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Why not lift the ban? When it first came into effect, even Volvo pointed out the absurdity of it. Australian road policy makers give me the impression that they are very short sighted, very bored, very reactionary individuals. Next get rid of the 80kmh limit for L platers.

You will be able to pick up a C34 cheap, but if you do a lot of short trips and city driving, do expect V8 levels of fuel consumption. Even with steady driving through the city, lots of 80kms sections, I dont usually better 13L/100kms. Also the space inside isn't so clear cut. I use mine to haul lots of gear, but rarely passengers. With the rear seats up or down there is plenty of cargo space. The front seats have plenty of leg room, but the rear seats will only be suitable for children. Getting adults in there is an odd occurrence for me and its a bit cramped.

Yep. Even a cheap battery can be maintained for many years by an automatic trickle charger. Digital ones are cheap, just connect to the battery, turn it on and it will automatically begin charging when it detects the charge going below a certain threshold. Great if you are leaving the car parked for long periods. I have a 600cca bosch battery, cost me about $150 6 years ago, still reads 12.3v after car has been sitting for a week or two. Normally its around 12.5v. No need for expensive batteries.

Well after having the pedal seize right up on me, I thought it was definitely going to be a removal job. To avoid that, I gave the WD40 treatment another go. This time I had to lay down mats, newspaper and towels to stop the WD from getting onto the carpets. Using a bit of PVC tubing attached the can I was able to soak the pedal mechanism from every angle, completely soaking the area until the WD was running off onto the towels. Repeated a few times. Well f**k me, it worked a treat. It freed the mechanism right up, the pedal now releases fully when you pull the brake release. My only concern is that I did wash off some grease on the pedal, so hopefully I haven't affected any lubrication points, but if I have to add some oil or grease in future its not too much a big deal. Will report back if I actually ended up ruining the pedal, but so far so good. Beats having a stationary vehicle.

Actually all the ones Ive bought were empty inside. I made my own filter with steel wool and made partitions to force the vapour to flow in one direction through the wool.

Ebay or supercheap auto. Outer tie rods are easy to find, inner rack ties need to be inspected for the correct length. I cut some GTR ones to fit.

I said I know what its like on dirt, and Ive compared many cars. Falcons, camrys, even that pos holden epica was far better in terms of softness than the stagea.

A recent thread got me thinking, Ive been avoiding a few trips because I know the stagea is pretty harsh on dirt roads, not only on me but also the car. Im currently running GTR shocks in the front and 225/50r16 tyres, so its pretty smooth road oriented. However I was thinking of picking up some cheap steel 15/16' rims and fitting high profile tyres. Question is, how much can this compensate for the rest of the vehicle? Will 15' rims clear the brakes? Looks like they should...

Extremely impressive, extremely well funded work. But. To play the devils advocate: Is this mainly a technical showcase? With the power delivery of a low displacement, massive turbo engine, this seems to be a drag racing only engine. Why not shoehorn a larger displacement engine in? In terms of a strictly money to win races tradeoff, it seems more towards the show off, rather than pay off side.

Is it an auto?

Only if the existing ones are loose. There's always a delay when a torque converter is involved, but on the plus side that's easier on all the components...

Hmm, I have some spare front shock absorbers for the stagea lying around. Theyre stagea specific ones and theyre slightly longer than GTR shocks. Longer stroke to the piston. I guess theyre for what youre talking about. Most stageas are/were family wagons and snow cars, not sports cars.

Ball joints, both on the suspension arms and the inner and outer steering rack tie rods.

BTW, I never found changing the O2 sensor or cleaning the afm to make much difference to economy, so they may have been fine (even though the o2 sensor was 100,000km old)

16L/100km is still above average, but only by about 3L/100km Has a previous owner done mods to it? Different injectors? If theyre stock, perhaps try taking them out and getting cleaned professionally, they may be working poorly. When's the last time an alignment was done? What length of trips are you normally driving? With the wheels off the ground, how easily do the wheels turn? Are any brakes binding? Anything over 20L/100km for normal driving is a worry though. The fuels gotta be going somewhere. Is the back of your bumper sooty around the exhaust?

This is why X km per tank is a useless measurement. Even if we consider "a tank" to be 60 litres on the conservative side, you're still using 45L per 150km. That's 30L/100km, and totally absurd for normal road driving. Except if you owned an old turbo bentley, or a veyron.... You need to do a proper measurement first.

Rotary owner?

Id recommend adjustable ones too. The technician will be able to do a better job when you take the car for an alignment. Just press the old bush at your leisure and keep the arm as a spare.

Hmm, definitely watching this closely. I may as well ask here - I do sometimes get a brief coolant smell from the vents. Ive only noticed it for the first time in the past few weeks. I only get the smell for a second or so when I turn on the heater, other than that, there are no symptoms I can see, no leaking or anything in the passenger well.

Im in Canberra. Hmm, the struts Im looking at are 25kg each. Looks like Ill have to just measure the tailgate.

So Ive turned my attention to my weak tailgate struts which are now struggling in the cold of winter. From what I can research, there are no easy replacements. Unless you can get genuine ones which are no doubt pricey. No matter though, I am looking to fabricate something myself. My question is though what would a good force rating for the struts? Otherwise to measure it, should I try rigging up a winch in the garage and seeing how much weight pulls up the unassisted tailgate?

Out of interest, what symptoms did you notice? Any coolant smell in the vents?

Ah well that seems to be a definitive answer that a 96 stagea never had a filter. On the topic though, a wet vacuum is a very handy tool. That way you can really saturate the carpets and roof in deodorising cleaners then rinse it off with the wet vac. I did that on the carpets and roof and it even lightened the roof liner. Keep in mind the smell gets everywhere, mine even had cigarette ash under the auto shifter console. To do a thorough job you really need to take the seats out and some of the trim off to reach all the carpet.

Got a link to them? Ive used ebay inner and outer ones. The quality of both were fine, however double check the length of inner tie rod that you need. Its easy to trim some thread off long ones, but using an inner tie rod with too little thread holding the outer tie rod is dangerous.

The inner tie rod is screwed into the rack. If you pull back the boot, you can just unscrew the lot, no need to bother taking the outers off while lying under the car. It should be locked into place with a bent locking washer. You'll have to chisel it back to unscrew the inner tie rod. A thin spanner can work, regular sized ones are too thick. You'll find out when you pull the boot back whether you can get a spanner onto them.