Duncan

good question! my tow bar was rated by the manufacturer at 2000kg - but they are not engineers. And I would be very close to 2000kg because the car is 1500 and the trailer 400 (+gear on the back) my "assumption" for what that is worth, is that it is like every other unengineered mod on my car. If an accident occurs and the insurer can show the unengineered part was the cause I would not be insured. and no doubt they would try their level best to blame those parts so they can avoid paying out. On my car this includes: motor front mount intercooler exhaust wheels (17") brakes tow bar tv seats tyres (too large) powerfc sway bars (larger) and god knows what else.

haha 36mm socket, and a breaker bar long enough to move the moon? Some of those nuts are a f**ker to undo, and I keep forgetting to undo the hub nights *before* I take the brakes off. If you are stuck I have the super multi geared nut undoer - it puts enourmous torque on the nut

holy shit there's some work in that one! is that the first car you've built (I guess not it looks like it's come together pretty well)

stu - probably no point entering the production car (depending on the regs). happy to drive your car for you though, I reckon it would surprise a few with it's times. but don't forget an event like this really needs you to buy tyres for the purpose ie soft compound that are unlikely to last the whole day. It was the same at Mt Buller and the Supersprint Nationals before - even big cars like skylines running on medium and medium/soft compounds because you only need to do a lap or 2 at a time. I still haven't seen regs posted so I assume they are more focussed on obtaining overseas competitors than getting local/amatuer entrants

actually - the real danger in sydney is the 50 new speed cameras where there used to be red light cameras. I don't know where they are, and I don't know how (if?) they are signposted so be careful places that used to be license safe may be no longer. I love the fact that when the road toll goes up......they try more of what is not working! go genuises!

(bit slow lol) yeah I need 2 because generally only 1 is working at a time the car you went in (the production car) is great but lets face it.....it is missing 200kw compared to most cars around. so Mark and I figured we may as well build something a bit quicker for fun. The production car is the serious one though and has the best of everything it can - this car on the other hand has cheap everything it's likely to be 12 months before it's finished - our old work location is no longer available and my house is 9 months away - so stay tuned for this time next year

shit liam that's no good! what wheels are you running and do you have correct hub locators. also always always use a torque wrench for your wheelnuts - over time incorrect (particularly overtight) will stretch then break the studs

yep....long way away but pretty interested but I also need to head up to QR next year for the supersprint nationals

good work, well done for getting this off the ground!

Hey guys, Irace have a round at Oran Park on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 Jan. This is genuinely the second last chance to race at Oran Park. It's Irace so essentially no rules - even my car can't run in production cars (more than 5 years old) so it is running in "muscle cars" where I will get slaughtered. Still - its about the last chance around. To race there you need an Irace logbook, and a CAMS or AASA race license, thats about it. http://www.irace.net.au I'll be there pending fixing my cooling problems - who else is in???

updates!

hmm that is a bit of a PR job there from Targa. They also made E85 available at mt buller at only$3/l (ie 300% mark up on pump price). But that is of absolutely no use when we have to have standard injectors and fuel pumps - they are already running at capacity on unleaded so they will be at least 30% short running E85. Having said that.....for non-production classes I reckon you'd be mad to run anything else, and it seems like a no-brainer to me for drag racing. Its good to see comments directly from Andra - but none of this makes sense. You happily let competitors run all sorts of fuels not available at any pumps (I am yet to see methanol or that roo stuff at a pump) so my guess is the real reason is that you are holding out for someone to pay ANDRA a fat fee for the rights (and if you let ethanol in for free, the people how paid up previousl would be up in arms). Soon enough (year or 2) e85 will be all over the place. In my opinion the "green" claims of the fuel are rubbish but why not look at the substantially lower cost to your competitors compared to other fuels - and at the same time ban them in all but the top category to force costs down.

so can anyone recommend a brand other than snap on that has been worth buying? I really don't want strap on gear in the garage in case people get the wrong impression (ie I am a fool who pays for a brand name even if there are better tools at a cheaper price)

sorry for the slow response - I haven't used them but I have recently bought a set to put under the new race car. I'll keep an eye on the welds and wear on the rod ends but I am not particularly concerned - Just Jap have sold hundreds of those arms. Having said that, I would stay away from arms with rod ends instead of bushes on road cars, there is a reason no manufacturers put rod ends in their road cars.

yeah not surprised - they are a whole other level up from the cars around. and speaking of levels, the r35 is running it gt2 not outright, right? It is much more road car than the top level cars

must be school holidays again - this thread is so far off topic I can't remember where it started. Keep it on topic in future or expect warnings/bannings

It's on again: http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Te...an-t298118.html Sunday 31 January get your entries in and get out there so we can keep running these events!

stu the problem is total noise, no the side pipes per se. can you bolt up a normal, properly muffled system of some sort? I think you might find it useful in a few places not just here. And there are some things to make sure you do like a 45 or 90o turn at the exit to point the sound downwards that make a big difference in legality. I'm sure Neil has some tips he always struggled with noise from the crapri. Thanks everyone for the entries - still plenty of spots available though!

my radiator is a 40mm china special, and the current oil cooler is an earls one, not sure of the exact number of rows it is about 30cm high. keep in mind yuo will have to replace the cooler everytime you kill a motor with a bearing issue, so I figure you might as well buy a cheap cooler. the new radiator is a 55mm pwr cross flow, and I will move the oil cooler from in front. there is no a/c of course so there is little restriction in front. i am not happy with the seal of the radiator to the cross member atm - clark rubber sell some nice foam sealant with adhesive on one side perfect for filling in any gaps.

I can give you advice on how not to cool the car if you like for what it's worth, my oil cooler setup is the standard water to oil stuff at the oil filter, and a big oil cooler in front of the radiator. As you know I am having real water temp troubles so I will be moving it from there, and at the moment my plan is to move it to the passenger wheel well. the reason I have not put it there in the past is I was worried about knocking it off one day, but I just have to do something about the water temps

excellent point about the boss....the quick release I have puts the wheel 10cm closer as well, you almost certainly want one so remember to take that into account. and you will love how hard it is to find the indicators after you have fitted one

lol don't you beleive it! once you have a house you have kids, then it's ALL over.

yeah I am very happy with the price. $10k is a lot of money, but you have to look at how much time and parts there are in this build. I beleive it was very cheap for the work that was done. Good call on the cooler pipe, might see what I can do. nothing but trouble getting it running, but nothing to do with the job the shop did. For instance, once the whole thing had been assembled and put on the dyno the first time they discovered a crack in the block at a welsh plug at the rear of the head. I hadn't asked for it to be xrayed, they took a chance and lost. And then the second time it was put together the f**king alarm control module failed - but of course that is the last thing you think to check. and of course the R34 GTT PFC is not a direct fit in my car which needed some stuffing around too. once it was all together it has been fine though, and the run-in tune was quick and easy. Idle control has been a bit of a pain with the new plenum/throttle/cruise control/aac mvoed etc etc but its all good now. pretty sure it is the standard tb - I am not looking for more than 300kw from this setup and I'm sure the standard one will be enough for that. yeah they used the pro-engines sump adaptor, about $800 including all fasteners from memory, fit first time without any mods required. also another complexity in a 4wd/rb30 is the oil pick up because the rb30 point is right where the driveshaft goes through the diff. the guys at hills modified it to plug the normal hole and drill into the block at the right place same as a 26 block - very precise work required to get that right. often people just run external oil feeds to the pump, that is probably both cheaper and easier.

yeah it is beautiful to drive, especially pulling away from idle. no idea what it will actually end up doing, I was aiming for about 250kw but a focus on torque. If I ever decide to get silly it has all of the required supporting stuff except injectors and an expensive turbo to go 300+. Cost was about $10k but that did include some other stuff like a new alarm, clutch, intercooler etc etc. I was going to keep the standard manifold but there may have been clearance issues to the bonnet, and the china front facing manifolds are dirt cheap these days.

hahah well in this case you've actually tried it and lived so you are one up on me! I'm not giving it a go, tyres just take too much punishment, I've seen (and had) too many let go for no reason to trust that that does have something wrong