coldel

The zed was certainly not the most 'fun' car I have have owned - but conversely its not the most boring which is what the thread is asking. I wonder what other cars P4RKS has owned that makes the 350z the most boring, I can only assume his lifetime ownership reads something like Ferrari 458, Lotus Exige etc.

Good purchase pal - 911s are not really my thing (more common than a Focus around my way ) but sure it will bring many a smile per mile!

Buy what you can afford - if you are planning on buying some bling for the car, drop that for a few months and put the money on the tyres. MPSS seems to be the king of tyres as I am sure you have seen from the responses but that is reflected in the price. Also consider your driving style, I generally dont drive fast and like to just take it easy, I have never owned MPSS, I have never had to crawl out of a ditch either. Its the driver that finds the ditch rather than the tyres in most instances I would say. Generally I would avoid any budget tyres like has been highlighted, if you are a guy who likes to pootle about mid range Falkens or the like are fine (had them on my zed for 18 months and I survived) but there are some good deals out there at the moment on the various sites so might be worth buying something on deal to get better performing tyres for the budget you have in mind. A useful site http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/ although bear in mind half the reviews are people driving people carriers etc.

Aye fair enough, although not many people clay either. I was referring to your everyday detailer who will not be machine polishing and be hand polishing with probably a limited time allowance, and probably not spending more than 10 minutes on each panel. If you leave old wax on, you are just layering more polish and wax on top of it. The simple and 100% surefire way to ensure you are not doing this is to simply use a detox shampoo not the normal one when you prep the car. There is a really good video on detailing world on this (which conveniently I cant find right now!) showing a guy doing half the car with a normal shampoo start then hand polishing/waxing vs the detox shampoo and the difference is visible to the naked eye. Just seems like a no brainer really.

The machine polishing is the way to go for a really great finish, be aware though just picking up a machine and laying it on the car can damage the paint (as you mentioned I think) a few people on here have marred the paint work/removed lacquer etc. I got Wasso to do mine a few years ago and the black zed can really come out amazing: My tuppence worth in terms of your everyday guy regime: Every 6-8 weeks I use a Detox Shampoo to get rid of any patches of wax that might still be on my car, then if required apply the claying/tar removal, then I use a decent polish (have tried various things from SRP to Poorboys), then coat in a hard wax. The hard wax I am using at the moment is Victorias Concours Wax and have to say its pretty outstanding for the price (£35 for 150g) surpassing the Dodo Supernatural I was using before. I just then wash the car weekly (or sometimes more often!) to keep it as free of contaminants as possible. I think a fair amount of people forget to use the detox shampoo, it strips all the old wax off whereas a normal shampoo wont and it will leave you with a patchy surface (which is invisible to the naked eye). Sign up to detailingworld forum as well, loads of good hints and tips on there.

My zed had C5UPE on it I quite liked it actually.

This image is on the 350z.com site selling goodridge hoses for the 350z DE if it helps

Apparently your nose and ears never stop growing in size throughout your entire life...

Thanks mate, I am loving the car, it is so capable in any situation be it cruising a motorway or attacking B roads. Yes was thinking about the thermostat - it had a new one put on before I bought it (guy spent a small fortune on replacing just about everything OEM) but its a standard one I think. I havent had any problems with temp so far with water temp sitting quite nicely midway, even after some spirited driving yesterday down to the south coast in 25 degrees of sunshine it never waivered. I have removed all the insulation also so you can see (somewhat scary!) the heat escaping through the vent in the middle of the bonnet which must really help. Almost snapped up some used Rota GTR wheels yesterday, the Team Dynamics wheels are about the only thing I am not 100% sold on on the car at the moment...

Good work fella!

I didn't manage to pull any of da fit birds 'init yesterday but I did manage to give the car a good 3 hours of cleaning heaven. G3 detox shampoo (Halfords special but surprisingly good!), followed by some Megs Ultimate Pre-wax Glaze then some Victorias Concours Wax. The Megs stuff was hard going and took quite a bit of buffing, prefer the Poorboys stuff actually, the Vics wax was outstanding though! Read some reviews on it when searching for good waxes for red cars and took a bit of a punt on it as I usually use Dodo Supernatural but this really is amazing stuff - easy on easy off and actually got to see how well it beaded as it rained last night and could check on it this morning.

Ha! They would be 18 years old at least! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I bought an Alpine SWE 815 - 8 inch unit, have to say it absolutely kicks! Great investment.

Few more bits done today: 1. Fixed the amp/sub - turned out it was just a fuse (cheers Veilside!) and I also tidied away all the wires etc 2. Got the head unit sorted so that it wasn't on a permanent live 3. Bought some red metal edging to go on the metal panel at the front of the engine bay - good spot by South Coast Workshop that these plates tend to work a line into the rads which are plastic topped 4. Took off the TRD badge on the front - actually made me realise how much of a respray the front grille needs! Pics:

Not just the zed boys - any sports car is fair game for a bit of Nova-dose racing. R33 was the worst, every Ford/Vauxhall on the road want to go a bit Fast and Furious on my ass.

Never understood why Peanuts and Butter put together would appeal to people...weirdos. Garlic, Bread

I suggested some time back (just before buying the R33) about getting one of these as a fun car and I think it was Ricey who raced onto the thread and said I would be an effin jeffin chav if I got one

Had something similar on the GT4 forum, a guy put up a post offering to sell an alu undertray, I already had a wanted ad up and another member immediately posted onto the sale thread (which had no price) that I was looking - I PM'd the guy, he offered a price, I accepted it and asked for Paypal details at around 8pm then nothing, next morning I look back on the sale thread and around the same time I asked for paypal details some other member (who had seen I had posted up a wanted ad, had posted a 'PMd you response' so blatently wasn't in there first) had offered £20 more than what the seller offered to me at. Basically the seller offered it then changed his mind when he got a better offer. Actually glad it fell through as I am going to get an OEM undertray now but blatent gazumping happens on there - glad there is much better forum etiquette on here.

I switched to specialists a few years back after taking the somewhat more lazy option of the online quoters up to that point - never looked back - better cover and better prices, its a no brainer.

As above, best could be anything. Stick with your standard box and a decent drop in panel filter for performance (with an uprev) - otherwise I had a Stillen on mine which comes with its own housing which looks great in the engine bay and affords some level of heat protection.

Good luck with the sale mate, stunning car and that gauge heaven photo a fair few hundred quids worth of Defi's there alone. Hope it all goes through ok and helps towards the house, sold my Zed under similar circumstances but doesn't take long to get back into sports car ownership!

Ah ok, but I would assume that its not linear as heat increases are not linear as power increases? So therefore a single % figure cannot work? So assume 10% loss 200bhp would mean 20bph loss vs 400bhp meaning 40bhp loss, but that assumes that its twice as hot, which I wouldnt have thought is true?

Have you actually heard a C63 on full chat? If youre telling me this is a boring monotonous sound then you need your hearing checked: The first one is enough but thats 7 minutes if anyone fancies some background music Everything like this is subjective of course, everyone has an opinion - but have to say Steve its hard to say that a C63 is monotone or boring I really would like to know what you consider a better sound? I for instance think a 911 sounds like a wet fart but others think it sounds amazing.

I was going to say, you generally get what you pay for in this world and the 'stang at that price new seems a bit too cheap. I did drive a new M5 just out of interest last year and it was incredible - always struck me of the more discerning owner an M5 than an M3

Is the evo 4wd hence the power loss at 70-80? Reason I ask is why does the OP assume its a % loss? Why would you lose more power in bhp terms if you had a more powerful engine? I am no expert by any means but my limited understanding would be that you lose x amount of BHP but that would be a single figure?