pixel8r

In a way its good for us stagea owners as well because it keeps us sane if we ever have the thought pop into our heads that we might sell it. One look at current market prices and we'll be once again deciding to appreciate what we have and keep it. Its funny, I once dreamt I had sold the stagea. It got me in such a panic the next morning you dont know how glad I was to see it still sitting there in the driveway. I'm not one to go looking for the meaning of dreams but I know from my reaction to this one that if I ever sold the stagea I would absolutely regret it.

You can certainly modify these stageas reliably, but my point was that it all costs and I am unable to justify those costs in my current situation. The exhaust and turbo would be the 2 most expensive mods, and maybe aftermarket ecu as well. I went down that road with my last stagea and it was rewarding, but too expensive for me to do it all over again.

Got mine at 80,000kms. Since then it has done 34,000kms. Only "fault" was the throttle body got too much soot caked on it and needed a clean (was stalling etc since the butterfly was getting stuck and not allowing enough air through on idle). Cost $0 to fix and took ~2hrs - I am not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination. Turbo is still going fine, and my car is mechanically 100% stock. The exhaust is somewhat restrictive, but from experience I've found that the flow-on effects from just changing the exhaust on a turbo car can be very expensive collectively. Its one of those things, you cant change one thing without affecting several other areas. The auto gearbox is pretty laggy at times, which I think mainly comes down to heat. A better trans cooler should help. My brakes are now starting to shudder when slowing down from higher speeds (80km/h +) - probably need machining. Other than this it really has been a very reliable wagon. I also owned a series 2 stagea before this for 2 years. It had some initial problems (turbo & suspension) but once these were fixed it never had any other problems. I put 70,000+ kms on that one (yes I do tend to do a lot of kms each year - I love driving).

I bought a s2 stagea from a dealer a few years back. It "apparently" had only 28,000kms on the clock. The interior was spotless and certainly supported this figure. However the car at the time was already 7 years old so either the numbers didn't add up, or they were legit and the car had been owned for ~2-3 years then sold to a caryard where it sat for the remaining 4-5 years. The steering wheel had no wear marks at all. Digital dash so the only way to "wind it back" is to replace it - which apparently isn't that difficult and does happen quite a lot in japan. I've been told by a credible source that most of this stuff happens after the car is sold in japan and before it leaves on the boat. Its an extra "service" offered to importers before the car leaves japan. The auction papers should reveal the correct kms and that is why you should always ask for them if you are the 1st owner in Australia. In my case the dealer told me they dont keep the auction papers which I later found out was rubbish because they are required to keep them by law. Be very suspicious of an importer who refuses to show you the auction papers. Problems with the car included leaking (and wrecked) rear suspension - had to be replaced (at dealer's cost), oil leaking out from under rocker cover (not badly), turbo on its way out (dealer told me they all sound like that. later found out the hard way thats not the case). Another thing to note is that the importers need to make sure that the timing belt will last until the next major service. Sometimes if they know the kms are dodgy they will replace the timing belt before selling the car. Other times they just wind the kms back by the right amount of kms so that you'll still be changing the timing belt at the right time. eg. if the car has really done 130,000kms then they can get away with changing the kms to anything from say 95,000kms right down to 30,000kms. Your best bet is to look for wear or problems on each individual component that you're concerned about. Also do a compression test on the engine.

The stagea is dead. Long live the stagea Thank goodness for insurance huh. Glad you're ok.

spotted a silver M35 AXIS stagea on port rd opposite coke this morning driving to work. Female driver...dont think she saw me. I reckon its the first AXIS version i've seen on the road.

Looks cold!! Here in SA its been like 40 degrees for almost 3 days in a row.

not sure of the physical size difference between VQ35 and VQ25 but if the VQ25 were smaller then that may be an option. N/A it has the same power and torque as a SR20DET (although peak torque is at higher revs i think) and with a turbo it has the most torque out of any VQ engine (407N-m!). I think physical size will still be the limiting factor though...

5psi is indeed the standard wastegate limit, at which point the wastegate opens - thereby limiting boost to a maximum of 5psi. The solenoid mentioned above is used to bleed off a further ~2psi above 4500rpm - thus achieving the factory 7-8psi. If its stuck at 5psi that basically would indicate that the solenoid is either not connected correctly (maybe they've bypassed the solenoid altogether when connecting everything back up), or its blocked (or one of the lines going to/from it). if these lines were split then boost would be higher than normal, not lower.

Hi all, I bought EA's Need For Speed SHIFT for PC a few weeks back and I have to say its AWESOME. I used to think of NFS Underground 2 as the best one in the whole NFS series but this one is even better in my opinion. The only negative reviews I've seen are from people expecting a hardcore sim, but if you treat it like any other game in the series, and if you like racing games, then you'll probably find it pretty fun (as I have). You absolutely must have some sort of analog controller (ie. steering wheel or gamepad) - I'm using a xbox 360 controller for windows (any USB one should work with your pc - just download the drivers from microsoft). Anyway, one thing that I found amusing is that there's like 6 or so Nissans in the game and the most from any other manufacturer is only 2 or 3. Then I thought, well Nissan's slogan is "SHIFT" as well, so maybe Nissan really got involved from a sponsorship / advertising point of view. Interesting Only things I dont really like about the game is the price ($90?!) and the fact that it constantly tries to connect to EA Nation, sometimes during a race (although that problem seems to have been fixed by the couple of official patches that are now available).

none of that matters. if you're driving through town in a koenigsegg, you'll always be in a class of your own no matter what. unless someone rocks up next to you in a zonda i guess...all these exotic supercars are just awesome and will attract attention wherever they go, no matter how cheaply made they might look up close. still, 1.8 million is a lot to spend just to get some attention from random pedestrians...(and police )

You mean the one that goes to the boost sensor (ie. the sensor in the little oval shaped black box that sends the boost readout to the in-dash guage) ? Interesting, I fixed that sensor a few months ago after reading how to do it on here (power connections inside it needed re-soldering) but at the same time the factory hose split and continued to split every time i cut it and re-attached it...so I've replaced it with a similar sized hose but this one keeps falling off the plenum side since there's no "lip" to hold it on. Its been bothering me in the back of my mind ever since (ie. vacuum hose off cant be good) but I just haven't gotten around to fixing it since it didn't seem to upset performance. Now that you mention it the fuel economy could well have started to go bad around the time I fixed that sensor...was getting mid 12's (L/100km) and now its consistently in the high 13's if not low 14's... If thats all it is then I feel a bit silly for leaving it so long...

?? what pipe is that?

I should be able to make it if its on a saturday, otherwise sunday arvo (ie 3pm or later). Haven't been on a cruise for ages...

Not sure on the OBD side of things but I believe M35's use CONSULT-3. Last time I took it to a local nissan service workshop their software couldn't talk to it...so I'm assuming they didn't have the latest version??

Lately my fuel gauge has been getting much worse. Rather than giving me a pretty close "ballpark" reading, its now often wildly inaccurate. I've seen it nearly at the half way mark after just 130km or so, then I'll actually manage somewhere near 200km before it goes below the half way mark, then later it could be back up between 1/2 and 3/4...its just all over the place, often out by more than 1/4 of a tank! Not sure if its just a faulty sensor but its very annoying. Soon I'll be using the kms since last fuel stop to determine how much fuel is in the tank...on a 2003 model car!!

The height adjustment works for any globes, whether they're still the factory xenons or even if they've been converted to H1's. If you look (really) close at the black plastic cover on top of the headlights on each side (literally if you just open the bonnet, then look at where the black plastic meets the clear headlight cover on top - its around there somewhere), you'll see engravings for the different globes you need. The only one that was different for me was the normal (low beam) globes since mine has been converted to use H1's instead of HID's (ie. xenons).

This always confused me - with all stageas. For a car that was never intended to be sold outside japan, there's a lot of english scattered around the place.

I think its so that you dont stack your own stuff on top of it - and therefore damage the screen etc. Storing it flat with either nothing on top or in a stack of the same sized boxes would probably be fine...hence why they come like that. But if you were for example to place a heavy chair on top it could pierce the box and damage it. By recommending people store them upright, it almost eliminates this risk. Very difficult to stack other things on it when its standing up.

I'm still running the "compliance-fitted" setup (ie. what they replace the xenons with). I too had a lot of trouble trying to figure out the headlight adjustment as it seemed to be very different to how people on here had explained it. As far as I could work out the two hex screws work against each other in a sort of diagonal (zig zag) direction...a bit like this /\/\/\/\/ etc. Both high and low beam are adjusted together - I couldn't find any way to adjust them independently of each other so I assume there is no way to do this. Turning both screws the same way by the same amount will move the beam either left or right (cant remember whether clockwise = left and anticlockwise = right or the other way round). To adjust the height, you'll find that turning only one of the screws will move the beam up, whilst the other one (turning the same way) will move the beam back down. If you turn them both by the same amount, the height will be the same as it was originally, but the beam will have shifted left or right. Basically you'll want to first adjust them left-right, and once you have them roughly in the right spot horizontally, then make smaller adjustments to each screw independently to adjust the height. You need to have the car parked about 1-2m from a wall - directly facing the wall, and be able to place a pole or similar object against the wall to line up the beam. Its difficult to see it moving otherwise. Also, it helps to measure the height etc so you can do left and right headlights the same height. To adjust horizontally, stand behind the car and look down the lines of the car (ie. window sill height). Its normal to aim the lights slightly to the left to illuminate the side of the road slightly and also to avoid shining your lights into oncoming traffic on the highway. Hopefully thats not too confusing. It took quite a long time for me to work all this out. Also remember the adjustment in the cabin - set it on say the lowest setting in the cabin first, and then manually adjust the beam...possibly adjusting it to a tiny fraction lower than where you might need it. You will then be able to use the in-cabin adjustment to get the height perfect. I normally use the in-cabin adjustment to aim them down when driving around town and then aim them up to their highest setting when in the country. Its only a slight difference but it is a difference As for the brightness, mine are still pretty poor. If anyone knows of non-xenon globes that work well, feel free to post up what they are

Just had a quick look on redbook and it seems the utes only weigh about 40kg less than the equivalent sedan...and given that the front end is going to be identical, this means the weight in the rear wouldn't be much different to a sedan... The idea that falcon and commodore utes have a really light rear end is generally a misconception. Maybe its true for some utes, but not so much the holden and ford ones...

+1 morpowa i've been there several times including 100,000km service recently (no timing belt though my stag has a chain instead - VQ25DET) - 100% happy with the service and 110% happy with the price! Boostworx are good too but a long way to go if you live out north.

Nooooooooo - please, not in this thread - put that in the other thread... (tries to get all the worms back in the can...)

A GCG turbo essentially IS a brand new fresh garrett unit. You get the full garrett warranty on parts etc. They replace all the bits that "wear" so essentially what you get is a brand new turbo. The fact that it still has "nissan" on the side is a benefit, not a downside (ie. it still looks stock). I believe the wheels and shaft etc are indeed official garrett parts. Having said that, I've never had one so cant tell you how they perform - but the feedback from the people who have gone down that path has generally been very positive. With my last stagea (s2 auto) I had a GT30 hybrid fitted (from Adelaide Turbo Services). These go well but need a lot of money spent on supporting mods to get the most from it (in the end I gave up and sold the car). Also, 12-14psi is only just entering its efficiency range so I'd be looking for a slightly smaller one in order to get more benefit from lower pressures. Also remember pressure doesn't necessarily equal airflow...with the stock exhaust still on, my GT30 actually flowed less air at ~8psi than the stock turbo did. Check out the efficiency range of the turbo before deciding... The biggest problem I faced was that most of the time when cruising around the car revs around 2000rpm. With the GT30 there was a very noticeable dead spot before it started to build boost and then when it finally did hit boost it was a huge rush...not very linear power delivery. It lost the instant response that the stock turbo had, and although it was very strong from 3800rpm to redline, that power was almost useless to me. You can improve most of the issues I had, by spending more money. But in the end how much is your car worth to you? I could've added a better piggyback ecu like an e-manage or something, which would've helped build boost sooner etc through better ignition timing and basically improved tuning capabilities, and I could've put in a bigger fuel pump and bigger injectors and that would've given me over 200awkw...but again thats just peak power, and after the $thousands$ that would've cost, none of that would've helped when I'm cruising around at 2000rpm or less. There'd still be a delay when I hit the throttle. Now I have an M35 which is even more responsive than the C34 was.

have you met a ford nut.........lately? (its a pun...get it?) not sayin they're slow learners - just that they tend to be a bit one-eyed.....probably not unlike us with nissans...but at least we have plenty of choice outside the skyline. The funny thing about this thread is that the Ford should be the clear winner, ie. fast (and expensive) family sedan vs cheap sports coupe....but Ford's reputation and track record have let them down, which is why there's more to the story than just the specs of each car. No one wants a car that will break, no matter how good it looks on paper. The skyline has a fantastic record of being bullet-proof (can the falcon handle 2x the power it came out with?) which is why it still has a chance in this comparison. Plus it has the potential to be everything the ford should have been if you want to pour money into it.