SKITTLES

Preamble This thread aims to help a few of you guys understand what HIDs are, how they work, and why the use of projectors is pretty much a necessity. I'll attempt to explain how the bulbs are illuminated, what each part in a basic assembly does and the various colors that are available. What are HIDs? HIDs (High Intensity Discharge) are a bright-shining, low-voltage light globe with a rather aesthetically appealing glow. When most people think of HIDs, they think of those annoying, bright, blue headlights. HIDs can actually come in other colors, such as purples, yellows, orange, green, etc. A HID globe looks like this; Non-HID is on the left. * PHOTO COMING LATER * Please refer to the following picture for reference about the voltage VS color side of things. How do they work? HIDs work by passing a current through a compressed gas. For those who did physics at school, and studied CRTs, you'd have witnessed excited atoms in a vacuum, HIDs work with the same theory. What happens, is the energy from the electrical current excites the particles within the vacuumed HID bulb. These excited particles begin to glow. This glow is rather bright, and it doesn't draw as much power from your cars electrical system as a conventional bulb would. So by using HID bulbs, you're effectively reducing the amount of electrical energy drawn from your battery, and gaining better visibility. Some of you smarter cookies will now realize that if these bulbs run off a lower voltage, how is this regulated? When you install a HID, you'll plug the bulb into a ballast, and said ballast into the cars eletrical system (to replace the old globe). The ballast limits the amount of power going to the bulb, effectively working as a step-down transformer, except it doesn't generate a tremendous amount of heat (in my experience). How does a standard setup look? (No projector) I'm just focussing on the wiring here. * PHOTO COMING LATER * A simple, basic setup goes... BATTERY -> Ballast BALLAST -> HID What are Projectors? Projectors are enclosures which you put your HIDs into before replacing your standard globes. The main features of the HID are the lense and internal light-wave reflection. Refer to the diagram What this basically means, is that light waves won't be shone into the eyes of oncoming traffic, and noone get's blinded. As you can see, the only lightwaves that aren't cut off by the cut-off shield are the ones that would be refracted through the lense, up into the eyes of oncoming traffic. The lightwaves that do pass are reflect back down onto the road. This increases visibility as well, so it's not totally a selfless act Simple write up I might update after reading over it tomorrow / the next day. I'll do photos later. Inspired by this post. If you feel i've got something wrong, please feel free to comment and I'll have a look at it. Sort of went by common sense/basic physics for the majority of this.

HIDs are the types of bulbs. Instead of burning a filament, IIRC there's a gas inside the globe, and when you pass a current through it, the particles are excited and they emit a light. The color of the light, by the sounds of things, is dependent on the voltage being passed through it (which is strange because I thought it'd be affected by the gas?) The projectors are convex lenses which refract light back down onto the road. You know how you pass people and get blinded by their headlights? The HIDs lessen the impact of that. Because HIDs are VERY bright, it's a considerate action to shine them through projectors so people don't swerve towards you, as has happened to me. Rough throw-together; http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Hi...ad-t339646.html

Thanks mate, time to get my hands dirty this arvo ;]

Any specific type of lube you recommend? I'll pop into supercheap or something on the way home.

WD40 sounds like it'll do the trick I had a mechanic do that on my Excel once but the squeaking soon redeveloped. Is a lack of lubricant the only thing causing the squeak?

if it squeaks when you push the pedal in then it could be 1 of 2 issues. 1 is the bracket where the pedal mounts under they dash. the other is the pivot bolt inside the gearbox. the first issue is the easiest to check and fix. the second is relatively easy to check, but much harder to fix as the gearbox has to come out Mine has a squeaking sound audible from outside the car, which isn't all to audible for me but I don't like it being there I'm assuming it's the pivot bolt. Where abouts should I look for that and do I need to take the gearbox out to greese it up?

**EDIT** Ignore me, I followed this link from the DIY section

Hi guys, I'm the Australian Government and we don't want anyone to have unique or interesting cars, because, you know, only hoons drive nice cars.

Skylines are pretty solid imo. Mine was probably flogged, but it's what you get for buying a skyline. I just fix problems as they arise and it's been the best fourth months of my life. Certainly reliable once a fresh battery is put in. Importing imo is safer, only because the car has to pass through the compliance workshop. I'm telling you now, from the stress of importing, driving that car will feel soooo much better. Also, it depends what you want. You can get an already imported R32, you just won't have the social stature of "first owner in aus". Nor will you be able to say "I imported my car" but at the same time, you can say "it's a jspec/jdm/OMFG I HAVE A WAKABA LEAF". Up to you dude, it's purely your personal taste. tl;dr; Japan could give you a safer deal. But it's stressfull. Bashed cars in Aus are fine if you're willing to put the work in. Be careful of cars from japan and make sure they aren't repaired write-offs or anything like that.

Should be interesting. Give me a look this, I've got to see the HTML code it outputs.

OOOO completely forgot that was on tonight.... Might bring my fully sick GTS for a fully sick burnout cuz What time does it start?

http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/Linux-F...-Mobile-Phones/

What you'll find is that there's a different style to the GUI applications and that there's a decent amount of stuff out there if you know how to search for it. VLC can cover a lot of things like screencasting etc as well as playing movies. OpenOffice works like a charm, I know many people who use it, and iirc there's an alternative to that called kOffice for the KDE platform (?). There're many media players for your music that sit nicely in where-ever you've put your taskbar panel. You've got Firefox and Chrome, and if you're a webdev just comply with standards and you'll be fine with browser compatibility. Pidgin for almost every IM platform you can think of, and Digsby should be coming to Linux fairly soon. Steam's not about to release support for nix but there's Wine available for some of the games, plus those people who buy/sell steams it's handy to have it there. But that's just the GUI. Once you get into developing the backbone of systems and you're dealing with command line, there's a plethora of software you can use. If you're just browsing the web, chatting on MSN, listening to music, etc. you're better off with Linux. But if you're gaming etc. you want Windows. If you're a designer or a multi-media type of person, get a mac. Simple.

It'd be hilarious if it did, though.

How much do you reckon it'll cost to ship that strutbar to Sydney? Postcode: 2146

Skyline driver? Being careful on the roads? That's a paradox.

You're kidding... right?

I know TopSecret do test drives on weekends, but you need to let them know to pull the car out for you. Ask TTS if they'll do something similar?

The stocky

Hey Rob, I'm in the Blacktown area, not too available now-a-days but I'll definitely cruise now and then if you want. Damn your GTST though, 196kW legit? I have the GTS25 with like... 98Kw LOL sigh..

In the same boat actually... 2.5" with Cat Converter = $650 installed. Small question; what happens with the muffler? Does it go or stay

Just jumping in; I have a friend who bought a 200sx from Top Secret and it's the hottest car from our graduated year group to this day. I have another friend who I ran into when I went to Top Secret and he took me aside and had a massive bitch about how much of a headache it was getting whatever he was looking at landed and complied through them. My encounter, customer service at TSI was superb, chilled out there for almost an hour chatting about skylines with one of the salesmen who pretty much had the same garage as I wanted. If I wanted to grab a car that was imported and avoid the headache of the aussy government, I'd probably go through TSI or j-spec.

Yeah but there's no room for discussion. For eg/ http://hyperaustralia.com/forums/viewforum...0c87e368f098805

There is nothing new to the iPhone that makes me want to buy it. They're releasing features that other phones have, the only thing they've got going for them is their App Store and Developer base. The only real iPhone killer is Googles Android, and even that's not looking too promising. The Mameo or whatever it's called is a f**king amazing platform, but it's aimed at the nerds and not the general public. It's running an OpenSource styled development community by the looks of things, so updates and fixes are quick but you're not going to get lulzy games like AngryBirds or WeRule on it. In summary; not worth it.

Where are you guys getting your HKS mushrooms, and how much? I'll go check with Streetech down the road...