G1en

Fuchs titan pro race S for me used over last few years https://www.opieoils.co.uk/p-68896-fuchs-titan-race-pro-s-5w-30-ester-fully-synthetic-engine-oil.aspx now i don't proclaim to be an oil expert by any means but this has never let me down, and i can give the car some abuse although admittedly i don't do many miles each year but what i do is usually at 7k revs. had to possibly top up Less than 500ml over 6000 miles (obviously each engine could be different) Having an oil cooler installed helps as i have cooked the brake and clutch fluid several times but this stuff has not let me down yet engine oil wise and always looks so clean when i renew compared to every other car and oil i have used in the past.

A food bank in Knottingley where my parents live was raided last night and they stole all the supplies so it has to close (full story on BBC news online) It really boils my **** what scum we have living amongst us in general society and this whole situation exaggerates it. I hope if we go into lockdown they call the army in and they are instructed to shoot looters on sight. I really dont get the whole toilet paper situation, i thought in times of crises people buy gold as its a sure thing but seems now its best to invest in triple quilted velvet?

That’s obviously a work of fiction anyway as we all known the earth is flat.

At last, some explanation why everyone (Who could) has bought 400 toilet rolls.

If nso93 is too far i have a spare wheel and jack available (350z) in west yorkshire.

@davey_83 ive seen trigger attachments that go on the top of rattle cans which i would get if i was doing this again. I never realised how weak and pathetic your finger gets constantly pressing a trigger. I was struggling to wipe my back side for 2 days due to lack of finger dexterity. Anyway moving on.... @andy james my free time is the 2 hours little mason sleeps at lunchtime. Ella, now 9 is coming to the age for girls when she cant stand dad, another couple of years and she will be hurling abuse at me. Lol

Continued.... After spending most of last year with a bare polyurethane bumper I decided to get round to giving it a lick of paint. The original plan was to either get it professionally sprayed or wrapped but with both options costing around £250-£300 I plumped for me having a go with rattle cans at a cost of £50 all in, so here was the line-up: Now I will be up front and say the final outcome is not that great. The orange peel is more like a Spanish orchard of naranjas BUT from afar, and by afar I imply something like 200mtrs you cant tell. In hindsight, I should of wet sanded the clearcoat, before that I should not skimped on the main colour and bought 3 cans instead of 2 and I have no idea how long it will even stay on the bumper anyway as many internet threads worn of the perils of painting polyurethane, even the paint shop and a vehicle paint repair man who was in at the same time as me had different views as to what you do/don't do or need. So with that and me confused as hell, I purchased some cans and thought to myself, even if it turns out terrible, its only a bumper and can be re-done or wrapped later on. Below you will see the 6 stages from top left to bottom right. Firstly I had already cleaned the bumper before sanding with 400/800 grit sandpaper and wiping clean with panel wipe and painters wipes. Next I sprayed the adhesion aid, this didn't stick and cover as I expected, I'm not sure you should use it or not but some places say to so I did, because it kind of run, I smeared it across the surface with a cloth and let it become tacky before applying another coat and doing the same. Maybe I didn't clean/degrease/sand properly to start with, maybe its the wrong product, I havn't got a scooby. All I knew was I was carrying on regardless. Next I sprayed the high build primer (again, I asked for a plastic primer and got told at the shop this was best) It seemed to go on great and the adhesion promotor definitely must have helped. Next was the base colour, I had it mixed to the car colour, I sprayed 2 coats as I had 2 cans and because its a large bumper it took almost a can per coat. This just isn't enough really as you can tell in the odd spot at the finish where you can see there is barely and black paint in areas. The other problem with spray cans is because I was mainly spraying downwards, every now and then I would get a drop of paint fall off the nozzle and onto the bumper making a blob here and there. I tried to wipe one off with my finger only to find it took the whole paint off back to primer so quickly realised I would just have to live with it or spend hours refining the finish afterwards. Final stage was 2 coats of 2k clearcoat. Now 2k is, I am told, a chemical resistant clearcoat like normally found on your car and is resistant to petrol/oils, "normal" clearcoat is not, its all a learning curve. I let that dry and then weeped at the results. I decided to push ahead and ""protect" my work of sh**e I used some old polish I had in the garage, some scholl deep cut, then general cut/finish grade to try and flat out the orange peel but it didn't it, it just served to enhance the shininess of the turd I had created, Anyways I could just not be bothered with wet sanding or starting again so my intention was to coat the bumper with Gtechniq EXO I had left from doing the car but as soon as I tried panel wiping the finish to get the polish remnents off it made all the paint go really weird. it was like I was scratching the finish and creating marks and dull spots so I quickly stopped and got the cutting polish back out which got the finish back to the shiny turd. I changed approach and grabbed something else I had in the garage instead, some ptfe polish followed by hydro-coat from carchem, This went on fine and ggive the very thin paint another layer of protection. So, What have we learnt? 1- Part of what you are paying for professionally is the "expertise" and right equipment to do a great job 2- If you attempt something like this, make sure you do several weeks training on your index finger as by the end I couldn't even press the nozzle down 3- Polyurethane may or may not be harder than other materials? I don't know 4- I will probably have to pay someone to sort it later this year anyway as either A- The paint will flake off or B- I will crash and take the paint off Anyway, onto some easier tasks, I had not had a right front arch liner for a while after my wheel decided to chew the original one up so whilst the car was off the road I purchased a cheap replica off ebay. Now normally I would not recommend buying cheap Chinese tat but at around £25 I though it was worth a punt. It came rolled up in a tube, not great I thought, but after opening it sprung into some sort of shape and because its a much more plyable type of plastic than the OEM one, you can bend and shape it really easily. I had a big shock when I put it in the arch and it fit perfectly with all the holes lining up for the clips, RESULT for once: Next, after stating in last post, I had not checked my K&N filters for 3 years I thought I best do, turns out they are still very clean, just a little shrubbery stuck in them from grassy excursions but much better than expected, They are good for at least another year or two. Finally, anyone that has transported wheels and tyres in their car will know its a pain and can be messy so I plumped for some wheel covers which will keep the wheels dry/clean/safe and look the part too. They even indicate which wheel on the car it is so should prevent any errors when swapping wheels in a rush on track. Before I put the wheels to bed I gave the front two a clean and re-coated with gtechniq C5 as after changing the brake fluid last year some spilt onto the inner drums eating into the finish and staining them so that was 95% sorted now and re-protected for the next "incident" Harewood Practice day coming this month, then 3 championship rounds booked, JPS show at Coventry booked for August. Onwards and upwards....

Right, lets bring this upto date a little. So with the hillclimb season over it was time to see what I could spend some money on to get the car a step forward. All cosmetic enhancements went out of the window a while back so it was only functional upgrades from now. With the car handling about as good as it can get (well sort of, more on that later) the obvious other major consideration is power so still not having the budget or desire/worry for turbos I decided to put some high lift cams in so booked in at @Jez @ H-Dev in November. I smartly booked the MOT for the week before as apparently sport/race cams can make it very hard to pass an MOT, needless to say it did get through although one of the readings, can't remember which, was right on the limit for pass/fail which is probably to do with the cobra sports cats possibly degrading. So off I popped for the 200 miles to Horham and dropped off the car Tuesday and arranged to collect Friday. Now the list of Jobs I left them with was quite extensive and not known to me at the time was about to get even bigger. Many of you will know one of the very few flaws on the 350z HR motor is the dread oil gallery gaskets, so even though I have never had any issues with the oil pressure and the car is on around 70k it only seemed right that whilst the engine was apart, we may as well get the gaskets replaced with the uprated version for peace of mind, it also makes financial sense as the cost is minimal if the engine is stripped already. The great thing with trusted garage such as Horsham Developments is the guys ring you with updates as they are going along especially if they hit any snags/issues. The gallery gaskets in the main were still ok, which is obviously why my pressure has been fine to date but Craig did say one part had broken loose and over time would have failed so like many HRs, they WILL need doing at some point even if you have an unblemished service record. This was mine below: I also decided to purchase an uprated fuel pump, even though not required because I wasn't going Forced induction, for peace of mind and to keep my credit card busy I insisted anyway as the existing pump was now almost 12 years old and after reading up on it, the oem pump is surprisingly small/low pressure, whatever the correct terminology is. I think (but don't quote me) the standard fuel pump is 90 l/min where as the uprated one Horsham offer is something like 210-250 l/min so again, it just means peace of mine and I am not gonna have a lack of fuel when thrashing it on track. So next on the build list was hardrace engine mounts, now for the last few months I have experienced a lot of juddering or wheel hopping when setting off that I put down to worn engine mounts or because most parts underneath were polybushed and I already had the hardrace gearbox mount, I assumed this was the last sloppy piece in the jigsaw, it was only when they got it up on the ramp that they told me the likely real cause. The front ultra racing strut brace (not the w brace) that I replaced last year had been hit/bent so many times (due to the car being so low, me going off track and bottoming out over humps/bumps) that 2 of the 6 fixing bolts had sheered off and the 2 banana arm poly bushes either side had been ripped out of the arms, this may well explain the progressive vaugeness in steering I had put down to wear and tear (turns out it was quite literally wear and tear) So added to the list of jobs was new banana arm poly bushes and a new front brace, OEM this time sourced speedily from @ZMANALEX as its much stronger and a full alignment required. I also asked them to raise the front coilovers as much as they could and lower the rear slightly. I had always been under the impression they were on the maximum height but it turns out they were kind of in the middle of the adjustment range so we were able to raise the front suspension around 20mm and lower the rear around 10mm which has made a big difference to front clearance for speed humps and now the car sits kind of level rather than raked lower to the front which should also help me get off the line as the centre of mass will move slightly rearwards (if you ever watch old rallying with the escorts you will notice the rear end is always squatted lower to the ground for traction) So, finally, all the routine yearly service tasks were carried out, new titan race oil, new coolant, new diff oil, and its was aligned to my request, the few bumps and scrapes over the year had knocked the alignment out slightly so its always best to get it done every year. we went for the maximum the camber arms would give us on the front (-2.5) It was -3 at some point in the past but raising the suspension means you take off camber, conversely, lowering a car adds camber, not teaching anyone to suck eggs. and -1.5 on the rear with neutral toe, as I have mentioned before, I find this is a good neutral setup for my driving style and having a square tyre setup eliminates a lot of the terrible understeer the standard car offers. Onto the dyno, now Horsham were disappointed with the results and they think a CAT may be degraded/blocking some of the exhaust gases, this may well be the case as it keeps throwing up the same EML light periodically which is O2 sensor 1 &2 Bank 1 but I don't have the time/money to sort the exhaust so that's something for future, it could also be the manifold but its not major as it did make 10bhp over last time which was 2 years ago. They did not have a start point as apparently with new cams you can't do a base run/before run as you need to download different things to ecu or it runs like a pig. so we are basing this against last dyno printout, previous in this build thread which as stated is 2 years ago, the car may have naturally lost some power since then, who know, I know I have never changed the K&N air filters so that may restrict the airflow, anyway, we still got an improvement at the top end which is where I need it for track driving and it seems obvious the Tomie cams are working as the power is still there/increasing at red line. Its hard to tell whether I will see any actual time improvements (watch this space) but the sound at WOT is proper race car now and amazing. shame I cannot de-cat the exhaust because of hillclimb regs (and general mot regs!) as it would sound even better and release even more power (another reason the gains had been low) all the cars previously dyno with high lift cams had been de-catted and uprated cold air intakes for breathing, so although slightly disappointed, I know I can certainly get more power down the line if I sort out the intake and exhaust. Coming next, I attempt to paint the front bumper plus other TLC jobs on the car.

1. 14N - 370Z - Yellow - **** 14N - PAID 2. RY4N - 350Z - Red - **** AAV - PAID 3. Ka.370z - Rose Black Convertible - ****KMZ - PAID 4. Valy - Black - ****LNO - PAID 5. AmyZed **** AMY - PAID 6. Silk - 350z Midnight Blue ******* - PAID 7. G1en - 350z - Battle scarred - ****VBK - Paid 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. added you on as well Shane, just update with part reg when you can.

We now have around 50 bags for life in the cupboard as the misses keeps forgetting to take them shopping but its all good as i am apparently saving the planet.

Well done Colin, get that page mounted on the garage wall.

Well done Andy. Top man

I have a pair if its the standard orange ones your after

Thats seems fine and i doubt it would be that exact to oem if any of the chassis or arms were bent so that just leaves tyres or bushes really. If you have had the bushes checked and they are fine than its back to the tyres. Unfortunately an expensive way to find out if it makes it better but if the current tyres are hardly worn you could sell them on. I take it its on standard suspension and not some chinese aftermarket tat that a previous owner may have put on. As mentioned above, has anyone else driven the car since alignment. Failing all that im out of suggestions.

Complete guess but could possibly be something like brake fluid or fuel thats splashed up from the wheel and sat there for a while so eaten slightly into the clearcoat? when i spilt a little brake fluid onto barrel of an alloy wheel and left it i was suprised how it went through the gtechniq C5 applied and made a similar thing to your pic.

I think if he sells the car he needs to add the line “wheels would benefit from a refurb”

Just to note and i am not suggesting this is the case but “they” can make any value of toe/camber/caster appear green on a printout by overriding the required values. For example my printout is green but camber is -2’30 which is not factory spec, it was just easier for guy to see on screen when altering rear arms then he tweaks it from there and the printout is all green. Nothing is in factory specs but it is green in relation to what i asked for. So worth just checking the after printout to make sure all is ok, also again, does anyone else drive the car as i know my wife could hit a pothole/kerb and never mention anything to me which could throw something out without you realising.

If the geo is ok, next logical step is tyres tyres tyres. A lot of people harp on about this but its the only thing connecting you to road, this time of year with slippy road surfaces will make the heavy zed feel lighter steering anyway but an A rated wet tyre will give you lots more sure footedness, just not great for the summer. I have just put uniroyal rainsport 5s on the daily peugeot 308 (front tyres only) and the ones on the rear are continentals still with loads of tread. I was flinging it around a few roundabouts in wet conditions and the back was sliding out which just should not happen in a front wheel drive front engined car but just goes to prove the extra grip of a well Renowned dedicated wet tyre over another “less capable” tyre going back to the alignment, a decent garage should be able to tell if its had a knock previous but the alignment would be a real chew to get correct if arms were bent etc to the point were either a “good” garage would explain the situation or a”bad” garage would just do what they can and take your money.

Great stuff just how “long” is this test planned to last for. I simply ask for the “elder statesmen” of the forum that sadly may not be with us to reach its conclusion and thus can decide whether to carry on Reading past this point.

Welcome. Even the inside of the exhaust is shiny. Great stuff

Yeah around 12mm but couple of things to note, if your going from worn out tyres to brand new you will gain half of that back with the new full 8mm tread and different tyre manufacturers can have varying widths/depths of tyre but quote the same size ie 245/40 size. But all in all, you will be fine

245/40 profile will be fine, thats what i have on mine. It will slightly lower car but wont be an issue looking at your existing pic.

Has the bleed nipple snapped off the caliper (looking at last picture) possibly some brake fluid or oil has got onto discs and the pads have burnt it into disc under heavy braking which would poss explain the rainbow and loss of braking force. Just clutching at straws for you as i recall when i changed my fluid i thought i had tightened the nipples up enough but the force of the brakes made the fluid squirt out so had to get them mega tight.

Can’t help with the resistor problem. When i fitted my momo hub the resistor supplied worked fine, possibly could it be the wrong ohms/watts resistor supplied as it was from ebay? for the off centre wheel, again when i put my aftermarket wheel on, it just would not line up straight as the 6 bolt pattern to fix to hub and the splines on the steering rod for the hub only allow set degrees of movement but any decent alignment place will get it pointing straight, luckily when i fitted mine i was at an alignment garage and they sorted it.

Cheers Alex but trying to collect one on route to save the postage.