Kinkstaah

I also don't mean to rain on your parade. But with a 5-10k budget for road only? I'd want to check confirmation that everything IS working correctly and I'm with @GTSBoy for a plan of action here. I'd be checking subframes, bushes, exhaust hangers, interior bits and generally QOL things and CONFIRMING they are working right before thinking about motor. You can get 250KW+ on stock RB26 hardware by simply removing the built in restrictors and tuning the stock ECU. If you want purity that's as far to take it, which I would be worried to do and won't think the budget would allow for when earnestly checking for 30+ year old car stuff.

I specifically said buy new performance car because of the use case here (i.e, no track use and fun livable everything/do it all easily if not especially amazing as a drivers car). Tracking an 80K Skyline and an 80K M2 makes the BMW the obviously more risky purchase WHEN something goes wrong you suddenly can't easily fix it with hand tools and readily available parts that you may have a community of people you know available, or years of your own knowledge on the platform to apply. There's reasons you see Hondas and Vettes and RB's and Miatas and such at tracks, you can easily hand-tool repair 99.9% of it in a shed, usually with the tools and the skillset of the owner to apply to it. An i30N is not going to beat a R chassis unless it's got massive problems either. The old cars can, and still do work great. The problem is - and always has been - social media would have you believe it's simple and easy to achieve the results you see online. People want their car to be like "one of those cool JDM cars" which is the default image people have when they think of "cool JDM cars" You are paying 25 years of catchup R&D to achieve. Or the knowledge somebody else has to do it for you, which is big dollar restomod stuff. The bar has been moved and every R chassis that people see/like/enjoy has 25 years of R&D thrown at it, or is owned by someone who did all that work and has that knowledge over the past 25 years. All the survivors have been progressively resto-modded the entire time. OR you slowly bring it back to how it was stock. Which is also prohibitively expensive, done for the love of it. This is what the JDM community is now. This is fine, but "Where do I start?" is either: 1) Don't 2) Take your own slow journey but you cannot compare your progress with others who have had 25 years of R&D and experience building their own cars unless you pay for it.

I've already gone over the cam. A new one is going in. An old one is coming out! The new one is smaller, with less overlap. It has way more lift, but it will be more mild mannered (hopefully, probably very minorly) I'm also measuring for two more mufflers, with the goal of having four mufflers in my car. But that probably will be done by an exhaust shop in a drive in, measure, buy parts, install parts later kind of deal.

GTSBoy is again on the money. My actual advice? Sell the car. (really). For what it's worth as is, you can sidegrade into something much better. If you care about function then this is the actual move. If you want a Skyline to perform, set aside about $100K to do it. This is NOT a typo. You will see right away these are two very different mindsets. Realistically we're talking full restomod for any Skyline still kicking around. Have an honest think about which one you are.. and what you want to do, and how much you want to invest in this (with no return).

I promise there will be no chance of replacing the rad support.... It is barely twisted and it's way more likely to just be driven around with a slightly twisty support. As long as the headlight can be bolted in there then no harm no foul lol. The reo may need to be un-bent a little but truth be told if it all somewhat lines up and is hidden when the car is assembled the level of f**ks will be 0.0

Sorry, that was with regards to the rather pretzeled corner of the reo bar. It's in such a state over the years that drilling a hole is probably preferable to bothering to unbolt the thing

Yea the photos aren't the best. When I was pulling the bumper and headlights out there was a bodyshop guy looking on for it, there is a slight bend behind where the passenger headlight is, but we're talking a few MM and there is a little bit of a bend for the reo. That said it's supposedly well within the "Drill a hole in it and pull it out with a slide hammer to be close enough" and be on our way. The other option is to buy a GTR reo for the GTR bumper bits but this is a $2000+ fix for something Mr Hammer can probably do 99% of the job for and everything will/can line up pretty closely-to-good-enough.

Welp, things are coming apart. The bending was both not as bad and maybe a bit worse than I was guessing. I'm told this will bend out pretty easily. That said, it hasn't been bent out yet :p. The guard itself also needs a bit of tap tap love but as you can probably surmise, pulling the motor is the other thing going on. Yes I'm very silly, i've completed multiple problem-free track day (other than my driving off the track) on a 40C day multiple times doing 80+ laps a day, to and from the track, and to reward this excellent service I'm pulling the engine out to tinker with it. Or I'm standing by to look/learn/not mess up/pay someone money to do it correctly, I'm not that crazy. More disassembly tonight, and then re-assemble with very expensive fresh new bits to make ~3kw more and be... more reliable? Yes, I've questioned the logic of upgrading valvetrain pieces for better high RPM stability and reliability on a motor which doesn't seem to have those problems to begin with in any practical sense from my experience/what I use it for, thank you.

That's the thing, they still add it and it makes fuel cheaper, implying adding 10% of it drops the cost of 91 by what, 5c a liter? I remember when it was barely half the price of 98. Because you know, 85% of what is in the fuel is way cheaper than 91 fuel is by volume.

I'm not sure they came in different hardnesses? Going from memory only - I had set them up in the balanced setup. I also have poly bushes, so I have both poly bushes and pineapples. This is what my memory tells me at least. I'll have to take a look under there to be sure. The tramp was so bad that I managed to eject/kill a diff bushing, so those I know are stock. The tramp is bad enough that you are 200% sure you are doing severe damage to the car. It's not just chirping or vibration, it feels like you're hitting a speed hump/kerb 10 times a second. The issue has persisted between subframes! (I went from Hicas to non hicas subframe and replaced every bush a few years ago now) so I'm entirely lost. Every arm is factory.

As someone who has pineapples, and horrible axle tramp... should I change these to collars? Is that what you're saying here? Why did you choose these instead of getting pineapples where you said you had good experiences of? I'd love to even attempt to get rid of axle tramp, I either get complete bogginess or absolute insane wheelspin, anything even remotely in between results in filling-removal axle tramp, to the point where launching the car is just not something I do.

Lucky for that, because putting ethanol in fuel only lowers the bulk cost of fuel if it's in 91 Add it to 98, 85% of it even and it quintuples in price. Strange physics. f**k you United, Gouging c***ts.

Well, now I know that object exists

Not feasible to fix the boot lid you had? Damage looked minor/hard to even see :p Source: Drove into something recently and you should be happy you didn't!

I actually have a set of these. They didn't do the trick for track use (but were more than appropriate on the road) for my previous 8 pot/R33GTST kit. I have a 370z kit now and they actually seem damn fine on the street, like _really_ happy with them on the street, enough that I may have actually been confident enough with them for light track if you have a lighter car and don't overbrake like I do. I'm on the fence and have Project Mu club racer pads, which feel much the same on the street - There may not be that much in them. So FWIW I didn't use them on track (and probably won't) but they are WAY more than anyone ever needs for any kind of road use or motorkhana or drag or drift or something like that.

I definitely agree with you there - I never click on content for cars I would never ever be able to get or compete with/against/be seen next to. Seeing a MX5 compete with a FD RX7 will make people upset though, for sure. Even in 2.5L Turbo form which is pretty grass roots. (or at least as grass roots as classic cars can be) Yes we're all classic car owners now.

It's kind of interesting - They definitely do builds that split the difference between what they like and what will generate views and engagement. The NC Platform always surprises everyone in a good way, in an uncomfortably good way some may say. They could throw a LS in there and arguably have the best (and best performing) car of the entire stable. But that isn't necessarily what draws views, because people viewing don't want to accept the vegetables of a LS NC MX5 being a superior vehicle in every way (including fun) than a RB26 240Z. This is also why there's not a lot of content about the GR Yaris (on the web in general). They're too good, yet 'only a Yaris' The community doesn't want certain cars to be as good as they are - to beat their hero cars, and I believe the NC MX5 is absolutely one of those cars.

Yeah - My key still does the chime thing. I followed the procedure but it didn't activate on the (identical) third set of keyfob that I had. I vaguely remember the alarm saying you can only pair two keys with it. Now that I've dug it up, it appears that you very much can pair keyfobs to the alarm system. (which are the fobs I use to unlock the car). I have successfully diverted the thread and can probably not use the OEM keyfob ever again unless I use the aftermarket alarm and attempt to pair the OEM keyfob to it. Which might just work, or not :D. I definitely used the nissan method and not the aftermarket alarm method.

My fob has never worked, I once attempted to follow the procedure to re-key it, (I have other fobs for the car alarm thing in there). I actually have three of them. Do aftermarket alarms take over the pairing mechanism for central locking? Or do they piggyback off it? I suppose it depends on the system, right? I have four sets of keys/keyfobs. One definitely works, one I think works, one definitely doesn't work, and I have the OEM one that has never worked :p. Is this fixable/workable/whatever? I mean I know it's beyond "just clean it" but how *do* they get synced up?

It's actually a really weird comparison... the MX5 is on another level and I kinda question this comparison at all. It'd be closer to compare it to a GTI/Golf/Hatch anything that kicks around. NC MX5 with a turbo has the right to go up with and beat the FD RX7 or 180SX or any other JDM hero car. That's the comparison that would really ruffle feathers.

Ah yes but were you responsible? In the time I've had it (just before Christmas) I spun off the track twice and drove into things twice, so four separate incidents.. in two outings. Luckily I have a full OEM GTR front end to put on which is hopefully not a precursor for further, future, more expensive mistakes to come. It is some consolation that anyone who would want to buy my Altia bar would have to paint it anyway, the guards, too. (if they can get over the asymmetry). Hopefully over the weekend I will disassemble and see how badly things are bent. From what it looks like, the headlight has actually just been pushed back and bent the headlight support (which .. somehow... crushed the guard in). I guess the headlight plastic is strong stuff.

More mistakes! Welp. I drove into the back of a Territory's tow ball at a roundabout. Then I scraped my own gate driving back home. I am not a very good driver At least the aircon is degassed now, in prep for the engine to come out. What horrors will unfold next?

Now you have a spare!

You know, when you said '24 Dodge I legitimately interpreted that as 2024.

Can I ship you my non symmetrical guards then? lol