scathing

From their web site: Apparently its good enough to get banned from the WRC, according to their news page. Any idea how it works, and what applications they've got for it? If it works as well as advertised and is available for my car, I'd be interested in their RFS swaybar setup and possibly pull out the Teins for their X System.

Having a stiffer front swaybar will just induce more understeer, so if it applies "too strong" an effect its not as dangerous as running an overly stiff rear bar....unless oversteer is your thing If the price is right, go for it I say. If worst comes to worst you can either sell it, or sell your K-Mac and get the matching rear bar from the same manufacturer. Since its the front bar, I'd suggest running it as stiff as possible (that way its going to be as understeery as possible, and as any OEM will tell you understeer is safesteer), see if you like it, and then slowly make it softer and softer until you find the optimal balance. Vice versa on the rear bar, if you're trying to adjust relative balances.

Give them a call. PAR are based in Ingleburn (near Campbelltown).

Are more seasoned drivers replicating this fault on your vehicle? Or have you tried to drive another car, and is it doing the same thing? As people have said, its sounding more like a car problem than you. Double check.

Why? Its a 10-15 year old BMW 318i, which means a pretty cheap nugget (you can get an E36 328i for under $20K these days) and its even more gutless than an an RB20DE powered Skyline. Its the perfect car for tarts and social climbers. Having driven an E36 and E46 318i extensively, I'm wondering how its even possible to get "out of control" in one. I think I only ever managed to lift off oversteer it once, and that was driving in an arc on the side of a hill in the wet on 50,000km old tyres.

I get the feeling Subaru uses 5x100, but I'm not entirely sure.

Dog-engagement are completely independent of the cut of the gears themselves. You can have helical cut gears in a dog box, or straight cut gears with synchros. Also check out PAR for gearsets. I've heard good things about them, and they're Sydney-based so warranty and support should be easier to come by. They're strong enough that people overseas will buy them from us so they can't be all bad. They don't have Hollinger's reputation, but they also don't have Hollinger's pricetag either.

http://www.mynismo.com/ is where I've gotten most of my parts. http://www.z1auto.com/ is also pretty good, by all accounts, but I have yet to purchase from there.

But isn't it soing to be tuned for Japanese high octane fuel? Is it like the Mines ROMs that can't be retuned afterwards?

Nup, no date confirmed.

Technically no. I have a dyno graph lying around somewhere before the spacer install when I had my Unichip fitted (about 182rwkW), but at that time my Unichip wasn't tuned optimally. I have another graph after the spacer install and Unichip retune (189rwkW), so the differences in the graphs aren't all necessarily due to the spacer. Both runs are on the same dyno, with the same operator. Like I said, its not a power mod, its a response mod. Any gains you see on the dyno are incidental. Its the extra revviness of the engine and the knowledge that you're not running 2 cylinders richer than the others that makes it worthwhile (and, at $250, its not a massive outlay). I'd put the part in the same class as a lightweight flywheel, pulleys or short shifter rather than something like extractors, cats or exhaust.

The manifold spacer is actually a good mod. Its not about peak power, its about response and revvability. The design of the VQ35DE plenum is pretty lousy. For whatever reason, the front of the plenum slopes down. With the non-REVUP engine's longer lower collectors, it means your front two cylinders get starved for air in the high RPM. I'm not sure what its like with the V35, but on the Z33 with just a catback I found myself short shifting the engine at around 5500-5700RPM because it feels like it just runs out of puff (perhaps a true dual exhaust would help, I've heard those things flow better in the top end at the expense of midrange torque), even though it kept making power on the dyno. It was only worth revving it out to redline down the straight of a track, and even then it felt like it was labouring in that last 1000RPM. With the spacer added, I found the usable rev band went up to 6000RPM+. Still not quite 6600RPM, but it certainly didn't feel like it was choking as early. And there was no down-side. I lost nothing down low, it doesn't make the car any noisier, and if someone pops the bonnet its practically invisible. For a couple of hundred dollars, its a good mod for improving the feel of the engine.

Manual non-REVUP VQ35DEs in the Z and V have a 6600RPM redline. The auto Z33s have a 7000RPM redline. To my knowledge there's no difference, internally, between the manual and auto engines. The two ways you can bolster your redline is to either get the factory ECU reflashed (I had mine done by Joshua at Pro Concept, who used to do race mechanics for Mike Fitzgerald's GT-P 350Z) or by getting an aftermarket ECU that can cut out the OEM one. The Unichip, therefore, cannot do it as it is a pure interceptor. The TurboXS UTEC can. I am a big fan of the latter ECU (even though I have the former), as you can plug a computer in to it and run your own outputs to screen or tune it yourself, as well as pre-load multiple maps. It has the option of intercepting (like the Unichip) or acting as a full cutout so nothing gets sent to the factory ECU (giving you more tuning options as well as a customisable redline). There are a range of other ECUs (HKS FCon Pro, GReddy EManage, Haltech is piloting their ECU at the moment, off the top of my head, MoTeC) but I'm not as familiar with them.

We are non identical twins.

I've heard bad things about it. Peter Pilkington (used to be the race mechanic for his son Nathan, who campaigned the first 350Z in GT-P, as well as running a workshop and importing business) had a 350Z customer who went that route. Every bolt-on done, and he had a set of those eBay cams installed (which were an exact copy of the JWT Step 1 cams). They fitted in perfectly, but the dropped a fair amount of midrange and gained 2-3rwkW peak. Net effect, the car was slower. I've got a fair amount of bolt-ons to my VQ35DE (2003 model 350Z). Full exhaust, high flowed intake manifold collectors, intake plenum spacer, Unichip, redline reset to 7200RPM. The stock cams make good power all the way to 7000RPM, at which point the stock intake collectors become a restriction anyway. You can get around this by using the collectors off a 221kW "REVUP" engine, which flow well to 8000RPM, but then you lose a whole bunch of midrange (as evidenced by the 10Nm lost on the stock engine). At 7200RPM, your gudgeon pins will stretch and so to run consistently more RPM requires a new bottom end rebuild. I've heard you can get away with just replacing the pins, but with the work involved you may as well go forgies (and a stroker kit). You might see some gains with a good cam grind and stock everything else, but I honestly can't see the point of camming the engine unless you're building the engine up.

And I've made mention of this thread in 350Z-Tech's EOI for the next Sydney cruise.

I'm cool with SAU and 350Z-Tech running a joint cruise. Plans kind of died in the arse over there for our next cruise, so if you arrange something concrete then I'll post it up (or you can sign up). Our last cruise to Kangaroo Valley was quite well received, and as you can see we had a couple of V35s in attendance. Since the V35s have been over in the US for ages as the Infiniti G35, you will find quite a bit of info on there as well as english-based tuning guides.

Good luck. I've stopped going to Nissan for servicing ages ago. The f**kers were completely useless when it comes to dealing with sports cars being driven by enthusiasts. If you're driving a Pulsar or Maxima and you just want something that will get you to the shops or interstate, and you have zero interest in how the thing runs, then they're great. I saw all the service awards and plaques on the wall and I thought, "If this place is an outstanding dealership then I'd hate to go to an average one...." Its the kind of service you tolerate as a customer of Maccas when you spend $7 on a value meal, not when you just dropped 65 large on their "flagship". That said, the old man's got an entry-model BMW and I've dropped the car off at one of their dealerships too. Servicing isn't cheap but they know how to treat a client. They also know how to rip them off, but they know that happy customers are repeat customers. I know quite a few 350Z owners who've made it their first and last Nissan, because of the service. I think the US guys had the right idea of selling the GT-R under the Infiniti marque. That way they get premium service, and the guys behind the counter don't need to change their manner between Pulsar owners and GT-R owners. I realise Ghosn wanted to sell it under the Nissan badge so perhaps they should have a boutique dealership for just the GT-R and 350Z inside Nissan. Kind of like how HSV has their operations - no standalone stores, just substores within the Holden dealerships.

911 Turbo performance for BMW M3 money? I think it'd sell well. The GT-R badge has got quite a bit of cachet (thanks in part to Bathurst, motoring journos going nuts over the grey imported R34 GT-Rs that came in but weren't factory supported and so put off people that might have bought an Aus delivered one, and being the best road car in the Gran Turismo series), and considering the new V8 M3 is still in the 8:1x range for the Nordschleife (the 997 Turbo runs 7:42 or thereabouts, and the GT-R is meant to be in the same ballpark). Our badge snobbery for "nice runabouts, but I'd never buy one of their supercars", almost 20 years on, has shifted from Japanese cars to Korean cars. As such, I think that a $150K Nissan might be sellable if its got the go to back up the price. $180K, which is my personal estimate, would be the upper bounds of where I think people would buy it for. Price it at $200K, or the price of a 911, and the damned thing had better fly (and I mean Moller Skycar kind of flying) if they don't want to repeat the R32 debacle.

These f**kers must have stolen a copper's car, or someone with enough political clout to get the cops to do something. I get the feeling they're going to find the guy who walked off with Lawsy's golden mike before they find the guys who broke into my mate's place and stole all his stuff.

Yaaay!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy!

Your numbers only cover a part of the cost, which is why I'd say that your price is unrealistic. To do the numbers on what you've got above. A 350Z costs $62K for the Touring. An APS TT is $15K fitted, but it lacks the new clutch and oil cooler required to make the car work (OEM clutches rarely last more than 6 months after a car is TT'ed). A 3.8L stroker kit with forgies will cost you at least $5K for the parts if you go for an American brand (don't even ask how much a JUN kit will cost). You'll definitely need new wheels and tyres to put that power down. Say $4K for forged aluminium 19" rims with a trade-in on the stockies, and that's being generous. A new LSD will also be nice. Budget $2K at least. With double the OEM power, you'll also need a big brake kit (the Brembos do fade eventually, even with NA power). AP Racing or Stoptech kits cost around $8K. Bilstein PSS9 coilovers? About $4K. You've just hit around $100K, and you haven't even touched the aero or drivetrain. And, like I said, that only covers part of the cost. Firstly, the new GT-R is getting a bespoke platform and is only being produced in limited numbers. The Z33 and the V35 share the same platform, so the R&D costs can be spread across two different ranges (and the V35 has multiple sedan and coupe variants) that have a much larger production run. The R&D costs, as well as production costs, for a lot of things in the GT-R are going to have worse economies of scale. Secondly, it'll also have an active AWD system. Comparing it to the Z33, with a much simpler RWD system, means you've got drivetrain costs (both in terms of physical components as well as R&D complexity). The engine will have custom parts (Nismo has developed a VQ38HR engine for the Nismo 350Z, but its high compression and so unsuitable for the GT-R application), and with twin turbos it will have new plumbing in comparison to the Z33 / V35 / V36, which also means individual packaging constraints. The only turbo VQ in Nissan's range is the VQ30DET, which I believe is designed for a van or family car. There's practically nothing that could be carried over. And they can't steal aftermarket turbo kit layouts, since those don't cater for front driveshafts near the manifolds / turbines. The aero and suspension will also be much finer tuned than the Z33 (the original '02 suspension in the Z33 was rubbish, to be quite blunt, although the aero is pretty good) to ensure it handles as well as it can for an OEM release, which means more development costs. Its not cheap to rent the Nurburgring. There's also meant to be a bucketload of CF in the upcoming GT-R, whereas the Z33 sticks to aluminium for weight reduction. Its not like its going to share interior bits either. Seats, stereo, air con, switchgear, and the other "touch points" will probably all be bespoke (or a significant minority of it will be), and its going to have to be high quality stuff since Nissan says its meant to compete with a 911 on creature comforts as well as performance. Ford's PAG knows what happens to brand perception when you stick HVAC gear from a Mondeo into a Jaguar. Lastly, Australia also has a bunch of "weird" ADR requirements that are completely unique to us. They government is looking at getting rid of most of the esoteric stuff to bring us in-line with US and Euro requirements, but until that happens any Australian delivered car may need to be done on a custom production run. And guess what that's going to do to costs....?

R34 GT-R, either a V-Spec or M-Spec. Although it is quite possible that I'll step away from sports cars if I need rear seats, and get something like a Chrysler 300C or auto XR6T (which will have to be before 2010 when they stop making the I6).

I've got a set of 17x8.5 / 17x9.5 rims for sale (the TE37s that are currently on my car). They might fit a 2WD Skyline.