GTSBoy

Take it to an auto electrician. Plug in a diagnostic handset. Read the codes.

Owners of GTRs cannot complain about the cost of parts.

Yeah, the clearance difference between cast and forged is because of the material difference and the fabrication method difference, not because of the usage. The alloys used and the forging process leads to a piston that has a higher coefficient of thermal expansion than the cast material does. This is fundamental property of the finished piston itself, not something that is desired. How you then deal with that depends on the state of other technology, the depth of your pockets, and perhaps the rules in any racing class that may or may not have things to say about such things. Before the advent of coatings, and with the materials that were originally used for forged pistons, the only real option was to go for wider clearances to allow for the expansion. And then you had to warm the engine up carefully, etc etc. Or, if you ran tighter clearances for a "street" engine, then you perhaps couldn't lean on it as hard as you might if it were built looser and treated properly (like a proper race engine would). Nowadays, with materials that are a little better (on the raw material thermal expansion coefficient front), plus better design/machining to control expansion (mostly around keeping it even instead of being non-isometric) and especially with coatings to control heat input on the crown and friction on the skirts, you can get away with a lot that would have been "against the rules" in the old days. These days there is absolutely no reason to fear running sensibly tight piston/wall tolerances on a street forged piston engine. You need the forgies because you will be giving it curry from time to time, but you want tighter tolerances because 99% of the time you're not bashing on it. Modern tech gets you there. And if you're building an actual race engine that will get leaned on hard all the time, then you still run wider tolerances because the pistons will definitely run hotter than your street engine will.

If you disconnect the spring&shock unit from the suspension, so you can move the arms up and down more easily, then you can generally feel by hand if there is anything to be worried about at the pivots. Same as if it was any other bushing. A prybar may or may not help with some of the directions that you might want to push things. Anyway, when they are firm, they are firm. You can really feel that there is nothing going anywhere. If you ever have doubts, you know it feels a little wrong compared to when they were new, then there is probably some play. We're talking really tiny movements here though that the insensitive might just gloss over. You just have to filter out the effects of imagination.

With sphericals you have to exercise a little extra paranoia. There's a number of things to be paranoid about. The parranoia may well be true paranoia, but the consequences of anything bad actually happening can be pretty dire, so the effort spent is probably worth it. This list may not be complete, in fact probably isn't. It's just what rolls around in my head. If they get scores on them then they can crack. So a piece of grit that manages to get dragged inside might bring you undone. If they come loose at all (on the adjuster locknuts) then they can rotate to the point where they bid at one end of travel because they're not centered any more. Perhaps, if they have loosened, then this won't load them enough to cause them to fail, but it is well known that they should not be operated such that they reach the limit of rotation. Depending on what other noises are around, you may not hear them moving if they are significantly worn, but if they are significantly worn, because they are such a small ball relative to the lever length of the arm, a little freeplay can result in quite a loss of control of arm angle/position. If they get wet they can rust.

I put up with the degrees of pain associated in order to obtain the best performance. My main requirement, particularly in the rear is full adjustability of both upper arm lengths to allow me to minimise bump steer. The bushes involved are somewhat secondary to that consideration.

When I had urethane bushes in various of my suspension arms, I used to grease them regularly and probably replaced them at ~5 yr intervals. I found this to be annoying, but fine. I now have harder rubber bushes in some arms, sphericals in others. The rubber ones get no attention at all and if they ever die and they are not available, I will just either buy complete new arms of the same type, or maybe buy sphericals to go onto them (which is usually possible). The existing sphericals I have demand regular attention. I clean and grease them at least annually and have replaced some of them at least twice, across the 6 or so years that they have been on the car. Although the front caster rod sphericals have been on the car for nearly 20 years and they are trouble free.

No f**ks given. Absolutely none. Sydney GTR lyfe yo.

You say that as if it really matters. I have made the decision to use them in strategic places in my car because R32 FUCAs are a shit design and really need the added flexibility made possible by spherical bearings, and because they are simply excellent in front caster arms, and neither are easily seen on a roadside inspection. Besides which, you can get them engineered, which I will do if I am ever pushed into a corner.

Are the bushings you're asking about here stock elastomeric-squishy-juice ones? Why would you want them? Don't be dense. I'm talking about a car that is at least 25 years old now and will not be around in another 25 years. And if the arms/bushes that you put in now last only 10 years (instead of the likely 20+), it is so far into the dim and distant future that it is not a problem that you need to concern yourself with right now, no matter how poor that you feel. It is a problem for future silviaz.

Why? They're not going to wear out before the rest of the car does. And if they do manage to do so, just....buy something with sphericals.

It's also 100% likely that the harnesses are just clipped onto the infant seat mounts and that the rear seats are still in place and therefore usable, both of which are a solid no-no with harnesses in a car with 2 rows of seats.

The rails are not separate from the (presumably stock) seat. What it will take to fix it will depend on what is wrong with it. I've never seen this happen, so couldn't tell you what the most likely failure is. It could have something bent, or something broken. Any competent hacker should be able to fix either. Take the seat out and have a look for yourself?

Nothing changed.

I'm not sure how different these Renault afflicted Nissans are compared to the proper ones, but it would seem as though perhaps there is a fault with the ECU and/or the ECCS relay (which is triggered to turn the ECU on and latch it on when the ignition is ON) causing it not to turn off.

You sort of have to choose which ecosystem you might want to be in and then that can inform the choice between Ross and ATI. A rebuildable balancer is always a good thing to have.

At 7 years it's probably fine for a long time. Mine is probably still the one I put on in 2012. Can't remember changing it since then. Will be thinking about doing it sometime in the next coupla.

Good luck finding anybody, especially in the US, who can "service" HICAS. Just do as Niz advised and pull the smaller of the 2 plugs form the HICAS CU. Will disable HICAS without any other negative effects, and will kill the light on the dash at the same time.

Hmm. Something to be said for having a Neo25 in a lighter R32. 1500-2000rpm is a fine place to be. Will pull away from 1000rpm in 5th with judicious use of the throttle.

Perhaps a specific line saying to be very wary of communications with e-mail addresses proffered as "being how you contact this user". Part of the "make sure you know who you're talking to" that you already have, but a bit more specific.

Good.

^^ This is not a solution. If the extra fuel is hiding in the LTFT then it will just come back after the ECU has had a panic and bashed all the extra fuel back into the STFT (and then rolls it back into the LTFT).

I concur with much of the above. A few points though. It could have a Nistune in it and still have the speed cut. You're not forced to disable it! 13L/100km on an NA 25 is terrible. As Greg says, that is a bad sign for your ability to modulate the throttle smoothly. If you apply a lot of transient throttle to a GTT, you could well use that much more juice. Just because you put a new O2 sensor in does not mean it is working. You need to check that it is working by connecting a Consult capable device and looking for the feedback swinging low-high, as you drive. Boost leaks will cost you fuel. No arguments. Suction leaks will NOT. Extra air only means extra fuel if the air passes through the air flow meter. So if you have a vacuum leak that is somehow not also a boost leak, then it is not causing more consumption. But otherwise see the point above. A highflow will NOT cause excessive fuel consumption unless you spend the whole time on boost. And then it might, because the 9 to 10+ psi section of the maps is excessively rich and retarded to prevent the rich from being retarded.

Well, that would depend on which part of the test you're talking about. He's basically doing a rough transistor test there, which will reveal some possible problems and maybe not others. You have to know how a transistor works in order to appreciate what and how to test them. The base is the switching input. That is is the signal from the ECU. It is obviously either there, or it is not, depending on whether or not the ECU wants to fire the coil. When it is ON, a current will flow from the base to the emitter, which is earth (and the emitter is a common earth for all 6 transistors in the package). The collectors are the 6x lines coming from the coils. These have 12V on them all the time. When the base is not fed by the ECU, there is no (ie very little) conductivity from the collector to the emitter, so no coil current flows. When the base is fed from the ECU, its little current flow to emitter allows the collector to also flow current to the emitter - ie, the resistance between C & E drops low, where it was previously high. From what I can see of that video, he didn't measure any C-E resistances. If he did, with the test gear he had, he'd only expect to see high resistances (maybe even open line) on C to E. He'd need to wire up a 12V circuit to feed the B-E and C-E properly and be switchable on the B-E side to be able to discriminate whether the transistors are switching properly or or not. The test he did really only shows whether the collector is properly isolated from the base, which only indicates one possible failure mode.

The trouble is, custom is custom. The pipes have to join onto other pipes, so you kinda need/want the car there to make sure that that happens. No-one has a 3D virtual model or a mockup jig of what you neen it to fit.