scathing

Stock for stock in a standard Nissan (so excluding the 500hp Z-Tune RB26DETT and the stupidly expensive 450hp VQ35DE that Nismo makes for racing) I'd take the VQ35DE. Same power (approximately), more torque, smoother power delivery, and probably the same weight (if not lighter, due to its all alloy construction, lower componentry count and more compact design). If you're talking about a base for modification, the RB is a known quantity. People are still developing the VQ, which hasn't really been used in a performance application for that long.

When I first got my license, I did some pretty stupid stuff. Driving quickly, power oversteer, etc etc. I still do, occasionally, but not that often. I'm finding myself driving quite slowly, relatively speaking, these days. In hindsight the stuff I did when I was 17-21 seems a bit foolish, and I had more than a couple of near misses that could have gone the other way. But at the same time I wouldn't have the skills I've acquired if I hadn't done it either. Its not like I could afford to take the car to the track as often as I did the Old Pac etc.

If you're talking apples to apples, its not really that easy to compare. The halo models of Japanese manufacturers are purpose-built sports cars. The halo models of Australian manufacturers are converted family cars. Its not that Australia can't build a true sports car. Its just that the focus is different. Australia just doesn't have the market to spend that much money building such a focused vehicle. So yes, the GT-R, NSX and RX-7 coupes will stomp on any HSV or FPV sedan, but I'd back a Clubsport R8 or FPV GT against a Lexus GS430 or Nissan G35 sedan. But then, I don't think Japan makes a sports sedan in the same stripe as HSV / FPV. Until the Joss Supercar goes in to production, I don't think it would be fair to compare it to the NSX's and GT-R's of Japan. Until then, the closest you're going to come to comparing apples to apples in terms of target market is the Toyota Soarer and HSV coupe. Maybe a G35 coupe too, since its supposed to be a bit more luxo / GT.

A Dodge RAM SRT10 would do me just fine.

Yeah, the problem with any Alfa is that they've got Italian build quality. As nice as Alfa V6s sound, I don't know how long the car will hang together. Channeling 184kW through the front wheels isn't my idea of a good time, since corners are my thing and power-down isn't the GTA's. I'd opt for the Golf GTi, myself. Much better build quality and its still a very nice car. The Renault and Peugeot are both French cars, and those things don't tend to stay together very well either.

Its not just the "not touching" it part. I mean, a few Nissan dealerships will import and fit Nismo parts if you pay retail and shipping for them (i.e. get bent over). But Nissan Australia was actively blocking the GT-P teams from getting Nismo parts, and by the rules they weren't really allowed to go elsewhere. Its a big reason as to why the Pilkingtons and Fitzgerald peeled the Nissan badges off the car. And mine are coming off too when I get around to doing body mods. I've got my Fairlady hatch badge in my drawer, and I'll be getting a Z badge that fits in the indentation on the front bumper and if I don't get aftermarket rims I'll get Z centre caps.

Yeah, I'd agree. Despite what the marketing parasites say, I still think the Z is more of a GT than a true sports car. Its nice and stable on the track, but its heavy. You really have to set up the car and allow for the weight shift. As for Pilkington's and Fitzgerald's success, the other thing is that they don't have the kind of support that some of the other teams have. Those wonderful people at Nissan Australia, aside from offering zero support to racing teams also refused to supply Nismo parts to them (even at full cost). Since the Production car rules are kind of lairy about what mods you can do, especially if they're not "factory", it really limits the kind of modifications they could get. Its not like the VW team that fully backed the two Golfs, provided Nation's Cup drivers, and brought several semi trailers and support cars (including a Gallardo) to the table. Fitzgerald was working off a shoestring budget where his consumables were determined by the price, not by quality. Nor is the Z33 well supported in the aftermarket. It used to cost a fair amount to modify Silvias and Skylines until the engines became a known quantity and so tuning became easier, and economies of scale helped reduce the price of parts. Most of the buyers, unfortunately, are mid-lifers who've probably never seen redline let alone a sniff of country road touring or track driving.

The way I see it, it depends on your intended purpose. If I was building a car for track work, it would have no interior and no creature comforts. If it was street registered and driven to events I'd have a radio (aside from whatever is required for rego), but only because if you're driving in tunnels sometimes they use the emergency broadcast in an accident. But, then again, I could just buy a $20 battery powered one. But if I'm building a street car, it'll be streetable. The engine won't have a narrow powerband that you fall out of if you change up 2RPM from redline, nor will it be missing most of the interior. The suspension will have a fair amount of compliance, and my wheels will be light and strong, but not huge. At the same time it won't be heavily lowered (even though it improves aero and my CoG) since I have to drive over speed humps, nor will I be putting on a big fibreglass bodykit since I never hit speeds where the actual performance benefit makes a difference but I will frequently hit the kit on the road when driving to work. Have a look at some of the quickest street cars out there, the Clubman style cars. Even with their stock 4AG engines most people have buckleys of keeping up with them on your favourite country road or on the track, but they've got similar drag coefficients to 4WDs. If I do body mods it'll be after I've exhausted the performance mods I can afford to do or, in my situation, if a good deal comes along. So I'll get a kit before doing a full engine rebuild or a TT kit, but if I had the money required to get the latter I wouldn't be buying the former.

Yep, seen that too. Been a couple of WRXs on big rims running big boost on Wakefield. Pull away from me in the straights, but I can almost get parallel with them on corner exit of Turn 2 (the Kink is Turn 1) until their turbo finally spools up and they can power down again. I've also been out when the old Tempe Tyres promo GT-R (the grey one on 20" rims) tried to go out. He popped the boot in the staging area to show off his stereo. :roll: Once again, he pulls away in the straights and just gets in my way from Turn 2 exit. The idiot also ended up sliding off the track and shredding 2 of his tyres (too low profile for the dirt / stones, or just because Tempe sells nasty rims with really sharp edges? Who knows..?), forcing the operator (I am not calling him a driver) to ask around for a set of space savers to try and drive home.

Sure, if you've got an unlimited budget and if you'd like to ruin your Silvia's weight distribution by using a long, cast iron engine instead of a shorter, all alloy one. :roll: The only way an RB20 works better than the SR is the sound, and the fact that you can then easily put a bigger RB in it. But, cost for cost (until you hit big budget, at which point you should have just bought a GT-R instead) an SR20 would at least keep up with an RB20 in the straights, and pull away in the corners.

Yeah, but it doesn't make enough power. I'm yet to decide if I'll go the NA route with higher compression internals and a big set of cams (the car howls already when I rev it, so it can only sound meaner from here) or just pull my finger out and run boost. In an ideal world, I'd do both. I'd love to run a high comp, low boost engine.

They also heat the oil up to temperature before pouring it into the engine, to make further reduce the time it takes for your engine to warm up (which, in most cases, is to ensure the oil has enough heat to reach the proper viscosity).

$45K for 300rwkW? I could get an APS TT kit that makes that power for $15K and spend the other $30K on hookers and blackjack. Actually, forget the blackjack........ But an APS kit with a nice bottom end (and possibly top end) rebuild, and a MoTeC, might be had for $45K. Or if I found out 300rwkW is too much for the car already, I could spend $30K on a suspension, wheel and tyre, and brake upgrade and possibly still have change for hookers and blackjack.

Yeah, there's a lot more complexity in the breathing parts of a piston engine. It also means that there's more capability of failure in them. I was considering more audible noise from mechanical parts, to be honest. I wouldn't mind getting a fair comparison with the weights of a 13B-REW out of a Series 8 RX-7, and an SR20DET out of an equivalent year S14/S15. Its hard because some people do and don't include certain ancillaries in the mass. If someone could pull the engine out (so drop the engine mounts, disconnect it from the driveline while leaving the flywheel attached, unplug the battery and fluid resovoirs, but include radiator, intercooler, all piping etc and have them both with a full sump) it would be quite interesting. The 13B will still be shorter, which improves weight distribution. I suppose I used low-end power in the wrong context there. I was more after oomph, and an ability to accelerate from all across the rev range (so I meant torque). My VQ35DE makes reasonable torque from 2000RPM and only tapers off at 6000RPM because of the quiet factory exhaust. I also make more power than a Renesis engine with just over 2/3 of the RPM, while using less fuel.

Dude, the piston fits in the cylinder. What more do you want? The strange noises you get because the piston rings aren't touching the walls adds character, don't you know?

For me, it would depend on what I'd want to do with it. If I was doing street sports (either country driving, or hillclimbs and some Targas) I'd get the Silvia. Its lighter and shorter, which makes it a lot more nimble. An SR20DET is a nice engine and can be reasonably powered up, which means you can always make more power than you can use (at which point the RB25's capacity advantage means nothing, it just makes more power you can't put down). On the track I'd take the Skyline. The longer wheelbase means its more stable on the relatively open corners (compared to the Old Pac, or Mac Pass, or Nasho) and I can eventually screw out more power that I can actually use. The weight thing is always present, but you can go further with weight reductions for a primarily track car. For commuting.....its hard to choose. The Skyline is comfier and more stable, but the Silvia is more fuel efficient and easier to park.

Barrel of laughs? You've got a wicked sense of humour. I like TVRs, ever since I saw Tiff's review of the Tuscan. Just hearing the car fire up and the angry note from the carbon fibre rear tanks just gave me a chubby. But since its a British car with British people building them, I'll wait 2-3 generations in before checking their build quality again. Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day, and think about how long it took between when the NSX came out and when Ferrari released their first ever car that had a warranty....

I haven't had proper timing gear in the car yet, but using the stopwatch built in the multi-function gauge (and doing it over a couple of laps to allow for usual error margins) I'm in the high 1:14's. Needs more booscht. This 1 bar of absolute pressure just isn't doing it for me.

I do. Hence why my first sentence was "horses for courses". I gave an unbiased view first, and then I gave mine (which, being my personal opinion, can't be anything but biased). Bear in mind that he was asking for personal opinions, so (once again) as I said, expect both sides of the spectrum. Naive. That's rich... I don't have time for show ponies. I don't have time for people who treat their cars like works of art, rather than tools for carving corners. I've been to an Auto Salon, which was more than enough, and when other people go and bring back pics I still check them out. I look at cars that, at the low end of the scale, are unsuited for commuting on Sydney's pockmarked roads and will probably break stuff when taken for a spirited country drive. On the high end, some of the Salon cars (like that gold plated S15, or the single seat Osman's WRX) can't even reasonably be driven anymore. I've read a couple of ASM's. I read one of the recent ones, where they took a bunch of hi po cars on the dyno, strip, track, etc. When these guys hit the track, the attrition rate was horrible. A full half of their field had mechanical failure. But, just because their sports cars break down when they're used for motorsports doesn't necessarily mean they're not "modified properly", right? :roll: Of the half that did manage to finish the timed session, only a couple of them were lapping the track at times I wouldn't be embarrased to make public had I spent that much on "performance". The cars were great on the dyno though, and most did a reasonable job on the strip. Not places that I, personally, think are great venues to demonstrate driving ability. But, for every feature car that has the go to match the woah (for as little time as the thing doesn't blow hoses or crack intake piping), how many bimbo boxes with OTT fibreglass bodykits, loud exhausts and slammed on big rims (which are the extent of their "performance" mods), and retrimmed interior with big stereos do they show off? It might because I'm a driving enthusiast, rather than a car enthusiast. I care about how a vehicle performs as a package over a long period of time, not how good a job it does when sitting stationary inside a big convention centre or when its driven at full noise for under a quarter of a minute. But as for naive, I've been in to cars for a while and I've hung around with everyone from ricers to touge style drivers to track warriors to large-capacity street machiners. I've seen a wider range of subcultures, and I decided what I like based on that. But that's just me, and I'm in a minority. A lot of people these days are impressed with bling, whereas I'm the kind of guy that likes sleepers and "drift cops". Cars that go quick and are either stock looking, or so delapidated outside that the owner clearly has their priority on getting from A to B rather than leaning on their fenders while parked at A. As for the SAU members that compete in Auto Salon, here's a hint from the real world Mr "you're naive"; not everyone happens to like what other people are into. I won't go out of my way giving them a hard time about it but, if asked, I'll shoot from the hip and tell them what I think. If this thread was about "check out my mad bodykit / paintjob / whatever" I would have kept my opinion to myself. But, since its asking what I think about rice, I'll state my piece. And are you saying that, just because they're on SAU that they inherently know how to modify their cars legally and with mechanical skill? Does signing up for an account or paying some money for a club membership automagically imbue you with engineering skills? Sorry, who were you calling naive again? That said, it doesn't mean I don't like the people doing it as well. They might be perfectly nice people, and great to hang out with. But then I'm not naive enough to assume that this one facet about them is everything about them.

Fark, had me worried there for a while too.

They're not really drag tyres, so you might get better straight line traction with a different brand. They should be really good at cornering, though. You considered Nittos?

Only if your tyre is going wider, not if your rim is going larger.

http://www.dictionary.com/ Here, help yourself.

I love the look of TVRs, but they're built like shyte. Every component in them is British made, and it shows. Those things will shed parts like pets shed fur in Summer. They've also got the twitchiest handling, which is great if you're a race car driver but scary if you're a normal person. In the wet, even race car drivers have issues (I've got a video of Martin Brundle attempting to drive a couple on a wet track). As a carmaker, I like Honda. Their cars tend to be solid engineering-wise, and they cater for their target market very well. The Type-Rs are track weapons, the Accord is a fuss free and benign family car, and the Civic has always been a fuel efficient and easy to drive small car (until it grew and got replaced by the Jazz). I can't see myself ever buying a Honda (I'm not fond of peaky engines in street sports cars, and I really don't like FWD in any vehicle) but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to other people who don't have the same requirements as me. If you're talking sports cars, I'll take a Lotus. I'd love an Elise 111R, but if you handed me the keys to an Esprit or Elan I'd cope.

The way I see it (as if it wasn't clear enough already), people who rice up their cars and live the "auto salon" culture are ****ing stupid. They take a perfectly good sports car, one that might be lauded as near the top of its class, and then they systematically disable everything that made it so good. Ricers are arriviste that want to look like the knowledgeable people who bought and appreciate the cars for what they're good at, building their reputation as street or track weapons, and then just ruin cred of the cars by making them loud and gaudy, and go like shit, and make the true enthusiasts look bad by cruising around acting like complete tools. But, don't let the fact that I'll think you're not even useful as raw material for soylent green deter you from tarting up your car like a $2 hooker. I think lots of people who aren't in to driving, maintaining and modifying sports cars properly are losers too.