year can I ask? I was just watching your Sideling vid from last year and they were shagged by the end of that stage!

This is Brisby - he's a complusive buyer of parts for that car. Only 5% ever actually end up on the car but he buys parts left, right and centre anyways. I think he had 11 different brake set-ups at one stage there! Oh - and Sat night BBQ sounds good for me too. Will give you a buzz Sat arvo or something Benny to confirm it.

The closest things I've driven are the 911T and the Audi R8 and I rate the GT-R above them both as a complete package.

I was out driving last night on some "C" Grade twisties (so nothing special) and I actually started to think that maybe this car is just too fast for it's own good. The car was able to do those roads as easily as driving down a freeway and the only way you could make them fun would be to do speeds that would see you in jail should you get caught! LOL My car is my daily - I have a 15km drive to work each day that is over 50% on a freeway and dead easy to do and its been actually a nicer car to do that drive in than my old WRX simply because I can put it into Auto if there is traffic (I generally drive in manual too), and despite that behind the wheel is a nice place to be. It is a nice car to just drive around IMO. But it is going to be like owning a sports bike. You are going to need to make an effort to find some A grade roads to challenge the car if you are going to really appreciate it. I can't wait to get down to Tassie next week as I think that will be the biggest challenge I can give it to see if it is worth having as just a road car.

Ah right - lucky! I was going to say if this was a common issue then SURELY there would be a recall on all DB9's!

Thats the 2nd DB9 I've now seen do that! From what I remember about the 1st one getting it fixed is not an easy job.