scathing

They're meant to recycle it. Except I don't see any massive filtration / reclamation units at Carlovers etc.

A Stagea is a Skyline wagon. A Q45 is a much bigger car. If the Skyline is a Japanese Commodore, then a Q45 is a Japanese Grange. If you want to see what the current Infiniti Q looks like, check out the Infiniti USA site If I was in the market for a car like that, I'd consider it. The engine isn't that bad (its big, torquey, and you can get parts for it. There are guys that have bored and stroked them out to 6.0L to make a lot of lazy power). But then I'd just love to pimp out a Chrysler 300C if I needed a barge......

That's true in Victoria, but not NSW. You're only allowed to wash your car with reclaimed water in NSW, hence why all those Carlovers etc self-service car washes are doing so well.

"Hi, is this the chemist? Do you guys deliver? Cool, I need 1 chill pill sent to SW20-GT. Express delivery, please." I get where he's coming from though. If there's one thing I've learnt in a customer-facing environment, it is to assume that your customers are idiots until they prove otherwise. Don't assume they can or will do anything. Always double-check anything they say they've done. Because they will lie to your face, and then blame you for their incompetence. A business has to service everyone from those that might have custom-made their own dump pipes because "the ones on the market don't have the right shape for optimal flow" to people who think you're insulting their mother if you ask if they checked the dipstick. Since they won't know which one of the two you are when you stride in, they have to treat everyone like the latter. Because, like SW20-GT says, if they make assumptions and some customer's engine blows due to filthy oil....they signed off on the service as being complete, so they're liable. But, build up a good relationship with the mechanic and they'll work something out with you. I stopped having my car serviced by Nissan, but while I was still going there I told them to do or not do things. For example they wouldn't touch aftermarket rotors and brake pads, so when mine neared minimum thickness I told them to leave them alone and I'd sort it out myself. They did, and you can be damned sure I checked that they didn't charge me for it. In fact, they went the other way. They made sure they put down "pads at wear indicators and rotors near minimum width, but customer instructed us not to replace them" so if I drove it somewhere and had a brake failure, they could say it was completely my fault.

The Ferodo DS2500s will dust up like you wouldn't believe. But they work. If you do drive quick, as PMATT says, then being able to stop consistently should be more important than having to clean your rims frequently. If its a problem, get the OEM pads.They're not as bad on dust, and at least you know they're available. I've heard good things about HAWKs being relatively low-dust though.

That's not the case on the eastern seaboard (I've checked the VSI documents for NSW, Vic and Qld). I could put 20" diameter rims on a MGB if I could find the right ones, and get tyres for it.

You think the crud that Tempe sells are made in Australia?

Given that its NA and you're probably not running a stripped down engine, I'd look at a piggyback. At a bolt-on level of tune the gains from going to a standalone ECU aren't worth the cost. A'PEXi SAFC, Unichip (if they make one for your RB25DE), or the GReddy eManage / HKS F-Con etc would be fine. You'd then need to get it tuned. But, as everyone else has said, don't get a "one size fits all" ECU. Its not tuned for your mods, so you'll either not get all the gains you could (which makes it a waste of time and money) or at worst it'll damage something. If your car doesn't have any other mods, you'd be better off getting a catback exhaust before touching the ECU.

Older model Eclipse Talons (top of the line) are 4WD with a turbo 4. But then the bright sparks at Mitsubishi in America decided that the market didn't want that, so they replaced the range-topper with a FWD V6. (the one Tyrese drives in 2F2F).

The R34 was sleek? I think we may have different definitions of the word "sleek".... Anyway, I read an interview on another site (if I can find the source I will) and they said that they didn't want the car to look like an ultra-aerodynamic mobile ramp like other supercars (specifically something like a Ferrari or Lamborghini). The GT-R is meant to be a wide shouldered, tough looking car. Its meant to look like a bruising pitbull or doberman rather than a greyhound or a whippet. That's the look they want the car to have, which is why it doesn't look like a space ship.

But it will have full dealer support, and it means that the car will be able to compete in the mainstream magazines' PCOTY, BFYB, etc to really rub it in the face of the locals and the Euros. And if I could afford the upcoming GT-R when it comes out, I'd rather have it brand new with genuine double digit figures on the odo than a slightly used one.

Maybe. I suppose it depends on your age. I get the feeling my generation (currently late 20's) will always be the minority, especially in terms of political clout. I saw in the paper on Friday that school kids went out protesting, something most people my age just don't do (mainly because we are all too busy working or something). And if there's something I've learnt while in a large organisation, its people who chuck the biggest whinges that eventually get their way. That's how the baby boomers did it back in the 60's, when they were long haired hippies smoking weed and skiving off work. That's how they're doing it now as moneyed-up corporate types or retirees. And I figure its how the current schoolage kids, who unlike us get the idea of activism, are going to get political opinion to back them once the baby boomers move on to the 3 Series BMW or Audi A4 in the sky. When I was a teen the car scene wasn't like it was today. You didn't have the Auto Salon culture, and people who did up cars were either street machiners or street racers (aside from your track going types). Most import cars were scruffy "drift cops" rather than the primped and posed cars that infest the scene today. If cars stop being a fashion accessories (and we all know how fickle fashion is) there won't be support for people in nice cars, but there will be support to get gas guzzling and polluting machines out of our increasingly damaged environment.

They are in the business of making money. If they can profit from fear, they'll do so. If they can profit from the heartwarming story of courage and adversity, they'll pay $2.6 million to a pair of bogans who climbed out of a hole to go to the pub.

Did they give you a date for that? Maybe in the early 90's its true. But even by the late 90's you should have seen some 7.5" wide rims. According to Drive, a 1996 HSV Clubsport (VS) came with 8" wide rims.

Don't forget the locals' generous factory tolerances, and variable build quality. After all, Motor Magazine has dyno'ed several SS Commodores that have pulled higher numbers than a HSV Clubsport R8. It could just be that he got one of the XR6T's that were made properly. Must have been a Wednesday car.

Since you're quite fond of using drugs as an analogy, let me try one on. I realise you said you weren't going to reply, so I'll leave it out there for other people to consider. Lets say you're walking down the road. Some cop runs up to you, clearly in a hurry, and says, "Hey, I need you to hang on to this!" "What is it?" you ask as you reach out. "Its a kilo of heroin that I'll need later as evidence. C'mon! I've gotta go arrest a criminal!" and quickly thrusts it in your hand. Most people, in that instance, would probably have grabbed the package before reacting to the fact that its drugs just because its being offered to them. I'll leave it in the mind of the reasonable reader, who knows that sitting here thinking about it is a lot different to being there at the time when some police officer is right in front of you, as to whether they'd take it even if they did have time to react to the information on what is in the package. So, you take the package. And then he arrests you for possession of illict substances (lucky his "criminal" was so close!), and in a quantity that is merchantable (I can't remember the exact term for carrying enough to be a dealer). You knew it was illegal before you took it. And since you're holding it, technically you're in possession. Righteous bust? Apparently so if its OK for cops to set you up as long as you're given a "choice".

At the behest of other people in this thread, and your cousin (since you want to bring up things said outside of this thread) I backed off from the pointedness of the comments and tried to be a bit more civil. I figured, from the moral high horse you were riding about the way in which I was putting things and having a go at people, that you'd do the same. Evidently not. I'm not going to say whether you should or shouldn't, but should you reply again I'll make sure that the tone of any subsequent replies are in line with yours. There's your lack of consistency again. You said you were over it, yet here you are rabbiting on again. Anyway, I've never said that cops can't get you by inciting a street race. I'm not on the bar, but I figure if it went to court it'd be upheld (not that the cops haven't used dodgy methods to book people in the past, relying on the fact that civilians assume police always comply with the law and don't contest it). The failure to understand has always been on your part, and its shown up time and time again since you keep accusing me of saying things I never actually said. What I am saying that the cops shouldn't be allowed to make busts like this. I don't see it as being ethical. What I want to see is a consistent application of the laws and methods of enforcement, but since consistency is beyond your understanding I can see why you're not understanding what I am saying. When you let the end justify the means, that's when you start living in a police state. I realise its the prevailing attitude in this country (like invading Iraq even though the reasons given publicly were known by the government to be false, or intentially lying about the "children overboard" incident that close to an election) but just because its popular doesn't mean its right. This country used to be about a "fair go", and we've gone overseas to kill and die for the idea that people shouldn't live in a state where the government and its enforcement arm can run roughshod over people with impunity. As for the drug pusher thing, they approach the cop to sell. The crime is committed without the cops needing to make any kind of covert action. With a drug dealer that gets approached by people, the dealer is in possession of illicit substances. Another crime already committed before the police act, and it gives them reasonable grounds to suspect them of dealing. It still meets my criteria that police should only be permitted exemptions to the law in the course of stopping a crime already taking place, which is the case for the other exemptions they are granted. Last time I checked possessing a sports car wasn't illlegal, and not all sports car drivers are criminals. Nor are all youths. In fact, few of them are. I don't see the reasonable grounds to suspect a certain subset of them (you don't see cops winding up Porsche, BMW or Ferrari owners, nor do you see them having a go at older drivers in imports) in order to draw out a crime. Until the "suspect" nails the throttle at the lights, the only crime committed by anyone in the vicinity (and I will use the example from the first post) is on the part of the police officer who exceeds the speed limit, drives dangerously to cut someone off, and then sits there making undue noise revving the engine at a set of lights. If the cops show up at "the runs" and there are guys lining up to race, and they either stakeout and wait for 2 civilians to race, or send an undercover there to do whatever it is people do at these street races to arrange a run and then bust the other participant, I'm fine with it. The guys are there at an illegal street race hanging around negotiating a race. They didn't just randomly show up at some industrial park and stay there. They were waiting to race, and it required no provocation on the part of the police for them to do it. Fair enough. I'll yield that point for now. However, since the driver training and their ability to control the car has no bearing on their safety as a vehicle operator (which is what I evidently erroneously inferred), what relevance does it bring to the discussion that lwells and I were having, and that you replied to, about the safety of both participants involved in the street race? If its got nothing to do with safety, it pretty much means you were just wasting everyone's time by harping on about something that has nothing to do with what we were talking about. My mistake into thinking that you were actually participating in the discussion. Oh-Kay. And you're accusing me of being a moron? How many murderers do you think they catch using your above method? How many drug dealers? How many of.....anything? Yet they still manage to catch wife beaters without f**king a bloke's wife so he'll get emotional, lose control, and beat the shit out of her. Your illogic beggars belief.

My shift has been pushed back so now I can make it. Except I was at the skidpan today, I let someone drive my car, and now my CEL is on (although the engine sounds OK and nothing is leaking). I'm going from a "no" to a "maybe".

Once again you're misunderstanding me, despite my prior clarification when I was talking to lwells. Your questions break, at times, into specifics and so the discussion then loses its focus on what I was originally talking about. Forget the street racer; we've already established that its stupid and illegal. The action itself is irrelevant to why I have a problem with this specific issue. What I am talking about is the measures the police are permitted to take in order to "find" criminals. And whether they should be permitted. I'm after 1 set of rules for everyone in this country, because as it stands there are 2. If I egg you on in a street race, and you accept, and we both get caught then we both get busted. Fair enough. I'm all for it. If a cop eggs you on in a street race, and you accept, if you both get caught then only you get busted while the cop just hides behind a "yeah, I was just doing it to prove he's a street racer". As I said previously, in this example if the cop also gets busted for street racing I've got no problems with the civilian for getting busted. Now the cop isn't doing this to stop a crime already being committed. They're doing it to generate a crime. So they're not solving an existing problem; they're generating a new one and then stopping that. So, net effect, they're doing nothing. And, in the process, they are committing a crime themselves. Please don't talk about how cops are allowed to break laws in the course of their duty, lwells and I already covered this. And the reason we have public threads is so other people can view it, and not have to explain the same thing over and over again. There is due process when it comes to obtaining evidence. The cops have to do things a certain way in order to present a case that is usable in court. Hence why people can get off for technicalities, like how the Sydney Harbour Tunnel originally didn't have speed cameras that were RTA approved, so even though they had evidence from perfectly accurate and functional equipment it could not be used to prosecute speeders. Or how wiretaps require a court order, and evidence picked up by illegal wiretaps is not admissible (and may expose the police force to breach of privacy litigation). So even if they have the guy dead to rights, if due process isn't followed the guy gets off. The methods the police have to use are governed by many things. Ensuring that the information is accurate and irrefutable is one of them. Ensuring that those given the power over others to enforce the law adhere to the highest ethical standards is another. And its this point that I believe police winding up random civilians violates. As I said above, they're making criminals of people who otherwise would not have committed a crime in that time and place. And, to me, that's a lot more unethical than using the wrong brand of speed camera to book a guy doing 200km/hr through the Harbour Tunnel. As for the training that pursuit vehicle operators get, the point I'm trying to make is that its irrelevant. Many people have high speed training and experience, but they're not allowed to exercise it on public roads because of the dangers to others. Are cops better drivers than V8 Supercar drivers or F1 drivers? Because they're not allowed to street race, even with their skills. Now if street racing is so dangerous and illegal, why are the cops allowed to do it for any reason? The biggest dangers from street racing are collisions with innocent bystanders, not maintaining control of the car (I will qualify this statement later). Now, all the police training in the world can't stop the laws of physics. If the cop participates in a street race and does 60km/hr flat out in 1st gear (so still within the speed limit), and some pedestrian steps out of the road 2 carlengths in front of him, I don't care if he's Mark Skaife. He is either going to take that pedestrian out, or he'll swerve to avoid and hit a parked car or the other competitor. Now for the qualification. Now I realise at higher speeds car control becomes an issue (and the issue of skill comes into it), but most OEM sports cars are still quite stable up to 160km/hr. The biggest reason for bad handling cars (especially on Australia's woeful public roads) at even low speeds is ultra-stiff aftermarket suspension and a too-low ride height not permitting enough travel over bumps. Now most of these modified cars are not road worthy either, and if the cop wants to bust and defect them for that once again I'm all for it. The crime of driving an unroadworthy car was committed well before the cops picked them up.

Yeah, a couple of my mates with racing (semi) slicks complained that even with the burnout they couldn't get enough heat into their tyres. I ran a high 29sec in my stock Z33 on street rubber (they took the times down off their web site), and the fastest from my club on the day was a 27.01 in a light/medium tune S15 on a set of hillclimb-compound semi slicks. And the GT-R can nevar lose, so you need to get some tyres that will stick. Or maybe wind the power down a little - its not that important at Huntley. If I hillclimb again (and I probably will) I'll stick to my street rubber, since I'm not going to shell out good money for a set of dedicated hillclimb tyres.

The thing is, because turbo RBs are a lot more popular for performance applications that's where the scene and the aftermarket has gone. Why spend big bucks to make mild power gains when you can spend fewer bucks on bigger power? That said, one of the big Japanese tuning houses (can't remember which) made a hardcore RB26DE with ITBs and the rest, as a homage to the L26. Maybe someone can chime in with more info on it.

The resonator in an OEM airbox is to smooth out the airflow. For some reason its especially bad on NA cars, but at a certain speed the air being drawn into the intake causes weird airflow through the pipe. This screws your AFM's reading, which can kill power and will definitely cause strange noises to come from the engine. My engine makes a great induction roar, but then I've got a pod filter using minimal heat shielding going into a pipe that's only got 1 bend to the intake manifold.

It looks like a sequential shifter to me, which means he could still be using the donor bike's gearbox. And I think there's a lever on that handle, which would mean its still a hand clutch that they've affixed to the shifter instead of a handlebar.

Already covered this, but not really accurately. Pushers were covered properly. Professional dealers (i.e. guys who make money off it) I've got no problem with approaching them (its like walking into a store). But lets say someone approaches me (random Joe) for drugs. I don't deal, but lets say I know someone who does (or knows someone who knows someone etc...not hard in this day and age). Now, lets say after a bit of persuasion and a complete loss of my common sense I tell this complete stranger I'll help them out (I'm not sure if its relevant to this analogy if I've hooked up mates before. Let me know if it is and I'll think about it then). I go through the grapevine, and eventually the guy gets what he asked for. And I get a set of cuffs in return. Now, I don't deal (normally). But in the end I'm the retailer in this situation. Should the cops be looking for people like me (an Asian guy with blonde highlights) given that I kind of resemble a stereotypical streetwise Cabramatta drug dealer when I'm actually some private school nerd? Am I a worthwhile bust, or should they be out there catching an actual dealer who's got the shit on them, or getting it straight from the manufacturer, and does it for profit? I've got no problems with police getting criminals off the street. I have a problem with the police making criminals of the innocent, and then making easy busts (last paragraph here. There are criminals out there that need no invitation from undercover cops to actually commit a crime, so its not like they're hard up for work. If the cops want to go stake out an industrial park known for "the runs", sit there in wait for a group of guys to rock up, and choose not to pre-emptively go in there and disperse the crowd (assuming there's no danger to innocents by their inaction) before a crime is commited and then make arrests once people start racing I'm all for that. That idiocy would have gone down whether the cops were there or not. But if I'm driving down the road at the speed limit and not driving in a dangerous / aggressive manner, and some other driver spies my Japanese coupe and cuts me off while doing 20km/hr over the speed limit, and then revving his engine at a set of lights decides to pull me over and impound my car when I take off a little harder than usual due to my frustration at the dickheads I'm forced to share the roads with, that's something else entirely. Because if the cop hadn't been driving like a cock smoker around me and winding me up, my driving style wouldn't have deviated from the model driver I was prior to their appearance.

I am also quite interested in this carputer as well. If its properly integrated and your user interface is easy for in-car use (I tried to use my laptop in the passenger seat of a car yesterday and it was a pain in the ass), I'll probably look at getting one. Carputer + this = win