brillomaster

Some poor zed having a bad day in the opening scene of Pacific Rim at 1minute 24 seconds, blink and you'll miss it!

please do! would love to know what an M6 drives like - especially the engine... does it need to be redlined to get the most out of it? i mean, its a heavy car, and relatively low torque - does it actually pull from low revs? either way, i still want one!

ah ok, maybe not 200 quite, but definitely the exciting side of 180 (not that I'll ever get anywhere near that!)

you won't damage the car, if the brakes get really low then you'll hear a horrible grinding noise of metal on metal, and you'll start scoring the discs. but even if it does get this bad, you're replacing both discs and pads anyways. what pads are they? if they're performance pads then slow speed squeaking is fairly normal.

+1 am looking at these as well for my next brake pads - i have ferodo DS2500s at the moment, but they're like, £120 an axle. similarl story to you - car is used as a daily and doesnt do any track work (have a track car for that) and generally, when driving i try and do as little braking as possible! my assumption is that standard brembo pads will overheat quicker and have less friction than performance pads, but seeing as im not in the habit of doing long alpine descents i dont think it will be a problem. EDIT just noticed Clark Motorsport reply - yep that sounds good, will be in touch when i need them!

Ultimate performance bargain has got to be a BMW M5: http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/bmw/m5/2005-55-bmw-m5-saloon-5-0-v10-bmw-warranty--clutch-and-flywheel-replaced/1992194?isexperiment=true 15 grand gets you a genuine 200mph car (if delimited), under 10 seconds to 100mph. the example above seats 5, has had clutch and fly replaced, should provide a few years of happy motoring! or for an extra grand, its coupe brother, the M6: http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/bmw/m6/bmw-e63-e64-m6-full-service-history-2006/2022706?isexperiment=true

the standard exhaust is just naff... sounds very quiet at low rpm, and then at high rpm it just makes a whooshing sound, sounds all wheezy and horrible even a cobra is a huge improvement - can hear a noticeable difference above 3500rpm, the note hardens and just expresses power, rather than restrictions. and then when the exhaust is hot, lots of love pops and crackles on the overrun, which sounds awesome. a true dual will take that even further - can hear a bit of the V6 in the cobra, but need a true dual to hear it clearly. my old 300zx had a true dual and sounded

you've definitely made the right choice - will transform the car when fitted. once i've done a few tiny things like brakes and tyres, swapping my cobra for a true dual is next on my list!

i would say that if you're getting excessive treadwear on the inner edge, then the toe setting is wrong. my fronts had about 4mm of tread across 3/4 of the tyre, but bad toe settings meant the insides were completely bald, nearly showing canvas. my fault for not checking, the tyres properly, but one set of new tyres and an alignment later and all is good - no uneven tread wear.

well, in this country at least the speed limit is 70mph, so really, all cars only need about 30hp to do 70 mph... however, there is a huge difference in a car that does 0-70 mph in 20 seconds, and one that can do it in 5. nobody much cares about top speed these days, as you'll never get anywhere near it. but where performance does matter is in gear acceleration, a 400bhp car will do the standard 40-70mph overtaking move a lot quicker than a 300bhp car.

a while back i found a really good site that showed a 3d wheel with widths and offsets you can pick.unfortunately i cant for the life of me find it now! however, this does the same thing in 2d form - play with the sliders and you'll soon get the jist of what offset does. http://code.beardfu.com/wheel-offset-calculator/#wo_vis

true google knows all! i'm just being awkward... i know offset and wheel widths no problem. the actual letters do mean something as you say - ET stands for 'Einpresstiefe' - which is german for literally 'depth of wheel' ( i had to google that ) and 'J ' refers to the actual shape of the cross section of the rim, ie the bit the tyre hooks onto. I've never heard of an automotive wheel that wasnt a 'J' though! EDIT: for anyone that cares, im a little bit wrong... J isnt the actual shape of the tyre/wheel bead profile, its the designation of that tyre/wheel bead. Apparently there are J, JJ, K, JK, B, P and D types! Read more: http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible_pg4.html#rimcontours#ixzz2sY0reU8F

Alright smartypants, what does 'ET' actually stand for, and what does the 'J' refer to?

swap the rears for 245/40/18 and you'll be right as rain. It will affect the handling as a lower profile than normal will mean less compliance from the tyres over uneven roads, but you'll also have slightly less sidewall flex when turning in to corners, so the car will change direction marginally better. lower profile tyres will also affect the speedo, when the speedo reads 30mph, you'll actually be going 28.9 mph. however, the car will be a tiny bit quicker to accelerate as the lower tyre circumference will effectively change the final drive ratio. lastly, the zeds tcs is designed such that the rear wheels are rotating slower than the fronts (on standard size the rear wheels have a larger circumference). if you run identical tyres front and rear the car will think the rears are spinning faster than they should be, so might trigger the traction control.

Will, Ken, Phil and I will be going down to Keevil Airfield for a trackday with Motorsport events - as its the middle of winter demand is not likely to be great, hence why its only £99 for the day! Feel free to come join us - last trackday we had great fun trying to keep up with a 350z in our beemer!

ah, handling is easy enough to rectify - decent set of tyres and more a more track oriented brake set up is easy enough to do. but 8 second 0-100 is proper quick! especially for a car with room for two little'uns in the back!

mmmm number 69. TVR Cerbera 4.5 does the 0-100 sprint in 8 SECONDS! and will look and sound glorious whilst doing it.... i cant think of anything faster for the money, can pick one up for under £10k!

I love number 1. and number 1... not sure i agree with number 1 though...

that looks very nice indeed! prefer it without the cream bumper in my opinion, but keep the wheels as they are!

might it be the wrong time of year? the middle of winter isnt a brilliant time to be buying cars, especially sports coupes. saying that, your requirements seem perfectly reasonable to me, mine would have met all your requirements and was £200 underbudget, 2 years ago!

hmm, the comments on top gear are the same with every new series - there isnt going to be a drastic change back to the old ways, just accept that this is what topgear is now! i'll be honest, i thought it was alright. actually pretty good considering the last 4-5 series. Obviously not the best ever episode, but not the very worst either! still looking forwards to next week, although the review of the P1 wont have anything technical in it, it'll just be how its 'got enough grip to tear your skin off' and its got more 'torques' to 'power a small solar system' and that getting that much power from a modest engine is like 'strapping a jet engine to your nans mobility scooter' and so on... if you want actual car reviews, watch autocar or evo or any of the other online videos - if you want grown men larking about in cars and blowing stuff up, then watch top gear. and so what if you can see every gag coming and the script is wooden and the acting is terrible - thats the format for every action movie of the last decade! surely nobody expected anything else?

lol, anything that mentions the words 'shipping' or 'agent' can f**k right off when it comes to car sales!

depends on your use of the car - if its a beater/missile car/trackslag/driftbitch then yeah, duct tape FTW! if you repair it it will only get bashed up again. As long as its only cosmetic, its fine. our bmw track car is currently rocking front nearside wheelarch gaffer tape, and offside door mirror gaffer tape, its all good!

psssh... 7:30 is better than 9:30 - you want to get your moneys worth! besides, by the time you've waited to sign on, sat through the safety briefing and waited for two groups of sighting laps, you'll be itching to get out on track properly, by which time it'll be about 10am!

look for Buddyclub exhaust thats for sale - combine that with some decats and that willl be loud, but still sound awesome.