Mr_RS4

afaik the Nissan D-Matic or what ever its called is supposed to be one of the best things to use. There is a thread on all of this anyway with recomended fluids. I think some use Castrol as well.

As for Mod list every one is different and also depends on budget. But here is my top 10: 1). Full Exhaust and a K&N Panel filter for the stock airbox or a pod 2). Apexi SAFC and (like I said before IF YOU CAN FIND ONE ) Apexi SITC. You'll know why when you start watching the fuel guage. 3). Get it on a Dyno and get it tuned. Make sure they don't just look at wide open throttle tuning but also the 0% to say 35% range as well. Will probably cost more but the economy will be better. 4). Front Mount Inercooler and Boost Controller. Now you could make this step 3 before the tune but like I said it depends on budget. I would simply to save Dyno costs as you could get your car tuned after you raised the boost etc. But if you planning on leaving the boost standard then you need not worry about this setp anyway. 5:)Then I would plan on some suspension Mods. Check out Sydney Kids Bilstein group buy as this was developed for the Stageas and has been tried and tested by a few members on here. And if your still riding on stock shocks etc. Then they are going to be shagged anyway as will a lot of the factory rubber bushes. 6:) Now that its going some more power and sitting and riding much better I'd look a wheels. Not much to say here as its all personal choice. But something with some Deep Dish looks sweet IMO on a Stagea 7:) Then I would deal with the Auto, you may decide you like it. But its slipps and and the shifts are too sloppy for my liking. Around $400 will get you a shift kit from MV Automatic in Adelaide (AlexCim has one on his and after watching the videos I wanted one ). This will actually extend you auto's life I believe as it stops a lot of the slipping which will wear out the bands etc inside. And also shift harder and faster. 8:) Body kits etc. Again personal taste. If you get a completely stock car that doesn't even have side skirts, front lip, rear lip, spoiler etc. Then its going to look real plain. There are a few kits for sale here in bris. Just don't get a Nismo kit....thats what I just got....hehe Otherwise you can find plenty of body styling parts on the Yahoo Auction from Japan. 9:) Brakes. Some say the braking performance leaves a bit to be desired. And if your planning on doing some more than spirited driving then yeah they aren't fantastic. But I used a descent set of pads front and rear and good fluid with new standard rotors and it takes a good flogging up Mt Nebo to start noticing anything wrong. 10:) Save the best till last. You'll NEVER finish the car. As with modifying any car there will always be something you want to do to it. As cy would say. Its an Addiction

I used Pioneer 6" splits (the yellow fibre cone types with the silver phase plugs in the centre) and they fit perfectly in the front doors using the factory plastic mountings. However I'd recomend getting the shop to make mdf ones or reinforcing the plastic ones. They are solid but plastic doesn't make a good mounting point for a driver. But they will fit fine. The rear doors are a different story. I kind of used the plastic mounts but also used a mdf spacer as the 6" didn't fit, they were just off. But you can still fit them easially. I used the matching 6" co-axel Pioneers in the back.

Oh yeah and as for the exhaust over the stero. You don't need to go for a f*uk off loud exhaust. The system I've got sounds deep and nice but doesn't drone and just has a cannon and a resonator. But it really doesn't overtake my stero on medium levels. If your sensible about it you should be able to come to a good compromise. And if your forking out big on a system anyway you'd want to be investing in some extra sound deadening on the doors and in the rear boot area as there isn't much in the way of it from the factory. Trust me, it will rattle and resonate like all shit and give stuff all bass response if you don't. So this will help with the exhaust noise as well.

Not legal since its has a factory fitted airbag unless you find one that has an airbag. I do believe I have seen MOMO's in the past that have but your going to be really hard pressed to find one and your choices will be very limited. If your really keen on changing the wheel get it re trimmed. I'd personally prefer to keep the safety aspect of the airbag anyway. I don't find them to be too bad anyway

There is no doubt that series 2's are better on fuel straight out of the box than a series 1 but as soon as you start modifying that mostly goes out the window until you get something like a safc or the jaycar gear etc. to tune the car. When I first got my series 1 I was lucky to get much over 300kms on a full tank driving normally in traffic and around town. And not really much more on the highway. But when the safc was put in a basic street tune was done which helped. Could get around 400kms if I took it easy and got a best of 460kms on the highway but since it got tuned a couple of weeks ago its gotten better again. However they didn't really pay too much attention to low throttle so I'm going to get a wide band sensor and start getting stuck into the low throttle off boost settings. I believe SK can get about 500 or so when towing a car on the highway and its a series 1. And as for manual vs auto. A descent setup auto can be more fun than most people give credit for. Just take look at some of the dyno sheets on here with before and after AFR readings. And you'll see how much room for improvement there is. But at the end of the day a stagea is more than frumpy in the weight department with a slipery auto to boot so its never going to be a real fuel miser but there is a lot you can do to improve it to more than bareable.

Although a lot of good points have been raised I still think that the import auction sites are causing too many hastles with buying / selling cars these days. Too many people (and boost cruising is shocking for this, I don't even bother with that site anymore. Should change it to www.14yearolddreamer.com.au) look at Prestige or J-Spec and see the prices that are advertised there and then try barganing with local sellers based on these prices. A perfect example was shown above. Not to mention that its always been a fact of car modifing life that you will loose money but these days is just stupid. Before people come out with stupid offers they should look at the mods and work out brand new prices and then add all the labour costs then add the base purchase price of the vehicle. Which if they were to start with a stock car and follow their own modification path and probably come out with the same end product just so they can say THEY DID IT is just small minded. As long as its quality workman ship and quality parts preferable if its also got reciepts then people would still save a lot of money and the seller would still come out better than most do at the moment. So basing this on the listed mods (new parts) above, plus the rebuild, plus all the labour and tuning (dyno time) and the cost of the car to begin with then I would "ESTIMATE" that there wouldn't be much cash left over from $80K or so not to mention the amount of time the car would be off the road then constantly getting things fixed, adjusted, chaged till everything was ok. A person buying a car like this shouldn't have to worry about all that. Now don't get me wrong your not going to get that kind of money but going lower than $35000 is a rip off to yourself as this would still only get you a slightly warmed over 260RS locally either at a dealer or another priviate sale. And if a potential buyer can't see that then its just not worth it and let them walk as they probably can't afford it anyway.

just keep in mind it doesn't matter if you talking about a series 1 or 2 but as soon as you start preforming mods your insurance will be affected. Thats what I like about Just Cars. Unlike a lot of other insurance companies they don't affect your premiums but they do add extra on your excesses. But seing as this will only affect you if you need to make a claim instead of every year, 6 months or monthly then it will save you (unless of course your unlucky ) IMO go the series one and spend spend spend on mods, better looking front end (also imo) and you can always buy the rear lights or even the whole bloody interior and other series 2 bits (good old yahoo auctions ) if you want to update it a bit. And although its not the same as having a tiptronic shift you can get a MV automatics shift kit for about $400 which will make the world of difference. After having the tune this has now become my next MUST DO as the sluring and delayed shitty shifting is much more noticable now. Espically when I'm shifting manually. I'm chaning at like 4000 just to get it to shift before the limiter

I really wouldn't base your resale value on these figures. As anyone who has imported a car knows, in most cases they never arrive how you expect. Dings, scratches, parts missing / stolen small things not working and compliance doesn't always workout to be the price you were expecting either not to mention the waiting time involved from purchase to in your driveway. And thats if your not one of the unfortunate ones There is always more money to be spent once it arrives so although you say any of the above cars could be complied for $25,000.00 or less the key word is COULD. I would say budget for extra money to cover everything that needs fixing and touching up. Where as if you look at the prices on Autech's already here for sale the prices jump almost $10,000 in some cases and the ones I've seen have still been fairly stock. Also anyone who has owned a GTR before will tell you (espically looking at R32 owners here) they are an expensive machine to maintain not to mention repiar. Just an RB26 rebuild is worth almost much as most as one of our RS4's. And seeing as your pretty much buying the car blind you may well need one when it arrives, some one starting the car and rolling back and forward around the auction yard isn't going to tell you much. But you also don't get much back on Mods but I can tell you if you put this up for somewhere around $35,000 to $40,000 I would love to see someone build another for that price going by the mod list. Thats my 2c worth anyway. Good Luck with the sale

^^^ Its a ceramic turbine wheel so that means keep your boost at no more than 12psi however I would recomend personally keeping it at 10psi as they're still known to suffer from turbine wheel in cat converter disease even at 12psi. There are a few companies doing high flows now and the prices are getting lower all the time. Once I recover from the kit and respray I am considering this next.

Well basically I decided that as great as the Stagea was I really wanted a thrash around car (something that I could take out to the track etc. ) so I ended up swapping it for a sileighty (180sx, silvia front end). Was a good car and lots of fun but being heavily modified it was constantly needing something done to it and there was more and more that I wanted to do to it and became a big hole in my pocket for a car that wasn't worth it. So I ended up contacting the person I swapped with and they were quite happy to swap back. So I was VERY luck to get her back, not quite in the condition that it was before but its almost back to its former glory. Once the kit is fitted and painted that is. I was lucky there was no mechanical damage done

Ok, as for insurance I am going through Just Car insurance (have been with them for a while now on and off) and I'm paying $936 per year full comp on agreed value of $20,000 (for a SERIES 1 and that was just in feburary this year when I got my baby back....LONG STORY ). Thats based on a Rating 1 and includes rating one protection. I also have all my Mods listed. Excesses are a bit of a killer though. If I were to be at fault I would be up for....$350 normal excess, $350 import excess and another $400 excess because of Mods etc. But its still pretty good and thats a worst case situation. Keep in mind I have no accidents on record and a clean licence too but if you've got the same record then there is no reason why you shouldn't get a similar price. Personally these days I wouldn't pay more than $15000 for a great example series 1 in stock condition from Priviate sale or Dealer, but for an average example I wouldn't go more than $11,000. Put it this way I am about to have a respray and a Nismo kit fitted, already have full exhast, intercooler, SAFC, SITC, boost controller, Filter, Stero DVD Playstaion and blah blah blah making 160awkw, very trick alarm too and the list goes. All it needs is a nice set of wheels and if I were to sell it now I would be lucky to get $17,000 (probably more like $16000) even though I paid $19000 for it only 14 months ago and have spent about $6000 or more on it since. A Dealer would probaby try to flog it off for something like $19000 to $20000. I would look for a nice conditon Series 1 for around the $13000ish mark meaning it would be pretty much stock but thats a better base to start from sometimes as its "probably" had a pretty good life and start from there. Then (considering you origional budget seemed to be around $18000) throw another $5000 to $6000 at it and you'll get yourself and Full Exhaust, Intercooler, Air Filter, Boost Controller, SAFC and (if you can bloody find one) an SITC so you can tune your air/fuel mixtures and timming for better fuel economy and power (believe me and everyone else here this should be AT THE TOP OF THE LIST), and set of wheels (nothing too expensive), alarm and maybe even have some left for suspension upgrades or exterior mods depending on what it came with. This is based on some new and second hand parts and a bit of shopping around but I've done it with less so far. And you'll still come out on top of buying a stock series 2 from a dealer. Personally I don't really find the differences that big between the 2 apart from age. The Neo does make more power and is a little better on fuel but these can be addressed in a series 1. It all depends on what you want for your money really. You could get a better series 1 and do more to it or go with a stock series 2. Both are great cars!!! Anyway good hunting and good luck.....

Yeah I also prefer the series 1 look. A lot of us seem to now. But I would prefer the series 2 running gear. Those prices I spoke about were based over a year ago too. If your husband prefers the series 1 look and you can only drive an auto maybe its a better idea to look at a series 1 as it would save you a fair wack of cash (espically when buying from a dealer) which could be spent on things like lowering, wheels, exhaust and an alarm. And if your going to be having kids in the car then a leather interior isn't such a bad idea either as it would be easier to clean than the cloth trim and looks better imo. And they are easy to find in series 1's too. As for repairs they aren't really any more expensive than your average car. There a quite a few mechanical parts that can be shard with the R33 skyline range and then there are also quite a few stagea specific parts as well. But with most importers stocking stagea half cuts and the like now parts won't be expensive or hard to find. Also your local Nissan dealer should be able to help out a lot too not to mention being able to import your own parts from Japan using the Yahoo autction and Slidewize imports on this site. I have had mine for about 18 months now and its been great and it does get put through the paces from time to time. As long as you keep the servicing up every 5000kms (oil and filter changes etc.) then it will look after you for a long time.

They look like normal Car Yard prices for a series 2. But I tend to agree about the km's being too low for a car that is between 6 and 9 years old going from '98 to '01. Thats only on average about 4000km's per year and is pretty hard to believe even for Japan. But don't let that bother you, when looking at buying an imported car no matter what it is its probably not a good idea to judge a car by the km's on the clock. For eg. Early last year I got my '97 series 1 in alsmost show room condition and it had 122,000kms on it. Barley had a nick in the paint, interior was mint and not a mechanical fault on the car. (And will look like that again soon when it gets a respray, damn uninsured drivers ). While I was looking I went to a few dealers and looked at another '97 series 1 with a "claimed" 35000kms on the clock. Come on a 9 year old car with about 2 years worth of k's. The interior was shocking, heaps of wear and tear and that was before I looked over the rest of the car. So if they were real then it had a bloody hard life. What I'm saying is judge the car on the overall condition from the inside out not by whats on the clock. Plus I got all the books from Japan and the Australian owner too, so I knew the history of the car. I would rather buy a 150,000kms car thats got a good serivce history and looks mint than a 40,000kms car thats had a hard life just becuase it looks better on paper. And yeah look around on the forums first, I got mine from an old forum member and couldn't have been happier. The only thing I have had to do to the car is replace the water pump and the timing belt. Other than that just basic servicing is all that its needed so far and I'm pushing 155,000kms now. And yeah if a manual sounds like your thing then I would look at EGA4IT's car too. Becuase you will want to start modding when you buy no matter what you tell yourself and cars don't come much more complete than his example.

Well finally got the car tuned. I was thinking it would be around 160awkw and was pretty damn close 159.5awkw. They did have it higher but was starting to detonate so had to pull the timing back a little but its now advanced a couple more degrees in from 800 to 2000 (thanks to the ITC, had to explain what it was, spose there probably aren't too many shops that see these anymore ). The SAFC wasn't leaned out too much in the low throttle really but the high throttle setting has a sh*t load taken out. The whole graph pretty much points way south (on the safc that is). This was on 10psi (for those that can't be bothered looking at the graphs) and the car feels much better now as I was having some pretty bad R&R issues which are still a little present but a lot better. So now the real test is fuel economy. I could have had it tuned more for economy but if I go on any big trips I will just get it tuned again with lower boost and get the mixtures leaned out more. If I can get 450km normal (my normal anyway) every day driving I'll be happy Oh yeah mods are: 3" turbo back exhaust (non split dump) SAFC SITC Pod Filter FMIC Turbotech Boost Controller So not much done really.

Ok the airbox didn't sell on ebay so I am putting it back up here. $80.00 for the lot, intake, filter and airbox.

Yeah I have a sard r2d2 bov on mine and was having the usual stalling problem. But now I have the SAFC its all good. I have to admit there isn't much rice in me but I love bov's. Espically when they are on a wagon, makes people go WTF??? Couple that with a very loud pod and the fact that now the stock cooler is gone I have a nice hole right under the pod (which I will make a cold air feed soon) and its sounds so cool and really gets people looking. And about bov causing engines with air flow meters to stall grant pretty much covered that. But its not a bad idea to get and safc (only safc 2 / neo have the DECEL option btw) so you can tune your fuel mixtures and get some better fuel economy anyway, the jaycar unit will do the same but won't help you with an atmo bov.

^^^

looks good. and score on the series 2 tail lights. just one of the many things on my yahoo auctions hunting list . as well as a full leather interior. just looks so much better than the cloth imo.

Very neat install. I have to admit the kits aren't anywhere near as hard as i would have thought to install. Just got to make sure you leave yourself a descent amount of time. Love the RACE BLING radiator cap too... And I'm still debating wether to install a oil catch can, when I removed my old cooler there was stuff all blow by residue in the pipes or the cooler, so I don't think I'll worry for now. But the do look cool

Jump on the Yahoo auctions. There are quite a few kits on there for them. Most of them seem to be blue though, but if thats not a drama (wouldn't be for me) have a look. http://page10.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/m39813386

yeah I think (going by how most of the people here have done the conversion) you'd be better off and cheaper to source the parts seperately here is Australia due to the freight costs in getting it all back here. Probably just use the Yahoo auctions to find a centre console! Which looks like it might become easier now

here's another one, 260's must really be starting to hit the wrecking yards in Japan now (which is good news for all us humble RS4 drivers ). Doesn't look as complete as the one grant got though. http://page11.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/n54439662

Ok here you go: http://page17.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/v6925480 That was about 1 of many others I saw on there. To give you an idea. Always available.

I've seen plenty of these covers on the Yahoo auctions. Just go to the slidewize site and look under stagea areo parts. There are usually quite a few of them on there. Infact I've even seen full under tray carbon difusers too. Really didn't know how much stuff is available for stags