hrd-hr30

we? I find it hard to believe you've done even that much work on any of the cars you're driving Boz!

nah, I reckon my Supra on road tyres would run 1:21s this year. It did a 1:24.9 last year on Federal 595SS which were hopeless. The Kumho Ecsta XS tyres (180 treadwear) dropped 2.2 sec off Lakeside and 2.5 sec off QR Sprint times. I'd expect closer to 3 sec off Oran Park GP due to its length and the nature of the course. Plus maybe half a second from the slight power increase from the FMIC and FCD and 1 bar. It was stock last year. Roy's car should have similar power in a much lighter body (Supra is 1640kg with driver & half a tank) and better tyres in Open class. I reckon 18s too.

Neil, what I take out of that is that you generally get faster at hillclimbs throughout the day regardless of what you are doing to your rear wing. your EC T1 example - less angle of attack at higher speed = the same downforce with increased angle of attack at lower speed. so it probably maintains the overall aero balance of the car. it also means less drag which would be good for the long straight. the front grip from the dive plates (canards?). did this equate to faster lap times? or changes to front tyre temps after a session? do you use any data logging? cold hard numbers reduce the chance of it being placebo effect. you make a change and go looking for the improvement.

if its going to be worth time anywhere it wil be at lakeside. Highest average speed in the country and some very fast corners. take both it and your standard wing out there and swap them over during the day. laptimes don't lie.

lol my Supra came with pads on the console and drivers door to brace your legs against! Its like an admission the seats weren't up to the task...

its right though. The scheme was designed for rally cars to allow them to be used on the road (as they have to in a rally). Its not intended to allow a circuit race car to drive to/from events. My understanding from when I was rallying was that you had to have a National Rally Licenece and the car had to be CAMS log booked as a rally car. The Rego used to be cheaper but isn't any more in QLD if my memory serves.

possible, but kind of misses the point. splitter is to split and smooth the flow of air. you don't want a lip hanging under the splitter to spoil the airflow

I agree. Its hard to define when a kit car becomes a small scale production car. I'd love to see it run too. I like seeing those Lotii mix it up with the big hitting Jap cars as well. It makes it a really interesting mix of cars as i said all along through last years thread and i stick to that now, but they're trying to rule out euro mid and rear engined sports cars to focus on JDM tuner cars, its hard to justify letting the Lotus run and not the others I think. they started life as a Motorsport Elise which had a tuned 200bhp (flywheel) version of the K series Rover engine compared to the production Elise's 118 flywheel bhp thanks to big cams, quad throttles, different intake and exhaust and ECU and probably other things, and it came with an oil cooler mounted in the nose. It weighed pretty much bang on 700kg. About 50kg lighter than the production elise even with al the extra stuff it got. The differences from the production Elise were huge. For starters it was for motorsport use only and only came with one seat. Body was totally different apart from the hydro-formed bonded aluminium tub and the doors. It had an integrated roof instead of a rag top for safety (racing) and aero efficiency which incorporated an intake scoop for the engine, a wider front clam, front splitter and air dam, lightweight engine cover, and adjustable rear wing. Some of the mechanical differences were AP racing 4spot front calipers on lightweight aluminuim bells, some rose joints in the suspension, wider front track and probably alot more I don't know about. Lotus later released the Exige lookalike for road use that weighed about 80kg more and had 54bhp less, and didn't get any of the real fancy bits.

sorry, sounded like you were saying the opposite

Ultima GTR is a kit car and they're not allowed in the rules. Those Lotus' are Motorsport Elise, not a production Exige. The Motorsport Elise was the race only predecessor to the later tamed down road going version that was called the S1 Exige. The Motorsport Elise weighed in the 700kg range from factory, not 1000kg. On top of that it has been converted to GT spec to run in the Australian GT CHampionship, which resulted in an 11 sec per lap improvement around Eastern Creek than it was in Production Sports Car spec. The Motorsport Elise came with a tuned version of the Rover 1.8 puting out 200 flywheel bhp. These cars have been converted to supercharged K20A engines with about 230kw at the wheels if I remember rightly from the info board they displayed down there last year. Race weight is apparently low 800kgs with driver! In 2007/2008 they were eligible for Prod Sports again as someone had made production 5 examples in Aus! There would be more production versions of most kit cars in Aus, like the Ultima GTR. I was a big supporter of them being in Superlap last year, but if the event is really supposed to be focussed on JDM tuner cars, should these GT spec Euro cars be there? Lotus still claim these cars as their own releasing media statements bragging about their Aus GT Championship victories over the Italian Supercars.

a Lotus Motorsport Elise becomes a Japanese TUNER vehicle when you put a Honda engine in it? Everyone was commenting on how the little Lotus' showed up all the Japanese hero cars after the last Superlap so the general perception certainly isn't that they've become Japanese TUNER vehicles. I guess all those Lotus 7 replicas with their Toyota engines will want in now too! Personally I think the Lotii are closer to kit cars than production cars in their design. They are built with no compromise made for road use or occupant acessibility or comfort. No room to get in, or once you are in. I have to take the roof off my mate's S1 Elise to even attempt entry! and let me tell you its stil no mean feat to actually get in! I only did it once and that was on a dare. having done it once I won't do it again. Once you are in, there's no interior finishings, no creature comforts, no boot spacee tc etc. They're built to be super lightweight, low Cg purpose built machines that can (just) be registered and tolerated for short drives on the road. Just like all those other kit cars. If they only want JDM TUNER cars why not just say that in the vehicle eligibilty rule? The "No rear engine 6 Cylinder or above vehicles are allowed" rule won't stop any mid engine exotics entering - Ferraris, Lambos etc are not rear engined. Only Porsches are rear engined.

Laminar/attached airflow creates less turbulence and therefore the wing would get more airflow over it on the back of the 180, not less. On the S14 where the unattached flow off the roofline would become disturbed/turbulent, a wing would work less effectively in the turbulent air and need to be higher to try and get in good clean/undisturbed air. That's why race cars mount wings high as possible/allowed under ther regulations.

I can't see any of the off the shelf wings being terribly efficient. its much easier to create drag than downforce, and its quite difficult to create downforce efficiently - ie with minimal drag. you could easily loose more straight line speed than you pick up in the corners. I haven't noticed (or maybe I just didn't pay any attention to) any threads on SAU about wings on track cars, but I have seen a thread recently on another forum of people saying they noticed a big difference in traction out of corners when they fit a wing to their cars, but they never seem to mention any lap time improvements to back up their 'feel' so the sceptic in me believes its all placebo effect. My 2c is to concentrate on optimising mechanical grip first and only look at aero when that area is highly developed. on a kind of related note, I've already had someone tell me the first thing I should do to my sil80 is add canards to the front bar to create downforce like on his car because it made a huge difference to its handling. I suggested that as his bar was held on by zip ties, the fact that it doesn't just get torn off suggests his canards aren't really generating much meaningful downforce. placebo effect...

the resurfacing is complete now too! Its quite exciting to see the nice smooth new surface down. I imagine it will offer alot more grip than the old surface And it will be nice not to have to worry about bottoming out over all those bumps. Can't wait to drive it to see what the changes are like. Wider run onto the front straight (and to a lesser extent the wider kink) will equal higher top speeds! I'm not a fan of the bus-stop idea for cars because it takes away one of the best high speed corners around, and will mean you'll hardly need to brake for Hungry at all. Totally ruins the back half of the track. But if its only for the street car sprints I guess its understandable. As long as the race cars get to use the proper race track its all good. I have a friend who is a road engineer and he has big doubts about that tunnel's effects on the track surface. He said it can be done but its very difficult to compact the roadbase properly right up to the edge of the concrete, which over time results in a subsidance and a fairly big bump... here's hoping they got it right! There's a TopGear Supersprint and race weekend at Lakeside the week before Superlap. I'm very tempted to do that with the Sileighty instead and take the Supra down to Superlap... very tempted!

thanks guys. At least it only affects CAMS events. Thankfully there's lots of AASA events up here anyway, but there are a few CAMS supersprints I want to do as well. Some of which will probably be in Sport Sedan class, or maybe in Sports Cars - I know the 180 didn't make it into IPRA thanks to the Touring Car interior dimensions requirement. I might go with the sheet alloy cover as Ben suggested. Another thing to add to the list!

my new Sileighty has a glass pop-up sunroof. I was planning on replacing the glass with lexan in the interests of weight & safety. OK mainly weight... But I have a niggling doubt about CAMS disliking sunroofs at speed events. I seem to recall someone at a local hillclimb being given a hard time about a sunroof years ago but maybe I'm imagining things. I can't see any reasonable grounds to disallow them its just a gut feeling I have. I mean you can run an open car at speed events. And if you roll a sedan you're going to break glass somewhere anyway and my sunroof will very soon be lexan anyway. I've read and re-read the General requirements for Automobiles and didn't find anything... Does anyone have any experience with this?

most 4WDs running around out on the roads only driving the rear axle - ie 2 wheels. how does that equal all wheel drive??? its a part time 4WD you'll find anything with an AWD badge drives all its wheels all the time. they're constant AWDs there is a significant differnce in the two types of driveline, and that's why a new term (AWD) was coined for them.

yes, the Japs certainly have a way with English don't they? this is called 4WDing. its for 4WDs. wanna bring your 4WD Stageas out for a drive with us?

team up sabotaging that S2000 then see who does the best job on each other's car eh? maybe we should just hog-tie Boz and throw him in your boot. I don't want to be beaten by a WRX either... and we'll get to see if Boz really is quick in any car!

no idea how it will go against your car, but I'm sorry to say my new sil80 is SR20.

Just sent my entry for Open class in today. Sold my old CA18DET Datto 1200 track car the end of last year and I pick up my new toy this weekend. I had been thinking that the same engine in a Silvia or 180SX would be faster thanks mainly to the more sophisticated and tuneable rear suspension and the quicker steering, combined with the slippery shape I think that will more than make up for the little bit of extra weight they carry. I found a sileighty with all the right bits and pieces that just needs a bit of a tidyup and maybe a few minor suspension tweaks. Dave at Japanese Parts and Performance has been very helpful throwing in a few things I needed and organising the tune with Matty Spry from PITS. Can't wait to get it on the track!

you're right to say the term AWD was just invented to differentiate AWD vehicles when they started popping up from traditional part-time 4WDs. BUT there are some actual technical differences! You can't call a traditional part time 4WD an AWD because it only drives all the wheels when you decide you want/need to. Most of the time it isn't driving all the wheels, so it definitely isn't an AWD. An AWD car simply drives al the wheels all the time - you have no input into when all the wheels are driven. there used to be a number of defining driveline differences for 4WDs: -lockable/free wheeling front hubs (either manual or automatic) -part time 4WD transfer case -low range and other non-driveline differences. in particular, a long travel suspension system. and a rugged ladder chassis construction.but even these have started to become blurred with some so-called 4WDs starting to try to rely more on electronic traction aids than keeping all the wheels on the ground, and some now using a unitary/moncoque construction. but I digress, so back to the driveline discussion... 4WDs started to blur that definition of 4WD by going to constant awd with a lockable centre diff. The same as some of the soft roader/crossover vehicles/whatever you want to call them... So the only real driveline difference left is the low range transfer case. If it has one of them its a 4WD. if it doesn't, its either an AWD car or a pretender. As I said before, the soft roaders i can think of that had a low range were some of the subas, but their low range wasn't much of a low range gearing reduction so even that was a bit soft. But anything with a low range transfer case is having a bit of a go at being a proper 4WD.

4WD does not equal AWD. its all become a little blurred with the amount of soft-roaders out there now, but a proper 4WD used to have switchable front hubs from free wheeling to locked, and a manually selectable transfer case with low range 4WD. But there are some proper constant 4WD vehicles with a low ratio transfer case and lockable centre diff like 80 series Cruisers and Discos... if it doesn't have low range, it ain't a 4WD. Its either an AWD crossover vehicle (soft roader) with a little bit of extra off road capabilities on bush tracks and sand, or an AWD road car thats really only going to give you extra capabilities in wet/snow/icy road conditions. EG, some subarus have a low range transfer case (well a lower range than high range, but it really isn't a huge reduction) which makes them a 4WD crossover vehicle. The rest of the Subarus without low range are just constant AWDs

looks like it was already over to me. I'd already said I wouldn't replying on that point anymore and it looks like I misinterpreted Mitch anyway, so apologies for my condescending/narky remarks Mitch. I'm looking for a new trailer too. I stupidly sold mine to a mate just recently after selling my Datto track car, but I now have another track only car on the way... maybe he'll sell it back to me.

bah, I'm tired of being nice in the face of your condescending attitude... as much as I'm sure it will surprise you to find you don't know everything about towing, some car carriers don't have springs at all and work on the priciple of using the vehicle's suspension to dampen the combination. Its a proven principle, not ifs and assumptions. you stick to your box trailers and tank towing experience. I've towed box trailers too but I struggle to find any relevance of that to this discussion, but I guess I must be missing something blindingly obvious (yes, that's sarcasm). And I'll bet you dollars to cents that these defence force tanks you keep name dropping as proof you know better aren't being held at a single point front and rear by ratchet straps as per your advice here, but completely secured by tensioned chains preventing any suspension movement and the resultant problems (which I've covered before but will get to again here too). I'll stick to my experience towing all sorts of cars over all sorts of roads up to a couple of thousand kilometers in a single round-trip, complete with blowouts at higway speeds both on the rear of the 4WD tow vehicle and the trailer itself, without once feeling any sort of movement in the load being carried when secured to unsprung components even in that scenario, or as previously mentioned when towing lifted high Cg 4WDs even up and down mountains and over rough dirt roads. As I said before, you wouldn't even know there was a load on the back of the patrol except for it being even slower than normal. In fact that the only time I ever felt a load on the trailer was when it was held down from the body! You felt a harsh sudden jolt every time the strap was jerked tight. That was how I learnt the error of securing a vehicle from a fully sprung component when i started towing cars. It makes perfect sense - any movement of the suspension when tied down from the body will loosen then suddenly tighten the straps. The suspension WILL move downwards when the trailer hits a bump unless you have done something to prevent that from happening. You can't argue with Newton's equal and opposite reactions. If the trailer moves up over a bump, the car's suspension will compress. When the suspension compresses the fully sprung part sof the car move down. When the fully sprung parts of the car move down, the straps holding them loosen. When the straps loosen, the load is free to move. When the straps tighten as the suspension rebounds and/or the load has moved to the extent permitted by the slack straps, they are being shock loaded. When the strap is shock loaded it might loosen gradually or even fail completely, and you didn't recommend using a safety chain did you? anyway, the shorter the length of tensioned strap to the fully sprung component the worse the effects will be. if the length of tensioned webbing is long enough compared to the suspenion movement, you might be totally oblivious to it going on and suffer no ill effects from it, but it is nonetheless happening to whatever degree. So if you must tie down to the body or any fully sprung component (like a K-frame!) make the straps as long as possible would be my advice. The X pattern someone else mentioned to the K frame would be a good example of getting the straps as long as possible to mitigate this inherent problem of tieing down a moving component of the vehicle. compare that real issue with your method to what I can gather of your objections to my securing advice: that I like to over-rate the straps I use for no good reason other than a bit of a margin for safety - shocking mistake isn't it! And this supposed body roll probem that you seem to think race cars (which is what we are talking about towing) have at legal road speeds combined with the cornering forces generated by the wonderful chassis dynamics of the tow car and trailer when towing these wobbly racecars. I know you drifter think racecars use soft setups, but really... so, unless you have any sensible points about problems with securing a vehicle by unsprung components I won't bother rising to any more of your "I've towed tanks and I'm right" posts.