Jump to content

HiddenWomble

Members
  • Posts

    293
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About HiddenWomble

  • Birthday 01/07/1980

Location

  • Location
    SE Kent

Recent Profile Visitors

845 profile views

HiddenWomble's Achievements

Z Dedicated

Z Dedicated (3/7)

114

Reputation

  1. we got a CSV in the front, it was cramped and she was a lot happier when she had a back seat, but it did work. so i guess it depends on the size of your 4 legged friend random google result for scale https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/gallery-czechoslovakian-wolfdog-trained-to-search-for-missing-dogs-1-3684513 also i got mine on autotrader and searched the nation not just locally, would up driving from kent to wales. oh and make sure you get good tyres, mine came with a set of no-names that were so slippy in the wet a ford fiesta on a safety tyre left me for dust on a slip road! now i'll never get anything less than A rated wet braking.
  2. building on the above, each engine revision also raised the red line, roughly 6.5, then 7, then 7.5. the dipstick on the DE is a pain to get to, it was moved in the HR. the OEM oil gallery gasket for all HRs and the early 370z engines were paper and over time crack. the new OEM part is reinforced and should be good for life. with the 350z you can tell if the gasket has gone as the oil pressure will drop. a warm idle is normally about 30psi, though nissan specs do let that go down to 15ish before it's dangerous. with the 370z they get a oil temp instead of pressure so there is no clear sign the gasket has cracked, scary stuff! when it goes oil is leaking inside the engine then back down to the sump, so checking oil level does nothing. the HR has 308hp from the factory, at about 140K miles with a new gallery gasket i had mine dynoed, it has the invidia gemini exhaust and stock intake. first run was just over 300hp and after a tune 313! now that needs a large pinch of salt as all dynos are different, but just being that close to 300 after so many miles shows you how good these nissan engines are. for me the biggest pull was just the red line, cos there is no way my butt is going to notice the difference between 280hp and 308hp after 5 years of what every was left of 130hp on my mazda mx3. but the mx3 had a high red line for a 1.8L engine of 7K, and i just didn't fancy having to shift earlier. also 40mph in 1st and 70mph in 2nd is a wonderful thing on the slip roads! i don't know what the gearing is like for the DEs though also when i got mine it was my daily and i racked up 30K miles in the first year. i now have a volvo too because the zed is not a practical car with a big dog and a wife who loves camping! but it was perfect when i was single and didn't need to haul stuff about. there is one negative for the HR, they tend to kick like a mule when you're slowly changing speed, like in stop start traffic. there are various explanations but a common one is a bad factory ecu map, which was my excuse to get it dynoed in the first place and finally, if you want to mod the DE is sooo much cheaper. there are a lot more of them on the roads and the after market parts are often half the price for DE stuff than HR stuff. so if that is a passion then the DE might be the better choice. but if you do decide on the HR then have a moment of weakness and snap up a DE, you're still gonna love it
  3. watching the vid Eco appears to be matching speed to the car ahead which had no troubles with the bend. could be a combination of rubber that's not brilliantly sticky in the wet to start with (though obviously good enough for 3 years of comfortable driving!) and the tread being at the point grip starts to fade. at about 3mm a tyres behaviour will start to change, sure it will be legal for a lot longer, but it won't be as grippy as before.
  4. my zed came with a set of rubbers from a manufacturer i'd never heard of before. i was getting wheel spin in the wet at 70mph in 3rd gear. i too slipped a bit on a roundabout while following another car at normal road speeds. oh and i also had a ford focus pull away from me on a slip road, he was driving on his space saver spare wheel and still had more grip than me! in the dry it was fine, but as soon as the roads got wet i had to drive like there was a tall bag of chinese takeaway in passenger seat. i did a lot of reading and the michelin MPSS came out tops. the difference was night and day. suddenly i could floor it in 2nd on a wet road and the zed would grip and go. since then i've made sure my other cars have tyres that have a wet braking A rating. the new michelin MP4S takes over where the MPSS left off (or MPS4S if you have larger than stock tyres). yes they cost, but unlike days of old a sticky tyre no longer means a quick wearing tyre. the MPSS was a dual compound tyre with sticky stuff for the corners and harder stuff for the straights giving them a surprisingly good life span. the new MP4S tyres have several compounds building on that idea. also be aware that at about 3mm tread even the expensive tyres won't grip as well as they used to. and when it's 5deg outside they will grip less, but then i expect you'll be cruising about at normal speeds like in your vid when it's cold like that. so hopefully you'll get some safer performance out of the new tyres, but maybe look at saving up for some of the best tyres for next round?
  5. it's in the "350z & 370z | BATTALION Z | Sponsored by TORQEN" group, open to all zed owners and the admin (adrian from torqen) approves new members fairly quickly
  6. Only reason he couldn't claim his award is because the truck was empty. But they got within 6cm during one brake test!
  7. Hi all, I wanted to run this past the group as I believe the zed drivers actions are an embarrassment to us all https://www.facebook.com/groups/BattalionZed/permalink/2376815089102750/ For those not on facebook here is the original quote
  8. A HR may be worth remapping regardless of performance, it tends to have issues from the factory when doing very gentle speed changes at low revs (think stop start traffic). The DE will benefit from some air mods before a remap, the HR less so as the stock intakes are very competitive by that point in the engines evolution. Be aware that a pops and bangs map will shorten the life of the catalytic converter. Good luck with the car hunt
  9. Not quite sure if this is the same, but the HRs are known for their kick at the low rev range. It's easy to trigger this behaviour, let the car pull you along in 1st on idle, then try to accelerate as gently as you can. You should find somewhere between 1K and 2K it will kick like a mule, as if it went full throttle for a split second, after that it's nice and smooth. So getting stuck in stop start traffic on the motorway is a common situation to really bring the problem to the front. In higher gears it's a lot less noticeable and the exact spot it kicks at varies so maybe you are letting the revs dip low enough for it to do this when you get back on the power after a corner? The common fix for this is an ECU remap as the stock map has bad figures for the exhaust cam timings. There are some other fixes reported too but the remap seems to be the most common fix. Check out this thread for a good collection of info: I had my HR remapped and the kick faded into a much smoother lump (for a comparison it used to hurt my partners back before the remap). It has since returned but I've been chasing down some other gremlins in my ageing zed so I don't think mine is a good example of the norm and given it's not hurting my partner I don't think it's as bad as when I first got the car. As for the remap, the bulk of the cost in that is getting an uprev licence for your engine, once that is purchased you're then just paying for the tuners time. So if you get the bad behaviour fixed now, and later decide you want to mod the car it will be a lot cheaper to get it on the dyno for a 2nd time
  10. aww, now i'm really missing my black zed with the nismo kit. it's in the garage at the moment for a few bits. if you have the rev up keep a very close eye on your oil levels. many rev ups are known to drink oil fast. need to work out if you have a drinker or a sipper. it's not a problem, just something to be aware of and take care of.
  11. I don't understand what trade terms means, but i think claiming not to offer a warranty because it's a sports car feels off to me. Warranty or not, I believe traders are liable for certain faults after selling a car. I suggest you swat up on your rights in that regard. I'd then take their get out of jail free card as an indication that they will try to weasel out of any responsibility. So you might want to start with the assumption you'll have no protection and treat it like buying privately. Make sure to do a background check on the car too. We have some great buyers guides on here, so take a look about for some more info. If the garage is called Junction 17 then check out the sticky post in this forum section before you buy. Make sure to put some money aside should it need some work (like if you need to put better tyres on, wheel spin in 3rd on the motorway is NOT how the zed is supposed to behave!). Good luck!
  12. try https://vehiclematsuk.com/nissan-350z-tailored-boot-mat-2003-2009.html I got a new boot mat from there, went for 600gm standard carpet and got a red/black stripe trim. feels nice and thick but there are many much thicker options if you want. looks very smart
  13. I guess it depends what you want, to buy a zed in near perfect condition and hope to avoid any expensive maintenance costs, or to get behind the wheel now and pay a bit extra to get any issues resolved. my head said wait, but my heart found a zed 4 months before i'd hit my target on savings. i wound up getting a cheap zed and putting a lot of money into doing it up. i'm not gonna say that was a wise choice, but as i have good cash flow it's a choice i've not regretted.
  14. Could you put some numbers to that? might help the resident gurus shed more light on the potential issue
  15. Zmanalex knows zeds inside and out, as do Kaiser Motors. You've had a transmission specialist look into it, maybe the next step is to let a performance nissan expert look into it? There are other traders on these forums in the south too, though I believe the best of the rest are more focused on modifications and performance than maintenance (shoutout to Horsham who tuned my zed!). I don't know if the others would go as far as rebuilding a gearbox but I know Kaizer would. Someone might correct me on this (we are lucky to have excellent trader support on these forums). So I'll give another thumbs up for http://kaizermotor.co.uk, they might be over 4 hrs away from you but they are expert nissan mechanics with a focus on the performance cars and an hourly rate that's very reasonable. Have a chat with them, by all means point out your post vid as Sly is on these forums. I'm sure they will help you run through your options.
×
×
  • Create New...