New Jap Car

[Galois]

I've spent a few days wrestling with this then thought, why not ask the brains trust?

Due to some financial difficulties and change of heart I'm thinking of selling my r34 gtt. There's nothing wrong with it, it's actually closer to my dream car at the moment than what I probably buy. I've only owned this and a '94 camry so it'll be good to get some variety. I love the power and the fun of it and will certainly buy another one in a few years, probably with some mods.

I love the r34, but it's too costly to justify for the time being, so I should be able to sell that, settle some debts, and but a mild-ish r33 or s14. What would you do? I know these are skyline forums but there's an awful lot of silvia owners on here too.

I guess the conditions for purchase are price (<10k) and power, will a silvia feel slower? Not sure how the power curves of skylines and silvias compare...

Thanks for the help

Edited October 11, 2010 by Galois

[Ust]

No idea about the power curves, but if I didn't buy my 33 I was going to get a 180sx always loved the look of them.

[mad082]

i've owned a r33 and a 180sx. r33 is a good every day car. plenty of power down low. the sr20 is good up in the revs and will feel nice and fast, but the rb25 is great at lower revs also (which you would know from your 34).

[Galois]

Which would you suggest for say 9k mad? Was the 180sx ok for a daily or a bit more work than the r33?

[Galois]

My father says buy an ss or xr8 since they're so cheap and would be plenty fun. Any opinions? Sorry my driving experience is limited to go karts, the gtt and camrys/corollas

[Bronx]

if you can in any way get a s14 s2, id say get that, that is a hell of a lot of fun to tune and work on, s13 is too old and s15 is tooo much.

other than that, r33 looks like a mangled UFO with a rb25 engine in it plus everyone has one.

if you dont care for a cars value, i would definitely say buy a xr8 or a ss, that sound makes the straight sixes sound like a fart.

[hapa8u]

s14 series 2 , nice interior , very fast , looks nice , but for 10 grand u will get a crap one , u need like 12,000 to 14,000

[mad082]

Which would you suggest for say 9k mad? Was the 180sx ok for a daily or a bit more work than the r33?

both were daily's. both fine for that, however the r33 was a smoother ride than the 180sx and the extra torque down low was nice too.

as for the ss/xr8 option, you would really need to take them for a drive and see what you think. they are nice cars, but are different to the skylines/S series. they are very nice to drive on a daily basis though. seats are great, the reach adjust steering is also great if you are tall (can get the seat back far enough to have your legs comfortable and still reach the steering wheel nicely), and the low down torque is great. the other great thing about them is that you get back to enjoying owning a car again. i found that when i had my skyline any little noise that was out of place or problem with the engine, etc would upset me because i knew it was either going to be a pain to fix, or expensive to fix. when you own a commodore or falcon you forget about all that and as long as it's running on most of the cylinders you ignore any little problems and as my mechanic mate says "drive on brother". and if something does go wrong you know that there are thousands of spare second hand parts out there and every autoparts store will probably have new parts in stock and they will be cheap.

[Galois]

hahahaha "running on most of the cylinders", fk that's funny.

I agree, every little noise freaks me out on the 34.

I test drove a 5.0L xr8 last week and omfg it was slow!!! It was a '99 model I think and despite the extractors and twin 3" exhaust it didn't seem to go anywhere haha. Sounded amazing though.

Might test drive a 5.7 ss before deciding against an aussie sedan.

A mate of mine is strongly recommending a mid-90s lancer gsr with an evo 3 engine. Awd and manual are pretty quick apparently, though my perception is being entirely warped by my 34. Everything feels slow (and quiet!). Might end up getting a 33 for something with some grunt...

[jjman]

Id say even a 5.7 is going to disappoint. It did for me. and the price still being asked for them is a bit much...

it took 6 litres before i even thought it was comparable to the grunt of my R33. and they are still asking 30k+ for em!

Id say for your price indication you cant go past an R33 (if you actually like them, they seem to have polarising effect- love or hate).

I found that the s14's and 180sx's are a bit too thrashed now but the R33 holds up better over the years due to the higher price and the bigger 6 cyl not needing to be revved to the sky to get moving as in the sr20det's. Also looks wise the s14 n 180 are getting a bit dated, also smaller.

good luck

Edited October 18, 2010 by jjman

[mad082]

you also have to remember that the torque profile of the big aussie 8's are totally different so they will feel different, possibly not as fast as they actually are. they tend to accelerate at pretty much the same rate from low in the rpm range to high rpm. they aren't like smaller cars where they accelerate slowly at low rpm and much faster at high rpm. v8's don't require you to scream their tits off to get anywhere like a small displacement engine. they will happily accelerate from 1500 rpm to 3000 rpm at quite a good pace. when i bought my 33 i was actually quite disapointed with how fast it was. it was stock and my manual v6 magna felt faster.

also worth driving more than one in case the one you drove was a dud.

[Galois]

Yeah, you're right mad. I was driving an au falcon with the 5.0L v8, which has peak torque at 3000. By comparison the 5.7L has peak torque at 1200 lol, so maybe the 5.0L is a bit of a dud itself...

I drove both 3.0L and 3.5L magnas on the weekend. I really liked them, they actually felt very similar in speed to the v8. Now I just have to find one in good nic.

[zebra]

Yeah, you're right mad. I was driving an au falcon with the 5.0L v8, which has peak torque at 3000. By comparison the 5.7L has peak torque at 1200 lol, so maybe the 5.0L is a bit of a dud itself...

I drove both 3.0L and 3.5L magnas on the weekend. I really liked them, they actually felt very similar in speed to the v8. Now I just have to find one in good nic.

Errrm...wat?

Feeling the same and actually being faster is a whole different ball game.

a VTII SS Auto will run 14.3 down the quarter, stock as a rock, AU2 and AU3 XR8s will be around half a sec slower than the commodore, so I have no Idea why you think they are slow?

And the GEN3 v8's make peak torque around 4000 in the VT2's and VX's

[Galois]

Maybe I drove a dud, i was watching the speedo though. It really didn't feel fast (which soft suspension and seats etc that's expected), but it took longer than I'd have hoped to get to 90 from a stand still, I was rather disappointed.

I driven that route a thousand times in the last 5-6 years, and over a hundred in my r34.

All that said, if the car took a second longer to get to 90, that does feel like a lifetime when watching the speedo.

[mad082]

i don't know what mods you have in your 34 (aren't you building up some big motor, or is that someone else?), but lets say (for arguments sake) you have the boost rasied up to 11psi or so, plus cooler and exhaust, your 34 would do the 1/4 mile in probably mid to high 13's. a stock late 90's and early 00's v8's will generally do the 1/4 mile in mid to high 14's, which put into perspective is pretty much what a dead stock r34 would do, but the v8's are harder to get off the line due to more torque causing wheelspin as well as much taller gearing (close to like taking off in second gear in a skyline).

[Galois]

It's fairly stock, boost is up round 12-13 though. There's either a leak in the bleed off tube from the stock boost controller, or the stock bc has been modified somehow. Not something I'm that worried about.

That second would make a difference on the track though.

Anyways, don't want to get into a v8 vs skyline argument, I don't really care (hence test driving both). I do care that the xr8 felt really slow, and looking down at the speedo, it was. Maybe that one was a tired old one, who knows. I did expect to be amazed at it's low down torque, but it didn't seem to have any or go anywhere. I certainly felt that torque wise the 34 was quite close below 3k rpm, and above the turbo seemed much faster and kept going to 7k.

If I was going to go v8, I'd want plenty of low down, and that xr8 was a let down.

[Supra-]

have you thought about a wrx?

you can pick up a nice classic for 12grand

preety fun cars, not saying just becasue i own one

but the feel and handling of the car makes it fun to drive

and the boxer rumble

[mad082]

It's fairly stock, boost is up round 12-13 though. There's either a leak in the bleed off tube from the stock boost controller, or the stock bc has been modified somehow. Not something I'm that worried about.

That second would make a difference on the track though.

Anyways, don't want to get into a v8 vs skyline argument, I don't really care (hence test driving both). I do care that the xr8 felt really slow, and looking down at the speedo, it was. Maybe that one was a tired old one, who knows. I did expect to be amazed at it's low down torque, but it didn't seem to have any or go anywhere. I certainly felt that torque wise the 34 was quite close below 3k rpm, and above the turbo seemed much faster and kept going to 7k.

If I was going to go v8, I'd want plenty of low down, and that xr8 was a let down.

yeah i'd say it was a dud, and if it had extractors and a big exhaust it had probably had a hard life and big exhausts can drop low end torque as well.

i've driven plenty of aussie 6's and only a few aussie 8's and even a stock aussie 6 below 3000rpm felt much much faster than my 33 did. come out of a corner at 20 or 30kmh in second gear and even with half throttle (or less) they would just pull nicely up to 60kmh.

[Galois]

Cheers for the explanation mad. I have to say the magnas were enjoyable to drive in that respect, they got to the speed limit easily in 2nd,3rd,4th and stayed there.

This was a manual xr8, and I tried to take off in second and had to give it a disappointing number of revs to do it.

All the while though it sounded great

[Galois]

Btw I'm not just trying to slam the aussie v8's, just that v8 lol