samstain

next thing they will be fitting timed 'turbo boost' buttons for the drivers to use to pass (jet hopper style)... ah hang on wait, they already have. How long until they start sticking in jumps and shortcuts you would think it was a 6 year making this crap up.

I guess you can expect it to change a bit when they moved it from Nurburg to Spa moving that much tarmac without it breaking up would have been a bit difficult.

Doh, double post

Tidy complete & registered ones can be picked up for much less than the build cost though... and the real savings is in the running costs. Skyline + Spares + Trailer = 2000kg - which generally means dedicated tow rig etc - or at best you have to put up with a truck for a daily driver. Clubman + Spares + Trailer = as little as 750kg - so you can tow it with pretty much anything - or drive it there - even in full race spec the cops just give me a nod and 'cool car, on your way fella' before running off to flag down a Jap import to defect. 13 - 15" race tyres for a clubman cost half as much per corners as what you would be chucking on a skyline etc and last way longer. Likewise brakes - a fraction of the price and last for seasons rather than days. Fuel - Goes twice as far in a car half the weight.

Be warned, a manual is not certified to tow that much weight... no doubt it is just a warranty thing for people that abuse their clutch/gearbox, and has nothing to do with what it can actually handle as far as stability and stopping goes. But if the worst happens, you don't want your insurance company going 'oh, sorry, your car is clearly only allowed to tow 1200 kg (or what ever it is), no payout for you' Insurance companies can be assholes, I know a guy that ended up with a huge bill when his old shit box got hit by another car - and it was deemed his fault cause his backyard paint job was deemed to be the issue - not as easy to see as the original glossy paint apparently. You don't want to give them any outs.

If you want a road registered track car, perhaps look at a clubman... with a full cage perhaps. Its too hard for a cop to work out what is stock and what is not, so they generally don't have any trouble on the road - apart from the odd loud exhaust. There are plenty of them out there running SR20DET's etc that are sub 700kg and will do 0-100 in well under 4 seconds in road trim (mine is one of them). Though in all honesty a mildly tuned modern 2L NA is probably a better choice. Also because they are so light, a day at the track will cost you about 1/4 as much in fuel/brakes/tyres etc, you also don't need a big tow car capable of towing 200kg+, If it ends up more than 900kg on the trailer your doing something wrong.

I like your thinking, but no I don't think so... it is all very stock - just dealer fitted times such as a canopy and bull bar of some description from memory.

Make sure you take it for a test drive - on a flat 100 - 110k road. A guy here at work has the Triton version (diesel + auto) and it has a massive surge problem where it refuses to sit on 110... on a dead flat road, without moving your foot (or in cruise) it will hunt between 105 and 115. It has been back to Mitsubishi dozens of times over the last 2 years where they have swapped everything imaginable, including re-flashing the ECU with a custom program from MMC Japan... and then replacing it when they bricked it on one attempt. I think he is basically now at the stage where he has given up on it and is just waiting till it is due to be replaced. Apparently there was something strange about his combo from memory though, he appeared to get the motor from one series coupled to the GBox from a different series or something along those lines - not that it is actually changing gears when it happens.

^ True, alloy can be MIG welded, but generally only suitable for thick industrial type stuff. Requires alloy wire, pure argon rather than the more common argoshield and preferably pre-heating. For a job like this one, you would want to use a very skilled operator if it was to be MIG'ed or you could easily end up with an un-usable mess.

There are a few people on a clubbie forum I'm on that have imported and are in the process of registering clubmans from the UK, however they are ones they built/owned over there before coming out here, and they are doing it because they are 'attached' to it, not to save money I you want to get one here and are worried about the price the cheapest way is to just buy a used local one that is already registered, if you really want to build one, as silly as it sounds the best way is again to buy a finished & complied one, pull it apart and then put it back together. Recently in NSW itt has been virtually impossible to get one registered, but apparently its all about to change, the other states aren't as bad. I very nearly bought a Ultra Car a couple years back, but we were about to start a family and didn't have the time or room to build it, so ended up with a registered SR20DET Puma. I just wish I had the time to drive it more. Although the power is crazy, and I'm yet to find a car that will beat it in a straight line... I sometimes wish it was a NA as the way it delivers its power doesn't always make it fun (or even possible) to drive to its limits.

Was that a kers battery pack going up in the lotus? looked very much like what happens when high energy battery packs goes thermo.

Doh - Delete......same vid as above

small trucks (under 4.5T from memory) can be driven on a standard car license - and that doesn't include the trailer... so you can actually drive a light truck with one car on the back, and other on a car trailer behind. The problem with hiring is you might find it hard to find one you can actually get your car on the back - generally they have to be customized with a beaver tail and ramps that go down to your trailer like this...

^^ An auto falcon will do it fine - and all legally as long as you fit the heavy duty tow bar. It helps if you have your own trailer, as you can keep it in much better condition than a hire one, get the balance consistent, and they can generally be built a few hundred kg lighter. Hire trailers are generally only rated at 1990kg, and often weight 700kg+ empty, so 1300kg is as much as you can actually carry on them. 50% of the time though you will see an 1800kg falcon/commodore/magna/SUV on them which is illegal. I have even seen some idiot try and tow his rodeo on one down the southern expressway behind his Magna - though at the time he was jack-knifed off the side of the road with the magna half way up the embankment of the underpass, so I guess he learnt his lesson..... If you get your own trailer you can generally aim for 550kg or so empty, a stripped out 180 is often more like 1100kg so you will be doing it easy, even with a spare wheel rack and a tool box you can keep the trailer under 2000kg all up - if you have a stock R32 you may have to loose the rack and or put spares in the boot of the tow car, but you should still be able to keep it under 2000kg - there are different braking requirements for the trailer once you go over 2000kg. As for the safety of it all.... get the balance point right, make sure the trailer its in good condition (brakes are working, tyres in good condition - preferably light truck ones not retreads, axles are straight) and it should happily tow at 100k's no problem. The only other thing is perhaps look at some better springs/shocks in the back of the tow car so that you can put a decent ball weight on it without it dragging its arse.

Exactly, the reason you see a lot of X-trails towing is they are about the cheapest new car you can get that is some what practical as a daily driver and tow car - not many people these days have room to store a daily driver (or 3 for the wife and kids) + tow car + race car + trailer, and the only other option in that price range is a poverty pack falcon/commodore which aren't as practicle in town if you have a few kids and the dog on board. Yes they are very underpowered (which is why I spent 10k more for a Grand Vitara) but if you are only towing your car 50k's to the nearest track 4 times a year it managable. And if you think they are underpowered, one of our old farm trucks is regstered to tow a 24T trailer (about 36T combo), and it would barely have as much power as the X-trail, though being diesel its happy to pump out all of its 120 odd kW 24/7 rather than for 10 seconds at a time. Towing capacities come down to chassis strength, braking capability, and the strength of the driveline. Even though a manual commodore/falcon only has 2/3rds the towing capacity of the auto verison, they should be just as safe towing. Its simply comes down to the fact they don't want a heap of warrantly claims from drivers that don't know how to tow with a manual car, so they de-rate their capacity. Interestingly my insurance says if you overload your car and are involved in an accident they will only not pay out if the overloading was a contributing factor - though im not keen to try this out so ill stick to towing legally with my 2000kg rated car.

apart from the fact that a manual cant legally tow more than 1600kg, it would probably do quite a good job.... good luck with your insurance though if anything goes wrong - unless you have a very light race car and trailer?

Not really going to help your case, but I got seriously lucky getting my driving shoes.... Having size 14 to 15 feet I have always had trouble getting anything to fit - I have basically had to wear Converse one stars pretty much every day for the last 9 years as they are the only things slim enough to allow me to do my daily driving comfortably in the s14. Anyway, about 4 years ago I as going through a market in Shekou (China) and pretty much got dragged in to a shoe shop by one of the pushy street vendors. I thought it would be good for a laugh, and after sitting it there for a couple mintues while the 2 girls pretty much pulled the shop apart looking for something that had even a slim chance of fitting, they finally bought out a pair of blue swade things that I thought were some kind of running shoe. Being some what comfortable and all of about $15 I though I might as well grab them. When I got home I looked them up on the net and it turns out they are boras low cut racing shoes. I have been using them ever since and they have held up very well, so they probably came out the same factory as the originals, which at the time retailed for over $200

They aren't that old are they? half the 'new' track tyres you buy in aus are older build than 08. I drove on them a few months ago and they still had a massive amount of grip - combined with GTR brakes on the S15 the car had the best stopping power and feel of any car I have driven in a long time. 2k is a very good price, without contacts you couldn't replace the tyres for that much

In south australia its dead easy for standard trailers. We still have the full documentation on tow bar pull strength, side thrust strength etc. However for trailers under about 3T rating they basically do a lap of the trailer, check the lights work, reflectors are in the right place and nothing looks stupidly undersize or dodgy. Quite often they wont even check you springs & axles are correctly rated. If it all looks good you get signed off and away you go. It's only if its clearly made by an amature (dodgy welding is a clear give away), rusty, or if its a larger truck type trailer that they really start having a close look to confim everything is spot on.

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yeah that would be the easy way, but I think they have already decided that is out of the price range. With a bit of shopping around though I'm sure I would be able to pick up a resonable condition used light truck and set it up with a lifting device with change from 10k - depending on how rough your are prepared to go with the truck you could probably even do it for 5k. Either way it's less than most people pay for a enclosed trailer, let alone the $50k 4wd they are towing it with.

Whats your race car weigh? it should be pretty simple to make up some kind of lifting platform capable of getting it up from flat ground. I have made rescue equipment in the past for the RFDS - we has systems that would hang out the side of a pilatus door and lift 200kg of paitent and life support equipment. It was all counterleaverd off the head end of the patient (rather than lifting from underneath) and the whole thing was light enough to be carried around by one person...and powered by a cordless drill motor/gearbox. Also made a similar system that would lift a patient on a stretcher (horizontally) in to the back of a 737, through the galley down the aisle. You could even start with a coule of $150 lifting trolleys like this: The last one would easily go high enough to to get you straight in to the back of a 4.5T truck, it would just be a matter of syncronising a 3 of them with a deck between. If you wanted to get real fancy, the way most of the V8 super car truck work could easily be replicated using a few skateboard wheels, an "I" beam running up the rear corners of the truck body, a pivoting tailgate and an electric winch. I would have to draw it to explain it but its all doable for probably under $2000. Simplest way of doing it is probably something like this - pivot it in rather than slide it up. Only really has one moving part like a skip bin truck, but use an electric winch rather than hydraulics.

I wouldn't be bothering to drive it up, buy a truck with a lifting gate... you should be able to find something that can handle a 600kg race car quite comfortably - even if you have to drive it on sideways then pivot it to reduce the overhang as it lifts.... Or since you have a roll bar, you could swing it up like a skip dump truck, woudn't even need hydraultics, an electric winch would safely swing it up and over. A mate of mine set up a 2 car transporter for about 4k... bought a 4.5T ex courier truck for under 3k, cut the lifting gate off it and sold that for about 1k and bever tailed the bed. He then built a standard tandem car trailer to go behind it for 2k. Ramps on the back of the truck bed drop down on to the tipping trailer and the whole thing becomes one long smooth ramp to get the car up on the truck. Once its up there fold the truck ramps up, then drive a second car on the trailer. He drives his very low kitted S15 drift car straight up with no problem.

Doing a quick search I can't find the acutal legislation... but im pretty confident that's the case. These days basically anything that touches a public road must be registered. Technically reversing a race car off your trailer when its parked out the front of your house to drive it in your driveway is illegal - if your doing it carefully and quitely im sure the cop's would generally turn a blind eye, but if you happen to run over someone or get hit by someone in the process you would be screwed. There was also the case locally where a group of guys were pushing a stripped out race shell (no driveline or interior) 50m down the road in an industrial area from the body shop to the mechanics... the guy holding the steering wheel got done for driving without a licence and driving and ungegistered vehicle... If you can get done for that I would imagine towing such a vehicle down a road at highway speeds could be an issue... Before buying one I would want to get it in writing from your insurance company that you are going to be covered while using it - however generally they will just say that as long as you are doing everything legally you will be covered... and good luck getting anything in writing from the RTA as no one there wants to put their name to anything.

that would be an average speed of over 350km/hr.... Some how I don't think that would be happening