docwra

Well, seeing as they are a rally developed evolution model thats hardly surprising is it??

Im not sure what "finer points" you are referring too, other than the way it looks and by their nature rally cars generally are ugly beasts. They are quite happy pootling round town, they are 10 times as practical as a Z33, easy to drive, pretty safe, decently built, reliable, easy to get parts for and find mechanics and experts and have really good aftermarket support, both with modifications and also general information.

The fact that an Evo won the WRC a few times and has a pretty incredible racing pedigree is neither here nor there either

It doesnt come down to running costs in this possible swap. You need to decide which boxes you want to tick. a bit like stats on a car in a computer game.

 

Evo.

- Performance - 7

- Looks - 3

- Comfort - 1 (due to steering wheel, boost controller and uncomfortable seats)

 

350z.

- Performance - 5

- Looks - 7

- Comfort - 8 (due to leather, gadgets galore etc)

 

All boils down to what you want out of a car. 350z is a good all rounder and the evo is soley made for performance.

My brother has an FQ320 and I have a Zed - Ive driven both extensively.

The MR FQ Evo's actually have very good seats and a decent equipment level (insluding 2 back doors and 2 back seats), so I think you are being a bit harsh on the comfort thing, but Id agree, the thing my brother dislikes most about his Evo is the chavvy looks.

Performance, the Zed is a brilliant car to drive and great fun with it, but the Evo destroys it in pretty much every department (other than drifting ) The Evo is also much easier to mod - with a decat and a remap you are looking at 400/380 from one, which I think you would agree is adequate. Add 4WD and the AYC and the Evo is up there as the second fastest point to point car Ive ever driven (after a GTR)

Running costs are a shedload more on the Evo though, particularly if you do some miles. 18mpg is about as good as you are going to get without driving like your Mum, they need servicing by an Evo specialist every 4K miles ideally, they go through tyres very quickly, insurance is going to be higher and things like clutches will go more quickly too.

TBH, drive it and see what you reckon. Both are very good cars, but the Evo is not for everyone

Mine came in at 87 dB Decatted so you will be fine. 95 dB is pretty loud, certainly not possible with standard exhaust

One of the things I have found that amuses me is that I can faster mechanical type answers from the SXOC than I can from the "proper" owners club boards - with some of them they dont even bother replying

Whats the point of an unused webboard?

They arent all bad. 306GTI-6, SXOC and Skylineowners are all good for advice and banter and I enjoy Driftworks, although its not for everybody .........

Kerazy thread bumpage, but the missus is hassling me to sort out our cellar so I reckon Im going to be getting rid of this diffuser - who wants it??

Do import engines look different chaps? Was there ever a definitive power output for them?? (I read they were slighly more powerful than the UK cars)

I dont understand why they get such a bad press - they dont force you to accept their offers or anything

Ive sold three cars to them now, all three of which I was offered a lower trade in/sale price from dealers than I got from WBAC. One was an S2K with a noisy clutch that I would have had to fix to sell privately, another was an MR2 that had dents on it that would have needed to be sorted along with a few other bits too. In both cases, I drove up, and 15 mins later walked out with the money - whats wrong with that??

If youve got a pre 02 car, or your is immaculate with low mileage then of course you arent going to get the price you would selling privately, but if the car isnt perfect, particularly mechanically or you need a quick sale they are a bloody good option.

That said, the advert does make me want to kill people.

Much like the guy who swapped the ZZ3's off his car, I think thats the improvement youve got from taking off budget tyres and replacing them with something halfway decent. Ive never even heard of Autogrips myself .......

 

Avons are not that bad its just bad when they are mixed!

I know I said Id leave it alone but read back what you have just written.

You are saying that the front tyres you use are actually changing the grip levels of your back tyres. If you use ZZ3's on the front then the ZZ3's on the back magically become better somehow??

Much like the guy who swapped the ZZ3's off his car, I think thats the improvement youve got from taking off budget tyres and replacing them with something halfway decent. Ive never even heard of Autogrips myself .......

rear left tyre was highly illegal so needed tyres asap. i could only get 050As for the next day.

after some some unreasonable driving over the weekend i can confirm that tha car is absolutely brilliant. used to be severely oversteery but now i cant get it to skid...sometimes not even on first gear!!!

You mean you didnt die??!!

I dont think a test day is really viable as there will be so many different combinations it would be impossible to do them all - you would really have to use the same car as well, and you then open the "everyones car is different" can of worms. Despite my lack of a technical background, I can see it would be a pretty pointless exercise

You *could* ask a load of guys who get through loads of tyres regularly (sometimes 10/12 per day) what their opinions of the best combinations are but I imagine they would probably confirm, as you have probably just found, replacing a cheaper, less grippy tyre with a grippier one generally has one major effect - it makes the car grip better.

Oh and Dblock - thanks.

Chris I - nice one, some sanity at last. I fully agree that you should be putting on the best tyres you can, for sure. What Id add though is that for me, replacing a front FK452 with an RE050 is an improvement, even if youve got FK452's on the rear as well. Perhaps it is down to my experience but I cant say I ever make an assumption about the level of grip Im going to get, even if Im driving the car two different times on the same day

i am running 040's on the front and avon zz2's on the rear (what previous owner put on) and i am scared to go into a corner with any thing that resembles pace.

 

The t/c kicks in like mad. i dont care what anyone says, mixing tyres on these cars aint good, maybe worse on the more drastic tyre differences front and rear, like mine. maybe not so bad on similar tyres like all 4 mixed being asymetric rather that 2 asymetric and 2 directional.

And this is half of the point Im trying to make here - the reason you are suffering Tez is more likely to be the fact that ZZ2's are absolute pants, not that they dont match the fronts. Put even FK452's on the rear and I guarantee you will notice a marked improvement, even though they dont match the 040's on the front.

You clearly don't have any form of technical background, which is ok, but you have to see there are some very qualified people trying to help explain this to you so you understand.

Thanks. I worked as a software and hardware test engineer for 3 years, but I guess that doesnt count as technical huh?

I dont need graphs, charts or data to prove that - good tyres are always better than @*!# ones, thats common sense.

As an engineer there is nothing worse that making an assumption :doh:

If you are arguing that poor tyres can sometimes be safer than very good ones then I really dont think I need to say anymore.

We have already had the claim that mismatched tyres may kill you, and it now seems that you are recommending using 4 matched tyres of dubious quality over 2 high quality pairs ....... despite my obvious lack of "technical background" thats just preposterous.

Im sorry, but what started out as good advice has now turned into crazy talk.

I think even if you arent a football fan you have to admit on paper we have one of the best teams - apparently its the 3rd most expensive, and players like Rooney, Gerard, Lampard and Terry would walk into any team, anywhere. Its therefore pretty reasonable to expect that we would at least be in with a shout

Unfortunately I think Capello made some shockingly bad tactical decisions for a manager of his calibre and the players themselves just didnt seem up for it. Great shame, particularly for those that travelled out there - noticed after the game last night not one player thanked the fans for their support which is pretty rough IMO.

I just have three points that if anyone can disagree with then more power to them.

1. Running Re040's on the back and Re050's on the front is a hell of a lot safer in all conditions than running Nankang ditchfinders all round. Any given tyre that provides you with better grip, water dispersion and heat management is going to be better than one that doesnt, even if it doesnt match whats on the other axle.

I dont need graphs, charts or data to prove that - good tyres are always better than @*!# ones, thats common sense.

2. I have personal experience of the above and I really dont care what the Nissan Sports GB Manager says - Nankang NS2's all round are by far the worst combination for grip and predictability Ive had on my car, particularly in the wet. Every other set of tyres Ive had have been mismatched and Ive been a lot more confident with them.

3. I will happily accept that Re050's front and back is the best solution, but IMO its more because they are the best tyres, full stop, not because they are matching front and back. Tyres are not co-dependant like suspension is.

As I said from the outset I wasnt looking for a row here, but the argument that seems to be being presented here is that matching your tyres is the most important thing. It isnt - tread depth, tread design, compound and the general quality of the tyre all have more bearing on grip. Road conditions and alignment can affect your car far more than mismatched tyres can, and the most important bit is the lump of flesh behind the wheel.

As I said in the first instance, I agree with the principle but there are numerous factors, IMO at least, that you should be considering first. I dont want people to blindly buy 4 matched Nankangs and think thats the best answer because it isnt.

something that could potentially end your life.

Sorry, driving like an idiot will potentially end your life.

To suggest that running mismatched tyres front and back, something I and most of the people I know have been doing for years is just total scaremongering. They arent suddenly going to steer you in a ditch unless you are driving too fast and that could happen on a matched set of the best tyres in the world.

Like I said, I dont disagree with the principle, but dont you think thats a bit much?

Anyway, Ive sent the information over to the OP but there are at least two cars that have mismatched tyres fitted as standard. Obviously the manufacturers are keen for their customers to "end their life"

Ive just nicked a couple of quotes:

So if you wanted it to handle like that in the wet, then fine. But keeping the tyres the same all round will keep the handling in both wet and dry conditions pretty much as the manufacturer intended. I think that's what you're saying Dan?

That is what will catch you out, not that it will or wont understeer, but that it will do something different to before

And I dont think anyone could disagree with them - obviously the car will behave differently to before if something as intrsic as the tyres have been changed. However, one could probably argue it would behave a lot more differently from the manufacturers intention with uprated suspension, wider wheels or even after a 4 wheel alignment, but I bet most of the people on this thread havent worried about that when they have upgraded. It comes back to my original post - you drive to the conditions, be that trolley castors or slicks off an F1 car.

Scottie seems to see my point - if a car understeers at 45mph on RE040's, but only at 55mph on RE050's then thats an improvement, isnt it?? What you are running on your rears doesnt have any bearing on that, matched or otherwise.

Cool, like I said, Im not here for an argument.

One question though - do you replace all four of your tyres at the same time? Is this what you are recommending?

If someone pulls out on you and you have to swerve to avoid them, a driver on matching tyres will be better placed to avoid the danger than you will on mixed tyres.

A driver with Re050's on the front and Vredes on the rear will be in a hell of a lot better position than someone running NS-2's all round. Trust me, Ive been there

By definition then, if all of your tyres should be "matched", are you guys suggesting that you should buy them in sets of 4?? Using my example above, Id bet that a car on 2 brand new NS-2's at the front is going to stop quicker in the wet than one on 2 heavily worn Re050's .......

Id rather run differing compounds than differing wear levels ........

Im speaking from track and road experience in a variety of cars though, both FWD and RWD - the simple fact is that the tyres do not all work in harmony, as you could argue the dampers do for instance. You will have a finite amount of grip at the front, and a finite amount of grip at the rear, and thats what you drive to.

I cant accept that the behaviour of the front tyres in some way affects the performance of the rears - they are two seperate entities. Of course if you run an RE050 on the front and a Linglong Ditchfinder on the rear the car is going to be a bit tailhappy, but thats not the mismatch, thats just crap rubber on the back.

Id add again that mixing across axles is somewhat suicidal though

Great post, and Im not arguing for a second with the logic, but shouldnt you be driving to the conditions anyway? You dont drive flat out in the wet, and I struggle to see how this is different from driving on mismatched tyres (not on the same axle mind you). yoiu drive to your level of grip

Road conditions play a much greater part in grip than any tyre combination will. If you run rubbish tyres then you are going to get less grip, thats a given, if you use lower quality brake pads then you are going to stop slower as well ........ the only instance I can think where mismatched tyres might cause an issue is in heavy standing water, where the front may start to aquaplane faster than the rear due to differing water displacement, but then if you are aquaplaning you are already going too fast

Maybe Ive missed something here, but my car handles better now than it ever has (on Re050 fronts and Vredestein rears), it was fine with Toyo T1's front and FK452 rears and vice versa, and the worst it ever handled, gripped or gave any feedback was on Nankang NS-2's, the only set of matched tyres its ever had on it.

Is it not the case that different tyres work better for different applications too? Tyres that are good on FWD arent always the same on RWD, so does it not stand to reason that certain tyres and patterns will give better grip on the driven wheels and others on the non driven/steering wheels?

As I say, Im not arguing, just saying that in my experience there are a number of other areas that I consider to be more improtant than matching your tyres fore and aft

its not that bad!! as said before removed the crap and its a fairly nice car. cheap too

Hes advertising it at £12K elsewhere. That aint cheap

Also: SIMPLY THE BEST AND MOST AGRRESIVE 350Z AVAILABLE

No it isnt mate. A standard car is probably better and more AGRRESIVE than that is.

Shame ApexV8.com doesn't have a 350Z kit listed.

 

Just S14s an S14s. Their drift cars sound awesome!

*something* may be in the pipeline there

Oh, and the silver V8 is a Skyline, the black one is an S14

I know the wheels well - considered buying them from the previous owner (who I know well) myself. I really dont think they would suit a Z33 or Id have them already.

Oh, and as for wide wheels ruin your handling:

other than a touch more bumpsteer I actually think my car handles better with these on. The increase in friction is not really going to affect your acceleration, and I havent noticed any adverse effect from the increase in unsprung weight - lateral grip is noticably better in fact.

The car also drifts just as well as it used to, on private roads of course

Im down this year with 35 (count em) others. Probs not going to take the Z33, opting for a campervan instead, but if you see a massive beer mountain on Karting Nord with a load of 200SX's, a Monaro, NSX, some wide Mercs and a few M3's come and say hello