scathing

"Better" doesn't actually mean "good" though. It just means "not as bad". Suspension-wise it is theoretically better (an Outback is a soft roader so its not even fair to compare) since all those cars are flubbery, but a 3.5L Magna is going to be quicker in a straight line. If you want a good car, I'd suggest that you buy some runabout now and learn to drive properly before putting your money down on a performance car that actually has performance.

NA R34 Skylines are slower than erosion. It's true that you don't need lots of power to go fast, but that rule usually applies to cars with taut suspension and a lack of mass...two qualities not really associated with Skylines either. If you're coupling it with a slushbox, I hope that everywhere you're driving to is downhill from where you started.

Yes. All else being equal, the width of the tyre is irrelevant to the size of the contact patch. All that changes is the shape. This can have a marginal effect on traction, but not to the same extent that a superior tyre type will. When I went from 245 width all round RT215 S-Comps all round to 255 front / 285 rear width FK452s I noticed a big drop in grip. Even after mentally telling myself to go easier on the brakes, I'd get the tail to step out while trail braking. And I used to run 235 width R-Comps and, when hot, they had more grip again. If you can afford to run a softer tyre that wears out more quickly by going to a narrower width (and even a lower wheel diameter), then on purely performance reasons I'd suggest it. But, aesthetically, it wouldn't look that crash hot. And, if you're talking about wheels you use every day, how they look will be a factor.

Evo for daily driver/winding road. GT-R for track.

The 350Z is. The V35 Skyline is not.

As far as I know the Fujitsubo is noise legal. The noise stats are available on their web site. http://www.fujitsubo.co.jp/prods/detail/00...003661/00000964 And, when you get up the rev range, its only 2dB louder. If I remember correctly from APS' open day back a few years ago, their TT kit is only 2dB louder at the testing point and so it was still noise legal. You'll have to check with your own regulatory body to find out if that's OK, but to the ear its not that loud where a cop would consider pulling out the testing equipment unless they really wanted to f**k you over. The HiTech doesn't sound that loud either, if you just do the catback. Unfortunately I have no noise data on it. On either exhaust, if you're not wide open throttle in the upper half of your rev range when you blow past a cop neither exhaust is going to attract attention. If you are, chances are they'll try and bust you for street racing/speeding anyway.

My mate's M3: Stock wheels, but love the graf:

Yeah, but I've heard they've demolished that carpark now. Melbourne has the best graf, at least in locations that are easily car accessible. I have to get mega angle at 1km/hr up my driveway right now to get it into the garage. I have a rule that I should always be able to get my car into my home without damaging the car. If I move to a location in Sydney that has reasonable driveways and no speed humps, or down to Melbourne, I'll probably drop it half an inch. But, right now, my car is as low as it can go where scraping the front lip/undercarriage is only occasional.

http://www.au-z.org/gallery2/v/my350z/?g2_page=2 Look at the pics after 2007-08-01 - my 17" TE37s were a bit of an embarrassment. For other 350Zs I've taken pics of, check here.

Remembering the road rules doesn't mean obeying the road rules.

My fitment: It's as flush as I can get with the stock camber/unrolled guards. However, I am still running a decent tyre size (255 front, 285 rear) and even on the track at full lateral load I don't touch. I'd like the car to sit lower, but in Sydney that's not an option if I want to keep my lower bodywork intact.

Is that diff on eBay the entire pumpkin as an enclosed unit, or is it just the internals? If its the former, you could see if someone with a slusho Z wants to just do a direct swap. Maybe offer them a VLSD fluid flush on the 3.5 FD you're giving them to sweeten the deal, which shouldn't cost a great deal extra. They drop their diff off their car and you fit it to yours, and call it quits. You wouldn't need to open anything up, which would bring down costs as you don't need new washers and seals and shit. You could even offer to do the install for them, if they're happy to trust you with it, so it'd cost them absolutely nothing for a 3.5:1 VLSD conversion on their car.

The problem becomes the definition of what counts as "substantial". Unless you're driving a Honda or a Pulsar, a properly boxed pod filter isn't going to give you a massive performance increase (we all know if you have a piss-small 4 banger FWD POS then a sick DRIFT pod filter will have you blowing the doors off GTS-ts ) but for the rest of us that wouldn't count as giving a "substantial performance increase. Neither would an axle-back muffler, etc. Where do you draw the line at "minor" vs "substantial"? I figured that the revision of the rule, as per my link (which was updated in the last 6-12 months since I noticed the wording changed earlier this year), to nominate mods that require an engineer's cert was a laymans-term clarification of the above. Of course the average idiot working the RTA wouldn't know their arse hole from their ear hole so, as others have said, I'd get it in writing from the RTA that its OK before doing powertrain mods while on my P's.

ORLY? From here: http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/licensing/gettin...ons.html?llid=4 That page is the "P1 and P2 license conditions" page, if you click on Licensing off the RTA's home page and then select the link with that name. What's the URL for the page you read? How did you navigate there? I have, however, seen conflicting and/or misleading information on several pages on the RTA's web site in the past. Especially if it gets Googled, and the search engine deep links to pages that have been "decommissioned" but not removed from the production site. You can't get to these pages via following links from the RTA's home page since the data is no longer current, but as they're still on the server they're still accessible if you know the direct URL (or a search engine does). It's sloppy web design, but then they are the RTA.

It's been changed now to "modifications that require an engineering certificate". I can't remember if aftermarket exhausts need a cert or if they can be self-certified. Anyway, to the OP, suck it up and learn to drive in a NA before getting a turbocharged car.

Also, the majority of Australian car enthusiasts don't understand the concept of offset. As long as the car looks fully sick from profile, that's all they give a shit about. Thankfully stanced and hellaflush cars are coming into fashion, so we might see the cheaper wheels come in decent offsets.

Your other options are to see if a 3.3:1 FD ratio is availabe aftermarket. Otherwise, find a manual diff and see if someone with a slusho FM platform car wants to do a swap of the ratio. The speedo reads off the rear ABS sensor on our cars so changing the FD does not put the speedo out, and in the US its quite popular with auto owners to do a 3.5:1 (or even a 3.7:1) FD ratio swap.

Cheers for that. In that case, I probably have 16x7.5 all round. In which case I won't need new wheels.

I actually own a 350Z, but since they platform share most of the mechanical components are common. In my opinion, there are only 2 options if you plan on staying NA. Fujitsubo Legalis-R if you can afford a Japanese exhaust. HiTech if you can't. The former is probably my favourite exhaust for the FM platform cars. Up until around 3000RPM the car sounds no different to stock, which means around town you won't feel a difference. Once you climb it past that rev range, the car picks up slightly more volume but the note takes on a much more aggressive tone. It also has no drone, which suits the "grand tourer" nature of the car. The only other exhaust I know of for the V35 that can match the civility of the Legalis-R is Nismo's, and that will cost you a fair amount more. The exhaust looks almost stock (this is what my it looks like on my mate's old 350Z, the only difference between the exhausts for the Z and the V is that the V needs an extension pipe because the car is longer) so cops won't notice it either. You can even bolt on the diffuser that is attached to the OEM exhaust onto the Legalis-R. The HiTech is made by a mob in Sydney, and I had one on my Z for a while. Like the Fujitsubo it sounds almost stock at low RPM and only picks up a more metallic note above 3500RPM. The note is different to the Legalis-R, and after hearing them both I prefer the Fujitsubo's, but its still good. However, between 1900-2200RPM it does get a slight drone. Its nowhere near as bad as the drone in a cannon exhaust, but given how refined the rest of the car is the noise will stand out. The other problem is that this rev band is what the car will do at 60km/hr in 6th gear. You arguably shouldn't be lugging the motor at that RPM at that speed, but since the engine's so torquey it doesn't feel like it struggles. After a while, I stopped noticing the drone (I assume it didn't go away). The tips on the HiTech look stock, but the muffler barrel is noticably smaller. It means the OEM diffuser I mentioned earlier doesn't fit it. With the car's height you'd have to bend down to actually look, and it still looks "plain" enough that it'd take someone who knew the car to realise that its not stock, but if you want a 100% OEM replica (for maximum stealth) it's not perfect. The build quality isn't as good as the Fuji's either. The metal discolours a lot faster, the welds aren't as neat, and one of my mates noticed that one tip stuck out more than the other on theirs. Mine didn't have that issue though. Lastly, the HiTech's Y pipe doesn't match the OEM shape. With every JDM exhaust, it matches up to the factory Y pipe. The HiTech requires its own. That's not a problem initially since the HiTech gets sold with its Y pipe whereas with the JDM exhausts its nearly always sold separately (so factor that in when you're comparing prices), but it means if you break the HiTech Y pipe (like I did) you either need to get a new one from them or replace the entire exhaust. With the Fuji, you can get any Y pipe from almost any other manufacturer. If you break it, you can always pop a stock one back on temporarily. However, it is significantly cheaper (comparing new to new). If you do the NA powertrain bolt-ons, the car should run mid to high 13's depending on the tyres and how good you are at launching. You'll be just shy of 200rwkW, depending on what dyno you're testing on. My 350Z has all the NA bolt-ons I listed earlier (minus cams) and it does a G-Tech measured 13.9 on not-quite-legal RT215s with stiff Tein Flex coilovers. I'm sure if it was being driven by someone who doesn't suck at launching the car, and on a grippy drag strip start line rather than the...erm....private road I tested it on, the car would have gone faster that night. With fresh tyres that have had their pressures lowered, regular suspension, and Step 1 cams your slightly heavier V35 should still be quicker again. A highish 13 isn't bad, but its not fantastic by modern standards. And because the power delivery is so linear, it won't feel quick.

He f**ked the start of the link. http://www.news.com.au/national/burnouts-s...r-1225811632670

Spending it on the body isn't going to get you more power. Either way, there'll be practically zero ROI so it boils down to personal preference.. $10K will be more than enough for bolt-on NA powertrain mods Using very rough figures, you'd be able to get a full exhaust, intake, ECU and cams. If you're able to self-install, you could probably source a HKS Supercharger kit and an exhaust within your $12K budget, and make noticably more power and torque. The problem is that you won't have much left over. If you're talking aesthetic mods, one of my favourite V35s at the moment is this one from Team Shyne in the US. http://www.stanceworks.com/?p=515 Really simple bodykit, and stanced. $10K would pay for a fat set of wheels and tyres, coilovers, and the kit fitted and painted, but at most you'll only have enough left for a catback exhaust. That height and those wheels won't be remotely legal, though.

If your only 2 concerns are power and legality then APS' twin turbo kit is completely ADR compliant, and if you get it tuned properly you should pass emissions too. The kit makes around 280rwkW on a tune I can't be sure is 100% emissions legal (but has the OEM cats in place), but you should still be on the high side of 250rwkW even if its pulled back. Short of boring and stroking the engine (which is big bucks), there's no way you're going to get anywhere near that while staying NA and 100% road legal.

Try using the search function.

I've currently got a set of Z32 wheels off a turbo model. The rims are actually staggered (they're 16x8.5 on the rear, with 16x7.5 front) which means they don't fit the car I want to put them on. I'm not looking at chopping and changing wheels since the ones I've got aren't gunmetal. So I wouldn't mind confirming that they are 16x7.5 all round first.

Cool, so they came off a NA 300ZX then?