bigbramble

popcharger made the biggest difference to sound, it feels fine f~~k what people say.

Yup yup yup, big wide wheels may well have a detrimental effect on the driving experience.

No. You really should keep it stock, the difference is considerable.

I would indeed! The previous owner of my car put continentals on the front and shitty budgets on the rear (wtf?!?!) but even then it has too much grip on the rear even in the rain Even so once the budgets wear out I will fit something decent just because I passionately hate cheapo tyres on sports cars. To be fair I have been guilty of fitting massive wheels plenty of times in the past in the knowledge it has lessened the vehicle handling abilities.

My XYZ is a Y pipe with a straight through section, but I have the racing cat which replaces the straight section on the xyz on order with Abbey. Will it make much difference? I doubt it, maybe a little more torque and bhp but the sound is great.

Hehe I am waiting for the for sale thread to get authorised. £100 + postage. I only live down the road from you really so it would be easy to collect.

My god they are absolutely horrible things. They are so boring to drive too....

From my discussions with Mark at Abbey motorsport gains are absolutely tiny anyway and the stock system is pretty good. I went for motordyne xyz with race cat/ebay decats. should give pretty smart gains as far as gains go for around £600 all in. Sounds amazing and still looks stock which is win/win for me.

Thanks for the guide. More than anything it gave me an idea how to go about it before I actually got under the car. I will say that for me there was absolutely no need to remove the brake caliper, just undoing the ARB drop link top mount gave me enough space to slide the drive shaft out. Very very easy job (thanks for a change Nissan) 30 mins to 1 hour tops, allow for an hour if you have never done it before. I am click free HOOORAYY!!

Seller is uk-performance-uk I believe these are the same http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NISSAN-350Z-Z33-D ... 2858wt_994

Heya, Before you think I am a retard for shooting myself in the foot for having them for sale and talking about why I think they are a bad idea I want to say that I think its better to be honest and give some useful information to other 350Z owners thinking of fitting large spacers or alloy wheels with a greater offset moving them away from the wheel. Even though I was pretty sure they were having a negative effect I liked the look so much I really wasn't sure whether to keep them on the car or take them off. I took them off and I am glad. So anyway here's the full story: First of all I have a 2005 350Z roadster with Rays 18" wheels. Like many 350Z owners I thought the vehicle looked a little too 'E type' like with the wheels sitting a long way inside the cavernous wheel arches. I did some research on the web forum and decided to purchase Hubcentric spacers 20mm front and 25 mm rear. I bought the spacers from MWtech and service was first class. The spacers arrived and were as described and of the easy to fit variety. The quality of the spacers is excellent so I have no qualms with that. The price is also excellent for such enormous lumps of aluminium! I fitted the spacers and torqued them tightly, 115nm for piece of mind (I know its flipping tight). As soon as I drove the car home I felt that I noticed some degradation in the driving experience, in particular; 1) Dull steering. The steering had lost its edge. It had lost feel and was nowhere near as sharp as before. Turn in seemed slower. 2) Car seemed 'crashier'. The damping did not seem anywhere near as good, felt like the body (this is probably of greater effect in a roadster due to the absence of roof structure) was absorbing more of the road shock than the dampers were. 3) Tram lining - vehicle seemed more prone to tram lining over rough tarmac. I can say however that going over extremely bumpy roads DID NOT cause at any time the wheels to hit the arches and I really did take it down some rough old country lanes at a reasonable pace. At first I thought it could have been me being fussy and wasn't completely confident in my subjective view point so I decided to try them for a few weeks the try the car again without. Today I removed the spacers and I instantly noticed the difference. I drove the car for 40 miles with the spacers, removed them and the drove for a further 40 miles. The steering is massively sharper and as a result the car changes direction quicker feeling far more agile. The crashy ride is gone, no scuttle shake at all just excellent damping as it should be. The car turns in beautifully and I feel I have rediscovered a truly great drivers car. So why do I think the spacers are having such a negative effect? 1) Steering - By fitting the spacers you are moving the wheels and most importantly the road contact patch further away from the steering axis. Essentially when you turn the steering wheel it will take longer/more effort to turn the wheels the same amount than without the spacers. This has the effect of slowing the steering and removing a good degree of its lively feel. 2) Damping/tramlining - I have thought about this a lot and I am putting it down to 2 factors. Factor A ) Unsprung weight. By fitting a spacer you are effectively adding the spacers weight to that of the wheel/hub/brake assembly. This is called unsprung weight as this weight is not damped by the spring/damper assembly. Unsprung weight is a great enemy of car designers who look to minimize this. Factor B ) Moving the loading point away from the shock absorbers/putting a greater load on the hub/wheel bearing assembly. By moving the wheels away from the point at which the suspension moves you are increasing the load on the intervening section - the hub/bearing assembly this in turn reduces the amount of impact that is actually damped quite like unsprung weight does. This in turn will also cause the wheel bearings to wear at an accelerated rate. This also effects steering and may explain the tram lining I experienced. Any more theories are certainly welcome. So to summarise, when fitting spacers the +- points are; + The look awesome and give the car a really aggressive stance. +-- In theory the greater distance between the wheels will increase stability, I do think that the tram lining they cause cancels out this factor and personally I feel the car is more stable and controlled without the spacers. - The steering is 'slower' and looses some sharpness - As a result of the steering issue the car loses agility and turn in speed - The suspension feels crashy and damping feels less controlled, scuttle shake is increased (please remember I tested this on a roadster so this may be nowhere near as noticeable on a coupe) - you may experience a tram lining effect much like fitting larger diameter wheels. - Increased wear to wheel bearing and hub components I would therefore say, if you have money to burn and care more about how your car looks than drives - fit spacers. If you prefer the car to be a hoot round the twisties - don't bother. Just so you don't think "who's this jerk talking @*!# when he has no clue" I better say I have some technical credentials. I am a fully trained mechanic with 11 years experience who has been teaching motor engineering for the past 3 years. I really hope this little guide is useful to people and will allow them to make an informed decision. Remember smaller spacers, 5-15mm front may have a lesser effect but ANY spacer will certainly lose some steering speed and feel. Cheers, Ant.

Just wanted to let people know about the quality of these as I purchased these blind; http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 3586234006 Megan Racing decats with silencers built in. They are a good fit, required no modification. They seem well made and make a great sound, not too raspy at all. I currently have a Motordyne XYZ with straight through pipe but have the racing pipe on order. The setup even without the racing cat is not too loud for a cabriolet in my opinion, its still dead quiet on part throttle but really howls under load. So a big total bargain. Ant.

The prices people have cars for sale at is one thing, the prices they actually get is another. Look at all the nice cars on this forum that haven't sold. I think you can get a 2007 for £14.5k no problem with a little searching.

Heya, I wanted similar stuff to you coming from a big power RX7 and previous to that an EP3 Civic type R JDM. I have had an S2000 also. I can thoroughly recomend the 350z convertible its a lovely car to drive, relaxed yet very very fun to hussle. Engine is great and fuel economy is much better than I expected. I am often seeing 30+ mpg and average around 25 I guess. I have seen 16.5mpg but that was pure hammering. Its a very easy car to live with and unlike other convertibles it has a ton of room in for the driver and passenger. I love the car already and I really like the fact that even when I am trying to get good economy and driving carefully its still an enjoyable experience. Best soft top I have owned by a long way. Ant.

HKS are better than k&n for flow but not filtration. Cosworth ones just look like paper filters to me, very restrictive next to HKS!

Stay clear of drilled discs for track, well for anything in my opinion. They crack far too readily. I always recommended stock discs and good uprated pads. I have never liked EBC stuff personally. I have used red stuff and the old green stuff on road and track, I have also used Ferodo DS2500's on track. EBC pads have in my opinion a terrible pedal feel in comparison to a decent pad, they also seem incredibly cheap and nasty next to say ferodo or the best pads you can buy Pagids. In their defence however on a recent runway day in my Porsche with red stuffs all around me and my friend could not destroy them despite heavy braking and after a full day on track they were only half worn which is very good as I have melted pads to oblivion within 6 laps of an airfield track before. This is even better as I own the car with a friend and we both used the car with very little breaks during the day. For road use I find DS2500's give a brilliant pedal feel and will take a good bit of heat before they start to wilt. I have half worn a set of DS2500's in a day on track in my old 600bhp rx7 with AP racing 4 pots and project mu slotted discs but it had a lot less use than the Porsche as it was only me driving and I gave it long cool down breaks. Personally I would have them any time over the EBC's. If you want the very best it comes at a price. Pagid ceramic or carbon pads are very expensive. RS14's make the car feel like its hit a brick wall when you hit the brake pedal and are unbelievably tough. They would do 6 trackdays roughly before requiring replacement, whereas red stuff/DS2500s would struggle with 2 if you are driving hard like I try to. So at around £300 the pagids may seem incredibly expensive but they are reasonable value considering how incredibly awesome they are. That's my opinion on the matter anyway. I have not taken my Zed on track and considering I already have a trackday car I do not intend to, however even for road use the stock pads are woeful and I have felt them starting to wilt on a spirited drive through the lanes. Cheers, Ant.

look like one to me, Haha you need to watch the whole video, you will see by the end how wrong you are! Hot chip are actually the guys in the audience that get laser beam death by the floating head near the end.

I know they arent a bloody boy band, I'm saying keep watching as although it looks like a dodgy boyband video, it isnt!! A boyband killing video more like.

Have you seen this music video? Give it a minute or two, you may think its awful boyband crap but there is a hell of a twist or two (goes totally mad at the end). Really made me laugh! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GOZjlwIwfk

Very nice, I have the XYZ and I am gonna get the race cat as soon as Abbey can get me one!

Heya, is the plenum spacer your only mod apart from the remap? Pretty nice result if so I reckon.

Jesus some of you spend too long on web forums to go moaning about typos at some poor sod who obviously isn't attached by cord to a computer....

Thanks for that. The VXR8 is a car I can see myself owning in a few years when the sick depreciation calms a little so the review is nice.

£7300 would have been cheap!!

Seems like a realistic price to me.