siksII

Thanks mate but I prefer in Sydney and not polished

I need the turbo only- no lines or manifold is required but if they are still attached that fine. R33 series 2 or R34 GTT in good condition is fine. (series 2 onwards has nylon compressor wheel) Please reply here or PM Thanks!

I've been back in Sydney and the dream is well and truly over - I drove the Lambo and have heaps to say about it To avoid one monster post, ill make several.. each with matching pics. Part 1 - Holiday Planning While planning my USA holiday I needed to hire a normal car to get around in. Normal cars are boring. Predictably for me, I spent weeks researching what sports car I should hire for 24 hours rather than looking into a car to actually get around in for most of the trip. The two sports cars that immediately came to mind were a Dodge Viper and Ferrari F430. The decision about which car to rent was irrational. It didn’t have much to do with performance or handling, more about the thought of driving one of these beasts. It was only when I saw that it was possible to rent a Murcielago LP640 that I started considering Lamborghini's. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I tried long and hard to make renting the LP640 a reality but it didn't happen - mainly due to insurance issues and the rental company screwing me around. After the thought of renting the LP640, everything seemed a bit disappointing, however in the end a number of factors led to me renting a humble 2008 Gallardo Spider instead I never imagined that one day I would be brave (or stupid?) enough to rent one of these so the whole process - before, during and afterward seemed completely surreal, I was in dreamland. I honestly thought something would go wrong beforehand and driving the Lambo just wouldn’t happen. This was something I couldn’t get my head around! Im sure most you would understand my madness.

Been really busy having fun over here so only have time to post a teaser

Its 2am and I only just finished planning my route. Car should be dropped off at 9am, cant believe it! Hope I can get some sleep now, long drive ahead tomorrow

Assuming all goes well, I sure do plan on using all those kms! In fact they car only came with 100miles, I paid extra for the next 300 I figure this is a pretty rare opportunity so I may as well make the most of it! Thanks for the reassurance! Ive been in LA since yesterday, currently enjoying a 4 door Toyota Corolla before I upgrade to the Lambo next week

I cant believe im doing this... but I just made a non refundable booking. Booked an orange Gallardo Spyder. 08 model with e-gear. The deal I negotiated was $US2275 including insurance for two drivers, 24hours and 640kms $2500 deposit and 12,500 excess. Travel insurance covers 4k of rental excess so hopefully if there is any small damage it would be covered. Have I gone mad? I think so!

The insurance from most places costs the same regardless of age, you just need to be at least 21/25 depending on the type of car - in the US anyhow. Im seriously tending towards the Gallardo with the $15k excess. Its probably not the best idea but assuming nothing goes wrong it would be crazy!

lol!! More like Raging Audi R8 V10!! Engine is not the same - R8 V8 has the same engine as an Audi S6. R8 V10 is similar to Gallardo. From everything I have read, even though they share components they are a massively different experience to drive so technically they may be similar but in driving that means nothing. Im having trouble finding an F430.. As usual the rental places are giving different stories on price etc depending on who I speak to. Its starting to get to me pretty bad, im half tempted to not book anything ahead of time and deal with these guys face to face when I get there. Looks like the two realistic choices are now: Quotes from shop 1 - two different guys $US R8 quote from person 1: 1375/24hours 2500 excess - secured on credit card 50 miles included, $2/extra mile Audi R8 - person 2 Minimum 2 day hire @ $1200/day $20,000 excess, $10k secured on credit card $1/extra mile R8 quote from person two: Two day minimum hire @ $1200 per day 50 miles included, $1/extra mile Person 1 told me there is a $7500 excess on the Italian supercars and $2500 on Germans. Shop 2 Gallardo Spyder: 12,500 excess $2500 bond $1700/24hrs Inc. 100miles. $1.50/extra mile pre purchased or else $1.75/mile $20,000 excess is ridiculous so im tending towards the Gallardo from shop 2 or else try and get the $2500 excess $1375 deal for the R8 from shop 1. What do you reckon?

So much passion for Lambos! Hire car company has said they processed the refund, its not in my account yet but im comfortable with making another booking. New shortlist (no other company on the west coast has another LP640 so its not an option anymore) F340 Gallardo Spyder 997 Turbo Coupe F360 Audi R8 Should be able to get most of these cars, not 100% sure about cost yet but most will probably be affordable and insurable. Any other cars that come to mind?

Bad news. My dream of driving the LP640 is over. To summarise a long and complex story - the guy who runs the hire place tried to screw me over insuring the car. They recommended a 3rd party insurance agency who "they use all the time and could sign me up for on the day". Im reasonably skeptical when it comes to these matters so I did some research myself and found that the 3rd party company only insures cars with a value of US$100,000 or less. I spent a long time on the phone to insurance agencies, online and trying to get information out of the rental shop about what to do. In the end there is no way for me to insure this car. The whole episode has scarred me - all the time I spent trying to make this work, plus the massive disappointment. I will still rent an exotic for the day, but now nothing will compare to the excitement I had built up for the LP640. At this stage I am waiting on the AU$1550 rental cost to be refunded, after that I will book a car from another company who offers real insurance. I sure hope they refund me ASAP so I can get over it and think about another option.

So at least its not just me who has noticed! Looks like the only people who see through some of the claims are those genuinely need a very high performance pad ie. not many of us. Meanwhile, the majority are ready to shoot the non believers down since they dont know any better. I think jetpilots claims are more realistic nowadays, but plenty of questionable information has already been spread. Personally I think temp ratings for pads are useless since there are rubbish performance pads that make big claims.. Although, would it be correct to assume the pad gets hotter than the disk? If so, then high temp ratings for pads might not be that silly if they ratings are comparable and realistic.

My dilemma is because I know the F430 will be a better drivers car, I feel like I would connect with it better and feel more comfortable having fun with it. The flipside is that a LP640 is very rare, the car is ridiculous.. a real supercar. There is only a few places in the world where you would be able to rent one so its a rare opportunity. Meanwhile Ferrari rental is not so rare. To be honest, im pretty nervous about driving the LP640, partially because its a dream come true and partially because im not sure if I can have fun with such a scary beast! Lost some sleep over it last night and im sure ill lose more. I have always loved Ferrari's more overall but seeing a Murcielago on the road is amazing, more so than seeing an F430. Im afraid when I get there if I rented the F430 I would regret not taking the chance to try the LP640. Im renting in Las Vegas. Has already been billed to my credit card - AU$1550 for 12 hours, 100miles included, US$2.50 per extra mile + crazy fuel bill F430 was approx $450 less for the same deal. No bond required, insurance is pretty much included in that price.

I am planning to rent one of these cars in around 3 weeks time. Both are convertible 2008 models with paddle shift gearboxes. Deep down I think the Ferrari appeals to me more although the excitement of a LP640 is pretty hard to beat. I booked the LP640 however I can change it, im still in two minds. Any comments appreciated.

Where from? Have not seen it for anywhere near that price lately.

DBA still makes their slotted 4000 series with those slots at the edge for 296mm rotors. This is why the rotors I purchased to replace my RDA's were blank 4000s into which I got custom slots machined in that do not reach the edge. Machined them once which actually took away approx 1mm or 50% of the rotors life. I had an incident where my pad disintegrated and the backing plate ate the rotor a little - hence the machining. The other 50% of wear was from the pads. Not sure of exact kms off the top of my head but it would be ~25,000.

The last set of rotors I had on the front of my r33 were RDA slotted. Gave them a pretty hard time on the road and some track use. Im always very careful with warming up / cooling down and had no issues with cracking. Overall very happy with the RDAs considering their low price from the group buy. Just fitted a set of custom slotted DBA 4000s a couple of weeks back to replace them. Here is a pic of when I took them off - well used

Assuming you have an r33 gtst then yes you are correct, you were sent the wrong links.

Thats what I found, however apparently the links will reach the front two holes while the car is at normal ride height, ie you need to do it on ramps or on a hoist. Have not tried this yet but will try on the weekend. This is because the bush is held tight ie doesnt rotate inside the rod once you tighten it up - once you let the car down the bush will be twisted at normal ride height. By tightening at normal ride height the bush is not twisted while at normal height, only as the suspension moves up and down. This is the case with normal rubber bushes on the car, not 100% sure if the same applied to urethane bushes in the front castor rods but it seems that way since the centre will not twist and the bush will not twist in the outer housing either... If you have castor rods with spherical ends then you dont need to worry about it in this case.

The only parts that you really need to worry about doing up at ride height are the castor rods, hence I would do it all on the ground, then drive the car up on ramps with the rods loosely on, then tighten. You need the front wheels removed to fit the front swaybar, its very hard to get to the swaybar links with them on. You can fit the rear bar with the wheels on and rear jacked up. Might be hard on ramps as there is weight on the suspension arms and hence they will be hard to manipulate when fitting.

Remove them will the car jacked up - it would make the whole process harder by doing it with wheels on the ground. With standard links like mine, im pretty sure you will find they only reach to the rear two holes - wonder what the point of having the other two holes are. I fitted mine last night and had several annoying hassles, issues were all related to manufacturer incompetence - -One of the round bushes on rear link was split -Stud was supplied instead of a bolt -Nyloc nuts for the top of the front links were the wrong size -Two holes on the front bar were not drilled cleanly so the bolts would not fit through Perhaps they have a 2 year old packing the kits? I had to steal parts of a friends spare bar to fit them up, will be following this up to get replacement link kits. Attached are pics of the faulty/wrong parts (white nyloc is incorrect one that was supplied - correct size is the blue nyloc nut)

Which holes did you use? Mine has 4 holes on each side on the front bar, the standard link can only reach the two softest ones (ones towards rear of car). Are you using the standard links? How many mm thick is your bar?

Did mine last night with tin sips.

Sold

Fair enough! After you installed the bars, did the handling balance of the car change a lot? ie was it more oversteery before whereas now its more understeery as you have described? Do you still have to worry about oversteer or is it predominantly understeer now?