warps

To take it one step further, slotted rotors don't even offer an advantage on the track. It's one of the biggest automotive scams out there. This is straight from the mouth of an engineer who works for a large brake manufacturer, reporting on the testing they did when their company wanted to release a "performance slotted street range" of rotors. They performed worse than their run of the mill stuff on the dyno, but guess what? They still whacked a 30% premium on them and put them on the shelves. And you guessed it, muppets happily pay that premium because racecar. By all means, better pads and decent fluids will help you, as will quality rotors. Just don't waste your money on slotted, thinking that they offer any kind of performance upgrade whatsoever.

Yes, but you will find that OEM parts are often forged, heat treated, surface ground etc. to get the right fatigue life and ensure the mechanical properties are up to the task. They have a team of engineers designing every little component for the car on a multi million dollar budget, as well as a full warranty program (and legal support in case their products fail and cause deaths) A lot of workshops cut their brackets out of a bit of 250 or 350 grade plate. Some use a plasma cutter, some use a water cutter, some machine them out of a billet. There's little to no engineering that goes into it (apart from dimensional design to ensure that the part fits where it's supposed to), so the manufacturers are unlikely to know what's adequate (apart from a bit of empirical data). When you have to design a component for a purpose (and anticipate the loading on that component for its full lifetime) it becomes a whole lot more complex. I don't know of too many fab or machine shops with FEA software, and more importantly, the knowledge on how to use it.

Is the centre bearing rubber mounted? Cars with rubber mounted centre bearing will experience this when the rubber starts to fail, although by the time it starts to vibrate, failure is almost imminent.

Given you only sit in one seat at a time, how would it be illegal to have 2 different front seats? As long as each seat is correctly fitted, fit for purpose etc., you should be fine. Note the above is based on logic only, and not on an intimate knowledge of the law.

Or as some businesses seem to prefer: "We may be slow, and we may be rough.... But by Christ We're expensive."

Yes. Just to clarify, my previous post was referring to fab / machine shops. You can indeed get things certified for street use, but you need a suitably qualified / appointed Engineer or equivalent (depending on where you are). I looked into this several years ago (just needed to be MIEAust, which I was at the time) but my insurance costs would have been prohibitive. Would need to turn over tens of thousands a year to make it worthwhile. Not worth it to sign off on 1 or 2 jobs a year.

Even if they are up to the task, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone warranting them for street use. Big liability issues there. Unless they are capable of performing the engineering calculations / FEA modelling of the components, nobody is going to be willing to certify brake products for use on the street.

In 2002 I sold my R32 GTSt and bought a brand new WRX. Absolutely loved the Rex. Since then, I've owned another 2 turbo Subys (06 Fozza and 09 Rex) but have never bought another Skyline. Take from that what you will. On the "new car" thing, don't waste your money unless you can write it off against a business (even then they are a terrible investment, just slightly less terrible). The new car feeling goes away in the first 6 months, then you're left paying off a massively depreciating asset. The subys tend to have held their value very will in my experience. You might be better shopping for a 2-3 year old car and haggling with the seller. Some good bargains out there.

Can you prove they have lied to you? If they've lied to you to get you to buy the car, then you have every right to get your money back. Being a business, they're bound by legislation to be up front and honest when describing the goods to you. That's why there's a 3 month stat warranty on used cars bought from a dealer. Used cars must be sold as "fit for purpose". Don't let them railroad you. Having said that, you need to have a better reason to pull out of the purchase than buyer's remorse.

How can anyone say that the F1 technology doesn't benefit road cars? There's no argument that performance technology filters its way down to road cars (how many performance turbo cars were around before 1980? How long did it take F1 to make them reliable?) The fuel economy push will develop real world technology which will make it into road cars. With the budget and drive to win in F1, a lot of innovative ideas come about which might not be economically feasible. As an example, a friend of mine has worked with OEM engine development for about 25 years now. He started in F1 (Cosworth) in the late 80's, then after a couple of years in F1, he moved to OEM development (as a Calibration engineer - i.e he specialises in the ECU side of car development, to put it very simply). I remember several years ago he was telling me about some exciting new developments, where they were looking at hybrid drivetrains, utilising 48V electrics and electric motors integrated into flywheels (along with electric turbos and a host of other related stuff). Then about 4 years ago, he picked up a job with MB-High performance engines, and he was on the team developing the dominant Mercedes power plant in F1 (He has been heavily involved in the KERS development these last few years). We have fairly basic hybrid power systems on road cars now (hell, I remember UQ researching hybrid cars when I was at Uni in the mid 80's) but the F1 development seems to be light years ahead of the OEM stuff. Give these guys another 10 years of development and I guarantee we'll start seeing effective hybrid technology in road cars. With the cost of fuel, and the whole climate change issue (proven to be fact) why wouldn't want today's levels of performance with halving of fuel consumption?

Screw the GTR More info on the Charger pls.

Nice work on the Moke. Im envious of the wiring. I remember how simple it used to be playing with 1970 era auto electrical. Am currently stripping redundant wiring out of a mid 90's Japanese car and it's doing my head in. To make matters worse it has an engine conversion and large chunks of the conversion harness use grey wiring. Makes it almost impossible to trace. Regarding the old studs for the drilling template, if the splines are the right size for the holes then they should work nicely. Looks like you're not afraid to have a go at the harder jobs so I look forward to updates.

Either or. As long as it fits snugly over the hub to locate it properly. I Would still make mandrels to get the holes in the exact spot though.

Another option if you only (!!) have a lathe is to use the wheel as a template to redrill your hub. Knock the old studs out of the hub, and if the hub is a snug fit into the wheel (centre bore) then you can set the wheel onto the hub and use the bolt holes to locate the new stud holes. For this, I'd make up a set of mandrels that go into the bolt holes (machine them up on the lathe out of some 4140 or old grade 8 bolts if you have any big enough lying around). These can either be used as a guide for the pilot drill bit, or sharpen the bottom and use them as a centre punch to give you the location for the stud holes. Make the mandrels nice and snug in the wheel holes (light tap in fit is better - about 0.001" - 0.002" clearance) so they locate exactly in the wheel holes. Also make sure that nothing can move as you go from one hole to the next so that none of the holes move out of the pattern A bit of stuffing around, but more accurate than measuring. I always find that measuring and executing are 2 different things.

Haha settle down - just a friendly dig. No need to get upset (wasn't calling you stupid, either). But yes, your question did surprise me a bit, given the machinists I work with usually have a fairly good grasp of measuring stuff - in fact I've been taught a lot of tricks over the years by some of the older machinists I've worked with. Don't let the abrupt manner of some (myself included) put you off - there are some smart cookies here, with great advice from time to time. Sometimes you just have to wade through a bit of crap to find it.

What scares me is that you're allowed loose on a lathe. If you can't grasp the basics of a PCD then how the hell can you even work out how to start a lathe, let alone set it up for machining? I think I grasp your original problem - you can't get a 114mm by measuring across any of the studs on a 5x114 stud pattern. That's because none of the studs are diametrically opposite, so you're always measuring one of the sides of the triangle but not the hypotenuse. To calculate your PCD by measuring across 2 of the studs on a 5 stud pattern is as follows: D = Measured distance between centres of 2 studs "opposite" each other (ie not 2 studs next to each other) PCD = PCD (DUH) PCD = D / cos (sin-1(sin 36)/2) Or to make it a bit simpler: PCD = D/0.9558 So, for a 114.3mm PCD, the longest measured centre distance between any 2 studs (for a 5 stud pattern) would be 109.25mm For a 120mm PCD the measured centre distance will be 114.7mm Now if you're measuring between 2 adjacent studs, then the calculation will be: PCD = D/sin36 (much simpler calculation) or PCD = D/0.58779 HTH Edit: just looked at the image you posted above. It's a reasonable approximation, as it allows about 6mm for a 12mm stud. In reality, the measured distance will be between 5mm and 6mm smaller than the actual PCD, so this method is a fairly quick approximation (though it probably wont be accurate enough to tell you whether it's 108mm PCD or 110mm PCD for example, and certainly not accurate enough for machining purposes To answer your question, forget about any measurements you've taken, as they won't tell you anything without applying some maths. These measurements are just confusing you, so throw the verniers away. Set up the lathe to scribe a 114.3mm diameter circle. Then you can mark the positions on this (5 equidistant positions) and these will be your stud centres. Much more accurate to do it on an indexing head on a drill or mill. I'd be happy to manually drill brake rotors (have done this plenty of times) but actually drilling and tapping for wheel studs I'd want a bit more accuracy.

DaFuq???? Also, what's with the funky positive camber on the back?

As you say, the 2 ratios are almost dead spot on (in fact, different tyre pressures, or tyre wear will probably have as big an impact on gearing as that small change in ratios. In theory, low numbers on pinions (anything less than about 9) means that the tooth profile is less than ideal, and you get less efficient meshing of the pinion and gear. This leads to more noise and heat, and possibly more wear. However, as stated by others, the larger number of teeth means you have narrower tooth pitch (assuming that the CW&P's both take up the same amount of space). This means the teeth are weaker by default (about 30% lower tooth pitch). For strength, you'll be better off with the 4.375. For efficiency, the 4.363 may actually be better.

You could have so easily avoided that first incident. The moment he put his indicator on, you accelerated so that you could block him out (you were travelling well behind him at the time). Sorry but that's just a cock move - plain and simple. You were lucky to get away without blame, because your video shows you being a dick. What's the rush? drop back a metre and give the guy room (or even hold your position, as he could have fit into that gap). Yes, he has to give way when changing lanes, but by being patient, you could have avoided the accident (regardless of whose fault it was). YKWRGMG? Dickheads who have to assert their authority on the roads, no matter what the cost (yes, wrong thread I know - but seems topical)

Hey mate Found this https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10205498622845350&set=gm.1564411843774768&type=1&theater Might be worth a shot.

You think the P Plate tax on NA skylines is bad - try buying any type R Honda. P platers flock to any Hondas, but the Type R's are particularly popular, meaning 99% of them have been modded and flogged to within an inch of their lives. Shame because they are fun little shopping trolleys.

Unfortunately this ^ I have had to repair my trailer EVERY time it has been loaned out to friends (whom I have known for 30 years) If it were in the Gold Coast / south Brisbane area I'd be happy to move the car for you, but I won't loan the trailer out to anyone.

Yeh chrome moly is steel alloyed with chrome (as used in stainless steel) and molybdenum. It weighs the same as steel but has a higher yield and tensile strength than carbon steel. Because it is stronger you can often get away with using thinner sections which is why people think of weight saving when they talk about CrMo (eg roll cages)

Dreamin'

Closer to .02mm Given that steel has a thermal coefficient of expansion of about 12x10-6 m/m K, a 50mm diameter pinion will grow approximately 0.033mm when heated from 25 deg C to 80 deg C. On the heavy mining equipment we run the gearboxes with .5mm to 1.5mm backlash, and those pinions are about 300mm diameter, with gears about 1.5m diameter. The change in backlash is negligible when they are at full operating temperature. Scaling that down to an automotive gearbox running 0.1 - 0.2mm (?) backlash, I would think that any expansion beyond 0.1mm (combined between the pinion and gear) would be catastrophic.