Kinks

On the list of impractical cars, this one mocks all the others. Surely mashing the throttle in that thing would be a quicker execution than anything else humans have come up with so far.

the problem with taking your wastegate feed off the plenum is that it makes the feedback loop very slow to react. when your turbo makes boost it has to fill the outlet piping, down to the intercooler, the cooler itself, the rest of the piping and make its way through the throttle body before pressure starts travelling down the vacuum line to the actuator in order to control boost. you will end up with poor boost control. you are much better off fitting a simple ball-and-spring boost controller like the turbotech one well advertised on SAU and available on ebay. that will keep the wastegate completely shut until the desired level of boost is seen and you can take the boost feed right off the compressor housing meaning your feedback loop is nice and short. it also means you don't have to replumb everything you can just whack the T valve in the middle of what you've got and see if it helps.

word. it's hilarious but I'm glad it's not on SAU.

I've seen this once when braking hard, thankfully I had already put the clutch in and the revs had dropped to about 1500rpm when the oil light flickered on. My oil level was about midway between L and H on the dipstick. FWIW I always put 5L of oil in when I do the change, preferably the oil is slightly above the H mark. There's a kink in the dipstick and I figure that's the "knob end" warning mark that you'll end up crank slapping the oil if you fill it past that, mine is always just below that point.

Very well organised and run, you guys are pros!! Really enjoyed myself, was a great night.

I agree that things should be accurately described and fit for the purpose they claim. But reality is that people will try and flog anything, so at what point do you start taking the hint that you're buying shit? I'm idealistic too, but ideals mean nothing to others. Say you saw a buy it now auction for a turbo. At what point would you go "nah there's something wrong with that" and not buy it? $200? $20? $2? If you buy a turbo for $2 off ebay and expect it to make good boost then, my friend, you are dumber than a suitcase full of rocks. But hey, at least you only pissed $2 up the wall. My point is that if you buy at the bottom end of the market you expect to get something that's not as good and possibly doesn't work at all.

in soviet russia, pole drifts into you!

$20 buys you something. $200 buys you something that was done right. if you want to piss and moan and complain and return things and try and get an item that actually works then great, pay $20 and expect something that was done half-arsed. If you spend the money for quality then everything will line up first go. People expect the world for pocket change these days, it's not hard to get good stuff it's just that nobody wants to pay for it because cheap crap is so enticing.

ford owners must neglect their cars more than holden owners, either that or holdens are more tolerant to abuse. i see a disproportionate amount of fords broken down.

If the rest of the thread wasn't sensible I would swear you are trolling. falcons built for the highway? yeah, maybe parking on the side of it after they overheated (seriously, 90% of the cars i see broken down at the top of a long hill are falcons). 10L/100km for the freeway, no problems. motor loves it.

dishwashing liquid will strip wax off as well, which is almost certainly NOT what you intend to do. wax protects your paint job. there's a reason why car wash soap exists, and it's not to make those companies rich.. it's different to other household products because the application is different!

ah wish i could have been there, was feeling crook this morning i'll have to experience it vicariously through all the pics+vids and make sure to be at the next one.

If you try and disconnect positive first and slip with the spanner you can potentially short the battery to chassis via the spanner, causing a few hundred amps to flow which will make the spanner f**king hot and your palm f**king burnt. always disconnect the negative terminal first, it's safer.

the factory inner only gives you about -/+ 0.25 degrees of adjustment. The whiteline will give you -/+ 0.75 degrees or so. both of these are usually enough to correct camber unless you're running super low in which case you need to replace the inners as well.

talk about overkill. thanks for the headsup mate

I've used "mag wheel cleaner" of a pretty well respected car care brand and it ate the clearcoat on my stock wheels, crazed them to buggery. i only noticed about a week later but there was no way they were like that before. since then I only use car wash soap on my wheels. religiously. maybe i've used car wash pre-soak once or twice but it's citric acid based (smells like oranges) which is a VERY weak acid. also, a disclaimer on the receipt is void because it was never a condition of sale. you can't add conditions after the transaction has been made. secondly, it doesn't mean anything if the cafe has been negligent. if they left acid cleaner on your wheels for too long and damaged them then they should foot the bill for repair.

i'll be thanking various deitys that i don't have to see another ashley and f**kin martin hair loss ad until march.

him and greg rust they forget there's a microphone in front of them, don't have to yell. f**kwits. apparently i was sitting near greg rust coming back from melbourne one year. lucky my mate only told me after we got off the plane i would have punched rust in the head if i'd known.

I think Bernie takes enough money off the teams that he can stay one step ahead in the tamperproof bolt race

If RBR were any bigger c**ts with the way they manage their team and their drivers they would have red cars with a horse symbol on the front! Webber f**ks up a lot behind the wheel but the way they have obviously favoured Vettel (despite him breaking his car all the time) and then cried foul when Webber speaks out about favouritism is pretty despicable.

paid and faxed

I second this, did an open day at Wakefield and the lowered grip levels gave me a real sense for whether the grip was at the front or the rear of the car at a given point on the track. I felt like I learned a lot, whether it actually helped is another matter but I had an absolute ball. Regardless of setup, you will learn a LOT from the first day. Hence I think it's even more important that you forget about camber and pressures and so on during the day and just learn to drive what you've got. Once you've got a baseline then the next wet track day you can start fiddling.

I normally have my NWA album turned up loud as they approach the car. Am I doing it wrong? +1 to what you said. If you fail the attitude test your life becomes miserable, quickly. If I'm doing my job and someone is abusive towards me off the bat I'm far less likely to do them any favours. Police are no different.

As much as I think Webber is a bit bone-headed at times, he has improved this season (aside from using Kovaleinen as a launching ramp at Valencia). If he's ever going to snatch a WDC it'll be this year and I'd like to see him do that then retire and tell Horner to stick the constructors trophy up his arse. The team have not done the right thing by him and he's still leading. Vettel is the up and comer and needs his ego stroked - no surprises there. He is a great driver but he is still too young and petulant to deserve a WDC. Lewis just missed out on his first season and I think it matured him immensely, he came back less of a brat and more of a respectable racer and then he clinched his own title.

Heya Chris! With worn shocks and/or less than perfect wheel alignment a car with hicas will be a pile of poo to drive. I think at least some of the problems people have is a result of their suspension not being set up right so they get a lock bar to "solve" the problem. (oh there I said it... cue the flame war!). My car certainly went through a phase where it felt quite unpredictable to drive, when I took off it felt like it "crabbed" down the road and was twitchy and nervous at the back. But now with fresh shocks, tyres and a wheel alignment it feels solidly planted again and I still have the system everybody loves to hate.