mikuni

That looks more GTR than 350z

Pretty sure 350z have gearbox at the front end

Good point, all that turbo stuff should have given it away. lol

I thought about this last night, and to avoid having to do heaps of tunnel work to get a RWD transmission into a FWD car I reckon it would be cool to use a Nissan 350Z drivetrain.

 

If you do something choice like run the exhausts out the front guards or behind the front wheels on each side, you could fill the Honda tunnel, that is normally full of exhaust, with the driveshaft. It will be a tight squeeze and might need a bit of modification, but no where near as much as trying to get a transmission in there.

 

You would need to hack the rear up to get the transmission in the back, but you'd be doing that for slicks/tubs anyway, so no big deal. Something hatch back like would be easier to do this with than a coupe or sedan, just because it's more open.

 

350Z

Genesis: how Super Touring came to life

By Gary Watkins

AUTOSPORT writer

It is arguably the most important British export in motorsport history. What started as the 'two-litre touring car formula', conceived to breathe new life into the British Touring Car Championship, spread around the globe as Class 2 and then Super Touring.

Yet the significance of the category goes beyond its successes through the 1990s. It remodelled the motorsport landscape.

Super Touring democratised production-based motorsport by bulldozing the barriers to participation for the manufacturers, not just in touring car racing but also rallying and eventually even sportscars.

The expensive and often-controversial homologation special, once de rigueur for success on the racetrack or the rally stage, has disappeared, and the world has Super Touring to thank for that.

The ideas at the heart of Super Touring were transferred to rallying and became the World Rally Car formula. Super 2000 was effectively 'Son of Super Touring' and, over in sportscar racing, the ultra-successful GT3 category followed the same thought process.

The two-litre formula was born out of frustrations with a BTCC that was dominated by the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 at the front, yet potentially won by a car scrapping it out down the order in one of the lesser classes within the Group A category. And this was at a time when the series was reaching a wider audience thanks to TV coverage.

"The championship was unpromotable," says Jonathan Ashman, under whose remit the BTCC fell in his capacity as RAC MSA marketing director. "It was also all about the RS500; no one else wanted to compete, and I knew the reasons why.

"I'd spent the previous four years as sales director at Toyota in the UK and I always had guys from the motorsport side asking me for a budget for racing or rallying. When I asked what car they wanted to use, they always said the Celica or the Supra. That was no use to me, because I could sell every one of those I could get [from Japan]. I told them that if they could race or rally one of our mid-range four-door saloons, I could find a budget."

At the same time, the teams competing in the series could see the writing on the wall. Their quest to come up with an alternative was driven by self interest.

"We knew the RS500's homologation was due to run out and the prospect was for one or two Nissan Skylines running around at the front," recalls BTCC stalwart Andy Rouse. "The car was expensive and not very recognisable to people watching on TV. We knew we needed something else."

David Richards at Prodrive, which had moved onto the race circuits for the first time in 1988 and then ran a proper multi-car BMW-backed campaign in 1989, understood the frustrations of his paymasters. The M3 was competing in Class B and wasn't winning races. And that meant it wasn't playing a starring part on TV.

"I could tell BMW was getting frustrated," explains Richards. "The new rules were driven by commercial imperatives: our business at Prodrive is selling motorsport programmes to manufacturers."

The idea was to replace Group A with something much more inclusive so more manufacturers could come and play. They would be encouraged to do so by the chance of racing the model they most likely sold the most - the four-door family saloon, or repmobile. The engine would be of two litre capacity, because just about everyone had one of those.

It was a simple idea, but who came up with it isn't clear. Given its subsequent success, it should come as no surprise that there's a queue of people ready to put their hand up and say, 'It was me'.

Richards claims the credit for Prodrive. "We sat down at Prodrive - Ian Parry, Dave Lapworth [respectively co-founder and technical boss] and myself - and thought about what kind of rules we wanted so we didn't have to persuade a manufacturer to make an irrelevant and expensive homologation special," he says. "We got our ideas validated by Andy [Rouse] and then presented them to the MSA."

Rouse begs to differ. "The idea originated on my desk," he says. "I identified that just about every manufacturer had a two-litre engine that could be used for racing. I actually wanted a two-litre turbo, to replicate the same power and speeds of the RS500."

Ashman suggests the credit should go to him. He talks of a meeting when he gathered a group of senior sales and marketing executives together and thrashed out the concept that became the two-litre formula.

"We had an extraordinary number of people turn up," he recalls. "We said, 'Let's write a set of rules whereby everyone can use their bog-standard saloon.' I remember going home that evening with a copy of What Car? and coming up with the 4.2-metre minimum length."

Some of those involved have attempted to dismiss Ashman's part, but the man charged with turning concept into rulebook suggests that the future president of the FIA Touring Car Commission played a central role.

"I think credit should go to Ashman," says Gerard Sauer, an engineer and journalist who co-ordinated the BTCC in 1989. "He was highly influential in the whole process, because he was an ace politician."

The seeds of the internationalisation of the formula were sown as early as 1989. Sauer was commissioned by the RAC to undertake a viability study that involved visiting manufacturers around Europe.

"What swung it was the promise of a lot of manufacturer sporting departments to come in," he explains. "There was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea if the cars represented what they were selling in the biggest numbers."

The two-litre formula came into effect for the 1990 season, with factory BMW and Vauxhall teams and a smattering of privateers existing alongside the old Group A RS500s. After this transition year, the category exploded into life. Toyota and Nissan joined the party in 1991, and Mazda and Peugeot followed suit the following year.

Ashman had by then taken up his role at the FIA, which adopted the two-litre rules. The governing body gave it the name Class 2 for 1993, because Class 1 was awarded to the new 2.5-litre high-tech DTM category, but the lack of a catchy name proved no hindrance.

Even before it was rechristened Super Touring for 1995, the formula had a foothold on every continent bar one. And the set was completed the following year when the two-litre repmobiles had their own series in, of all places, North America.

Thems fighting words.

I actually had a look at my car tonight. More work to do than I remember. We'll see how it goes... lol

Yeah that's a little more like it. Horrible looking engine bay, but I think that's a great engine for this car. It should be a factory option down the track, rather than forced induction which is so often suggested.

 

Video

http://instagram.com/p/ckr-XEtuSp/

The Swedes have got it.

True, they do look choice, but personally I'm not a fan of the silhouette racer type thing where they all run the same chassis AND engine. At least in BTCC/WTCC they have unique chassis', and in V8 Supercars each manufacturer runs it's own engine in the cars.  

Hey dude, what brand hydraulic bearing did you get?

Ummm..... Pretty sure you've already run through all this on the last page? Howe from summit landed for US$179

A Saab vert would have to be the best of the bunch as far as a compromise on what she wants and you not having too many nail biting moments wondering if she'll make it home each day.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/saab/900se/auction-619760510.htm

 

Ugly, but in a somewhat good way. And you can find them in manwell too, if that's her/your thing. 

Can't wait to hear that thing IRL.

It will bring a smile to your face.

 

Only problem is (which I did choose to leave out of the post above), is that the engine has been developed a lot since that preseason test footage and it doesn't quite seem to sound that good on the coverage I have seen. I'm hoping it is just something to do with TV coverage sterilizing it somehow, but time will tell I guess. 

 

The engine used to have 2 single throttles opening into a huge plenum, but they had bad partial throttle response, so they've put 8 ITB's on it, which has seemed to take away a bit of the high pitched note. Even though it doesn't make much sense that's the only thing that I can come up with as to why it sounds different. 

Where as v8 supercars look so much harder to drive as they are overpowered with narrow tires that if they push hard they lose time getting to loose. They just can't attack a course like the 2l car could.

 

Looking at the past, people seem to remember the look and sound of cars most, next comes drivers and last comes actual racing. Sad, but it just seems to be the way. 

 

For example, a lot of peoples favourite tourings cars from the past absolutely stomped on the competition and made for a shit season, but it is remembered greatly. 

 

So what that must mean is that touring cars have to look good and sound good. The rest will follow. 

 

Ever since Super Touring the BTCC and now the WTCC have been a shambles. For example, would any kid really have a picture of one of these on the wall? Only a retarded blind kid. Not to mention they sound like utter shit.

 

I don't know if the BTCC or WTCC (or any of the other 1 million kinds of touring car championships) are heading in the right direction, but it does seem like the cars are getting slightly better looking, and more importantly, sounding a lot better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Baowk6YtGj4

 

 

V8 Supertaxis are slowly heading in the right direction too. 18 inch wheels finally give the cars some better proportions, but unfortunately they must have gotten a 17 year old to design the wheels, because they suck.

 

 

And oh my fuck the sound. THE SOUND!! 

 

If you haven't paid any attention to supertaxis for a few years because it is shit and boring, and all the cars look and sound the same, check this out. This is a crap vid, but it captures the flat plane crank sound of the Erebus AMG V8 nicely.

 

Build the wourlds Fastest Terrano/Pathfinder with a vg30et and advertise your terrano wrecking stuff on it.

That would be quite choice actually. Tube frame and roof chop it to make it look similar to Monster Tajima's Vitara.

I was almost convinced on that N13 being awesome, but then I saw the pixels. Still looks pretty choice and I bet it goes well. SR16/20VE would have been my choice though, either way it'd be a fun little car to hoon around in. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RIP

Cheating as in he was penalised post race, after a complain to the circuit officials from the Honda driver. They both spin at one point, quite a cool vid.

 

This looks like a bit of kyteler

 

 

One for chrison8 #fourdoorfc

Oh yeah! Guess what won too....

 

I think I need a trip to the UK. At the HSCC Super Touring Car Trophy ( that is open to other Group A touring cars also) held last weekend the entry list was amazing. 

 

 

There were 40 cars on the grid, and the Super Tourers that were racing there alone were as follows. Cleland even jumped back in his 1997 Vectra for the event, complete with the same overalls he wore back then. Lucky he didn't throw them out.

 

 

Thanks to the organisers for the license night. It was a nice efficient way of doing something very simple, that many of us would probably never get around to if we didn't get a helping hand.

Hill climb next weekend who is coming???

I will be there lending a hand.

Skip month or next day/week/weekend/karts?

Cool, I should be able to make that. I have a training thing at work than runs to 7, but I should be able to get out to Vaile road by 7:30. 

 

Don't think I'll make Sainsbury Road, but still on track for the dual sprints. 

S40 looks like it handles well, and is pretty reliable. 

I only know of 1 Lotus Carlton/Omega in New Zealand, and I don't think it would be for sale. At NZ$30k ex-UK, plus a boat ride and registration etc they're probably out of the price bracket, as awesome as they are.

 

Not sure they'd handle that well either. Better off just picking up the next gen V8 M5 for less cash.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/bmw/m5/auction-613489372.htm

subarus arent as bad as everyone makes them out to be if they are looked after properly, fed with the right fuel and serviced properly!

Same goes for everything, definitely, but the problem is buying one that has been on the road for 10+ years and has been properly looked after. People generally buy that kind of car for one thing, and that is thrashing. In theory the big solid Ford would hold up a lot better on only 6 pounds of boost, even with a bit of a hiding. Not so sure about the drive train in the early models, but a bit of research would sort out what the best version is to pick up. 

 

In the Falcon, losing a little bit of unnecessary weight where possible and putting some decent disks and pads under it, along with fresh fluid, should have the brakes holding up relatively well if you use them properly (at least I would hope they would). Modern cars are measured quite harshly on their brakes for safety purposes. All those car magazine tests have them pulling up 3 times in quick succession to make sure they can handle it and measure the stopping distance. 

Just a nice simple adpator onto a custom of factory intake manifold, positioning the throttles like this (but runners as long as possible)

 

With two separate air boxes, one on each side. And gigantic intakes feeding clean air from either side of the radiator, or under the headlight, into each air box. Preferably all carbon so it still sounds loud as crap.

 

Look for pictures of the Nissan V8 Supercar engine for the intake pipes. Oh yeah.

They probably handle like a front heavy sack of shit, but A Mazda 6 MPS as mentioned earlier would probably be worth a burn if your'e considering a Subaru or Caldina. 14.4 1/4 and 10.5 l/100km, so not fantastic but almost ticks the boxes.

 

Best thing is you'll just look like any other no body in one of the million Mazda 6's on the road. 

http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/mazda/6/auction-613355497.htm

 

That flat 6 Subaru wagon that keltic has seems pretty awesome though, just for something a bit different. 

Yeah. Wasn't a fan of BF last time. Just too hard to seat everyone together, even with a small group. Gutted because it was pretty good.

The Ale House meets were pretty good I thought. Maybe a good idea to head back there? Can always have a feed before hand if it's too expensive.