Unzipped Composites

Yes, but as I'm sure you're aware, freight companies work on accounts with their clients. A massive company like Kogan shipping massive volumes all around the country are going to get a better deal per CBM than a company like JustJap who just aren't shipping as much volume. And certainly for a business like mine where 99% of my market is local, I won't get any sort of deal on shipping a bonnet across the country, and I haven't got the leverage to say 'give me a better price or I'm going with someone else'. I've priced up freight on full size panels for Eastern States clients before, but not since Covid. Back in 2018, it would have cost roughly $1500 to transport an R34 bonnet that only weighed 3kg from here to Melbourne. Cost of the bonnet was $2200, so the freight was not an insignificant part of that. Since Covid, freight prices per CBM have doubled.

Nobody makes anything decent mate. JSAI may be your best chance in terms of fitment, but it's all still made with swimming pool materials. I've got a 32R bonnet mould, so I could make you a good quality bonnet, but I'm in WA so I'd be scared to look at the freight quote.

Haha yeh, left foot definitely needs a bit of training to get the muscle memory to know how much pressure to apply. Weirdly it's a little bit easier on the race track than on the street though, probably because you tend to be going from full pressure and easing off, rather than on the street where you tend to ease into the brakes as you slow to a stop. Takes less muscle memory to do it in that order.

Trail braking really comes afterwards, you should be heel-toeing if you're clutching in on downshift and that should be happening before you start turn-in. Once you've started turn in, you want to keep the weight of the car steady so that the front tyres are using all available grip to bring the front around. When you clutch in, you shift the weight again, so you don't want to be doing it once you've got too much steering angle. You want to be hard on the brakes on approach, downshifting as you do. In a manual h-pattern with a cable driven throttle body, your revs drop off when you clutch in, so then your tyres are rotating faster than your engine and that upsets the balance of the car when the clutch re-engages. You heel-toe to bring the revs back up to road speed and keep the tyres happy. If you've got a sequential/automatic, or drive-by-wire throttle body with auto-blip, you dont need to heel-toe. As you start turn-in, you should be just about in the correct gear for the corner, trail-braking by easing off the brake but not completely off it until you apex. It's not really happening 'slowly', it's happening smoothly. As you turn the wheel in, you ease your foot off. As you turn the wheel out, you ease your foot onto the accelerator. All of that can happen quite fast, but it needs to be smooth to keep the weight of the car steady and not ask too much of the tyres.

Yeh, 80's/90's ABS really just an elaborate system of wheels and pulleys, not actually all that functional. To be honest, you are much better off learning what to do in that situation than relying on old-tech ABS to save you, as it's reasonably likely to let you down. That said - legal repercussions of removing it on a street registered and insured vehicle is worth looking into properly. It certainly isn't a good look from an insurance perspective to be removing safety items, they probably won't care how useless those items were in the first place. Best speak to your relevant authorities and do what they want you to do.

Yeh so it sounds like you're unintentionally shifting weight to the rear, costing you front end grip. Don't jump off the brakes as quickly as possible, you want to be trail braking up to around the apex. So full brakes on approach, then just before you start turn-in ease off the brakes but not completely, keep a little bit of brake applied to keep some weight over the tyres. How much pressure you apply is directly related to your steering angle - think of it as the reverse of accelerating, you dont jump on the accelerator while you're still at full steer, you ease onto the throttle as you straighten the wheel. Braking is the same, you dont jump off the brakes and turn in, you want to ease off the brakes as you apply steering angle so that as you approach full angle you get to about 10-15% brake pressure to control the pitch of the car. Also no accelerator on turn in, this also shifts weight to the rear. If you're needing accelerator to drive through the corner then it sounds like you are over-slowing the car and need to brake later. Foot on the brakes as you turn the wheel in, hit the apex, unwind the wheel, roll onto the accelerator as you straighten up the wheel.

Also driving style as Laine aluded to. If you're too aggressive with the steering input you may be asking too much of the tyres. Are you trail braking at all or just coasting through the corner? Bit of trail brake will put some weight over the front and increase front end grip. Too much will go back to asking too much of the tyres. Could be loads of things, I doubt it's specifically one thing. But driving style is free, so it's a good place to look first. And once you start changing things setup wise it can become very difficult to determine what is driving style and what is setup. Often the best thing you can do is if there is a driving event that facilitates a driving instructor, then get them to do 2 or 3 laps in your car and note their lap times. Don't start changing the setup until you are close to their times.

Just gotta pick the right filament. PPSU has a Tg of 220°C, probably wouldn't be a bad choice. Agree though, there's enough kits out there for the 32 that it feels unnecessary to reinvent the wheel. Also HID's are sooo 1992, go LED.

Also, I've just rewatched things, and I've changed my mind on the decision change haha... It wasn't really a decision change. Masi first said no lapped cars to overtake because the marshals hadn't cleared Latifi's wreckage. You can't have the backmarkers go hairing off without a pace car when there's marshals on track trying to clear wreckage. As soon as it became apparent that they could complete a lap safely, he made the call that they could overtake. But there wasn't enough time for all of them to go, so he sent the ones that were in the way of the main race, which is fair enough. #MasiForPM.

This exists. It's called time attack haha. Cars can't sustain that speed for the duration of a race, cars get turned up to 11 for quali and then the strategy is about making sure you don't hit traffic unless you can get a tow where you need it. I think you should watch the replay of T6 again. If I could find a sequence of still shots I would post then. Lewis really brakes way too early, Verstappen catches him just about at turn in (Lewis might be turning in a few hundredths before Max). At that point he should have yielded and gone wide through the corner, tried for the undercut through T7, there was plenty of track available. Lewis only had to bail because he still tried for the apex, and Max was already there. If that's not brilliant racing, I don't know what is. You don't have to stick to the ideal line ALL the time, it's not like ducking and weaving down the straights is the fastest way down the straights but if it breaks the tow then you do it anyway. Your point on someone ending in the wall I can't disagree with, going into Jeddah I did wonder if Max would conveniently find a way to put him and Hamilton both into touch and take the championship that way. That's really a flaw of the rules again though, the rules of F1 make it an attractive option to just win the championship on number of race wins rather than points. Cue Michael Schumacher. The fact Max would probably be willing to do it I don't hold against him, though I don't know how I would feel if he'd actually done it. Re. rules interfering with the result, there's loads of rules that have the potential to influence the result outside of SC's. Max ended up on a bad choice of tyre to start the race with because of the rules. If we're removing rules for the sake of not influencing the result, then Max probably would have started on Mediums and would have held onto Lewis' lead better and nullified Mercs strategy advantage. Honestly, the rules are so complex they influence the result in all sorts of ways. Why should SC's be any different? Take SC's out, and it's a HUGE advantage to the teams at the front of the pack. The teams at the front of the pack tend to be the teams with the biggest budget. Winning championships becomes a matter of how much money have you got? But you don't want to introduce rules that heavily restrict the teams that do have money, because those teams are the ones driving the sport forward. If you introduce big spending caps to keep everyone on an even playing field, then it becomes a punishment for doing well. I think safety cars have been complained about for years, but nobody has come up with a better solution. VSC's are good in some situations, but they aren't as safe for the marshals when the track needs to be cleared, AND they still introduce advantages/disadvantages to some drivers in the form of tyre temperatures. VSC's are generally a slower pace than the SC, so they have a bigger effect on tyre temps which of course also effects the race. It's not an easy thing, you can't pause a race safely without impacting anyone. If there was a perfect solution, I'm sure it would be implemented.

Yeh get rid of as much as you can, all you need is an empty shell of a dash. You can go gungho with the airbag system, it's disconnected so it's not going to explode in your face.

Yeh don't get me started on this. f**k sake. Pinnacle of motorsport cluttered with drivers like Crashjean, Mazespin, Zhou (got nothing clever for his name), etc while actual good drivers sit in reserve. I'm surprised Alfa didn't give Raghunathan a seat after his open cheque book blistering test day 🙄 Looking forward to seeing what Haas do next year. Love Gunther, and I'd like to see Mick do well for sentimental sake, so it was tough watching them this year. Hopefully their focus on the new chassis pays off and they can get back to being more than a placeholder!

Oh don't worry, I'm a huge Danny Ric fan, I'm just bitter he's in the mid-pack now (how good was Monza though!?). I've done a lot of work on his dad's 1968 Brabham: I haven't heard about Masi losing his job, I really hope he hasn't. Would be a bit of a farce, just because some fans are upset - he's overseen the most exciting F1 season ever, and I'm sure F1 has expanded their fan base this season because of that. He deserves some credit for that, it's a tough gig and all he did was make a decision with the best interests of the sport in mind. I think Max is refreshing. In a class of motorsport where overtaking is infamously difficult, he gets the job done and doesn't take prisoners. Like it or not, he does improve the standard of racing and he brings the best out of the other drivers as well. Just look at Hamilton this season, he's been an animal under the pressure and we've seen a side to him that we haven't seen in previous seasons. Lewis is regarded as a patient and calm driver - but he's shown an aggression this season that at times made Max look like a saint. Hell, I don't remember Max sending Lewis to hospital this season 😆

Yeh look, I think the decision change was a problem, but he changed his mind to allow the better scenario to end the season, which I think is a good thing. Can understand Merc feeling hard done by, but had it gone the other way it would have been Red Bull screaming about it. There's just no clear guidelines for the RC to base that decision on, he's got both team managers in his ear the entire time telling him what to do (which I think is a joke, I'm glad it's being banned for next season), and in the end I'm glad he made the decision that was the best for the sport. I actually loved his "it's called a motor race" line haha 🤣 To be fair, both drivers have been absolutely outstanding all season and I don't think either of them deserved it more than the other. They're both deserving champions, and that's why it's been such a great season. Safety Cars have been part of motorsport strategy for decades, it is part of the intrigue. If you take them away and say we're not going to let any safety incidents effect the race, then the sport gets real boring when you have a car that's 25 seconds in front with 40 laps to go, that's race over and everybody switches the TV off. When there's the possibility of a SC bringing the pack back together at some point, it keeps races alive, keeps the spectators interested, and keeps the teams interested in doing as well as they can to push rather than just going 'ah well this week's done, just bring the car home safe and we'll go again in two weeks'. It might not be the 'fairest' solution for the driver that is 25 seconds in front, but it's better for the sport. And why was Max's braking into T6 (not T1 sorry) stupid? It was brilliant, it was proper racing. Its not like Hamilton was at the apex and Verstappen lunged in on him, he wasn't locked up or sliding or out of control. What did he do wrong? He didn't force Lewis out, they were virtually next to each other starting turn in, Max had more corner speed, Lewis tried to turn in tighter to squeeze Max and realised he was going to hit him. He should have conceded the corner earlier and there would have been plenty of space for both cars. Why are we all of a sudden not allowed to make up time under brakes? Danny Ric would barely have a career if that wasn't allowed. More importantly, it was only a week ago at Jeddah that Lewis did virtually the exact same thing to Max on Lap 37. Attacked into the corner, Max should have yielded but didn't and ended up having to bail and leave the track and gained an advantage by doing so. He had to give that position back, so what's different at Abu Dhabi? Max made the corner, Lewis didn't. Lewis got ahead by skipping T7, so he should have given the place back. P.S, aware this is off topic, Sorry Dan. You brought it up! 🤣

If it's the entire system, I would remove it, there's a lot of weight in it. If the activation system has been removed and it's just an empty airbag under the dash then just leave it.

I feel like I must be the only one that thinks Masi got it absolutely right. The only thing I think he could have done better would have been being a touch more decisive and not changing his mind on the back markers, but otherwise I think he made absolutely the right call and I'm glad he did change his mind. End of the day, there aren't any absolutely clear cut rules for that situation and the race controller needed to make a decision in seconds. The decision he made was the better one for the sport - it ended in a race, rather than a parade. I look at it like this: 1. As a complete neutral, that was an ending that befit the most exciting season of F1 that I can remember. If that adrenaline pack of a season had finished behind a safety car, that's where I think the sport would have suffered. 2. If Mercedes had decided to pit Lewis with the SC and Max had stayed out and got track position - Mercedes would be ecstatic with Masi's call. One of them had to lose, one of them was always going to be upset. I think this taking it to the lawyers business is bullshit, sporting events have no business in a court room. 3. In my opinion, Hamilton had an unfair advantage from Lap 1. Max stayed in the white lines, he didn't make contact, for me that was proper balls-out racing and what everyone wants to see. How the stewards thought Lewis gave that advantage back is fkn beyond me, he went from a situation where he should have conceded the corner to being nearly 2 seconds out in front by skipping T2.

🤣🤣 sorry buddy, I gotta keep on your case otherwise you'd win things and set records and not tell a soul!

*whispers* hey @bcozican, I'll just leave these here: 🏆🥇 👀

OH MY GOD ITS HAPPENING!

Generally window seals are made from EDPM rubber, so regular cyanocrylates (super glue) won't give a strong bond. They might work initially but will pop off again. For a permanent bond you need a high strength cyanoacrylate that has been specially formulated for bonding natural rubbers, like Permabond 105 or ASI RP.

Yeh fair enough, I wasn't sure - I went down the Hypertune route, and even then I just bought the core. I thought someone like Goleby's may have kept some stock of the Pro series.

Plazmaman Pro or Hypertune are the go. Plazmaman more likely available straight off the shelf and a bit cheaper. In all honesty, I would do the intercooler before you do too much else. Airboxes arent as essential as a lot believe, they do make a difference and they help and given they're fairly cheap and simple to make its not a terrible idea, but - an airbox isn't going to bring 60° charge temps down very much at all. 80° ambient temperature at the pod filter isn't terrible, your turbo is going to be heating the charge air a lot more than that. So your intercooler sounds horrendously inefficient. Cold air intakes from outside the engine bay are also unnecessary, the positive lift and drag you cause by doing that is more harmful to performance than warm IAT's. Unless you can duct air in from an existing opening in your front bumper. But in reality there is already plenty of cold air going to your pod filter, these engine bays are not stagnant pockets of hot air, there is plenty of movement in there. Get good intercooler, fit that, go for a retune. If your intake temps are still up over 50°, then think about making an airbox and fitting a water sprayer etc. But I bet you'll find a Plazmaman Pro cooler has your charge temps back down around the low 40's

This thread is legit great when you don't get on here everyday: Come on once a week, read 1 out of 5 pages to learn still no Samsonas; assume the other 4 filled with reno chat/solar chat/Johnny trying to convince us all to get a BMW, log back out. See you all in a week, can't wait for the Samsonas pics!

It shouldn't really happen, we've got a couple of track cars on E85 that don't get used much and often don't get started for 18 months - 2 years, but they always start up and run ok. You obviously wouldn't do any full load stuff, the fuel won't be any good anymore, but that's more about its ability to prevent detonation than it is about clogging anything. That said, it's possible, and always worth doing a full check of the fuel system as you're doing.

Exactly the same.