DannyBoy

You have to remove the main centre dash piece to get the cubby off as the cubby is screwed to the back of it. Just follow the guides for dismantling the interior and once you have the main centre dash piece out just look at the back of it and it'll be obvious which screws you have to remove DB

Or you could call A1 Jap Spares (website is easy to find) Just a note of caution: I've bought several entire 350z interiors for various projects, and none of the parts have been in very good cosmetic condition (all traders made me fully aware of this before purchase, and it didn't matter for my purposes). If you just want to improve the cosmetic appearance then I reckon vinyl wrapping or re-painting are probably better options as I rate your chances of finding as-new interior parts as pretty low. Hope this helps DB

Or you could try A1 Jap Spares, always seem to have everything and very quick and friendly. You might want to call or email them rather than PM though, as they don't seem to be on here much. DB

They're just stick-on panels, and unfortunately they look like it as well. Once they're on you can see the edges if you actually look even half-closely at them. Also adsurdly expensive for what they are. Paint your interior gloss black if you want to freshen it up, a few people have done that and it looks great. DB

Interesting question. I think you've got a point about people who like to think (for some reason) that they have some sort of syndrome, because I know a surprising number of people with genuine mental illnesses of varying severity, and none of them go around shouting it from the rooftops. Indeed it took me a year to find out that one friend was permanently on medication for severe bi-polar disorder. I guess it's easy on a forum to go on about all your problems to people who've never actually met you, because they have only your word to go on and can't dispute what you're saying. In real life you'd come across as a proper berk if you went around telling everyone how mental you were if you were clearly totally normal and just after a bit of attention. I think others have a good point about the need to always blame something; my life isn't as good as I want it to be therefore something has to be wrong with me, and once it's fixed everything will be fine. With regards to blokes vs women discussing problems, my experience is that contrary to popular belief blokes DO get their worries off their chest, but only to a few properly close mates who they can trust. Women seem to be a bit more liberal with the intimate details of thier life, although why that would be i have no idea. DB

You say '255BHP at the hub' do you mean Brake Horse Power measured at the hub, or do you mean Wheel Horse Power, i.e the actual horsepower at the wheel hub itself. If your numbers are WHP, then 255 is not bad at all as a baseline. If BHP then yes, that is a bit odd. DB Edit: I just looked at my graphs from Jez, and my car put down a baseline (with all breathing mods installed but not tuned) of 253WHP, and got to 307BHP once tuned, so if your graphs are in WHP then you have nothing to wory about.

FYI, I'd say buying from a long-time member like Vik is way better than buying from a dealer. You've got her entire ownership documented on here which beats any service history, and what's the point in a dealer warranty from a dealer who knows nothing about how to fix the car? (Nissan are largely useless) DB

Bit left-field perhaps, but what about one of the more aggressive detailing clays? They can get rid of tar spots and overspray, so not too much of a stretch surely? DB

If you reckon your civic is worth £5500, then you'd effectively be paying £6k for a Zed that is barely worth £5k. It's an 11 year old high mileage import in the lowest possible spec with an auto box in the least sought-after colour. He should be begging you to swap your £5500 civic for that. There's nothing wrong with it as such (although it does not have the stated 310bhp), it just ticks all the 'hard to shift and not worth a lot' boxes. I'd press him for a better deal. DB 11 year old? Did I fall asleep and lose 2 years of my life Oh dear, maybe it's 9 years old then DB

I had mine UpReved by Jez, and you won't regret it. Admittedly he also fitted lots of shiney breathing mods to mine at the same time; on paper it gained 30bhp but it felt a LOT better to drive, certainly more difference than 30bhp should have made. Oh and I live basically on the M25 and drive the bit you'll be using regularly. There are some road works/50 limits moving around on the northern/western bits at the moment but you should be pretty traffic free by about 10:30, enjoy DB

If you reckon your civic is worth £5500, then you'd effectively be paying £6k for a Zed that is barely worth £5k. It's an 11 year old high mileage import in the lowest possible spec with an auto box in the least sought-after colour. He should be begging you to swap your £5500 civic for that. There's nothing wrong with it as such (although it does not have the stated 310bhp), it just ticks all the 'hard to shift and not worth a lot' boxes. I'd press him for a better deal. DB

Another thing worth considering is how many 'good' zeds are left, rather than just how many are still registered. With prices continuing to drop like a stone, I get the impression that more and more will be bought by those with less expensive tastes, and ruined with cheap tat bodykits and stickers, effectively removing them from the mainstream market. (not knocking on those of a modified persuasion, just those who refuse to spend the cash to do it properly). We've all seen the ebay monstrosities that pop up on here every few weeks, and it already seems to be becoming more common DB

Naaahhh, I'm done for the day (shouldn't really have been working today), and now get to spend an hour and a half in the Zed on the way home DB

Synthetic engine oil isn't refined from crude like petrol, it's synthesised, hence 'synthetic' DB Ahhhh, some refined crude oil can be classed as Synthetic oil due to the higher temp used to burn off the sulphur, this is a legal loophole that the oil companies can use, and they can call it synthetic engine oil. They've gone very quiet! Yes, well some of us have to work at weekends, lol. I didn't know about that loophole Zugara, I was just making a casual suggestion. I guess mineral and part-synth oils can't get away with being more expensive than fully synth even if the price of crude goes up because they're considered to be lower quality who knows, I'm no expert. DB

Synthetic engine oil isn't refined from crude like petrol, it's synthesised, hence 'synthetic' DB

I'd be pretty raging at any garage that changed the rear discs for a handbrake issue, as the handbrake uses seperate drums on the rear wheels, not the main disc brakes. Seems likely that they charged you £700 for something that was never going to solve your issue (if it is indeed handbrake related). This is not rocket science: the handbrake drums are clearly visible as being seperate from the disks, so i'd guess they may not even have done any diagnostics and fobbed you off DB PS: your Zed appears to be the only one ever made which has a handbrake that works too well rather than not at all, and is therefore probably priceless.

Only way to tell really is a visual inspection of the piston faces, which can be done by endoscope. I had this dilemma when buying my car but I reasoned that as the engine hadn't gone pop yet, and wouldn't be subjected to any more knock from low octane fuel, it SHOULD be ok. But I also have a 'new bottom end' credit card on standby just in case, lol. DB

They were originally, as they were based on a lotus esprit chasis, but for some unknown reason they raised the front end of them just before it was launched, which totally screwed up the handling. A lot of owners drop the front end back to how it was designed originally. Performance wise, they are slow as my lawn mower as they are quite underpowered. I think its something like 150hp for European models and 130hp for US models with all the extra anti pollution control on them. Renault V6 I believe I thought it was a volvo engine? It's both: was co-developed by Renault, volvo and also Peugeot I think. But whoever made it, I can't see 150hp being enough for a car coated in steel plating DB

Hmmm, maybe like 5bhp, lol. Not saying anything about the quality of your exhaust, just that these engines are a pig to extract any more power out of without FI. I'm about £2.5k into N/A tuning and I have gained all of 30 ponies And I've got the DE engine. I'd imagine the Revup engine would be even harder to tune, being better in the first place. DB

Rev your engine too so they get all excited (also educating them on how their fart-can exhaust does not make their 4-pot sound like a real engine) and then just pull away normally leaving them screaming off on their own like a complete prat. Never fails to amuse. DB

you're certainly not the only one; I did a fair amount of soundproofing in the back of mine a while ago, and I added a layer each of two different soundproofing materials (of acoustic membrane and one of decoupling foam) to the underside of the stock boot mat. It has worked to some degree, but if you were going to do this don't do what I did and run out of motivation before you get to soundproofing the rear wheel arches, as this is where a lot of noise comes in and I massively regret not fully doing them. As far as rigidity goes, I'd steer clear of anything too rigid as it would just rattle around like mad. Does your car not have the plasti-board cutout that goes underneath the mat? I have no spare either and as long as I don't take the p1ss it holds up fine. DB

The PCM is part of the ECU system, it normally deals with diagnostics IIRC. You will need exactly the right ECU for your engine; the DE, DE-Revup and HR engines are all significantly different. You'll also want one from a UK car, and it needs to be from a car that either had or did not have cruise control depending on what yours had. Basically it needs to be from an identical spec car. Not sure if you'll need a roadster ECU for a roadster, but I'd guess you do. Also not sure if transmission plays a part but I'd guess it has to be the same as well. If you're looking for one have you tried ? He usually has a pretty healthy stock of bits and bobs. DB

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=60140 Any other day I probably would have believed this one. DB

Not bad, a bit of publicity for the RCZ and an April fool's joke all rolled into one I think Pistonheads' attempt has been the best this year, they almost had me... DB

A cracking day's racing all round really. I don't particularly like Jason Plato, he seems to think a bit much of himself especially when it comes to who should get out of his way etc. However you have to have a grudging respect for any guy who can get into a brand new car (which looked like a handful) and be on top of the podium within three races. DB