JimX

Pinging is another term for knocking, which is caused by pre-ignition. They all mean the same thing pretty much. Pre-ignition can also cause the car to run-on or diesel after it is shut off. Not really common in our cars because I think if they had pre-ignited enough to cause them to run-on, it would have melted a piston by that stage.

The minimum thickness should be 28. There was some confusion in the past with the thickness, but they should start out at 30 and run out at 28.

Yeah I do think Skylines look good. But I think that Skylines with fog lights on when it's not foggy look like complete wank jobs. Well, I would think so if I'd ever seen one, which I haven't. I'm sure they exist though, somewhere. I think most Skyline owners avoid unwarranted fog lights because it makes them look like bogun Falcodore drivers I didn't buy a Skyline because of what other people thought of it. External appearances (to me) were only part of the reason, whereas using fog lights is ONLY for external appearance, and ONLY visible to other people. If I had the option to put some annoying ****ing yellow lights on the front then I wouldn't take it and neither have any other Skyline owners I've seen. But yeah anyway, free bump

It might look good to you, but you can't see it from in your car. And I daresay the majority of other road users think it looks like a complete toss job. So again I have to ask, why do it?

I'm not questioning the legality of it, I'm just wondering why you'd use fog lights if it wasn't foggy.

I think I missed something. How much are the R32's?

Why have you been driving with your fog lights on without any fog? Why do you think they're called fog lights?

Ok I may as well keep digging. What are the Kanji characters for yes/no/off/on in the Commander menus? The reason I ask is I think the O2 feedback was off all this time. This would surely have made my fuel economy worse. It didn't seem to idle any worse in either setting, so I've changed it to what I think is "on" to see if it improves my fuel economy. So is on/yes the character that looks like a plus sign or is it the one that looks like a curvy "7"?

Sorry for gravedigging, but I just wanted to say that I *finally* remembered to adjust the cranking injector times. I increased them by 5mx across the board (to make it easy to reset if needed) and it improved starting dramatically. Wish I'd done it sooner!

There's a factory rear strut brace on some R33's. I thought it was a series 2 thing, but it must be an option or something.

Update: Ok nothing's broken, except maybe the old alarm. The factory remote button works the central locking properly. I might have a look myself this weekend.

Just tried to pm you but it's full. Yeah send me his details if you can. The guy that tried to install it today (onsite auto electrician type guy) borked up my central locking somehow. At this point he gave up (and didn't charge me) because he wasn't sure what happened. I think it's to do with the fact that he tried putting the new one in with the old one in place, which is how I asked him to do it. I spoke to another auto electrician and he said that wouldn't work because they'd interfere with each other. So I need to get the old one removed. If the original guy damaged something he said he's prepared to pay for it to be fixed. He can also speak to the new installer to tell him what exactly he's done so far.

Does anyone know of a good auto electrician in Sydney that can fit an alarm and remove the old one? The alarm is one of those cheap paging ones you get off Ebay from Hong Kong.

SK, what's a "standard Skyline rubber"? I imagine anything that fit the standard pump isn't going to fit on the 044 without modification.

Wtf, 4kw from a grounding kit!? I find that hard to believe, unless your earths were already dodgy to begin with.

I'll check it tonight with my digital thermometer, but I'm 99% sure it's well above -3 degrees. I set it to 18 degrees to check yesterday and it was cool but not cold to touch. I'm sure it would still normally take several minutes to cool down if the car had been sitting in the sun. But I went up the coast over Christmas, and after stopping at a servo for less than 5 minutes in a cool car the aircon had to work its arse off for at *least* 15 minutes to get it cool again, probably more. I'll check the temps but I'm pretty sure it needs re-gassing if yours is -3. Man, -3 is colder than my freezer! (which also needs a re-gas)

My air con struggles to get the car cold when the temp hits the mid 30's or so. Like if it's a hot day and the car is in the sun, it'll take forever to get the car cool. Well, maybe 15 minutes or more? I've never timed it although I probably should. But when the temperature isn't as severe, the air coming out is pretty cool and it doesn't take long to cool the car down. I've spoken to a few people and they seem to think that this isn't right and that the air conditioning needs a re-gas. I know it's not fully out of gas by a long shot, but I'm basically just wondering if it does really need a re-gas, or if it's just that the modern refrigerant is inferior to the old CFC stuff and taking a very long time to cool the car down on a hot day is normal and acceptable? I've also heard that they generally need re-gassing every couple of years regardless. If so I'd say it's overdue anyway.

I have owned both auto and manual cars in the past, and for around town driving the auto wins. But once you hit the twisty stuff (whether roads or the track) the auto becomes a royal pain in the arse. I prefer a manual simply because of this, and I just put up with the rowing through the gears around town. If I commuted in heavy traffic in my car I would seriously have considered an auto instead. But auto boxes in general are a sloppy bitch and I prefer to tell the gears what to do directly. Since my car is mostly a weekend warrior there's no sense in it being an auto. If you are just looking to improve quarter mile times though, stick with the auto. No sense changing the box one way or the other just for that, unless you are aiming for sub 11's or so. In which case the auto with high stall is better.

Well if you're happy with the results, that's all that matters. I'm not suggesting you upgrade now, since you've already spent the money and you're happy with the tune. It's just that $800 is a lot of dosh just for 2 interceptor units, but with the way you did it, I probably would have done the same in the same situation. But anyone else out there with $800 to spend on an ECU upgrade, don't do the same thing!

My car has had both excessive toe in and toe out on the front at various stages of its alignment life. The only differences I found are vague steering and sometimes a shudder under brakes. There was no improvement to handling at all. Admittedly it was out by a couple of mm, but I can't imagine it going through a "sweet spot" of superior handling somewhere between 0 and 3mm. Toe in on the rear I've heard can help, but I don't think it will help on the front.

Sheesh, you spent $800 for ITC and S-AFC? If you were going to spend that much I would have definitely gotten the PowerFC. You can get them for around or under $1000 second hand. I assume that was $800 pre-tune, so add in a couple of hundred to tune them. Unlike the PowerFC, the S-AFC and ITC don't have their own (superior) base map and you need to tune them to get any use from them. You don't need the hand controller for the PowerFC, and the tune can be had for around $350-450. If you're lucky you don't even need the tune. I bought mine with hand controller for $1275, it would have been around $1000 if I didn't get the Commander. I still haven't tuned it yet, and it's running far better on the base map than it did with the tuned S-AFC. I'm getting it tuned as soon as my Z32 AFM arrives and I put it and my 550cc injectors in. The only reason I got the S-AFC to begin with was because it was a cheapass upgrade. Once you start adding things to it like the ITC and boost cut defenders etc, it quickly becomes poor value for money.

That "wear guide" is something on the factory pads, and is also on R33 pads. It's often (always?) absent on aftermarket pads. I found the wear guide to be pretty pessimistic in the amount of pad left. When mine started squealing I pulled the pads out and bent them back a bit to give me another mm or so of pad

Also keep in mind that it's possible that only one strut has lost pressure. It only takes one to stop working properly before the boot lid becomes a sloppy bitch (it's happened to me before). Take them both off and check them, if only one needs pressurising then you can halve your expenses. I am guessing this is one major area that the re-gassing places cash in on. They won't tell you that only one might need re-gassing! I think the second hand strut for my Commodore cost $10 from a wrecker. I know that's Holden prices, but even if it were double for a Skyline that's still less than 1/4 the price of a double home-delivered re-gas.

Take the plug off and put an ohmmeter across the terminals of the injector. If it's high impedance it'll read around 11 ohms, if it's low it'll read around 2 ohms.

Wtf, $55 a strut?! I'm sure you can get it done for under half that price. Bugger them coming to you, that's what, $50 of their fee? It's not like you can't drive your car without the struts on. If you can't get them re-gassed for a reasonable price, it may be better to get second hand struts.