Snowman

And given you already had your right one ripped out for buying another racecar after the STi "incident" you really need to hang onto that left one mate PS - I'm out. Car won't be ready in time

I just used the POV1 for the 1st time down at Targa Wrest Point and I can't speak highly enough of it. Simple to use and amazing picture and sound quality. It really was great.

Do you have the Nismo MFD? If so I would say it is the start / lap button for the built in lap timer.

Looks tops Benny. I think you really need to do a Lake Mountain shake down with it though

Will try and get the car sorted and get down there too.

The "Agreement" which we all had to sign says Manufacturer's Warranty will be void due to: Failures reslting from the fitment and use of Genuine NISMO performance parts or non-Genuine Nissan Parts. The thing is from my understanding they have to be able to show that the modification done caused the failure. An exhaust for example will not result in a transmission failure. I think things like exhuast, suspension, cosmetics you should be right to touch and would win any arguements - but touch the engine or ecu and you would pretty much void your warranty there and then. I think the biggest warranty arguements could come from the insisted use of OEM oils and fluids however.

Found this quick highlights package that shows how awesome Quinn's R35 sounds! http://www.viddler.com/explore/GTRBlog/videos/82/

I got a call on Friday last week from Nissan saying my car is due for production Feb, shipping March and delivery in April (which was the original delivery date I was given). He did say I was one of the lucky ones however as they have reduced production by 50%, so some of the later scheduled cars will be delivered later than originally quoted.

Or they could just put some decent calipers on it

I'm putting both the heat and fuel down to those pesky killer wasps. We'll kill a few of them off and see how it goes. I probably didn't need to be the 2nd fastest car in a 116 car field through the speed trap 400m into my 1st ever competative rally stage..... We can turn it down and try and finish a few rallies and then think about how we go about turning it back up again if we want to. The funny thing is we actually took 30kw's out before we went to Tassie anyways but we might take another 50-60 out again and see how it goes.

The funny thing is we briefly met Adam on the weekend and the 1st thing he asked me was about pad knock off issues. I remember Dean asking me the same thing back in 2007! Seems everyone thinks its an issue but no-one wants to try and fix it. lol

The inside of the wheel has certainly looked better. So has the outter edge of the rotor. But even they both came out of it better than should have been expected. But it was because the rotor is so massive that a) when the wheel did break off the car really only dropped a few mm (and didnt turn left well!) which is why I thought it was just a blow out, and b) when the wheel did finally fall off the rotor was big enough that the actual car body was still off the ground. There is only the smallest crack on the inside of the front guard but otherwise everything will be ok with just a quick machine and a touch of paint. We really were immensly lucky to get away with what we have and that was one of the key factors to us not wanting to chance that luck again on the Sunday. We have had some people look at the 2 broken studs we found and they were both suffering from stretch fatigue probably from being over-tightened at some stage by an over happy rattle gun or something, so it looks like they may have been a big factor to letting go. I had actually replaced a rear one just recently when it broke off when I was just changing wheels at home so with hind sight I probably should have replaced all 20 then rather than just 1. I have 20 new ARP ones coming now though! But anyone who watched the whole video would have seen before the wheel came off we had other issues anyways with the heat (water at 120degs after 17kms) so we are going to have to re-think the engine as well. All that go is well and good in short bursts but it may not be a long term option for this style of racing. In some ways maybe the wheel coming off saved my engine! And even if we do sort the heat we still have the fuel problem. We used close to 30L of fuel in that 21km's and we only had 25L of fuel at the top so I'm not sure we'd have got back to Cygnet anyways! lol. But at that consumption rate thinking long term there is no way we could finish the 49km Mt Arrowsmith stage even if we start with a full tank. So plenty to do before we try again - but try again we will!!

More pics - this is how the car looked when it stopped in the video. The wheel fell right off when the recovery car pulled us up the off road. And this is how the car looked before we started!

Hey Stu - everyone we spoke to on the boat home said the same thing about Glenlusk. Scary as hell doing recce but was an awesome stage to race on. Maybe because it was actually quite a busy road and hard to see on-coming cars that made the road appear so daunting until it was race time. And the one nice thing we got out from our retirement was we got to see the entire field go past on the way back down the hill and that VIP R35 was easily on of the best sounding cars out there. So angry! And for anyone that is interested in the speeds, in my video you can see the speedo and straight up is 160km/hr. Yes Neil you have to be crazy but it leaves any round and rounds for dead!

ok - video of our whole rally. lol http://sau.ferni.net/Snowy/Targa%20Wrestpoint%20Geevston.WMV (right click - save as - 29mb). Was all going well until about the 8:20 mark when things start going wrong.

Hey all, Sorry to hear about the crash Kel but I'm glad you are alright. Was the crash on Longley or that other silly bumpy one? Anyways we obviously never got going again. On the Saturday during the Dover touring stage I noticed a knock at the front of the car which we later presumed to be the loose nut or something that eventually led to the wheel coming off. At the time we 1st heard it we just thought it was a stone stuck in between the caliper. When we repaired the hub on the Sat night the car all seemed good. However half way to the 1st stage Sunday morning and the knocking noise came back. We got out and checked the nuts etc but couldn't find anything apparently wrong but we were left with the following 4 options if we chose to continue. 1. The knocking sound was unrelated and the car would be fine and we'd get through the rest of the day without issue. 2. The knocking sound was the eventual cause of the wheel coming off the day before and we'd suffer the same basic fate which on the 1st stage would cause havoc and shut the stage down as there was no-where to pull off on that goat trail and with us having no wheel it took a flat bed a good hour to get us on the back. 3. The wheel would come off but a lot more damage would be done to the car. 4. The wheel could come off and we'd destroy the car and badly hurt or worse ourselves. The odds for part 1 of those options coming off just weren't great enough for us to take the chance and none of the other options were remotely desirable so we made the VERY hard call to pack up and take the car home whilst it was still driving. Although it knocked badly the whole way to Devonport and so I basically wore all my safety gear just in case! It seems to get worse as the car get warm and is only there when the car turns left so my gut feel right now is a wheel bearing. This and coupled with the fact that a few months ago I had a rear stud snap off just swapping wheels over so maybe all my studs were seriously fatigued anyways. But despit all this and despite now owning one of the most expensive t-shirts ever made both James and I had a great time and the small taste we got has us totally hooked and we can't wait to get the car sorted and be back out there next time. I have some good incar footage of the one stage we partly did before the wheel came off so I'll try and get that uploaded and posted today. Otherwise just thanks to everyone for all the support and huge thanks to everyone that helped us out over the weekend. Cheers Snowy

Hey all, What a start to my rally experience! 1st stage was a short non-timed warm up and all was well. 2nd stage was cancelled due to a Citroen being on it's lid which meant the massive 29km Geevston stage was to be my first timed stage. Despite all my talk of "taking it easy" etc we pretty much were cracking it from the get go. That was shown by the fact we were apparently the 2nd highest clocked speed through a speed trap early on in the stage. Everything was going great and I felt really comfortable with the speeds and the car until around the 17km mark when I noticed the car was getting hot (water had hit 120degs) so I was forced to go up a gear and try and rely on corner speed. That was still going ok (and the temps were coming down) until the front right wheel fell off.... All 5 studs were completely sheared off - NFI why - but needless to say it brought us to a stop. Amazingly however other than the hub / rotor edge / inside of the wheel there isn't a single mark on the car. We made a couple of calls and found someone with some parts and the good news is we are back to fight another day! Fingers crossed we have a better run tomorrow. Untill then....

Well we finished the Recce and have passed Scrutineering all without issue. Although the 1st stage on Sunday (Glenlusk) is about the single most frightening piece of tarmac I've ever driven on in my life - and that was at 60km/hr. I seriously can't imagine going through it at speed but I guess Sunday we'll find out all going well. That's the stage the R35's need the angle grinder for as it is that tight. But we are both really looking forwards to tomorrow. No expectations other than to have a lot of fun!

Yeah Cygnet was pretty bad at the front end. I was wondering about that as it is worse than the section on Dover that was cancelled. Still - it was better than the gravel road James had me on to begin with after he entered some GPS co-ordinates in Tom incorrectly! LOL But how people ever did these things before the existance of GPS's is beyond me. We'd never have found half these roads with-out one. The other fun part has been the fuel situation. We got off the boat in Davenport and went to fill up with BP98 and the sign said "Sorry we are out". Went into Launceston and found the same thing (but did eventually find one spot who had some but was due to run out within a day or so). Got into Hobart and the Sandy Bay BP was also out. This was a worry I can tell you! But the recce showed the 2 stations we were replying on for fuel both still have enough to get us through the event thank god. Whether I can then get the car back to Davenport on Monday is another question! Looking forwards to finally catching up with everyone this afternoon.

What a day. 5:15am wake up call from the idiot on the P.A. system on the ferry, followed by a drive from Davenport to Hobart to check in, followed by a 380km recce trip. Am utterly rooted. But so far it looks like fun. I think. Am too tired to tell. Off to bed.... But RS4 is a tops recce car

Hehe - I just wish we were No. 95! But you are right - my kids think it's tops and that's all that matters.

Who needs Rusteeze Red when you can be in Dinoco Blue! Kachow!

Well touch wood that the weather stays as is forecast right now for the weekend. It doesn't need to get any hotter (or wetter) than is predicted currently. I'm really glad this event isn't in Melb though as there is no way my car would survive 40degs. It nearly died yesterday just driving into town! And the boys and girls are just applying the final touches to the car now. Paul Walker would be proud!

Well actually the main reason was costs. Under Tarmac Rally regs the cars have to run to factory specs with minimal modifications allowed under strict guidelines. And given my car has been a modified club track car for the last few years it was no longer anywhere near standard R34 GTR V Spec N1 regs and to bring the car back to those specs was going to cost a mint. However the car was already very close to the Z Tune specs. So the $$$ outlay for me to enter the car as a Z Tune was much lower and meant I could actually afford to do it. The thing is until 2009 the Z Tune had been banned from being an eligable car for Tarmac Rallies (along with a bunch of other cars including the 400R for example - and still is banned for CAMS based rallies) so it has only become an option for me now. Plus - it looks so cool!

That'd be tough given it was on yesterday