HollowPoint

Nothing drains your wallet quite like one either, well, except two of them.....Welcome back. NICE choice of car and gotta say, your 350 looks like it was stonkin too.

So you repeat the same thing, it's all the same except for the additives......that's exactly the point. If two cookies are made the same, up to a certain point, by the same baker, in the same oven, but then have different ingredients put into them at the final stage, by two different bakers, are they the same cookie? Do they look the same? Do they taste the same? Or are they going to taste different, look different and probably have a very different affect on how much weight you'll gain by eating them? As for Shell using an additive 20 years ago that hurt Vauxhall engines, I fully believe it, it makes no difference to the argument at hand. Even though the fuel begins the same, right the way from the crude oil to the refinery, it isn't the same at the pump, end of story, not possible to argue the point, it is chemically different, if you take a jar of one and a jar of the other and break down it's chemical structure, it is, guess what, different. If you take two chemically different structures and burn them, are they going to have the same result? Answer: No.

I'm a little confused by those claiming all fuel is the same, then in the same post pointing out that it isn't, because of the additives. The additives are not marketing, they're science, they make a difference, if they didn't, the fuel companies wouldn't plough money into developing them and adding them in the first place! Shell VPower has a higher octane rating than BP Ultimate, because of the additives, just like the Octane booster you can buy off the shelf at Halfrauds and various petrol stations, it increases the octane rating of the fuel ...... with additives. In addition to that, the additives added by various fuel companies for carbon build-up resistance etc. are not just marketing, they're scientific chemicals, added to the fuel, to do a job. All fuel is NOT the same. Nor is all super unleaded, the same. Saying all fuel is the same, except for the additives, is like saying Race fuel is just Super Unleaded, with some additives. It is exactly that........but I bet you a million quid your car runs better on it! Why? Because of the additives. As for the people suggesting the map being the issue, you're exactly right. A map achieved on fuel with one octane rating/set of additives, will not work so well with a different fuel, with a different octane rating/set of additives. In the case of modern ECUs, where they learn and are not just stuck on the Map the car gods gave them, that Map will change to compensate for the readings it gets from the engines sensors and eventually, will run fine again. In essence, if you run vPower all the time, then put some Tesco in, it'll run like crap until it re-maps, or you put more vPower in and likewise, visa versa. If you chop and change your fuel all the time, as most people with non performance cars do, you'll NEVER get the best out of your car, because the Map is constantly trying to compensate and never knows where it stands, if you run it on one or the other super-unleaded ALL the time, you'll get the best out of it. Personally, I run Shell in my Zs and my BMW and whatever is cheapest locally, in my P38. I've done extended 'tests' over the years, in various performance cars, both NA and turbo and Shell has always been the fuel that gets the most out of my cars. By extended tests, I'm talking months on one fuel type, then switching, resetting the ECU with a battery disconnect, then driving for months on the new fuel. By various cars, I'm talking Jag XJS 5.3 V12, P38 4.0 V8, BMW 3.0, 300zx Twin Turbo, R32 GTR, etc. etc. I've also tried the off the shelf additives, which really are a marketing ploy, because with newer cars, by the time your ECU has adjusted, you've emptied the tank that had the octane booster in it and unless you repeatedly put the same fuel in, with the same brand of booster, your ECU isn't going to adjust to it. It did however used to make an instant difference to my Ford Capri 2.8i and would probably make a difference in my 280zx. Hope this helps?

Great thread, shame so many of the pictures are gone now and it's sad to see a few of the pets died during the thread too Here's a few of our two, Husky called Syntax and black cat called Jim. He did have a brother called Spock, but sadly Spock turned up dead outside our back door one day, eyes wide open, legs in the running position and no sign of any trauma......poisoned and placed outside our door is the only conclusion we can come to, but thankfully nothing has happened to Jim in the last 2 years since that happened. First then here's Jedi Syntax: Then Syntax outside his Kennel: Jim and Syntax come to see Rose when she was bed-ridden with spinal issues before her op. Spock and Jim together as kittens: Jim and Syntax proving dogs and cats do in fact love each other: Jim playing Alien on Roses Lap: And Syntax at 9 weeks old:

What the hell does PS stand for? I hate measuring in kw!!!! Whats wrong with torque and bhp? Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk now Free

I remember it well. In regards to bullet proof. Most of the cars thatbhave not been looked after are over 20 years old now. They've managed 20 years and over 100,000 miles with no/bad servicing habits and being generally abused. I'd say that's pretty bulletproof lol. Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

They drift better, or rather easier, but they're certainly no better handling, at least not in my experience. But then its been a very long time since I drove a standard z lol. Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

Oh I agree, I was more meaning that as is evident from just how many sets of front tyres you go through on a FWD compared to rears, the front in a FWD car, are far more important. You want something on the rear that will get the best grip available to stop that pendulum motion you refer to, but because of the limited grip available and how little the rears actually do (Refer again to my tyre wear comment, once went through 3 sets of fronts on a Ford Orion before the rears got even close to the limit) on a FWD car, they're a smaller consideration, for me anyway. EDIT: Just re-read your post and wondering if you mean you always put the new tyres on the rear and move the rears to the front? If so, I did that a few times, until I got caught out by some dodgy Kwik Fit Fitter, who didn't match up the tyre sizes and I ended up with bigger tyres on the front than the rear, that was an education in roundabouts I can tell you!

I'm sure I remember that username (brillomaster?) lol Whilst you're quite right in what you've said about them being a mechanical nightmare, especially if you buy one that hasn't been looked after, I'm a little concerned at some of the prices you seem to have been charged. Putting a viscous fan in should be a £50 job, as I doubt anyone would remove the pulley for the fan, as that drives the water pump, so it should just be a case of buy a £50 fan, put it on, do up the 4 bolts and of course remove the electric one first. Good point btw, don't EVER put an electric fan on a z32! lol Also you pointed out the con-rod snapped and flooded your engine with coolant, that should not have happened at all, as the conrod doesn't go anywhere near the coolant, unless when it snapped, it went through something, like your block or your head, lol, so I'd guess the coolant thing happened first, which then somehow caused extra stress on the conrod (Probably from massively increased crank case pressure, or simply the coolant removing the lubricating properties of the oil, causing the conrod to seize and then snap). Also, £1500 for an engine? Who the hell quoted you that!? You can buy a running engine with turbos for £500 or less and putting it in should only be a couple of hundred quid...... Either way, there is some first hand experience for you right there folks. I personally bought one that had buggered sills, but I didn't know about it (Nearly £1000), buggered suspension, but I didn't know about it (£700 for Meister R Coilovers), my bushes were all near enough shot, my HICAS had been locked out the 'cheap' way and cost me another £200 to do it properly, my engine needed a top-end rebuild, which thankfully me and a friend did, the cars can cost you a LOT of money. lol

Essentially the majority of cars on the road that are more than a few years old will have a mix of tyres one way or another. Either through budget, or through discontinued tyre treads and the owner refusing to replace all 4. Simple fact is, on most FWD cars, it's irrelevant anyway, as the rears do bugger all more than follow you around really. Granted, if you put the cheapest of the cheap on there, you may as well just fit McDonalds trays, but you get my point, all you really want there is some tyres that will displace water and use the tiny bit of weight being put on them to grip the road. RWD cars it's a lot more important that you get the tyres right, as the rears are driving the car, so need plenty of grip and water displacement, but the fronts are also doing lots of work, they're not the driven wheels and are being pushed. Because of this very fact, matching the front tyres to the job, is far more important than matching to the brand you have on the rear. At the end of the day, a tyre that does well pushing your car along in all weathers, with lots of BHP, may not take all that kindly to changing direction at high speed, whilst being pushed along by another force entirely. That's just simple physics, you match the tool to the job, common sense. 4WD cars are an entirely different kettle of fish, they should ALWAYS have the same tyres front to rear, but should also run the same size tyre, width, tread, profile, everything, because the 4WD will usually depend on it. However, something as simple as a P38 Range Rover, which is 4WD and hardly a performance car, can very much illustrate my point. With it being a 4x4, you know it needs the same size tyres all round right? Correct. But I suppose you'd also think it needed the same pressure in each tyre too right? Wrong. In fact, the pressure differences required between the front and rear axles are really quite large, this is because of the weight distribution of the car, the heavier bit gets a lower PSI, because that then evens out how the tyres perform when they're actually touching the road. The difference between what the front and rear do is similar in RWD cars, but accentuated much more. In the case of the Z, you have a heavy engine at the front, the driver, the dashboard and everything in it, the seats, etc. The rear is mostly empty and the diff etc. only counts as unsprung weight, which has an entirely different affect on how your tyres perform. Then you have the fact that the front wheels are actually required to grip the ground, whilst being pushed along by a considerable force from the rear axle. Combine the fact that the fronts and rears are entirely different weights and that they do completely different jobs (One pushes you along in a straight line, the other grips in corners whilst being pushed) why on earth would it be imperative that you put the same tyres on both axles? Why do you suppose RWD cars used stepped wheels (Wider at the rear than the front)? The main reason, is exactly what I've been harping on about, because the two ends of the car do very different jobs and weigh different amounts. The same rule applies to the tyres, the pressures of those tyres, the suspension dampening, etc. etc. In short, there is no logical reason not to choose different tyres on the front of your car to the rear, provided you are doing so for informed, performance reasons and not just budgetary constraints. Ekona is quite right in almost everything he says in his first post, i.e. having tyres that perform very well on the rear, but very poor performing tyres on the front, will give you understeer, likewise the other way around, will give you oversteer, however matching the tyre to the job it's doing, will actually give you better performance than simply matching the brand and tread on all 4. Now if you want to be confident that you've made a good decision, but don't want to do the research, you should ALWAYS ensure that you have way over the legal limit on all 4 tyres and that the tread pattern you use is the same, i.e. the same tyres, even if slightly different sizes/pressures still. If you do your research though and you want something that really does the job properly, there's absolutely no harm in mixing between axles. As has been stated by someone earlier in the post and conceded by Ekona, racing cars do exactly that, they match the compound and tread pattern (In the case that a tread pattern is used instead of slicks) to the job that the tyre is doing, using the cars weight distribution, wheelbase and the driver doing the job, as factors to decide on what makes the best setup. As a final point, I noticed some people using the rationale that different tyres perform differently at different temperatures, etc. and therefore you should use the same on both ends of the car. The simple fact is though, not only is your car very different weights at each end, not only does each end do a different job, but each end will also run at different temperatures. The fronts will tend to run hotter, as they are turning, which causes friction, they are taking the brunt of braking, which causes friction and they may even have some heat soak from your engine, depending on the cars design, so that rationale doesn't really work either. So again, if you want to be confident you've made a good decision, ensure you have the same brand and tread on both ends, if you fancy looking into it and doing some maths, enjoy, lol. Sorry about the long post, it's late and for some reason, I needed to go on and on about something. lol

Yeah the one I saw was gloss black and stood out a mile!

Just older cars Sempiternal. I made a post in a thread the other day where everyone was bashing an ebay ad for a 350 where everyone thought it was far too expensive, same thing used to happen with 300s, til one day they dropped through the floor price-wise and it's taken a LONG time for the number of cars to deplete, for them to become a more appreciated 'classic' and start to appreciate in value. The blue one is probably slightly over-priced now to be fair, but a couple of years ago he'd have had a similar thread posted about his advert being FAR too much money for a 300zx.

My 300zx Twin Turbo has considerably more than a standard 350 yes, as it's pretty far from standard. I've used the car extensively on the track, on the twisty roads, round town, on the motorways, in the wet, in the dry, etc. Mixing tyres is a bad thing if you're doing it for budgetary reasons, but it's far from a bad thing if you've done your research and you're using tyres that do the job you're tasking them with very well. My coopers would be terrible on the front, as they have quite flexible sidewalls, but are perfect for getting the 'squat' effect you need on the rear when you put the power down, in contrast, the Falkens I have on the front were ok when I had them on the rear as well, but were a lot less grippy than my Coopers on the rear, yet are brilliant on the front.

That must be the first Z dipstick to have not been designed by a dipstick then, as my 280zx and z32 300zx both have dipsticks designed by dipsticks!

Ah ok, so sort of like a 'facelift' version then?

Spotted a rather nice 350Z on the way home from work tonight, with a rather large bonnet bulge. I remember someone on here commenting that it meant something, but can't remember what?

Technical difference all depends on the wheels and tyres you're using with them. Fitting spacers pushes your wheels out further, which in theory, makes the distribution of weight different, probably lowers your center of gravity a little, but also can make you more likely to tram line in ruts caused by trucks etc. Essentially, if you want to fit them, fit them, but my personal recommendation would be don't go over 20mm, because extending the distance between your wheels by more than 4cm is kinda silly, unless you've planned it and actually done the science behind why you want them that far apart. As for not going over 20mm so you don't rub your arches, that will all depend on the offset of the wheel and width of tyre you're using, it won't be the same from Z to Z unless those two factors are identical.

I test drove a z4 mSpec a few months back and was given a ride in a z3 mSpec just after. The z4 mSpec was AWESOME, but not very fast (At least not compared to my other cars) and that was disappointing as it was the 3.0 I drove The z3 mSpec I didn't get to actually drive it, the owner was too protective even though I was a prospective buyer and turned up in my much newer 323 CI Convertible at the time. I can safely say I have never felt less safe, than in that car, lol. I think my mates VX220 Turbo came close, but not quite.

As I've said before, mixing on the same axle, very bad, mixing on different axles, can actually make sense if you do your research. Each end of the car has different jobs and different weights, it makes more sense to match the tyre to the job, than match the brands/tread patterns across the two axles. I happen to have matching brand/tread on my motorway BMW, but mixed axle tyres on my 300. I have Coopers on the rear and Falkens on the front, car handles like it's on rails in the wet and the dry.

Don't get me wrong, if that expensive blue one has been looked after since Chris owned it, it's a steal! But if you're ever tempted by a 300zx, make sure you do your research fully and get someone like me to come along and tell you what's going to cost you what, where, when and why, lol. We've had 2 300zxs now, one we broke for parts and merged into the one we still have.

Loved the RX7 and 3000GT until I drove one of each and hated them from that point on Still look at RX7s and think I want one, but no. NSX I like the look of, but have an aversion to Hondas. Always loved the Supra, especially slightly modified. Had a MkIII Supra and it was one of the best cars I ever drove, always wanted to follow it with a MkIV but now I'm stuck on Zs, lol.

DONT BUY ONE! Sorry, just kidding. lol The expensive one is a known car, very very tidy (At least it was originally, but I recognise some of those photos, so don't think they're all new/recent) Could put you in touch very easily with it's previous, previous owner, who I believe paid for all the work that's been done on it if you wanted. Typical problems: RUST: UK Cars worse than JDMs usually, but any JDM that's been in this country a while will have started to rot too unless it's looked after. Engines: The engine was epic and in true Japanese fashion, runs until it's DEAD! The problem is, that makes it VERY hard to tell whether the car has engine problems or not on a simple test drive. Also, with the plenum (The big rib cage looking thing on top of the engine) being very easy to powder-coat/polish and put back on the car (I say it's easy, it's not really, lol) you can be fooled into thinking the engine has had lots of work, when in fact it hasn't. Working on them: If you do lots of your own mechanics, you'll probably curse at the 300zx more than any car you've ever owned, it will slice you, dice you, bite you and bruise you, but for some stupid reason, you just keep going back for more. Insurance: Depending on your age, not too bad to be fair. Getting others to work on them: You have to travel for those who know what they're doing, no doubt similar to the 350 in that respect, you just DON'T let a numpty normal mechanic loose on them, they WILL break it! Community: Sadly a little divided and can be a little clicky. But I reckon that's true for all cars. There are plenty of people in the 300zx community who will travel to from Yorkshire to Wales (If you happen to be in Wales) to help you do your manual conversion, on the promise of nothing more than a steak dinner (I did this with another member in the community). Advice: Buy one that HAS been looked after, unless you fancy spending thousands and going through lots of heartache. If you don't want turbo troubles, buy an NA, but you may be disappointed with the power? The noise from the exhaust will make up for that though. Get another 300zx enthusiast to look at and test drive the car with you, they can take a proper look in all the areas they need to and tell you whether to buy it, take a punt, or walk the hell away. EDIT: Also, if you're looking to buy one, do it NOW! Prices are finally starting to climb again. My car cost me £1300 3 years ago and although it had lots of hidden issues I was unaware of which cost me a LOT of money, it was sold to me as perfectly running, with no issues and new uprated turbos, which it didn't have.

That much is true, it was a heavy car. Most of that was the new 'safety' tech of the time, much of it was the engine (It's a bloody heavy engine for what it is tbh) and it carries a rather large fuel tank oddly. All signs of a GT car though, as opposed to an out and out sports car like an MX5, S2000, MG B lol

My dad had one of them. He was EVER so proud it would trounce the Lotus of the time. My uncle then bought an MG Montego and a friends mum bought an MG Metro, lol.

As much as I like Top Gear and as much as I like Clarkson, I don't take much heed of what he says. Especially since his opinion changes over time. His original opinion of the 300zx was that it was awesome, his original opinion of the 350 was that it was dreadful. Both opinions have changed in various directions over the years too. I disagree with your statement, it's just that simple, lol. I love Zs of every generation and at no time do I think they 'strayed from what the original Zs were about'. Technology moves on, cars move with that technology, end of story really. If the 350 was a straight 6 2.4 litre coupe with no ABS, ancient power steering tech, no air bags, looked like a currently popular American muscle car and wasn't comparable to anything from Germany at the time, I might agree with you.