Birds

Can't say I've met a self employed person or CEO with a great work life balance - not that they would agree with me. But I think to succeed at either of those you need to devote so much of your life to it that you essentially lose who/what you were. I'm sure exceptions exist, but from what I've seen, most corporate ladder climbers and entrepreneurs who stay in the game long enough become more defined by their work life than what they do outside of work. Who needs more than 300k a year? Their living standards, peers, personality, goals and definition of success evolve over time at the cost of friendships, family and recreation. Too much becomes never enough - see/seen so many in a position to retire early or easily work part time but they never step back to this or, after attempting to, fail and return, because they've spent too long in the mindset of doing everything to further their careers or build their business/baby - institutionalised. These people have families and yet on a Monday morning you'll find emails from them at 8PM on a Sunday night. I know a 50 year old with 20 mil to his name who tried to retire and couldn't handle it. As long as they are happy I guess...but are they? Props to those who love their work and are happy doing the 9-5 or whatever they do. I think perfect work/life balance lies somewhere around 50/50, as you do need lows to balance highs. But 5+2 is a shit deal IMO. Life was amazing when I was doing 4+3 - it's not just one extra day of recreation, but one day less of work. Worth the pay difference. Difficult to find a job that supports that and pays well, though - living standards have evolved to suit. Oops...

$200 The bottom end build to install them though...

Anyone used/using Nankang NS2Rs? Already thinking of next tyres for the GTST. RSRRs have served me well and were great value when new, but starting to lose their grip under power. Plenty of life left in them for regular driving but they're still noisy as fk and that's only an acceptable trade off if you're getting grip.

Rip apart the block and replace the piston rings the previous owner fried

Have you been to Melbourne? We were getting Chinese'd decades ago! In fact...the eureka stockade...

You lot bring it on yourselves with your 1 year stints / resume gaps and passive aggressive emails

Guessing Leigh's boss found out about him cuttin lunch with their supplier

I'm 1/8th Chinese so I guess 12% of my time can be spent self loathing the modern practices of my ancestry Problem is, being such materially driven creatures ourselves, everyone else is happy to sell to the Chinese for short term material gain over long term security...including our own government.

Many of us could buy amazing cars if we'd saved our money up over the years instead of spending it on modifications, but then there's no enjoyment in the meantime and that's what car enthusiasm is about - not just the end product but watching something grow. It's like kid. And you can get to the end of it and say damn I wasted a lot of money or you can remember that you enjoyed yourself over those years and kept yourself entertained doing something you love. So I consider the cash spent a write off from the start. It's definitely one of the more expensive passions in life, but a passion nonetheless and no way was I going to waste all my years driving something boring whilst saving for something impressive Don't agree with what OP has done but at least he's happy!

Do they make you get a med cert? My workplace never bother with it I always thought of them as pointless when they can be obtained so easily. My opinion is if you're well enough to get a med cert then you're probably well enough for work. If you're too sick to work, why make you do the unrestful thing and go out to get a med cert?

My garage has an unsealed concrete floor but there are LMGT4s on the shelf Choices

I managed to achieve both at once...but it hasn't been easy haha. One definitely affected the other. Also lamenting the days when I only had to pay one rego/insurance

I'd rather they stay out of our housing market, but don't mind them snatching up our cars. That being said...I thought the Chinese weren't the biggest fans of Japanese or Japanese paraphernalia

From memory the transfer case design had something to do with it; creating more pressure on third. In weak gearboxes, 2nd is usually the most likely to blow because we spend the most time in it and it's the "thrash" gear. Variety of other reasons for third to go in a GTR/GTS-T box, including: - lower boost in 1st gear (at least on factory vehicles) - second more likely to wheelspin than third (wheelspin protects the cog itself, but not the gearbox bearings!) - physically smaller cog on third than 1st and 2nd - taller ratio with more rolling and air resistance at higher speeds - as above, longer time opportunity to exert pressure/forces on cog - 4th gear would probably do the same if it wasn't a simple locking of input shaft to output shaft (creating the 1:1 ratio) For reasons above, 5th and 6th overdrive are the gears most likely to blow when towing, which is why you always tow heavy loads in 4th. Incredibly rare to blow 4th in a gearbox because it would take forces capable of snapping the input or output shaft itself.

Not as many since we signed that petition to stop them parading up and down our street so often

Props for giving this a go This is the stuff that people usually only imagine or talk about on paper, but never actually do it just to see what would happen...because it seems crazy and pointless, so you never actually find out what would happen. And for that reason, this is cool. I'd have been interested to see what an RD28 would do, as it is a more squared off stroke and revs higher than most Diesel engines (based on the RB family anyway) - probably more suitable to the Skyline diffs. But fk it, this is more interesting because it makes less sense. Speaking of - what are you doing about gear ratios being short or does the Navara box take care of it? Wish I had the crazy creativity and motivation to do stuff like this...

Third gear is the weakest part of the box, but more common for it to go in GTRs.

You can save a fair bit of money by going to the depot to pick up the car yourself and/or getting the seller to drop it off at the depot on their end. Make sure that ride height clears 12-15cm, as some freight companies will not accept vehicles that are too low. Horror story of transporting my 33R from Canberra to Melbourne - I flew in to purchase the car and had booked to fly back home later in the arvo. Long story short, the depot knocked back the car cause it was 10cm off the ground. So I was outside a mechanical workshop 1.5 hours before my flight was due to depart, painfully tapping coilovers with a hammer and screwdriver trying desperately to raise it, overinflating the tyres and eventually ripping off the front lip so that the car would clear 15cm and the depot would take it. I had to leave the lip at the workshop in Canberra cause I wasn't allowed to put any objects in the car for transport. Didn't know what they were worth at the time...lucky it was a slightly damaged one...

They are the factory wheels haha...

Odd seeing international lookalikes on Maybachs

From your pictures of an incomplete build I can tell that the setup is going to work perfectly and that there is nothing wrong

lol @ the cars in order of what they'd like to own...how times change...would be completely reversed these days.

I have heaps of street knowledge but street knowledge comes at street prices...you prepared to pay that homie? Roll racing is in my blood...my father was a baker and his father was a baker. My friend who also has a lot of street knowledge agrees the R33 is always faster, so you should go with that one. Do not forget to strengthen the welds on the intake or you'll be ripping apart the block in no time and replacing piston rings.

Strengthened gearset put in existing box, e.g. OSGiken, PAR or PPG. Do some research though, as there are issues with certain brands and I've also heard of breakages with all of them. But they will certainly be stronger than the standard gearset. You can get these in dog engagement or synchro and straight cut or helical. Recommend synchro and helical for street car. You may realistically only need the first three gears as 4th won't break and 5th is for cruising. The gearset alone can be anywhere from 3k - 7k (been a while since I've tried to source one) and you'll need to recondition the gearbox it's going into, so budget another $1200-$1500 on top of that. Keep an eye out, second hand strengthened boxes pop up from time to time. This is where power starts getting expensive