Kinks

Drive any car stupidly and you can get into trouble. FWD is definitely a safer drivetrain. RWD is more fun, but basically I think you should follow everyone's advice, stop trying to bullshit your old man and buy a car you want with your own money. If your old man wants a boring, reliable, economical, cheap to insure FWD car then try and bend him a bit but a skyline would be totally inappropriate for his needs.

I might be there to watch, if I'm free

course it is

If it's the input bearing it will make a noise in neutral with the clutch out because you have: engine -> clutch -> gearbox -> diff/road gearbox has an input and output shaft, normally these are engaged in a gear but they're not connected in neutral - but with the clutch out the engine's still connected to the input side of things so the input shaft will spin with the engine. Have a look at howstuffworks.com, pics will help.

You can get mechanical oil pressure gauges but they can't be mounted in the cabin. Hence people putting them on the bonnet. Electrical oil pressure gauges which use a sender are fine for cabin mounting, but are more exxy and may (as someone said) have a reduced range. However as long as it covers the expected operating point of your oil around the middle of the gauge it'll be fine. I really don't think oil temperature should vary by 140 degrees!! (if base temp is 40C then 180C is your top temp.. fairly hot oil!)

All headlight globes use a halogen filler. The premium range (eg Plus 50) use a xenon filler (as opposed to Krypton or Argon). Any of these are legal as long as they're the standard wattage (and they all are, you can't get Xenons in higher wattages as far as I know). Now, Xenons throw a brighter whiter light. They do NOT intrinsically cast a blue light. If you've got blue Xenons, the glass has a blue tint on it which reduces your light output - and blue tinted globes ARE illegal. Plus 50's have a clear coating which means you get white light. I put Plus 50's in and aligned my headlights properly - not so it looks cool but so I can actually see where I'm going at night. Function over fashion mmkay.

It was great until it started pissing with rain eh. Had to laugh, i followed a couple of 'lines onto the freeway and had to try and get us off it so we could backtrack and find bobbin head road. much hilarity ensued (mmm, bobbin head is a sweet drive tho)

If you mount a RD in your engine bay just forward of the firewall, it may have a detector at the rear but it won't be getting any signal because the car's metal blocks it. Most RD's have 360 degree detection but the mounting point is important.

In for spectating..

My experience was the opposite re the stands, my dad had a couple of seats and they were shit. It was on the outside of turn 1 with sand trap directly in front of you, it was too high off the ground and too far back from the track. My mate and I got a much better rush from wandering around and standing near the fences watching the cars pass a few feet away (which we spent most of the weekend doing). Guess it depends on the stand? I'm keen to head down for another one but too early for me to be planning it, I'll decide closer to the time and just bail down the coast avoiding speeding fines and get general admission. The atmosphere is enough

Should be there to spectate with any luck!

If Moanie's daring enough to take on my fearsome SR20DE I might come too. I work saturdays so I'm not really up for a late one but as long as I didn't get to bed TOO late... hmmm. I've got uni all friday so I'll have to see..

big turnout, it was really good overall. Now I gotta get ready for work, poo...

The 8th I can make. Not up for a late one since I have to work the following day but I'm in at this stage.

you're a bad, bad man

your grass helis come far too close to the pulsar I'm sposed to be keeping in cotton wool

ditto.. good pizza good company and beer. what more could you ask for (that's a rhetorical question, leave it be!! lol)

in for woodfired

I think there was one, didn't hear about it blowing anything but then I wasn't listening. Funny, you would have thought an STI would be designed well enough to cope happily with an exhaust swap (which shouldn't really change all that much) and a bit of track work. But I suppose they only design them just well enough for 40 year old mid-life-crisis candidates to burble lumpily around the city in and make PPSSSSHHHHHHHHH noises at 2000RPM shifts. (note, I'm not showing brand favouritism here even though I laugh at wrx's weak gearboxes - I'm just being cynical at how cars and a lot of other things in life are designed these days.. ie cheaply. sigh).

Just tell them "if you don't all shut up right now I'm going to turn around and go back" ahh, just like bus drivers in high school.

8:30? That's a bit soft considering you slept in I had fun in the little pulsar, didn't really explore uncharted waters but I had a bit of a fang around the track, it managed 170 down the straight. With a bit more track knowledge I could hold more speed through the corners and get my times down, but that's really a task for the next car which will also be RWD and more powerful... the pulsar is going to stay in the family when I get my next one so I have to be nice to it! Thanks to Dan for organising, I enjoyed the day.

Tosh isn't soft for me

Same thing I found in the pulsar - except I was determined That's what I did. Wasn't really difficult to get the plug back in place, just needed to think through the sequence first to get it right. I read the pulsar forum a fair bit before and during and hence had a better idea about what was possible.. And as a bonus, no drilling holes in the door/chassis and it looks factory.

In for track day. *opens wallet and watches money fly away*

I know someone who's attempting something along these lines at the moment. But given it's a work in progress it's not really useful to you there is an R33er with such an engine, it is a beast.