brillomaster

quite a lot... slippy diff would sense the lack of traction, and send power to the wheel which isn't slipping. which if that tyre is already busy cornering, it may well break traction as well. not to mention most cars don't like having their cornering grip suddenly cut in half on one axle, possibly more than half if the diesel hits a weighted up outside tyre. had a few nasty experiences running over liquids, was doing a trackday not that long ago and the car in front dropped oil... cue quite a squeaky bum moment as my car and the two cars following me understeered straight off the track. Luckily there was run off available and we managed to fan out and not hit each other!

assuming you have a jack, axle stands and some spanners, its simply nuts and bolts.

yeah thats the one! well will see you there in that case!

Good choice Justin, looks awesome!

Well had a slight setback whilst doing test runs with the new beemer... cracked a radiator on the way into work, cue overheating engine, 4 hour wait for a tow truck, and £200 bill for a new radiator. Which unfortunately means I didn't have the funds to do Blyton Park in August. Still, car is now fixed, and I've taken out as much as I can without really getting into it or spending any money. At some point I hope to replace the rear exhaust backbox with a straight pipe, and remove the entire sunroof assembly and rivet on a lightweight ally panel in its place, but they aren't urgent. But the rest of the car is feeling good - has good direction change, but suspension is somewhat floaty at the moment - and there is a delay between turning the steering wheel and the car actually turning - suspect high sidewalls might be the culprit there. But will be booking both Blyton in September and Donington in October when I get paid at the end of this month.

This. Has long since taken over from old episodes of topgear as my go to motoring show, great to watch, and then rewatch.

why is it a cat d? Also does bog standard mean cloth seats, standard stereo and no cruise control?

i'd also agree with GreenLandy... trying to see what mileage your engine currently has but cant see the info, but either way i'd rather put a replacement 40k engine in rather than try and rebuild a higher mileage engine. and i'd have thought a basic like for like engine swap would be cheaper than a rebuild, assuming you're happy enough with a standard engine. Also the current success rate on this forum with rebuilding engines and still having problems puts me off rebuilding... although I can understand the trepidation involved in giving your car a new engine which itself is an unknown quantity, unless you can find someone who will warranty a replacement engine.

bugger that's a right pain... awful feeling having to do major engine work on a car hopefully can be rectified without too much strife.

I'm aware of this happening in cars with automatic gearboxes, but not aware of any learning of this kind on a zed.

any update from the OP on this? keen to know how many dozens of litres you drained out the engine when you did the oil change

If you don't mind travelling to Banbury Prodrive are desperate for Mechanical Engineers right now, and you sound like you'd be a good fit!

Rota GTR-D might meet requirements, and be reasonably priced?

something else to consider - how aggressively are you downshifting on corner exit, and are you rev matching? if you're coming into a corner in 4th gear, driving through the corner in 4th and looking to change down to 3rd or 2nd on the exit you'll need to bring the revs up quite considerably before you let the clutch out otherwise you'll shock the driveline and risk locking the rear wheels. you may want to read up on heel and toe as well as it helps immensely with fast driving, but requires a lot of practice. with fast driving I always find smoothness is the key - you don't want to be stamping on the throttle or the brakes, or lurching at the steering wheel - you want smooth controlled inputs, its all about keeping the car settled.

full throttle in second gear is quite a nippy thing, I've had the tcs come on for less than that before. usual queries about tyres and pressures, presuming the roads were smooth and dry? also, you say waiting till the wheels were straight, were you literally driving through the bend off throttle, then as soon as the wheels are straight, flooring it? normal technique would be to corner on a balanced throttle, then smoothly feed in the power as you unwind the steering lock.

Surely the best way is to hand over 6 tonnes of 1p coins? Extra points if you arrange them all in a single stack, nearly 3km high... or side by side along the ground for 21 miles...

hells yeah twingos are cool, huge respect for any small car manufacturer that's willing to try a rear engine rear wheel drive layout, even if it doesn't actually have the power to pull the skin off a rice pudding. An abarth is just a jumped up fiat 500, whereas a twingo is almost exactly the same as a 911.

to be honest, i'd drain it all out and start again tbh... remember you want to be reading the dipstick when the engine is stone cold and on a level surface, obviously. should be relatively easy to tell where the level is under those circumstances. once the car is good and cold try and get a reading, may take a few tries but keep at it!

Ouch sorry to see that! still, lesson learnt. often seems to be learnt the hard way with RWD cars, until you spin and crash on a public road you don't think it'll happen to you (yes I span my first RWD car 3 months after buying it - I now understand the importance of decent tyres, driving to the conditions and the advantages of TCS!) My advice is do a trackday/driver training day, then you realise just how quickly things can get out of shape, and how hard it is to catch a slide even after a full days practice. also going back on a public road after doing track driving makes you realise a) how narrow most public roads are, with no run off, and b ) how poor the sight lines are along country lanes.

I hope they throw the book at her

yeah, had a mates mini cooper S that was drinking oil... starts making a horrible noise, and his oil was well off the bottom of the dipstick, completely dry. funny thing is he let it happen again as well. And I also think that once a car runs low on oil, it keeps using more oil. I wont tell you about the time my track car died on track due to oil starvation... needless to say, I now check oil a lot more frequently!

did they then remove the old one and reinstall the new one again? im a little concerned about airbags when I MOT my track car - my plan is to take the airbag module out so all airbags are disabled, but still present - if that passes i'll start actually removing airbags.

have a read through this if you haven't already http://www.350z-uk.com/topic/110363-first-track-day-booked/

so, why is it only summer use? what else are you driving? Edited to add, no, you shouldnt sell it, you should drive it more!

to be honest my 2003 car used to have a bit of what I can assume was diff whine... was noticeable accelerating in 2nd and third gears, didn't seem so bad after that. unless its really loud i'd take it to CS and ask for their opinion. but certainly an oil change with the correct stuff wouldn't hurt if it hasn't already been done.