Beer Baron

I bought a few in japan a couple of years ago. I may still have one or two in my garage. no idea who made them though. but they were nice enough and work well. you can also DIY one with some bits of thin sheet alloy if on a budget. seen it done many times and quite effective but does look a bit 'race spec'....

yeah you're right. for anyone without an unlimited budget these days the jap pistons are kind of priced out of reality. I can say though they are very good and seem to last. and very quiet too. dunno if that makes them worth twice or tripple the price of competing chinese and american pistons but they are good. you can have the coatings done to any piston after you buy it but HKS (and others do offer various coatings) including a low friction molybdenum skirt coating like you want. not sure of the mahle noise haven't paid attention to the one local engine I know with them in it. CPs seem to be not bad noise wise.

on your budget I'd be looking at a second hand trust kit. you might score one for $400 but may need to spend another $100 as they are usually around $500 or so second hand. excellent kits. I've used probably half a dozen of them now on my own cars.

sorry but that's normal. it's just a build up of moisture and carbon blasting out the exhaust on start-up. I've owned over a dozen GTRs and all have done it. it's not oil. my old GTR with no cat etc painted the wall behind it completely black after a short while just due to that.

yeah the CNC just allows you to get was originally a $3000 porting job for $1500 and it's repeatable over and over again but if the original head they used for the program was no good then as you say yours wont be either. and I would generally take the finish on a hard ported head over a CNC milled head.

seems like you've already bought one now but for me, 70mm ARC core would have done nicely, they are light, low pressure drop and allow good airflow over the core through to the radiator too which is something not many makers consider.

lol, nfi what I was thinking.... now let me just quietly delete my posts, then edit your post with my text and it'll look like you're the dummy who revived the 2 year old long dead thread.....

intercooler shroud. basically seals off the gap between the intercooler opening in the bumper and the intercooler. helps force air through the core instead of onto and around the edges. good mod, definitely improves the efficiency of the thing.

hmm, tough call. CPs probably the most popular these days. wiseco not so much. the jap stuff is good but like you say costly. I'm using tomei pistons in my current engine and I have to say they are super quiet. compared to other local forged engines there is zero piston slap when cold (or hot for that matter). HKS pistons come with various coatings like moly coated skirts, titanium coated ring lands and ceramic coated crowns but cost the earth if you option them up that far. ummm, there must be other options. what about Ross pistons? not sure from memory if they have the big valve reliefs cut in them too.

love the vid. what ever happened to poor old dowsett's car?

I think it's a good idea and I'm even happy to help. I reckon we can get it done a bit cheaper too. possibly as low as $38,000. let's get started, you send me the cash and I'll start on the project. it's going to be a winner.

happy to bring some explosives to help with car burning if you like. may even bring a car or two as well...

the nipple install job looks perfect. well done for having a go.

I don't think it's so much electrical interference as it is physical 'noise'. cas is rotating fast and if a bit worn etc gets problems. the other side of it is the type of ECU being used. some are definitely more prone than others. there is a cheap trigger disk solution, or the best fix is the crank damper pick-up but as stated above it's not cheap.

yeah agreed you could argue about H vs I (don't even start on proprietary designs like "X beam" etc)for years and still not come to a solution. I agree carillo rods are great. very good quality and with the weak USD vs AUD very cheap to buy right now so they would certainly be a good choice and within budget.

look at velo seats. very well priced. made in aus and good quality. something like a velo GP90 is a good budget entry level race seat. much higher level of safety and than any recliner type seat. the problem with recliners is that if you go into the wall backwards (happens more than you'd like to think) the backs just snap off and then you are flying around the cabin. even worse if you have a half cage or roll cage as you are now heading for the rear barwork as your seatbelts are not going to hold you in flying backwards with no seat back behind you. seriously for an extra $100 or so the velo is a much better seat. ADR approved too. http://www.velo.com.au/home/

you are also confusing "VIN" with "chassis number" the number you want to use in fast is the chassis number. it's the one on the build plate. the "VIN" is allocated in australia when the car is complied and as you can see they have not always followed the same pattern. these days yes it's a combination of the chassis number (which vary in length)prefixed with 6U9 and then a number of 0's to take the total number of digits up to 17. Under different schemes they were created differently as mentioned above. Chassis number and VIN are 2 different things.

I actually don't mind emanage for some applications. for the money they are not a bad solution and best bit is of course you keep the stock ECU so there is no excuse for a poorly running car. but I still think for the budding home tuner the cheapest and easiset way to get into it is a power FC, a wideband and datalogit.

yes it can work with other vacuum sources but from my limited experience with DJETRO and listening to others (like URAS) who have seen and done many more than me it does make a difference. not just to the idle. if you can do it properly then do it. I bought a whole batch of the little nipples and now on any GTR of mine if the plenum and throttles etc comes off it gets the two little holes drilled and tapped and the nipples inserted I then just run a vac line between them to seal them off if not needed but down the track they are there if needed. for less than $50 it's worth it. Funnily enough my current GTR runs a motec and it's map sensor is not taken from there and it does run very well, but if I were going DJETRO again I'd be doing it properly.

dude you are getting "unlimited" boost which means either a line is off somewhere or you have not hooked up the system properly. what's happening is no pressure signal is getting to the wastegates so they are staying shut the whole time. you need to check, and recheck your hoses. no way would the wastegates come set over 1.5bar. well it's possible but extremely unlikely. it's a plumbing problem. if the solenoid is jammed open it's possible it's bleeding off so much air that you are getting unlimited boost but the solenoid from memory should be NC type so if not working it should be closed and you just get base boost.

yeah they can and do hold plenty of power. for my personal engines though? I'd say if your target is a genuine 350KW+ at all 4 then you should get some rods. if you only want "up to" 350kw atw then standard is fine. it's just that once you get some big power it's nice to have a stronger, lighter rod in there for insurance.

I would definitely use a broker. as a one off or first time customer no japanese exporter is going to give 2 noodles about you. so they may be sorely tempted to off load a car that is not all it should be knowing that you are not a big customer anyway and wouldn't be likely to return regardless. with a broker they have imported many cars on behalf of various people so they have a little (just a little - lol) more standing with any exporters or dealers they have dealt with in japan before. exporters wont want to burn bridges with a customer who buys 10 cars a year over one deal.

ye gods. focker friendships have been killing our rural cousins for decades now. I'm unlucky enough to have been in one before. never again. do they still make all the passengers launch the thing flinstone style down the runway for take off?

Definitely get a power fc, datalogit and a wideband if you want to start tuning. All I can tell you is it takes just hours to learn how to tune but years to master it.

Honestly buying anything other than a nismo/sard/tomei drop in pump is nuts. Yes they cost more but are so easy to install and if being done in a workshop would bs no more than 30min labour vs much more for any walbro or Bosch install. Plus the Jap pumps are super reliable compared to the track record of walbro and even Bosch failures. Seriously the bolt in Jap pumps are worth every cent.