Paul SM

Attractive front spoiler, very easy to fit and designed for a little extra downforce on track days. Only used a couple of times (on and off for each event) but have now retired the car from competition. $50 and it's yours. Also have for sale: a Stagea luggage compartment tray ($50) two 20mm thick bolted alloy wheel spacers ($50) R34 Torsen limited slip diff ($300) I'm on the south coast near Berry. If interested call me on 0411811599

I'm looking for an idle speed controller (I think that's what they're called) for the series 2 RB25 Neo engine in my 2000 Stagea RSFour S. All I actually need is the plastic idle speed adjusting screw but you can't get one of these except with a complete unit. If the adjusting screws weren't plastic there wouldn't be a problem! I think they are the same unit on the R34 GTT Neo engines. Hope someone has a discarded engine that can spare one. It's the cast alloy unit at the back of the cam covers.

Four alloy wheels, 18" x 7.5" and +42 offset. Were fitted to my Stagea when I bought it. Have now gone to 8.5" rims. These are in great condition and are top quality, Japanese made Rays wheels. Note that one original wheel was damaged and replaced with a close match of same specs. but slightly different spoke design. I never even noticed this when I bought the car. Front mounting on Skylines or Stageas will require minimum 5mm thick spacers. The 20mm thick units that came with the car are available separately. Practically giving these away at $200 for the four. Email me [email protected] or 02 44485881 to discuss.

I have a hardly-used front spoiler for an S2 Stagea. I put it on the car for a couple of weeks to run at EC then took it off. I don't know if I'll use it for the track again since I mostly go to Wakefield now. It's almost like new and looks great. Fits in about 10 minutes. If anyone is interested, make me an offer by PM.

My RSFour S has the twin sunroofs. The front one has started to play up and only works intermittently. Has anyone had this problem and if so, how did you fix it? Is it possible to buy a new switch module or does the whole switch panel have to be replaced?

I for one will be keen to see what you can come up with and what it might cost to make. I gather the proprietary brand version (Cusco?) hasn't eventuated...

I think a rear strut brace on a Stag would definitely be worthwhile and was planning on designing and fabricating one myself if yours weren't available. I'm definitely still interested (subject to the final price, of course). I can send you further contact details in a PM if you want.

Strut braces and sway bars do entirely different things to one another. A strut brace gives torsional rigidity to the front or rear of the car, ie., it reduces rotational flex in the body as it resists the suspension pressure. This in turn allows the suspension to work better because the shocks, springs and sway bar have a stiffer platform from which to do their work. Personally, I would certainly start with a strut brace before going to a heavier sway bar because it will allow the bar you have to work more effectively. Fitting a heavier sway bar at the front tends to make the suspension at the back of the car lift an inside wheel and vice versa (just look at some of the 3 wheeling attitudes of touring cars in the past - Minis would cock a rear wheel like a dog peeing while Cortinas used to lift a front). Sway bars reduce body roll (how about that?) but there are practical limits to their effectiveness if they are just too stiff for the suspension setup as a whole.

Did anyone ever find out where to source one of these? I would sure like to buy one for my S2

No problem, here are some pics of the top and bottom of both front mats..

I wasn't planning to take out metal like you would in a porting job, just to smooth the rough finish inside the runners, but thanks for the advice...

I very much appreciate all the thoughts and advice provided on the extrude honing option. Certainly the boost is still modest and I'm running a stock airflow meter, so some opportunities there but I'm amazed at some of the rkw figures you are all quoting - clearly I have a lot to learn about the mod's available. Before removing the cracked s.s. manifold and refitting the stock one I will now have a go at porting it, with the help of pics taken of a similar exercise by Dale.

I guess what I was asking was whether anyone actually felt an appreciable difference in the performance of the car after extrude honing the manifold. I have noticed the sharp edges on the shoulders of the bends inside the manifold and that's what made me wonder if extrude honing might make a significant difference. Rather than paying at least $700 (incl freight) for extrude honing though, I might invest in a flexible drive and have a go at smoothing those edges myself before re-installing the stock manifold. The engine is in a fairly mild state of modification: big exhaust and s.s. manifold (which cracked, was repaired, straightened and has now cracked again after a supersprint at EC) big Blitz front intercooler, HKS turbo (but don't know what kind as it came with the car) but it's in the standard position and set for a maximum 1 bar of boost, Splitfires and a Nistune board in the ECU. Tuning the ECU on the dyno only showed 182 rwkw but the workshop reckon it could be 10% conservative, so 200 at best. You're right about the weight, of course, which is why spending heaps on power mods to overcome that disadvantage is pretty questionable. Having said that I really enjoy the feel of the car on the track - it will never be seriously competitive, however, and always a compromise vehicle in which I can also take my mal and my dog to the beach!

Thanks for the comments. My stainless steel "high flow" manifold has once again developed a couple of cracks (nothing too noticeable as yet but it sure won't get better..) and before facing down the changeover job back to the stock manifold I thought perhaps extrude honing it might minimise the loss of response while achieving reliability. As for prices, the place in Vic quoted me $550 last February but is now $660. The place in Sydney quoted $1500! Are there really that many people wanting this mod that they can demand these bucks? A guy at Just Jap told me the process cost him just $200 a couple of years ago.

Can anyone offer a "before" and "after" testimonial on the effectiveness of Extrude Honing a cast iron stock exhaust manifold? I have found two places on the net which do extrude honing (abrasive polishing of the inside of the manifold to improve gas flow), one is in Sydney (Abrasive Flow Industries) the other in Victoria (Specialised Power Porting). Has anyone used either of them?

I now have one LH rear and both front mats available from my Stagea, having gotten hold of a full set. They are in green/red sculptured pile carpet with no wear except for some on the driver's mat. Anyone want to make an offer for some or all? Can send pics.

No suggestions for an alternative test, then...

This test in SC mag was published back in March 2006 and has been the subject of intense discussion in SAU threads (just look through some of the recent posts.) SC mag did a follow up article after protests and criticisms by the companies whose oils didn't rate so well - I gather the main complaint was that the test wasn't comprehensive enough to provide a valid comparison of the overall qualities of each oil tested, although they did point out the limitations of the test in their intro. If you accept that loading up a solid roller bearing onto a spinning metal wheel in an oil bath can represent wear between the moving parts of an engine, then you may be inclinded to draw the implied conclusions when choosing your oil. I have to admit that it seemed a good enough reason for me to change to Penrite Sin 5w-60 or Sin 0w-50.

It's certainly true that you can add a friction modifier to a motor oil then do the test with the lever loading up the bearing and get a much better result. My mate's dad was a Wynn's Friction Proofing rep and I saw him do this "test" many times. In the SC mag article that so offends you, the oils were tested as they came out of the manufacturer's container; it's not like a friction modifier was added for the test, so what are you saying? Is it that the oils that come with a friction modifier are somehow a spurious and misleading product? I suspect that the quantity of friction modifier in those various oils is far from constant, so do you feel that only the ones with a minimal amount are worth considering? As I don't have any engineering qualifications, I'm puzzled as to why it would piss you off so much that anyone might place credence in this same test by SC mag. The results were pretty graphic - what was wrong about them? Can you suggest a more valid one by which the relative capabilities of engine oils might be compared? If you want to ignore the SC mag test, all we have is anecdotal, or worse, purely subjective evidence. I'd like to hear what information you use to form your opinions about different oils.

No, I checked, the oil companies whose oils didn't do so well complained that there weren't enough tests to cover all the different attributes an oil may have - the tests that they did do were fine in themselves - nothing wrong with the methodology and the mag still stands by validity of the results. It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions. For me the most critical one was the scar produced on the side of the roller bearing when the oil film broke. I can readily relate that one to engine wear!

That lab test done by Street Commodores mag back in March 2006 had Royal Purple and Penrite Sin 5w-60 on their own at the top of the 18 oils tested, with virtually identical results, way ahead of any other brand tested. The Penrite, however, costs half as much.

Get onto the Penrite website and compare their tables of spec's for the oils they produce - viscosity at different temps varies enormously. I personally would only ever use Penrite Sin 0 or Sin 5 if running the car on the track, it was excellent in my modified R33 - ran cool and sweet and the oil level remained constant between changes. This was after I twice broke oil rings while using Mobil 1. I did try Sin 10w-70 in my Stagea S2 but found that on cold mornings the high viscosity made a couple of lifters sticky for the first few seconds. I've since also discovered that Penrite recommends Sin 0 for R34 RB25DET Neo engines, including for track use.

I received a reply from SC mag about the question of a retraction or apology after that oils test back in '06. There was no retraction per se but they did do a follow up article (to put the results in clearer context, I assume.) When pressed on the nature of the aggrieved oil companies' dissatisfaction with the test, SC stated: "many of the companies that did not fare well in the test claimed that the test was either void or only tested one of the many qualities that an oil should possess. They claimed that because we failed to test the several qualities of an oil that the conclusions we drew were void, however we stand by the results that we got from our tests. What people draw in terms of a conclusion from our results is inconsequential. " For me the most significant of those test results was the size of the scar on the steel roller bearing and the pressure required for the oil film to fail.

I may have to buy a full set to get them to all match. If I end up with two fronts left over I'll let you know.

Well, I've just sent SC mag an email asking for confirmation (or otherwise) of your suggestion they had to make an apology about the oils test. I assume someone else told you of the apology since you don't read SC yourself! Thanks for your comment, anyway, it may put my faith in this oils test into some perspective. (Too bad, any other basis for choosing an oil is usually just anecdotal - everyone has their own preferences and experiences...)