DannyBoy

Welcome back Did you mean you have 6K to spend plus the trade in on your beemer, or 6K total? You may struggle to find a good UK car for 6 grand inside your mileage limit. You'll easily get an import for that, but even though the values have tumbled recently the UK cars are still north of 6K for anything that isn't CAT D or been to the moon and back. Best of luck. DB

I'm confused.The reason for it being a cat D is that the engine died?Insurers dont pay out for a dead engine and proclaim it a cat D. There must have been an accident at some stage. Be careful. It does depend why it died; if the previous owner drove it through a flooded road and hydro-locked it then insurance may well pay out on that but i don't know what CAT they would declare it as. I do agree it's very unlikely though, i've never seen or heard of a CAT D due to engine damage so the 'be careful' definitely still stands. DB

You can pull the fuse to deactivate the airbag, but this will cause the airbag warning light to come on, and could potentially cause interesting questions from insurance companies if you were to have an accident and the airbag didn't deploy. The reason you can'y deactivate the airbag is because Nissan didn't design the passenger seat to take a child seat. Generally I'm not sure it's such a good idea to put a child seat in a car when the owner's manual tells you explicitly not to, but hey, it's your child. DB

Nope, it has the correct bonnet for the MY06 Facelift Pretty sure 2006 rev-ups had all the other facelift features, but still the grooved bonnet rather than the power-bulge. I think the bonnet goes with the engine rather than the MY as such. DB The MY and different engines go hand in hand. The MY06, or Revup as it's also know has the same grooved bonnet as the MY03 DE engined car, which is what the car in question has so it has the correct bonnet, ie it doesn't have the bulge Yes, that's what I was saying, but have another look because I'm pretty sure that's the HR bonnet. Not easy to see from the photo angle but it doesn't look like it has grooves and seems to bulge in about the right place. DB

Nope, it has the correct bonnet for the MY06 Facelift Pretty sure 2006 rev-ups had all the other facelift features, but still the grooved bonnet rather than the power-bulge. I think the bonnet goes with the engine rather than the MY as such. DB

In a strange coincidence, the folks just got one of these last week (slightly lower miles but same engine and everything) to replace an ancient dead Saab. In short, without even driving it I now want one as a daily so the Zed can become a garage queen In true Alfa style it has already broken though; I spent half of saturday with all the doors apart trying to get the windows to start working again, but they did so it's all fine DB

Sounds normal to me mate. Oil is thicker when cold so it resists being pumped around more, hence the higher pressure. Added to that is the fact that the car idles really high (almost 1300rpm if you have the aircon on) at cold start, which will increase the oil pressure further over an 800rpm warm idle. DB

Brilliant Actually brought tears to my eyes. DB

Thing is I'm not sure banning them would really help. There's already a cooling-off period which means you can't have an argument with someone and then straight away go buy a gun to teach them a lesson, so stuff like this has to be pre-meditated. If someone wanted to do something like this so badly, there are already enough guns in circulation in the US to fuel a healthy black market for decades. They've dug themselves into a hole and I really can't see how then can get out of it at this point. The wierd thing is that some countries with even more liberal gun laws (like Finland and lots of other scandinavian countries for example) have rock bottom gun crime figures, there just seems to be something about the US culture that provokes these kinds of horrific events. Very sad. DB

Bumf DB Hence why I said I hit 156mph and was still gaining. The 156 was gps-based. Apologies, didn't read properly DB

UpRev is a true re-map rather than a 'chip' tune. Basically it re-writes the base map that the stock ECU has rather than buggering about with the input/output signals like most piggybacks do, so there is no visual evidence of an UpRev remap. (waits for Mark to shoot me down in flames) DB

Bear in mind that speedos get pretty inaccurate at those speeds, and I'd be surprised if a Zed could get to 175 anyway. Try it with a GPS and see what happens. Also as already said; pay attention to the throttle response in 1st and 2nd, does it feel spongy or elastic? if yes then you're probably not upreved. DB

New? Used? Are you after the HKS or the Vortech? (as they are pretty different) A bit more info might help people to help you DB

I once got 36mpg believe it or not. All my cards got frozen due to a false alarm fraud stop thingy (cheers for that Co-operative Bank), so I had to get from Staines to Cambridge on an indicated 1/8th of a tank. We all know the fuel gauge isn't the most accurate, so I figured I ought to give myself a fighting chance and hypermile it. It was simultaneously incredibly boring and incredibly stressful and I would never drive like that again unless forced to, but it can be done. DB

If the 07 car had the HR engine, the box will not fit on a DE engined car. It needs to be from a car with the DE rev-up engine to be sure it's a CD009, but yes, if it is a CD009 it's straight plug and play with any DE engined car. DB

1) I cost my cornflakes every morning with lead filings and 99Ron fuel. 2) I cut the grass by pouring petrol over it and setting fire! 3) I chew on wild rabbits as a snack. 4) I blow my tyres up with my mouth. 5) I shave with a bowie knife. 6) I changed my oil and used my teeth to get the sup plug off! 7) I too changed my oil and drank the waste! 8) I eat my dinner with a pitch fork and machete. 9) My cat has been trained to be the local drug dealer 10) I drive a pick up truck. The manliest vehicle in the known universe 11) I am ians cats best customer 12) When servicing my car I don't use ramps, I hold my car up with my knees 13) I wear barbed wire instead of socks 14) I brush my teeth with a wire brush 15) I drink sand 16) I can do 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. That's twice as fast as my car. 17) I used hair straighteners to smash my teeth out when I got bored cleaning them. 18) when I cook tea I often cut my own finger off as a snack. 19) I ate Ian's cat because it gives short measures 20) I use sandpaper condoms. 21) I do my own electrical work - stripping wires with my teeth - and leave the supply on whilst doing it. 22) When I do push-ups my body stays still and the earth moves up and down

Seriously, I looked into a rebuild in great detail and it just isn't worth it. I got a very reasonable quote for £500 to replace the synchros including removal and refitting of the box. However once i'd told the guy what the issue was and he did a bit of research, he came back saying that it would probably only be a temporary fix, and that the new synchros would just go the same way as the old. This fitted with my own research so I believed him. It's unfortunately just the nature of the design that there is nothing you can do to strengthen the synchros; no aftermarket upgrades are available because the materials are as good as they can be already, there just aren't enough cones on the synchros to deal with the power effectively, and there's nothing you can do about that. Fitting the synchros from a CD009 is not possible, literally the only thing you can do is replace with stock synchros and you'll be back to effectively a brand new box with the same design flaw. Re: that box for sale, I don't want to do someone out of a sale but I couldn't in good conscience fail to mention that I got mine a LOT cheaper inc delivery with not many more miles on it. DB

Where did you find the box? i remember your thread ages ago, Im starting to get irritated by my second gear, some mornings it won't engage at all, ive replaced the oil and added molyslip, it improved generally, but 2nd is still a pig Got it from quite a large general breakers yard (really can't remember who it was) who didn't know what they had. Took me pretty much three days of being on the phone to what felt like every breaker in the UK (and not doing much work) to track down a decent one for a sensible price. I'd recommend avoiding specialist jap car breakers as their prices for CD009s are a lot higher because they know they're rare and 'the one to have'. Also some very expensive and sketchy-looking ones on Ebay that I avoided. Search for a 2006 car rather than a CD009 gearbox and you'll get much better results, but make sure you get a photo of the CD009 sticker on the bell housing before you buy anything. DB

ooooo, 750bhp through a sequential box I think you should buy it so we can all see if it's any good DB

Remember he is running double the power and torque of you or I. Aware of that; plenty of people running silly power (800whp-ish) on stock transmission. The gearbox itself sems to be built like a brick ****house, it's just the synchros that are a bit pitiful. The only 'off the shelf' replacement gearbox that I know of is the Quaife sequential gearbox for about £8k, which is actually weaker than the stock one and only rated up to 400bhp. Maybe you could get a specialist shop to do some custom machining etc. but you're into silly money then and a CD009 will do the job fine. DB

Ahhh right, didn't know Imports had different gauges. That sounds like it's probably reading in Bar rather than PSI; 120 PSI and 8 Bar would be roughly the same from memory. DB

I don't mean to be patronising, but are you sure you're reading the oil pressure right? I only ask because Nissan's minimum safe oil pressure at full temperature at idle is 14PSI, and you're saying you have 5PSI on a cold start up, which would be crazily low. Mine is at about 60PSI at idle on a cold start up and 20PSI at idle when fully warm, and I have light oil in mine as well. DB

If it's FUBARed synchros that are the issue, then a rebuild is likely only to give you a short grace period before it just happens again. It's the design of the synchros that is poor rather than the materials, so you can't just drop in 'uprated' synchros or anything as simple as that; you'd just be replacing the old ones with new equally badly designed ones. For not much more than a rebuild you could just buy a used CD009 transmission, which was the best one made for the DE cars and has considerably stronger synchros than the earlier boxes. I'm not just flapping my chops either, I actually have swapped my box for a CD009 after weighing up the options, and it is a noticable improvement over the old box. You can still tell it's a 350z (noisey and 'manly') but it doesn't crunch into gear at all, even when cold. DB

Really???? a 318i is the best looking car you have ever seen?? Lol, honestly all the new BMW look exactly the same, the 318i is exactly the same as the 335i apart from twin exhaust. In m sport plus it looks ( ok maybee got a bit carried away, but it is the best looking run of the mill coupe then ). I think you got very carried away mate, lol. The problem with mainstream cars is that the more you see them the less good-looking they become. Take the Insignia as an example; it's actually a pretty handsome car, but that wore off after I saw the 3,647,982nd one. Even the XF is starting to suffer the same fate. The beemer could look as spectacular as you like, but pretty soon it'll become 'just another 3-series' because there will be sooooo many of them around. DB

Decent exhaust, cam and tune and you'll be over 400bhp on an LS2. Also don't underestimate how much fun torque is; just means you'll get the power where you actually use the engine most of the time. DB