CamB

In my dreams, the pirate ship is always RHD.

Yeah, red curbs and yellow fire hydrants = US pictures.

There can always be more awesome, but within practical limits I'd say Ray's project is right out there. For reference, an example of more awesome:

And I helped, so can confirm this. We did it because it was expedient (electric windows stopped working and the manual windows were sitting right there). Electric windows are good in a race car (assuming you're not being uber anal about weight) - its usually quite hard to reach the window winders and the winders are borderline in the way for side impact bars.

LHD is alright, except for parking buildings. Everything else is a lack of driver practice (eg, I am crap at backing and driving with my left hand!).

Please do - project threads + pictures = awesome!

Maybe. You won't know 'till you look. JiB's old car had lots of 300k km old looking bushes on it when he bought it.

Awesome! FJ20s are mint. Kind of like the BMW E30 M3 engine (S14), IMHO.

I'm about the same. M3s are not particularly fuel efficient, it seems.

Don't get me wrong - its worth +/- $200 ... its just that its a fraction of what an M20 bellhousing box is worth. An internal swap might be a good value-add.

Keen on the diff assuming its in reasonable shape. So, I'll send a PM. LOL - just no value in those things these days.

Thanks for doing such a detailed write-up Glenn. I haven't got around to doing mine (having it done, actually - I don't trust myself), but people should take careful note of what Glenn says. You really do need to work out where you need the adjustment ---> for a really low car it may not be appropriate to have the adjuster centred over the original hole when the plate is welded in as this **might** not give you enough adjustment range.

There was one for sale in NZ a year or so back, but I have no idea if it (1) sold, or (2) was any good. Price, from memory, was about $50k. I believe there are a few around NZ although not necessarily for sale. You could try sending user name "Alpina" (Grant) a personal message as he's the most likely Bimmersport poster to know who's got one and whether its for sale.

Similar to RX7, I'd say. My arm is a pretty poorly calibrated scale though, so probably better to google for caliper weights. You are totally right on the order of increasing brake performance, although somewhere in there should be "lines" simply because it does nice things for the pedal.

As Mike said - if you're going faster, you need to slow down more and start braking earlier (assuming the same corner speed). Also, if you have enough power you end up with corners that you have to brake for (and less time for the brakes to cool) compared to a lesser powered car that can't accelerate fast enough. For example, my 2002 or an E30 series car only brakes twice (sort of) at Puke, once at the hairpin and once after the sweeper*, and the brakes get to cool down the rest of the time. A more powerful car will have to brake earlier for the hairpin, may need to brake slightly before going over the hill and may need to have a decent go at the brakes before the sweeper. * ok, so to be fair some drivers (including me) need a confidence tap of the brakes before the sweeper and most brake for turn two, accelerate briefly through turn 2 and brake for turn 3, but you get the point. The Skyline calipers are light enough to make up for some of the penalty of the unsprung weight added by the larger rotors.

Yeah - on the track the brakes with max upgrading are ok for a 320i/325i but that's about it. Heath - you'd be surprised at how light the skyline calipers are.

That's what I forgot in the list! Thanks Mike. Without upgrading the master cylinder you have a big mushy pedal.

How much is "a bit of gas"? The sophisticated warm up technology of your car includes ... an air bypass valve (lets air around the throttle plate when cold). That's it. 1985 wasn't the most awesome of technology, and a bit of gas might be your lot in life.

The expensive part is the "everything else". You need: - the right rotors, front and rear (not Skyline ones), redrilled for 4x100 - if you don't have the right calipers to match the rotors, get the skyline calipers narrowed - wheel studs, as you'll never get wheel nuts in through non-hubcentric rotors - the adaptors and some suitable hardware - new brake lines, probably braided - new pads (chances of the $400 calipers having the right pads are low) - a cert - new wheels to fit over them - tyres for the wheels. JiB started with $350 calipers from memory, so if he says its $2k + the cert (and wheels), he won't be far off.

All I see is a warehouse sticker saying its $4.99 That exhaust housing is pretty hot.

Dont bag ACC too much - for all its problems and cast, we are very fortunate to not have a litigious society like the US (or even Australia).

You pay a 2% earner premium and the employer (or you if self-employed) pay another 1.x+% employer premium for ACC - a significant proportion of that could be considered "health insurance". Then on top of that, a massive percentage of taxes goes on healthcare. Don't get me wrong - I am in favour of universal healthcare, but I'd point out its not cheap...

The ACC levy will be actuarial - based on stats and claims. Its just that the stats don't recognise the diff between a petrol and diesel version of the same car, just petrol (all) vs diesel (all). If your car is over 40 years old, its cheap as. My old Porker turned 40 this year and 6 months rego was something like $60.

Geez, I hope he doesn't take that personally (no really, actually personally). In this case, you might just have to assume he knows what he's doing.

Thanks for the pics! You learn something new every day - I didn't know they used the S14 before the S42. Where do you start when trying to set up the suspension on a car with that much adjustability? Ha - that's more common than 6 speed E34 540iSs