Rob_Quads

That will be an AutoBright Lance - around £45 and it goes onto a pressure washer. That combined with either some AB Super Snow Foam or Megs APC and you get lovely foam. The 3rd pic is around 5 minutes after spraying it. Generally you leave it on the car for 5/10 minutes to seem into all the dirt then pressure wash it off before you go near the paintwork with any sort of mit.

I gave mine a quick was at the weekend. Only got pics mid wash... Its a black car honest

From the diagrams I have seen the mobile phone adapter will not work with any aftermarket head unit as the phone buttons on the steering wheel are not connected to anything. IF the car kit works with an aftermarket head unit (with the steering wheel buttons just doing nothing) then IMO yes this could be used with it and should not affect it.

Update the HOWTO with information about suppliers. Mine arrived within a few days As for the resistors - First here is a diagram to help explain it. It shows the interal wiring of the button panel on the steering wheel If the resistors were not used the outcome would be that pressing Volume Up or Volume Down would give the same output and the SWI-JACK module would not know which one it was. By using different value resistors and combining the output cables only a single input line is required, simplifying matters. For referance the voltages of the white cable I got were. Normal 4.92v Volume Up 3.46v Volume Down 3.60v (I think) Mute 1.59 Source 0.85v Track Up 2.05v Track Down 2.54v

This guide is to utilise the steering wheel audio controls with an aftermarket head-unit. The key to the install is the PAC-Audio SWI-JACK interface. This interface can be used for a number of head units. For a full list refer to the PAC Audio web site. I purchased my SWI-JACK from All Best Parts - a US supplier via ebay. It cost around £33 delivered and he was happy to mark the item with a low value to avoid import duty. In this guide I am going to be installing the unit for an Alpine Head unit - Mode 9833 (5 years old). This model is not officially supported. Luckily Alpine have not changed their wired remote interface in many many years meaning this interface actually works with most Alpine models in the last 5/6 years. First lets start with the interface it self when you get it. It looks fairly daunting with lots of wires but its actually fairly simple. Lets start with the centre console. For this its presumed you have already installed your head unit and you have used a loom adapter such as Autoleads. Remove the bottom section first. Pull gently on the section towards the back of the gear stick and the panel will pop up. For safety remove the ribbon from the panel which controls the air con. This mean you can twist the panel round giving you more room. If you have lots of time its worth removing the upper section of the console too as it gives much better access to the cabling. For instructions on how to do this refer to HOWTO: Console Reomval As you can see from this there is lots of room underneath the centre console to store the unit. Next job is to remove your head unit and pull out the loom as much as you can. The picture below looks like there is a lot going on but its actually fairly simple. To the left are the RCA/AI-Net/Aerial. On the right in the main loom which is factory -> Autoleads Adatper -> Alpine Adapter Now its time to start with the SWI-JACK unit. The unit is a universal under designed for many cars so has wiring for this. Luckily for us we only need 4 of the wires for our install : Red, Black, White & the remote jack The remaining cables (blue yellow, orange, green) can all be cut off and taped up. The two cable loops (purple & brown) should be left alone. Plug the loom into the main SWI-JACK unit. To make things easy for feeding the cable tape all 4 of the cables together Pass them up behind the aircon control model into the head-unit area. The first job is to connect the black wire to ground. There are various places this could be done. Before connecting the ground wire to the black cable in the audio loom I performed a continuity check with ground. To my surprise I found that this was in fact NOT earthed. After studying the wiring diags it appears that Pin 9 on the factory loom (which provides ground to aftermarket stereos) is only ground in terms of cable shielding. The factor unit is ground by being screwed into the chassis. The Alpine head unit was actually getting its earth from the Aerial loom. Without the aerial the unit would not turn on. Due to this I cut the Autoleads adapter and added an extension This was fed down behind the aircon unit and was ground on a nice clean fixing on the side of the gear stick Now back to connecting up the SWI-JACk unit. First off connect the ground in the Autoleads adapter. On my loom I already had a spare bullet on it so I just connected it to that Next stop the +12. This needs to be connected to an ignition switched feed. On the 350z this is the red wire in the loom. Here I have again connected it into the Autoleads adapter. Next is the slightly tricky bit. Time to connect up to the steering control. This is done via a connector that the Head Unit loom does not use as shown in the diagram below. Unfortunatly there is not much slack on this cable which means working on it is stricky The cables we need to use are.... Pin 25 Yellow/Green -> Ground : Luckily this cable is already ground so nothing to do here Pin 22 Red/Green -> 47 Ohm Resistor Pin 23 Orange -> 150 Ohm Resistor The diagram above is looking from the plug side not the cable side. Be careful to get the right Orange Cable. There are two on this plug. One is from the immobiliser. By accident I cut this one first. The correct orange cable is the towards the middle of the socket Pin 23. The photo below shows the WRONG orange cable. Connect the other ends of the Resistors together and connect this to the White cable from the SWI-JACK Now solder & tape up the resistors making sure that the car loom side to not short. The final step is to use some double sided sticky tape and secure the SWI-JACK. There is a nice flat section just in-front of the gear stick where the unit can go Now its time to setup the unit for this specific install. First we need to set the dial on the unit for the model of head unit we are using. Alpine requires this to be set to 1 (I had nothing to do as this is the factory position) If you are using another model then set it accordingly (JVC=2, Kenwood=3, Clarion=4, Blaupunkt=5) Next step is to program the unit for this specific car. The version number for the 350z is "3". To program this do the following Now its time to program the individual buttons. 1. First : Turn on the Ignition - The unit LED should flash 3 times to show its version number 2. Press and release the program button - The unit LED should turn on and stay on The following steps must be started WITHIN 7 seconds of step 2. Program each button in turn using the instructions below The order in which you program the buttons is shown by this list For my setup I was going to have Volume Up/Down, Track Up/Down, use the phone button as mute and use the speak button as Source. As a result of this it meant I pressed the buttons in the following order 1 Volume Up 2 Volume Down 3 Phone button 4 Program button to skip 5 Program button to skip 6 Speak button 7 Track Up 8 Track Down 9 Wait 7 seconds for unit to end programming - Module will flash 3 times. Job Done - Before putting it all back together properly plug your head unit in and check if the programming has worked. Now time to put it all back in again and put the panels back. Once you are finished it should be just as it was before Job Done - It took me a few hours to do but mainly due to getting my wires mixed up and the earth issue. If you are competent with car electrics then this job should take around an hour. This guide can easily be used for other makes of head unit and even car BUT its worth reviewing the docs at Pac Audio A PDF version of the manual is available Here

Not supprising to a degree as they actually did very well at getting stock in for this launch , much more. The wiis sold around 50K in the first day. Around 400K of PS3s were available so even if some are left around you could say they have still done well. No-one knows how much they are now loosing per console since the redesign i.e. removal of ps2 chip, new factories producing the blue lasers rather than the single supplier they had at launch

If you look at most of the comments hardly any of them have anything to do with the weight more design.

If you could make a few design changes (Not major redesigns) what would they be? Ignoring power mods as its a bit of a bottomless pit i.e. most would make it as powerful as they could. My Thoughts.. 1. A rear tailgate with the spoiler all smoothed in - well that shape but in metal 2. Smoother front bumper - removal of the reflectors 3. Remote Tailgate pop 4. Remote Start 5. Bluetooth Hands Free with caller display 6. Plastic Interior panels trimmed in stiched black alcantara.

If thats the owner of the car and hes taken it out on other tracks then its not something to be surprised at. Put the same driver into a random car and give him a few laps then see how close he is.

I had mine in to have a look at some clicking. They were not sure if it was the drive shafts or not but said they will try them first just in case. Its booked in on Wednesday to be done under warranty which expired today Although it was in on Wednesday first to be diagnosed

Interesting post but.... Is it not possible to connect a HD-DVD drive to the PS3 if they really wanted - via USB? 480MB surely is enough bandwidth for it. You mentioned the extra price but then for most who have bought a PS3 they won't really see any extra price. There is not that much difference to the retailer between a BluRay disk and a HD-DVD disk. The Piracy is an interesting one. BluRay has also been cracked and its possible to copy them so it just needs someone to make an easy to use tool (a couple that have done HD-DVD ones have said they will be introducing BluRay soon. It will be interesting to see how long the writers take to come down in price. I can see it being a number of years before the writeres get down to the £100/£150 which is the price mark where sales really take off. Personally I think both are going to carry on and exist with at most a 40:60 market split with many people having dual players etc. Similar to the DVD +/- R battle there was wihch no-one won. There are too many big companies behind both formats to not make it succeed (not succeed does not mean be the best)

Most of the main American Shows like 24, Lost etc are all being filmed in HD rather than being upconverted. Lost is much better in HD than SD.

Discovery do some nice stuff in HD, They had done a number of 1080p stuff too. Also got Band of Brothers in 1080p which is very nice (even though I am only showing it in 720p. There is 1080p stuff out there but you really have to go looking. IMO Football or Movies are the only reasons to get HD at the moment, anything else is not really worth it

I don't understand this its £10 extra and then £5 after that....but surely what happens next year is dependant on next years budget so if they said we are going to put the taxes down then it would not happen?

I've just renewed mine too just incase they put the prices up. Even if we don't get caught by the roumered 400 bracket there is nothing stopping them increasing the higher bands i.e. putting it up by 30/40 onto E/F etc

You sure about the new bands applying to only new cars. According to this report on the BBC it says its all cars since 2001 (which i think is where it change from size of engine to emissios) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4834480.stm I would say there is a 95% chance the Z will get caught up with this increase. As said its going to make so little difference BUT will end up making them lots of extra money. Personally its going to have to make me think twice as I was already considering selling in the summer anyway and this is an extra thing against it but the majority of drivers will end up keeping

Its a tiny tiny little amp that is on the passenger side of the spare wheel underneath the black polystrene

I think everyone agrees that there is a time and a place for the police to speed. In the right circumstance then yes they should be putting thier foot all the way down BUT imo if they want to be practicing that sort of speed they should be doing it on airfields etc which as just as good as a public road. He admitted the road was empty so it was no different to doing it on a private runway where it would have been much safer to do so.

I would be interested to see what would happen if someone like a Rally driver was caught going sill fast. They could now use that as an example case to get off. It makes the whole system a nightmare as they are now saying "Oh the limit is not really 70 it depends how good a driver you are" which is sooo subjective its unfrocable

Will be interesting to see what it goes for. On a car like the Z IMO as long as its been fully serviced to spec then that sort of millage is not a massive problem. Will loose a few £ due to millage but even at 18K thats not a bad price for a Black Nismo which are VERY VERY VERY rare, there are very few UK Black GTs out there below 20K full stop

Yup - I have been using it recently - like you I have it in a vm image. Playing around with it to see how suitable it is for my fileserver, I'm playing around with growable RAID5 arrays which has results in kernel compiles and all sorts. Helps that I have just spent 5 days on a Redhat course too.

I'm slightly confused about mine. Mine sounds a bit more thudy thank clicky and it really sounds like its coming from the boot. I drove around with the window open and when it did happen it was no louder, in fact it was harder to hear due to the road noise which makes me suspect its not the clicking axle. Is it always louder with the window down if its the axle? Note mine also happens when i am slowing down of the second I hit a speed bump. That said I have taken out virtually all of the boot and tailgate trim and my stereo install so there is virtually nothing in the back that could make any noise. Think I will have to pop up the dealer with it before my warranty expires at the end of the month as I have no idea what is causing it.

Annoying things for me are.... No Remote Boot Pop No Window Roll-up Crap Paint. The not so great aircon - would be nice if it went colder in the summer Lack of front glovebox (would be interested to see whats behind the dash on the passenger side to know why its not there.

For anyone to drive my car they would need to be fully covered not 3rd party. I will take them out but I would need to see proof of insurance for them to drive. You can easily pick up insurance for a day on a car - around £20, not a lot if you are going to spend £18K on a car.

Mine is my main car. Luckly I live fairly close to work so its not that far a commute. So far I have done just over 5K i the last 8 months. Looking around at whats on the market at the moment (thankfully not a lot of black ones so mine is holding value) I would say the average Z millage is around 8K/year but its because there are quite a few 2nd car ones which have done 4/5K a year and then the other group which have not a more normal 12K/year I 'thought' about a second car but in the end it was not worth it as the cost of a) the cost of the 2nd car (even if its only a 1/2K car) + Cost of insuring it as a second car was not really that much different to the amount I would save on the value of the Z holding. I would probably only put on 3/4K at most onto the Z if I did that. There are definatly scenarios where a 2nd car is sensible, specially if you do a long drive to work.