JimX

My main problem with fuel is that as it heats up, the fuel pump gets noisier. It doesn't seem to affect my knock level much if at all, but I'm not sure how much power it would be robbing because of the extra heat. If I could hook up a fuel cooler on the cheap I'd do it just to help get rid of the pump noise.

Well which is it? Will it have reduced value because of the odd colour or because people will think it's been in an accident? Or are you just making it up as you go along?

Well I had it done today, and it all seems good. The temperature got down to 11 degrees before I decided to stop checking it, however the fan was only on 3 by then so I think it was just levelling out the temperature. It definitely feels a lot colder than before. I will have to check it again on a hot day and see if it gets any lower.

Oh Well, the initial wheel spin happens without boost, and I daresay it wouldn't really need boost to continue (although boost makes it easier). So although I am getting boost by a certain stage, I doubt it's absolutely required. Any NA SKyline owners want to confirm or deny that?

Hell yeah! Try $50-60k for an R34 GTT, and >$100 for a GTR. Haven't seen many GTR's there lately but they seem to sell pretty quick. You know what they say about a fool and his money.

If the cop was planning on buying it from Powerplay, he must have had some serious bribe money happening in his job.

Out of interest how much is the proper extension lead? I imagine it would be a lot more than $10.

But while it's in neutral, no boost. What do I want to do with boost, get from 0-5000rpm quicker before releasing the clutch?

Well ever since the forums re-design, I haven't seen any. I thought this fixed it by default

I wasn't suggesting that you buy new ones just because the old ones need paint, it's just that after 8 years or more the original wipers can become a bit of a sloppy bitch. The tighter spring tension on a new pair will help wipe the glass better when it rains.

Air doesn't match revs. The more load on the engine the more air is in the cylinders because it takes more pressure to move the piston.

Woot! I almost can't wait for my heater core to fail now so I can try it

The reason I use iridiums isn't because of more power, but because they last a lot longer and are more consistent over their lifetime. Mostly because of their self-cleaning ability. Whenever I've used coppers in the past, the plugs just deteriorate slowly and I was never sure of when to replace the plugs. I could take the easy way out and just replace them every 5000km as many people do, but after 20000km of coppers I could have paid for one set of iridiums. And iridiums last a lot longer than 20000km. Pred, where did you get quoted $200 for platinums? I paid $17 each for my iridiums, and platinums are usually a tad cheaper.

Shouldn't need any lube. If you press down on the long edge and lift it up from the round edge at the same time (if that makes sense) it should come off pretty easily. It's kind of held on by spring tension of the arm. Counter-act the spring tension and it's not that hard to get off. And no the wipers aren't powdercoated from the factory You're probably even best to just replace the whole lot with new arms. That's what I intend to do, if I can find a set the right size.

I can get plenty sideways without boost and fat 255 tyres Of course boost picking up soon after launch helps it stay sideways, but I've never needed it off the mark.

I've seen a few people discuss this in the past but couldn't find any specific threads on it. I decided to try it myself the other day and it works! Basically what you need is a IBM PS/2 (as opposed to Sony) keyboard or mouse extension cable. Generally speaking the shorter the better to save space. They generally cost under $10 from most computer parts shops or Jaycar. I got the shortest one I could find, which was 1.8m. You have to modify the cable though to get it to fit. Here are the steps outlined briefly for anyone wanting to do this themselves. 1. Cut one of the pins off. I can't remember which one it is off the top of my head but you are best off confirming it via your Commander rather than relying on my info anyway. Use a pair of fine nosed pliers and bend the pin back and forth until it snaps off at the base. Be very careful not to bend the adjacent pins, but when I did it I found it pretty easy to avoid bending the others. 2. This step is much trickier and is more of a hack job than the first step. You have to shave down the plastic post in the middle so it will fit in the PowerFC socket. I tried a variety of methods and I seemed to need a combination of everything to get it just right. First I used a pair of wire cutters to snip off a bit of the top and bottom, but I couldn't get it all the way to the base and it left some plastic dags on the post. I then used a modelling knife and a pair of small scissors to shave off the dags as best I could. This still left it wider at the base than at the top, but it was narrow enough to fit into the socket. 3. Plug the cable into the PowerFC, and the Commander into the cable. Turn the key to "on" and the Commander should light up as normal. If it works, then put everything back together and coil up the excess cable between the ECU and the guard. That's my recommendation only, you can run it wherever you like. Once it's there, the tip of the cable can be poked up under the panel above the kick panel and to the left of the glovebox and it's not visible at all. You can then reach up and pull the cable out whenever needed. If anyone's still wondering what the point of this is, it's to make the Commander much easier to remove from the car when needed. Like when you're dropping off your car to a mechanic or auto electrician for repairs/maintenance and you don't want it stolen, just unplug it from the more easily accessible cable and take it with you. Also you can stop the apprentices from taking your car for a hoon. When you get to the workshop, change your redline to 3500rpm or so which will leave the car drivable for road tests, then unplug the Commander and take it with you. Of course it's not foolproof (ie, if they have their own Commander), but it does greatly increase your chances of your car not being wrtten off by teenage test pilots. Of course you can do both of the above things anyway, but it's much more difficult reaching up to the top of the PowerFC directly. The extra cable makes it much easier.

I don't know how my a/m bov compares to factory, but it seems to work quite well. It's quiet, I don't lose power/boost between gear changes, and it doesn't even open at low revs. Because of that I get slight turbo flutter but I don't think it's anything to worry about. I could adjust it to open sooner but then it'd just be noisier and open at low revs and thus attract more unwanted attention from the cops. It came with my car when I bought it, so although there may have been little point to change the factory item to this one, because it does the job well enough there is also little point to swap it back to the factory one.

What do you want boost in neutral for anyway?

Yep it was a rare factory option, but I'm pretty sure I've seen one or 2 conversions too. It's a popular vehicle to hack up. I've also seen one where they replaced every panel with something completely different. My memory escapes me but it was something exotic like a Ferrari or Shelby or something.

I've seen a few Silvia convertibles before.

An alarm is useful. Especially if you are within earshot yourself. Paging alarms are also useful. Far from foolproof but better than nothing. I have always checked alarms if they are not too far out of my way. I have yet to see one going off that was caused by someone breaking into the car but I still check anyway. I suspect the reason why everyone ignores alarms is because no one ever sees anyone breaking into a car.

I checked the vent temp, and it was 15.4 degrees at its coldest. I definitely need a re-gas, I'm booked in for Wednesday.

Busky2k, I'm not an expert on this, but you seem to have described the exact same thing twice and called it 2 different things. I have been told by mechanics in the past that pre-ignition (due to whatever reason - hot spots, too lean a mixture, too much ignition advance, etc) causes detonation (the shockwave/noise you can hear if it's loud enough).

Yeah but keep in mind that they are 500cc to 1 litre down in capacity. If you want the power get a turbo model, simple as that. But if you want something much cheaper to buy and insure, then the NA version is still a very nice car. Unfortunately most people that get one seem to get bitten by the turbo bug before too long and start asking about how they can stick a turbo on it

I got quoted $99 from my local mechanic BG Automotive in Meadowbank if anyone's interested. They don't specialise in Skylines, but they do know imports pretty well all things considered. These are the guys that repaired my rear-end accident from one and a half years ago, and they had no problems sourcing all the parts needed.