scathing

What's this got to do with the LFA / GT-R? It depends on the situation. FWD is better in low-grip conditions as the nose can pull you out of a slide. Also, that stability in the nose makes it "safer" for your average pleb that would freeze up at the first sign of wheelspin. Understeer is safer than oversteer, both in terms of recovery from a slide and impact if the driver is unable to recover. (BTW, I much prefer RWD because its more fun and a better platform for a driver's car, especially one with a reasonable amount of torque. But I still know FWD is superior to RWD in certain places, but those places are where you'd take a constant AWD car over either anyway.) Also, apparently Lotus' chassis engineers "found that for a given vehicle weight, power and tire size, a front wheel drive car was always faster over a given section of road. There were definite advantages in traction and controllability, and drawbacks such as torque steer, bump steer, and steering kickback were not insurmountable." This is in reference to the second generation Elan, which was a FWD turbo. Autocar, who are a respected automotive magazine, called it "the fastest point to point car available" on its release.

Motor Magazine said the same thing about the Audi RS6 during their PCOTY test a while back. With its twin turbo V8, AWD, and TLAs, the thing is so amazingly competent that it feels like the car's going to run a fast time no matter who you put in it. It feels like you, as a human, is just some "mandatory weak link" just getting in the way of the engineers' technical mastery. By all accounts, the R35 GT-R feels the same. There's just too much car for most people. It feels like you're holding the car back rather than an integral part of getting it from start to finish in the fastest time possible. In the end, it depends on what you want. If you only want to win races, you buy an R35. If you want something that's about the sheer joy and tactile experience of driving something that feels like an extension of your body then you get a Caterham / PRB / Elise / Noble / 2WD 911.

......so tempting.

That's what I was trying to do with the guy in the thread I mentioned. Talking to him nicely, which a couple of guys (including a mod) tried to do, wasn't working. Its cool, I know. It was more modifying the bit you quoted with my name as the source. I never said it was a good idea. It was a suggestion, which has merit, and from it maybe someone smarter than me could have come up with a workable solution. The thread's been about ideas, anyway. Unfortunately, since we're talking about legal arse-covering, sometimes the solution will be tiresome. I work for a financial services company, that's the industry is heavy monitored and a magnet for litigation. The steps we sometimes have to go through to ensure compliance is a massive pain. Agreed. Especially if we keep it talking about racks.

Hence my "If you don't want anything bad said about you, don't expect anything good". Its no loss for them to not agree to be whitelisted; they just never get mentioned for any reason. That was something I'd considered as a negative for such an idea. However, I'm told the current policy is that no business-related posts are ever deleted so, if I had a problem with a sponsor and vented my spleen, it would apparently still stand. In other words, my suggestion is practically the current policy anyway. My suggestion just formalises it, and they know what they're getting into. Agreed. Most of the forums I'm on are about as liberal as you guys are here (threads locked rather than posts removed, unless someone goes way overboard) but I have seen/heard heavy-handed moderators coming down on dissenting opinions. Its a big reason why I'm on this forum. And adding words to change the tone of someone's post while retaining it as quote, and calling it "fixed", is your idea of maturity? Cool. At least now I know what level I should be posting at. Anyway, I somewhat agree with what mid life crisis says. The rules are there, and like the rules or not the idea behind them is to protect people who donate their time and energy into making this place an enjoyable experience (that includes the mods as well as the site owner, who expose themselves to liability when taking this role on as they have the responsibility of sanitising the forum). You agreed to comply with them when you signed up. If you forgot the rules and get pulled up on them, take it gracefully and don't do it again. Or leave. I've clearly got no problem with people questioning the rules if you don't think they're right, but until you can convince the moderators / admins to change the rules then comply with the existing ones.

I run DS2500s in my car (350Z w/ Brembos and RE55S). It takes me a good 10mins to fade them out, and since its almost always my pedal going mushy its more a fluid problem than a pad problem. One of my mates used to race Formula Fords and he ran DS2500s. They're more than adequate for R-Comps, if you're only talking about sprint sessions (which you are if you're prepping the car for Superlap). The DS2500s are more "streetable" than the DS3000s since the latter need activation temperature to reach their peak operating range, but if you're talking about a 3-5 lap supersprint then the DS2500s will suit you just fine. They work from cold and, even when overheated, don't lose their friction. I'm not familiar with the HC+ pads so I can't comment, but don't write the Ferodos off as a "street only" pad.

Funny, because when I ripped in to someone in another thread for being a "retard"; I got a warning (fair enough, sometimes its not polite to point out the truth) and a whole bunch of posts in that thread were deleted. This forum has a track record of deleting posts; whether you limit it to non-business posts now doesn't mean you'll continue to do so in the future. That you'd delete personal attacks regarding individuals, who are less likely to litigate, while not deleting negative feedback regarding businesses seems a bit counter-productive to "preserving" the club from risk. For the record, I was using that as a hypothesis and not an example.

My suggestion is to have a whitelist for workshops. There's no charge to the company. They waives SAU's liability, as a publisher, to any comments that may be said and do so in writing in case it ever turns to litigation. PranK emails the form out, it gets signed and mailed back, and he hangs on to it and updates the whitelist. Its the company's responsibility to monitor the forums to see what people are saying, and if they want to respond they can create an account to do so. Any litigation can be taken with the member posting it as per their legal rights, but SAU is considered an innocent (and neutral) party caught in the crossfire. SAU then provides a list saying, "These fine people have said we can say how we feel about them. Despite anything certain members may say, their open-ness should be commended". Maybe have a sticky somewhere, so anyone interested can examine a single thread. As a corollary, SAU also sets up a blacklist. "These companies have refused to allow us to comment on their products and/or services" and any post about them, good or bad, is removed. If people provide generic feedback on them and someone PM's them asking for specifics, then the current forum rules should apply. Companies that have yet to contact SAU to be put in either list get treated as blacklisted. Whether SAU chooses to email/approach the companies (say if a member PMs an admin asking to talk about a certain company), or they have to approach SAU management asking to be listed, I don't know. The former sounds like a lot of work considering the lack of financial gain. This should sit below a sponsor's deal, where a company makes a financial commitment, so there's no trading permitted. Sponsors should, however, have to agree to whitelisting as a part of sponsorship. They have a presence and thus have the facility for complaints handling, and as much as sponsoring SAU bolsters their reputation for giving to the community the conduct of SAU's sponsors also reflects on the club's reputation. An arrogant sponsor with bad service makes the club look just as bad. "Oh, I found out about XYZ through SAU, and after I got burnt and I brought it up they deleted all my posts and SAU didn't care that I got ripped off".

IS Motor Racing if you live in Sydney's south. Pro Concept if you live near the Inner West.

I'd probably get a painted one, unless I was planning on adding more CF to the exterior to the car. The painted one would look OEM spec, and classier.

Nissan Australia should drop themselves, and replace the current management with people who understand the market.

There's an op ed on Motor Trend, wondering where the LF-A has gotten to. Why Toyota would suddenly have an issue delivering a performance car that's second best? The last time I checked they were a pretty conservative company, and didn't like trying something new. Nissan's beating them on JGTC and their F1 team only gets to see the podium when they're standing around looking up at the winners. The only international-level series they did reasonably well at was WRC, but it appears the shock of coming first was so great that they ended their WRC program to join F1 and stick to what they knew.

FYI, from a legal perspective slander is spoken and libel is written. So if I post "workshop XYZ are a bunch of f*&king rip-off merchants and should be taken out and shot" then I'm not actually slandering anyone. Which means I'm not violating the forum's rules by doing so, as long as I don't record myself into a sound file and attach it to a post. It sounds like a petty technicality, but you're forgetting that we are talking about legal issues and technicalities can make or break a suit. The rules say that SAU doesn't permit slander only, which means what I did above is not disallowed. My attitude on the whole thing, like others, is a matter of consistency. Why can we slag a product but not a retailer? The forum takes a dim view on members insulting other members, but even that's less heavily moderated than attacking a business. However, the Defamation Act boils down as follows: Also: Lastly: Negative publicity in the written form could easily qualify under the "lowering estimation", even if they don't lose a single customer over it. As per the above, there's no "safe harbour" provisions for content providers under Australian law so SAU could be held liable for things its members say, regardless of any disclaimer. SAU, I'm sure, supports Australian values (freedom of speech being one of them). But, at the same, time throwing its own finances into "fighting the good fight" and battling against organisations that sue at the drop of a hat is something else entirely and not a good way for the club to be spending its membership and merchandising income. So, my feeling is that if businesses don't want anything bad said about them, then they shouldn't expect anything good said about them either.

I found those shops too. You were about 2 blocks away from the ricer accessory shops. I picked up some awesome RAYS / Volk stickers (TE37 style) in one store for sweet f**k all. And some other random in-car signs and stickers and stuff.

Not using the turbo doesn't necessarily make it more fuel efficient. A lot of companies are using turbochargers to improve fuel economy, not necessarily squeeze more power. Using FI and making a little bit of boost permits the driver / auto box to hold a higher gear rather than shifting, which can bring gains in economy. A TT V35 / Z33 is noticably more efficient, while commuting sensibly around town, than a stock NA car.

7:40 for a 2WD road car with mechanical suspension, that isn't some featherweight kit car Lotus 7 copy, is still really impressive. Most of the 2WD cars in that bracket are supercars like the Carrera GT, Zonda, etc, that would have far more R&D and exotic materials poured into them than the Corvette. EDIT: Just read that the ZR1's 7:40 time was in the damp, which would affect a 2WD car noticably more than a 4WD one. That time is looking more and more impressive.

I want an XR6T with the ZF 6 speed auto. Maybe in 2010, the last year of the I6, I'll try and buy one. I prefer the look of the BA/BF though. Ford's styling direction works really well on the Mondeo, but on the Falcon it just doesn't look right. Its not the "oh no" that the AU was, and still is, but it doesn't have the "niiice" factor the BA (and VE) did when it was unveiled.

If no-one has a key and you can't hammer a socket onto it, the other option I've heard is to get a drill and just drill out the whole thing. You'll need a new wheel stud, of course, but that's not that expensive. It shouldn't damage the wheel.

EDIT: Duplicate post

Yeah, I've been emailing around and I'm now in contact with AES / Hyperflow (Autospeed did a couple of articles on their system) and they've got a few of these things. Their top-of-the-line one is fully active with a pressure sensor and a configurable control unit, so it can adjust itself to maintain only a certain amount of backpressure. It'll take inputs from the TPS and an RPM signal wire too, so you can also set it to only open at WOT or a certain RPM. Not cheap, but a pretty funky piece of gear. I'll probably end up going for the dumbest one, which is just a simple on-off switch that I'll conceal somewhere. Hyperflow's comes in 4" bore size, but they recommend going half an inch bigger than the rest of your exhaust to retain flow. If its set up so it cannot be controlled by the user and, in its automatic mode passes all noise and emissions regulations for the vehicle, then yes it could conceivably be legal. That's how Ferrari, Aston Martin, Lamborhini, etc get away with theirs.

OK, so what its like when its not being downhill by grandma...........?

Car companies always take the most eye-catching colour since it photographs the best. From Nissan's perspective, look at the horrible Sunset LeMans orange (and the new solar orange) that most of the 350Zs in the promo posters etc are shown in. Really vibrant when printed, and it comes off the background well, but in the metal its really tacky. The old BA/BF performance Fords had their promo / press cars in that sickly green, too. Great to shoot, bad to look at.

Kizashi 3. 3.5L AWD auto sedan. Sounds like Honda Legend, or the Infiniti G35x. Give me the Infiniti G sedan (aka Nissan Skyline) any day.

Aye. One of the guys I worked with had a 1969 Mini Cooper S. Extractors, straight through pipe to a Lukey rear muffler. The thing sounded really mean. Because his car was manufactured pre-ADR enactment he can get away with almost anything. Its not like the cops would be aware of what the rules were back in 1969.

Mong Kok has most of the aftermarket stuff. I couldn't find any performance shops, although they apparently exist, but I did find a lot of ricer accessory shops. Let me go find a street directory....