PZG302

QR management have been charging entry for most events now days, try $30 for a Sunday for a top gear or qdrc race meeting these days. Only free events seem to be sprints. And for great racing, as alluded to in other posts, the weekend before at Warwick has the HRCC run National historic meet where proper race cars from years gone by will be running, including the group a and c cars as part of their national championship series.

Brad, that brake piston tool Shaun borrowed was for the other dirty datsun in the garage, the haidresser car uses a bolt inhe rear of the caliper to wind the piston in. I know what the drama is anyway, you are using seppo brakes, they haven't worked out how to build a car that stops or handles yet...... They still believe cart springs are perfectly acceptable suspension in 2013 for performance cars.

No worries Shaun.

Shaun, I should have one, when do you need it? I'll be home after about 6pm most nights this week. Matt

I wasn't bagging the Wilwoods as they are a great product for the price, but the quality of finish can be a let down when you look closely, and there is a reason for this, they aren't nearly as expensive as a lot of the competition. My dynalites were made in the early 90's and came from the back of a NASCAR, so were a pretty good thing in the day, and still are. I would recommend Wilwoods to anyone, but the finish on them can be a bit ordinary, and not what I would put out if I was in that game. Personally I think if it looks right you are halfway to being right so in my line of work a lot of time is spent on getting the image and marketing right to go along with the data I produce at a high quality.

So at lakeside under AASA the most manned flag points I have seen at any race meeting is three, the start/finish line, exit of the Karasel and Hungry. The last time I raced a CAMS meeting at Lakeside there were manned flagged points, including trained firemarshals on point and mobile at the following locations: Start/finish Drivers right at Kink Drivers Left at entry to karasel drivers right at exit karasel drivers left at bus stop drivers right at bridge drivers right at hungry drivers left at eastern loop entry drivers left at exit of turn onto straight. The AASA meetings do well with the available resources, the crash team and medic team are great, I have unfortunately had to utilise their services on a couple of occaisions, however the CAMS flaggies. nor Queensland Fire and Rescue club are utilised at Lakeside or QR unless its the V8 meeting where V8 supercars lease the facilities from QR and run the show themselves to CAMS specs. The CAMS official system is very well regulated and the licencing ensures that as you progress you have valuable skills. Personally I reached grade 2 as a fire marshall with endorsements for emergency vehicle driver, allowing me to be FIV driver at Indy, Medic car driver at Bathurst and senior pit lane marshal at the F1 GP's. As I have had my licence lapse, I have to start again if I get back into firemarshalling, which I probably will when I hang up the helmet. This year's AASA race meetings have pretty much done away with all on track flaggies due to their in car radio system controlled from the tower at each track. All well and good, but at Lakeside the back of the karasel is blind from the tower and their have been quite a few incidents there. At QR there is no problem as you can see the whole track from the tower. This sytem may eventually filter down to sprint days, but I doubt it due to the number of radios needed and the protocols to use them, so limited numbers of flag points will continue to be manned when resources are available. AASA provides an alternative to CAMS for the lower level events, but at state or National level, they aren't run as well as CAMS events, just ask most of the prod sports blokes who came up to QR last year for the one hour race and compare how that was run compared to the one hour at Warwick in 2011 under CAMS.

Nope, mine were made ins big country on the other side of a big pond to the one you were referring to....

No it's not hard to wave a flag, but it is difficult to do well. The reason there is only CAMS events at Warwick, well the owner of the two tracks in Brisbane believes he doesn't need CAMS to run his show, and to a certain extent he is right, but I would rather race at a CAMS event for the organisation on and off the track than at a AASA event. Doesn't mean I won't, just that I believe CAMS race meetings are generally better run on and off the track and better resourced, I haven't seen a flaggie at a AASA meeting in Qld for at least 12 months, at Lakeside that does leave a blind spot at the Karasel that can't be seen from the tower, that can have potenially bad consequences, but no so much a risk when playing kiddy lap dashes compared to hairy chested real drag em down knock em out door to door racing

Don't ever disassemble your calipers you will be very dissapointed in the quality of finish, well I was with my old dynalites, still worked a treat though. Depending on the size of bleeders needed I may have some to suit that I can give to Lurch when he is up in a couple of weeks.

Yup, from some 720 utes, or motorsport option. The 4.89 and 4.6 diffs are more common out here from the front of the 720 4wd utes.

CAMS give no thought to road authorities because they are only interested in mitigating their risk for their events. Which is fair enough too as their insurance gives very good benefits it your day turns to a heap of shit and feathers and you are airlifted to hospital in a coma with broken back, you will have your medical expenses covered and 75% of your wages paid as a disability benefit until you recover, or a reasonably generous payout for permanent disability. So paying $100 for some padding is cheap to me for those benefits. Have a look at the AASA coverage for some sobering reading in comparison.

I'll wade in again, you'll still be very lucky to find a shell good for a road car not riddled with rust for under $4k for a 2 seater shell registerable (title and numbers not on WOV register) or not as I stated in my first post. If you do find one, unless you can do the work yourself, then it isn't a viable restoration to bring it back to life unless you don't care about any return on investment. The boat has long since sailed for cheap easy resto Zeds.

Where's that popcorn GIF Lurch keeps handy for posts like these. Sorry Martin, but I think the chances of finding a decent 2 seater shell for under $4k are very slim indeed and you would be lucky to find a station wagon shell for that sort of dollars if you want something that can be put on the road with minimal work.

Or, if you only do AASA sprints then you don't have to worry about the padding at all.

Have you had a chat GSL Rallysport up here yet? Or GMP down in Melbourne, I knwo they are an ajent for Hawk and other brands and maybe able to help out. Might also be worth chatting to the guys at Performance friction at Stapylton if you haven't already, they have plenty of pad compounds avialble that should cope without ripping rotors apart. Contact details are: Unit 3, 11 Christensen Road, STAPYLTON QLD 4207 07 3807 8766

The first of the Hairdresser cars, the NA6 have pretty much bottomed out in price, just like the 240 did in the late '80's early 90's, so yes the NA6 MX5 will become valuable, remember the 240 is now a 45 year old car and bottomed out when around 20-25 years old, just like the MX5 is now. My hairdresser car I paid $5500 for a very good example, just a little tardy in the paint, after a respray it looks as good as new and have been offered $10k for it. The best thing about the MX??? It's simple enough to work on still, but enough tech that when I turn the key it starts. The car has ever only let me down once on a run and that was a fan belt let go necessitating a tow back home as I was out the back of Dayboro, so no where near a parts place. I now keep a belt in the boot just in case, so will never need one again. And I can do quick laps around Lakeside, should be in the 66's going on my QR Clubman times, so not bad for a standard 1600 motor.

No worries, mig has gasless wire in it at the moment. And there is no such thing as to much wooooosssshhhhhh!!!!

I don't share my hairdresser gear with anyone..... However I should be there in the new fknwooshhhh Ute rather than the wooshhh car or the hairdresser car, especially if you need the mig still.

Ummm, no unless you have your own clippers comb and drier.........

Germany still has a very highly industrialised society with high wages like here, the big problem is the limited size of the market here compared to the rest of the world for most of our products. This has been exacerbated by successive governments rushing towards a free market economy whilst our trading partners have not done the same, making our products not viable for export due to import tariffs. Resources isn't really a good long term solution for us as the dirt is finite, yes it will take a long to dig it up but once it's gone it's gone. Food production is limited as the amount of arable land we have is under pressure from mining and CSG now, with some scary ramifications if shit goes wrong. We as a country have chased the government dollar for baby bonuses negative gearing McMansions and other white collar welfare at the expense of government spending in R & D for high tech industries. An example is solar panels, 20 years ago the UNSW led the world in it's solar cells for power production efficiency, this is now out the window as the research budgets have been slashed. The CSIRO is a shadow of its former self as are many other government scientific departments. Whilst Ford's pulling out of Australia is a sad thing a lot of the reasons are due to Ford's mismangement in the US of the Australian arm in terms of not wanting Australia's input or products as the US could do it better, hence whilst the falcon had one of the better IRS around the same year mustang still used leaf springs and the Victoria (US large sedan) was still a body on chassis design you could trace back to the 50's. An example of internal Ford dramas was the manufacture of the Focus was supposed to be at Broadmeadows, at the last minute Ford US pulled the pin and decided t build them in Thailand, the next manufacturing centre for Ford will be India. Unfortunately this also means that Holden and Toyota are now under pressure. Whilst we are expensive, we build quality and should be pushing that. In my last job I won plenty of work even though I was not the cheapest, I was however the best value for money offering value add benefits my competitors could not.

Australia has one of the lowest taxpayer subsidies for the car industry in the world and we are also one of about 15 countries with an industry mature enough to produce a car from a clean sheet of paper to the final product. It is a sad day for manufacturing in this country, we are becoming a second world country with the ongoing cuts to R&D and higher education over the last 30 years, manufacturing disappearing from our shores and the only thing that we do sell overseas is dirt that will run out one day leaving us where? Whilst we as a country have embraced globalisation and the free market unfortunately it has been largely one way, even the free trade agreement with the US sees us screwed over, the FTA with Thailand is scary when looking at the car industry in isolation, 5% tariff, if that on cars manufactured in Thailand coming here and 50% tariff plus ridiculous local taxes on our cars going over there. The few territories that made it to Thailand were the equivalent of near double what we pay here. There is more to play than just the government here, in Ford's case serious mismanagement from the US side of things and a very poor job of marketing has spelt the death nell for Ford. Holden may survive, and I hope they do to keep the industry alive here, but depending on the flow on effect for the suppliers this may be the thin edge of the wedge and we could see all production from Holden from Holden and Toyota move offshore in the next 10-15 years. On the bright side, the new FG Turbo ute I'm about to order will be another investment for my retirement along with my charger.......

Mike, better you bin the Z than the 1600, don't want to get those wheels marked!!!!! Bad luck on that, you were a lucky boy. I've had that happen to me twice, once at the bus stop in 2000 and I thought the car was gone, basically both feet out, grab 2nd and drove away not touching anything and only me and my dry cleaner knowing the true colour of adrenalin, and the last time the back let go, we think from oil or water from the footage I have seen and I gave the wall a smack on drivers right just after the bridge taking off the spoiler, nosecone and bonnet. Got some nice phots out of that as my wall paper on the laptop now.

Will depend on work and where I am at, if I am working from home I can duck out for a bit. Any way will make time to catch up, will probably wander out to Warwick for a look see at the least.

Took the hairdresser car out to QR to run with the MX5 club on Monday. The MX5 club knows how to run a track day, 5 runs on the clubman circuit, 5 and a half runs on the sprint circuit, 2nd last run of the day I got fuel surge so had to duck in for a splash and dash to make the last run. Not bad for an afternoon session and only $125 to run. Their next track day will be in Julay at Lakeside, all day for $125, so going on the last day out there will get at least 10 runs. I have yet to see better bang for your buck for a sprint day up here. Anyway onto the good stuff, I ended up fastest modified 1600 with a time of 68.08 on the clubman for the pointscore, and a 64.4 for the sprint circuit. Car has 218000km old original motor with extractors and exhaust only, cheap coilovers and sticky tyres, far less modified than the other cars I run against, so very happy with that and still some time to come with being braver under brakes. Also got brave enough to go through turns 1 and 2 with just a lift off and no brakes, next step is to get through 2 without lifting.

Why, yes, yes you may..... In return for some lessons on how to stick metal together without burning the house down or blacking out the neighbourhood......... Don't spose Lurch will have enough time to fabricate and certify a cams spec cage for the fully sic hectic bro ghetto racer???