Victory

Hey Nick I need you to make a miraculous recovery and attend so I can ask you a stack of Stagea questions now that I have also joined the Stagea fraternity.

I think that it really depends on how long you intend to keep the car. I love my R33's and since I retired I have been collecting them to the point that I currently have a R33 GTR VSPEC, two Series II coupes, a Series II sedan and I have just acquired a C34 Series II Stagea (all registered). From my experience with other cars you have to identify what components either fail on a regular basis or have a specific service life and identify a supply point for them. You also need to identify components that Nissan charge like a bull for (e.g. door rubbers at $1,000 per door) and stockpile good second hard parts to cover these components. Aftermarket parts also become hard to come by as demand dries up and shops stop stocking these parts. Good buys are available when shops are selling up parts that have been on shelves for years and are not moving. You also have to identify components that are model specific and not interchangeable across the entire model run (e.g. I have a spare v-spec diff). The biggest issue then becomes storage. How much is enough and when is it too much? There are a lot of small parts that fail on a regular basis that are easy to keep spares of (e.g. electric window motors) but drivetrain, seats, panels and spare shells take up a lot of space. I have at least one for just about every R33 component both 2wd and AWD with a collection of most body panels both new in boxes from Nissan and good quality spares plus a few shells for other structural parts. For some reason my family think that I have an obsession with my R33's - please tell me it is not so.

I replaced the speedo in my R33 with a Nismo one and it was simply a matter of removing two screws, taking out the old one, dropping in the new one and doing the screws up. I would suggest that a R32 would be similar and a very easy fix. Just be careful when removing the screws and use the correct size screw driver and it should be all good.

With the great big clutch that you now have in the car you will have to get this gearbox removal thing down to a simple process. Maybe you should consider making an inspection hole in the floor so you can do the starter motor and top bell housing bolts up easily (just kidding). My mate Stuart used to have a combination of extra extra long 3/8 drive extensions and universal joints that allowed you to drop the back of the gearbox down and get to all of the top bolts and have a box in and out in a few minutes - a hoist and a good gearbox jack also helped but it made a prick of a job look easy.

Here is a 3 inch stainless exhaust with a cannon that may interest you. http://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/451746-nsw-r33-gtr-gts-t-3-inch-stainless-steel-exhaust/

You are a bugger Terry - you had me going for a while. Eight of my cars have personalised plates so it could of had some impact on me. The fact that April fools day was a fortnight ago I was not suspicious of your post when I should have been.

Cheryl is looking mighty fine.

Hey Fatz - you should hire out that first class clutch alignment tool to club members to recoup some of your losses with the gearbox.

I have a new set of Bendix General CT pads for the rear of a R33 GTS-T that you can have for $30 plus postage. PM me if you are interested.

The atmo BOV is a tuning nightmare on a RB engine so we went for the plumb back version of the same BOV. Yuvuz was much happier and we have had no idle problems since he tuned it.

I had a look in the shed and have found just what you need - a 3 inch cat back exhaust with an angled cannon that has had the front muffler removed and replaced with a piece of straight pipe. It even has scrapes where it goes under the cradle and the holes make it even louder. $80 and it is yours and you car will be loud.

You have PM - I have a stainless steel exhaust with a cannon for sale

You have PM

The jury is out on this question. If the tyres are new then I would balance them no question of if you are going to do a Targa type event with runs that more reflect road driving. If they are second hand then it depends on the condition that they are in. I had one used set balanced that were good until the first run which managed to remove a lot of rubber pick up from them and then they caused some vibration. After I removed the weights they were good again. I now do not balance used semi's as they tend to change a lot with use especially if you swap them around to wear the outer half after the inner half has been worn due to camber angles.

Over the last 10 years I would have had 20 front strut braces on my R33's. They have been from Jap and Aus aftermarket companies, fancy alloy ones to carbon fibre ones to steal ones plus a range of factory Nissan ones. It all comes down to what are you trying to achieve: if you want looks then go for the alloy or carbon fibre ones as they dress up the engine bay but offer questionable strengthIf you want performance go for a R34 GTT for standard manifolds of a R33 or R34 GTR if you have a forward facing manifold - they may not look trick but they work and do not bend and flex

Please add Clinton and Charles to the list.

I recently had an intermittent water temperature issue in one of my Skylines where the radiator cap would not always pressurise the system correctly. This problem took some time to identify and resolve. With the radiator cap on and the engine cold if you squeezed the top radiator hose no coolant would come out of the system (i.e. the system was pressurising correctly). However, for no obvious reason you could sometimes squeeze the top hose and coolant would pass through the overflow pipe into the overflow bottle. I inspected the cap on numerous occasions and could not see any obvious reason for this intermittent pressure leak. I then replaced the cap and have not had the problem since.

This is a good event and Fatz does not leave anything in the bag when he has a go. The new brakes were amazing and the new tyres really had some grip as reflected in the improvement in times. This idea of running at night with headlights is something new and provides a challenge when picking braking points and apexes.

Class win here we come ! ! ! Clear a space in the trophy cabinet. Just checked the entry list and you are the only entrant in the 4WD over 3500 cc class. Pit crews ability to stand around and talk shit has just been greatly increased - see you on Thursday.

Quick hide the brakes and don't tell Roy about them or he will do a road trip up from Melbourne and take them off your hands.

ABS cars have 2 ports and non-ABS cars have three ports.

What offset are the rim as they came in 22, 35 and 38?

Thanks Fatz - we will fit in perfectly then - standing around talking shit

Hey Fatz Are you competing in this months Tarmac Rallysprint on 19/02/2015 at Eastern Creek? This looks like a lot of fun and were looking at coming along and checking it out. Do you have and space for some extra members of your pit crew?

Maybe it is some larger sway bars to stop her lying over so far.