Tricky-Ricky

LOL! despite the differing opinions on this thread, i am finding it very useful for info/opinions on some of the more mundane FWD cars, as i am selling my Skyline 350GT (four seat 350Z ) in order to economise, and will be buying a said mundane FWD petrol or preferably diesel, as a replacement, and as i have only ever owned mad powered or unusual jap RWD cars for the last 15 odd years, I have literally had no experience of modern normal every day FWD cars, other than the wifes old Seat, so finding a suitable replacement is going to be hard, it had been said to me, to get a Focus ST among others, which is what drew me to start reading this thread. I have no idea where to start, obviously i will need to get some test drives in, but experience's and opinions on what might be considered a reasonably sporty feeling diesel or petrol, as i have noticed that some of the new engines are pretty frugal compared with the VQ. I have been looking at cars like, Volvo C30 R design, Honda Civic CTDI, Alfa Brera, 159, and obviously BMW 330 and 320D for obvious reasons, and the Focus, any other experience's/opinions welcome, but i don't want to start another stone throwing session

Well after talking to an owner, complete stranger, so no test drive, i decided that it just wouldn't be for me, i would rather hold out for a BMW 330D or cash, if i end up having to re insure my 350GT, i will probably keep it until the end of the year.

I drive the wifes Seat diesel most of the time these days, and i actually don't mind it at all, but it is manual, but your right, i definitely need to find a 300c for sale near me and go for a test drive.

Its more a case of needs must, as the market for lager petrol engined cars is very stagnant these days and they are not selling well, i have my Skyline up for swaps/PX and this has come up as a option, and the diesel fits the bill, at less than a second slower than the Hemi, its no slouch, and apparently it can be chipped to 260bhp and over 400ftlb and an increase in it already not bad 35mpg, it cant be too bad. Being use to owning ott or mad powered Japanese cars for years, its quirky enough for me i have done some research and found that because the chassis, engine and drive train are Mercedes spares are readily available, and in fact cheaper than the equivalent Nissan parts LOL! Wheels can also be changed, in fact the one I'm contemplating already has different wheels, and would likely run same or similar tyres to my Skyline.

Any feedback on these would be most welcome

Unfortunately its a diesel ,but the whole point of letting my Skyline go is economy, so the diesel would fit the bill believe it or not, the 3lt diesel is basically Mercedes and makes 218BHP and 374ftlb 7.4 to 60 and gets 34.9 mpg even propelling nearly two tons.

My 350GT is up for sale, and i have got it on a couple of other sites, including a swap/PX site, and i have been offered one of these, Am i loosing the plot completely or is it decidedly pimp/gangster? should a get it and start wearing black.

Well compared to some cars i have owned back in the 80s its dam heavy! more so than an Austin Healy 3000, and a Corvette, and that also includes some commercial vehicle's, so either my car has a faulty/particularly heavy clutch, or apparently i am getting feeble in my old age. However if you had bothered to read the whole thread you would have noticed that it was just as much about pedal feel as it was pressure

Just in case anyone is interested, i drove 40 odd miles yesterday, and the clutch is now an absolute pleasure to use, a bit lighter and so much more controllable, gear changes have gone from a rather numb feel, because of the very short engagement point, which made for a jerky change, with no real hope of a smooth down shift, to really controllable with feel, up shift are just as precise and easy, well worth all the effort.

Unless the dual mass flywheel free play is out of spec, or the friction surface has scoring you don't need to change it.

yes - did yours? Also did the pedal assembly come out of your RHD car much like the instructions on the american site? Thanks for confirming that, i wasn't sure, yes my 350GT has it too, which confirms to me that the overall master/slave cylinder combo is a bad mismatch, As for the US instruction, TBH i didn't read them, however i am certain that the RHD and LHD pedals are completely different, to remove its just a case of removing the tray under the steering column, and disconnect the associated plugs etc, and then its just a case of removing two nuts and one bolt, disconnecting the clutch switch (if you have j spec, you can also bypass this if you want while you can get to it) and master cylinder rod, and thats it, a little fiddly but not hard.

Sorry I worded that badly: I meant to say that rebuilding and greasing the pivot with lighten the pedal somewhat. Then your suggested mod will increase the engagement window (and lighten further). Whats your pedal like now? Is it possible to do really smooth shifts - mine are always a little jerky Ahh right i see now, yes basically it has made the pedal effort lighter, not lots but enough, but it has more impact on the feel when modulating the clutch like in slow moving traffic and maneuvering, and makes for smoother shifting, as i certainly found my shifts where a bit jerky, but have become used to it i guess, now it just feels like it should have done in the first place Doe's the Z have the assister spring on the clutch pedal?

This is the review of the device that he sells, but there is no RHD option, hence the DIY.http://g35driver.com/forums/interior/39 ... acket.html I fail to see how greasing the pivot will increase the engagement window?? if it does i spent three hours for nothing LOL!

Yes i agree its a possible, my pivot is in need of some lube as it squeaks sometimes, but its not seized, and i do wonder if the clutch pressure plate springs become stiffer with wear of the friction material, Does the 350Z have a clutch assister spring? the 350GT does and the US Infiniti, so it must be a known problem otherwise the spring wouldn't be needed.

I see, so the little bolt and nut is where the clutch rod is supposed to go? Probably helps if I could see it all in place. Dunno if I trust my self doing the mod, bit of a mong that way, lol But looking at the RJM Performance disassembly guide it doesn't look to daunting. I'd prolly worry that the clutch rod would fall off or retreat out of sight and I'd be sat there with no way of getting it back Yes thats it, unfortunately its impossible to take any pics of it all in situ, the rod is captive in the cylinder, so no chance of it falling off.

Dyslexia, and a dodgy spell checker

Thats correct the upper hole on the pedal leaver is the new one, and the little brass colored thing, is the original clevis, which is not brass, the small plate bolted to it is to realign the mater cylinder actuator rod.

First off this was done on my Skyline 350GT, so i don't know if the clutch peddle assembly is exactly the same, but i would suspect it is, Disclaimer: if you decide to go ahead with this, ITS AT YOUR OWN RISK! if you are not competent then don't bother. I have felt for a long time that my clutch is rather heavy and too quick, as in short engagement window, and lack of feel, which spoils the driving experience, now i have already removed the clutch pedal assist spring, which did nothing but make it even heavier. So with this in mind i went hunting on the US forums and came across a thread that a guy with some engineering experience came up with an idea of how to combat this, but basically altering the leverage/fulcrum point of the pedal, his opinion was as mine is, that the master/slave cylinder combo was mismatched, and didn't work well. Anyway his idea was to fabricate a rather over elaborate method of shifting the fulcrum point further up, and so reducing the effort needed along with increasing the engagement window, which make clutch control a lot easier. Now at first i thought i would be lazy and see if i could order one of his kits, but he only makes them for LHD cars, so i decided to bite the bullet and pull out my entire clutch pedal and see if i could make a much simpler modification and achieve the same result, and the answer was yes i could with nowhere near the effort that he had gone to. So its just a case of removing the pedal and disassembling, then marking and drilling a hole of the same diameter about 15-20mm higher up from the original clevis pin pivot hole, i actually just used the clevis and held the bottom edge of it flush with the old hole and using the original to make a mark, i then drilled this to the correct dia, so i could refit the plastic/nylon liner back in, thats it for that bit, you could probably put it all back together and live with the slight master cylinder rod misalignment, as it allows for a small amount. However i decided that i dint want to live with it, and so i just fabricated a small metal plate drilled with two clearance holes to fit the same size as the master cylinder rod, the holes in my case where drilled again at about 15mm centers, so i have enough clearance for the two adjusting nuts, the pics will explain it better,but you get the gist i hope. And the result! well i wouldn't go so far as to say that it halves the pedal effort, but i would say it now requires about 35% less effort to depress the pedal, and the other result is to give a much wider engagement/disengagement window, which results in about 60% more feel, so well worth the trouble IMO. Obviously you will need a little mechanical know how for this, but its not rocket science, but i guess you will have to make up your own mind as to whether you fell confident enough to tackle this.

I would be inclined to suggest tyre pressures before you pronounce judgment on the steering, as for TC , well its known to interfere even when switched off, you will need to put a switch in the orange power wire to the G sensor in the cetre console to truly turn off the TC, if you want to be able to drift any sense.

The make and what sort of BHP/torque its supposed to cope with, along with rough idea of mileage covered, would be useful to anyone contemplating a used clutch.

Well due to them recently dropping the price of these units by $100, coupled with the lack of overall interest, i really can't see me going to the trouble of re negotiating a sensible discount for these, so i won't be bothering with getting any more, sorry! This thread can be closed if needed mods.

Looking for help with the wifes old Seat Ibiza 1.9 diesel, 1998, lost the bloody key yesterday, just found that a replacement key and lock barrel, and key reprogram is going to cost in the region of £250 car is only worth about £500, so i want to find and bypass/eliminate the immobilizer, as i have a spare key without the transponder, just need some tips on where its situated, i will just stick in a cheap alarm or crook-lock, please PM me if you can help, as its not the sort of thing to post on a public forum.

I shifted my bite point to lower down in the peddle travel/movement, by adjusting the master cylinder rod, good enough for me, i also tried the removal of the assist spring, but although it does make the engagement feel more natural, it does make the clutch operation much harder, so i may well replace it, as it considerably harder than some uprated clutch/spring set ups i have had.

You have PM.

Sounds like you guys haven't read much, its basically a compact version of Nissan Data Scan software, without having to have the laptop in the car, it will display any of the engine parameters you select as a gauge with warning's and data log etc, so its every gauge you ever wanted, it can also read and reset error codes, play music and video, along with sat nav, so i wouldn't exactly call it not doing much. But it is not a boost gauge or wide-band lambda, I'm afraid, i actually bought an LM-2 because it was supposed to be able to display fault codes etc but it doesn't, generally speaking you can buy a dedicated gauge that may, or may not perform another function, some well, most not, but i must admit that the ECU Datascan manages most things pretty well. I guess it what your prepared to pay for your car toys, previously i have paid £450 for a Blitz boost controller that can also manage to run a couple of temp sensors, and £250 for a four thermocouple EGT sensor/gauge with logging, so i don't see it as being expensive for what it does, but i guess you cant please all of the people all of the time