North American car experiences

[SS8_Gohan]

Thought i'd share some of my car experiences whilst i was away in Canada and USA in Feb.

Rice? Not as much as i thought there would be. Obviously USA had more, altho the Canada's were still into it. Basically where-ever there are Honda's, there will be Rice. It's just a given, a law of Nature if you will. But on the whole seem to stop at one mod, either just exhaust or rims or lowered. Saw one Honda with twin exhaust 350Z style, but llike 5 inch tip. But unfortunately, they one side was CONNECTED to anything! Just stuck on under the rear bar, i thought that was pretty pathetic. I was in L.A. and Vegas, and really didn't see too much rice. I think Melbourne has a heap more rice cars.

Mustang are REALLY popular and not sure why Ford OZ sell them here more widely, i'm sure they'd real well. V8 and all. There was one which sounded absolutely nuts and looked really mean, any of u Mustang enthusiasts, know anything about a "Mach 1" I think that was the badge i saw.

And yes i did see some spinning wheels on an Escalade.

L.A. had an abundence of Ferrari's, Porsches, BMW's, Mercs. Some absolutely pimpalicious Merc's. CL500's, jet black tint, lowered, 18inch chromes. Not shit chromes that u see on celica's with the swirling sun-flower look, that look like friggen plastic. But mean, phat chromes.

Nissan is doing EXTREMELY well over there. A HEAP of Skylines, or G35's. Coupes and Sedans, 350Z's (lots of those), Altima's, and Murano's. The new 4WD which Nissan oz is having a little trouble with cos of the name, sounds too much like Monaro But yeah, Nissan was doing very well and i must admit the G35 Coupe looks a lot better in the flesh.

Another interesting thing i saw was a billboard ad for a G35X Coupe. Yep, that's right a 4WD Skyling Coupe. Just a couple of Turbo's away now! I think the first skyline since the R32 to have the top-spec engine (non-GTR) to go with 4WD. So GTR is looking promising if they've already got a Skyline Coupe with 4WD.

In terms of Speed camera's and speed enforcing... NONE! No fixed camera's, no red light/speed camera's. No patrol cars i saw on the many highways of Vegas, Arizona, California, L.A. checking speed. Only time i saw it was in Canada, on the road to Whistler/Blackcomb. It was a particularly twisty, wet and bad conditioned road where they set up shop. I have NO arguments against having patrol cars with speed camera's on a stretch of road like that. That was ALL about safety.

WRX's no where near as popular as here. They've also got 2.5 ltr WRX's the bastards. I'm sure they'd go alright Kinda like a 3ltr Turbo Skyline i guess

What else was interesting... um, oh. lots of XENONs, lots of cars had xenons, very popular. Lots of M3's too. Saw a couple of new Evo's, not too bad with the visible FMIC

that's about all i can remember, sorry bout the long post!

[Rezz]

Aaaah, pics??? C'mon Daniel! You couldn't have gone all that way without taking any pics?

Thanks for the insight about the car scene over there in Nth America, I will look into that G35X coupe...

[88silhouette]

gday boys I was in USA last may/june 2003

only saw a handful of done up cars. and their version of done up is as daniel points out, xenonx. and some had shitty exhausts.

350z was taking off over there bigtime (infiniti I believe)

going to canada for 3 weeks then back to USA for 3 weeks this July. I promise I'll take pics. anyone wanna lend me their digital camera??... hehe

cheers, MARK

[VIPERGTSR01]

going to canada for 3 weeks then back to USA for 3 weeks this July. I promise I'll take pics. anyone wanna lend me their digital camera??... hehe

cheers, MARK

what a coincidence i am doing the exect thing, in july i will be going to LA spending a week there, then driving across to Alberta canada (i have family there). in total i will be in the US for about 3 weeks and Canada for 3 weeks aswell. i will also take lots of pics

[Elithrar]

Thanks for the insight about the car scene over there in Nth America, I will look into that G35X coupe...

Try get some concrete details; from what I know, it uses a modified ATESSA system...

[sewid]

G35X will be sedan only and 5 speed auto only. I dont think there are any plans for a G35X coupe 6mt.

It's not as exciting as you think

But yeah they are calling the AWD setup "ATTESSA ET-S"

heres a blurb:

The key to the performance of the new all-wheel drive G35 is its state-of-the-art ATTESA E-TS all-wheel drive system, which is arguably one of the most advanced on-pavement all-wheel drive systems in the world.  

The ATTESA E-TS, which stands for Advanced Total Traction Engineering System for All Electronic Torque Split, utilizes an electro-magnetic clutch control design (in contrast to typical oil pressure clutch control) to provide quicker response, lighter weight (approximately 22 pounds lighter than a similar oil pressure clutch control design with center differential) and true variable torque distribution, ranging from 50:50 up to 0:100 percent front-to-rear ratio (versus fixed ratio competitive systems).  

Some of the G35 system's benefits over front-wheel drive-based AWD systems with traditional center differentials include:  

Faster torque distribution control response to changes in road conditions  

Ability to adjust torque without the onset of wheel spin allows G35 to uniquely optimize the torque distribution based on driving conditions  

Better base performance due to rear-wheel drive base layout (versus front-wheel drive based AWD layouts)  

Better standing start performance on snow through use of Snow-Mode switch

[SS8_Gohan]

I'm almost 100% sure the billboard was a G35X -"Coupe"- Anyone wanna send me back to Vancouver to check? It was just outside the airport, oh wait... maybe that was L.A.... oh well, someone can send me to both places and i'll check for ya

Another few interesting tid-bits. There highest rating fuel was 91 Octane Now if that is comparible to our petrol, then that's shithouse!! It usually went 87 Normal, 89 Premium, 91 Top stuff. And i thought Australia had shit petrol! Altho i'm guessing 91 Nth American isn't 91 Oz.

Saw the "240sx" - or 180sx or 200sx (S13 and S14) -

Oh yeah, also i saw quite a few convertible Sil80's. It seemed that every convertible i saw of an S13 was a Sil80, as if you couldn't get it in any other variation. 180sx front, Silvia rear. Weren't too bad looking.

And last thing i forgot to mention, practically EVERY car and model has a 4WD variant. BMW 3 Series, or BMW's in general have X-Drive. I think just the X3 and X5, and 3 Series. I don't think it was avaible for 5, 7's. I would LOVE to see an M3-X or Z4 3.0i X - that would be absolute grip central Can't remember what Merc's 4WD drive system was called. But BMW's had an 'X' in the badge.

that's about all i remember, oh.. DODGE VIPERS ARE F*CKING PHAT!!! Low and wide as anything!! Would love one.

hahah, how could i forget. I went to the "Nissan Open" PGA Tour event. Watched Tiger Woods

Rezz - sorry mate!!! I was on holidays and being a lazy bum, so i just looked and would sometimes reach for the camera, but was either too late or couldn't be bothered. I kept thinking of ur thread too! But u take pics of cars we don't have, i'm sure u've seen all the ones i've mentioned. Except maybe the Escalade with the spinning rims

cheers

[DaiOni]

Great post - nice insights

"Basically where-ever there are Honda's, there will be Rice. It's just a given, a law of Nature if you will. "

This is SO true. I'd like to point out, however, that 'rice' is almost certainly an american concept (albeit dealing with japanese cars) - anyone who doesn't know this, please be informed (no inference on original poster). Some of the older rice fads are only just beginning to hit japan!

"Altho i'm guessing 91 Nth American isn't 91 Oz."

Correct. Different rating.

"Mustang are REALLY popular and not sure why Ford OZ sell them here more widely"

Because the australian market is relatively small, and already 'flooded' with v8 choices (or more to the point - the same bogans have been buying the same type of car for generations). They've never had much luck trying to bring new products to this particular sector of the market

[StraightSix]

Another few interesting tid-bits. There highest rating fuel was 91 Octane Now if that is comparible to our petrol, then that's shithouse!! It usually went 87 Normal, 89 Premium, 91 Top stuff. And i thought Australia had shit petrol! Altho i'm guessing 91 Nth American isn't 91 Oz.

How do you guys rate your fuel? We rate it as "PON", which is (MON+RON)/2. You can get 94 octane quite a few places.

Saw the "240sx" - or 180sx or 200sx (S13 and S14) -  

Oh yeah, also i saw quite a few convertible Sil80's. It seemed that every convertible i saw of an S13 was a Sil80, as if you couldn't get it in any other variation. 180sx front, Silvia rear. Weren't too bad looking.

The 240sx is the same as the 180sx except for the engine which is either a KA24E 2.4L SOHC 12 valve in the early years or a KA24DE 2.4L DOHC 16 valve later on. Pretty good engines, but no turbo. Some guys (rare) tune the KA24E, you can get roughly 220hp out of them at the most for street use. More common is to turbo the KA24DE. It does pretty well. The S13 coupe that we got would be called a "One-via" everywhere else - for some odd reason Nissan decided to put the 180SX front on the coupe. The hatchback looks the same. And all the convertibles were as you describe. All auto, too

Cheers

Jason

[Elithrar]

Our fuel is rated using the RON 'standard' (resultant octane number?)

Our best fuel (and the stuff 'we' run Skylines/Silvias on) is RON98, though they are tuned for Japanese RON100, so we suffer from a slight performance loss.

Our 'Premium' is RON95, and our standard 'Unleaded' is RON91/92 -- depends how much of that corrosive ethanol is added.

[DaiOni]

"The 240sx is the same as the 180sx"

200sx

[~Hypnotik~]

Oh yeah, also i saw quite a few convertible Sil80's. It seemed that every convertible i saw of an S13 was a Sil80, as if you couldn't get it in any other variation. 180sx front, Silvia rear. Weren't too bad looking.  

cheers

As said before, it's a Onevia, not a Sileighty. Sileighty is a Silvia front and 180sx rear.

[DaiOni]

"The 240sx is the same as the 180sx"

200sx AND 180sx

[red900ss]

RON - research octane number

[sewid]

I'm almost 100% sure the billboard was a G35X -"Coupe"- Anyone wanna send me back to Vancouver to check? It was just outside the airport, oh wait... maybe that was L.A.... oh well, someone can send me to both places and i'll check for ya

I've been following the whole G35, G35X, Coupe, Sedan thing for a while now. If they were bringing the G35X out in the coupe there would be a lot more news about it.

The infiniti website makes no mention of an AWD coupe:

http://www.infiniti.com/content/model/Mode...,,30568,00.html

but they do list the AWD option on the sedan:

http://www.infiniti.com/content/model/Mode...,,30648,00.html

Maybe you can find some more info/pics?

[StraightSix]

Apologies for the thread resurrection but this last weekend was our biggest car show of the year here in Manitoba. I was there and got a few pictures which are in my gallery now. There were more street rods than I show, and also quite a few lowriders, but I guess I may have overlooked those for some unaccountable reason

This show was actually pretty bad compared to those a year and two years ago. Most of the better imports were AWOL.

The scene here is quite small in absolute terms since Manitoba has only a little over a million people in an area three times the size of Texas, and most of them (600000 or so) are in the city of Winnipeg. But we do have the best cruise night in Canada More people are into the domestic stuff than imports, but imports are where the growth is. The first Skyline is due to arrive next month or maybe June - they'll never know what hit 'em :Bang:

So yeah, check out my gallery, the pix are not the greatest ever and the scene is actually better than that (honest), but it'll give you a bit of an idea.

Cheers

Jason

[Silver-Arrowz]

I'm heading over soon and on my to do list is to drive a Dodge Viper. V10.... oh baby!

[sammus]

yeah they love their mustangs...

here's a mach 1... driven by a school girl trying to do a rolling burnout

'