Ant97GTR

Hell if Ben uses it - its good enough for me

thats good 'cause I use it!!! It was recommended by Meridian M/sports before I went to PI (high cornering speeds = more SBS) and as long as I warm the car up and don't give it stick till its properly warmed up the bottom end will stay intact.

I'm out for the overnight stay on Sat night Ash.......free preggie taxi

Hey Snowie.......heard all about the ol' SBS but is using Castrol Formula R 10-60W good or bad????

Thats some great work there Matt

Bruises......sorry Troy one of 'em might be mine from the little ATM shove hehehehe!! Ps I got your car on a bit of digi film from Sat night.....will figure out a way to get it to ya

As per most of the previous posts....GREAT WEEKEND LADS The track day was awesome (as you can tell from my tyres) and the company was even better.....big thanks to everyone who made it a great boyz (yes that includes you Bec!) weekend away Heres some pics from the track and Blaise - I have you on a snippit of digi film from Sat night if you want a copy!! PS Thanks goes to Al for the shots while I was on the track Tom/Dave/etc etc if you want the original hi-res versions just PM me with a suitable email address.

Ash.....Nah mate the crack was no where near the flange plates that connect to the block or the flange plate that connects to the turbo. The crack was close to where the pipe off cyl 3 mates into the common runner that lead to the turbo - but the crack actually ran along cyl3's exhuast pipe. check the crappy attached pic......

Troy.......Man it was a b@stard. Luckily it only snapped one bolt so not much drilling out to be done. B@stard part of it was that it was warped so that the studs were forced up against the edges of the holes in the manifold preventing it from being taken off the block. The diff was really apparent when I went to put the new one on....fitted straight up with the studs right in the centre of the holes. You are right about the warping happening at the centre of the manifold as the crack was in the pipe off cyl 3 and once the manifold was off the block it had warped in a concave shape. I usually do a slow lap outta the pits mainly putting heat into brakes etc - never thought about things like the exhaust manifold. Going against that is the fact that I'm running street rubber (more heat=less grip) so I tend to hit the gas straight after the out lap. Will go easier for the first couple of laps at Winton and see how I go....

Awww I was looking forward to having a ride in the dragon If you change your mind I'll still be up for a ride mate!!! Geez Troy your pulling out all the stops to go to as many vic track days as you can before heading off into the sunset You going for Tonys (WRX) record for the most track days in a year or what??!!!

Good one Nark ......better come to some of these track days to practice taking shots with these beasts

hahaha.........I would have thought so Nark but its not the only thing that would cause it. Maybe if a lot of people had this happen it could be an inherent fault in the design or something......All I know is it was an absolute b@stard of a thing to pull off the block 'cause it had warped sooooo much (and warped the heat shield 2). As for the shiney S/S one, if I had more time before the next track day I would have hunted an aftermarket one down but unfortunately I had to have the car back together ready for winton. Anyway managed to get my hands on a ported std item so should flow pretty well anyway. Ash....thanks for the suggestion but my car has an a'market ecu etc etc and only got dyno'd recently so I know shes not running lean. Do have the req'd free flowing exhaust which helps but I'm thinking maybe when my manifold was match ported they could've shaved too much off in that area which led it to crack.

Hey Guys, After the really hot track day at Phillip Island my car was sounding like it had a gasket leak on the exhaust side. Stripped her down this week only to find a cracked & severely warped exhaust manifold There was a 2 inch split/crack in cyl 3's manifold pipe and the metal was tinted blue suggesting some major heat. Anyone know if the heat was the major factor in this -or- is it more likely that the crack had been developing over time and the heat just made it worse??

.....and I bags a passenger session with Snowie (assuming he's allowed out of 2nd gear )

Yes slow13dude you are correct. The red 'S' grill was an optional extra when you bought a skyline new from the factory in Japan. I think Nismo made them for Nissan at the time.

Bec, Really sorry for the late notice but I need a bed for the winton weekend. My missus is a bit big to come with this time so its only me Thanks

Yeah Congrats Bass and welcome to the club

Snowie....I can highly recommend the Pentax Optio 555. There has been an updated model release called (I think) the Optio 750. Very easy to use, small and plenty of zoom for a compact.