Beer Baron

harry you smart arse! I didn't say AWD doesn't make it easier to drive. just that a whole bunch of people keep spouting out how you can drive an R35 at 10/10ths with one hand on your mobile phone, with the other applying your lipstick while you sip a coke from the cupholder and watch a DVD on the MFD. Driving ANY car at 10/10ths requires some skill and effort. Like you say some are easier than others and I don't dispute a car with AWD and paddleshift box is going to be a lot less of a handful in hairy moments than a RWD car with an H pattern box. no question. but to discount the driver as just a passenger in a technology packed, auto-piloted wunderbus is a taking things a bit far. don't get me wrong. the R35 GTR is a very forgiving car on track and will make a merely 'competent' driver feel like he's a gun with nice progressive power, smooth DSG shifts, big easy to hold power slides etc. They are very sure footed, have great brakes, stunning acceleration and so the list goes on. you still have to brake when you want to slow down, accelerate when you want to speed up and turn the wheel when you want the thing to change direction and pluck another gear when appropriate. btw, my comment wasn't directed at you and I'm not saying that wass your opinion, I'm just explaining my point. oh, and for sure the 35 AWD is a step up from the RB powered GTRs. it's still much more RWD biased though than EVOs or WRX like you point out. and I agree I reckon it's tougher getting 100% out of a GTR than an EVO. Personally I'm happy to get 80% out of either of them...

big congratulations from me mate. I was so very pleased to get to hear it the other night. wish I could have been there in person to see it go. hmmm, test car for the 2.8 eh? I happen to have a 32 that has sat in my garage for the best part of 2 years.... cough cough. we should talk more when the time comes.

lol, using your russian hat to keep my bell end warm on these cold lonely nights. no way are you getting it back, nor would you want it back with the state of it. looking good big boy.

no question they will put in a big effort. They apparently reckon larger tracks like EC will suit their car much better than little goat tracks like tsukuba.

yeah, that's another good one and a great courtesy. I'll spell it out for those that don't know. in japan, when stopped behind another car at night at traffic lights it's considered polite to turn off your headlights. I mean, you don't need them while sitting still do you? and the front car usually (not always) leaves their headlights on so no danger of head ons etc. I have even heard of a device that dims lights from regular beam to just the running lights/parkers when the car is stationary. I can imagine after years in japan it'd be a hard habit to break. It is nice though. I mean who wants some clown in a civic with his 10jiggawattt HIDs illuminating my car and my mirrors from behind whilst I'm waiting at traffic lights?

I reckon the pan speed RX7 will be in the top 5 for sure. it's a very quick car and a good team behind it. It will be one of the quickest RWD that's for sure.

pan speed RX7 is turbo, not NA 20B. the pan speed car is one of my favourites. some pics I took of it at a Tsukuba hyper rev event. they are nice guys too. I love the interior! one nasty rear end!

go the dunlops munro, I think they are the best option on a set of stock wheels for mixed track and street use. if you have trouble sourcing them for good money, call Taleb Tyres in Sydney, speak to Ali and tell him I put you in touch. he'll do a good price. when I last checked for a replacement set for my old 35 his price was on par with me buying them wholesale in japan and shipping them out myself.

I don't doubt it. the evo is a much lighter car, very forgiving chassis, has much more front drive bias too and generally have less power. anyway we are way off topic now so I'll leave it at that. I wonder how many of the experts on how easy R35s are to drive have even driven one? better yet I wonder how many have driven one in anger on the track. and if they have I'd love to hear what their lap times are in a 35 at any given circuit.

yep, that's my experience too. I would say they are most often used as a 'thank you' or an 'excuse me' depending on what exactly the motorist has done. a thankyou when you let someone in in front of you. an excuse me when they just push in front of you. many times if there's been an accident on the freeway as drivers approach they'll put on their hazards to warn drivers behind them that they are about to have to brake from 140kph down to 20kph. it's a good idea and usually as one driver sees the hazards in front and starts to brake then he'll put on his hazards and so on down the line. they are also used as a 'don't mind me, I'm foreign' signal when say you are white and in a hurry and run a red light with no one coming the other way, or park somewhere you are not supposed to etc. basically used to let people know you are currently doing, or about to do something dodgy. of course people use them here when stopping somewhere hazardous to talk on phone etc. the main difference I've found is the 'thank-you'/'excuse me' usage and the 'sudden braking ahead' usage. that is never done in aus. most of the others people do here too.

I would recommend if you are serious go and do a face to face type course somewhere. I have done a number of them at sydney uni (obviously not much use to you) and they were fantastic. learning on-line is ok, but you really need someone good to teach you about pronunciation, colloquialisms etc. try looking for classes at uni's etc in your area. also, download dream kana and work on your kana knowledge when you are bored at work etc. very helpful. it's a great idea. japan is a very different place once you can speak and read some japanese.

agreed, chances zero or so close as to be within rounding error of zero... 1. car may not even have been bought at auction. 2. most likely the buyer looked the car up on-line or at the auction house's terminal and never printed a hard copy of the sheet. 3. if the car was bought at auction a copy of the sheet will be given to the agent/buyer or left in the vehicle, most likely at this point they just chucked it out. 4. remember, the auction report is just a basic spec sheet and inspection guide of the car. it doesn't matter what condition the car was in 3 years ago. it matters what condition it's in now. 5. the sheet wont tell you anything you can't better see with your own eyes. all buyers use the sheet just as a guide to see if a car is worth going to see in the metal or not. after that they base buying decisions on what they can see in the metal. like chef suggested you could try the compliance workshop but they may never have seen or had the sheet either. also ask the bloke you bought it off. but no official body will have it. and zero chance of trying to get it out of an auction house. maybe try googling your chassis number and see if anything pops up?

yep, agree my polish bro is doing well. he is still about as appealing to look at as a donkeys arse crack but man he can drive. definitely punching above his weight at the moment. you're right too petrov is not as shit as I thought he would be. doing a reasonable job of it so far.

bingo! duncan has hit it.. like you say it's easy fixed by less front drive and kinder shaft angles but then you'd end up with a standard height GTR with lots of oversteer and nice and slow... like lofty obviously knows too basically the more front drive you can dial in the faster you go. downside is cvs breaking and if you beef them up then expect to bust a front diff or two out of the case (marks done that before but not in the 34). and with the front diff being housed in the sump assembly it's not something you can easily strengthen. maybe a full custom CNC billet sump would do it but fark I can't imagine the complexity of machining and the cost. my god man the cost! everyone has been there and done it. garage saurus run their famous orange time attack GTR in full time 50/50. wont tell me how they get diffs to last but I imagine they limit front drive under braking too like dave explained. as benno says mark has it well sussed with a similar system. this particular failure could be down to anything.

yes an R35 will make an average driver look decent and a decent drive look awesome. but you still need to know how to steer the thing if you want to be quicker than the other bloke who has an R35 too... it will carry you up to a point and once you get there if you want to go any faster you need some level of car control to do it. I recall marek was pretty quick driving his evo back in supersprints over the last few years too so it's not like he walked into an R35 and went from back of the grid to the front. he's been at it for a few years too learning the tracks in nsw so again some effort has been expended to run the times he does. I don't know much about duncans background but I'm sure it's a similar story. sure the r35 has lots of fancy gadgets that help you get good lap times. the biggest ones being a 500hp V6 with very progressive power curve and good midrange and the 6 speed box with fairly good ratios and super fast 'full power' shifting. by all means recognise the fact that it's a very capable car. but it still takes a good driver to drive it at it's potential. it takes a good driver to drive a mitsubishi mirage to it's potential or any car for that matter. but why is it when blokes cut say a 1:18 out of a mirage or something peolpe say 'wow, well done for getting a time like that out of such a slow car'. but when people drive a fast car fast all you ever hear is 'wow, that car must have a lot of power' or 'what a great car'. nothing ever said about the driver. in my experience it's harder to drive a fast car flat out than it is to drive a slow car to it's (much lower) potential. much harder. anyway, I don't disagree that computers and technology play a part in the R35 times. I mean if it didn't have that stuff and was just a 1700kg car with 500hp and a regular 6 speed manual then of course it wouldn't be as fast. it's that technology which allows it to lap much faster than the raw numbers suggest it can.

yep, there is no (easy) way around it really. the other problem that doesn't help is front driveshaft angles and again with the diff in the sump that's not exactly easy to cure either (unless you can just return the car to factory ride height which in this case is not practical). Some guys in japan have made stronger front and rear driveshafts but the cost is pretty nasty. then again so is f**king everything else! like dundan said front diffs like to explode too and being in the sump there is bugger all you can do about it short of a full custom set-up. the only practical solution is keep breaking the bits as they break. or mark's answer was "drive it less"... lol.

be very interesting to see how it's faired in terms of NVH etc. probably about the same as a commodore with 50,000kms... actually probably much better.

yeah the renault donks are certainly down on power but it goes to prove power isn't everything cause they are good enough for webber and vettel to run up the front consistently... i bet a few teams would like an underpowered renault engine at the moment (providing it can hold together for a few races that is).

yikes! 1:1 power to weight ratio is pretty hardcore. if they can get any kind of a handle on set-up at all it will be tough to beat. hard to mess with numbers like that.....

17X9 +22 will look fine. they certainly won't look 'sunken' (lol) at all. ekei's make a good wheel and like djr81 said they generally (in their racing type wheels) have quite generous calliper clearance too.

couldn't agree more. yes people do get carried away with the webber love a bit (myself included) but he's a good chance and is usually very quick in the wet and very quick in changeable conditions. so if there is rain i've no doubt he'll be on it. I imagine he's also pretty keen to make up for his miserable melb weekend. really if he'd taken that pole position things might have turned out differently.

that sucks dane. sadly there is nothing you can do except what you've done. going down there and abusing the bloke and punching out an apprentice will make you feel a bit better but in the end wont do you any favours and will probably only sour things further. sadly mechanics get very touchy when they f**k up which is a bit rich when they are clearly at fault but that's how it is. and they HATE doing return jobs. taking it somewhere else is probably a wise move. just hope they are better than the first lot. fingers crossed for you mate.

troy is a company hooker.

try ceva. they do closed trucks.

spot on. there is nothing stopping people importing 89 or 90 model cars. or 89 or 90 model skylines for that matter. I've recently done a 90 model GTR under SEVS. BUT generally people avoid them these days as there are still plenty of 91/92/93/94 models out there and the later ones have side intrusion bars from the factory where as the early ones require them which adds to cost of compliance. as far as non-turbo RB25 R32s they are NOT eligible for import under the current import scheme. exactly what blitz boy said. they do not meet the power to weight ratio requirements. They were imported under the old LVIS and for a little while under the 15yo import rule. they weren't very popular back then as you could buy a turbo model for about the same money (more power, better brakes etc) and back then there was no P plate restrictions so p platers could drive the turbos. Once the p plate rules came in the value of the non turbo skylines shot up massively because by that point they could no longer be imported. so yeah, if you want one your only option is to buy from what is already here in aus.