club.liberty.asn.au

performance + durability as a ratio of cost and/or resale is very hard to measure. This form of consumer/marketing research is a massive industry.

for me in regards to cars if the cost of an item is a direct reflection of its performance or durabilty and it is expensive than it is worth buying. More so when safety is involved. because of this i will rarely cheap out when it comes to things such as tyres, brake pads etc.

However, if something is visually identical to a more expensive product and performs at the same level i will generally buy it. This is why i cheaped out on my exhaust... because at the end of the day its a piece of 3 inch pipe.

However, because rims attach to the tyres and they attach to the road... im a bit iffy when it comes to buying used items or cheap knockoffs, however i was not aware, nor have i head that rotas are as bad as you claim mark. However i do agree they damage the market as no body likes to have their ideas ripped off.

Im no expert on marketing or consumer trends but do companys like rota contribute to the cost of rims such as rays, volk, works, etc in a positive way or negative way. as in does this make the large companys think 'we better put our price down these guys are stealing a large chunk of our business' or do they take the high road and say 'our wheels are exclusive, if you want the real deal you'll pay'? i understand that this question has many business based variables, but generally speaking?

stew07gt wrote:our wheels are exclusive, if you want the real deal you'll pay'?

This is definitively the case. All rays wheels are very expensive.

Work have some cheaper wheels but they also have some expensive ones.

stew07gt wrote: however i was not aware, nor have i head that rotas are as bad as you claim Mark.

Firstly, sorry to off topic your thread Stew.

If you google Rota rim fail images, you'll see what I mean.

Apparently their quality has come along way............

IF you look at the current prices of the genuine rims they've copied, I dont think the knock offs have affected the price at all.

google image searched 'rota rims' ... didnt need to type in broken or cracked.

anyone can do this if you dont believe me. within the first 20 images shown, 3 are of total fails .correction *5 of them actually*. was going to call your bluff on this mark but it seems you were correct again. not saying rotas are bad, but i didnt believe they would be able to just 'break' like that badly anyway. any rim for that matter i though would have been designed with a weak point, ive seen a few buckled ones from accidents but not like that.

was going to post pics, but many of them were demotivationals. and it would not be nice to do as rota makes nice looking affordable rims and im sure theyre products as you said mark have come a long way. one pic i found had a rota failure and seemed to have gold brembos, looked a bit like a liberty but couldnt tell. if anyone sees that pic let me know your thoughts lol

Decided to add some various pics and video of un-captured mods done so far, so everything is in the one place.

Yes thats the ebay exhaust. But seems to look and sound like another exhaust a few people on here have.....

sounds good, any pics of the exhaust? how far do the tips stick out past the bumper?

legacydan wrote:sounds good, any pics of the exhaust? how far do the tips stick out past the bumper?

Ill put some more up later, they do stick out a bit... probably the same amount that the ultrex ones stick out... find some pics of them and you will see what i mean.

That eBay one looks identical to my ultrex exhausts.

JDGT05 wrote:That eBay one looks identical to my ultrex exhausts.

you said it not me. lol

i thought the difference was a lack of resonator as shown in the pics on ebay, but mine came with one.

heres some more pics anyway (bit old now, this was when i put it on)

hmmm they do stick out a bit probably more than my Fujitsubo ones. im looking for something that sits under the bumper better

yeah ill replace them eventually.however, there is now a more pressing issue.

What to do with my end of apprenticeship payout?

Minus bills, uni textbooks etc... i will have about 3k to play with.

How do i spend it. i assumed the obvious choice was to get a dump pipe, a tune and a front lip, which would come to $2350 fitted.

However, after thursday nights cruise with the central coast boys and after attempting to (and failing) to chase jacks car up a hill, its left me wondering if i will be happy with my results as his car was very impressive, as even though many have gone down the dump+tune route, even through mass searching im still struggling to find a dyno graph, or somebodys description of a new level of driving with the same mods i have (while reading this ive found hamishs other than centre pipe haha).

I am impatient. But how how much of a different is there really from stock to getting a tbe and a tune? would a bigger top mount help much as i may be able to stretch my budget to that if i was to find a used one.

Tune is best bang for buck thing you can do to your car when combined with a tbe and minor intake mods.

However - my strong advice would be if you feel that 150-160kw atw will not be enough for you, and you even have a suspicion that you might wanna chase more power in due course, then save your money for now until you have more of a budget and do the following:

- turbo upgrade - vf34 or similar sized can be had for around 700 bucks second hand
- upipipe modification $250
- dump pipe - 800
- fuel pump 250 installed
- injectors 600
- tune 1000
- boost controller 500
- fmic kit 800
- miscellaneous 500

Total $5000

This should make close to 200atw

too many people are selling me this idea and it is far too tempting.

what would my car have stock atw now? with catback and intake?

might be worth doing more handling mods first anyway....

Max 130kwatw

dr20t wrote:Max 130kwatw

yeah i thought so, so id be expecting to gain 30 with dump and tune. Would a top mount get me much more? probably hyperflow.