fake ben taylor

So the new interior bits arrived!

Car now has Nismo gearknob, black gaiters and Bimarco Futura seats on buddyclub frames - all with added dog hair thanks to my Akita thinking we were going out in the car :wack:

IMG_20150513_170450 by ben taylor, on Flickr

IMG_20150513_170532 by ben taylor, on Flickr

IMG_20150513_170520 by ben taylor, on Flickr

Car is going into the garage tomorrow for a couple of weeks as Im on holiday in Tokyo, theyre going to lower the drivers seat for me, mount the oil cooler properly and fit my gauges into the centre console.

The lad who had it before me bought it as an unfinished and non running twin turbo project, then got the car running and back to stock (largely) sold me the car and sold the twin turbo kit on separately

I have a blue one with black wheels but not a convertible, project thread in the section

The 'fake' is a long running joke that Docwra (also on here) kicked off at an sxoc event. There was a long standing member 'ben Taylor' and Docwra drunkenly changed his name to 'actual ben Taylor' and mine to 'fake ben Taylor', and its just stuck lol

Hey all

 

Newbie z owner in the area in leconfield, just outside hull.

 

Thought I'd say hi, and gutted I missed the Whitby drive on 24th!

 

Has the 24th May gone already??

Some reason I thought it was the end of may now :/ god knows why as I'm in Tokyo end of may and it definitely hasn't happened yet! Lol

Hey all

Newbie z owner in the area in leconfield, just outside hull.

Thought I'd say hi, and gutted I missed the Whitby drive on 24th!

Always use Ben and he's always extremely helpful!

Top notch service!

I follow on point dyno and they're apparently going to release all the data they gathered soon. Looking forward to it!

Interesting about the wing and sealing the back of the bonnet. Wonder if a panel could be made with runner seals to seal the back without interfering with the wipers

Could I have prices on the 8 point D1 and the 10 point that you've got please

Thanks

Ah no, fixed backs.

At £225 delivered, fia approved and built for the larger gentleman the futuras are ace.

Used to have a recaro profi spg but my hips didn't fit in it very well

FWIW not including rails bimarco futuras are only 8.2kg

17kg seems very heavy for a bucket seat?

Good to see youre Fake over here too mate

 

Ben is a good mate of mine and one of our trackday group, his 172 was damn fast but not quite as fast as a certain 350Z

 

The plenum work is very interesting for me, has anyone else on here ever done anything similar?

How could I be anything different?

And it wasn't THAT much slower!

Mark do they do a bolt on harness bar for the cages without it? I've seen mention of it before but its not on the list on that website? And additional bolt on door bars for the chromoly cages?

I seem to be missing what I assume is a ring to screw to the underside of my centre console to secure the gear gaiter?

Anyone got one I can buy?

And now were up to date

Yesterday I g3'd the headlights and gave the whole car a good wash and wax. came up all right.

IMG_20150423_171158 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

Currently waiting on the ebay shop getting some stock of drivers side buddy club subframes in stock (unless someone knows where there are any?) so that I can get my new FIA bimarco futura seats fitted. Also waiting on black alcantara gear and handbrake gaiters and a nismo gearknob.

The car had the mesh back roadster seats but I found these a bit useless on track so have sold them on along with the matching interior items.

Surprisingly quick little job on the car today. The biggest bodywork issue with the car was the laquer peel on the A pillars due to a dodgy respray.

Thankfully these are plastic panels that screw on so as soon as some appeared on Ebay I snapped them up (been looking for over a year now)

before and afters:

IMG_20150422_130509 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG_20150422_133505 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG_20150422_133445 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG_20150422_135017 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

Also slowly gave the wheels a lick of paint over the last few days as they paint on them was peeling off, satin black is the colour they should have been originally

IMG-20150419-WA0002 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG-20150419-WA0004 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG_20150422_143304 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

Cadwell was amazing to drive and the Z didnt miss a beat all day, the new brakes worked really well with no signs of fade even after 20+min sessions.

The only thing lacking was grip on the road tyres, luckily someone had brough me some 255 RSR's so I fitted these to my Desmond Regamasters (really really light and suit the z well imo). going 255 all round also helped alleviate the natural understeer the z has and made the back end a lot more playful.

IMG-20150318-WA0009 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG-20150318-WA0005 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG-20150318-WA0000 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

And the regas on the Z

IMG-20150313-WA0011 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

Since then Ive been on a quest to make the car a little more lively power wise, the stock setup feels very lazy and held back.

The car already had an exhaust and decats so I added to this a plenum spacer and modified the inlet manifold.

IMG-20150327-WA0009 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

The bottom half of the inlet had the large casting marks ground off and the height of two of the ports reduced (two are about 5mm higher than the others) and the top half of the plenum had the mounting posts cut off welded up to seal them

IMG-20150325-WA0012 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG-20150325-WA0033 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

modified bottom half installed

IMG-20150326-WA0011 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

and with the spacer and top half it looks like stock again

IMG-20150328-WA0003 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

Once these were done I flashed a base map for the mods to the UTEC piggback ECU and the car is totally transformed. Really feels like its had a massive kick up the arse and is so much quicker! Next will probably need a RR run to get the AFR's checked out and the map tweaked to be perfect.

apologies if this reads a little wrong to begin as Ive copied it over from SXOC.

So in the 18 months leading up to last september I had an amazing time in my Renaultsport Clio 172 which ended being throttle bodied and a bit of a surprise to many an expensive car on track.

Sadly a cracked sump pan at last years weekender after an 'off' did some damage to a big end and at the ring in september she finally gave up this is the last picture I have of the mighty clio on track

IMG-20140911-WA0006 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

Thankfully, a few months previous to this I had bought a cheap 350z with some tasty parts fitted but needed a fair amount of tidying up body wise, so when the Clio died the Z was promoted to track car.

The Z was a UK GT model so came with the LSD and Brembo brakes, but it also had a greddy sump pan fitted (extra capacity and baffled), a lightweight Flywheel and paddle clutch, an aftermarket piggy back ECU as well as facelift (06 on) centre console and headlights, nismo spoiler and LED rear lights.

After spending most of my trackdays in the Clio chasing Docwra in his Z I already knew they were capable on track with very few Mods so I booked Oulton Park to have a play.

IMG_20141104_104741 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

The day at Oulton revealed a problem with the brakes however in that when warm/hot the vibrated REALLY badly, but the problem went away again when cold. I had already had new pads and discs fitted all round but using an Ebay kit so I suspected this was the problem. Upon Inspection one of the calipers was sticky so I had that rebuilt and also fitted PF01 pads, stoptech discs, HEL lines and super blue fluid.

IMG_20150215_160452 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

the 10month old discs that came off looked like they had been at the bottom of the ocean. buy cheap, buy twice!

IMG_20150215_160703 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

This meant it was time to test it so Cadwell was booked. Before cadwell I also fitted an oil cooler and a Z Speed alluminium undertray, the stock item was missing and this can create lift at the front end, the tray also nicely shielded my sump and cooler lines to avoid a repeat of the clio.

The oil cooler install is a bit heath robinson as I had wanted to mount it to the front crash bar which it turns out is missing. Once Ive got enough little jobs its going to somewhere like HDev to get these sort of things done properly.

received_10204264074698377 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG-20150305-WA0004 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

IMG-20150302-WA0006 by bungle.taylor, on Flickr

I've been looking at time attack myself for next year, which class have you gone in?

I'm also after one if you could pm me payment details and price etc

There's a few complete hand brakes on eBay ATM for around the £35 mark

Just had a thorough google and mines pre facelift never mind

What's the difference between facelift and prefacelift bumpers? How will I know which I have? (03 car with 06 headlights, centre console and god knows what else)

I've tried searching but Cant find anything specific to my needs

Is there an aftermarket subframe that has a seatbelt mounting point? To go with sidemount buckets till I get a cage installed for harnesses

Finally found your thread! Due an update?

How did you have the stock seatbelts with suzuka seats out of interest?

GT4 Zed, it's for crash protection/roll over protection on track and allow me to fit harnesses.

Mark@abbey, could you pm me a price for steel and chromoly versions please?