Turbo Tim

Yeah no worries. I Just remember back when I got my licence I was told by the instructor to think about doing a course, but dont worry about the basics as you should know most of it to pass. Wierd idea on his part. I would love to do a course like that, but unfortunately work only pay for them for certain staff

There is a dedicated kart forum here.. http://www.kartingaustralia.com.au/forum/index.php As for the height, no idea, im the opposite end of the scale, over 1 foot shorter than you! How much do you weigh is going ot be relevant to class. Also look at something which is raced competitively locally. Licences are just a case of paying money. I think its cheapest in qld at $240 or $260 (one of the two)+ club membership. They are fairly expensive, but more comprehensive than a cams 2s or similar. Once again chassis size (e.g 28/30 etc) will depend on class and height. I wouldnt go rush out and buy brand new gear, just because a brand new S motor isnt going to be competitive without blueprinting, something used and proven might be better there. That said you would want something competitive and not some rubbish that someone is trying to offload on ebay. Best bet would be to find a local kart shop or go to the track and talk to people. Where are you locateD?

Take up karting. Good fun and you learn the basics of control. Either that or track days. But really, im sure a really advanced driving course would be best. I have done plenty of track days and am semi competitive at local kart racing, but I still dont consider myself a good driver. I would like to do a real advanced driving course where you have to control an out of control vehicle in adverse conditions.

Yeah I got a little lost, and the weather wasnt too flash so i started to not follow the map and head home. Might look at mt mee on the mt nebo/glorious way in, the later being slightly longer. Dont know the next time I need to go to brisbane anyway. I noticed one direction of the obi obi road was bitumen, of course not until I got there.

Well i did it today. Woke up and the weather was miserable but pushed on anyway. Most the roads were quite dry. Started off going from nambour up to montville which was fairly rough, thin and unmarked and I was stuck behind a slow commodore doing 30-40 the whole way. Very little traffic though so it wasnt bad. After that went back down to landsborough and beerwah and up the road to peachester. This was dry and yep it does make you grin. Good fun. Followed that through to maleny, where we stopped for lunch. Had to keep an eye on the skyline in that town with some of the inhabitants. From there it was through to montville and mapleton. I think that road was quite flowing and unremarkable. Then we did the mapleton to kenilworth road through obi obi. The dirt was a bit slow going, but that road was good, little traffic and leninent speed limit. From kenilworth it was up to gympie which is an ok stretch for the first half, 100km/h zone, but a little rough. Nice and wide though. A few tight corners, bit odd coming into a corner at 100km/h (legally) with a 20 or 40 advisory sign. All in all a good day. Skyline went alright, was glad it was stock power with the sometimes damp road, being able to go foot down in 2nd without breaking traction wasnt something i wasnt used to! Now to plan my next trip to brisbane, the back way all the way Whats the mt. mee road like?

Is this car from bundy and is it possible I might have seen it out the back of the autobarn there?

Yep as he said. This is once again why you have insurance, they can be quite ruthless at getting money out of people when its owed. I still cant believe people dont have 3rd property, for the $150 or so it saves so much hassle (and 10 years of debt pretty much). Years ago the bloke that owned the company my dad worked for got rear ended in his brand new jag by a young bloke in a vc or some such. VC driver was uninsured, the insurer chased him down and as a result he had to pay for the 45k damage over a number of years.

Cool thanks for that. I went and bought a map today, so i can plan a route with highlighter, based purely on what looks the least straight on the map.

Excellent, that will be one to mark out into my travels somewhere. Going to go buy a map now. Is it fairly quiet out that way during the week? Im not into anything overly stupid, just feel that suburban driving surely wasnt what the skyline was designed for, poor thing might only go above 3000rpm once or twice a week. Only really drive it maybe 100km a week also.

I think I will go buy a good old fasioned paper map tomorrow and figure it out from there. Just dont really want to get too far south I guess, only a one off day trip, and i have no doubt I will use a lot of fuel as is As for working at the correctional centre, nope that would not be me. I work in a much more sterile (and probably boring) environment.

I have a week off work and not much to do as the GF is working every day im off. This has resulted in me deciding that I need to go for a drive to find some good roads. Im located in maryborough but am planning to drive down the bruce highway then find a more interesting way back up through maleny etc, but im not real sure on where im going. Anyone got any good places I should go and any I should avoid. Thanks, Tim.

Really consider a rwd hey. Its just so much more fun, and like I said, fwd boxes on the whole are fragile and expensive things. My old tx5 turbo box was close to $1500 to replace second hand! Not to mention it cost me nearly $2500 to get an lsd into the thing. I guess if you dont want something older a hatch might be the way to go. Just count on breaking things unfortunately, and the older rwd's are generally cheaper for parts.

Yeah forget a sled like that for anything resembling corners! One bloke turned up in a 12 second one where we were racing a couple years ago and was nearly 2 seconds a lap slower than our dirty corolla. As for buying one predone so to speak, keep an eye on my105.com i guess. It might be hard to transfer rego if it is really heavily modded though.

Gotta say a corolla of sorts. Reason being, rwd, reasonably light and lots of engine and diff options available. Last year we (me and a friend of mine from uni) did the mega budget track car for some local sprints, bought a dirty toyota t18 from a wrecker, did a lot of weight reduction, got some low hard springs, ra60 celica front brakes and sigma control arms for about 3 degrees negative camber on the front. Only engine mods were a set of sidedrafts, extractors and clutch we bought second hand from toymods. Final cost was less than 1k. That included the export quality paint job in panda (just to shit the ae86 drivers ). Probably the most fun i have had in a car. Unfortunately it wasnt registered. It ended up going ok on the 7 year old street tyres we found in the back of the other blokes garage. At the end of the season we were 0.4sec's a lap (on a 50 sec lap) behind my brothers gti-r and pretty close to some less well driven 200sx's and 180sx's. Managed to out do a new cooper S amongst other things. It was a tight track which worked in our favour. I would say, avoid a fwd. If you do a box its big hassles and expense in most cases, especially gti's. Buy something predone as well, will end up saving yourself in the long run i think.

I saw these advertised in the kart mag. I think it said 48hp or some such, but still crazy. The cost is a little scary though, makes a rotax or leonard look cheap. RUnning costs wouldnt be the best either I reckon.

Just bear in mind that the townsville track isnt much better than any old back road you were using! Its a goat track at best. Its a very slippery surface. Would be good to see anyway.

Yeah you just have to be willing to spend the money to do it right the first time, but I figure by that time I could just get something which is quicker stock out of the box I feel that a lot of mods are a compromise though, like heavy clutches, tight diffs and hard suspension being a compromise on drivability and comfort, aftermarket ecu's being a compromise on some factory drivability features and fuel consumption etc. Its all and good if you like these things are willing to accept them, but I just feel i dont really have the time of day for them any more.

You know, I agree 100%. When i was buying the thing I thought I would mod it, but now I have decided why, its quick enough stock and I love the idea of reliability. Will be staying stock engine wise for sure, not really interested in spending money on it at all now, maybe fix the silly low ride height and it will be plenty.

Update: I ended up getting myself motivated, got a kart, a 2004 arrow ax8 with J, and had my first meet on the weekend just gone. Impressions, good fun and a world away from hire karts, racing against people with some skill level is also a lot more fun. Didn't have the best weekend though, 2 dnf's which were purely my fault, but I didnt finish last in the 3 races I did finish. There were 3 P platers there, one bloke was no where near the pace, the other went quite well. I was generally on the pace of some of the regulars and actually finished ahead of a few on occasion, but not up with the front runners. I havent had much practice so i was fairly happy. I think spending a little extra and buying a semi decent kart made it worthwhile, another p plater who bought some older gear wasn't even in the ball park, almost getting lapped, while i was still in with the main pack. Good fun, would recommend it to everyone, though the cost is starting to get to me a bit now. Time for a few weeks away from the kart so I dont spend any more money.

I think thats going to depend where you want to race and what type of stuff? Sprints? Hillclimbs? That drift stuff? I think some qld raceway events aren't cams affliated so you wont even need a licence there. Its a case of where you want to go.

Thanks for that, Doesn't seem big enough for what I was thinking so im sticking with the current arrangement. Was think of a better way of moving my kart than a trailer, it will go down to nearly 120 wide, but thats about it and still 25cm too wide.

I have also vaguely considered this idea, but can someone tell me how wide the cargo area is in a stagea from strut tower to strut tower (e.g. at the narrowest point)?

I think i put N/A as well.

Hey Gary, Thought that might have been the gtr that simon said came up there and blitzed it. It was on tv, winning the NSW dutton rally. Yeah the drifting comment looked a big amateur though on that webpage. I bet jaimen in our old T18 was one of those drifters too, lol. Tim.

I really think the area specific thread are a good thing, especially from the point of view of someone who is from a regional area. Things like asking who is a good mechanic in the wide bay area in the brisbane waste land area is going to be a waste of time and making a dedicated thread seems fairly wasteful and pointless.