JBomb3000

Pure Blonde or Extra Dry normally. I tried that new Bondi Blonde that they had Paris Hilton out here flogging a while back and it was pretty good to.

I was looking through some photos and came across this little project that a few mates and myself put together. Basically we got very very drunk one night and came up with this little brainwave. It used to be one of my mates old mans car. He got a company car so we got our hands on it and knowing where there was a turbo off a ford TW-25 tractor it seemed like the logical thing to do It's a XF wagon with about 350,000 kms on it, untouched 3 speed spastic shift auto, stock diff but with 4.11 diff gears, and a unopened power house 3.3L motor. that's right it's the 200 not even the 250 X-flow The carbie is a 650 holly double pumper just for the fact that was what we had lying around. That combined with the size of the turbo, the 200 CI capacity and a stock auto you can imaging it was a bit of a dog lower in the rev range. Surprisingly it ran well at idle but was a dog till about 3500 RPM and then (once again surprisingly) it pulled pretty hard for what it is. Any ways we took it over to Shepparton for the spring nats and had a bit of fun with it over there then (this time not surprisingly) we blew the auto. We got our hands on a 4 speed manual box to put in it but never got around to it. Total build cost $800. Thought some of you might get a laugh from it and if Nika, Goldie or any of our more mechanically minded forum members want some of the finer engineering details don't Be afraid to ask :spit:

Depends on what oil they put in it, they probably don't have every oil they use in 205L drums. For that price I wouldn't think it's probably GTX 3 or something similar.

There fine on dirt roads/tracks but you probably wouldn't want to go much further than that off road in one.

The V twin certainly has a very distinct note to it, awesome looking bike but I don't think I'd like to be doing the maintenance on one. Having to take the engine out to adjust the valve clearance I'll pass.

I understand what your saying, I have a mate with a DRZ 400 and over my enduro loop which is mainly tight second gear single trail with a few third gear straights I can ride the DRZ faster (and for longer) than the WR around it. As soon as we get on to some more open fire trails the WR takes over. I can't ride a WR450 to it's full potential (and I mean "ride" not hold it flat out in top gear down a straight) and I'm fully aware of this but part of the beauty of it is you don't have to. The new 450's don't need to be ridden on the button all the time as much as smaller capacity bikes do. You can lugg it a bit, run a gear higher here and there, be a bit lazy with the clutch out of corners and you can get away with it. It's horses for courses and in an ideal world I'd have 3 or 4 bikes at home and pick the one that is best suited to the riding I'm planning on doing on that particular day but the current crop of 450's are IMO the best compromise to being all things to all people. As far as the excitement factor, I just don't get the addrealin rush when I crack the DRZ wide open on a fire trail as I do with the WR and that is a trade off about being slower around the enduro loop and not being able to ride for as long that I'm willing to make. Some aren't and I can appreciate that point of view as well. At the end of the day the shootouts results come down to exactly what your looking for in a bike and that was the point I was trying to make was that this is emphasized fairly heavily in the mags these day that certain bikes are more suited to certain riders, they don't just say bike X is the best as they used to a few years back.

Don't agree at all with what your saying nearly all the shoot outs these days always have at least one or 2 testers who are clubman riders or just plain old trail hacks. They also go to into detail about which bikes would suit certain types of riders. Hence why the award the best bike for different styles of riding not just an overall winner. It's a fine line between picking a bike that's not going to kill you in the first 5 minutes and something that you won't outgrow in 3 months. my first bike was a WR426, now that was a step learning curve! While my skill level at the time was much more suited to a 250F or XR400, I went with the bigger bike and managed to not kill myself. There were times early on when I though what the hell am I doing but I was pleased I did further down the track when I didn't have to buy another bike as my skills improved. While a DRZ 400 or XR 400 sound like it would suit wesleytarbuck well they simply won't deliver the excitement of a 450.

I can see a fair bit of BMW 1 series in the side profile as well. But overall it looks sh*t house.

I don't think what your saying about the KTM's being "ready to race" compared to the Jap bikes is very accurate any more. 3 - 4 years ago yeah but Honda and Yamaha have lifted there game. The WR and CRF have decent alloy bars and reasonable exhausts on them these days. But like you said though the price difference is becoming less and less so they needed to offer more. Your also overlooking the fact that alot of people seem to think it's necessary to run a $800 - $1000 steering damper on the KTM to cure the high speed nervousness that seem to be an inherent KTM trait. Throw one of them on and it blows your value theory out of the water. On a side note I just finished reading the new ADB with the 500cc enduro shootout and the new Dirt Action with the 450 enduro's. The Dirt Action comparo was a good read, they managed to get 9 of the 450's together only missing on the Sherco. The TM EN450 got the gong as best 450 overall as well as winning best race bike, the Husky TE450 won best Enduro and the Honda CRF450X best trail bike. In the 500cc ADB test they had 6 bikes with only the Beta missing. The husky TE510 took the overall win as well as best race bike and the Sherco 5.1i won best trail bike.

I hope your right

Something doddgy going on here The estimated value of http://www.yahoo.com is: $2,147,483,647

Looks good mate, love that colour with the 19"s

I have made a few changes for next round so hopefully I improve again.

Did a bit better this round now up to 4th

Yeah those toll cars were seriously quick, the biggest plus for the ford side IMO had been the performance of DJR. They have gone from the brink of being bankrupt to a front running team.

245's all round

Updates?????

What your saying is probably true, my T gets serviced once a year and would do 5 - 7 thousand in that time. It's very unlikely this car will ever see 30,000 kms while I still own it. Having said that I have been running synthetic since the 3,000 k service and will continue to do so. Is it worth the extra money? probably not but it makes me feel good knowing it has the best oil in it none the less .

We ran a wire from one guys front indicator light to his horn so every time he put his right hand blinker on the horn honked with every flash. The guy knows nothing about cars and came to work the next day telling us all about it and how he didn't know what the hell was going on, after about 2 hours of keeping a straight face I finally cracked and told him

He's kicking 3rd out of the whole comp

I can't see any reason to change my team at this stage, give it one more round to get a bit more of an idea how everyone is going to perform before I start using my trades.

Go the Hawks

No they have released CGI pics of what they think it will look like.

Well I like it, and if I was looking at buying a GT I would buy a 40th anniversary one for sure. I think people need to look at it for what it is which is something that's a little bit different for very little price premium, rather than what it could have been. No one slagged the Devil-R and Enforcer XR8's when they came out, I don't really see how this is any different.