warps

If you have a pine truss roof, hang the block and tackle over the top of the truss at a point where 2 diagonals meet. This way the timber will be in compression, the gangnails don't see too much load, and there's very little bendng load on any timber members. Much stronger than hanging weight off the bottom beam in a truss, but still not bullet proof. I've used this setup to remove L4's out of a number of Dattos. Don't currently have a hoist in my shed, but haven't pulled an engine for several years. My shed's too messy atm to post any photos (halfway through a couple of projects as well as having a rally car, trailer, 2 cars and about 6 bicycles in there). When I tidy it up a bit I might post some pics.

Kinda yeh but not really. An old guy who used to do my machining for me in the Hunter Valley used to go around to the machinery auctions and buy the old industrial stuff. After a while though, a lot more people were chasing it, and the price went through the roof (I've had this confirmed lately by a few machinists). The chinese stuff can be very good quality, and often much cheaper than the 50 year old stuff what is getting long in the tooth (some of the precision gear can start causing problems) Definitely steer clear of ebay stuff unless you get a chance to view and test the gear. If you go to a good industrial tool company (I use Hare and Forbes in Brisbane) they sell a lot of chinese gear, but the quality is still very good, and the price reasonable. Also, if you are going to do any serious machining, aim for geared drive stuff rather than belt drive. Much more robust, easier to use and better in the long run.

f**k, is this thread still going? Some people like Hondas, some don't Hondas aren't the worst car in the world, nor are they the best Deal with it and move on, people. I think that all that can be said on the matter already has been said. Give it up and get on with your llives. Thread lockage, please.

Haven't bothered to read all the dribble in this thread, nor have I driven one of the specific models you mentioned. I have an EG Civic Sir, which is the jap spec model before the Type R Civic came out. 120kW, 1.6 litre, blah blah. This is a gravel rally car with rally suspension, LSD and CR box (though the engine is stock apart from a chip and intake) So far I've only driven the car once at a track day at Lakeside a couple of weeks ago. I was pleasantly supprised how much go this thing has for a piddly 1600 NA. I guess I wasn't expecting much in the way of performance, but for what it is, it put a smile on my dial. What did surprise me was not only the mid corner grip, but the neutral balance of the car. I've heard it said before that the Hondas are the most RWD FWD's to punt hard, and I'd tend to agree. No torque steer, no on throttle understeer, no lift off oversteer (just a nice tightening of the line if you need it). My times for the day were nowhere near the fast turbo Skylines / silvias etc. Those cars were modded, with good drivers behind the wheel. The stock 300XZ TT was about 2 sec a lap slower than me. On the straight, he couldn't pull away, but around the back of the straight I cleaned him up. In fact, the only time anyone passed me on the straight was when I slowed down and let them through. Not because they couldn't catch me, bt because the speed differential wasn't enough to make it an easy pass for them (no sheep stations here) In summing up - I'm very impressed with the overall balance and fun of the car. In outright performance, my stocko WRX would kill the Civic, but then a NA 1.6 is expected to be slower than a 2L turbo. Power deliver of the Vtec is what I'd call linear all the way to 8800RPM, not peaky as some here have described them. Good, fun cleap shopping trolley, but if you like big hp, ripping skids and drifting, they wont appeal to you in the least.

And that's the whole crux of this argument. Agree - from that point of view it's not right to lock someone into having to use your services in the future (although a good money spinner if you can get it!), specially if there are dozens of other companies who use the same equipment and expertise to achieve the same result. I guess it depends on how complex the tune is, and how much work goes into getting it right for your car. I don't think it's anything like TV tuning, setting microwave timers etc. For starters, your TV will auto tune anyway. Show me an ECU that will do that!! The fact that an ECU can only be tuned correctly and efficiently by people with expertise and the correct equipment, I believe they have a case for claiming IP over the tune they do. I'm certainly no law expert (the stuff I've recently learnt about IP law was from a course I recently did on Contracts law) so I'd be interested to hear a lawyer's take on this - not a car enthusiast who believes that this is how it SHOULD be. I've found that the law doesn't always follow sensible reasoning (on the surface, anyway) As I said, I can see both sides of the story, and I agree in part with both parties. Call me a fence sitter. IP laws are very clear about who owns IP. What they're not so clear on is what is defined as IP, and I think that's the issue we have here.

I agree - given the nature of the game of tuning cars. If this is not the case, then perhaps it's another case of laws not keeping up with technology. Again, depending on whether it's a run of the mill tune on a road car, or a highly developed tune for a top level race car, then this would obviously impact the ruling. If there's nothing special about what the tuner does, and there are hundreds of businesses who can do an equivalent job, then there's more justification for them releasing the code. This still does not mean that you as the customer own the code. Think of it another way. should Holden / Ford etc. release the ECU codes (or any other design paramaters) to us when we buy a new car? We do, after all own the car, don't we?

IP laws clearly state that the creator of a "design" owns the "design". Just becasuse you pay someone an hourly rate to develop it, does not mean you as the client own it, unless it is clearly written into the contract. The default setting is that the person creating the "design" owns it. This is obviously different if the creator is an employee. If they are a contractor / consultant etc then they have full ownership of whatever they design. Occasionally I have clients thinking that when they pay me an hourly rate, they own everything I develop (usually the hotshot young engineers). It doesn't take very long to convince them they are wrong and the law is on my side. In fact, I own the IP until 60 years after I die. Must admit that computer programs / code may be treated differently, depending on how the "design" is interpreted. I'd be very interested to hear the outcome if one of these cases went to court. The tuner has tuned your car with their combined experience and equipment. If their combined expertise can achieve an optimum tune in 2 hours, whereas you would have to spend weeks of road testing and trial and error, then damn right they should own the tune as it was developed through their specialised equipment and expertise. Are they legally allowed to let a programmable ECU leave their shop without having a locked tune? (genunine question - not having a dig). The EPA laws are pretty strict about programmable ECU's, and I certainly wouldn't want to let a car out of my shop with an unlocked tune. No, I am not a tuner, nor do I work inthe automotive industry. I can certainly see the OP's concern, and believe there SHOULD be a mechanism where the tune can be changed by a third party. However, this would have to be with the blessing of the owner of the current tune (who is NOT the owner of the car - sorry to say).

Boy, $275 a tyre!! Makes me glad to be driving a little buzzox shopping trolley on 15's!! The RSR 595's are $120 a corner, so at that price I might grab a set once the 048's wear out. These are meant to be 140 treadwear - correct? (not sure if I'm reading the specs correctly). These track tyres are all new to me. Point taken about wanting to know what the car;s capable of. Before I get there, I need to first learn to drive the car properly, then get to know the track (Lakeside) then start thinking about tyres and suspension (it's currently set up for gravel, with about 4" excess ride height). Depending on how well I take to tarmac work (loved lakeside) I'll look at what my options are.

Mine has separate settings for darkness (how dark the lens goes when it strikes an arc), sensitivity (at what flash intensity it darkens) and delay (how long it takes to darken after you strike an arc). I thought that should give me enough adjustability. I don't know how much the helmet cost me, as my wife got it for me for Xmas - bought from HAre and Forbes in Brisbane. I haven't had a chance to try a $600 uber helmet, so don't know what a "proper" one feels like, but this one is infinitely better than the old flip style that I managed to make do with for the last 15 years. As far as making money from welding - I think I'll pass on that. My fabricator charges me about half what I charge myself out for in my normal job. If I tried to do my own welding (and took time off work to do it) or decided to start welding for a living, I'd suffer a huge pay loss (apart from my welding skilz letting me down )

Why dont normal helmets suit TIG? I had to turn the sensitivity down on my auto darkening helmet for TIG, but it works fine. Is there something fundamentally different about the rays given off by TIG than MIG / stick? (apart from intensity)?

Also, I find 4 doors more practical for rallying, specially if you mount battery, spare tyre, tools etc, in the cabin (as opposed to the boot). If you have a 2 door, the rear passenger area is pretty much useless with fixed back rally seats. You'll be surprised how much gear you store in rally cars.

What's wrong with that? There's a very quick 4 door R31 doing the club rounds up here in QLD. It was built on a very tight budget too Everywhere. All the big players use them once then sell them off cheap-ish. These days most of the competitors run 15's, so that's the biggest choice in tyres out there. In fact, I have a set of used A035 195x65 15" rally tyres I might be selling off in the near future (depending on how well they fit in the car).

Great minds think alike.

CAMS L2S will let you do sprint events at many race tracks. LAtely a lot of people are using the AASA licence for track days and such (same price - $55 for a 12 month licence). Either of those should let you do the kinds of events you'd be looking at. Good on you for having the maturity to take it to the track.

Try and resist the urge to drive it hard in the first few laps, and work your way up to speed - even if it takes you a few sessions. You'll probably be braking too early to start with, so aim to brake early and take corners smoothly, working on your lines as you gain confidence in the car. In fact, for your first outing, aim to drive at a comfortable road speed and work your way up from there. Once you start getting a feel for what the car's doing, you can start taking the corners a bit faster and braking a bit later. Don't worry if you're getting passed by 5 cars each lap - trying to keep up with them will only end in tears. After a couple of sessions, you should start getting a good feel for where the limits are, and start going deeper under braking, and trying to carry more speed through corners. Remember, braking early and having a smooth line through the corner will usually be faster than trying tp be the last of the great late brakers and having a horrible corner exit. Speed generally comes from how fast you can exit a corner, not how fast you can enter a corner. Doing this will give you plenty of warning of what the car's doing, and you should get a feel if the brakes are starting to fade. This will usually be a combination of needing more pedal effort, and more pedal travel to get similar (or worse) braking. The brakes shouldn't just completely fail on you though fade. As far as sharing 50/50 in a car - it can work well (I've seen a few people do it). You'd just have to have an agreement that whoever bins it or breaks it has to pay for the repai or buy the other party out (or something llike that). Bank on sharing the maintenance costs equally, or pro-rata on the number of laps you do, or something like that. If a tired engine lets go in a session, you need to understand that it was on its way out, and the driver shouldn't have to bear the full cost. Just a couple of brain dump ideas.

As Harry (and others) have said, best thing to do is have a go at a track day in your current car. This will give you a feel for track days and let you decide whether it's even your thing. I did one supersprint at Amaroo way back when, and it was fun but not enough so for me to get into it big time. Instead, I bought a gravel car and concentrated on playing in the dirt. I've done a few track days since, and it's always been a registered road car. The thought has always been in the back of my mind that I can't afford to break it, but it never has had a big effect n my driving or enjoyment. Once you've done a couple of track days, you can decide whether you want to go to the commitment of a dedicated track car, or at the very least, you'll work out what NEEDS upgrading on the Supra (note I use the word need instead of want as the two are very often confused if you spend enough time readong car forums). Lastly, whatever you do - have fun. If you're not enjoying it, don't even bother doing it. Even the best drivers in the country are just random nobodies who happen to have good lap times, and possibly a fan base. Doesn't make you a better person so don't expect to become an overnight hero just because you can beat a random lap time.

Haha yeah - why let the truth get in the way of a good story? As they say, there's lies, damned lies and statistics. It's the same with the rally excels - I've seen them comprehensively spank WRX's in rallies too. Then you look at the drivers and start to understand why. Still, soesn't detract from what a surprising little package they are for the money. They seem to be taking off in the rally series and I haven't heard too many owners come away saying "gee, these Excels are boring"

Tough question. Dedicated track cars are fantastic for that very reason - you can set them up properly (safety and performance gear) without having to compromise on comfort / legalities. Also, if you bin it, you can park it in the shed till you get around to fixing / wrecking it. The overall cost is probably higher as you will need a second car, as you siggest. I'd consider an R31 as the very minimum in terms of size for towing a track car (might even be on the small side). DOn't fall into the trap of towing something too heavy with a small car. Apart from legalities, you will be driving an unstable death trap, and will wear the car out very quickly. Falcadores are good for this as they are rated to tow up to 1800kg or so (check the model you choose) and usually are rugged enough to tow well. Car trailers aren't cheap for a decent one. Expect to pay at least $2k for a decent condition one that has everything you need. Forget single axle trailers unless your track car is a super lightweight (at 800kg or less). On that note, a light track car will not only be easier on the wallet to race, but also easier to tow (can get away with a smaller trailer too). As far as track cars go, the S13's seem to be a great choice for low budget racing. Throw in a cage, strip it out and start adding suspension, steering and braking upgrades that are all readily available off the shelf. Otherwise you can buy a ready to go track car - usually cheaper to get into it, but you could be inheriting someone else's problems. There's a guy in Victoria selling a 13B Dato 1600 track car at the moment for about $9k (check the Ozdat classifieds). This wouldbe a good starting point - plenty of power, reasonable setup and plenty quick enough to have some serious fun. Of course, the SR / FJ 1600's are also a good choice, but I'd personally stick with the more modern S13's or R32's, as parts are infinitely more available. Having said that, there's a new series of standard Huyndai Excels doing the rounds at QLD tracks (not sure about other states). These things are dirt cheap to run, are surprisingly quick (some are flogging skylines at Lakeside) and the owners still come waway with a huge smile on their dial. YOu don't need a massively powerful race car to have fun. In fact, you will learn more about being quick in an underpowered car.

ROFL - thanks for the coffee all over my keyboard True - people will try all sorts of stuff to save a few $, like people who drive 4 suburbs to a servo because their petrol is 0.5c cheaper than the servo down the road.

Der, no shit sherlock. They weren't actually advocating that you should tailgate trucks (in fact quite the opposite). They were testing a myth because it's what they do. You know - myth busters? If people read my post and want to start tailgating trucks to save money then that's a good thing. It will help clean the gene pool.

Yeh, super hard tyres with extreme pressure have less rolling resistance, so in theory will save a bit of fuel. On that note, Mythbusters last night tested the theory of tailgating a truck to save fuel. We all knew it would work, but I was surprised that they achieved nearly 40% fuel saving by following at 10 feet (3m). When they dropped it to 2 feet the fuel consumption actually went up. They claim it was due to the constant modulation of throttle to maintain such a close distance, but I reckon it's because they were almost under the truck so the slipstream hadn't had a chance to properly mix, and they were still getting a lot of "clean" air from under the truck. Anyway, it was their usual highly questionable testing methods, but made for entertaining viewing anyway (although nothing got blown up, so they must be getting soft in their old age)

Adding to the collection already, hey Jon?

Oh, and I love your DR by the way, Cazz. Anything with real history is far more interesting in my book than most of the crap on offer these days. I went to the Bowdens museum a couple of months ago, and the collection of old race cars is awesome (thought I'd never get to see a real GHTO phase 4 in the flesh - or a real race GT40 either, and the sound!!) It's great to see there is a category for these old cars to come out and play, rather than be stuck in a museum to slowly rot away. These old racers hold much more interest to me than most of the 1000hp track attack butcher specials out there. Yes, there's a lot of engineering in some of these race / drift cars, but they just don't do it for me. Anyone with a big enough budget can build a fast car, but a car that was actually there racing at bathurst in Australian motorsport's heyday is something you just can't build from scratch, no matter how big your bank balance. Interestingly, Bowdens also have a V8 supercar lined up next to the Bathurst falcons (Ph1 through to ph4, then the last Moffat ph3 when the supercar scare canned the ph4) and nobody even showed any interest in the taxi

Haha fossil - it does indeed feel that way at times. Most of the places I hang around at this forum are populated by like minded individuals, so I don't notice it too much. Cazz - thanks for the feedback. I just hear so many people talking about the ex-Fury Skylines, I get confused which one is which etc.. I must say when I saw Adrian working on the 15 car I spent a couple of hours drooling over it and talking to him. It wasn't till a couple of years later I met Adrian again at a different workshop and he started doing my fabrication and machining for my rally cars. Over the months we got to talking and it I put 2 and 2 together and realised he'd been the same guy who was working on the Skyline a few doors down from my work. I must admit that at the time these things were racing, I was a Dick Johnsn fan if anything, but by the mid 80's, my interests were more with rallying than track work, so I didn't follow it very closely at all. When the GTR's came along, I agreed that they were serious weapons, but I didn't like them because they went against the ethos that was motor racing in Australia at the time - ie privateers building and racing their own cars with perhaps a bit of factory backing. (I realise this had well and truly started to change by the late 80's, with the Euro teams coming over here, but you can't change the culture overnight). The local cars never stood a chance against the GTR's, and I can understand why the "knuckle dragging V8 brigade" didn't like them. Of course the history books only show that Australian motorsport enthusiasts hated the GTR because they were faster than their beloved low tech V8's. It's not quite as simple as that, but try and convince anyone of that these days (specially those who weren't even there at the time.). Probably a bit like the rally purists in the early 80's, when Audi unleashed its first Quattro on the unsuspecting Escorts and Nissans in world rally. The RWD's never stood a chance either. Of course if you were a Nissan lover, then the Bathurst GTR's would have appealed. As I said earlier, I was quite disappointed at Nissan's offerings to Australia at the time, so was far from a Nissan fan. It wasn't till the Z32 hit our shores, and the GTS Skylines were released that I started showing some interest in their products again.

Do you know where this one is? My machinist was doing a lot of resto work on one of the DR30's (I thought it was the 15 car) about 5 years ago - maybe a bit more. This was on the gold coast. I'll have to ask him about it next time I see him (is away on holidays at present). I remember talking top him at the time he had sourced a lot of homologation info, and was trying to sort out the different specs the car ran in. I'm 43 now so yes, I remember seeing these things run, but I wasn't a huge Nissan fan back then - they hadn't released much here worth remembering since the 1600 and 240Z. Pretty much everything local was a disappointment after that. Hell, I remember the motor magazine articles on the 200B - 180B with 20 more mistakes?