JimX

SOLD!!!!!! all_5_pics_shrunk_to_800x600.zip

What does that awkw power translate to rwkw roughly? I hope this isn't considered wasting your time Free bump anyway, very nice looking car!

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I was going to get a few scraps of metal first and practice welding those, then when buying the exhaust tubing buy more than I need and practice on joining bits of those together.

I have done a bit of research on welding, and was all set to buy a DC Inverter TIG welder for doing my own small exhaust cooler and intake mods. However before I got one off ebay, a friend of mine told me he has one (not DC inverter though) so I am going to borrow that instead and see if it does an ok job. My friend knows how to weld and will show me the basics, however he's used to welding thicker bits of steel than on an exhaust and he said the main worry is burning a hole through the metal because it's thinner. My main goal is to cut a new front pipe to size and weld it onto the cat, and possibly weld some bolt-on flanges onto the cat to make it easier to disassemble (it's all welded together in one piece at the moment). I don't need to touch my aluminium cooler piping yet, but it'd be good to know when and how I can modify it later. I will probably go mild rather than stainless steel for my front pipe, to make any mistakes cheaper. So far I've found I need thinner welding rods as we only have 3.2mm ones. Any recommendations for rod size, and any other hints?

Yes, more updates! I think I am putting the same turbo on my car Well I definitely will be unless I can somehow swap my turbo for a better sized turbo (GT3076?) plus wastegate. As it is I have to work out how to block off the wastegate line on my new highmount manifold too. Actually.... Does this turbo fit in the low mount position in an R33 GTS-t? The 0.50 A/R compressor cover is pretty small so maybe I could just low-mount it on the factory manifold until I upgraded the housing or entire turbo.

I've got that foil stuff in that area too, but I think there are lines which run past there forwards. There's probably not a whole lot of difference insulation can make while the car is moving, but it might make the air a little cooler when idling in summer traffic. I guess I'll just try it and see, I think the only other use for this stuffed heatwrap is to throw it out.

I was thinking, would it be worth the effort of insulating the air conditioning lines, especially the ones that go along near the exhaust area? The main reason I'm thinking about it is I have a whole lot of thermal wrap which I pulled off my rusting dump pipe recently, and it's kind of in bits and pieces and not really useable for much else. I was thinking I might salvage what I can and try wrapping it around some of the aircon lines. Anywhere else I should try wrapping it?

I'm guessing that this group buy is way since over, but is anyone else looking at doing another group buy soon? I can't see any mention of the manufacturer in this thread, but it seems that they might be the Revsolution by NPC Performance in Queensland. Does anyone know how these go with ceramic clutches? Are they are durable as chromoly steel?

A few months ago I put new RB74's back on the front because I was pretty happy with the last set, and Comp 9's on the rear. I can't remember where I'd read about that combination, but when I mentioned it to the guy at Racebrakes he said it was a fairly "normal" setup so I bought them. Oh, I also overhauled my front calipers because it was sticking a bit on the right side (diagonal wear on one of the pads) and incidentally this also cured my brake squeal which was only coming from that corner. Although I guess time will tell if it comes back. There's no squeal from the Comp 9's at all but I don't know how easily the rear makes noise normally. There is however this reddish dust on the rear when with the old (factory) pads I had no noticable dust. I reckon that the Comp 9's must be very dusty, because there's about the same small amount of dust front and rear now (RB74's get a mild black dust), when in the past when I've used Ultimates front and back the back had much less dust than the front.

Looking at SK's Bathurst post, I'd say 500k

Here's a somewhat controversial way to break in an engine. It makes sense to me, and I will be doing it if/when I do a rebuild unless someone else tells me they tried it and killed their engine! Or if someone can put up a similar well-put argument as to why it would be bad. Hopefully someone has already tried it and can tell us what happened, otherwise I may be the guinea pig in due time.

I'm sorry if I sounded insensitive I was and still am really sad and shocked to hear the news and I do offer my condolences. I wasn't trying to say it was their own fault, I know accidents happen and I was just trying to offer advice for anyone else contemplating the space saver tyre to try helping reduce the possibility of something simliar happening again.

MR33, was the 3540 with the 1.02 rear an XR6 turbo? Do you have a dyno printout for it?

Ha. I just noticed my sig which I set ages ago. You should see how many different types of hammers I have.

Ah thanks, I'll keep that in mind when I line everything up. I dread having to remove the housing altogether, it seems like brain surgery to me to do that to a turbo! But probably better than belting it into position with a mallet.

"...telling the ECU that the incoming air in the intake system is cold and so advances the ignition to compensate producing more power" What the hell? That first bit about temperature aside (which has been discussed), couldn't you do the same dangerous thing just by rotating your crank angle sensor a few degrees? That would cost all of $0! I wonder what the hell it actually is that is costing you the $35. The only legitimate cheap/free performance enhancing mod I know about is with late model Suzuki sports bikes (mine included), and it's nothing to do with the inlet temperature. All it does is trick the bike into thinking it's always in 5th gear, to give it an extra 2 degrees timing. Suzuki decided to de-tune the lower 4 gears to make it a bit safer to ride (less wheely-ing tendencies) and a simple resistor in the right place can change it and turn the bike back into a tank-slapping bitch. Of course, you could just advance the ignition 2 degrees manually with the CAS, but then 5th and 6th would be 2 degrees too advanced and it'd probably ping. Edit: I'm not suggesting anyone advance their timing without a proper tune! Just saying this in case you didn't notice I said "dangerous" up there.

I need to rotate my new turbo housing as well, otherwise the compressor outlet will be pointing straight up towards the bonnet on my cheapass highmount manifold. Do you have to remove the housing entirely or can you do it by twisting after using CRC on it? Also I think a rubber mallet might be a better thing to whack it with than a wooden handle, luckily I've got one of those What is the optimal direction for the compressor outlet to be facing? Optimal for saving space and piping I mean, I doubt it means much to the flow efficiency. Horizontally or downwards seem to be popular directions on pics that I've seen. I think my current turbo is horizontal from memory but it's a low mount.

I think you are 100% correct! And yeah I forgot to mention that a lot of VL Commodore guys had them as well. Thanks for that, another thing to add onto the list of things to get (hope he's still selling them when I have enough money)

Shakes over 100kph for me have often been a slightly warped rim usually on the front. Not always but often. Try align and balance first, much cheaper than new rims. A new plenum isn't worth the money if you are chasing power mods. I have a front-facing plenum but I don't pretend that I get more power out of it. I did primarily to get better throttle response because of shorter intercooler piping which I think it does pretty well. But other bonuses are the plugs/coils and injectors are MUCH easier to get to, and the engine bay looks neater (nice sort of custom look). I also saved on 2 mandrel bends and 3 straight bits of cooler piping (got FMIC installed at the same time), so that subsidised the cost of the plenum. I wouldn't pay more than $500 for a plenum if you wanted it for similar reasons to mine above. If you just wanted more power I wouldn't pay more than $0! I remember ages ago there was someone from New Zealand selling his own brand for around $350 I think, but try as I might I can't find his site or any threads about it. If someone knows who I'm talking about please let me know! His plenum looked heaps better than mine and looked like it flowed more evenly, and I'd be happy to pay $350 for the bling bling

I had a look at the turbo and I can vouch that it is in virtually brand new condition. I only didn't buy it because I got a new GT3540 instead. This one is a bargain guys, especially since Garrett put their prices up recently. Free bump!!!!!!

I just used standard heavy duty diff oil that I got from Auto One. I can't remember the exact weight of it, but the bottle said it was for limited slip diffs. That was about 3 years ago so it's probably due for another change (30k km or so?) and I haven't had any problems with noise or grinding or anything so I think the diff is still pretty good. I can still feel the LSD kick in and zig-zag the rear a bit when it steps out so I think it's all fine. (knock on wood that I don't now blow it up!) Note: This is the standard LSD, not the active LSD, which I think needs a different type of oil.

A better alternative to the space saver is carrying a puncture repair kit, and a small 12V air pump. The best thing about that is as long as the puncture is repaired properly you can drive on it at full speed again once the sealant sets. I took my bike around Eastern Creek when it had one of those plugs in it, I don't know what my top speed got to but it was well over 200kph. I wouldn't have done that very often though, but it was a single track day and bike tyres wear out quick. Of course you are screwed if the puncture is too close to the sidewall or the tyre is too damaged, but that's what NRMA and free towing is for. I'd rather do that than drive around on the space saver, especially after this sad news and other people's bad experiences with them. (incidentally I still have my space saver in the boot, but it's only to support the cardboard floor)

Why can't I buy it!

It can help, he was checking for sparks in the dark through bad coils, not looking for cracks in the top. If there's no sparks it doesn't mean the coils are good, but if there ARE sparks, then the coil is definitely faulty somehow.

I get a similar problem, but I can manage to save the settings. I am not 100% sure of the fix though, it could just be a coincidence. I'll write up my story anyway in case it helps. When I was road tuning my car, I noticed that it didn't seem to be saving the settings everytime. Very infuriating when I had just input a lot of changes! Sometimes it would save, other times it wouldn't and it seemed to be random. After a lot of experimenting I found that it seemed to save everytime if I am actually in the ignition map area (the grid) on the hand controller, and I leave my door open when I turned the engine off so that the ignition instantly kills when I take the key out, rather than starting the turbo timer like normal. I'm not sure if any of the above makes any difference, but other times I have been in different menu areas, or I have taken the key out and put it back in to switch the engine off (which starts then stops the turbo timer respectively) and it hasn't saved the settings. I haven't done it often enough to say procedure X will save but procedure Y won't.