G1en

Not updated in a while so here goes, its been a very frantic 6 months or so. Another addition to the family, setting up my own business and keeping a full time job as well as my wife being made redundant. Anyway back to the Zed. In November @Rob350 organised a meet and drive out round Clitheroe and surrounding areas. I think there was 10 350/370s to start with and it was a great chance to have a blast although the roads were very wet/icy/muddy so senses were at full alert, the afternoon session was much more free flowing and we could give it some beans when temperature had increased slightly and roads were a bit drier. A few pics below, should have taken more but most cars were caked in mud and road spray so didn't look their sunday best. The following day I decided to give the Zed a wash and use some of the new products I have started selling. A pre wash snow foam, then washed (gtechniq gwash), then clayed, then Carchem PTFE polish followed by Carchem hydrocoat. The hydrocoat really does add a nice shine as you can see in the second pic, wing coated, bonnet not coated, or maybe it was the light, either way the car looked great when it was all finished. Then sometime in December I think @davey_83 mentioned how he had purchased a c-tek charger for over the winter and thinking that mine may be stood for a few months, I took up the recommendation and purchased one of these: Now they come with 2 types of connector as in pic, the clamps and the eyelets. This is a great idea as I have screwed in the eyelets to the terminals and because they are wired to a connector block that has a rubber sealed end, you can just leave it hanging in the battery compartment area so no faffing around next time you want to connect it and it still leaves the clamp connections spare for use on another vehicle. They are a great piece of kit for around £60-£70. That was it and Christmas come and went and onwards and upwards into 2018. The Zed has been sat in the garage and being stood there got me thinking about how I can get more use and enjoyment out of her this year. I went to this last year and watched Kieran from the forum in his 350z flying up the hill. This is Harewood hill climb and so the plan began to compete this year. Now the technicalities for anyone wanting to do this, just to note, I am booked in for a practice day end of March then the first event is in April if i get in, so until they scrutinise my car I am still a little in the dark but a few things I do know and have had to do to the car are listed below with pics where relevant: First of all, you have to apply for a Sprint non race B Licence (no actual test and cost around £50) then become a member of a club, I joined BARC Yorkshire so I could compete at Harewood (Leeds) (again around £50) The more types of licence you apply for or clubs/regions you join obviously will cost more money each time, as far as I can tell when you compete in events you can get your licence/card marked and after several markings you can then apply for an A licence which will get you into ore prestigious events and so on... Then for sprints or hill climbing your car has to have a front and rear tow eye/strap easily accessible and marked so you need to be pulled out of the gravel or a ditch, a high probability knowing how I drive once I don a helmet! so I picked up a rear tow eye off Ebay and a front tow eye from Adrian@torqen The front screws straight in, I used some ptfe tape on the threads so I could get it tight and pointing the right way otherwise the only way to have them straight is leave them loose which is no good. Just for info, the bolts that came with the rear epman tow eye were not long enough for the Zeds rear tow plate to bolt through so I had to buy some longer ones, 50mm M12, the ones supplied I think are 40mm, and you have to remove a piece of the trim to fit it, as far as I can see it serves no function anyway, other than to shield the frame from road spray/grime. Now the eagle eyed amonst you will have noticed the 2 screws protruding from the number plate, this is because you have to attach a timing strut at a specific height to break the timing beam at events. It just so happens the number plate with a bracket attached works out to be the perfect height and luckily my number plate is metal so attach a bracket the attach the carbon fibre timing strut. You can make a strut out of anything really but hey, I treated myself to the first bit of carbon on the car (about £30) For the regulations you also have to make which way you turn the ignition off and mark the battery earth in yellow so here it is: The final thing car wise is a White square or circle on each side of the car to display your race number, I havn't done this yet so that's the next step, still unsure whether to add and race livery or not at the same time and go proper race car! So onto your own personal protection, You have to have an approved race suit, gloves and helmet. So I booked a day off work and made the trip to demon-tweeks at Wrexham. Full credit to these guys, I literally spent 2 hours there trying on various suits/boots/helmets and the chap serving me was very patient and offered good advice and recommendations. I ended up buying a Sparco starter set if you like, its the Sparco Sprint RS2.1 suit together with the boots and gloves and the Sparco Pro RJ-3 helmet. Total cost was around £850 What I can't stress enough is don't buy off the internet, I reserved a suit from demon tweeks as they only had 2 left, I went by the size guide but when I tried it on it was much too tight and I ended getting my suit which was 2 sizes bigger, also between brands there is a difference, ie the OMP suits were a bigger fitting so a 58 in OMP is like a 56 in Sparco etc.. definately try before you buy. I have also purchased a gear lever extension to make the gear changes easier and slicker In other news my trusty old BMW 320D decided over the winter period that the M-sport suspension was not low enough for it and it must have been envious of the low riders out there that one very cold morning the front springs snapped leaving me with no choice but to get a company car, so the Audi A3 was welcomed to the stable, and the BM was swiftly sold on facebook to someone that works for BMW. It didn't take long before I was glad of the company car as the recent snow (pic below just because?) I skidded down a hill grinding the kerb as I went more or less destroying the alloy wheel, thank the lord it was not the zed as I think my wheels are not even made anymore. So Bye Bye Welcome: Welcome or Not Welcome still undecided: And Last but not least, The mod that everyone wants, proven to add 15bhp and 25nm torque as well as look cool, the forum sticker: Thanks for reading, already booked for Japfest and the jap performance show so will see some of you guys there. don't forget the website for all your detailing supplies, I will have Bilt Hamber products available very soon, will announce it in the trader area shortly.

Welcome along, see you at japfest

Welcome along

Great work so far. Does your partner know how much you spend or does it go under the radar like mine

Welcome along

1. Andy James + Kat. PAID,Tracktime 10.20,12.40 2. Shezza - PAID 3. Valy - PAID 4. Keyser +1 - PAID 5. Paul k + Dawn - PAID 6. Nso93- PAID 7. Humpy - PAID 8. G1en - PAID 9. Rickdon - PAID 10. VeilsideZ 11. Beb + Colombia. PAID. Tracktime 10:20, 12:40 12. Bob94 13. Buster - PAID 14. Lumby101+1 PAID 15. Teejay+1 16. Flashback 17. Modo +1 18. TT350 (try) 19. Papa 20. Olly350z 21. Louis350z (not on here) 22. alexclabbs 23. Jay84 - PAID 24. jackf + 1 25. Dillydot82 +1 PAID 26. retro_al PAID 27. 350z South West 28. EzeePzee 29. cs2000 - PAID + Tracktime @ 13:40 30. chippychip123 +1 31. Mark123 32. DrMurderDeath +1 33. cloud1440 34. Nismoandy +1PAID 35. Conlonl 36. Apoc124 37. LewisH 38. pintopete58 PAID 39. KG350z PAID 40. SUPRAWOOKIE +1 41. LMStaples + 1 42. BenHz33 + 1 PAID 43. ShortPaul +1 44. Zero:One 45. wvSTUwv +1 PAID Tracktime @ 13:40 46. Mr.szarvas +1 PAID 47. Kingsley + 1 - PAID 48. V1H 49. Cob1980 (+1?) 50. Mattrwebb +1 51. Jake.Lowther +1 (PAID 2 Tickets) 52. 14N 53. 350gottwins +1 (paid2tickets) 54. Jonnymonno +1 PAID x2 55. KBAD + 1 56. Matt V6Z +1 57. Yorkie +1 58. GracieB + 1 59. Sebastian PAID , Tracktime 10.40 60. Zebedy + 1 61. RoxZ + 1 62. Stephanie 63. MatthewThain 64. Kostask +1 PAID 65. Chris141084 +1 PAID 66. Stocker11 +1 PAID 68. Finners PAID 69. bam350z +1 70. AbiiPow +1 PAID 71. MattRwebb +1 paying on 23rd Feb 72. N15GTE (Richard James + Sharon James) PAID 73. eroll_350z - Plus 1 (2 Adult Tickets) - PAID 74. Coops1958 + 1 PAID 75. Cloud1440 paid 76. Shire350z + 1 77. MarkSt 78. Stevod

Welcome to the club. Great find. Most basic mods people do are: stubby aerial wheel spacers if staying with standard wheels bonnet gas struts new exhaust replace head unit a full service at a reputable trader, things like plugs, belts etc may have never been changed. But its like the pringles slogan, once you mod, you cant stop then every mod seems like a sensible mod

Welcome along

Wow, i wish my wife loved me cleaning the car, i have to do hers as well just to get clearence then get moaned at for taking so long. She expects a proper wash to be as quick as the £5 drive through jobbies. Great looking 370, hard to grasp that these cars are coming upto 10 years old now.

Welcome

Do standard 350s still exist? I thought they went the way of the dodo. Best colour btw

I sell a gtechniq C4 trim protect/restorer 10% off at present plus you get a free 250mm tyre protect with all orders until end of March

There is an obvious explanation for the laser experiment. That particular salt flat or whatever may in fact be “flat” The earth is not a perfect sphere, there will be sections and areas of varying sizes that are as near as dam it, flat, there will be other bits that curve a little more than normal. Case closed

Welcome along

I run a 275 wide tyre on a ET22 wheel and i got my arches rolled before fitting the wheels, i think i would have got away with it anyway as i have around 10mm gap and the lip if i recall is around 10mm. Your tyre and wheel being ET12 will stick out 10mm further than mine so to get the tyre back i think you would have to go with a 255 wide tyre (20 less than current as that would be 10mm either side) or get your arches rolled. Hope that makes sense although hard to know for certain in the real world. Its not that big a job doing the rear arches, i got mine sanded and resprayed at same time as there was rust forming on the inner lips so killed 2 birds with one spray can. Cost around £300 and now i have peace of mind i can fit nearly any wheel.

Welcome along

Nice Zed. Everytime i read/look at another it makes me think No 2 are the same (im sure there will be but not on this forum and the variety of mods and styling make owning the zed great)

Congratulations. Love the look of these, offer something that little bit extra special over the standard cars.

Jays right, you have definitely picked the best colour. Welcome along, if you need any products to help keep it clean check out the website nudge nudge

Add me on Ian, Club ticket paid for.

Welcome back

I have my 350z spacesaver available. Dont know if it would def work with a 370 though.

I will second the kaaz, i have the 2-way. I was considering the final drive swap as well but didnt do it. If its a track car then go for it, you will get the most out of the full set of gears. Otherwise 6th is redundant. If its a daily/commuter car best keeping final drive to keep revs and fuel use down in motorway. I have a spare std diff and housing if you want to build it off the car.

Sounds like a great idea. I would be interested in both reading and contributing. You could also have a section for product/parts reviews from members that have fitted and used them in the real world and overall rating.

Welcome along not many midnight blue around