Truenotch

Same here. I'm impressed by pretty much everything you do. Move to palmy and be my engineer please?

Yeah might re-paint them one day... they're almost brand new so no sense in ruining the gold. They'll probably go gunmetal one day.

Just had a fiddle in the dark... involving a torch, an open garage and 60 seconds. Then I was done.

Good to see it rolling again!!!! L31 please, with 3 carbs and heaps of revs....

Yeah should be at taupo on the 21st (provided the tow car is going )... Looking forward to it! I've done track 2 in dads 86 road car but suspect this might be a bit different. ^ Thats been my life for the last few months.... Phil - the wheels weren't 8's and 9's (they were 7.5's and 8.5's) and the offset wasn't as aggressive as claimed, plus they didn't clear the wilwoods. Didn't end too well...

Wondered if there was a discussion thread for this... Very nice car man! Pretty much a perfect AE86 road car.

Not too sure about that either. I'll get in touch with the person I know that re-studded a hilux diff and see what they did.

Will only ever get checked at the track, and they normally don't care too much unless it's not bolted in properly. Just get a dry cell off spence and solve all your issues.

Oh, and the centres will still come out of those ones. They weld the 2 bands together on SSR's... but just get whole new bands made up, or machine the weld off and use the factory inner band + new outer bands.

^^^ Yeah get those. What PCD are 6 stud ones? I think someone told me 6 are easier to re-stud but never done it.

Yeah man just get any 15" 2 or 3 piece wheels and get bands made to suit. Will work out about the same price as new sportmax's for a set if you find the right engineer, and the right donor centers.

+ another pic with new wheels.

Sportmax's would look pretty similar to the Simmons (minus the centre) I think. My wheels are 15x8 ~0 offset. 16's look like they fill arches pretty well, I think 15x8+ with a decent tyre on would look fine though.... So long as you slam it. 16's: Not sure, but WOW: IMO to fill the arches the most important thing is offset and slam.

I saw an amazing thing today... A NISMO head from an LZ series nissan engine. Basically an L16 but with an alloy DOHC head designed for competition only. The intake ports are beautiful, they head down on a steep angle and barely curve before the valve face. The valve angle in these is really steep and the exhaust ports are fairly small. It pretty much looks like an alloy bathtub that holds cams! Found some pics of them: http://www.datrats.com.au/lz-T.JPG http://www.datrats.com.au/lz_twin_cams.htm Used in Formula Pacific/atlantic, Group 4,5 and C. They are in the Group C skyline silhouette in LZ20R form: http://www.banpei.net/category/tags/nissan-silvia-turbo I thought the steep port angle was pretty cool, and was a sweet thing to have a look over.

I think they'd suit an escort, so long as they're wide enough for your bubbles . 16's are pretty dick and poos for tyres though... You could have a chance at getting second hand RA1 semi slicks from series 6 rx7 racers but apart from that you have to search through new tyres. 15's might be big enough for it? You'd have access to more sizes then.

4th page dig up... must be time for an update. Better get some pics ... Ahh, thats better. Anyway there are a few things to update since last time... I bought more wheels, they're Simmons. Have had quite a few little issues lately. First, I went out testing after getting my brakes skimmed and did 3-4 runs. The car felt pretty sluggish then mid corner theres a big BANG and the steering gets really heavy... "Wonder if that was a flat tyre"... Turns out my LF wheel bearing had lunched itself and melted the end of my stub axle!!! Result: Get another strut to re-make coilover. Then when I had the strut out something didn't seem quite right... That shock from that same corner was bent! I re-assembled and decided that there was little choice (as there was an event the next weekend). So I did the sprint and was trying out some softer springs, which made the bent shock a lot easier to notice. It turns in OK, then part way though the corner it starts to shunt, the inside rear wheel picks up, back slides round and the car turns the corner. Using the chassis as suspension = less than ideal. There was 40mm of travel in the shock with no load on it, so minus droop (20mmish) and there was only 20mm of travel in my left front corner! Anything should be better than that. It explains why one of the previous owners told me they could never get it to turn in propperly... and also why it had 650lb springs in the front. It probably had a bent shock all along. Then later that day I took off from the line, slammed into second gear and the diff exploded! I pulled onto the infield and realized that it was seized up in the rear... So it sat there for the rest of the day. It was easy enough to get on the trailer by pulling out the axles and pushing it (floating axles rule!). Turns out the crown wheel and pinion lunched themselves. Dropped the oil and took handfulls of shit out of the housing.... Which meant dropping the whole housing for a thorough clean. Bought a 4wd liteace van for it's front diff and used the CW&P to re-build my diff. So have gone back to 4.77 ratio... but bought another van diff with 4.556 just in case. Solved the shocks problem for now by borrowing some Koni's from Julian at Motorsport Manawatu. Only issue is they take up to 400lb springs so I've borrowed some softer springs to work with them as well. Hopefully we'll see better times from this setup... Having weight shift for braking and turning has to be a good thing! I'm also buying some 2nd hand slicks so will hopefully get a chance to try those in the weekend as well. First meeting of the United Travel Race Series this weekend and the car is almost ready! Lets hope nothing goes wrong at the test day on Saturday... viewtopic.php?f=18&t=14421 Oh..... And my wallet is nearly empty.

You're not supposed to post in this thread, but keen. Where are you? viewtopic.php?f=18&t=18883

.... Auto trans just blew up.... Gutted. Have found another one for $50 but have to go remove it myself. Thought it would be harder to find one than that!

Yeah I agree with you there, posted it as a discussion point more than anything.

Interesting ideas there, and brings back-pressure into play.

Those toda ones look nice! $1700 + shipping..... My pipes are quite beefy, they're a big long 4-2-1. The primaries extend into the tunnel, then collect into 2 secondaries that are about 500mm long before being collected into 3" and finally down to 2.5". I'm getting keen to go back to a 3" exhaust just as an an experiment. They would need a bit of work to be ideal, but are good enough for now (and will stay for quite a while).

Don't think thats legal for MSNZ mang, has to be at least at the back door in a 4 door I think.

My car had a 3" system on it originally, and when my muffler blew I stepped down to 2.5". The dyno doesn't say that I've gained any power, and cant tell if theres a difference in torque because I had a different diff ratio when testing the 2.5". I've gone back to the old diff ratio now so will tell you what the result is next time I get on the dyno (hopefully this week). Might go back to 3" to test curiousity.

FA50's are the shit! I have 2... ones a scootercross/ratrod one and the other is daily. Same as yours but without the shin protectors... So jealous of those guards. Whats your top speed???? I've been fettling and manage 70k on the flat . Will get pics soon for a laugh.

Photo would be sweet man . I know the one on there is a VL because it's all black, but the R31 ones have a grey/alloy bit where the part numbers are.