Warpspeed

Back again, my ISP cut me off. It seems to me that your parents are in a position to get their way, right or wrong. So the n/a Skyline is probably the best option at this stage, just to keep the peace. Start looking around, Saturdays Age, Trading Post, Internet, and so on. If you have the money all lined up, you may just strike it lucky. Driving skills are not just being able to handle the car, but being able to cope with sudden situations created by other drivers (idiots). Driving at night, and in the wet are also things that take some getting used to. I live just around the corner to you in Black Rock, so know Beach Road very well. A great place to live.

You have raised an interesting point about n/a cars being difficult to sell. I have no idea ? If its true then perhaps you may be able to pick up a real bargain n/a locally, rather than import. There may be other advantages such as being able to see and drive the car, and not having to wait.

Silver Arrowz is right. If you buy a bare motor, all the other parts will certainly make you cry. With a front cut you get absolutely everything down to the last washer and hoseclip. You also get to see how it all goes together. Shop around and get some prices.

You sound like a pretty smart level headed sort of person to me, and you already have the insurance angle all figured out. Get the n/a, and be happy that your parents were prepared to tip in 5K. Start saving for the GTST, and when you have that, start saving for the GTR. By the time you can afford these cars you will have enough self confidence and experience to handle the performance. Unless you have a major prang, your parents are going to realise that you are not a boy anymore. Parents are like that.

Sounds to me like 33GTS-4 with big brakes fitted. If it is, then you could also consider getting a GTR front cut and swapping in all the bits. This would be the low cost way, but is a lot of work. If you sell your car and buy a GTR it is going to save a lot of trouble, but cost more. Depends on how you value your time, and if you have the tools, knowledge, and facilities I suppose.

Seems to me that if you can afford to get a n/a, get it now. Like the rest of us you will want to make it go faster, and add little goodies as you can afford them. Insurance is also a big thing to think about as well. The bit by bit method might also be a way around your parents concerns.

I have a full three inch system that is quieter than stock (true) under light load, or when you rev it up in neutral. On the freeway all I can hear is wind and tyre roar at 100Kmh. Flat out it is fairly loud, but probably still legal though. I have been sitting on zero points now for three and a half years. A month ago there was a police car going in the other direction, In the rear view mirror I saw him do a U turn and come up fast behind me, I eased off (using the handbrake) and was just below the speed limit. He put on the flashing lights and pulled me over. Walked right around the car, it looks completely stock, and told me my front numberplate was illegible. He was right. Cost me $24 for a pair of nice shiny new plates, which make the car look better anyhow. Now if he had looked under the car, or under the bonnet, he would have put me off the road instantly for illegal modifications. My car is fairly radical, but because it is quiet and looks stock I can get away with it.

I know the feeling. The trouble is, that once they hear you coming, and focus their beady little eyes on you, you are stuffed. When they have you pulled over on the side of the road, you are going to get the full works. Licence check, rego check, tyres, ground clearance, blow into this driver, - they are going to find something, even if its total BS. Best just to glide past them in complete silence, and let the guy behind in the rice mobile, get done instead. Hehe.

A loud car may be cool, but it is also a cop magnet. Trust me.

Turbos quieten the exhaust a lot. The passageway in the snail of the exhaust housing tapers down to a small slot. The exhaust gas speeds up to very high speed to drive the turbine. The restriction in the exhaust housing tends to smooth the exhaust flow, and this will greatly reduce the noise level. Droning is caused by a resonance in the full length of the exhaust pipe. Pressure waves move back and forth along the pipe, and at certain speeds can build up to a deafening level. Large diameter pipes are far worse because the sound travels more easily down the centre of the pipe. Small bore pipes offer a pressue drop, and this, along with pipe friction dissipates the sound down the pipe. It dies away going in both directions and cannot build up in amplitude to create the deafening drone. There are several ways to overcome this problem, but chief among them are absorbtion, and decoupling sections of pipe to create sound traps. Absorbtion is the primary function of the muffler. Fibreglass or steel wool within the muffler absorb the sound by converting the pressure waves to frictional heat. This does not work too well with straight through mufflers and large diameter pipes, because the sound goes straight down the middle without much absorbtion effect. Decoupling sections of pipe is achieved by placing one or more chambers along the pipe. These chambers are usually within, and part of the mufflers construction. What happens is a pressure wave travels along the pipe, and when it reaches a chamber the wave tends to spread out to fill the large volume. Some of the wave is reflected back, some is dissipated in filling the chamber, and some carries on down the pipe, but reduced in strength. If the chamber volume is large enough compared to pipe volume, and if the chamber is perhaps half way down the pipe, then the two sections of pipe will behave independantly. They are decoupled, and will tend to drone at their own resonant period. If you are really clever, or fortunate, the two separate pipe resonances can fight each other and further reduce the sound. Mega GTS4 is spot on with his advice, but this type of muffler does not work properly if placed right at the back. It must be mounted somewhere near the middle, or towards the front.

Looks like one of those monster trucks that climb all over your car and squash it totally flat. Do not laugh at this guy, he may just get mad at you, and show you.

If you can get the complete setup, grab it with both hands ! If you later change your mind, you can always sell it to someone else. Finding one when you want one can be tough though. That is why I grabbed this one, even though I dont have a Skyline to fit it on yet. When I finally get my 33GTS-4 to install it on, I will be running an Apexi FC with (larger) single airflow meter. That way all the wiring stays completely original and undisturbed.

Well the six throttle body manifold does all the same things that a stock manifold does. It is just a totally different shape. I bet all the standard features such as TPS, fast idle, PCV , air and water temperature sensors, and so on are all still there. I would also bet that the same sensors and plugs are used, but may need to be moved a bit. Same with the throttle cable and water hoses. It may all look a bit frightening, but may not be that difficult to sort it all out one step at a time, if you can figure out what it all does.

Thanks Rev, no worries on the workshop facilities. I have a bridgeport mill at home, so can make the bugger fit no matter what! But, as this has already been done by others, it cannot be too hard. Well aware of the throttle body synchronisation difficulty. These are an original matched set still locked with a dob of factory white paint on the threads. Cleaned up with all the oil grunge and carbon removed, I can just see the faintest bit of light through each throttle when shut against the stops, so should be o/k. Thanks for the advice.

Yes turtle, I am in the south eastern suburbs. I do all my own exhaust fabrication at home, so cannot realy advise on where to take it. Mufflers and mandrel bends generally have a recommended price, so it does not make a huge difference where you order these from. Fitting the damned things can be expensive though, price and workmanship can vary a lot. Having the outlet to one side is not really a problem, you can sometimes just move the pipe over a bit without things getting too far out of line. Or else a couple of gentle additional bends will get the pipe centre line back to where it was. Another way, is two similar mufflers back to back. Where you put it is also important. The inevitable additional pressure drop is going to be the same wherever it goes, but the noise drop is going to be greater if there is a signifant length of pipe after the muffler. Ground clearance may be a problem though.

Well I have the GTR throttle body setup, but no car to try it on. My understanding is that it will not fit onto an RB20, as the head is quite different. The actual head castings for the RB25 and RB26 cylinder heads are identical. Same ports, same valves, same water passages, same everything. There are a few very minor machining differences though between the two. I have been told by several very reliable people that the inlet manifold will fit straight on, but the dual GTR exhaust manifolds will not. But because the castings are the same, four of the exhaust studs can be easily moved. I have magazine pictures of an RB25 with the GTR inlet setup, this was a Nizpro project a long long time ago. But no, I have not actually done this myself - Yet.

Get yourself a conventional oval type muffler, not a straight through type. This will have internal baffles, and chambers, and you will not be able to see straight through it. Fit this as far forward as you can find a place it will fit. This will reduce the noise. The pipe after the muffler will the give you a nice "note". This is really the same as a drone, but nowhere near as loud.

Sell it to someone else that has a turbo. Seriously, otherwise it is going to drone and drive you mad no matter what you do. Go down to a smaller pipe size and get a decent rear muffler for it.

No

My first choice would be a GTR setup, which is what I now have. If your going to fabricate your own plenum to fit on top of the existing manifold lower half, that would also be a very good setup. The most important feature is to have large well developed bellmouths, where the intake runners enter the plenum. And make the plenum volume fairly large as well. This is exactly what you can buy off the shelf from Sub Zero, apparantly a very good modification from what I hear.

Well funky, the actual door catch mechanism bolted to edge of the door is connected to the lock barrel, and the door lock tab with long metal rods. There may also be a third rod connecting to an electric lock/unlock solenoid mounted inside the door. Now the way your thief gets into the car is by either lifting the locking tab with a coathanger, or something. Or else jambing a huge screwdriver into the lock barrel, and with his massive tatooed arms, ripping the lock barrel around, and out of the door. Bingo he is in. The screwdriver method takes two seconds, and anyone casually watching from a distance would not even realise he did not use a key to gain entry. Now if you remove the metal rod to the lock barrel, even with the correct key (or a screwdriver) rotating the lock is not going to get you in. Your door and paint is badly damaged though. This is how I lost my car. The screwdriver trick also works the same on the ignition lock. Ask me how I know (sigh....) So what you do is connect your alarm to your electric central locking. Push your remote, and all doors unlock. A hidden key is not going to get you into the car though, but it will still get you into the boot, where you hide a spare remote, and a spare key for the steering wheel lock. DAMQUIK uses a hidden button to gain entry, this may be better, depending on the particular circumstances. If you are going to respray your doors, I would totally remove the lock barrels, to totally confuse and frustrate the bad guys. Make your doors look better too.

Same here. I had one car stolen, so as you can imagine, its not gonna happen again.

You can be sure that an end throttle body plenum designed by the original manufacturer is going to have reasonably good air distribution between cylinders. If you look inside you can often see ridges, humps, steps, and all sorts of design features to ensure equal air distribution. The designer is interested in emmissions and fuel economy, if not absolute maximum power. The air velocity in the plenum will also not be extremely high in a stock motor. Trouble starts when you try to get twice or three times the power out of the same motor using a stock plenum. The air velocities go up a fair bit, and things start to wrong with the air distribution. That is why very large plenums are often fitted to high power engines, and work well, even if the individual port runner sizes are no bigger. Any serious engine is going to have a fair bit of airflow work carried out on the cylinder head, and matching the airflows with the plenum fitted is all part of this.

Well Funky, I can get into yours anytime I want with a fifty pound sledge hammer. It is much quicker too, like a demonstration ? Seriously though, if someone really wants into your car there is no way to keep them out. But having your own sneaky way in is the smart thing to do. If all you do is hide the key, well yes, the insurance company may not be real impressed if it goes off one day, and is found stripped and burned with no forced entry. But if you have SEVERAL security devices to lock, alarm, and immobilise the vehicle, then getting in is really only the beginning of several problems for the would be thief. Another point is that when you buy a commercial alarm kit, they give you those silly warning stickers for the windows. This tells the thief exactly what you have fitted. Make your own stickers. The word ALARM is all you need. I am also convinced that a very visible, very ugly, huge, enormous and immensly strong homemade steering wheel lock is a better deterent than any cheapie hardware shop special. It demonstates that you are serious, are a bit of a handyman, and probably have a few other little surprises fitted as well.

Stick with it Nismo Girl, I hav blown up/ broken down, sworn and cried a few times over the years. But hell it has been worth it though. Good luck.