Aristo

thanks shaggy.

Slider

Yeah, its fun. I can smoke most of them, but I haven't topped a particular Colbra (a new one) that is really annoying me. Its just not right that you should drive a car around with no interior. I know it drops a big chunk of weight, but damn, what about keeping it streetable? He's played with his a bit also, and has me by a couple of tenths atleast. But for the rest, look out. What can your 944 run the quarter in?

[Edited by slider on 12-05-2000 at 09:46 AM]

__________________

Maybe you can only drive 55, but I can go like a bat out of hell and I've got tickets to prove it!

SupraX

I have a 98 Nissan Maxima and was wondering what mods will increase the performance. Can you give me some suggestions?
What is the rationale behind getting bigger diameter wheels and low profile tires?

shaggymatt

Bigger tires = better grip (contact patch). You do have to be careful though, if you get cheap wheels that weigh a ton you are going to hurt yourself, unsprung weight is one of your largest enemies, hurting acceleration, braking, and cornering. My car was delivered with bologna sized 195/65/15 tires on a 6" steel wheel (which now have my snow tires mounted on them). Stepping up to the 8" wide wheel in a 17" diameter made a huge handling difference. The wheels I chose are amongst the lightest out there, within reasonable cost. The BBS RC is the lightest wheel, but a complete combo with the RC's would have run almost $4k! The RC's weigh 18 pounds, mine are 20 pounds, some of them out there weigh over 30 pounds! Then adding the rear sway bar eliminated the body roll, and then I did the suspension.

Cars are delivered most commonly with touring tires. These are long life tires that are acceptable for long drives on the highway, and you will get at least 40k miles out of them. Good all weather tires. The other thing with a tire upgrade is that you then go to an actual speed rated tire. Touring tires are not recommended for prolonged driving at high speeds.

Now that my car is for the most part completed, I will be running some road course events next year. A performance tire is not worth a damn in the snow either. I once got hit by a surprise snow shower, which dropped about a 1/4" of snow, and my tires were downright scary to be driving on.

As for the Max, I hear that they respond very well to a cold air intake, and then go for the exhaust. I was amazed at the power gains I heard some people talking about just from doing those two things to their Maximas. I thought that they were talking RICE numbers, but after doing some research, they were correct. NA cars do not respond as well to chipping as a turbocharged car does, hence the reasoning for much smaller power gains on a naturally aspirated car.

Ice-9

I'm not done fixing it up yet, so I haven't bothered to time it in the quarter, but my unofficial timing for 0-60, done by a friend in the passenger seat with a stopwatch (ghetto-style, I know), is 6.2. I think the car can get faster than that, though, even without a turbo. It's a light little car, so dropping my friend might even take it down .1 or so. I'll post the actual times once I get it finished and have time to take it to a track.

__________________
Porsche. There is no substitute.

Ice-9
B-Works Productions
http://www.bworksproductions.com

Aristo

Woo Hoo~ I'm getting my TEIN HA coilover set soon!

Next, brembo breaks ($2500+), 3-piece 18" rims (costs a lot) and SC (costs even more). I heard that you have to have 18" rims in order to install brembo. Is that true? If it is, I have to prepare like 6000 dollars in cash. Don't think I'll have that kind of money anytime soon. A man gets to eat!

shaggymatt

Depends on what size your Brembo big brake kit is for your car. I was considering it as well, the kit for my car is 12.3" rotors, and that requires 17" wheels. I can't do it because I still need to get around in the snow, and my snows are mounted on 15" wheels. Do your shopping, the prices vary widely! You probably have less shopping places though for a Lexus. I've seen the kit for as low as $1900 for my car and up to $2700! I'm just doing better rotors (PowerSlot), and possibly SS brake lines. I've already replaced the crappy stock pads.

Aristo

I think the one for my car is around 14" rotor. Not sure. I won't add more power until I upgrade the breaks.

Ice-9

Anybody know anything about cryogenically frozen rotors? I can't remember the name of the company, Frozen Rotors or something, but somebody recommended them to me. Seems a little odd, though. I was just wondering if that's something they do to a lot of brake rotors or just this one company's. Anybody heard of this?

shaggymatt

I've heard of it, don't know anything about it. I was watching the Motorola cup (race 7) the other day, and the Porsche team had a great new product that the team was developing. It was a brake caliper/brake system that grabs the whole rotor, instead of just the small standard caliper as it applies the pressure to the pad surface. Absolutely no fade, and watching the car outbrake everyone was just incredible. They were doing the majority of their passing in the braking zone, since they didn't have the HP to overcome the Vipers and Vette's on the straightaways.

shaggymatt

Speaking of braking... you know what car is a total joke? The new Eclipse. I've seen braking tests reporting stopping distances of an SUV like 210+ feet! Most cars are in the 170 foot range.

Slider

I haven't ever heard of frozon rotors. I don't think that you would do much but change the temper of the metal, and I don't think that I would want rotors that are brittle. Regardlessly, they would loose the temper the first time you went for a little night time, high speed profficency run. I can only say good things for Brembo. I have there front kit on my truck and Damn!, do they haul it down quick. I haven't gone for the rotor conversion for the back yet, but it is on the list once I have the money. I have the drilled rotors, but how are the slotted brembos? Anyone actually compared the two?

Also, even if you don't upgrade your rotors and calps, check on the possibility of using dot5 brake fluid. Usally you can have the system flushed with brakleen, and then dried and refilled. The result: much less likely to experience brake fade and as an added bonus, dot5 doesn't eat paint. That and some carbon brake pads will make any car safer and more reliable going into corners that you feel like braking late on. You might fry some stock rotors, but generally, stock rotors are pretty cheap. Just use decent ones, like raybestos, or united. Some nonames are made of pot metal and reused cast, which do not hold up very well to heat. They warp in a couple weeks.

Ice-9

Seriously. They made it bigger, slower, and uglier (IMHO). What happened to the cool little GS-T? 0-60 in the low 6s off a turboed four. They drop a six in, and the car gets slower and less efficient. Greaaaat idea. Plus they decided to make it look like a Cougar. Uggh.

Sportzcoop

Stillen GTZ-R Front Fascia
Fog Glare Guard Removal
Piaa Headlights
Eclipse Stereo System
Alien Scanner
Performance mods mean worse fuel economy so until i am out of school i will just keep making my car looky pretty.

Aristo

This is not true. When you add an intake, it actually increases the fuel economy.

Apex

I've had slotted and drilled Brembo's. Actually, the slotting is MUCH better. Do NOT get crossdrilled rotors if you're serious about braking. All OEM "crossdrilled" rotors are actually manufacturered that way, with the metal near the holes reinforced or actually molded in. Crossdrilled Brembo's are DISPOSABLE (they're designed to be thrown away after 1-2 races). They work great, until the 2nd time you use them hard, or the first time you use them hard if you go through water. What happens is they spiderweb. You get hairline cracks near all the holes. Of course, I'm talking about using brakes for serious performance (ie. Buttonwillow International Raceway). Slotted rotors do not tend to show the same problems.

Cryo freezing your brakes do work well. What happens is the actual properties of the metal changes. Expensive, but makes things last. Your disks won't get eaten down as fast at all. Kind of nice if you plan to buy an expensive kit.

Slider

Not all of the cross-drilled Brembo's are disposable. They make a kit for 2wd Chev pu's that is a step up from the factory, but they are not disposables. Only problem is, if you need to refinish them, it has to be done on a flywheel cutter. But, if you get the rotors ground, you won't find a true'r surface. Onfortunatly when I got mine, the only thing out there was the cross-drilled. But, I haven't been able to warp them yet, as hard as I try. Even towing doesn't bother them.

Where can I find more info on the Cryo process? I still wonder about that. Are the rotors gradually brought down to the coldness, or are they heated and then froze or what?

Apex

http://www.cryoforce.com/temperng.html

You can start there. I know there are automotive specific ones, but I haven't looked recently.

Yeah, Brembo does make some crossdrilled for longer use, but they are rather expensive, not the usual $60-100 disks stores usually carry.

pennypinch

I'd always wondered why no-one thought of that before. Leave it to Porsche to get that on the street before anyone else. They're always coming up with wacky, weird technologies that sound like they're out of a sci-fi flick. Hollow-spoke mags? That was the last one I can think of, and I thought that was pretty cool. Porsche's currently can stop fast enough to loosen your dentures, I shudder to think what this new system will have them doing...

Aristo

I'm looking for 18x8.5 Racing Hart C5 rims. It's retail $750 a piece. Do you guys know where I can purchase a used set? I've checked ebay and yahoo's auction. Appreciate any inputs. Thanks.

shaggymatt

What bolt pattern and offset?

Aristo

I'm no expert on rims and all I know is that C5 fits on most imported cars. Do you guys think it'll be cheaper if I pick 'em up in Japan?

Aristo

Ah, I already bought 4 nitto 555 extreme 2 are 245/40 18, 2 are 285/35 18 for $550 now I really need to buy the rims!

Apex

dodo: You know, that if you do not match the offset correctly for your vehicle, your handling will suck, right? Plus, your bump steer will be horrible. If you have such a nice car and plan on upgrading your suspension, don't go and make a mistake on the rims offset.

Aristo

I'm sure that the offset matches my car. The following are some pictures from my friend. For who is wondering what my car looks like, just imagine it's a silver instead of black and I have yello fog lights instead of white. He dropped 1.4 inches on his car while I'm planning to drop just a little bit more.




[Edited by dodo90024 on 12-14-2000 at 03:18 PM]

Aristo

By the way, I already received TEIN HA coilover. It's been sitting in the garage for a week. I've been hesitated whether to install the coilover now or wait for my new rims. The thing is when do I get the rims, I don't know. Need outputs. I can schedule for the installation this Saturday the soonest.

Apex