Smoke them tyres

spot on

I have to say that I find that this whole naming and shaming and disguising it as related to science less than optimum.......science is not about concensus or belief. It is about testing hypotheses and letting the facts fall where they may. VALID conclusions can then be drawn. Abbott has NOT been saying no to everything. There have been about 80 bills passed since the Ranga came in. If there were no bills passed, the govt could not have blown things out so disastrously. It would have no funding and we would potentially be in dissolution territory. I seem to remember that the current mob in govt were far more resistant to passing anything and would oppose it whether it was good policy or not. Once again, they seem to look in the mirror, find a flaw in themselves and use it to describe the other side. Saying no to a somewhat carcass of a policy can be a good thing. Anyone remember the fervent aspiration of Rudd to sign at Copenhagen? What a mess that turned out to be and the repercussions he would have committed Australia to. He would have all the upside of glory, and we would have all the downside of the outcome.

Hi Dule, I have just had a read of treasury's modelling and it has some considerable shortcomings due to the "scope" that the govt set for them.... http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/fatal-flaw-in-case-for-a-carbon-tax/story-e6frgd0x-1226094872101 It's not so much the $10/week, but the amount of funds that is being thrown at it. I am sure that this policy, will like their others, have many unintended consequences and distortions.

Yeah, because that misleading figure INCLUDES our exports. NOT JUST DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION So A carbon tax will not change the fact that this figure is still going to be high even if we stuff our own economy.

Well let's make sure we are talking about the right pollution in the first place! This current proposal is such a stupid, ineffective and inefficient way to do it. ie...it doesn't pass the logic/common sense test, or the effectiveness test or the efficiency test. It will therefore fail and cause much un-needed aggro for everyone. Greens = :nuts2: :nuts2: :nuts2: :nuts2: :nuts2: If the govt were to help in providing the right conditions to the market, it would be FAR more effective... -having a clear plan on what industries to drive change in, so that an improved technological outcome is delivered -tax free/reduced tax period to help industries establish rather than penalising certain ones and expecting the rest to make their way -125% R&D concession like Hawke did (assuming no rorting) -free trade zones/special economic zones -encouraging a venture capital industry in this country -simplifying the patent system -encouraging R&D businesses to establish in Australia I also fail to see that the Greens don't have a conundrum with their current policy. They want "pollution" reduced, but have no problem in a big population.......which is the biggest contributor to pollution in the first place.

So if I'm nominated as a "big bad polluter".... -no compensation to me for the cost of my inputs going up = less free cash flow (FCF) in the business -buy these shonky overseas credits = more reduction of FCF -higher likelihood of increased interest rates due to the new payments for the credits (and the continuing incompetence of this mob) worsening the balance of payments = even less free capital in the business -the Ranga then tells me that I can't put prices up and probably wouldn't do so anyway as the ability of customers to purchase at the lowest/moderate price is easily accessible in a lot of cases, so I'm constrained there = unable to increase FCF -I am then expected to so called "clean up" the so called "dirty" business whilst still paying for the shonky credits. Because of the further reduced FCF in the business, this must mean that the debt to equity ratio is likely to be higher, and that returns to non-secured shareholders will be more risky and uncertain. Superannuation anyone? -what if it is cheaper to pay the credits than clean up a major piece of infrastructure???????? and this is before the other taxes that they have dreamt up. And introducing all this when the markets and consumers are already nervous...another masterstroke! Anyone who thinks that the compensation is going to get it done had better think again. In near terms, this is the typical Labor Party 3 shell trick......trumpet and sucker in what people are to receive and quietly rip twice as much away. This compensation has nothing to do with being fair. The fact that they are throwing the kitchen sink at it, IMO has changed it from an economic/environmental imperative into a political one; -to save their political skins -and getting the thing in so that they can get to the real payoff later How do these numbnuts expect to save the environment with a lower standard of living......socialism has damaged the environment far more than capitalism ever has. It never ceases to amaze me that each time the socialists come to power, that they implement the very same crap that they have tried for the last 100 years and are surprised when it implodes. Then do no self examination of why it did so in opposition. Truly STUPID. The trembling lip and quivering voice from Gillard has only convinced me more that there is NO "real Joooylia". It is like someone thrashing around trying to find the "right" formula. I have never seen, met or known anyone in my entire life that is so devoid of any true and worthwhile traits. As for the rest of that mob...not a brain amongst 'em. I am still in utter disbelief that this mob can do ANYTHING right.

Professor Bob Brown...part 1 of 4 Gillard= sycophant Brown= NUTS This reeks of new socialism....fine until they run out of other people's money. I think the strategy for Labor is to get up in the morning, take a look at themselves in the mirror, find a failure/character flaw.....and then use it to describe the other side. Great strategy....apparently. This looks like the NSW power sell off......a big bucket of money that is too hard to resist, give multiple concessions, and then end up with nothing left over. Now we find that it is $4B+ in the hole. Dumb asses, like everything else they have done. It will also make the balance of payments worse (capital account) when the credits merry go round starts. And to introduce it when markets are nervous....another masterstroke.

+2 for SuperPro. The excessive wear with the std bushes comes mainly from toe out under braking. 1700kg car with front brakes doing 60-70% of the braking will load them quite heavily. The deformation of the std rubber bushes under this sort of load means that the wheel alignment will not be held under dynamic load. As you are experiencing, stuffs tyres in no time. Also, if the car is cornered hard and generates at least 0.5g in cornering, that will mean probably around several hundred kilograms or so acting on the bushes on that side in cornering. That can mean it will also add wear to the outside as the loaded bushes will compress and reduce any static negative camber. The tyre wear will then look odd as if the tyre is running underinflated when it is not. No design flaw/problem, just soft std bushes. All in the name of a quiet car. The uprated bushes will make the car much "sharper" and more satisfying to drive. I would also get the upper ones done at the same time....cheap and easy to fit whilst there (unless a V8). If you do get those done, get a Fulcrum shim kit as well and use the std upper mounts. Camber can then be changed by loosening the upper mounts and sliding different thicknesses in, rather than having to completely pull the thing out to change the shims that is the std setup.

Hi XR, Great stuff. Apologies for my tardy reply..... "The car was only slightly more inclined to understeer, meaning when getting on the throttle mid corner it was more likely to push the front out than the rear" Look forward to seeing what you think with the rear bar removed........as it should help the front some more and further transfer (diagonally) some dynamic weight to the rear. The initial push is saying to me that although close, slightly more weight needs to go to there. Another great way to check that your set up is going the right way is to have someone observe it trackside at some mid corner bumps. If the body of the car is stable, and the suspension is moving, then the spring and damper rates are pretty close to what the car needs. Most people think team spotters for race cars are only looking at race position. The intelligent ones will have someone sensible looking at the behaviour of the car (and probably filming it as well also). To see this in action in an extreme case, YouTube some clips for the Baja desert race in the US.

The blade links are the curved arms that run forward from the bottom of the wheel hubs next to each wheel. They are a good idea and are meant to control fore/aft movement as well as rotational which is the tramp, but the std bushes have so much movement in them that it renders their intended purpose pretty useless. I would replace those first as they are a pretty simple remove, replace bushes and refit scenario.....3 bolts at the back/hub end, a clip/tie to hold the wheel speed sensor cable and 2 nuts at the front dogbone mount. The diff mount bushes take a right hammering if wheel tramp is not controlled and they will fail if it continues to tramp. When I fitted the blade link bushes to mine, I could physically feel in the car that wheel control under power and over bumps was waaaaaay better. No tramp to date, but mine is making nowhere near the power of some. Tramp can also be mitigated by driving style. If you do get the diff mount bushes done, be sure to replace all 3. If you only do the rear, that stiffer bush will put in too much bending load and the bolt will eventually fail. Then the whole unit WILL have to come out. If I had one criticism of the way Dana have designed the rear end it would be the mounting of the diff centre and the ultra soft/voided bushes. Surely in this day and age, ALL of the manufacturers can come up with something better than a material that has not changed much for the last 40 years or so. As for the design of the rest of it, it is actually quite good and the suspension geometry is actually better than the front.

Fit the blade link bushes with poly. The std rubber bushes are unbelievably sloppy. Poly bushes will make the tramp disappear.

Hmmmm, sounds like "management"?????? Denmac Ford enters receivership after Brisbane floods One of Ford Australia’s best performing dealerships, Denmac Ford, has been forced into receivership as a result of low sales and financial hardship following January’s Brisbane floods. Denmac Ford Pty Ltd has three sites in southwest Brisbane: two showrooms in Indooroopilly and Moorooka and its head office, sales, service and parts department in Darra. Bremer Ford, based in Ebbw Vale, is also included in the receivership takeover by Deloitte. Together, the businesses employ approximately 120 people and have a turnover of more than $100 million every year. Denmac Ford is a well-established name in Brisbane, having sold vehicles for more than 30 years. Between 2004 and 2006 it was Ford Australia’s top-selling retail dealer, and in 2006 it also sold more FPV models than any other dealership in the country. Deloitte partner and joint receiver, Richard Hughes, said the initial plan was to continue to operate the business in cooperation with the director, staff and existing creditors. “We believe there will be significant interest in the business and we are working hard to re-establish the business as we investigate the best way to realise value for the benefit of the stakeholders,” Mr Hughes said. “The initial tasks of the receivers include re-establishing supply and customer relationships, and working with the staff of the group to trade the business, whilst a sale program is initiated.” In January 2011, sales of new vehicles in Queensland were 12.8 percent below January 2010 (13,300 vs 15,253). Sales have since normalised in Queensland, and although sales are still 2.1 percent off last year’s pace, they are ahead of the total Australian new vehicle market, which is down 3.2 percent compared with January-April 2010.

If you replace the back bush with a poly one, ALSO do the side bushes for the diff in poly. Introducing a stiffer durometer bush for only the rear position will not load all mounts equally. See here: My link

http://www.caradvice.com.au/118766/responsible-drivers-cause-more-accidents-than-hoons-report/ Responsible drivers cause more accidents than hoons: report By Brett Davis | May 16th, 2011 According to Professor D’Arcy Holman of the Road Safety Council of WA, hoons cause less crashes compared with more responsible, low-risk-taking drivers. He says it’s the majority that matters when it comes to the road toll and says the majority includes drivers that take low-risks on the road, such as those who frequently exceed the speed limit by only a little bit. Prof Holman says it’s a myth that hoon drivers cause the worst havoc on the roads. He says general drivers who go over the speed limit on a regular basis cause around 3000 fatalities and serious accidents every year, whereas hoon-related accidents account for a smaller number of the overall road toll. He said in a recent The West Australian report, “We certainly don’t want anti-social hoon behaviour on our roads but it’s the less conspicuous speeding behaviour of the general public that really matters in terms of safety outcomes. We need to target not so much the high-risk behaviour by a few but go after the majority. “Hoon drivers massively increase their risk of a crash but the bottom line is not many people do that whereas you have many drivers going over the limit, which even by 5km/h doubles the risk of a crash.” It’s certainly an interesting angle, especially as hoon drivers are typically regarded as the biggest contributor to the road toll as they are the easiest to target. Prof Holman says figures from Main Roads show drivers have slowed down in the past ten years. In 2000, around 13 percent of drivers frequently sped by 10km/h or more. Last year, that figure was six percent. He says the speed camera was probably the main cause in the reduction of speeders as motorists eventually got tired of paying fines.

I believe their is some lubricant that needs to be applied to the boot when putting them back in place. It is to stop the boot grabbing and potentially stuffing the coils when removing them.

Interesting small read on benefits of double wishbone suspensions: "The key reason that we are using the double-wishbone [configuration] is that it gives you a couple of fundamental geometry benefits," de Vlugt continued. "The first one probably is that you have got a better opportunity to make kingpin axis more upright than in a MacPherson strut. "On the MacPherson [strut] you've always got it a little more tilted and the kingpin inclination is more inboard, which really means that you've got different behavior off-camber, over steering wheel angle. And on the double-wishbone it's far more linear than on the MacPherson strut." "So if you go to extreme lean angles [with MacPherson struts], then you can end up with almost positive camber on both wheels -- on the inside and the outside corner... whereas double wishbones... you tend to go towards more negative camber, evenly distributed. "If you turn to the left, then you get more negative camber towards that direction -- which will basically optimise your tyre properties better." More complex and heavier, the double-wishbone system does offer other virtues, including better ride quality than MacPherson struts can typically provide. "With a more upright kingpin inclination the disturbance angle from unbalanced effects or small disturbances from the road, your lever arm is smaller than [in] a MacPherson strut typically," de Vlugt explained. The "lever arm" in double-wishbone systems equates to the lower control arm of MacPherson struts and needn't be as long to provide the same level of wheel articulation, but in addition to conventional notions of ride quality, the Ford engineer also points out that double-wishbone systems cope better with conflicting design parameters such as anti-dive under braking and compression of the system over bumps. "By and large, you can say that a double-wishbone [system] gives you a better opportunity to balance different kinematic properties," said de Vlugt. "Over road obstacles, where you get vertical movement forced on the suspension, then a MacPherson strut has got a very strongly defined relationship between how much you can let the wheel move rearward over those bumps and how much anti-dive you can get out of it. "Typically, MacPherson struts are limited to building in too much anti-dive, because the front suspension will get very harsh if you do that. Double-wishbone has got more design freedom to create more anti-dive -- and at the same time, not have harshness issues." From here: http://ninemsn.carpoint.com.au/advice/2011/ford/turning-away-from-macpherson-struts-24476

BUGGER......now a damn good coffee table....straight to the pool room. How many revs was it doing? What brand of rod bolt?

I feel your pain. Some people really know how to wreck their own possessions.....and unfortunately others

Hi Dule, That is EXACTLY what mine was doing.

I had some really stiff custom front springs that I changed to softer ones (Kings std uprated spec spring). I changed them as a handling issue rather than a brake solution, but it did the trick. There is definitely an issue going on there and I could see that cars with mileage would/could have future issues. If you had adjustable front shocks, softening the compression damping would definitely help it to abate. ie lower the frequency of the wheel assy. Ultra low profiles may also be a contributing factor, but mine still has the std 17's on it. Hmmmmm....mounting the calipers on the carriage pins. I think that is where the problem is, because the pads are a snug fit in the body. If it does rear it's head again, I would definitely fit the anti rattle pads. I know exactly where they are on the bench.....

Exactly. I fail to see how the Greens don't see the massive policy conundrum they have..... We should cut back on our emissions to save the planet but it is ok to have a big populations??? Surely the biggest factor in what causes increases in pollution is more people? What a bunch of narrow minded, righteous, aggressive self serving evangelists......to succeed at any cost. These type of people are usually best at causing clusterf**ks. Empty vessels usually make the most noise. This is worth a listen as the green myths currently being put forward are rubbish: Technology and population control are the solutions IMO. Apparantly, with the Cancun agreement that Combet signed recently.....saw approx. $600m given away to the UN as an initial amount and 10% of any revenues generated by a carbon tax will also see it go overseas to that bottomless pit the UN.

No aftermarket block/cylinder head for the 4ltr either. All cubic $$$$$$$

If it's a quality item, I would definitely go the twin plate. It's load on your leg will be easier than the single plate for the same hp capacity....the extra surface area (grip area) is too much to ignore. Also, just make sure that the throwout bearing still has enough travel with the new clutch to fully disengage it. The large single plates have too much of a speed differential between the inner and outer surfaces, causing heat and different wear patterns across the clutch disc. Everything else being equal, the twin plate should also last longer.

I thought a few years back, the manufacturers went from thermoplastic to thermosetting plastic???? My limited knowledge is the first can be welded, the second can't. Probably so they can sell more. Any others know for sure or otherwise?