simpletool

Goodyear Eagle F1.......I think these are your friend. Dunno if they still make them but if they do get the real ones, not the ones made in Thailand (you can tell by the shoulder blocks).

So I've had my 2-door R33 for 6 years now. It's still running well, maybe better than ever. It's time I got something with 4 doors and a bigger boot for 2 reasons: 1 - I need something to kart my 9 month old in (currently a baby seat sits in the Skyline) 2 - I need something more "respectable" and newer for work (I get a car allowance and tax deduct). Do I keep the R33 and buy a 2nd hand Mazda 6 liftback for $17k. Or Do I sell the Skyline and buy a Ford G6E Turbo for $27k ? This is my dilemma. I change my mind twice per day. Hit me with all your crazy ideas ! p.s. Yes I have considered a Turbo RX8....oohhh baby.

Yet he runs 10" +30 and hits the inside...... I know the R33 can't fit anything bigger then 9.5" with +30 on the front (even then it can touch).

8/6 are on the soft side ????? Maybe for a track only car running soft compound slicks. 6/4 is definitely firm enough for street. If you think you need anymore than 6kg/mm on the front then you have some super sticky poo tyres or are a poor driver. Federal RSR will just barely utilize a 6kg/mm front spring. I'd up the sway bars a fair bit before jumping to higher springs (actually I'd bump the rear spring up to 4.5kg/mm too).

What what??? Surely there are Evo owners out there running RSR on R34 GTR rims? How bizarre !

So pissed off I missed another one.

I've got an SAFC II lying around that I used to have on my car. The unit is in PERFECT condition but I stripped back the wires to bare to which is how I spliced in into the stock R33 loom. You can have it for $180 + postage from Brisbane, I've even got the stand. It was very handy when I had 10psi and R34 SMIC, 3" exhaust to prevent rich and retard section of the maps. But don't expect to be able to run 15psi and make 220rwkw. Nistune is a good option if you have a bit more $$$.

You mean a room for $300 sharing with someone else, right? Nightlife: GC is good but don't be a smart arse late at night in the clubs - it's at least as rough as Kings Cross, sometime worse. Tuner: People (and fellow tuners) usually recommend EFI at Yatala. I've never been to a tuner outside of Sydney so I can't confirm. Main attraction of GC: The beach, chicks in bikinis, perving, surfing, fishing, ice-cream. That is all. Almost everything else is in Brisbane. Most people prefer to live in Brisbane and drive to GC every 2nd weekend in summer (it's only 45 minutes away). GC in winter is horrible.

I take it the roads have improved A LOT since I last drive to Toowoomba and back. There is one uphill section on the highway heading east just near Hattonvale I think that has some CRAZY potholes on the highway. I can't imagine the back roads could be any better. Trust me, the minimum for good fast street driving is 340mm. What shock/spring combo are you using? - EDIT: The photo looks like Tein superstreets ? Stick to 340mm, maybe push it a touch lower and try it but I wouldn't like the idea of scrubbing into driveways and around tight corners with bumps.

Which bit of info? The 350mm front height is general consensus (grain of salt) but it's just before the lower control arms are parallel to the ground at rest. This is typically the point of diminishing returns as far as lowering goes with stock arms/locating points. So 340mm - 350mm is pretty much where you want to be at the front (rear is typically 10mm lower, mostly because the guard itself is lower on the body). If you're front spring are up around 8kg/mm+ then you could prob get away with 335mm or so as far as travel goes, but I'm not sure it would be an advantage - and that is a bloody high spring rate for a Skyline. The rest of it is from measurements I've taken myself, did a coilover sleeve conversion and had to take quite a few measurements and do some calcs because I wanted to put it all together then stuff it in the car and drive to work the next day.

Personally I'd go : 18 x 9.5" +22 with 235/40 front 18 x 10.5" +30 rears with 265/35 rear

FWIW the recommended low height limit for "best handling" is approximately 350mm front, 340mm rear. This is measured from centre of wheel to guard, which is the generally accepted method of measurement. Stock is about 380mm front, 370mm rear. You can go 340mm front, 330mm rear if you know what you are doing with spring rates and bump stop heights but you'll be pretty limited in travel. Any lower than that and you are just asking for trouble. The kind of around a corner at 100km/h hit a dip or bump in the road and "Housden, we have a problem" type of trouble ! Hard to tell accurately from your profile pic but it looks about 350mm front, 340mm rear. 5cm lower? It's only technically possible, not actually feasible. You definitely won't have a fast street car, it will have terrible mid-corner balance. It will have no bump stops and about 1cm of wheel travel. BTW ultra low is going out of fashion real fast at the moment so you won't even be cool.

OK so I finally completed the fronts on my R33 GTST. It was VERY easy to do once I had all the parts. I converted the original SK Bilstein shocks to coilovers with 5kg/mm springs. Parts: 2 x Front strut tops to suit 2.5" spring (I used ISC R33 rubber mount strut tops) 2 x sleeves to suit bilstein shock (I used A1 racing, pn A1-12451) 2 x 2.5" lower perch to suit sleeves (I used A1 racing, pn A1-12460) 2 x 2.5" ID, 10" length springs 275 lb/inch (I used Hypercoils for $60 each) 2 x 10mm ID hardened steel washers (thick). One for under the strut top, one for on top of the strut top. I got the sleeves, perch and springs from the USA and they shipped in a large flat rate US postal box ($60). I would have liked to go local but not for 220% of the cost. Install: You simply remove the strut top, take out the spring and perch and clean the shock body. Then place the circlip on the BOTTOM GROOVE. The slide on the sleeve with the internal square edge lip facing down. See the inner ridge in the pic. This positions the sleeve very nicely about 3mm above the brake line bracket - pink circle. This shows the sleeve and bottom perch before sliding over the circlip. Then you put the strut top on and assemble. The bottom perch is positioned 11 turns up from the bottom (counting the top of the ridges on the sleeve). This gives a wheel to guard height of 345mm (recommended). Installed on the car. NOTE: 1. The strut tops from ISC have an inner diameter of 12mm as noted in previous posts. The bilstein is 10mm diameter. You will need to find a suitable reducer for this to mount properly. 2. Bump stops - I previously had a combo of 1 x superpro bush and cut-down SK/pedders bump stop. Since the ISC strut tops add another 30mm of bump travel (and reduce droop by the same amount) I added another polybush to space down the bump stops. This poly bush was ~20mm long which is what I wanted (I wanted to add another 10mm to the travel before hitting the bump stops as the previous ones were a bit too quick to touch). You might be able to see the 2 x poly bushes and the old foam bump stop in this pic. It worked well for me previously and adding a 2nd poly bush like that should help make them even more compliant. This gives me ~40mm of bump travel before the shock touches the foam bump stop at 345mm height. This is them installed, you can see the old foam bump stop just slides around. You can also see the 1 x hardened steel washer (10mm ID) that I put under the washer supplied by ISC (12 mm ID), there is also another on-top of the strut top below the nylon lock-nut. Ride/Feel: With the 5kg/mm springs and ISC strut tops the ride is amazingly compliant. It doesn't feel any harsher than the 4.1kg/mm Tein springs I took out. However the front is definitely firmer when cornering and the balance of the car has shifted more towards neutral from oversteer. Ride Height: At 345mm height the spring is pre-compressed ~15mm at rest, then further compressed 60mm with the weight of the car. This gives 60mm droop travel for this combo, stock is ~80mm droop (limited by suspension arm movement - as the shock goes 90mm). Therefore with a 10" 275lb spring you could go down to 335mm ride height and have ~5mm pre-compression so the spring is trapped. Alternatively you go all the way up to and over stock ride height as the sleeves have plenty of thread left.

It MIGHT also be the set-up itself 0 toe with equal caster (left/right) and lower offset wheels will also feel like it is pulling left pretty hard on our cambered roads. ie. A 0 toe car with equal caster and flush wheel will follow the grooves in the road VERY closely. If you let the wheel go on almost any slightly cambered road will cause a obvious steer to the side of the road. Normally the caster is split left/right to compensate somewhat. Obviously this doesn't explain the sudden onset. For that I am thinking tyre wear.

Yeah a strut brace does still make a noticeable difference on a Skyline but not as much as strut based cars. I felt the difference. You can also get a front underbody brace to stiffen up between the radius rod mounts.

OK so here is my guestimate comparisons and thoughts. Might not be worth anything to people, but it's free. The revised harder sway bar rates makes the ratio correlate better to seat of the pants feel. Caution - rates are entirely guestimates. R33 wheel rates.xlsx

Indeed no expert. Comprehension is also not a strong suit - see the previous posts to yours.

Generally the Skyline ones are alloy, the S-chassis are all iron. There is a significant weight difference. ie. R32 GTR, R33 GTST, GTR, R34 GTT, GTR are all alloy. S13, 14, 15 are all iron. Unsure of R32 GTST material. There is a silvia page somewhere on the interwebs which describes all this and more.

Unless you are getting those REALLY cheap I'd suggest Federal RSR.

7.5" wide? That is pretty skinny, even for a 32GTST. I'd go 8.5" +30 if you want a safe fit. I'm looking to go on R33 GTST. 9" +27 front 235/40/18 10" +30 rear 265/35/18

The stock rear is 18mm on the R33 GTST, from a few internet searches. The front bar is unknown still. So for the rear I have a choice of 85%, 123% or 167% increase. These whilteline bars are obviously stiffer and with a larger spread than I thought ~

Interest-a-ling-a-ling.

OK well maybe I should have remember this chart from Whiteline. Perhaps this is as accurate as I'm going to get? http://www.whiteline.com.au/docs/bulletins/BL-281.pdf

Is the stock bar 18mm? I don't have it any more so I have no idea. There is no way the white line bar is 320% of the stock bar, that would be crazy. The front has quite a few holes. I'll take some measurements when I can. Here are the pics of the 2 items which shows the leverage on the rear bar is much less than the front (and so each hole has a higher % effect). I think SK said each front adjustment is approx 8% and each rear is 12%. It'd be good to get some reference values for the contribution of the sway bar to spring rates. Rear Front

Pretty sure from memory it's connected to the strut and the Skyline is pretty damn close to 1:1. So the rate is just additive to the springs. The calculators although guestimates also do tend to agree with my assumption that the stock bar is 1.25 and the rear 1.0 The white-line front I estimate goes from 1.5kg/mm up to 2.1kg/mm. The rear from 1.25kg/mm up to 1.6kg/mm. These figures could be a fair way off but they provide some reference point to work with at least. Hard to estimate as the bar is not straight or symmetrical, it is made of a material that I don't accurately know the modulus and it has irregular bends before the arms.