GMballistic

Welcome aboard.

Could be worse Jimmy, ...when I got my Rotas I had only had them around two months before I scraped the rear passenger one down the side of a brick wall trying to get my wide a** Zed in one of those stupid tiny modern garages at my parents. I refurbed it myself on my driveway ~ got a decent colour match from a local wheel specialist first (close as they could get it). Then I used rough wet & dry paper (320 to start) working my way up to the finest I had (1000 grit) with plenty of soapy water. This got rid of all the gouges. I then hand painted a layer of primer on with an artists brush, followed by several coats of paint and then a lacquer. I know what you're thinking; "must look sh*t!" ....honestly though it doesn't and people can't even tell where the damage was after I fixed it. Saved myself the cost of having to have all four alloys refurbed as the wheel specialist I spoke to said there was no way he could colour match exactly to the other alloys so I would need all four done. Link to Rota touch up paint from Rare Rims on here: http://www.350z-uk.com/topic/89240-rota-touch-up-paint/ Good luck with it.

Thanks Graham. It's looking like it should be a nice warm day. My names Gareth btw, .....they all call me Graham though as it's a nickname that stuck. Or Granville as ioneabee keeps calling me. Can't even remember now who started it or how it started but I guess it's well & truly stuck now.

I bought the Nismo low temp thermostat from Clark Motorsport and that came with a new gasket ~ as Alex says I'd definitely fit a new gasket Fluke.

What a shame and so soon into your Zed ownership. Your decision what to do put personally I'm of the same mind set as 4RE Leather. Barter with the Insurance company for a higher offer, take that, buy the car back, repair it & enjoy it again.

Oh me too ~ I'd always loved them since witnessing the "opening & closing ceremonies" they do whilst I've been in my mates Impreza. Ian (a fellow forum member) on here was selling them at a very reasonable price and I hadn't even intended to get gauges for my car until after the supercharger was fitted but decided I couldn't miss out. Very happy with them.

You have misunderstood! Just checked the first post by the OP ~ makes no mention of it having to be your own car & the only rule as such is what it states in the title: "Inspirational 350Z pictures only please guys".

Fingers crossed the weathers good for you.

Thanks very much so much still to do looking at a zunsport front grill in gloss black ATM Looks nice James but will look even better imo with the Zunsport grille, ...just fitted one on my Zed and it looks great plus gives a bit more added protection to the radiator, oil cooler & intercooler on my Zed.

Sit's very nicely on those alloys ~ nice stance.

Welcome aboard.

Good luck with the collection tomorrow. Much better imo picking the Zed up or any car for that matter on a Friday, ...gives you the whole weekend then to fiddle with it & enjoy it.

So after the group buy had closed, I paid Chris from Tarmac Sportz for all the parts I wanted and then it was just a waiting game. It didn't happen overnight but Chris kept me well informed of the progress and then one day I got the news I had been waiting for, ...the superchargers had arrived. A few days later I had the biggest box I've ever received via delivery apart from alloy wheels. It contained lots of parts but the highlights where: A Vortech V3 supercharger. Vortech front mount intercooler. Vortech BOV. I did obviously buy other parts to support my build including an AAM competition fuel return system, Deatschwerks 600cc fuel injectors, a Vortech 3.12" pulley and I also managed to grab a rather nice one piece air intake pipe from a certain helpful member on here. I won't name him though to protect his identity. Thanks Adrian. The rest of the parts I needed for my build including cooler spark plugs, an up-rated fuel pump and a GT UpRev MAF sensor I intended to get from Jez at Horsham Developments as he gave me the best prices on those items. Slowly but surely it was all coming together and I now had a massive box full of parts ready for my build. I was supposed to be saving cash to pay the garage bill for fitting as I knew that would be a fair chunk but then I bought these.... Aluminium Zed kick plates from Steve at Redline Styling (Thanks Steve). The forum made me do it!! ...And then literally with only a month or so to go Ian decided to sell a set of 60mm "Defi Advance BF" (black face) gauges with all the sensors & hardware included. This was too good of an opportunity to miss. I knew these gauges where good as my mate has them in his JDM Impreza Type RA so after a few messages I did the deal and was a very happy man as Ian even delivered them in person right to my front door. Hard to make out as they are black face gauges so the faces appear completely black when not turned on but you might be able to make it out from the picture ~ oil pressure gauge, oil temperature gauge and a boost gauge. Defi mini controller. Of course I couldn't just have the gauges flapping about in the wind so bought a single 60mm gauge pod from eBay and then got a decent two gauge A-pillar mount pod holder from Chris (Tarmac Sportz again). Fitted the gauges in place with a hot glue gun so no chance of them coming loose and then added a small piece of rubber trim around the top to finish the pod holder off nicely. More to follow, ...almost D-Day.

Opening soon near to South Wales I hope. Op personally if you're spending all that money on the UpRev then I'd definitely get the HFC's at least, ...full exhaust system with it if you can. If you want more performance then that's the way to get it plus you will have the added bonus of your car sounding a lot nicer. It's also possible that you could offset some of the costs by selling on your old exhaust system & Cats especially if they are in good condition.

The clues in the title parello.

Thanks Vlad. I'm pretty pleased with the way the CAI is on my Zed. It also has another benefit as I'm not tied into using the Vortech type filter so can use pretty much any filter that will fit behind my front bumper & onto the end of the pipe. I decided to use the same K&N filter though as Sam Mcgoo did for his CAI as if something works well then why change it. Edit: spelling.

Might want to alter this thread title then as it states they are for the DE and HR Zed. Link: http://www.350z-uk.com/topic/87662-mishimoto-replacement-fan-kit-350z-de-and-hr-engines/

It was a family acquaintance though as I mentioned so I was lucky with the price and tbh at first they where only going to do the drivers side skirt (along with the roof, bumper, rear quarter) but then they did the passenger side one as well because they didn't match afterwards. I have OCD sort of so pointed that out to them and the owner said we'll do it for free whilst we fix the rear quarter "again". Luckily second time around was the charm as they cut out the rust properly this time and it's been all good since they did the repair. I really wanted the paint sorted before I fitted my supercharger as there was no way I would have felt comfortable leaving a supercharged Zed with any garage for any length of time out of my sight. Only feel comfortable leaving it with Jez at Horsham Developments tbh as I'm sure he's driven much faster.

Friday, ....maybe. Actually probably definitely as I don't have many more pictures.

Ok so I don't have any pictures of this but the next important thing for me to get done on my Zed was the paint. For a 10 year old car tbh it wasn't too bad but there where a few places on the car which annoyed me and one place in particular that definitely needed body shop attention. Basically below the fuel filler flap it had several rust bubbles under the surface ~ I suspected it was from a poor repair as I knew my Zed had been to a body shop before due to a small bit of over spray I had found on the rear light when I had removed it to replace the rear indicator bulbs. I booked my car in with a local body shop which was an approved body shop for some local car dealers. Sort of knew the owner as well through a family connection as his mother in-law had worked with my father at one time so I did get a good deal for everything I wanted doing. The list to do was; Respray entire roof (just to hide two stone chips) Respray front bumper (again stone chips) Respray side skirts (marked by previous owner who was obviously a Cowboy as I think he wore flippin' spurs or something) Repair & respray rear quarter and blend in with side panel/rear bumper. All this for £550 incl VAT. Ok so if I'm honest despite the great price this was a fu**ing nightmare. They took almost two weeks to do this, then the rust bubbles on the rear quarter came back the very next day after I got my car back as they had just filled over the shoddy repair rather than cut the metal out. So I went back, rather annoyed, but I asked them politely to redo the repair so lost my car for another week odd. The owner who felt bad was great & tbh I think the problems I had where more down to his work force than him ~ in fact he felt so bad about it that he gave me this as a courtesy car.... Not too shabby and definitely better than a Micra. Still preferred driving my Zed though (someone please revive Ekona if he's just read that! ) Eventually my car was finished and finally I could hand back the Porsche keys & get back to happy Zed motoring. Anyway whilst all this was going on I had some good news in the form of a group buy on here arranged by Chris from Tarmac Sportz. I intended to try and buy as much as I could from Chris with the Vortech V3SCI being the biggest part of my shopping list. Initially the price was as advertised at a little over £3.5K just for the kit but with the group buy the price was significantly reduced thanks to some other Zeditus sufferers. A few will remain nameless (basically because I don't know who they where?!) but thanks to ChrisB, Mouthwash, Vlad and cmck13 who all came in on the group buy and helped make it a great success in bringing the price down for us all. More to follow...

If you have no luck with RSW I'd definitely go the dipping route if I was you. Link to my dipped parts thread to show you what mine came out like; http://www.350z-uk.com/topic/86048-hydro-dipped-interior-parts-door-pulls-grab-handle/ Also in my build thread. Good luck.

CS will sort you out Jakeey ~ nice opportunity for some upgrade fans.

Nice filter Chirag ~ with Ian though as I think I'd just fit that now as it's only a 10 second job.

Great work Alex, ...following with interest and really love those big brakes.

Welcome aboard Dan and as others have already said sorry to read about your father passing. Regarding the insurance there are a few younger members 18-19 year olds in Zeds and I remember reading that they are paying less than £3K a year so not sure where you got that quote, ....although obviously personal circumstances like NCB, where you live etc will play a big part in the price. My advice is to try a price comparison website like "Go-Compare" but also the insurance traders/brokers which are on this forum as you never know insuring a Zed maybe cheaper than you thought. Link: http://www.350z-uk.com/forum/42-insurance/ Good luck and hope you enjoy the site.