sasha@lazytrips

I must be a major minority in thinking that engines which give you 100% of torque at all times, allow for pleasant listening to music/conversation in the car and can potentially go for thousands of miles without needing to fill up (give the technology 20 years) are a very good idea. Yes, a loud exhaust, big fat engine under the bonnet and all that jazz is cool right now, but I think once electric cars properly take over, the vast majority who are so stubborn right now will very quickly change their mind.

I was there on Sunday, but I'm guessing you're talking about today...

I may well be looking to sell in the next few weeks. Mine ticks all your boxes except mileage (I've personally done a lot of motorway miles to/from work). Black '04 plate UK GT zed with Rota GTR wheels, good tyres (new fronts going on tomorrow, rears recently changed), all the standard minor bits & bobs (braided lines, Ferodo pads, DBA grooved discs, panel filter, some nice red nuts + a brand new custom stainless steel true dual exhaust) + a very rare and expensive original Do-Luck rear bumper with a floor spoiler. I'll be putting up a full for sale thread in the next few weeks once I decide on price, etc, but thought I'd put up some initial info here.

Assuming that the average member pays £600 insurance and the cost of a change is £25, if 1 in 24 serious accidents would lead to the insurer not paying out because of your brakes being non-standard, you are better off paying. In any case, regardless of the odds, who wouldn't rather just pay £25 and not have the headache of taking risks potentially worth hundreds of thousands of pounds?

Didn't most companies factor in 10%, so you couldn't blame the speedo if you got caught speeding? I think legally they now have to make it accurate... although I have no source / evidence to back this up! Most cars' speedos overread exactly for this reason. You can't ever blame your speeding on the speedo if it is showing a higher speed than you are actually going. Modern cars are only typically 3-5% out at normal speeds, but have higher errors when you begin going over 200 kph. Incidentally at 251 kph (156 mph) on the autobahn, the car was still pulling very strong (I was gaining around 1-2 kph per second which is pretty decent at that speed). I just had to bail because of traffic ahead. I would be pretty confident that I would easily have maxed at higher than the speedo limit and it would appear that my limiter was either removed by a previous owner or doesn't work.

I've seen a few of them and to me they just look like a slightly better version of a lotus. I don't doubt the awesome performance, but the car just doesn't look like a supercar to me. Driving for a good 20-30 miles along the Ligurian coast just after passing the French border playing chase with an Enzo was a whole different story

At high speeds both the analogue and the digital reads are way out. On a recent trip I clocked 156mph in Germany on the Autobahn. The speedo was showing about 175mph on both of the car's clocks.

That Italian guy who looks like Mario Balotelli is pretty good.

I wonder what the setting is in the original pictures. Reminds me a lot of Heidelberg.

I feel sorry for the kids these days (lol, says me, at 28), took me long enough to pay off my loan, now they're racking up 9k / year! Hopefully those that were looking at doing "French History during the 1400s" or something simiarly useful for their career, will have the common sense not to! So what, they end up doing media studies and saving a planet as a result?! LOL To be fair, imo, this only affects your 'average' student. Some of the rich oxbridge students can still do whatever the f**k they want to do and will come out the other end with a high paid job. It's all connections and who you know nowadays. 1. I went to Oxford 2. I am not rich 3. I had no connections of any kind to use to get my first job 4. I can assure you that every person I went to university with was incredibly intelligent and did not go there because they were "rich" or "had connections" 5. Compared to a number of other universities around the country, there wasn't a single course on offer at Oxford that I could even remotely consider to be a mickey mouse subject

HR engine (2 air intakes) = more ponies, less torques. DE engine (1 air intake) = less ponies, more torques.

+1 on the above. I have managed to transport 4 Rays with tyres before with the only problem being the two wheels on the passenger seat wanting to move across every now and then

The thing with these types of incidents is that sometimes nerves + time is worth more than the moral high ground of attributing guilt. If you decide that your time attending court + increased insurance premiums for the next 5 years + potential court costs including defense fees if you lose + impact on personal life due to nerves/stress + the fact that you will have to sort your wheels out in the meantime regardless (you're unlikely to get any money particularly quickly even if you do somehow manage to get it) is worth it, then go ahead. In my book £60 a corner at the finest wheel refurb place you can find x2 (equivalent to 1 tank of petrol) is not worth losing my sleep over.

Your other option is to look through UK ads on this forum (or autotrader & pistonheads) and if there are some cars you like see if you can buy one for a fair bit less (can probably get similar amount of car for £8k) and either come over & drive it back or get someone else to drive it across.

Stopped taking your medication?

You would be able to do it, but would need a number of things changing out including your gearbox, mounting, all the cooling, etc, etc. All to get no increase in hp and only a marginal increase in torque? If you're sticking a V8 into the car (whether that is a sound choice is a separate question), surely the right option is to go with a Chevy block or a Mopar Hemi...

I keep wanting to post something, but then my exact thoughts magically appear on the page under the "Chesterfield" user name. Spooky.

Ok I must have done the last 40k in another car then 30 in 6th gear would almost stall the engine so if that isn't struggling then I don't know what is, this thread is getting bizarre If you guys want to drive at 30mph in top gear I suggest you get a nissan micra at least then there will be a small amount of pleasure gained from the experience Exactly my thoughts. I am trying to figure out whether 3/4 of the people are taking the micky. If there was an emergency situation and you suddenly needed to accelerate for whatever reason, you would be screwed sitting in 6th at 25mph. Same for things like going round corners, engine braking,etc. I genuinely don't understand how any reasonable driver can drive around at 30mph in 6th in the zed. 3rd gear at 30 is around 2.2-2.3k revs. Once you go below 1.8k, you're losing control of your car.

Seems like I am at odds with the majority as I always tend to go along in 3rd at 30 & 4th at 40.

Thing with Cobra is that if you buy the y-pipe as well, you're getting into the £700ish territory which is very close to a number of other options which sound more interesting.

Live in Nottingham, work down in Kent at the moment. Any place that can do a decent job at a reasonable cost that isn't too far away would do. If someone can knock up an HKS-style system for reasonable moneys, I'm game.

Given the situation with prices & availability I may well end up going for the cobra unless I get an awesome deal on a custom jobbie - trying to get a few quotes this morning.

That's kinda what I was thinking. By not too much noise I don't mean it needs to be as quiet as possible - just don't want to be going down the K1 route.

Has anyone had any experience with the HKS-style replicas on eBay? Are these any good in terms of fit and/or quality & sound?

Anyone know of any decent places that can sort out an exhaust? My other issue is that I'd need it doing fairly quickly as I don't intend driving round with ear bungs for too long.