HiddenWomble

Hehe, my road is half overhung with trees and half clear. When it rains the trees make the cars under them filthy. So seeing as I work from home each day come clocking off time I'd have this internal struggle between keeping my place under the clear sky vs going for a spin and having to risk getting her all grubby from the tree slots that would be left.

And what did the loch ness monster want? treee fiddy!

I'm just concerned that coming from Subarus/Evos and other turbo'd cars...I'm going to be disappointed with the power delivery. I know that the power is more linear and I'm sure they handle lovely... but I've also read that Zeds are quite heavy.... and it does concern me a bit that my expectations might be too high. I did drive one before...but I think that particular car was a bit tired and I was quite disappointed with the way the engine picked up. I just hope that better looked after cars aren't the same.... I need to drive another one.

She does lack the punch most cars have with their narrow power band, but that's cos she's already been pushing all the way from 2K! Personally this was something I was looking forward to, it's not that I don't like a car that has a sharp power band, but I do a lot of motorway miles and having 90% of the engines torque across the whole rev range just sounded fantastic. The other main option I was looking at (Honda S2000 was a no-go cos I wanted a hard top) was the Mazda RX8, but to make that car sing you have to pin her in the high revs. Which is also fun but the lazy grunt of the zed just appealed more.

So I've got the right car for my tastes, but it sounds like you need to get behind the wheel and sus out for your self if she's going to be right for you.

Also do some research on which year to get, both trim and engine have had a few revisions and you might find that makes a difference. The rev up 2006 engine for example has a less linear torque curve so has a more normal punch on it's power band, could be more your thing. The rev limit also changed on each revision so look into that too.

Welcome to the forum and gratz on the zed

Maybe you can help give S7nny a poke to sort out that meet he accidentally volunteered to organise

Welcome

On my first drive home my face was aching from the smile

Still makes me grin more than a month on, such a fantastic car!

Possibly the worst design ever, even worserer than the dipstick.

daft question, but if wrayvon does have an open diff would it be a simple upgrade to get a uk lsd? would be a nice upgrade that and probably worth doing anyway to a stock jdm

sounds like you did get lucky then

keep a closer eye on your oil levels going forwards. the red light is essentially an emergency indicator telling you to pull over and stop the engine asap as it's about to start eating itself.

Ouch ouch ouch, almost $900 for shipping on a bumper that comes in under $130 (I have the nismo v1 which is half the price of the v2)! Same part different company as the one linked above were incapable of answering straight questions. Maybe if I shop about a bit more for one that does shipping by sea I could get that down to something reasonable, but for not it looks like american bumpers are just too much.

I've sent them a message asking about UK delivery costs and typical import taxes. I also asked about how you'd mount the headlight washers. For fitment issues I'd have a chat with RT when I manage to get the spare cash to see them. It's then gonna be a toss up between RT fixing the old or getting a new one in and RT mounting that, or what ever they advise really. No rush at the moment as it's gonna be a while before I have the cash spare for cosmetics, still working through my list of worn out parts on my 100K zed. I do want to know how much it's gonna cost though so I have something to aim for.

I might be just fine with regular fibreglass when my front end gets lifted back up to stock, but even then I'd still probably be looking at stress cracks on each side over the years. Would just be nice not to have that issue.

was rev matching not enough?

 

i'm in the habit of trying to rev match while changing gears. means less strain on the sync and faster gear changes. but a double de-clutch is the momma of all gear change manoeuvres

 

If by rev matching you mean "blipping" the throttle when the clutch is depressed before bringing it back up then that's only half the story. In doing so, you're only setting the engine speed to the correct speed for the gear you're selecting (which will still stop the car lurching when you re-engage the clutch). However, because the clutch is still disengaged, the input side of the gearbox isn't speeding up with the engine, which means the synchros will still have to do all the work to speed up the input side of the gearbox to match the output side as you press the gearstick into gear.

 

When double declutching, you dip the clutch, put the car in neutral and then bring the clutch up again. Then either "blip" the throttle to speed up the engine and gearbox for a downshift, or let the revs drop for an upshift. Doing this, you are matching the input gears to the speed of the output gears, allowing them to mesh easily. Finally, press the clutch in and select the gear. This is all done in one quick action in practise, and can be completed in the same time as a normal gear change by an experience driver. Synchronisers were devised to remove the requirement to do this, but doing so can make for much smoother shifts and educes synchro wear, particularly on the bigger downshifts (6th to 3rd for example). Also a vital skill if synchros are fecked .

go with duraflex if your concerned with cracking. Its abs plastic with some GRP thrown in and is a bit more forgiving. Grp is fine and will last as long as you a. dont knock it and b. prep it properly when painting.

have you seen any plastic based nismo replicas?

 

http://www.duraflexb...9-p-556818.html

Thanks, did some digging and I love the vid of them twisting a bumper. I guess that isn't any real indication of how it will handle a sharp impact, but seeing as I'm mostly concerned about grounding out at low speed I think duraflex will be just fine for my piece of mind

I think a low mileage HR might be the best bet for the depreciation gamble. They are far more limited in numbers compared to the DE and have some nice refinements to the engine and cabin. That said it will depend how many miles you'll be putting on it. I'm not expecting my HR to hold value given the large chunk of miles it will get every year. But then I got my zed to drive and I'll get my moneys worth from the number of years I'll stay with this car.

I bought my 2008 hr last year with 8'500 miles on the clock. Paid £13'500 for it but it was £30'000 new so less than half price for a car thats pretty much like new

Oh yeah they have already lost a lot of value, but if any of them are going to stabilise I think it's the HR that will.

I think a low mileage HR might be the best bet for the depreciation gamble. They are far more limited in numbers compared to the DE and have some nice refinements to the engine and cabin. That said it will depend how many miles you'll be putting on it. I'm not expecting my HR to hold value given the large chunk of miles it will get every year. But then I got my zed to drive and I'll get my moneys worth from the number of years I'll stay with this car.

Friday morning West bound near the M26 turn off, you were behind a lorry probably waiting for the turn off.

there are 2 numbers i am likely to pick out of thin air, 42 and treee fiddy. it's not until the day before i went to collect my 350 that i realised it was one of my fav numbers

Was behind you on the M27 for a little while between Southampton and Portsmouth this morning in my black 350z

Gratz on your new zed

gratz on getting a dream car

both zeds i test drove showed 9mpg on the ave readout! but i managed to get 32mpg on my long trip home from wales when i got mine. she is suck a fantastic car, all the fun you want without needing a 2nd mortgage on the house to run (which is good, as my landlord would probably be a little upset if i took a mortgage out on his flat...)

welcome and gratz on that special specimen of a zed

gratz on the new zed, since seeing my car i've developed a real soft spot for the nismo body kit

gratz on the new zed

there are 3 versions of the engine, DE, revup (not to be confused with uprev) and HR.

The DE is the original, they then gave it some tweekings in 2006 to get a bit more peak power at the expense of less torque outside of the main power band. in 2007 they reworked the engine to get more power again and go back to the flat torque curve the original DE had as it's trademark. the reline also went up with each revision.

there are other changes like rays becoming standard in later years and some cosmetic changes but i guess it's more the engine and the tax change that you'll be looking at.

the DE and the revup engines are much cheaper to mod. the DE has poor air flow in the plenum, it gets thinner towards the front of the engine which gives an imbalance to the amount of air the front cylinders get. that's a nice cheap mod though. induction in general is cheaper to mod on DR vs HR as the HR has twin air intake and throttle bodies. there is also a lot more options for DE engines as they have been about longer and the modding market is a lot more mature for the larger number of DE cars sold vs HR cars.

so maybe give some thought to what you want to do with the zed over the next few years and look into what modding it will cost.

We've come to terms. Turns out it's worth doing my clutch after seeing it. Doing it all in one go, as it's a good deal.

Is a carbon fibre prop shaft standard on a 350z??? Was nice to hear I have one, even if I was asleep and hahaha

gratz on your new zed

How do I remove the limiter?

 

 

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just a quick sanity check, before you start moulding your car the way you want (performance and cosmetic) just be aware that if you grabbed the cheapest quote from a compare site then chances are your insurance company won't cover you if you make any mods, even cosmetic ones. so if something happens and they find out as much you'll be treated as never having had insurance in the first place, and that is a road you do not want to tread down!

now that said there are plenty of specialist insurers on this forum you can talk to, might be worth jumping ship to a company that will support some modding. one i spoke to said they were quite happy with any mods that stayed below a 100bhp gain, ie any performance mods outside of forced injection. even then there are companies that will happily insure a car with a twin turbo