GTSBoy

Use a piece of garden hose as a stethoscope to narrow down where the noise originates. Could be from the timing belt area/VCT actuator, or cam lobe slap on lifter, or something else.

Pump to the surge has to be able to replace what the engine can use. The main pressure pump has to do a fair bit more than that and maintain high pressure. The lift pump only has to do the smaller amount and without much pressure. Makes it a much smaller power draw, even if the delivery is, say 75% or so of the main. Of course, if the surge tank is large relative to how much the engine can pull our of it, and you do not have long periods on power, then you can go even smaller with the lift pump. But in general, it will only be a little smaller than the main pump.

For an interesting hour or so of reading.... https://performanceforums.com/forums/forum/general/general-discussions/7452637-greg-latham-brakes-direct-anyone-in-contact-asap

Well, you cannot avoid cutting or removing the dust shields if you're going to go as large as you're talking about. And you should not even ever just once consider grinding anything off of the upright or any other part of the front suspension/steering, even for a track car. Doing it on a road car should be punishable by death (and it could happen).

Functional sensible engineering trumps fashion.

No, of course not. Now you are really showing that you don't know what I'm on about. Steel wheels are heavier than the very light RPF1s that I have. Why do I have RPF1s? Because they are very light. Are they the best looking wheel? Hell no. Are they close to the optimum of light & affordable & not ugly. Yes. Yes they are. Oh. And they are black. Oh, and so are my calipers. And the hats on the brakes.

This is true. And then you've spent $3k or $5k or $10k or $35k (if you've done it the best way) and you have something that looks good but doesn't actually do anything useful. I'd rather spend $10k on the suspension. Black arms of course, because I give no f**ks for the looks.

Full brake delete. You'll get many more admiring looks from doing that than any other upgrade.

I don't know why people don't just drop the subframe an inch or two to do this.

Just can't help poking the 33 folk. I know it's cruel, but....

It's a ball ache. There's plenty of posts on the topic. Have a search.

And then.... it still looks like the QE2 on maiden voyage. Thank god for the R32.

'sif you'd fit a genuine GTR bar to a 33 GTST anyway, these days. The fact that fibreglass "GTR" bars for GTSTs exist should be sufficient to indicate how it should be done if you want it to look that way, and fit.

I always love the way the story comes out in dribs and drabs. OP, you f**ked it. It is up to you to work out what you f**ked. Luckily for you, Robbo is likely right on it. Unluckily for you, these things don't grow on trees any more.

You won't ever notice the difference. (If there even is one!)

Swap tyres front to rear. See what happens. Try them with +5 and -5 psi also.

I have posted the R32 wiring diagrams. The wire colours are visible.

It's in the side of the cam cover, just forward of the stock TB, facing the plenum, connected to the plenum by a shortish hose.

It's not. It takes 10 minutes.

I have no idea. There might be upper and/or lower limits to shim thickness which mean that if you need to go too far you have to get a different bucket also. Stay within the limits and keep the same bucket. That sort of thing. You'll soon work it out once measured up. Of course, once you can't know in advance until you have measured. You really need to speak to someone who has done this on a VQ to find out what the rules/limits might be.

VQs use solid lifters. The clearance is set with a shim**. You first need to pull the cam covers off and measure all the clearances at running temperature with feeler gauges. You then dismantle the cams off the heads and pull the shims out and measure with a micrometer. You then order new shims at the required size to obtain the correct valve clearance for any valve that had incorrect clearance. If the clearance was too large, then the new shim will need to be thicker than the old shim by the difference between the required and actual clearances. This is not something that you can just order the parts off the net and do in an afternoon. The car will be in pieces for at least several days. **It might be the case that the VQs don't even have a shim and they just use graded bucket (with different thickness tops on them). In which case, in the discussion above, just replace "shim" with "bucket".

Starting to sound like you need to worry that he pinged it to death while it was running on lawnmower fuel. Such damage is rapid and irreversible.

Valves don't tick. The lifters do.

Could be suspension....but I wouldn't put money on it. Likely to be tyres, from sitting still for months. Flat spot, gone hard, whatever. I am usually tempted to just blame the stupid R32 anti-squat geometry. I've never been able to stop my shitbox from axle tramping like a flea-bitten dog on meth.

Well, is it axle tramp? Is that what's happening?