Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Hi,

I'm looking at buying a kit similar to the JUN one for my S2 R33 coupe,

has anyone here ordered a bodykit off carmate.com before? and if so what was your experience?

they seam to have the best prices, but saying that I need it posted to NZ so it might not work out so hot after all

thanks

dave

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/92468-carmatecom-what-are-they-like/
Share on other sites

cant help you with the kit...

but i got a stealth wing off them through a friend.

it was pretty good - but like all copies it required abit of sanding back and filling and prepping before i could get it painted.

that said i wouldn't get a kit from them (or anywhere else) for that matter without being able to have a look at the actual kit in person - unless it was a genuine item

they arent too bad as i got a kit off them wen i had my pulsar. but if i had the chance to do it again i wouldnt buy from them as their customer service was not great and the kit did not fit 100% required a fair bit of work 2 get it 2 fit and still did not sit absolutely flush.

my fiberglass bonnet from carmate was pretty exceptional quality when i got it.It was primed and preped very well the painter said.All that was needed was the shop to give it a light prepping.

Other than that you should give them a call and discuss what you want.They are an establlished business.I remember years ago that they were located on the hume hwy at lansvale.But they have since moved shop to woodville road,Villawood.

So imo,they are a good shop to do business with.

Edited by Trust33

My cousin bought a kit for his rolla from them.

He paid in full in november and didnt recieve it until late january. It was funny coz when the kit was finally put on, we were standing and waiting and there was this other guy they complaing about how he has been waiting for over a month for his subaru kit.

Customer service was shocking and after such a long wait it was disapointing that the kit didnt even fit properly.

Me and a mate went there jus to hae a look for kits and when we asked if its gonna fit straight on the guy replies "no, we have to 'hack' into your standard rear bar and put it over the top". mmmm....sound's like your really gonna look after my car!

Yeah mate i bought my JUN bar from them like you are going to like 1 year ago. the same one you are considering buyng. the pictures on the page look great but the bar is crap. My panel guy could not beleive it he said it was junk straight away. it is the crapest thing in the world. and on top of that it came broken on each corner of the bar already. it is like thinnest thing in the world. And the thing is my panel beater signed for it even though it was broken cause thats what you do plus he had been good to me in the past so i didnt say anything about it and just bent over and took it from carmate and also my panel beater.

I called carmate and they said they could not do anything. they are dodgy. The thing is the breaks looked like they had happened when it was made. not in transportation. I paid a bit for the bar as well. The bar is all broken now. Anything that it touches breaks it. and it broke again in the places were it came broken. and the primer and that that it came in was like the crappest. so thin and was not in most areas of the bar. This had to be done again and it got charged for it. the bar is so thin that it wobbles in the air when driving and my steering now shakes as a result.

It wasnt my panel beaters fault the spoiler came wrapped up and that. so he just signed. you are supposed to inspect the bar first or something before signing. The bar came with a sticker but my panel beater did not see it. the sticker said something like check for faults before signing. But that is so dodgy the bar comes all wrapped up and nobody really keeps the drivers waiting and that. People just sign.

So yeah a friend of mine is copying my front bar the JUN one for R33. The thing is he makes them and he makes them really thick and chuncky and of good quality. Not like the cheap knockoff made in asia and sold by carmate. so if you want one maybe you can get one he is in melbourne. and is well priced. and makes them properly. I regret buying it from them i wish i had known Ron before cause he would have made it properly. I have had people tell me my bar wobbles when i was at the stop lights. And im like yeah i know, thanks. Or people point at my bar while im driving, like indicating that something is wrong.

http://www.ronscarbodykits.com.au

Edited by el_bichito

do your research before buying something off carmate because their prices are usually high. I got a quote for carbon stove burner tail lights for a 92 prelude off them for $490 but when i looked on eBay i found the same thing for $160 aussie dollars delivered.. so im not sure <_<

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • See if you can thermal epoxy a heatsink or two onto it?
    • The other problem was one of those "oh shit we are going to die moments". Basically the high spec Q50s have a full electric steering rack, and the povo ones had a regular hydraulic rack with an electric pump.  So couple of laps into session 5 as I came into turn 2 (big run off now, happily), the dash turned into a christmas tree and the steering became super heavy and I went well off. I assumed it was a tyre failure so limped to the pits, but everything was OK. But....the master warning light was still on so I checked the DTCs and saw – C13E6 “Heat Protection”. Yes, that bloody steering rack computer sitting where the oil cooler should be has its own sensors and error logic, and decided I was using the steering wheel too much. I really appreciated the helpful information in the manual (my bold) POSSIBLE CAUSE • Continuing the overloading steering (Sports driving in the circuit etc,) “DATA MONITOR” >> “C/M TEMPERATURE”. The rise of steering force motor internal temperature caused the protection function to operate. This is not a system malfunction. INSPECTION END So, basically the electric motor in the steering rack got to 150c, and it decided to shut down without warning for my safety. Didn't feel safe. Short term I'll see if I can duct some air to that motor (the engine bay is sealed pretty tight). Long term, depending on how often this happens, I'll look into swapping the povo spec electric/hydraulic rack in. While the rack should be fine the power supply to the pump will be a pain and might be best to deal with it when I add a PDM.
    • And finally, 2 problems I really need to sort.  Firstly as Matt said the auto trans is not happy as it gets hot - I couldn't log the temps but the gauge showed 90o. On the first day I took it out back in Feb, because the coolant was getting hot I never got to any auto trans issues; but on this day by late session 3 and then really clearly in 4 and 5 as it got hotter it just would not shift up. You can hear the issue really clearly at 12:55 and 16:20 on the vid. So the good news is, literally this week Ecutek finally released tuning for the jatco 7 speed. I'll have a chat to Racebox and see what they can do electrically to keep it cooler and to get the gears, if anything. That will likely take some R&D and can only really happen on track as it never gets even warm with road use. I've also picked up some eye wateringly expensive Redline D6 ATF to try, it had the highest viscosity I could find at 100o so we will see if that helps (just waiting for some oil pan gaskets so I can change it properly). If neither of those work I need to remove the coolant/trans interwarmer and the radiator cooler and go to an external cooler....somewhere.....(goodbye washer reservoir?), and if that fails give up on this mad idea and wait for Nissan to release the manual 400R
    • So, what else.... Power. I don't know what it is making because I haven't done a post tune dyno run yet; I will when I get a chance. It was 240rwkw dead stock. Conclusion from the day....it does not need a single kw more until I sort some other stuff. It comes on so hard that I could hear the twin N1 turbos on the R32 crying, and I just can't use what it has around a tight track with the current setup. Brakes. They are perfect. Hit them hard all day and they never felt like having an issue; you can see in the video we were making ground on much lighter cars on better tyres under brakes. They are standard (red sport) calipers, standard size discs in DBA5000 2 piece, Winmax pads and Motul RBF600 fluid, all from Matty at Racebrakes Sydney. Keeping in mind the car is more powerful than my R32 and weighs 1780, he clearly knows his shit. Suspension. This is one of the first areas I need to change. It has electronically controlled dampers from factory, but everything is just way too soft for track work even on the hardest setting (it is nice when hustling on country roads though). In particular it rolls into oversteer mid corner and pitches too much under hard braking so it becomes unstable eg in the turn 1 kink I need to brake early, turn through the kink then brake again so I don't pirouette like an AE86. I need to get some decent shocks with matched springs and sway bars ASAP, even if it is just a v1 setup until I work out a proper race/rally setup later. Tyres. I am running Yoko A052 in 235/45/18 all round, because that was what I could get in approximately the right height on wheels I had in the shed (Rays/Nismo 18x8 off the old Leaf actually!). As track tyres they are pretty poor; I note GTSBoy recently posted a porker comparo video including them where they were about the same as AD09.....that is nothing like a top line track tyre. I'll start getting that sorted but realistically I should get proper sized wheels first (likely 9.5 +38 front and 11 +55 at the rear, so a custom order, and I can't rotate them like the R32), then work out what the best tyre option is. BTW on that, Targa Tas had gone to road tyres instead of semi slicks now so that is a whole other world of choices to sort. Diff. This is the other thing that urgently needs to be addressed. It left massive 1s out of the fish hook all day, even when I was trying not too (you can also hear it reving on the video, and see the RPM rising too fast compared to speed in the data). It has an open diff that Infiniti optimistically called a B-LSD for "Brake Limited Slip Diff". It does good straight line standing start 11s but it is woeful on the track. Nismo seem to make a 2 way for it.
    • Also, I logged some data from the ECU for each session (mostly oil pressures and various temps, but also speed, revs etc, can't believe I forgot accelerator position). The Ecutek data loads nicely to datazap, I got good data from sessions 2, 3 and 4: https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-2?log=0&data=7 https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-3?log=0&data=6 https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-4?log=0&data=6 Each session is cut into 3 files but loaded together, you can change between them in the top left. As the test sessions are mostly about the car, not me, I basically start by checking the oil pressure (good, or at least consistent all day). These have an electrically controlled oil pump which targets 25psi(!) at low load and 50 at high. I'm running a much thicker oil than recommended by nissan (they said 0w20, I'm running 10w40) so its a little higher. The main thing is that it doesn't drop too far, eg in the long left hand fish hook, or under brakes so I know I'm not getting oil surge. Good start. Then Oil and Coolant temp, plus intercooler and intake temps, like this: Keeping in mind ambient was about 5o at session 2, I'd say the oil temp is good. The coolant temp as OK but a big worry for hot days (it was getting to 110 back in Feb when it was 35o) so I need to keep addressing that. The water to air intercooler is working totally backwards where we get 5o air in the intake, squish/warm it in the turbos (unknown temp) then run it through the intercoolers which are say 65o max in this case, then the result is 20o air into the engine......the day was too atypical to draw a conclusion on that I think, in the united states of freedom they do a lot of upsizing the intercooler and heat exchanger cores to get those temps down but they were OK this time. The other interesting (but not concerning) part for me was the turbo speed vs boost graph: I circled an example from the main straight. With the tune boost peaks at around 18psi but it deliberately drops to about 14psi at redline because the turbos are tiny - they choke at high revs and just create more heat than power if you run them hard all the way. But you can also see the turbo speed at the same time; it raises from about 180,000rpm to 210,000rpm which the boost falls....imagine the turbine speed if they held 18psi to redline. The wastegates are electrically controlled so there is a heap of logic about boost target, actual boost, delta etc etc but it all seems to work well
×
×
  • Create New...