DannyBoy

Whereabouts are you, if you already have the Milltek it might be an idea to find someone local with Milltek+Berks and go for a drive to see the difference for yourself. I have the Milltek+Berks and love it. You can hear the exhaust but it isn't intrusive. Growls up to 3.5k then you get the quirky 'rasp' then after 4k it really starts to howl DB

It wasn't as good as last week's, but I still preferred it to the self-indulgent cocking about of the christmas special (and pretty much the whole last series). The thing that really drags for me is the star in a reasonably priced car. Sometimes it's great, like Rowan Atkinson last week; top bloke who likes his cars and is someone who people in the UK are interested in. Matt Leblanc? Really? who cares? Although at least he actually had something to say about cars, a lot of the people they have on clearly couldn't give less of a damn about the cars/driving part and are just there for the free plug. I think maybe they should stop putting a guest in every week for the sake of it and just do it when they can find someone worth having on. I'd rather see more segments like the SLS piece instead. DB

I've got one, so: Good: much better sound than the Bose with nicely customisable EQ Looks good and has six(?) different backlight colours for the interface to match with your interior Very versatile in what it can play/do Bad: Touch screens are impossible to operate safelywhile driving (but you can do some of it via the steering wheel) I found mine very hard to fit. It all hooked up fine but the actual physical fitting part was a PITA to say the least. the sextons fascia didn't seem to work whether i mounted the unit to the dash or the bulkhead first so i ended up extending the dash surround to meet the unit using carbon. Hope that helps DB

I did pretty extensive sound deadening in my car; the whole cabin floor, the doors, and pretty much the whole boot area all with a layer of aluminium-backed anti-resonance stuff (dynamat) and then an acoustic membrane over that. To be honest it didn't make as much of a difference as i was expecting. It was noticable but not exactly life-changing, so i'd think twice before shelling out on it if i were you. The problem is there are more effective materials out there than the ones i used but the best way to kill noise is with mass, so they all weigh a ton, and I wouldn't have wanted to use anything heavier than i did. My advice is really not to bother; it didn't have a great effect and was quite expensive and time-consuming, do what i ended up doing and buy a louder head unit. DB

You may just have saved me a considerable amount of money mate, great find DB

Engines and all A380's are been checked after cracks have been found already in some of the wings! Not mega serious they say but i find it surprising that they have found cracks in such a young aircraft already. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16649334 Typical, the only part made in Britain starts to fall off after a few weeks DB

So he customises cars for a living and apparently has three 350zs kicking around, but has no idea where to source a widebody kit, and thinks you can slap a TT kit on and tune it in a week and not have it go bang? Massive custard test requirement. DB

A few guys on here have fitted cages, but AFAIK they have all been custom jobs, and therefore quite expensive. Not sure how you reached the conclusion that the 350z is a good trackday toy, i mean i love mine (obviously) but there are many many cars that would be cheaper to buy, cheaper to run and faster round a track than a Zed. There are many threads on this (which i recommend you search for and read) but to summarise: The Zed is HEAVY. So not as nimble as some and very hard on tyres and brake pads. Parts are expensive, the said tyres and brakes are pricey, and so are clutches. When you get to wanting more power there are absolutely no cheap options for tuning. N/A tuning doesn't do a lot, and F/I is ball-bustingly expensive. So if you what you want is a Zed that you can track, go for it. But if you're just after a track toy, not sure you're looking at the right car. DB

First off have you driven a roadster? they're a bit heavier (and therefore a tiny bit slower) but by all accounts they don't really suffer from the classic wobblyness of a coupe-turned-roadster. A lot of speculative pricing goes on on PH as it's free to advertise, so Auto trader is a more reliable place to gauge prices. You should have no trouble at all finding a car in your price range, i got a blue 2004 GT for 8k in the summer before the prices had finished crashing so you're not asking for too much for your money, might just have to keep waiting for the right car to turn up and be prepared to travel as there aren't actually that many zeds around compared to other cars (Scoobys for example). I think there's a guy on here selling a very tastefully modified Azure coupe, not sure if he's sold it yet though and can't remember who it was (useful i know). Good luck. DB

Well I'm never going out after dark again! DB

I'll be honest, i only watched that because i'm bored and waiting for dinner, but it was hilarious. Nice find. DB

Hats off to you mate if that's your aim. I've done a LOT of research on the N/A options for the VQ35 because it's probably the route i'm going with mine in the future. basically from my research if you build and balance the bottom end and port the plenum and cylinder heads to bump the rev limit up to about 7500, then go with fairly agressive cams, headers, a 3.9 FD and a very good tune then you MIGHT be able to keep up with an M3. and by that point you could have bought a vortech twice over. DB

It doesn't even work if you exclude the clutch and head unit. The berks are ~£350 and the japspeed will be what £150 at a good price? That leaves you £700 for manifolds. None of the top level headers I've heard of are anything like that cheap, and as Ian said it's an engine-out job so labour is huge. I'd also be shocked if you made more than 5bhp from headers with stock cams. Edit: realised i didn't actually give any advice there at all. I spent about 3 grand on my Zed after i bought it and got Berks+Milltek, plenum spacer, upRev remap, DBA front disks Ferrodo pads and braided lines all round. So obviously that would be my vote for a 3 grand Zed spend DB

I actually considered buying 'c5upe' when i was looking for mine and decided it looked a little too uncared for for my liking. really good to see that someone was a bit braver than me and has turned the old girl around in spectacular fashion. Great job DB

I could be wrong but I don't think anyone has ever succesfully managed to install cruise control on a JDM. It's not like an Audi where you can pretty much just plug the stalk in and off you go, the stock ECU on a non cruise Zed isn't set up for cruise so it's nowhere near 'plug and play'. There are a few threads already out there on this, so search and have a read if you want more info. DB

In my experience you'll be better off with a local independent than a nissan dealer. You may think 'well they'll know their way around the car' but the majority of them really don't at all, and they'll charge you twice as much as an independent would. My local dealer took 10 days and £300 quid to tell me they had no idea why my window wasn't working properly and wanted to replace the entire mechanism for about £800. I found the common window fix on here in about 10 mins and fixed it myself for the cost of the part from ZMANALEX. DB

A clutch is a wear-and-tear-item; if you use it it will eventually die. It would be a bit like buying used brake pads; they might be cheaper than hew ones, but they'll last half as long. Also with the clutch being such a crucial part of the car, i wouldn't want one that someone else had potentially abused. Buy a new decent clutch and it could well last the life of the car. Unfortunately Zed ownership aint cheap, parts are expensive and they have a thirst for super unleaded, pretty much just the way it is i'm afraid. DB

and my post is now redundant, lol, too slow. DB

Off the line, where weight and traction count, the Zed will lose to almost any decent hot hatch. Unfortunately at the speeds at which you'd pull back a lead you'd be seeing blue lights in your rear-view. It's all about the 3rd and 4th 'in gear' torque. Lazy cruising FTW, leave traffic light Grand Prix stuff to the yoofs in Saxos. DB

My car came with a Japspeed backbox on and it was the first thing I got rid of. it looked terrible because of the wonky fit and it was very boomy/droney and pretty embarassingly chavvy sounding really. If you're keeping the car it'll be worth investing in something that'll sound good like the Scorpion. DB

Well you'd only have to worry about it for about 2.5 miles, at which point you'd be impaled by bits of flying crank-case DB

It pops off around the bottom and sides and then it's sort of hooked on at the top so just lifts off. But you'll need to take the window switch cover off first which just has one screw in the handle recess and then pulls off. It's all pretty intuitive if you just take your time and think about what you're doing. DB Ps. electrical tape on a flathead screwdriver=trim removal tool

Jez, out of curiosity: I see you've removed the nice heavy airbags, but I thought you'd no longer be able to do this under the new MOT rules. I'm guessing you've thought of that already so how do you plan on getting around it? The reason I ask is because I was planning on getting my dash retrimmed in leather which would need the airbag to be removed/deactivated so it didn't try and deploy through the leather in an accident. Obviously I can't do this under the new rules so have you found a way round it? DB

Yes to be honest I've never heardbof anyone getting stopped and emissions checked, but now ive said it...... :-P It does happen, just not often. VOSA have favourite spots where they periodically pull people over. Thing is with the old rules they couldn't test emissions at the roadside, just tell you to go and get tested within 14 days or whatever (decats off, cats back on, no worries). but now that the decats themselves are illegal, you could actually get a roadside penalty if you get an inspector sharp enough to spot the difference. Just can't see it being worth the massive faf for the sake of 2bhp and a very loud exhaust. DB

The car could be fine, but then it could not be. The only person who can give you an honest answer to your question is the owner, and he doesn't seem to be that big on honesty. This could just be me, but i wouldn't buy a car from someone who was so willing to blatantly lie on their ad, how will you know if anything he tells you is true? Its the owner more than the car that would put me off that. DB