Beer Baron

looks like it will be tough to shake again. i'm sure any improvements will be incremental but it was already at the front of the pack.

yep, these ones. dunno if I'd called it hyper colour. back in the 80s it was UCB...united colors of benneton... lol. ye olde F1 engine! Man old F1 cars are just so cool. one day I will own a 80s/90s F1 car!! I have to.

nice one mate. some good free positions made up by staying out of the big smash up in race 3! well done.

well honda maclaren were the top of the tree still running a 1.5 V6T, ferrari were pretty good and had a 1.5 turbo which I think was V6 too, beneton where the team I was thinking of with the 3.5L ford V8 (a number of teams where using various different spec ford 3.5V8s). they were finally able to keep up with most of the turbos (except maclaren who smashed everyone) with nannini and boutsen well up the order most weekends. but yeah capelli in the march was doing pretty well too in 88 with a few podiums from memory. but mauricio gulglemain (forgive the spelling) was just so so at best. and both of them failed to finish a shitload of races. I think the judd V8 was ok, the ford V8 was pretty good in the top spec, even the megatron (lol) V8 in the arrows was up there for pace. it was an interesting year. but it showed even heavily restricted the turbo engines were still good enough to beat the 3.5L NA V8s...

yep, and an 05 model is many times better than a 2000 model wrx. I agree with dean too, the old wrx are just too old. a 2000 model wrx is a wallet ache waiting to happen. a mate has one and even the good ones are starting to fall apart. the build quality on them back in 2000 was just not that great. interiors look old and tired by now, the brant code pad alarm is annoying as fk and it WILL get you stranded by the side of the road sooner or later. they all fail eventually and leave you stuck somewhere with the alarm going and no way to start the car. my mates 2000 model wrx which had log books and was in near standard condition recently lunched it's engine too. and his was about $14K from memory which he bought this year and it was a good price for a WRX with log books, full service history etc owned by an older bloke. for your $10K budget all you'll be buying is some lengthy repair bills in your near future. for a $10K budget a 00 wrx is not the car for you (or your wife). I would push the 04 or later liberty GT but they are way out of your budget. with $10K to spend I'd be looking at a carolla or maybe a legnum like iron chef mentioned. wrx for $10K will cost you another $10K inside the first 6 months. I'd bet on it. so in that case I'd save the other $10K and go shopping with $20K and buy a nice car first time out.

even my 2530s surge at idle. you can hear little choof choof noises as air comes in and out of the pod filters... though they are not bad under load. only surge under load at low rpm/high load situations (2,500 rpm, greater than 50%tps up a hill etc). but the GTRS etc tend to surge right into the midrange which sucks hard.

well actually you can still own quite a decent variety of guns legally in NSW. you just have to go about it the right way. many of you guys would be surprised how cheap a legal, licenced pistol like a glock is to buy...

for sure. no refuelling is killing the races. making them into a very predictable thing strategy wise. you start slow, get faster. previously you got to chose when you were fast and when you were slow and if you had really big balls or your car suffered under heavy weight, you could do 1 extra stop and not have to carry a big load of fuel at any point in the race. as long as you could make the most out of that pace with good track position and good run through traffic. anyway, race was boring as fk. I was glad when it was finished and I could get back to 1988. I'm up to round 4 Mexico city. so far prost won race 1 in brazil, senna won race 2 at Imola and would have won race 3 at monaco but stuck it in the barrier 10 laps from the end (with a 50 second lead over p2!) and gifted the win to prost. race 4 at mexico and senna is on pole again, 4 races, 4 poles. racing is good through the field too. senna v prost for p1 and p2, then you have berger, nanini, boutsen, albereto, piquet, mansell etc fighting for the rest of the points. good variety in donks with tiny little 1.5L V6 and 4 cyl turbo engines leading the way despite being knobled with a 2.5bar pop-off valve (osella even have a 1.5L V8 turbo! though to be fair they barely qualify most weekends) on them with NA 3.5L V8s holding their own this year against most turbos except the maclaren honda's really. good times.

agree with the jackie stewart and ford blame.

yeah vehicross. or you could get that other awesome isuzu. the MU (mysterious utility). worth it just for the supergay name alone! they also come in nice pastel colours just in case the name alone doesn't scream "hello sailer"!

330 is not bad. try raising the front a bit to 340mm. I think most circuit 32s seem to be happy around 340-345 rear and 350-355 front. you need the front a little higher than the rear. 2 reasons. for some reason attesa works much better and of course it's gives the car some squat and you need the front travel too. I still think you need to do something about the swaybars. having a big upgraded front bar but standard rear is going to make the thing want to understeer a fair bit. I'd either go back to stock front bar for now, or upgrade the rear.

lol, djr81 forgot zakspeed's exact engine spec for a reason..... who cares what engine they had, the only time you'd see it was when it was lapped by something decent! that is providing they actually qualified which they didn't always manage. I think they are best remembered cause martin trundle drove for them at some point and so did aguri suzuki (of recent super aguri fame). I guess they were a privateer team in the truest sense and get some respect for that but they certainly didn't trouble the score board...

I think the mass pull out of tobacco sponsorship cost the sport dearly. the money they were able to pump into the sport was tremendous. bring back the cancer manufacturers I say. let people make up their own minds whether or not they want to light a durrey. but at least we'd get kick arse technical development out of it!

yeah I wish they made the SCR pro 2 piece in regular GTR brembo size for the rear as well. they are good rotors. other option is a biot kit which comes with bigger rotor, and new caliper mount bracket to space the caliper. they are a nice 3 piece rear rotor (rotor, hat, and inner bell for the handbrake). a bit on the $$$ side though.

maybe quinn will give me a commission?! or maybe you will for saving you dough!? haha, it certainly is keenly priced. hope you get it mate. it's ADM for the price of a race only JDM. not to mention it being a targa winning car this year. should still be pretty fresh. I can't think of a better car for $95K.

can't find Russ's on the web, but pm 'giant' on this forum. it's his car. I did find Quins car though. even better it's an ADM, has some gear on it and he's asking $95K. I'd snap it up if I were you. it's also black. http://www.my105.com/ListingDetails/tabid/65/p/1/k/R35/sid/4/id/4960/Default.aspx

yeah absolutely. they are neutral balance so you most definitely don't want to mess with it. they are also a harmonic dampener which is slightly different to a regular balancer (which can just be solid metal and should be dynamically and statically balanced with the whole rotating assembly). when using a neutral balance harmonic dampener like that you just need to balance all the other components to be neutral as well. it also dampens harmonics which is it's real purpose (ie not a balancer, but a dampener).

thanks I know. well actually it is still an import. it's made in japan after all and imported to aus by subaru... read my posts. all of the cars I suggested are sold here. as I said, the 4WD market is one segment we are well covered in. we get nearly all the good 4WD options from japan and europe. can even buy yank tanks these days if they float your boat. importing a 4WD is a waste of time and besides which I can't think of anything post 2005 that is on the SEVS list...

yeah look at giants car for sure. i mean it's a bit hardcore for a daily with cage etc but all very nicely done and bullet proof now. I know the history of it too. he bought it off me. it was brand new, I bought it from a dealer in kokura, kyushu japan, shipped to aus still brand new with less than 80kms on it, still wrapped in plastic and Russ has been the only aus owner and has upgraded the hell out of it. it goes like the clappers now. oh, and it's BLACK!

lol, what about the time I challenged vettel to a fight in the carpark at monza!? at least my voice can be clearly heard above those mincing italians. he looked scared I reckon when I heckled him... it made going to monza worthwhile! that at the gypsys in the carpark doing card games.

well it's one of those things you really need to try and adjust as appropriate. tyre type makes a difference as does car set-up, track, power level etc. I would start with: front: 3-3.5 degrees neg camber as much pos caster as you can comfortably have with the 3 degrees neg (around 6 to 8 degrees) a bit of toe out, maybe .5mm each side (depends on how 'pointy' you like the car to feel) rear: 1 degree neg camber traction rods can be set to get the upright more upright toe maybe 1mm toe in (again depends how pointy you want the car, toe will really change how the car steers) see how you go from there. you might find you want even more camber at the front with slicks on. also I reckon with the big cusco front bar and standard rear you ere going to battle some understeer. I'd go back to a stock front bar, or upgrade the rear to a cusco to match the front. even in standard form they have a bit too much front bar relative to the rear which makes them prone to understeer at the limit of grip. especially if you are going into corners a bit too hot.

if you don't mind more of a cross-over/SUV type thing then take a look at the subaru tribeca. they are like a 4WD version of a liberty. so very nice leather interior, super solid build quality (everything feels very nice), great interior, good handling. not super powerful like the big cruisers and the audi/vw models, though the do have about 200kw so not slow either. they're great value and a nice looking car. eps is in dream land. the lexus are exactly a rebadged cruiser. nothing wrong with that though. they do have some small differences and some may prefer one over the other. you can get a pretty nice 05 model toureg within your budget. if you look hard even a V10 can be had for $35K or less. but for your budget you could get a near new tribeca and they are a good thing.

the damper is usually refering to springs in the centre that dampen the clutch 'pucks' from the centre. it gives it some twist on engagement to make it engage a bit more smoothly. silent type generally means they have some kind of small springs that push against the plates when your foot is on the pedal so the plates don't rattle in the housing at traffic lights etc. high disk type, most likely means larger diameter clutch disks (more surface area can hold more power). Hope that helps. they are great clutches. ORC are a very nice clutch. I have one in one of my cars and it's great. you looking at twin or single? both will hold 245kw but twin will be future proof.

you should be able to get a good OS giken twin for around $2K or even less. and they cost just under $1000 to rebuild. that's what I would get. they are fantastic.

personally what you describe sounds perfectly normal to me. I've owned probably close to 10 cars with various jap LSDs in them and most are like that. clunk so bad you think the arse will fall out of it one day. that's why they are supposedly for competition use. they are fairly savage in a road car.