SS8_Gohan

your empty is not exactly empty.... if it was actually empty you wouldn't be driving around still would you?

where's the alternator? i read you gotta cover that up

hahahah yep sounds fine to me do you drive a lot? regularly fill up once a week? or do you rarely actually fill it, just put in a bit every now and then? the fuel guage can be a bit finicky if you don't fill it often. Don't know why, maybe something dries out and doesn't work as it should. But i reckon just keep the car topped up for a few weeks and see how you go, guage might come back to life.

some of those spots are hard to get to though maybe i'll go half way and get a pump spray bottle of warm water and use that to rinse of the degreaser

ok, giving the car a massive going over and it's time for the engine bay. problem is, i'm a noob when it comes to engines, and i don't know what all the bits and pieces are. So when i started cleaning yday i was worried about pretty much everything getting wet Which is silly, because i drive the bloody thing in the rain, and i know it gets wet in there... anyways, i've got a pic that i hope will help stole this from a for sale thread, hope the owner doesn't mind 1. Back wall/drivers side, ok to spray there? (there's some big round thing mounted on the wall) 2. back wall/passenger side. There is a silver box thing there (abs?) that doesn't look like would want to get wet 3. down side of engine and side of driver's side strut tower... a lot of plugs/lines etc there 4. Back wall/middle - again, quite a bit of electronics back there... i'm guess leave that back wall middle section? 5. Down turbo side of engine, where the power steering fluid bottle is 6. Fan area 7. Front of engine Obviously i won't be going near the battery area, and the headlights. From the numbers, what should i be leaving well alone and what is ok to spray? Or are there really only a few things that should be covered up? cheers, daniel

your best bet for flow and quietness would be a Race Pace one, or so the GTR owners say.

wow... elitist much way to go and make yourself look like a complete tool shall we bring back apartheid as well perhaps?

i think some of the problems stem from the great rep Vu and DT have, and people rock up there thinking they'll be leaving their cars with a bunch of ex-Lamborghini spray painters, freshly imported from Italy. You have to be REALISTIC people! Panel beating is expensive not only in labour costs but also in materials as well! Go to a top shop and ask how much MATERIALS alone would cost. Problem is it's a labour intensive profession as well, so it's double whammy from both sides. I mean, my goodness, Vu would actually send you elsewhere if he thinks you're after something that DT wouldn't particularly offer. Not many places are going to do that. DT caters for the Jap car market, predominantly - we're not respraying $100K+ cars - we're not generally fitting genuine $$ or OEM plastic kits (well, unless you're stupid like me ) - we have bang for buck cars, and the import parts/performance industry as a whole is catered around that 'value for money' idea. We take pride in the fact we don't get assed raped like the euro community. I just shake my head at some of the costs involved in the family bimmers. Despite that, Damian @ Final Inspection still couldn't believe the quality of the respray that i got for the money i paid. And he has seen practically every painted vehicle surface imaginable. Of course he could pick up on little things here and there, he's a perfectionist, that's his job, but nothing that couldn't be easily fixed. IMO, for people who've had a recent respray or planning on having a respray, i think the best thing to do is get Vu to spray it and tell him that you'll be going to Damian @ Final Inspection after. What you do is get a DT respray, then get a Stage 6 detail (approx ~1K) and walk away with a flawless finish. Show quality, $10K+ plus type paint job, but for less than half the price. A nice flat finish, and you'd have uniform micrometre film build across the car, essential for a top quality finish. I'll be giving my car a thorough detail over the next week or so, and will probably start a thread somewhere so you guys can get a better look at some of the DT's work.

thanks Anth, hope your car gets all sorted soon You're probably right, i probably will regret it but i'm sure it'll make way for something else just as nice... hopefully That's why i've advertised on SAU first (just put one up on ns.com the other day) as i'm hoping to sell it to someone who will appreciate it and look after it properly. Gazz: i did the front first and but you just can't leave it after doing the front. It's so low and mean, it just had to be finished off. So i did a few comments about the rear diffuser, so i thought i'd put a pic up. Car is quite dirty in this pic, so excuse that, but i'm working my way from the inside out in the big clean. Again, professionally installed by the boys at Status Tuning - i was dubious about how much difference it was going to make, but i can guarantee you it does make a big difference. So much so, my g/f who is not the least bit interested in cars and drives an auto 'rolla could notice how much more stable it was at speed. You won't notice it puttering around at 60km/hr etc... but say accelerating onto the freeway or down the straights at Sandown... easily noticeable. Very happy with this particular mod. I think there's one for in the for sale section for about $2,500 if anyone else is keen And for those with keen eyes, those rear tyres are the spare set of Bridgestone 265/35's (going with the car) - so i'm not even driving around on my near new KU36's at the moment Might chance them over just before handing over the car, so as to keep them as fresh as possible for the lucky new owner Gotta love the R34 GTR rim fitment on GT-T's.... flush

really? just had a quick wiki.... about 96 RON, bit more stable in terms of water contamination and less corrosive than ethanol but wouldn't you lose all the goodness of knock properties of the E85? and doesn't seem like it would make more, or even the same amount of power as E85? this is just what i gleamed from a quick wiki glance, so could be way off the mark.

4 years and counting. No issues.

thanks mate you have a very tasty 33 as well!

which was my point previous. I provided a genuine Jap kit, and we had no issues what-so-ever. Paint match is perfect too. Hell, even my dad's 335i rear bumper that got sprayed at none-other than Mr Gloss, the colour match is not perfect in all lights. Rear bumper alone was probably half the price of a DT respray. the problem is though, for 'some' of those that are unhappy, wouldn't want to pay the prices of Mr Gloss or Charli Batisti (or even MiColour) so where does that leave you then?

in all fairness, if it's TMU, then that IS their job. Even if that job is directed from above with the view to just collect money.

was just down there today, and was having a chat about new processes and equipment, from what i could tell things have stepped up a couple of notches. And I had my whole car and kit resprayed there, and most people know what the condition/quality of my paint is like (nearly 4 years on now) i guess there is always going to be good and bad experiences at every workshop (still never heard of one bad word about Race Pace though, hahah, exception that proves the rule perhaps) and i don't want to be the devils advocate but there are 2 sides to every story, and panel beating sometimes can just be about making the best of what's been given to you if budget is not a huge one. Hopefully the above concerns are not related to after market fibreglass kits etc, because like i said... you can only do so much with what's been presented sometimes. Just my 2 cents. bit sad to hear Julz that it's come to what it's come to for you I tell a lot of people to head to Vu as well. Kris, everything seemed ok when i was chatting to you about your car at RE the other night? something pop-up since? sorry to hear as well got any pics 'glaze'?

yes, pics please i wouldn't be free on sunday to get the car, so was unable to enter Are you cereal?? the bathurst R is there??

well my front bumper from powerplay (with full lip/diffuser) was approx $3K back in the day. The front bumper is ABS Plastic, or plastic injected moulded. NOT fibreglass. Rest of the kit is just damn good fibreglass. DT Panels just bolted it on, very, very little work was needed, basically just a fit and forget. So full kit plus shipping to wherever you are in oz would be in that range, but it seems powerplay have taken down the prices though. This was 2006 or 2007 when i got it off them. Dollar and Yen was comparable, high 70's, low 80's. If you're referring to the RAW Yen price, yeah it is prob around the $3100 AUD mark. But then you've got shipping WITHIN japan. Shipping OUT of Japan. Shipping AGAIN when in Australia to get it to you or your panel beater, and you gotta pay some taxes and commissions to whoever sends it to you/organises it for you. Easily $1.5k or more there (prob closer to $2k to be honest). Then you have to fit and paint, which if you want to go on the cheaper side would be $1.5K-$2K (and up!), depending where you go. Luckily there wouldn't need to be countless hours spent trying to make the damn thing fit. So i guess if you go direct from EB and get someone to organise it, you could save maybe $1K than going from one of the official distributors, then my price range is more reflective of a fitted and painted estimate. Maybe better to say range was direct vs official distributor. But this is a for sale thread, not an East Bear discussion thread. Thank you.

^ hahahaha, so true

thanks for the comments everyone Just paid rego, so as of 29th March, this car will have 12 MONTHS rego. Obviously this is transferable interstate as well - that's $612 right there the new owner won't have to pay and in other news http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-news/the-...00324-qv7k.html And this is just Caltex. There is no way the other major players are going to let one chain have all the fun. Very soon E85 will be readily available, making this car a quite cheap alternative as all the supporting modifications and tuning work has been carried out for you! And might i add by one of Australia's best tuners. Trent @ Status/Chequered Tuning (Trent has done ALL the tuning for this car, BP98 or E85) As previously stated, this car has full maps for E85 and BP98, AND 2 maps for the 2 types of E85 fuels. United's CSR Fuel, and the opposing Manildra E85. So which-ever E85 Caltex decides to run (probably Manildra) you'll be covered. And again, car will come with maps on a USB drive, along with USB consult cable so you can switch between maps with a laptop and Nistune (can be provided). Most fuel systems for a simple highflow upgrade, etc, won't be able to handle E85. That's why i have such big injectors. Still more room to play with if anyone wants to go even more power This car is very much the complete package people. Usually it's a trade off for looks or condition or power, etc. But i wanted to make sure this car was balanced across all the areas that i think are important. It obviously has the looks (very rare looks), the suspension is more than up to the task for the power being made (where A LOT of modified skylines are lacking); more power than is really necessary on the street, but is a nice sweet spot for these cars, ~280-290rwkw; braking sufficiently taken car of via Nismo lines, the best fluid and good pads; not to mention new near KU36's (with spare muck around set) to keep you stuck to the road. And of course the actual condition of the car As complete a package RWD Skyline that you'll likely to find

probably because the greater the gap in the numbers, the more additives have to be used, and potentially the more 'compromised' the oil becomes. That's why for the true synthetics you don't see the big gaps like 5w40 too much. You WANT the numbers to be as close as possible. And regarding the E85 fuel question... there's not much info around about this unfortunately but there is ONE oil that is definitely off the list, Motul 300V Chrono. And before anyone gets their knickers in a knot, Motul themselves have advised against running their oil in E85 cars. I feel at the moment, it's safer to stick with the yank oils if you want to run E85, because they've been dealing with ethanol for longer than we have and have a wider availability of E85 for longer as well. Currently running AMSoil 10w40, after switching from Royal Purple. Pity really because i was going to switch to Motul 300V, oh well. Yeah, 5,000km drains on an oil like 300V is overkill. You buy a top shelf oil because it's not just going to shit itself after 1 week in your car. The oil is still work as designed at 10,000km and probably a decent bit longer as well. Obviously track days aside, 10K for a very good oil is fine. But i still like to go with time OR km's. I'm sure a lot of use don't do too many km's a year so i usually do say 6months OR 7,500km's... which ever is first. You might not do the km's, but the oil still has been sitting in the car for a while.

Ok, got up to here. Got the gearshift surround out. Those metal clips i was looking at were just to keep the ash-tray in place... whoops I undid those screws, but it doesn't really allow for anything to come out. I just gently pulling up from the bottom, but it looks like the climate control wants to go with it OR the din surround bit slips under the CC somehow. What's the next step from here? Pull everything out as well, getting a very thorough clean

EDIT: took rd name out in case owner is not happy about it it's wheelers hill, i've seen the car (but not wrapped) and my g/f just lives up the road. $3750 ey.... do you know what material was used? 3M? Arlon? Avery?

ok, i pulled the ash-tray out, and undid the 1 screw. There are 2 metal clips showing, which from what you guys have said are for the gearshift surround. I've tried pushing them down, pulling them up etc, but didn't want to break anything. Which was do they 'unclip' to let the gearshift surround out? sorry, i'm not very DIY

sweet! that all sounds pretty straight forward. Thanks lads!!

that is sooooooooo cool