scathing

I would buy the WRX. It has fewer letters in it, so you'll be more likely to spell it correctly.

Why not? Its where I read that "drag racing" required that it be off-street. I thought a straight up drag race was a race for position? The person who crosses the finish line first wins? Your actual times are irrelevant to determining the winner. Finding out your time would be a bonus, but you could run a 1 hour ET and still win, as long as the other racer crosses the line after you. I do appreciate that there are various "subtypes" of drag racing that allow for different handicaps, but in the end its still a straight line contest between multiple cars running at the same time on the same course.

I don't know whether they would either. We all know that everyone has a price. And Nissan, being in the business to make money, would have a more tangible price than an individual. That said, Nissan / Nismo would also have to consider the loss of "face" when they promised their 20 owners that they've got the only 20 Z-Tunes ever made, and then some upstart comes along and gets number 21. It tells those 20 owners that Nissan's word isn't their bond. Tosh would be a much better person to comment, but I don't think I could see a Japanese company doing something that would involve them losing that much face. That said, there would be nothing stopping Nismo from building a customer car to the equivalent of the Z-Tune spec, but not making it a genuine Z-Tune. After all, the Japanese had that 280ps "power cap" for so long, and its pretty obvious that quite a few of their cars weren't peaking out at 206kW. By the same token, Subaru told Australia that they were only going to bring 400 STi VI (in 2 door form) into the country, but then started shipping in the sedans. When the STi owners whinged, Subaru took the sophistry route by saying that their original promise to only ever bring in 400 STi coupes had not been broken. The precedents are there for Nismo to build a car that is, for all intents and purposes, a Z-Tune but it'll never get the build plate.

Yo, pics?

BMI video showing a wet-weather race at Tsukuba between the premier JDM luxury sports sedans, and the current top of the European tree. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9NPmWq_cBY

That's debatable, if we're talking about 2WD Skylines. It'll never outcorner a GT-R, but that's hardly a fair comparison. Against a 2WD coupe, it'll do quite well. You will notice the weight, but the suspension setup itself is quite well sorted from the factory. Like the Z33, for street use it only really needs new swaybars to cut down on the bodyroll. Coilovers, as always, are a nice bonus but the gain in handling isn't as great as with older Nissans.

I've driven a 350Z with the HKS supercharger. Wasn't bad, but not enough power. The APS TT kit, on the other hand.......oh baby.

You'd better go edit the Wikipedia entry for drag racing then. Their definition is that its a straight line contest between two vehicles over a pre-defined distance. Nothing about it being off-street only. Which was my definition too. To my mind, a drag race is a straight line run between multiple vehicles over a pre-determined distance. It doesn't have to be a sanctioned event.

The Yanks don't complain about the JDM catbacks. The Fujitsubo and HKS ones especially come highly lauded. As for the plenum spacer, its the easiest thing to install! You just unbolt the upper plenum, put this metal spacer on with its gaskets, and then bolt the f**ker back down! And on a 280hp engine, it is worth it. While it only gives you a couple of kilowatts more in the top end, it makes the engine far more willing to breathe and so your usable rev range increases. It also stops your front 2 cylinders from getting starved of oxygen, so it doesn't coke up as badly in there. I'd say they provide a gain at least as good as a pod filter, if not more. As for headers, you can get a cheaper set locally made. UAS sells 350Z extractors (which will fit a V35) for $600. Cats aren't cheap, though, no matter where you go

I always do a sighting lap to get everything up to temp and make sure I've scoped the surface before trying anything. And I'll do a cool-down lap before I bring it in, and may cruise it outside pit lane if there's space available.

Why would you, when the Toyota/Lexus 4.0L V8 is a much better engine and probably easier to install? I thought about doing a V8 JZA80 a few years back. It would have made a mad cruiser, which is all a Supra is really good for.

No offense dude, but according to the Americans I've talked to the Borla is not very impressive at all. Nothing bad said about flow, but more about its quality. Obviously readings differ between dynos (even in Shootout Mode), but your power figure is what I'd expect from a stock car. What year is it? Is it running the 280hp engine or the 300hp engine? You should be able to hit 240rwhp with just bolt-ons. Get the Z33 intake tube (which is less restrictive) or an aftermarket one, plenum spacer (assuming its a 280hp engine) and ECU and you should hit your target. With cats and headers on top of the above I'd expect at least 250rwhp in Shootout Mode. There's practically zero gains from a pod filter, so don't expect anything but noise if you put another one on.

In the context that this is for repeat offenders and not first timers: I like. I don't like. They should impound the car in their lot, and charge the owner storage. Also, what's to stop someone who doesn't like the offender come along and f**k about with the clamp, to get them in even more trouble? Or what if the person has no parking facilities to leave the car in a non-obstructing location? And how tamper-proof is the equipment? Anything that can be opened at all, can be opened by anyone. I like (if the car has to be stored at the offender's site and not on police property), as long as they have the requirement to prove that the tampering was done by the offender and not environmental conditions / some other person with a grudge against the offender / etc.

But then it'll come straight back to Australia as a couple of sets of chrome wheels....

Is a picture close enough? I had a mate with an S15 that cracked 2 sets of DBA 5000's. Both didn't last more than a few months. They wouldn't offer him a warranty replacement on the first since he used it on the track (even though he'd bought the "track configuration" set, and reminded them of that little thing called the Trade Practices Act). They did offer him a warranty replacement on the second set pretty quickly, though, since he told them he wanted a refund. He got his refund, and put them towards Project Mu rotors. They haven't cracked.

I think its quite obvious how much respect I have for salespeople, especially commission-based ones, so I won't go into a massive rant. "Good customer feedback" without some kind of auditable paper trail means about as much as "new and improved taste" or "if you only see one movie this year....."

Either way a Nissan wins, and you're a loser.

As people have said, DS3000s near a fair amount of heat into them before they work. Depending on how long the transport stages are between competitive stages you might start off with no brakes for the first few corners of every stage I'd suggest DS2500s, especially at first. They generally survive a full practice session / sprint race without fade, and they're pretty much on from the get-go. Especially now that you've got uprated calipers. As for rotors, I'd suggest against DBA's. I've seen too many crack (including my own) to trust them in a motorsport situation. They're not cheap, but I hear nothing but good things about Project Mu hardware (pads and rotors).

On an auto car without a dynamic AWD setup, most of them just start the car in 2nd. In some modern cars with throttle-by-wire, it also dulls the responsiveness from the throttle. In some AWD cars, it'll also set the torque split at 50:50 rather than its usual front or rear bias. Goodyear Eagle F1s. They do well in the car magazines' tests for wet weather performance, and when I drove with a mate in the same car as me theirs was a lot more stable.

I have thought before I've post. And after long consideration and reading lots of posts on various car forums, I've concluded that anyone who modifies their car purely because its "different" is a retard. For example, I am pretty much sure the clown mentioned here did that engine conversion and colour scheme to be "different". I lost track of the number of people, a few years ago, that were spraying their cars in chameleon paint, and subsequently hot pink, to be "different". If people break new ground and try something revolutionary to improve the vehicle then I'm all for it. But those people generally have a good engineering theory behind why they're doing something no-one's done before, and will say so. The first person to use an S14 five-speed in an S15 probably did it because he realised it was a stronger gearbox than the often-failing 6 speeder, rather than toughening up the existing box. Or people rebuilding their engines with a forged, high compression bottom end and a well matched turbo running low boost so they can maximise response while still generating a fair amount of power. I'm not saying the RB26 or 2J is a crap engine, and its a hell of a lot better than the V6 donk Holden uses. It would have the potential of being a very quick ute, although whether it'd be quicker than a FI V8 is another question. But whenever I see someone whose justification for doing something is "different" rather than "better because".....my idiot alarm goes off. And that's when I start suggesting suitably idiotic mods.

They make the highest margins on whichever tyre manufacturer gives them the biggest discount. My understanding (and maybe DaFuca could comment, as a tyre retailer) is that its a low-margin business. Maybe the distributors pad their prices out, but the tyre shops have got very little to work with from the standard wholesale price to the recommended retail. And you can't charge above RRP, since someone down the road is sure to charge at RRP. So when some companies get discounts from a the distributors, of course they'll either push those tyres while leaving them at RRP or, under negotiation, do you a "deal" on them. Did the guy offer you a few bucks off the Nexens, or free balancing or some other sweetener, as well when you said you had the Bridgestones in mind?

Why not bolt the 1.5L twin cam out of an Excel into it? That would be "different". For pure irony, why not go for an EJ20T / EJ25T out of a WRX? I'm assuming there are 20B utes out there.

The HSV 5.7L stroker of the old Holden 308 only made around 215kW. It doesn't sound like anything's been done to the engine. Through the slusho, you'd expect around 200-215rwhp. Maybe a bit more if he ran a 3" dual exhaust with a cross pipe on it. Still, they must have some pretty shithouse Skylines and Silvias in Port Macquarie if a 150rwkW Supra can beat them.

Forget using a Murano drivetrain. While its probably slightly better suited than an R3x GT-R's, it won't be by much. For starters the engine mounted is the wrong way, and it only comes with a CVT transmission which are known to not handle that much torque. Almost doubling your horsepower without increasing your redline means you're adding almost double the torque, and that's probably going to munch a CVT. Actually, if you want a manual AWD Nissan you're going to have to use a GT-R. I can't find a current manual AWD Nissan on the market.

Get some ramps so you can roll it up onto the tray.