scathing

Mark - where are you getting them from? I just want another Popcharger cone, so I can clean one and still have the car driveable. But not everywhere sells the cone only. If worst comes to worst I might go in on this group buy, and sell the mounting flange/heat shield off with a Blitz mesh cone I've got that fits.

Hornsby Nissan was willing to help? That's a first.

I'm not sure what market they were aimed at. My last 3 sets of tyres were: RT215 (245 width rear) -> FK452 (285 width rear) -> RT615 (275 width rear). The RT615s are comparatively rubbish as a street tyre. I don't think that there's that much more outright grip out of them than the FK452s (I haven't driven them hard for long enough to compare overheating points) but I remember how loose the car felt when I went from the RT215 to the FK452s, despite the noticably wider footprint. To be fair, it could have been a specific batch of bad tyres though. A mate of mine got RT615s about the same time I did, and he replaced them recently. He said his new set are noticably grippier. I'm still reluctant to replace these RT615s with another set, given my current experiences, though.

How much is that going to cost, vs getting a TT kit for the VQ35DE?

But we only use them 1/3 of the time, so apparently there's only 1.

Matthew Newton strikes again.

No, Ryan was right the first time. The RT615 supercedes the RT215. The RT215s have a Treadwear of 180. The RT615s have a Treadwear of 200. It's not "much softer". And since the tyres have been discontinued for quite some time, the RT215s Tempe is selling will be old. And also not road legal in Australia. I used to run a set, and it took me a few months to notice that they have no European nor US DOT markings on them. They are also, to my knowledge, discontinued. Falken hasn't advertised them on their Japan nor US web sites for a few years.

"Perfect" is as useful a requirement as "pretty". What is perfect for one person is not particularly great for someone else. What kind of driving do you do? What requirements do you have? How much power are you putting down?

If you're parting it out, I'm interested in the subframe.

Wouldn't the 4 door V35 be a 4 door V35 (which is still RWD), rather than a FWD J31?

Get H&R.

Try it when you go outside, before you leave. Hold it down for 8 seconds. When you give it an instantaneous press it should only light up the VDC light. If you hold it down for long enough, the SLIP light stays on too (I can't remember if any other lights come on). Same here with my TCS-equipped Z33. If I can keep the car drifting with a "forward" momentum nothing happens. If I spin hard (a big spin in a very tight area) then it tends to shit itself. I can spin out reasonably regularly on a race track without the unit going nuts, but on the skidpan if I wipe out its more likely to drop into failsafe. MR RIZK on 350Z-Tech has been getting chronic cases of this problem on his car.

It's not a V competitor. Firstly, it has a 2.0L engine. Even if they release a FI variant, I wouldn't be comparing it to a big V6. Secondly, the Toybaru is almost half a metre shorter. That's a major size difference. The interior looks more sports than grand tourer, which is the V's niche. In Nissan's historic range, this thing could be the competitor to a Silvia rather than a Skyline. The closest competitor to the V35 right now would be the Hyundai Genesis Coupe.

f**k, I knew I was forgetting to something! I'll go through all the pending requests I've got in the email address I set up for moderating the forum in the morning.

I know this starts arguments everywhere, but the phrase "semi slick" only describes the tread pattern. It's the tyre compound that is the greatest factor in wear. The KU36, 595xxx, RT615, etc are S-Compound tyres, with an arguably semi-slick pattern. Their treadwear rating is around 140 (lower number = faster wearing), which is about double that of a R-Comp semi slick (like the RE55S, R888, etc). The RT615 and RE001 are actually closer to 200, so they're a good option if you want to sacrifice some grip for life. Their tread blocks are also far smaller than R-Comp semis, to a point where I'm reluctant to call them "semi slick" at all. In my opinion, a "semi slick" tyre is basically a tyre with the bare minimum amount of tread to earn road legality. Personally, I reckon that's a non-issue. If you're not crazy you're not going to hop on to the track and drive hell-for-leather. It's a new experience, and so you should be working your way to the limits rather than diving straight in. It's not like you're competing in motorsport events, where you "need" to win. As such, lock-ups shouldn't happen that often. It might happen once or twice as your confidence grows and you work out how much middle pedal you can use, but the risk of tyre destruction is no different to driving on the street and potentially needing to panic stop. S-Comps do have a narrower "limit of traction" fudge factor than street tyres, but they're still reasonably progressive. If you're driving on regular street tyres, you'll probably find their lack of grip, vagueness due to everything squirming and compressing, and overheating issues even more annoying. S-Comps require little activation temperature. There's more than enough cold-temp grip to keep you perfectly safe around town if you're behaving yourself. When its cold or wet you need to be aware that the tyres aren't grippy, but it'd be like driving with a full load in terms of cornering speed and braking. When I daily drove on R-Comps, every wet weather drive involved a sphincter-tightening moment. In a skidpan environment, your first run should get your tyres up to temp. As the day and the surface heats up, it'll be less and less of an issue as they'll retain the heat.

The Japanese department of transport. You may as well ask why manufacturers can build cars capable of doing more than 110km/hr in Australia. The higher speed still gives the cars plenty of headroom. When they implemented the laws there weren't that many cars that could even touch that speed on a long stretch of road, which meant most cars weren't going to tag the limiter on a race track. Artificially limiting the speed also helps manufacturers, and your run-of-the-mill customer. Most countries have laws that state that the tyres on the car must be rated to the highest capable speed of the car. With a 180km/hr speed cut, you can legally stick el-cheapo S rated tyres on any vehicle.

If you're buying an Evo, clearly you don't care about tactile feedback and "driver response". SST is quicker. End of story. People have managed to strengthen up manuals and autos. Considering the SST is manual friction plates with an electrohydraulic actuator, its not that radically different. The tech is still pretty new and started out in ultra-expensive cars, so not that many people have been working on it. If you want something now, its not going to happen. The Veyron's dual-clutch transmissions proves that there's nothing limiting in the technology to handle big power, as long as engineers are willing to invest time and money into learning how to work with this new tech.

OK. Seriously. Do you need someone to wipe your arse for you too? If you don't have the intelligence to type "RTA" into Google, and then search for a "Contact Us" link, then I'm starting to suspect you're too f**king stupid to be allowed to drive.

If your stated reason in your exemption application is to test drive cars at work, then no you will not be able to drive it outside of work hours on work business. They will define a period of time in the exemption form during which you can drive the car. If the cops decide to be pricks they'll see you sold a P plate legal car and retained a prohibited one (which they'll do if they issue you a fine and you try to contest it). Are you going to go to court trying to cry wolf saying its the only car you could possibly own? The judge would probably slap you with some kind of extra punishment, on top of the standard one, for that bit of bullshit. You've managed to grasp the point of the P plater restrictions. Bravo. If the cops buy your bullshit story that your work has this car as a second hand vehicle it is trying to sell, then yeah you might get away with it. Of course, if they run the plates and see that its registered as a privately owned vehicle then you're f**ked. You'll lose your license, they'll take your exemption (and you can pretty much kiss any chance of getting it back goodbye), and then if you can't perform your job-related tasks you might even lose your job. If you have an accident while driving your Skyline, you've got no insurance cover. Don't be stupid.

True. Who needs insurance?

For those interested, here's the dyno graph of my mate's Cupra. Stock standard hardware, ECU remap. 217fwkW with a mechanically stock car is nothing to sneeze at. That's more power and less weight than a bolt-on NA Z33/V35. The thing hits almost peak torque at about the same level our engines do, and holds it for the same rev band. Unless you caught an owner cruising at low speed in a high gear and you both decided not to cog it down, we'd pretty much get munched.

That symptom is characteristic of the car. The Z33s do the exact same thing. I had an "oh shit" moment when I was doing some drifting on a motorkhana course. I was straightening it up to go into the garage when I hit the picks, and nothing. Dead solid pedal, with ABS vibration. No give at all, and no deceleration. I almost ran over the timekeeper on the way in, and almost shot through the other side and into a curb. I've been told by a friend who has done a lot of research into fixing it that its pad knock-back. I've got no idea what that means, so maybe someone can chime in? Did you press it, or hold it? The only way to completely disable VDC is to trigger a fault, either by holding the button down or unplugging something. When the dash lights up and the button doesn't toggle the VDC (which can also happen if you spin out enough, all the weird readings freaks the computer out), its permanently off until you restart the car.

Neale Wheels +61 2 9642 1002 30 Gould St South Strathfield They fixed my old TE37 when I bent it hard. I can't remember how much he charged, but considering a few places said it was unrepairable it was still better value than buying a new wheel.

Federal 595s are pretty cheap. A couple of guys have run the RS-Rs (the grippiest) them on the track and been reasonably happy. I got a set for my SW20 (235/40 R17) for $260 a corner, which isn't too bad. I can only guess that the lower-spec ones will be cheaper. A mate's got the entry level 595s and he finds them quite grippy on his street-only SW20. I'd consider these as well as the KU36s. Don't bother with RT615s; they cost more and I don't know if they perform noticably better. If you want a more street-focused tyre that aren't bad when you're pressing on, people tend to go ga-ga over Bridgestone RE001s.

Stock tyre sizes?