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If you're using 15" wheels for drag racing traction, leave the sway bar disconnected. Sway bars increase spring rate on one rear wheel and unloads the opposite tyre from the road surface. Traction wise, rear sway bars make the car behave like an open diff vs a locked diff as a simple explanation.

I've fitted a couple of Calais and HSV head units with CD players into cars that don't have the Bose system and amp, and the speakers, fader controls etc work as normal. I only changed the VIN to unlock them from the donor vehicles and retained the OEM Calais or HSV software.

I had the Simmons wheels, springs and shocks and a set of RDA rotors we got for free to test waiting in the shed whilst my Redline ute was in transit from QLD. It rolled up on a tilt tray and that day, and I drove it whilst stock to the rego inspection place on a permit about 14km's from us...

The BMW Signature Forged wheels (proper one's) I bought in from the USA 2019 were around $6800 AUD landed. They'd go well over 10k looking at today's prices for the same wheels. These are ultra-light weight machined from a forged billet.

Ironically the brand of wheels on my Redline ute are "Forgestar" likely giving the impression that all of their wheels are forged. Although the company does a custom forged wheel, the shelf wheels I purchased are called "flow forged" which is a cast centre and spun rim. I must say for a...

I agree! I like the Senator bumper with the one-piece grill I think would work well on a Redline without over-emphasising the fitment of odd HSV parts.

Fortunately, we don't have much necessity to use tight car parks and avoiding places vulnerable to car park dents probably helps minimise the potential for wheel damage. If you're exposed to tight parking on a daily basis, the risk of wheel damage increases.

When my wife kerbed a wheel on my week-old VR GTS in 1995 with great composure to avoid losing my cool, I told her she needs to be more careful, and I'll have to buy a new wheel, she apologised and said ok. I got my wife to pick the new wheel up and write the cheque to pay for it, a stupid...

A proper forged wheel is machined from a billet that has been compacted with extreme force to a particular standard, the reason a good set aftermarket forged wheels today are round 8k. There's few claims of forged wheels that I'm a bit skeptical are the real deal.

"Gutter rash" a term that implies poor judgement and carelessness better described as crap driving is normal!

The Clubsport with the spoiler option to me, is a better looking car than the GTS. I don't the like yellow brake calipers or the black exhaust tips on the GTS along with the chrome window trim and rear spoiler.

Some may disagree, but I think the silver wheels on my old R8 makes the car look better than my mate's GTS with black wheels on red!

I don' think the GTS spoiler covers the holes, it's the Hyperflo R8 that does like this one.

An R8 spoiler will cover all holes.

KW are the best for track work. You'll be faster on the track with R spec tyres, stock suspension and a good set of brake pads.

I'm a black wheel hater, unable to erase the vision from my mind of an old VK with the hub caps missing!

The only Maloo with these wheels but in matte black was a GenF2 SV Black. I'm not aware of that style of wheel in gloss black. Sorry, I posted this before reading they've been repainted gloss black!

I haven't fitted the mode dial to a Series 1 to see how it functions.

I'm not into sound systems at all, but the fader not working annoyed me and discovering the rear speaker wires are in the dash harness plugs, I fitted those 6.5" Rockford Fosgate speakers in the rear of my ute wired to the fader and the sound system sounds much better!

A few weeks ago I called a shop in the US about torsion bar rates for a particular sprint car chassis and spoke to a couple of blokes who couldn't really answer the question. They put me through to their lead mechanic who runs their primary car in the World of Outlaws series and a woman answers...

The 9's are 3mm inboard or have 3mm less poke than the 8.5 at +48. The wider 275 tyre fills the guards a bit more. I think Holden rim widths and offset suck anyway and perhaps the cream roof lining bloke did the wheels too! HSV front wheels aren't bad with an 8.5 +36 and 255 tyre but the...

Ebay sellers and mobs like Holmart, like to imply they have the last of obsolete parts when in fact, they're not obsolete and are still available from Holden Parts dealers at a much cheaper price. The other day I bought a VF2 air intake sound tube blanking plate and cost me $39 with 26 in stock...

It's a Series 2 SSV Redline ute. The mode dial will fully function on any Series 2 V8 with the SSV dash cluster. Series 1 non-HSV doesn't have the bimodal exhaust for the mode dial to open and close the exhaust valves.

The rain sorts the men from the boys! I remember watching Shane Van Gisbergen in the wet in the early days and told our guys he's better than Whincup and they all laughed at me. About 3 weeks later, Roland Dane picked him to drive for Triple 8 and the rest is history!

Morgan Park is a good track, we raced there last in 2010 and blew an engine with a 5 second lead in the first race. We couldn't afford a spare engine and the loss of 3 races cost us the national title by 4 points that year.

We raced at Symmons once with a VN Commodore in 2006 at a Shannon's round of the National Series. We won the previous round at Wanneroo in WA and tested at Symmons with same setup and seemed to work the same. We won that round also and set the lap record still standing today although I don't...

Yes, the Bend owners bought Mallala a few years ago and is still used for state level circuit racing cars and bikes and drifting. It's a great track for handling setup and developing engine torque and if a car works at Mallala, it'll pretty well work anywhere except Wanneroo in WA and Symmons...

Yes indeed! I learned the hard way leaving cast cranks and pistons in engines for too many race km's despite crack testing, ended up in catastrophic failures. If only I'd changed those components at their use by date, we would have saved a lot of money in the long term.

With a 6 litre race engine that made 335rwkw with the stock ECU and I wouldn't say the tuner was exceptionally good, we ended up making 348kw with the Motec ECU playing around with injection timing and Indvidual cylinder trim along with the bonus of wideband lambda trim. At Mallala, we gained a...

I remember the first V8 Supercar engine I freshened up in 2012, was a Garry Rogers Aurora Chev from a VZ cost 24k in parts, 10k in the lifters and titanium valves, the camshaft with a different firing order only one bloke can supply was 2.5k. Easy to see how a brand new engine like these and 410...

Speaking of tuning, here's the Motec M145 ECU we had developed for production-based race cars as a plug and play unit to directly replace the E38 ECU. We swapped to this on the ute with the Magnuson supercharger I mentioned earlier when switching to E85.

We've got a VE SS ute kicking around with a modified 6 litre engine and Magnuson supercharger on E85 and makes 750kw at the wheels. That ended up with an AP triple plate clutch, 6 speed Holinger gearbox with a Modena straight cut gearset from a V8 Supercar and a 9" full spool diff conversion and...

In maturity, I probably would've ended the race before it reached speeds for a dangerous driving charge given that my HQ Monaro with a cammed 308 was getting smoked by a Chrysler Centura with a modified 265 Hemi. The bloke in the Centura gave the cops a run, spun out and crashed into someone's...

I think RAA is hard to beat in SA. Most of the good panel shops are RAA approved repairers with approvals processed by the repairer emailing a quote and photos of the damage to RAA. Delays are generally when the repairer can do the job particularly if the car is still drivable. I've had quotes...

Sounds like a stuff up to me and the due to the fitment lip, the spoiler is intended to reach the end of the bumper. Mr B has paid out for the production of it and got the measurements wrong, knows it doesn't fit as intended but sells it regardless, "she'll be right!"

I had insurance issues for about 10 years after I got caught drag racing at 18 doing 161 kmph in an 80 zone. High risk rejection timed out eventually!

I'm reasonably confident with crash avoidance control to avoid at fault claims except for hitting kangaroos, but it's someone damaging my car with no insurance and no money. Yes, exactly! But you don't get anything from their dole payment when applying Section 60 of the Social Securities Act...

When VE roof linings became pretty well obsolete, it took a bit of work to match the black. Most trimmers black material was lighter than the genuine VE colour, more a dark grey. I found a material supplier in VIC who did the perfect VE colour match.

I've never customised interior colours and with the VF, I used the genuine black VE parts aside from a custom job on the VF A pillar trims. Changing VN interior to all black is too much messing around for me!

I remember VN's had grey pillar trims and a cream roof lining, and the VP roof lining was also grey matching the pillar trims, a bit darker grey than VN and looked better! I seem to think VZ was the first with black roof linings in the 6 litre SS, but VY like VX were cream above the door sills.