Chesterfield

Sounds great! Although Im more comfortable with doing cosmetic mods rather than mechanical, (and it takes me all my time to get round to doing anything on the cosmetic side). Im still keen to read about projects like this its great to get an insight into how these things are undertaken etc. Im sure there are others that lik to read about these projects too. Dont forget you have your own TDI blog area where you can administer the posts...

Ditto the above - we had a virus on our network of XP machines that cost me a massive ammount of time the day we were due to go on holiday - all because one pc was not updated. As previously stated though using the same XP home key on 2 machines is illegal, so for obvious reasons cannot be endorsed or condoned by this forum. There are however I believe educational versions that will allow install on two machines (Microsoft assumes one at home and your laptop for university etc). I do not know the cost of these, however a cheaper way to purchase a legitimate license is to get an oem one with a hardware upgrade from a PC supplier. We saved £100 per MS office license when we bought them with hardware (a £3 mouse with each PC was enough to satisfy the rule). That may be one pottential avenue you could research, any local PC supplier should be able to advise

It was brilliant last time, if the dates dont clash with our holidays, then myself and Tracy will certainly come along PS Steve Ive not forgotten your DVD of photos, they will be on the way!

I would have to question if a powerful magnet costing pennies could make all that difference, why manufacturers dont fit them as standard? Perhaps the desire not to feel ripped off casues people to beleive it cuts fuel consumption - sounds like technological placebo to me, sorry

Great - thanks for the answers

Does anyone know if it is physically posible to use the steering wheel controls with an aftermarket head unit? Not that I have one yet, but its just a point that was raised by the other half when I was hanging my nose over some units at JAE. The only way I thought of, and Im probably going about it all wrong, was that some units come with a remote control. If the remote control was mounted somewhere indescrete, and the wires from the controls on the steering wheel were extended and wired into the relevant microswitches in the remote control - that would work, but I think that would be extremely messy. Any other opinions?

Hi and welcome. The 350Z coupe is insurance group 18, with the exception of the GT4 which is group 19. All roadsters are group 19. Servicing is not that cheap, but its not daft money either in my experience. We have numerous dealers on here that will be recommended by members and they do servicing at the right price. If you do motorway miles than you can expect similar fuel consumption, or at least not that much worse. Use your lead right foot some more and youll see that figure drop though. There are some known issues etc that can happen to the Z, these are listed in the warranty section along with owners experiences when they have suffered any faults: http://www.350z-uk.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=28 If you are doing motorway miles, watch for the stone chips - the paint is weaker than a weak thing on the Z, so it does chip easily - if yours is in decent condition when you get it, or new, then investing in some sort of film protection is a must for many. Its expensive, but so is a front end respray. Hope you enjoy your stay, and Im sure there will be plenty to offeradvice when you are ready to take the plunge

I think there are certain versions that do allow this from what I remember. I think allow you to have it on your desktop and your laptop for example, or at least I remember something like that. You could check the MS website for their t's and c's I suppose before you try it.

locked - post up the new one and we can remove this one

It was set at a maximum of 10, now altered to 20. Obviously the more options, the more the database has to handle in terms of replies etc. Its the first time this has ome up, so I doubt we would regularly see polls with that number of options though, so nothing to be worried about. Anyway, you can now have a maximum of 20 options.

If anyone in the team ever sells up, they will be replaced by people that do own a Z, or they may wish to stick around regardless. The site is primarily for the 350Z, and we would like to keep it that way. Of course there is the pottential for so much more, but if we spread ourselves too thin, then we risk losing our sense of identity. The amount of off topic banter already threatens to overrun the forum and start this loss of identity anyway. Some owners have already said that the amount of pointless chatter discourages them from visiting as regularly. Our aim has been and still is, to continue to be a great 350Z oriented site for 350Z owners, would be owners and fans in general. Some good points raised above, and Im sure this thread will have given the team plenty to discuss going forward, though for now I think the aim continues to be, for us to be the best 350Z site we can.

Stickied and added to calendar Steve - thanks for the invite to all, its great to get the Zedders together!

John, Gutted to hear of this, I hope everything is sorted quickly for you. Hopefully the dealer aranging the work will pull their finger out and sort things quickly, I know my dealer took forever to get my roadster sorted when it needed some work, I can only imagine the fun involved when one is ordering and fitting a whole new engine. I would imagine that its not the most common of jobs the engineers will have performed on a 350Z, so I feel patience will be the key. Im always concious that if Im on a dealers back about an issue - it will get rushed and Ill end up with a sloppy job having been done. Then on the other hand you dont want them to be slack about it and be waiting forever for the car to come back. Hope you are back in the big canary soon. I was out in ours yesterday for the first time in the sun for a while - the yellow certainly is the best!

Saw some like that at JAE - very nice indeed, but I think it would be head in the oven time if you kerbed one.

Our garage looks likes the plumbing section of wickes with the banner frame! The shirts are great Mark, look forward to sporting mine at the wye valley run!

Ill add your tag (if I havent done already) and gift one over. You dont have to be on at the same time to gift a car, you will just receive it next time you log on Sent one to Ian last night, Ill try and send yours as soon as possible, thats if I get anywhere near the xbox as Im being dragged out for a meal tonight. Ive got to try and find some software that seems to have been misplaced too...

Im in.

Ah yes - Ill send a car over with the forum logos on too..

Dont expect to pick up a copy of the game and be able to do artwork like that. You have to make the pictures by stretching, skewing, fading and colouring different shapes. No brush tools or picture importing here - its all done from basic shapes and lines etc.. Very dificult indeed.

Yes that it does. Not too much of a problem though, you can sell some of the common designs for a few k a piece. Im starting to sell some designs for other people, these cars go for upwards of 800k each. Common prices for some cars are 1.5m each and rare designs go for tens of millions of cr each. Here is a design that will shortly sell for around 30 million a piece.

C3ALL I dont do racing just now, to busy trying to become a forza billionaire using the auction house!

You may find this useful - I learnt quite a bit from the d80 guide on his site, so I assume the D40 guide will be as good: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40/us ... /index.htm

Actually I was at the Nissan group of the show n shine and overheard a couple of guys talking about how last year Stephen made a taxi comment about the Primera. Apparently had he been interviewed he would have asked why he thought it was funny. I was actually praying tht Stephen did interview they guy. If theres one rule you pick up in life, its that you dont try and be funny when you are talking to a comedian with a microphone. Its just going to end in embarrassment really isnt it. I think Stephen did a great job, at the Show N Shine finals I took pictures of him speaking with everyone, and a shot of each of their cars too - hopefuly once I get round to posting them, either Stephen or the JAE staff may like them.

You want a 360. GTA IV is appearing on that too, and you get forza, which is in my opinion a lot more realistic than the Grand Tourismo games. You can also get a HD DVD drive for the 360 for about £90 - making it still about £100 cheaper than a PS3 for now. Blue Ray/HD DVD debate is long and drawn out affair with no clear winner yet. Some studios have signed up to one format, some studios the other and some other studios not declared their hand yet - its Betamax/VHS all over again.

Ive got a Nikon D80. All in with my lens it cost around £900. The lens is\was the part that bumped the price up for myself, its a 18-200 VR lens (vibration reduction). I wanted one that could go from very wide shots to a half decent zoom without needing to change lens. As Im going on safari later in the year, I dont want to be changing lenses on the back of a dusty Jeep, so it was a crucial requirement that my set up have a good "does everything" lens. Expect to pay around the £400 point for a lens like that. With a standard 18-70 lens you can get the wide shots, but zoom may be lacking, D80 with 18-70mm is £671 at jessops, so you could probably find that cheaper. You can also get it with a 18-135mm lens for £688. Obviously the 135 will get you a better zoom than the 70, but its not Nikkor lens, so quality may not be up to scratch if you are going to be zooming in and editing for professional printing etc.. Also there is a big jump up from the D40 to the D80 in terms of the sensor. D40 is 6.1 megapixel, while the D80 is 10.1 megapixel. So zooming in after the event on images taken with the D80 may be easier. If you plan on getting arty with the shots the D80 offers more flexibility in terms of iso sensitivity and is also a little quicker on continuous shoot mode. The D40 has only 3 focus areas to the D80's 11 areas. You can compare the Nikons here: http://www.nikonkit.com/nikon-d80-vs-d7 ... 50-vs-d40/ For me the D80 was the choice as although I knew I would not use all its functions straight away, I did not want to find myself a year from now kicking myself because I wanted to use a certain function and I ha not gone for the camera with it. Although there are some good bits of software out there for stitching photos together, and they may negate the use of any real wide angle for landscape photography, I do find the wide angles are very useful at car shows. I can stand about 2ft or less away from a car front and still get the whole car in. It makes it very useful for taking photos of cars without having to wait for people to clear out of the way, you just get in front of everyone else and snap away knowing that others will have to stand a lot further back to get the whole car in. That came in very useful at the ring when the McLaren SLR turned up. Its also useful for getting arty shots from the front corners of cars etc. You can get more or less the same lenses for both Cannon and Nikon, but as you have already discovered, the lenses are expensive for these SLR's The fixed focal length ones with large apperture are the worst, for example a fixed length 400mm lens (short distance bird spotting type lens) would be about £6,000. If you are going to the outh Wales run in August, Ill be bringing my D80 along with the 18-200 VR attached, if you havent made your mind up before then you are welcome to have a go