mikel

Salad, diameters are 22mm front and 18mm rear cheers Mike

not sure how good an idea it is to have different brands front to rear - means they'll behave differently. Probably fine until you're on the limit. go for the same size front and rear to keep costs of putting the better tyres on the back also lower

apologies to hijack, but I'm considering sydneykids group buy also, as my car came with cusco coilovers which are way to stiff for our cr@p roads. A seed of doubt entered my head when one of my mates reckoned bilsteins are too stiff. I'm assuming with sydneykids valving this won't be the case, but can anyone comment on the compliance of the bilsteins in the group buy versus stiff jap coilovers vs stock? cheers Mike

I pulled out the seat on the weekend. The seat itself bolts to two steel plates - one on each side. One of these has the seatbelt buckle attached. These intermediate plates then bolt to the bottom rails, that has the adjustment and bolts to the floor. I had two options 1) Move the seat backwards on the intermediate plates. This only required 6 holes to be drilled in the intermediate plates (3 each side) 2) Move the intermediate plates backwards on the bottom rails. This required 6 holes but they needed to be tapped for a thread (two different sizes) I went with the first option and managed to move the seat back about 55mm without compromising the position of the seat belt buckle. Even though the seat belt buckle is 55mm forward from where it was my fat gut means it's still in an appropriate position. It's changed the whole feel of the car, as I can now use the wheel without my legs being in the way, and heel toe on downshifts. Looking forward to the track day on 2 Feb. cheers, Mike

I agree, from a sound perspective, it makes no difference. From a resale perspective, if you're planning on keeping the car, depreciation will balance things out. A single brand "looks" better to the buyer-but if you've got a great price for the gear-enjoy it. There's no technical reason why consumer gear can't be mixed and matched, provided you follow basic guidelines: 1) any distortion means you're driving some component (head/amp/driver) too hard - back off before you melt something 2) it's a misnomer that a 50W amp can't blow 100W drivers - distortion kills lots of things - refer point 1. 3) based on point 2, it's better to have an amp that's slightly higher power than your speakers, as that way you're likely to be driving clean power up until the clipping point of the speakers (ie your speakers clip before your amps do). Nothing blows a driver like clipping at the driver's limit. Tricky with splits as you don't really know the power split between woofer and tweeter (same issue with coax drivers) - again, if you hear distortion, turn down the volume. 4) for truly staggering sound you can't go past active crossovers - a separate amp per driver, with an electronic crossover splitting the sound at low level feeding each amp. More expensive in amps and a crossover. Fantastic sound but in my expeience (in home stereos - I haven't gone nuts in my car stereo), drivers (esp tweeters) tend to destroy themselves occasionally (you have a power amp at full gain connected directly to each driver-any glitches get amplified and go through the driver voicecoil). The reasons for going active are numerous but not necessarily warranted in a car unless you want ultimate sound. cheers Mike

are the stock sway bars on the R33 GTST much softer than the group buy? maybe I'm just getting used to decent handling, as my R33 sits flatter around corners than any other car I've been in - although it hasn't been on the track yet No idea whether the bars are stock or not, I'll get underneath and measure the diameters of the bars Mike

Accurate was where I was going to take it as I've also heard good things thanks again. I currently have cusco coilovers - are there any extra bits I need going back the bilsteins? Mike

thanks for organising this Ian my first skyline outing since getting my car - great fun. cheers to everyone who came Mike the white R33 gtst

great work SK, any installers in QLD yet? do you, or any others who have had the kit installed, have a ballpark figure of the cost to install one of these? cheers Mike

I paid a lot more than $600 to get mine changed - I did get the idler pulley etc changed at the same time - there was about $450 in parts from memory. $600 sounds fine. Agree you should change the water pump also.

I had the squealing noise at start up occasionally and read the thread on fixing it. Unfortunately I can't see any of the photos attached in the thread, but there appears to be a missing nut on the adjustor bracket on my car. Where the long adjustor bolt threads into the block, poking out the front is a bolt that looks like it needs a nut (see attached photo). Nissan couldn't tell me whether a nut is meant to go there or not

I had the squealing noise at start up occasionally and read the thread on fixing it. Unfortunately I can't see any of the photos attached, but there appears to be a missing nut on the adjustor bracket. Where the long adjustor bolt threads into the block, poking out the front is a bolt that looks like it needs a nut (see attached photo). Nissan couldn't tell me whether a nut is meant to go there or not

I have a level 2S - I haven't used it yet - I'm going to the MG car club hill climb "come and try day" in Feb

Paul, your PM is full - are there still spots left? cheers Mike

so what is CAS? - I did a search and could only find HICAS

no - the NVCS variable cam timing

my R33 GTST has a recaro driver's seat that I can't slide back far enough. Before I pull out the seat to have a look, has anyone had experience shifting the seat on the rails? It looks like it "could" be mounted much farther back. I want to keep the factory wheel with airbag so a smaller wheel is not a great option cheers mike

I have a stock inlet manifold with a pod on my R33 GTST and get that pssshht noise on gear changes/off throttle that I thought was an atmo BOV. Is the noise much more noticeable with the pod vs a stock airbox? I had a poke around under the bonnet and it all plumbs back into just behind the pod. It also connects into the boost controller - does this mean that the factory BOV is also the wastegate? cheers mike

wikipedia says that the RB25DET has inlet cam phasing only - then why does the solenoid sit directly over the exhaust cam? Is this the logical spot from which to actuate the inlet cam? cheers mike

My view also ... I'll put it in today

1997 R33 GTST series 2 HKS 2530 turbo HKS boost controller Apexi power FC Greddy FMIC turbo back 3" exhaust with metalcat pod 95 octane pump fuel 1 bar boost 214 rwKw

I have an R33 GTST with a noisy/notchy gearbox. I've replaced the oil with Mobil 1 synthetic gearbox oil which has made minimal/no difference. What's the general view of using PTFE additives in the gearbox? Lots of bad things are said about similar products in the engine blocking galleries etc, but you don't have those issues in a gearbox.

My first drive was an R33 GTST with pod, fmic, HKS 25/30 turbo, Apexi FC, 3" exhaust. I drove it to my mechanic to check it over prior to purchase. The thing was mad in 1st off the lights, and the noise the pod made was amazing, like some beast heavy breathing. On the way home I agreed to buy the car and have now owned it 2 weeks. The way the boost comes in in 1st and 2nd is staggering, and 3rd gear overtaking from 100km/h always brings a grin

Looks to me like it was driven in snow country a lot and picked up the salt from the roads (they salt them to melt the ice). I asked a few ppl about the salt roads and the cars from southern japan (tokyo or further south) are less likely to have been driven on salt roads much. Based on what you can see in the photos, there's probably more rust lurking elswhere. cheers Mikel (about to purchase an R33 series 2)