djtimo

Think Ill pick some up Greg as I need to clean the hell out the shocks and callipers Little more work today. Finished cleaning the hub uprights, not a good finish as the arms as its a pain in the a** shape but there clean at least! Also cleaned and prepped the other arms for paint. Bushes and ball joints masked off... Last thing is a wipe down with meths or panel wipe before the etch primer goes on Getting close to the rebuild now which will be nice to have the car back down on its wheels.

Little more progress on the zed today before I had to go to work on nights Picked up the banana arms with the new bushes pressed in Made a start cleaning the arms and making them look decent again! Also made a start on cleaning the hub carrier which is a pain in the a** to clean because of the complex shape Picked up a few cans of etch primer, metallic gunmetal paint and clear coat ready to pain the arms soon too

Little more done today Managed the get enough G clamps on the compression rod ball joint to allow me to split them. These are having the bushes pressed in now Got the lower arms off too Damaged bushing on the right arm New arms getting exited ready to go on Also my chassis brace is now at the powder coaters getting zinc coated and then gloss gunmetal great coat

So the start of the suspension upgrade on the zed is underway Lets just start off with I HATE BALL JOINTS!!! LOL... The cars jacked up and I have begun the tare down of the front end, almost all the suspension arms use ball joints and cotter pins which have been a ball ache to remove. The cotter pins were so rusty all but one needed drilling out and the ball joints have been a pain to split. The ones on the upper A arms needed a nut splitters and drill to remove and the lower ones on the compression arms i still need to tackle! On the positive side the chassis brace bolts I thought would have been the problems Cam off easy with my new impact gun Few little progress pics Thats it for now . that was yesterdays work LOL.. Need to go and buy a new set of goose neck ring spanners to get the lower arms off.

Little update! Zed has been off the road and not started for 19 MONTHS!!!!! I have looked at ways to make sure when he does start up its the best it can be... I've drained off most of the fuel, checked oil, lubed the cams with fresh oil, and went for a start! 3 sec crank nothing... let it shut off for a second 2nd attempt fired straight up!!!! oil pressure took about 3-4 seconds before it went full scale on a cold start and idles perfect! MADE UP!!!!! Made a start on cleaning up suspension arms Lower control arms I have bought were a bit of a state! One done Cleaned up with a drill wire mop and wire brush.. Bushings already pushed out too More done Thanks guys more to come soon

171 mph run Sorry for being quiet on the forums people I've started a new job and im working 80+ hours a week! LOL...

Well guys. TOTB was here last weekend and again it was AWESOME! Jess and I both entered our cars for the saturday bootcamp and I entered my car for the main event on the sunday to as I was told over the phone that there would be no standing kilometre on the saturday to help keep noise down I had to get a few things sorted with my car like a fresh oil change to some nice heat friendly Titan Pro R 15W-50 HKS oil filter and get my tracking done again as the steering wheel was badly out of alinement! I got the car to demon tweeks on the thursday to have the tracking done and halfway through setting the car up the tech asked me to come over to have a look........ Funky red oil! Not good The front lower control arm bush had colapsed and slide forward on the mounting bolt! No wonder my steering was out! HAHA... I rang around a few places but no where had a bush/arm in stack and I had no time to get it fitted . The arm looked like this had happened a while back and the car drove fine apart from the steering was miss alined so I thought Ill still run the car at the weekend and just take it easy. Jess and I drove up on the saturday morning and signed on both cars passed noise tests which was a relief and then we had the drivers briefing. I was pleased to here the standing kilometre runs were allowed so that made my day too! Jess and I had a great day blasting up the 1/4 mile topspeed and handling track on the saturday and left the sunday to the big boys and this left,e some time to film too All in all a great weekend and £175 for two cars for two days track action its cheap as chips!!! Here's a little video from one of the runs and Ill knock up a few of Jess out there too

Not great deal done with the car for ages now! Jess and I are running our cars at TOTB this weekend so It was time for some fresh 15W-50 for me and some nice 10W-40 for the honnnnddaarrr... LOL.. Cheeky wheel alinement The S2k having some TLC. Fingers crossed for the weekend! Me and Jess are both running on the bootcamp saturday and I have entered the main event on sunday too LOL.....Ive got no chance but its just a fun day out playing with the car

Just some pics!

A little more work on the zed today, Nice day so i took advantage of that and started the pre-Japfest clean Jet wash and dried off, waxed with dodo juice blue velvet and then onto the inside! I picked up some plastic treatment from CLB Valeting that restores the natural new car look sheen and smell. Quick spray about and Its brought the inside up a treat! Off to the gym for an hour and came home and had another spurt of energy! I have wanted to get a sound deadening mat made up that I can throw in the boot area for road use/long journeys. Im going to get a custom one made by autostyle mats who make boot and floor mats for any vehicle. I can supply a template and they can make it in what ever I fancy! Well this will not be ready for jap fest so I took a trip into the garage loft and dug out the old trim bits for the boot to see what would fit still. Found the old floor mat! ! Added in some sound deadening foam that came from above the fuel pumps. And refitted the bose amp as I want some music on the way down to japfest Bit of messing about and Its all kept down in place by the cargo net! Still need to get a snap off wheel boss as Ive had A sexy nardi wheel under the bed now for a year waiting to go on! LOL...

Fun day today! Busy busy busy but still always time to sneak in a few mins to mod the zed Over the past few weeks the cars been making an intermittent scraping noise, coming from the rear brakes. My first thought was Its just worn out pads. I checked the back pads quick a while ago with the wheels still on looking at the outside pads which had meat left on them. I have been running Performance Friction carbon metalic pads for a good while now and over the past 6 months I have felt like the braking "feel" was getting worse and worse. I ordered a set of OEM+ Brembo pads from Zmanalex as I loved the PF pads when they were hot but cold they felt dead and some times caught me out after driving the megane as they sort of "don't work at all" the first time you touch the brakes LOL.... Sooooo as the sun was shining and the zed has to make the trip down to JapFest soon I got on with swapping out the pads for some nice fresh ones with aftermarket heat/noise shims. Got him up in the air Still looking clean on the KW's after all these years! Great quality kit IMHO.. Started with the rears, out side pads came out looking good. Pic of all the OUTSIDE pads from all four corners. Now TAKE A LOOK AT THESE!!!! These are the inside pads from all four corners!!! The friction surface of the pads has disintegrated! The rear driverside backing plate has a small nick in the metal where it has touched the disc (making the noise) but the rest still had chunks of lose pad material floating about between the backing plate and disc!! All the pistons look fine and move in and out smoothly so non are sticking. I think these have just been over heated badly as I have had a few occasions where I've had a fair bit of smoke coming from the brakes (normally this smoke is just a little bit of tire rubber that has hit the disc and gone on fire though ) Well this afternoon I cleaned up the coilovers quickly and refitted the new pads and then went out to bed them in. Braking feel is far better with quicker cold bite and they look like the pads will have some good stopping power when fully bedded in. Im not expecting these to handle track abuse to well but for the most part these are nice pads Just need some time to give the car a good wash before japfest now! Oh and a few "arty" instagram pics as this is my new fav app!

May as well add this to my thread

Few pic's from this weekends meet in chester...

Some fitted pic's! Before.. Fitted.. 90mm Extension section. Made from stainless steel and heated to just to add a little colour! I found that the NISMO gear knob was a little short and found myself changing gear with only my lower three fingers on the knob, I think the zed's gear box (mainly the early models) can have quite a notchy gear change, this gets worse with a shorther gear knob as you have less leverage. This extension adds 90mm in length to the gear stick shaft and puts the knob closer to the steering wheel, gear change throw is longer but require less force and allows me to get my hands back on the wheel quicker! Just been out for a "test drive" and it feels nice! Parked the car up and went for a quick ICE cream too..... Sat out in the sun and had a laugh at all the people passing and talking about the car! I heard "What is it?" a few times and little kids having there photo taken next to it! Still makes me smile!

Got a nice little bit of stainless steel I have been after for a while through today! Any guess what it is for ? Added a little touch of heat colour to it with the trusty blowtorch to! Ill be fitting this in a minute as the weather is fantastic here!

Bored yesterday afternoon so washed the zed and had a play with the camera too

The beats came out to have a little more work done on him today Not really that exiting but I have been meaning to refit the head liner for ages but its a bit of a pig as it wont fit around the cage. The back section of the liner fouls on the main hoop Any way on to the pics! Finally after some "trimming" its in! LOL. Nice to have it back as the car does not sound as hollow as before "trimmed" bits LOL.. Next job is a want to retrim the liner with a black/grey alcantara as its a little creased now from the pulling and bashing about fitting round the cage. Looks ok though now so that can wait for a little while.

Quick cheeky video from today on the way to the gym God I LOVE THIS CAR! LOL... Such a fun car to mess about in, Not the fastest thing when every time it comes on boost the wheels light up but its just so fun! hahaha...

Well I know there has not been much progress on the zed as of late as the house im renovating is taking up a lot of time (and money!). Im not sure if you lot knew but I picked up a set of takata harnesses from bay that were sold as genuine items. I used them when the car went down to the brit car for the national and the driver side harness clasp failed!!! NOT VERY SAFE!! I emailed the seller asking for a refund and he tried to tell me im using them wrong and then eventually after 10 or so emails just said "sod off your not getting a refund" I said I would take this up with paypal and file a case against him and his response was "Go on then try it, YOU WILL LOSE!" After a lot of messing about with pay pal systems and many emails back and forth I won the case and had a full refund! I have been after a set of schroth racing harnesses for a while but no where had the saloon length in stock I phoned demon tweaks today and they had a set in so I wiped up there and picked them up! Sorry for the crap phone pic's, You can just see how I had the harnesses attached down in the chassis with eye bolts for the time being, These are the wrong angle and not really the safe way to fit them. The new harness came with eye bolt clips and you are also able to remove this to fit to a roll cage. Harness fitted to the cage. Shoulder straps crossed over to, as schroth recommend. Much better angle too Now I NEED to get my bucket seats sorted and a 2nd harness for the pax seat! LOL..

Well I tried charging up the battery again but Its dead and wont hold charge now. After having a little look on the net for batteries I think a racing battery would end up giving me more problems than its worth so I went for a new "normal" car battery. Halfords wanted £100 for a crapy halfords own brand but I rang up a local motorfactors LVW and they had a nice bosch S4 silver one in stock for £71 inc VAT! Score! So I picked this little bad boy up. And then took the beast out for a spin! LOL...115 miles round som eof the best roads in the UK! EVO triangle and around lake brenig! Very cold and wet really but I could not help myself as Ive not driven him in 4 weeks! Took to GoPro with me too..... And after I got home, it was clean before! LOL.. In need of a wash I think! ha.

Well I popped out today and went to halfrauds to pick up a trickle charger, I wanted the cTec one Greg had posted up but when I got to halfords they said that it was internet only and would take a week to come! LOL. I spotted a halfords own version for £25 and going off the packet it charges dead batteries and then automatically switches to maintain mode when fully charged. If its poo then Ill still pick up a decent Ctec one. Its got some nice little features one of which is a permeant terminal connector which I have wire in this afternoon. I've got a few pic's while installing it. You can see it a little better in this one, Its a fused +ve wire and -ve connection off each terminal that goes down to a sealed connector so when I want to charge it I can just "plug her in" Instead of messing with crocodile clips. I think this is a little safer too as I would no want clips to pop off and spark while the cars connected and cause a fire! The little connector, one side will live in the cars battery box and one in the garage to plug into the mains. (yes I know I need to polish the engine! LOL) And a little 'Bay shot before I left him charging up over night! Sorry Its dark.

Spent a little time cleaning the zed up. QUick wash off and then a good going over with meg's car soap. Dried off and back in the garage! The zeds had a coat of dodo juice wax and is tucked up warm and dry now as the weather is getting bad again! Zed in his house! Few pic's during the waxing! LOL.. Carbon weave on the varis bonnet really pop's after a good wax coating goes on! Until next time! LOL...

Well Time for another little update! Just a few more picks of the car going back together! Rear mount point for the lap belts. (these are just being used untill I get my new seats) Fitted. I also removed the rear boot vents and cleaned them up. Still very dusty even though I had sheeted the inside out. All hoovered out again! nice and clean! The cage work is 95% complete. I just need to finish the very rear boot floor and rear bulk head area. the next job is getting the head line back in. the head liner will require mod's to get it to fit as the cage main hoop sits very close to the roof skin and the head liner will not fit through the gap. Im still not sure how im going to do this but Ill get it done some how Im going to make a rear boot mat from thick carpet thats a good sound deadener that can be thrown in and out quickly for long drives as the cars quite loud inside now! These are the last pic's I have of the cage. Car packed up ready for **REMOVED** national!

Started finishing the last bits of colour this morning and just put the fist part of the clear coat on now. While the clear coat is drying out i've made some small brackets for the seat lap belt to screw to. Eye bolt for the lap belt. with nylock nut. 3mm stainless steel plates. Centre punched and drilled from 3mm up to 11mm for eyebolt and 10mm for the bolt to the chassis. This took me 30min to drill these little bloody things! SS is very hard to drill! Cleaned up with a file. Yes I know there ruff! LOL.. Back to work!