Silverthorn

@Sim @ShortPaul @valy Cheers Gents! Appreciate it

@HEADPHONES @davey_83 Cheers Gents! It's certainly pretty awesome to have the car recognised to that extent. The irony in it being featured in 'fast' car yet it's probably the slowest 370z in the uk once the roads turn bumpy

Fitted a few more parts recently. First on the list was a GKtech Kit for the front end as I've desperately wanted faster steering ever since purchasing the car. Way too much steering input for very little movement previously imo. I wasn't that fussed about the extra maximum steering angle as i figured i wouldn't get close to it with the size of my wheels anyway - although it turns out they somehow clear no problem at all and i have a full 60 degrees of steering angle! It's made the car so much nicer to drive and feels much more responsive on a whole. I picked it up during a black friday sale so i only ended up paying £260 delivered. Probably one of my favourite purchases so far! I also purchased a diffuser from Piotr Grzelak (who also supplied the duckbill wings on the group-buy on here previously). I absolutely love the diffuser and it has completed the rear end of the car for me personally. I always thought the rear end sat far too high beforehand so the new diffuser has certainly fixed that. My only complaint would be that it might sit a little bit too low at the very inner edge - nothing that can't be fixed with a little modification though and shortening the supports that fix it to the chassis. It still needs a lick of paint of course, I've just temporarily fitted it and treated it with some plastic trim gel to give it a darker appearance in the mean time. I was also contacted by a photographer for Fast Car Magazine the other day and arranged a full photoshoot of the car. It's due to be published along with information about the car in Febuary's issue. Can't wait! I've seen a preview of the photos and they came out awesome - even got a few rolling shots on the M32 I can't share any of these until it's published though so you'll have to wait for those. I also for the fist time in god-knows how long have a set of centre caps on the car! All in all, a good few weeks.

For the few that haven't seen this series on youtube, I'd seriously recommend watching MIMCK Media's 'Zero****Z' series on Youtube. He's got a serious attention to detail and the videos are very well produced imo. 78 episodes to catch up on if you have the time! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBdf3WHGawE Edit: Not sure why the video won't embed on here, ah well. Link above.

@Ogman Cheers mate! I couldn't be happier with the outcome. I knew the wheels would look good, but i didn't realise what a massive difference it'd make to the overall aesthetic. Besides the addition of a few other little cosmetic pieces, this is exactly what I've always wanted for the car. Not to most peoples taste I'm sure, but for me at least, this is what it's all about.

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Aaaand with the ever-reoccuring theme of this project thread, I've now adjusted the ride height to a much more acceptable standard Much better!

@davey_83 Cheers mate! Totally agree with you. I think they Kiwami's looked great early on but as the car got lower with the more aggresive aero, it needed some big hot boi wheels to tie it all together and really complete the look i was going for. It's crazy how much more attention it grabs with the big polished lips now while out on a drive. It was hardly discrete before, but it definitely catches 99% of the eyes on the road now!

@HEADPHONES cheers mate! Couldn't be happier with the outcome to be honest. Just need to play around with the suspension to get the car sat perfectly level and jobs a good'un. @ShortPaul no TPMS any more mate. I did try one of those aftermarket kits but because my tyre valves are inside the barrel of the wheel, the second I drove the car it hit the knuckle and knocked the sensor off worked great for the 30 seconds leading up to that point though aha

Well, the new wheels are finally finished, tyres are mounted and they're on the car! I couldn't be happier with how they've came out, Rimscarnated done an awesome job and my measurements seemingly worked out perfectly. For those interested, they're OZ Superleggera III's and are 19x11.5J et-12 all round with 265/30 Achilles ATR Sport 2's. I've thrown a 25mm spacer on the front end to get the rim super close to the arch. Absolutely 0 spacers on the rear and the wheel fits absolutely perfectly (couldn't even get my debit card in the gap between the rim and inner arch! ) I also modified some 350z top mounts to relocate the top of the damper slightly in board to give greater clearance between the coilover and knuckle. I would've liked to have pushed the damper a little further in bound but this is the most i could achieve before the air cups interfered with the chassis. Without extended LCA's, this is definitely the most amount of camber physically possible on the front end of a 370z. In every way it's stupid, and i couldn't be happier with it aha! All it needs now is a nice lil diffuser, new exhaust and a front end respray to finalise the aesthetics. Then i can crack on with the huuuuuge list of other plans i have left for the car

Every week?! I'm not sure whether to be impressed by your dediction or concerned about the amount of spare time you must have!

@HEADPHONES It's weird you say that, I was just out on a drive earlier and for a bit of nostalgia I decided to play a 'Need for Speed Underground' playlist on Spotify - this was the first song to come on ahaha!

Alright mate, Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Didn't recieve any notification from your message. The knuckles were shortened, drilled, tapped and assembled by Cadwell Engineering in Temple Could. The final TIG welding was completed by DS Machining Services in Yate. Hope that helps. Cheers

Way too much camber on the rear, even for my liking haha! Ah well, he's doing what he likes and it's definitely different so props to him for that. People care waaaay to much about what other people do with their cars At the end of the day, they're 'cheap' cars to have a bit of fun with. If your definition of fun is taking it round a track, or just fitting stupidly wide wheels for the sake of fitment, that's your decision. I could go on huge rants about the **** modifications and replica parts that i see people fit to their cars every single week, but who really cares.... Everyone has their own preference.

Yeah i had read something like that. I'm tempted to buy another fog light and modify it so it's slimer and acts as an F1 style rain light anyway. Not a chance I'm cutting my bumper! I need to modify the diffuser anyway so it mates up with the Nismo rear as well.

Bit of a thread revival here, but i don't suppose anyone went ahead and purchased one of those diffusers and has it tucked away in their house somewhere and fancies selling it to me?

Cheers mate! I'm quite jealous of the GT86 to be honest. There aren't many attainable cars that look as good as they do straight out of the box. A few minor modifications and they're quite an awesome looking car imo!

As some may have spotted in another thread i posted on here, my clutch was beginning to show early signs of needing a replacement (still on the original clutch @ 55,000 miles) so i went ahead and purchased the following: 'Stage 1' Competition Clutch & Pressure Plate Torqen Lightweight Flywheel Torqen Heavy Duty CSC Castrol React Performance Dot 4 Fluid OEM Nissan Gearbox Oil Molyslip gearbox Additive It wasn't the smoothest operation fitting all of these parts, mostly due to the fact the gearbox was an absolute **** to remove. At least in my case, it was no where near as easy as people make it sound online. With all of the bolts removed i just couldn't pull the gearbox back away from the engine! Probably a good 6 hours later i did eventually get the gearbox off after using an abundance of pry bars to get the box to break free. The input shaft was so tight on the OEM pilot bushing that it actually came out attached to the input shaft itself! No wonder the box was so difficult to get off With the box removed, the install was pretty straight forward (besides me initially forgetting to align the flywheel ). Reinstallation was thankfully perfectly straight forward thanks to the newly installed Pilot Bushing. The gearbox slipped straight back in to position and the install was finished moments later. I did have a small hicup getting the car to start initially after the install. It'd crank but would not fire up correctly. I disconnected the Crankshaft Position Sensor and then the car started no problem. I then reconnected the sensor and again, started without fault. Very odd.... But it's worked perfectly since. I'm guessing i just knocked the plug a little lose during gearbox install so disconnecting and reconnecting solved the problem The new feel of the clutch, pressure plate & flywheel combo is spot on. There is a noticeably firmer pedal feel but by no means too stiff to drive on a daily basis. Clutch engagement is fairly linear so it's still just as easy to drive as it was prior to install. The flywheel is a nice touch as well, noticeably lighter than stock during downshifts and general driving without being so light that you notice any difference when in stop start traffic! I do think i will need to get the car mapped once the exhaust is sorted so that i can continue to make the car as responsive as possible Overall, I'm pretty happy with how things went and it's nice to say that I've done the job myself. That being said though, a weekend of lying on my back in a dusty garage is probably not worth the £500 or so saving from doing it myself In the future, i think I'll just take it to the likes of Horsham Developments for the work to be undertaken - I value my back and my spare time too much!

meh, can't say I'm hugely impressed. Hopefully the design improves as it matures. Looks a little too slim imo. Flared arches and a new front end and it could be pretty awesome. Get rid of that damn chrome as well!

@Ekona

bump

Just another quick question gents. Does anyone know the internal diameter of the pilot bushing? I'll need to grab myself a bearing puller prior to starting this work. I don't really fancy the look of some of the shortcuts some people have taken to get the bush out without a proper puller.