Madmarky

You must of seen it Darren, its like plum colour. The year i went to Wales with Greekman it was with us, see pic.

Yes thanks Mark, they are the only real decent shots of got seeing as it was only finsihed Friday before i drove to Japfest. Thanks again everyone. It truely has been a long journey to get it to this stage, one which has had many twists and turns and many ups and downs. There were stages where I had started to abandon all hope on finishing the project but looking back now it kinda all gets forgotten. Someone asked me the other day if i would do it all again and i honestly couldnt answer. I am very happy with the results, it is everything it should of been from day 1. I have a few things on the cards for its next winter refreshment so watch this space see ya at wales

Thanks for the kind words everyone. i cant wait for Wales. Also I have been invited to Modified Nationals to enter in the top 25 awards. My car will love being on show indoors on red carpet for a whole weekend.

Update 29/05/2012 Some people may remember from Wales I was talking about getting some new brakes. Well after the 'Spirited' Country cooks to the hotel run I finally finished them off, along with catching a rock with both front and rear passenger wheels that had only been powder coated 10 days before I had been speaking with Mitz (cs) for a while about new brakes so I gave him a call to discuss. After considering all the factors, usage, cost, dust levels, asthetics and availablity it was decided that EBC Ultimax Sport were a great option accompanied by Red Stuff Pads. Mitz had to pull a few string to get them delivered in my tight time line but he pulled out all the stops and I cannot thank him enough. Here are a few pictures, will post fitted ones later in the week. Update 11/07/13 Small update to what I have added/changed on the car this year. Powder coated Brembo and orange braided hoses Something i had wanted to get done for ages was to powder coat the Brembo calipers but never had the chance to get them done till this year. I fully stripped them down, got them sand blasted and powder coated. All the seals and nipples were fully replaced. Whilst fitting them I also fitted my braided hoses which I won in the Wales raffle. Sub Install Ever since i had my install stolen at the body shop I have always wanted a to do another install. Wanting to keep a functional boot I always wanted 2 subs in the front part of the boot. When i saw part of Muddy's old install come up for sale I jumped at the chance. Gave it to my trimmer to re-trim and add a Veilside logo to finish it off. I am very pleased with the look of it but one day i think I will modify it to hold 2 inverted 12 inch subs. Engine bay refresh My strut brace and intake were looking very tarnished and the thought of taking them off and polishing once again really started to annoy me. So i decided to get them powder coated. I also got the graphic re-done on my engine cover and got my air filter cover wrapped as the carbon was starting to fade where it sits under the bonnet vent. Update 19/04/2014 So its that time again for a little transformation. The stripes down the side were looking a bit tired and fading a little so they had to be removed. I didn't want to just replace them so sent some inspiration pics to my graphics company (Ant Graphics) and set them to work designing something a bit different. Here are the results, not sure if it will stay exactly like this but its a start. Update 28/04/15 Air Ride Since my car is out and out show car I decide to look into getting air ride fitted. After spending a lot of time investigating I got a good deal on the K-sport kit and was ready to order. K-sport decided to muck me about and increased the price and with the extra customs and duty charges that could be incurred I decided to look elsewhere. I found a UK supplier of the Air Performance kit (Intermotiv) and settled on the Autopilot V2 kit. I must say I am very impressed with the kit and cannot fault it. The ride quality is as good if not better than the stock suspension setup. The in car controller give you full control over all 4 corners and each corner can be adjusted independently. You can store up to 8 different setting combinations and recall the settings at the touch of a button. The controller also shows you the pressure in the tank and each corner at all times to give you peace of mind while you are driving. The kit was extremely easy to install and I must thank Darren, Adrian and Mick for helping me install it. Here is a picture of it one of the lowest settings, the tyres on the front and back just touch the arches so it couldn’t go much lower without arch work. This is the in car controller which I mounted to the dashboard using a universal sat nav holder. I am also in the process of re-doing my boot install so stay tuned for that!

As others have done threads on the modification history of their cars and seeing as I have just finished another chapter I thought I would start my own detailed build thread. I am sure a lot of the older members will remember most of it but for the newer members it might be a shock to see what I have been through. It all started in Feb 2008. After years of half modifying cars and never being fully happy with them and coming out of a messy relationship I decided that I wanted to build a show car. I had loved the Veilside V3 kit ever since I saw the Nemesis show car So this photo became my goal. I made some phone calls to Nemesis themselves and was able to gather details and costings for the kit. Also Zedrush and Andy were brilliant in answering a load of questions regarding the Veilside kit. I now had a budget and all the information I could need and so I set to making a list of parts required to build my show car. On the 20th Feb I placed an order with Nemesis for the following: Veilside Version 3 Front bumper Veilside Version 3 Rear bumper Veilside Version 3 Side Skirts Veilside Version 3 spoiler Magnaflow exhaust system This kit was pretty much a must have and was reserved for me as I did not own a car to put it on yet. I got some quotes with body shops for the work required and one that was suggested by a good friend seemed the best one and had the most experience. So I now knew how much I had left to buy a car and the other bits to make my show car unique. I was looking for a zed which had immaculate interior, knowing I was having a full re-spray I didn’t care what the body work was like as long as it hadn’t been in an accident. I saw several before finally deciding on a private sale from Lincolnshire on the 13th March 2008. It was in really good condition and I managed to get a great deal, I was really happy. I got the car booked into the garage and started shopping for extras. One of my mates used to own a car modifying centre so he sourced me the following: K&N Typhoon Induction Kit LSD Door Hinges 20†Ascarii Penta wheels Searching the internet for some nice 350Z parts I sourced and ordered the following: Carbon Door Pillars Carbon Engine Cover Carbon Battery Covers I also managed to grab a bargain of a number plate also. I arranged for the kit to be delivered to the body shop and was informed it would be there in 2 weeks. So I had 2 weeks to enjoy driving the car. Unfortunately after 2 days of driving the car the clutch started showing signs it was on its way out so my car went into the body shop a week early and they said they would fit a new clutch for me. So I made a call to Phil who many will remember ran ESR and he supplied me a new clutch and I got a lightened flywheel while I was there. It also occurred to me that I hadn’t ordered a new bonnet and so Phil also sourced me carbon bonnet and a Summit strut brace. The new clutch was fitted, then the bad news came, Nemesis phone me to apologise that although when I ordered my kit it was all in stock and reserved they had sent out the front bumper and side skirts to another customer as they were getting stock coming in on time for my car going into the body shop. Unfortunately the stock didn’t come in due to an error and informed me that it may be 3 – 6 weeks for another to arrive. So I decided to take the car back out the body shop and set to install all my stereo components to replace the Bose. This included: Kenwood Double Din navigation system Kenwood Bluetooth Adapter Focal front component system 2 10†JL Audio subs Custom made sub box to fit under the rear strut bar 2 Kenwood Amps Capacitor Everything was installed and I built an Amp rack in the section behind the seats. I was really happy with it and it sounded great. On June 19th I got a call to say that my bumper was going to be delivered so I put the car back into the body shop. The bumper did arrive so the body shop started to strip my car down and test fit all the kit. This is what it looked like: All I was waiting for now was the side skirts and Nemesis was really struggling to get a set. Veilside Japan had actually stopped making the kit for the 350Z but Nemesis was buying a container of miscellaneous parts and there should be some on there, so back to waiting. On Aug 3rd I bought my Astra, it had been a struggle without a car and I needed some independence back, It turned out to be a great purchase and I still have the car today (nearly 4 years on). I was then told that the container would be 5 weeks away from landing so more waiting. On September 19th Nemesis finally had a pair of side skirts, in fact they had 2 sets and both looked a little different so they arrange to send both to my body shop to see which ones would fit better. I went to the body shop to have a chat with the owner. He had actually been away for a few weeks so he needed a update on what was going on. What happened next is unbelievable. While he had been away someone at the body shop had stolen my full stereo system. I mean someone had actually taken the time to unbolt/screw the whole thing. I was extremely angry and the owner was very apologetic and said that he would sort something out. He then told me he would need about 4-6 weeks to finish the car off. So more waiting, I was getting really good at waiting by now anyway. Time flew past and then if I hadn’t had enough problems already the real problems started. I was unable to contact the body shop and every time I went down there it was all closed up. After a month of trying I contacted the police as I had no idea if my car was actually still in there and to be honest they were not interesting. They said unless I knew a crime had taken place there was nothing they could do. Very helpful I thought. Sometime in November I bumped into someone who worked at the body shop in town. They informed me that the owner had been very ill and had to shut down the shop for a while and was unaware that no-one told me. He said he would contact the owner and find out what was going on. In December I got a call from the owner who was very apologetic and fed me a pack of lies about this and that and promised he would get it sorted in the new year for me and gave me a new contact number for himself. At this stage I wanted to just pull the car out of the body shop and find someone else to do the work but I had already paid him some money up front and was still owed my stereo system so I felt I had no choice. I phoned him back several days later and arrange to meet him at the shop. I saw my car in exactly the same way as I last saw it which was a bit of relief that it was still there but disappointed that nothing had been done. I did ask why no progress was made but I’m sure he just fed me another pack of lies. Christmas went by so fast and as promised the body shop owner did contact me and said he was now back at work and due to his illness he had sold his business to another guy but would still finish my car off. I wasn’t sure whether this would be a good thing or a bad thing but at this stage it couldn’t get much worse. I finally started seeing some progress end of Jan when I went down there and saw that they had moulded the UK number plate recess from the original bumper into my Veilside bumper as instructed. It looked really good; they had actually done a great job. Mid February I gave him a deadline as there was a cruise/show I wanted to attend, I also fell in love with a set of aftermarket wings and ordered a set to go on the car. The owner said he needed to get it finished anyway as the new owner needed it gone. The owner phoned me to say the car would be finished on the 6th March and ask me to pop up in the evening and collect the car. I was a bundle of emotions, nervous, apprehensive, excited all rolled into one. I turned up as arrange with some mates to collect the car and transport it back to my mate’s garage where he was going to service it as it had stood around for 10 months. When we turned up it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. The car was not completely put back together. And the car had not been flatted and polished. Once again he apologised and said that he would come to my mate’s garage and flat and polish it next week. At this stage I just thought sod it I’m taking it out of here and will sort out whatever it needs after. What happened next just topped everything of. We rolled the car out the body shop and the owner got a call and had to leave in an emergency. So there I was with 3 mates trying to get it ready for transportation, and then it started raining. The car had no power and the window was down. We had no jump cables and it wouldn’t bump start. So i called a mate to come down with some jumper cables but he couldn’t get past security on the site so we moved the car to the gate. The security would not let us off site and said that we had illegally entered site and called the police. I sat and wondered if anything else could go wrong? The police did turn up and we sorted everything out and they let us get on our way. The car wouldn’t start of the jump leads either so I had no choice but to tow the car back without any lights and wipers, I couldn’t see anything and was getting wet as it was raining the whole time. Finally I felt relieved that it made it to my mate’s garage and knew it was now in safe hands at last. Over the weekend we put the car back together and the body shop owner did in fact come through and he came round and flat and polish the car. It was finally finished, it did have some issues but I would just have to put up with them for the time being. It was decided that as he owed me money for the stereo that we would call it quits on what I owed him. This is what it looked like: I gave the car a big clean the following weekend and attended a small cruise/show in London, my car even made it into Fast Car. A couple of weeks later I decided to tackle fitting my LSD door hinges and me and a friend tackled these and it took about 3 days on and off to complete. You can find my guide here viewtopic.php?f=35&t=22143 On Sunday 20th April I went to a club meet in blue water, it was great to finally show it off to some club members and it was a great day. We went for a little tunnel run and what happened next defies belief. Driving round a roundabout the back end stepped out like it was on a sheet of ice, i tried to catch it and did my best to react quickly but i caught the kerb exiting the roundabout which kicked the car into the air and I careered across the carriageway and collided with the crash barrier. You can read all about it here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=21890 This was a disaster but when I look back now I’m actually glad it happened for reasons I shall go onto explain. I had a battle with the insurance company about the accident. They claimed I had done £18,000 of damage which technically made my car a uneconomical write off as they were valuing my car at a measly £12,000. I managed to get in contact with the engineer to dispute these details and got them to increase the valuation of my car to £14,500 based on the recent sales of very similar ones on Piston Heads website. This meant I was offered a contract repair as an option. A contract repair is a contract made between the 3 parties, the insurance company, a body shop and myself. It means that the body shop is paid a set amount by the insurance company and anything more than that amount I have to pay for. The job must also be completed within an allotted time scale. I agreed to this and got the car trailered to family run body shop, Bedford Auto Panels (BAP) which are friends of my family. This is where I should have taken my car in the first place, but we live and learn don’t we! When BAP started stripping down the car to work out the extent of the repair it was found that the previous body shop had not keyed the paint which meant it would all need stripping back to bare metal and fully re-sprayed. I didn’t have a choice at this time and realised this would be extra cost but I agreed. I also decided to change the colour scheme in order to completely forget about the original fiasco. You can see the full guide on my car being rebuilt here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=25636 but to sum up it went into BAP on 5th May looking like this: It was fully stripped down to bare metal and fully re-sprayed. All the suspension was replaced and a new front bumper was sourced. This was all completed by BAP and myself on Jul 18th. It looked like this: Over the next few months I had a few little bits to source and a problem with the traction control, I had also ran out of money so need to wait till I got paid to sort out a few bits. BAP were really helpful and let me leave the car there while they were waiting for me. On Sept 10th after being told my wheels could not be refurbished and purchasing a brand new set of wheels I found a company, Wheel Genie, who could repair my original ones which was great as they were my favourite wheels and I could not buy another set. I picked the wheels up a couple of weeks later, they had been fully restored and powder coated black chrome, they looked like this: I picked the car up on the 2nd October and on the 3rd I attended the Jap show finale at Santa Pod for an unveiling with the club. It got some great attention and lots of positive responses and I was really happy. I decided that it needed something down the side to break up the orange and set my graphics company a task to design something. They came up with several different but finally i settled on some plain 2 tone stripes and they made and fitted them for me. I think they work really well and was very happy with the look of the car. My next focus was the engine bay. I got my plenum powder coated by Wheel Genie to match the colour of the car and some struts to hold the bonnet up. It stayed like this for a while as funds were low. I started getting parts together to revamp the engine bay through the spring/summer of 2011. I did the following: Black and silver engine bay bolts Orange Samco hoses Poilshed Tanks Catch Can Samco universal hose for catch can Orange wire loom wrap Carbon Radiator panel Painted throttle body black Orange graphics and engine cover detailing I was very happy with the results of this and with a lot of cleaning it eventually looked like this: It stayed this way throughout the summer and went back to BAP in Nov 2011 for some winter refreshment. I wanted to focus on the interior now and also needed my front bumper re-sprayed. I phoned around for someone who could do what I wanted with the interior and considered many different options. Finally I found Paul, a guy who was quite local to me in Milton Keynes. Paul owns PG Trimmers and specialises in restoring interior in older and prestige cars but has a huge history with all sorts and very skilled. I stripped out the interior and the door cards and shipped them off to Paul to work his magic. I tasked Paul with re-trimming my seats, making some custom panels on the door cards and making some custom mats. We sourced some orange leather from Connolly’s, it’s the same leather as used in the Lamborghini factory and was a near perfect match to the orange on my car. I asked for the centres in the same colour as my roof and the bolsters in the orange. I also wanted the quilted pattern with orange stitching to match. He did a fantastic job with the seats. For the door card panels I wanted something that followed the natural lines on the door card and would add some orange to the bland looking door. The mats are just black carpet lined in the same leather as used on the seats and door cards to tie it all together. Back at BAP i had stripped lost of pieces of the interior to get painted various different colours to complement the new interior. I called it operation de-silver because basically anything silver got painted. I took apart the clocks and the silver surround was painted orange and also the 3 dome parts on the back were also painted. The gear surround I had painted the colour of my roof (Ember black) The silver part around the heater controls, the passenger grab handle and both door handles were also painted ember black. I then set about colouring the internal of the headlights. I read many guides and had previously done the rear fog light so was happy with putting stuff in the oven to open them up. Unfortunately they were much bigger than expected so I ended up using a heat gun to open them up. They were quite easy to open up and take apart. I sourced a halo kit from a company on the internet called Oracle, the halo kit came supplied like this: It said to stick the halo on but i was a bit worried that if the epoxy failed the halo would fall off and flap around inside the light so using some thin garden wire I made some hooks to fix the halo to the lens housing. I also added some Demon Eye lights while the lights were open but this became a real pain in the arse and would not attempt again for the results. I got some silver vinyl to cover over where the side light bulbs normally go as my Halo will be my side light. I had all the internal plastics painted a matt black colour and the finished article looks like this: Unfortunately the passenger light has not fully sealed and is prone to fogging up a bit but I will get that sorted out eventually. One thing that did bug me from purchasing a aftermarket steering wheel was losing my cruise control. I had read that someone in the states had managed to move the buttons elsewhere so I searched every where to find out information on doing this myself. I managed to find some rather ropey instructions and set to doing this myself. I finally managed to work out and decided I would position the buttons where the ash tray goes in the car. I can’t seem to find pictures of this but basically I took the lid of the ash tray, cut some holes to house the cruise control buttons and also some buttons to turn my demon eyes in the headlights on and off. I then plastic welded the lid into the centre console. It was then smoothed and then the whole centre console was painted ember black. I am really happy with the final outcome. BAP sorted out some other bits while it was there including: Alignment and strengthening of the front bumper Full front end re-spray Alignment of exhaust and re-spray the damage due to exhaust burning the bumper. Fit Z-Speed under tray Make a bracket to locate number plate in the recess on the front bumper All this work was carried out to a great standard as always. I put the entire car back together and was very happy. I then needed to get one of my wheels refurbished and decided to do a colour change. I had seen some inspirational pictures and decided that ember black centres and an orange lip would really set the car off so this is what I did. They turned out like this: I think these look absolutely amazing and received many great comments at Japfest, I think with the coloured wheels and the new look interior it makes for a more complete show car. I am really happy with it, here are some pictures from Japfest for you to enjoy. This concludes another chapter in the history of my 350Z, who knows whats next! Thankyou for reading.

Your pushing it a bit, it`s this coming Saturday isn`t it? Just a bit, spoke to the guy he said should be ready friday providing no problems, but this is my car, there is always problems!!!

Oh i like the coloured list, orange

Nice one Daz, we convoying to Wales on the friday as always? My zed hasnt got any wheels at the moment, hope they are ready for japfest

My car is orange and a work of art, may i start the bidding at 1 quattuordecillion?

Im booked in there, see ya there!

Well done nixy, you deserve some good luck

Happy Birthday Mate, Hope you have a fantastic day

Open the Box! oh sorry thought we were playing take your pick for a minute there. Seriously tho I did something very similar to mine a few years ago and the insurance company didnt offer me as much as they are you. Mine was heavily modified and i had invested a lot of money into it so i didnt have a choice really. But i managed to enter into a contract repair with the insurance company and it turned out ok. I think with the prices of second hand cars today and your situation the best option is to take the money and find another one as others have said. Good luck.

Spotted on the M25 going clockwise near the M1 junction. A blonde lady driving car looked really great. Is it anyone on here?

Sorry Ken and evryone I have had a nightmare with the car as i always seem to do. I had my seats fully retrimmed and covered them up with some seat covers I purchased to protect them. Unfortunately when i removed the seat covers they had marked the leather on the seats and im now battling to get some done to rectify the problem. My car is still at the bodyshop as I dont want to put the seats back in until the company who supply the seats will at least acknowledge the issue. I have also had a few issues with other stuff to do with my winter refreshment but i wont bore you with those details. I hope to have some pics of some finished work in a few weeks so watch this space. Today tho I did a detailing first and did something I bet none of the forum detailers have done and that is to clean this beast below

I bought my Astra shed for £300 with the thought that if it breaks down ill just scrap it and buy another. 3 1/2 years on and its still running, passed every MOT first time, id love to know how much money its saved me in that time. There are some cracking bargains around, good luck in ya search.

Hi Mark - how you doing ? Thanks for the compliments your car ain't too bad either mate ! lol Oi stop putting words into my mouth! Yeah im pretty good mate, had a few dramas with my car as always, nothing ever goes right first time for me. It will be awesome when its finished tho. What you been up to Hugh?

Still looks like garbage! alrite pal by the way!

I think this is what you need?

I have a spare broken light ill look tomorrow for you.

Do you have a picture of where the missing bit would go, maybe i can help if i can work out what part you mean.

As always your observation is spot on!

Have not read all the posts but i had a MK2 172 before my 350 and i will say the 2 cars are completely different. It depends on your driving style which you would truely prefer. For day to day driving i really prefer the zed, the sound and feel of the bigger car makes it seem as you are going faster than you really are. There is never a need to rev the bollocks of it to get the fun out of it. On the twisties tho you cant beat the clio, they handle like go karts and are very responsive, the 350 is no sloutch tho you just cant chuck it into a corner like the clio and expect it to come out the other side. I have never regretted the switch, imo the 350z is a much superior car and im sure you wont be dissapointed, just go easy if its your first rear wheel car until you are more comfortable.

1. Marzman.......1x Ticket + 2x Track Sessions 2. Doris..............2x Tickets only 3. WinkJ - 2x Tickets 4. Hennerz ......1x Ticket only 5. Pr1ngle x2 tickets please 6. Matty316... 2 tickets only 7. Mark284811 2x Ticket + Track Session 8. Dave J.........2 tickets please. 9. glrnet......1 x ticket please 10. Chippychip123......2x tickets please 11. Beb....... 1x ticket please 12. 350Ad.....1x ticket please 13. Drifter......1x ticket please 14. Veilside Z . 2 entry passes 1 zed track time 15. Madmarky........ 2x Tickets

I woulod of liked to be part of this but there is no way I can get a pic of me with the car as its in a thousand bits at the bodyshop at present. I look forward to seeing it in the end.