scathing

All that picture needs is a "VTEC just kicked in yo" caption.

You're right. CA18DET for the win.

The Duratec isn't a bad engine either. An obviously modified version powers the Noble M12, and it has sik flutter.

Proably not of as much interest on a Nissan-oriented forum, but the founder of Spoon Sports will be there, to celebrate their new partnership with Pro Concept.

The most important lesson is that if you buy rims from Tempe, don't expect them to have rims in the correct offset or be balanced.

In an S13? Put in a SR20DET.

I think the guy's talking a whole bunch of shit. Comparing a modified car with a stock GT-R? Chuck in a few grand at a GT-R to do away with performance-killing road legality requirements, and once again the bar gets moved. A stock GT-R is faster over a long enough distance than a modified WRX, because a stock GT-R doesn't get pulled over by the cops as often and so doesn't need to stop and spend 10 minutes getting RBT'ed and then popping the bonnet. Secondly, the part-time AWD is engineered that way. The car pushes all its power to the rear as long as the rears can cope with it, reducing drivetrain parasitic loss, and sends no torque to the steering wheels when you need them to have the most amount of feel and lateral grip (i.e. on turn-in and to the apex). The "permanent security" of full time AWD comes from the fact that the car would then understeer. If he wants permanent security, maybe he should stick to driving Corollas, Landcruisers, or other nose heavy econoboxes, and stay the f**k out of sports cars. Yes, people stepping out of a permanent AWD will be a bit confused. Just like how people in FWD cars get confused when they find out that the cure for losing traction in either end of a RWD car is not to floor it, or RWD guys hopping into FWD hot hatches and learning about the joys of lift-off oversteer in nose heavy vehicles. Cars handle differently, and you should learn to respect that. The GT-R should be driven like a RWD car that happens to have great power out grip. If you can't drive a RWD car, or be bothered to try and adapt your style to suit, then maybe you should hang up the helmet. There's a reason why the Evo's AYC / ACD is dynamically adjustable, and why Subaru no longer uses the "symmetric AWD" slogan. Symmetric AWD is great in a grocery getter, but its ultimately frustrating in a sports car. As stated, the R32 is over 15 years old and the first generation of ATTESSA. Of course its not going to be as smooth to drive as a modern car, or an R34. The same "permanent AWD" in Evos up until the VI, and the new DCCD equipped STis, would have made them far more understeery and therefore slower to drive too. Slotting and drilling rotors weakens them. F1 brakes are no longer cross drilled, and I don't think they're even slotted. V8 Supercars (which tend to be underbraked for their weight) also only slot their rotors. So unless you have specific need for doing it, I can't see the problem with having vented rotors with a "solid" face. The GT-R pulls up just fine and is relatively fade resistant for a car its age. Interior-wise, he's right that its boring. Its not any more boring than most Japanese car its age, though. Sitting in a Civic, Integra, NSX, Evo, and Impreza are all snooze-fests. Only the JZA80 Supra and FD RX7 have cockpit-like interiors. I haven't sat in a 3000GT so I can't comment on that. But that's not why you're buying the car. Big turning circle? A common problem with all cars that have quick steering racks (my 350Z's circle isn't that impressive) and front driveshafts (the Evo IX's turning circle looks like its used to inscribe crop circles that can be seen from space). Low-end lag? A standard WRX or STi is far worse. And the guy must be pretty dim if the fact that a 3.0L engine produces more low-to-midrange torque than a 2.6L comes as a news flash. Build quality, I've never seen a Skyline but I know what Nissans are like and so I'd agree that its probably not ideal. It'll have a bulletproof driveline and shithouse fit and finish....which shouldn't be a problem if you're after a sports car and not an econobox. But the R33's also got 10 years on it, so a bit of rattling and squeaking and misaligned gaps should be expected of a Japanese car. Most MY95 Imprezas I've sat in haven't shamed Volkswagens in the cabin either. The R32 will be even more worn. Grading the reviewer, I think he deserves an A+ if you want an opinion on a family car and a D- if you want suggestions for a sports car.

From the Drive subsection of Fairfax newspapers: So, it looks like its confirmed. One of the last inline 6s on the market has had its death knell sounded. Looks like BMW will be the only one carrying the inline 6 flag forward, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since they build nice engines and good cars. However, on the basis of prior....conversations I had in this thread, I found this quote interesting:

Sig updated for your pleasure. Use Google or Babelfish to translate 海軍王冠の宝石

Maybe at the moment.

Given the less-than-stellar attention to detail at the last BEL Garage dyno night, I don't think I'd be taking my car there....

http://www.350z-tech.com/forums/Brembos-t28908.html You're welcome.

A stockish 350Z would struggle to run mid 13's. Maybe on cheater slicks it could run a 14 flat or a high 13. Most of the car mags have an Australian delivered Z33 running 14.3-14.5. The US ones made a bit more power, so they dipped lower into the 14s. I've G-Tech timed myself (on a private road, of course) at 13.8, but my car's got most of the pipework replaced as well as a few other bits and pieces. I think that, with a better driver and tyres that haven't been ruined by countless skidpan events, it might run a 13.5 but I doubt I personally will be achieving that in the near future. It should. My trap speed with just a catback and completely f**ked RT215s was 100mph. So against a stocker you should reel a stock Z in.

In the massive drag race, where they featured every Z car, the Z33 got a shithouse launch. It looks like Clarkson bogged it hardcore (which is not hard in a 350Z). Watch how fast the Z32 leaps ahead off the line. When they did the Old vs New drag race, the Z32 is still quicker but its a lot closer than the pasting the Z33 got in that "Z Cars" run.

If you've got a clown car, then by all means drive on balloons.

Get it done properly. I had my current set of rims done by a smash repairer. They didn't strip them back to bare metal, and so they've flaked pretty badly. My new set, I got painted properly. Sandblasted back, painted, and baked. They should be nice and durable.

A stock 03-05 350Z is a mid 14 car. With the various power improvements, its still a low-to-mid 14s car. However, I don't know what anyone is doing with a stock 350Z or R33 GTS-t, though.

.....every time I drive through a construction zone. And my car is relatively quiet.

You can't be a smart ass without being smart, which still puts me a step ahead of you.

That's if they even wanted to. They could have also supercharged the new engine (and its not like they don't have the knowledge from the old engine), but they chose not to. It appears to me that Holden has decided to cede the 6 cylinder performance market. They're still dominating the Fords in the V8 space, which is where most of their buyers come in. There's a VQ30DET. They've turbocharged the block already. They've just chosen not to do it with the VQ35DE (but we'll see what engine the GT-R is running when it comes out). Its easily possible, from an OEM perspective, to run forced induction on that engine and still package it. As for whether its profitable or not, its irrelevant to the discussion. Your original assertion was that its not actually possible. And making a TT 350Z would put its straightline performance very close to the GT-R, which from a marketing (not a technical or a profitability) perspective would be unacceptable. As an aside, the APS TT kit fors for AUD$15K fitted (you can buy them in the US, as a package to self-install, for USD$6K). Now bear in mind that this is on very low economies of scale, and they don't have direct access to Nissan engineers. If Nissan were to have done it from the factory, with their R&D resources and ability to recoup the costs over a larger number of cars sold, I doubt the added cost on top of the Z or Skyline (to Nissan) would be more than AUD$6K. It would need a stronger clutch and wider rims (nominal costs over the existing hardware, since you don't have to pay for the NA components and then discard them) and an oil cooler, but you wouldn't be looking at more than a couple of grand for that. If Nissan had released a twin turbo 350Z coupe back in 2003 for $10-15K more than the NA cars, I would have bought it. 280rwkW, with NA response, for AUD$75-80K? I don't doubt it would have sold like hotcakes. Even if they'd detuned it down to around 260rwkW so it could continue running on 95RON that would still give it the performance to beat anything short of a track day special or a 911 Turbo. You didn't specifically say the V35, but you did assert that V6's don't allow enough room under the engine bay for turbos. Clearly, they do. I used the 350Z / Skyline as an example, since the physical sizes are comparable (if not smaller), and as Nissans people on this forum might be a bit more familiar with them. I know of a couple of daily driven APS TT, Power Enterprise TT, HKS Supercharged and HKS Single Turbo'ed 350Zs in this country, most of which get taken to the track, and there are plenty more in the US. None of them have had major overheating problems. Since the Falcon is the same size, if Ford's new V6 is approximately the same dimensions as the VQ then packaging and heat management are not major issues. Your inability to extrapolate never ceases to amaze me. I only mentioned the Pathfinder because it has a V6 with the same displacement as Ford's current I6. The VQ40DE in the Pathfinder is the same block as the VQ35DE in the V35 / Z33, which means it has the same length and width. If the VQ35DE fits in the V35 / Z33 engine bay and has the room for turbos, so does the VQ40DE. The extra displacement from the VQ40 comes from being stroked, so the engine sits a bit higher, but that's not going to stop you from hanging turbos out the side of the engine if the VQ35 can do it.

Yes, lets have a look at past makes and models. The last generation of Audi S4 and RS4 were twin turbo V6's. I'm pretty sure the Mitsubishi Galant / Legnum were running twin turbo V6s for a while (I haven't looked into them since 2000 or so), if not currently. Saab runs single turbo V6's in their range. Nissan also has a VQ30DET in its JDM range. Since you've also named dedicated sports car, lets see what we have in that space. Porsche runs a boxer 6 with twin turbos in their 911. Noble runs a twin turbo Ford V6 in their M12. And the last spy photos of the GT-R engine bay I saw had a pair of blow-off valves under the hood. Its true that Nissan dropped a lot of its turbos from its range because of emissions, but that was also due to the age of the engines they were on. The SR, VG and RB engines were well over 10 years old when they got dropped, and were showing their age. Plenty of companies still get around with big bore forced induction cars. If Mercedes Benz can make a 6.5L V12 with twin turbos meet European emissions requirements, making a 4L V6 with forced induction do so isn't impossible. I'd say the main reason why Nissan didn't twin turbocharge the VQ35DE in the Z33 (and, by extension, the V35, since they're both the same platform) is because of the stigma the Z32 TT had. It'd be a tough marketing job to sell another twin turbo after that debacle, and in 2002 the 350Z was "fast enough". Without spreading the R&D costs across both models it wouldn't have been financially viable.

You keep telling yourself that. If it wasn't practical to turbocharge a V6, they wouldn't have turbocharged an I6 either. Its just as "practical" as each other for a family car. They didn't turbo the I6 to make it a better towing vehicle. As for the size, it depends on how big they make the V6's block. The V35 twin turbocharges just fine with a pretty cramped engine bay, and the VQ block goes up to 4.0L (as per the Pathfinder) so the size of the engine is only an issue if they make it one. They could just run a big single if the plumbing for twins is too much of an issue. There are also some single turbo kits for the V35 that have good drivability and flow reasonably well. You can't reasonably tell me that a V35 is bigger than a Falcon, but then being able to use reason doesn't seem to be one of your attributes.

Yahoo! Japan auctions should have them coming up. And, like I said, $2500 for used Z33 Brembos. If you were to buy a new BBK from anyone else other than G8 (not a big fan of their products, their QC is shit, and my brakes are a component I don't want to be using unreliable parts on) $2500 wouldn't get you front calipers or rotors for the Z. The stock rotors, also being Brembo, are quite "reasonable" from a performance perspective. I called around before I bought the Brembos, and most front kits were $4K from the reputable manufacturers (AP Racing, Brembo, etc). Going BBK all round was up around $8K.

Wow. The end of the XR6T....because its apparently impossible to turbocharge a V6 engine.

From that old rag: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22067380-421,00.html Too right they should lose their jobs, the useless c**ts. I don't think they've ever made a V6 properly so far. The idiots have been building their V6s with the cylinders all in one row.