bigbramble

interested in the light too, sent you another PM.

I'm very interested in the Fujitsubo exhaust - I have sent you a PM. Cheers, Anthony.

oops this was meant to be a PM

Personally I thought the scorpion sounded bad. Resonated very badly on my car from 3000rpm and was a poor fit. Personally I say get a pair of decats, a motordyne XYZ pipe with the race cat and leave it like that with the stock back section. Sounds awesome on my car.

Providing their are no rattles from the baffles on last use I would like first dibs on the rear 2 sections please. (Back box and connecting pipe) Anthony.

Me too, I love that. Mac owners are so convinced their product is superior. Quite frankly until Windows 7 (which works) I thought Linux was the way forward. Mac's are over priced fashion accessories, they hold no real benefit over a decent PC any more. The only Mac I would consider is a Macbook, simply because they are well made machines in comparison to most Laptops. My Toshiba Satelite Pro is a total piece of @*!#, just like the Samsung I had before it. Should have got an Alienware I build my own PC's and I am very happy with the results. My current i7 PC runs from solid state memory, has 6gb of the fastest ram and an awesome Nvidia GTX 470. Its a little beast and much cheaper than the comparitive Mac.

Same here, no NCB paying around £750 with mods declared (roadster).

Here's my super simplified explanation of exhaust performance: It is genuinely difficult to gain that much power from an exhaust alone on an normally aspirated engine. On a turbocharged car gains can be massive from plain exhaust changes. Exhausts are basically made to silence the sound of combustion gas leaving the engine, channel the exhaust gas away from the cabin, reduce harmful emissions via a catalyst. They are normally designed to minimize the loss of power and torque because of the processes I listed. The basic rule of performance exhausts is to get the waste gas out to atmosphere as quickly as possible which allows the engine to 'breath' or flow better. Back pressure is ALWAYS the enemy - this is normally caused by exhaust pipe restriction causing pressure inside the exhaust. Ok so here's the problem. If you imagine your engine like an outside tap and the exhaust like a hose pipe. If you put a pipe with a much larger diameter on your outside tap, what would happen? It will generally take longer for the water to reach the end of the pipe. If you make the pipe diameter too small masses of pressure will build in the pipe greatly slowing progress. So essentially you go too big with your exhaust and you lose power and torque as the gas meanders its way out of the tail pipe, too small and the pressure also slows the gas and strangles engine power. It's really hard to get this right and established performance parts specialists spend a lot of time optimizing the exhaust to get it right - which they don't always do! 1.0 Saxo's with whacking great 4" exhausts for example will have lost enormous quantities of torque as the tiny engine just isn't a sufficient pump to get that gas out. Will an ASBO exhaust like a Japspeed K1 increase power and torque? Unlikely, more likely to reduce it. Will an exhaust you pay £600 for made their and then compare favourably to an exhaust made by a company that has spent months testing and optimizing their pipes, like Motordyne for example? Well it's unlikely to be as good really is it? The only way to tell for sure is dyno all of them. Listen to what people that run dyno's say as they will know the best as they have probably seen many of the combinations first hand. One thing is for certain on a 350Z, the stock 'Y' pipe is a total piece of @*!#. You can see how restrictive it is just looking at it, if there are gains to be had anywhere it's there. So in reality, bhp gains will be tiny if anything at all, so in the end it comes down to what you can afford and how much noise you want. Anthony.

Haha I too have had a few deep freezes in soft tops, but nothing as basic as that! It is luxury isn't it? With heated seats and the amazing heater you really don't get cold. If I put one of the kids in the car I can put the passenger seat right forward and take them completely out of the wind. For me I can get a bit of a head chill, but only because I am 6'4" so have to have the seat right back.

Sorry if someone has already mentioned this, but have you checked your brake fluid level? As the brake pads wear the level drops and when it gets close to minimum it will bring on the TCS light and '(!)' light.

Lol yup roof was down. Pulled over to eat lunch and take the photo above and a little old jogger ran by, smiled and said "bit cold for the roof down isn't it", nope no way it's perfect. Can't wait for the summer and more tunnels Haha glad to see your just like me, I always get people saying I am mad to be driving in such cold weather, but some gloves and a hat and its just as good but with better sound

Good to see another happy roadster owner with similar mods (and power) to me. I have been to Abbey loads of times and they are genuine people, talking to Mark while he has dyno tested my cars is always interested and informative. So did you drive back with the roof down? If it's not raining mine is just about always down just for the sound, love it (feeling sorry for coupé owners ) Anthony.

Sounds like an old diesel lorry.

If yours is a coupé its probably nowhere near as bad. The sweet smell of hydrocarbons etc. pretty horrible if you have been in the trade and smelt it day in day out for 11 years.

Generally the rule is - if its a chain its shite. Better food from small local run equivalents every time. To those in the Poole/Bournemouth/Southampton area may I recommend Coriander Mexican restaurant in Bournemouth. The best Mexican within 50 miles by a HUGE margin.

Pizza hut is terrible in every way, poor food and service every time. Avoid any Indian Restaurant in the Hythe area accross the water from Southampton. Nearest half decent one is Asher in Ashurst. The ones in Holbury, hythe and Blackfield are disgusting.

I know its not quite the same but I have the motordyne XYZ with the race cat/decat pipe (you can swap them over in about 10 mins on a ramp). The original cats have been replaced by resonator decats. With no cats at all I don't really like the noise, it's hard to explain but it has no class it's too much like some chav corsa with a 4" exhaust all blare and no real sound clarity. With the race cat fitted it sounds a lot better, it is quite a bit quieter but a nicer sound that really accentuates the V6 gargle. The other problem with no cats is the smell, its really horrible and if you had one of those bypasses under the car the smell would get straight into the car. For a roadster (thats what I have) it was hideous without a cat - the smell was the worst thing by far.

I should also add, best tyres I ever had on one of my RX7's (barring my Dunlop DO1J's) were Goodyear Eagle F1 gsd3 (or something like that) amazing road holding in the wet.

What, Michelins? Maybe with their pikey stuff, but certainly not the Pilot Sport range. I don't they have ever sold 'pikey' stuff! They have been the most expensive tyres for a long time now. They are great tyres but I have never ever seen them on top of any tyre shoot outs in terms of dry or wet grip. For durability they are incredible, we used to find they would have to be replaced because they were getting perished after being on the car for so long rather than from lack of tread, this was quite a while ago mind. I remember running pilot sports on my car at the time and swapping for yokohama's finding a rather large increase in grip and less understeer - mind you that was a REALLY long time ago and the car was a Citroen Visa GTi which I am sure most of you have never heard of (and I wish I had never heard of it too!!!)

I used to run a michelin dealership, you are paying for their durability not road holding abilities.

I have these Accelera tyres on the rear of my car. Not because I put them on I will add but because I bought the car with them fitted. They are your typical budget tyres with fat bulging side walls. Grip wise they are fine, considering I have continental sport contacts on the front I don't have an unstable rear end at all - if anything it has way too much grip wet or dry which is disappointing as you have to REALLY put the boot in to get any throttle steer action. The real issue with them is wear rate, they looked nearly new when I bought the car last July and 5000 miles or so later they are on the 2mm tread wear indicators. They will be replaced with Falkens rear, but not decided whether to go for Falkens front or Continentals as I like a car with more grip up front than rear

Personally I have had no joy at all with Belkin. Netgear routers are absolutely TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!! Every one I have ever owned has failed. Only one I would recommend from the mainstream brands is Linksys, these are made by Cisco systems and tend to work and last well.

Just wanted to say, love the signature picture/animation. My top is down as long as its dry People see me driving in to work think I am nuts

I wasn't upset at all, but that answer is such an annoying car forum cliche. I wanted a 350Z not a skoda fabia 1.4 diesel but at the same time, if I keep the car 10 years and I can spend £2000 to save £1000 a year isn't that worth it? The point is if I change to a cheap crappy car I lose a LOT of fun stuff which is on tap on the 350Z and isn't in some gutless dieseasel. The reality is that I will never keep a car for that long, I have never had a car for more than 2 years and I have my wifes Touran to use to keep costs down. My point is sure you can buy a cheap car, but its just that - a cheap slow car with a horrible sounding engine and no soft top. A 350Z with an LPG conversion would be a fairly cheap car to run but with power on tap, great sound, handling and fresh air motoring.

I just love this. All garages are out to 'rip you off' right? What a joke. Did it ever occur to you that the garage might have had to spend hours removing the exhaust because of rust and muck effectively welding the joints together? Who's fault is that then? Should the garage have to take a hit because of the condition of a car they do not even own? Buddy, sadly like everything in life there is always a small few who ruin it for the good garages, I’m being somewhat flippant with my response, but every job always seem to take twice as long in my experience only when I do not personally know the garage owner. No insult intended to the garage owners / mechanics out there Hehe, sure there are some scumbag cowboys out there, but honestly almost EVERY job takes longer than the ridiculously short job-times, especially on older car (10+ years old) with a lot of rusty bolts and muck underneath.