GTSBoy

Can perhaps see how the R33 appreciators would think so.

I think you might have skipped a whole vowel sounds there C.

What do you mean by "test"? It sounds like you're just switching things on and off that you already know don't work. Get the wiring diagram and a multimeter and start looking for power where there is supposed to be power and earth where there is supposed to be earth. Look for continuity across switches that are otherwise unresponsive, etc etc.

The Neat gears use an alternative profile, no? Something different to what normal OEM stuff is. Is the noise at all traceable to that? Reason I ask is that my CW&P are effectively past their use by bate and Neat is the obvious option.

Everything looks worse with tri-spokes.

I believe the abominations thread is elsewhere.

I like the Viper because it is ridiculous. I like the E Type because it is ridiculous. Cars with long bonnets and short rear decks that are ridiculous are as close to automotive perfection as you can get. The RX7 is also ridiculous. Therefore, given the above, also as good as it gets. I rest my case.

I used to hate R31s, and any of the other Nissans that led up to it, and any of the Toyotas with similar styling, because of the boxiness. They were, and remain, childish, simplistic, and generally awful. I appreciate R31s a lot more now, but only the JDM 2 door. The ADM 4 door (and any other 4 door, even if they are unique compared to our local one) can eat a bowl of dicks. The Aussie R31 is also forever tarnished by their association with stereotypical bong clutching Aussie R31 owners of the 90s and early 2000s. I think the Nissans of the 70s (other than 120Y/180B/200B) are far superior looking to the 80s cars. The 240K era Skylines are boss. The same is broadly true of Toyotas. Hondas don't ever register in my thinking, from any era. Mitsus are all horrid shitboxen in any era, and so also don't register. Subarus are always awful, ditto. Daihatsus and Suzukis also don't generally register. They are all invisible. I think the SW20 MR2 looks fiddly. The 3000GT/GTO is like that but way worse. Too many silly plastic barnacles and fiddly gimmicks ruined what could have been a really nice base shape. Kinda-sorta looks like a big heavy ST165 Celica coupe (and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing). I think the 180SX is dreadfully bland. It's not bad looking. But it has no excitement to it at all. It's just a liftback coupe thing with no interest in its lines, and bad graphical elements (ie wide expanses of taillight plastic on the rear garnish). The S13 Silvia is a little better - getting closer to R32 shapes. But still....bland. S14? Nope. Don't love it. S15...a little better. Probably a lot better, actually. Benefits from not being like a shrunk in the wash R34 (where the S13 was a shrunk in the wash R32 and the S14 looked like a Pulsar or something else from the stable on Nissan mid 90s horrors). The Z32 was hot as f**k when it came out but hasn't aged as well as the A80. Keep in mind that I think the R33 is the most disgusting looking thing - and out of all the previous cars mentioned is objectively closest to my precious R32. It's just....real bad, almost everywhere you look. And that is down to the majority of what was designed in the 90s being shit. All Nissans from that era look like shit. Most other brands ditto. In that context, the FD absolutely stands out as being by far the best looking car, for reasons already discussed. Going behind the aesthetics, the suspension alone makes it better than almost any other car.

If they just called it the "Mazda Tiffany", it would have been spot on.

Yes, it's because it has hips and bulges on the top/front surface, a tiny cockpit and roof, and the skin looks like it is stretched over muscle. The proportions are....perfect. Long nose, short rear, short roof. What's not to like? It continues the theme started with the S1, that peaked with the FC, being "looking like a front engined Porsche", while gaining a little more of the 60's Mustang coupe profile and stretching the skin more tightly over the understructure. The FD is definitely colour sensitive though. Like all Mazdas. There are plenty of details on it that changed over the years that were either better or worse, could have been done better the first time and/or never changed for the worse. But...the same can be said for the NSX. In fact, that's probably even more true for the NSX. I've also just worked out that part of the reason I don't like the rear of the NSX is that the integrated wing is too similar to that shitful R33 rear wing.

Well, unless you are prepared to do it yourself, or to pay someone for a lot of labour, you don't want to move the rear camber around much at all. Close to stock length on the rear upper arms (both the RUCAs and the tension arms) will minimise the addition of bump steer. That means you should probably be satisifed with whatever neg camber you end up with as a result of it being lowered, and not try to dial too much of it out. Dialling it out by making big changes to the RUCA length will require effort put into tuning the length of the tension arms. And, apart from front caster and toe at both ends.....that's all there is to talk about. So, yes, toe settings, pretty much.

Comes with the turf.

Could be the other bushes. The inners.

Once you lose the adjustable bushes, you have almost no adjustment at the front for anything that matters. You can only wind so master caster at the front, and ~7° is fine. You won't have choice of front camber. If you only have rear camber arms (ie, do not also have adjustable upper tension arms), you shouldn't change their length very much, because you will introduce bump steer. And, you will struggle to find a workshop that will be capable of doing all the adjustment work necessary to simultaneously achieve a decent rear camber number, get the toe right, and minimise bump steer. I would guess there's probably 8 hours of work there. So, stockish rear camber is fine. Although, keep in mind, that stock camber, by number value, does not mean stock arm length when the car is lowered. You will need to lengthen the RUCA to get back to stockish values and that will require the tension arm to be lengthened a little also. Without any other guidance, any change made to the RUCA should have the 2/3 of the same change made on the tension arm. But that is only a rough rule of thumb and the relationship might not remain linear across a wide range of adjustments. And it might not also be as close to minimum bump steer as you could achieve if you did the bump steer measurement and adjustment properly.

Yeah, you don't need camber bushes on stock arms to make a car drive straight unless it's got another problem. F'rigsample, slide the thing into a kerb, bend the front subframe mounts a little....subframe is now twisted, shifted or otherwise in the wrong spot...and you need to do funky stuff with the wheel alignment to get it to drive straight. Maybe a little more caster on one side, or a little more camber. FWIW, I can have my camber off side to side by a half a degree or more, and either way, so more one side, or more on the other, and the car doesn't really want to pull to one side. It will definitely ride road camber differently, and want to track uphill (ie, towards the centreline when on the LHS of a normal crowned piece of road, like it should) or want to roll downhill (which it really shouldn't). But on fairly flat road surfaces, like the middle of a 3 or 4 lane motorway, a half a degree either way doesn't make a lot of difference. I sometimes do quite a few miles with my wheel alignment messed up, because I don't always get a chance to set it right again after a serious dismantling, before I have to drive it to work again. Like, a whole week's worth of daily shuffle.

OK, well, in that case, the suspension specialist is either a moron, or you aren't understanding what he was trying to tell you. Nismo arms are not really different than stock arms. Both are fixed geometry. I don't know if the Nismo ones are a little shorter than the stockers (or perhaps even a little longer) or the same length, but....if you swap from stock to Nismo, whatever happens to one side will happen to the other side. It will not cause it to steer left or right. That is unless you have adjustable bushes in your stockers, and they happen to be adjusted to dial out some bent chassis shenanigans. But, if that were the case, you'd just put adjustables in the Nismo arms anyway, because Nismo arms are essentially just expensive stock arms. And doing a wheel alignment is just a weekly thing in my world. I have had the suspension apart so many times this year that I've lost count and just about worn out a torque wrench. I'm out in the shed right now cutting up some alloy section and making bases for my new stringline setup. Got to make new swivel plates next, then I'm good to do toe properly, as well as camber and bump steer.

Yeah, nah. Not a thing. The gasket between the top of the plenum and the runners is far more likely to blow out when it gets old, and not really at ~14 psi. These things have been run to double that for 30 years without that being a common thing.

Well, it is an unusual noise. Use a 2 foot long bit of garden hose stuck in your ear as a stethoscope to pin it down to a definite location. We'll never work it out across the internet.

You're a bit weird Greg.

This doesn't make sense unless your car is a bit bent in some way and requires adjustable arms to provide even camber left to right. What arms are on it?

This is an R34, yeah? I'd either just buy new bushes, or do what I have done (on R32) and go sphericals. I am having Stockholm Syndrome with my spherical bushes.

Which bush, where, and how frayed was the surface that you put grease back onto?

I'd drool over a HG Kingswood before I'd drool over an NSX. FD absolutely the bets looking. R32 GTR vs A80 Supra fighting for 2nd place, although GTR looks the goods with no mods and an A80 needs at least wheels, lowering, and the right colour to look the best. GTR looks good on stock wheels and in any factory colour.

Nah. I've always thought the tail of the NSX was too long. I mean....it's not a bad looking thing, but it is very bland by comparison to the things it was supposed to take down (Italian supercars), and... it sounds like a V6. And not an ALFA V6 either. A Japanese V6.

Obvious thread is obvious.