Scando

Getting a bit off topic but this may be useful for anybody looking at Rota RB's who intends on doing track days. This is what I found when I put the RB's on my car with ZG flares and coil-overs. I originally wanted to go 17x9's all round so I could swap the wheels from front to rear and get the best out of my tyres. I soon worked out that 17x9's wouldn't fit on the front with 255 tyres unless you ran wider flares than the ZG ones. I would have to go to 225's or something like that which seems a bit pointless to me as the whole point is to get as much tyre on the ground as possible. I ended up going 17x8.5's on the front with 245 tyres and it fits perfectly as the 8.5's are a better offset for the front. On the rear you could go out to 17x9.5 no worries but nobody I know of makes a decent 17inch semi-slick in anything wider than a 255. As a 9inch rim is the perfect fitment for a 255 it makes sense to run 17x9's on the rear. Just my 2 cents worth

My dump pipe sits at about 100mm from the ground. I don't use it on the road much so it's not really an issue. I still have to be careful going on and off trailers, hoists, etc. Personally I wouldn't go much lower than that. When we did the 999 car for Targa Wrest Point a couple of years ago we lifted the car another 50mm and it definitely needed it on some of the bumpier stages. You can see the dump and the amount of clearance in the below picture. Personally, I find a slightly higher ride height and softer springs helps me get the power to the ground while all the other turbo cars are still trying to find traction back at the last corner

Sweet! That should liven the old girl up a bit.

Lots of nice Z's there, nice pics!

Congrats Dimitri!

I did a full season of racing on Rota RB's last year and happily bounced the car off plenty of ripple strips with no signs of any damage. So I think they pass the test

I don't have one When I got the engineers certificate for the engine conversion I had RX7 4 spots on the front and R31 brakes on the rear with the handbrake working. I've done the R33 conversion since with 326x30 front rotors on custom hats and some rear discs I had given to me. I think they might be off an R31 sillhouette. If I wanted a handbrake now I'd probably use the little seperate Wilwood mechanical handbrake calipers you can get.

I'm running R33 GTS-T callipers front and rear, works brilliantly.

That's an impressive time for the level of modifiactions. When I was there last year there was a showroom class evo 9 tarmac rally car struggling to do those times.

Very very nice! What sort of events do you plan to do?

Nice footage greg, the car sounds great

Here in tassie a few years ago the organisers of the local circuit racing meetings realised there were a lot of cars running tarmac rallies, hill climbs, and regularities which didn't have a class to fit into for circuit racing. They created Targa class which is fairly well open slather as long as you run DOT approved tyres and don't mess with the original shell of the car too much (ie, no space frames, etc). The class is split into three groups with the first group being open, the second group restricted by minimum lap times, and the third group being restricted by capacity and minimum lap times. A lot of people bag the class out but it works. It always has the biggest fields at every round of our state series and people love watching the huge mix of different cars so it pulls spectators through the gates. If it weren't for the class then circuit racing in Tassie would be all but dead. It may surprise some people but the lack of rules makes the class cheaper to compete in. I finished 2nd in the open class last year in a car which owes me around $25-30K. There's one guy that's very competitive in a R31 Skyline he built for $15K! I'm sure it would bring more numbers into circuit racing Australia wide if trialed in other states. It gives people a place to move to from speed type events while still being able to use their car they've spent a lot of time and money building and can't bear to part with.

I haven't tried it yet myself but I know a few people getting excellent results with it in boosted applications. One in particular got better results than with $9 a litre Sunoco! For race cars I think it's definately worth a shot but probably not worth the hassles in a road car.

If you want a cheaper option than a CV converion try Hardie Spicer heavy duty uni joints. The previous owner of my car busted a couple of standard unis when the car was making around 170rwkw. It's now making 265rwkw and has 9" semi slicks and I haven't busted one of the Hardie Spicer ones. I do check them before every race meeting though.

I used to run EBC yellows on the front and reds on the rear. I found they had good feel straight up for a race pad but I would lose brakes quite quickly even with the yellows. They also wore very quickly. Running Project Mu pads now and they are a brilliant pad but don't work well cold.

Call BP Dover and ask for Mick, he has heeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaps of Z parts.

We grafted a complete RB30 distributor onto mine. took a fair bit of machining but it works well now it's on there.

Wow, looks like an awesome trip. Is that transit the one with the XJ220 running gear in it?

I think Dat2kman meant 10mm overall? I'd be leaning more towards fixing the 10mm side to match the 4mm side. I think 10mm per side would be overkill.

Correct, everybody trys to 'fix' the rear tow in on their Z's but don't always assume you're smarter than the manufacturer. On the exit of a corner all the weight is on the outside rear tyre. If this is toeing in slightly then it can counteract the slide. Also, as dat2kman said, you get natural rear toe out under acceleration. I've read something about rear caster in the posts above. Do you mean rear camber? You can't get rear castor on a Z and all it would do would be to change the wheelbase by a few mm when the suspension went up or down.

It would be worth talking to an engineer from your state first. To bolt my harness in we used 100mmx75mm steel plates between the nut and the floorpan on each mounting point as is required as per the CAMS manual. My car has been engineer approved since with the harness.

I have this front brake conversion for sale. http://www.viczcar.com/forum/index.php/topic,4148.0.html

It's possible to pick-up cheap GTI-R's but I'd steer clear. Everything is impossible to get at in the engine bay which means big $$$'s for labour everytime you need something done. Most places charge around $1000 labour to do a clutch! Very hard to find a good one nowdays but AE93 GTI Corollas are great little cars. Also, I've owned a couple of R30 Skylines like DatPilot and you can't beat that L series reliability. One did over 500,000k's on the original engine.

One of my favourite dailys was a Datsun Sunny. Very reliable and economical. And in todays times there's something fun about a car you can drive constantly like you're in a race without breaking the speed limit

I reckon N14 & N15 SSS pulsars are great cars. cheap to run and reliable but still a bit of fun. Only problem with them is I'm alergic to front wheel drives :-\