DannyBoy

I am a serial mod-browser, and i've never seen that before, and I can't really work out what it's for... If it's noise you're after, then a regular CAI kit (which i assume you already have) is the ticket, and for power the '06 airbox and a decent filter can't be beaten, so where does this come in? If you want less power (an assumption based on the apparently smaller filter) and less noise? I'd hold out for an '06 airbox if i were you. it took me months but i managed to get my grubby mitts on one eventually. DB

Or if you're lucky enough to have family over there, get them to buy them and ship them as a present with no declared value. Alternatively, I used to order a lot of stuff from HK, and the guys there were more than happy to just plain lie about how much stuff was worth on the invoice to avoid you paying tax. But this was stuff that Mr HMRC wouldn't have a clue about the value of, not sure you'd convince them you'd paid £50 for some alloys. DB

Am I the only one who finds the most fuel efficient speed around 80 - 85? Dropping to 70 seems to reduce fuel economy by 2mpg. Designed as a grand tourer, I thought it would have been optimised for higher speeds. *obviously, tested on a private road * I do Cambridge-London and back pretty much every weekend, and between 60 and 65 sees the least fuel used, i go by what the fuel tank says, not what the DTE and MPG readouts say, as they're suspicious at best, lol. The other week i managed to convince the DTE that London to Cambridge was about 25 miles DB

Saying recon engines are not worth it because the BBC says all breakers are rip-off artists is a bit of a sweeping statement. There are plenty of honest breakers who'll sell the original engine as it came out of the car, and many specialists (some of them on here) who'll do reconditioned parts for pretty reasonable prices. The reason Nissan charge so much for their parts is because they can, simple as. you can find genuine Nissan parts brand new for half what the stealers will charge without much trouble (again, from traders on here) so using Nissan list price as a guide is always going to make anything else look suspiciously cheap. DB

Unless the VQ35 is a very unusual engine, it'll use less fuel (some engines even use none at all) under engine braking than it will at idle in neutral, so if someone is really wanting to hypermile then 1. why did they buy a zed, and 2. they're slightly better off engine braking rather than coasting. You're dead right about the cruising speed, the difference in MPG between 65 and 80 is huge, and it's much quieter and more relaxing too DB

The Zed doesn't have the smoothest gearbox in the world mainly due to weak synchros, especially on the earlier boxes. I find that with a bit of mechanical sympathy (i.e. double clutching) to take some strain off the synchros, it's much easier to work with, and to be honest double clutching on down shifts is just good practice anyway. With a big heavy V6 with a lot of inertia, you're asking a lot more of the system to get the engine up to speed on a downshift so double clutching and a bit of heel-toe really help out. DB

Well the bit about petrol expanding and contracting is a bit of an overreaction. it's true that it does it, and quite a lot under large temperature changes, but thefuel is stored in HUGE underground reservoirs that whilst not temperature compensated are still very resistant to temperature change due to being a large body of liquid insulated by lots of ground. The kind of temperature differences that get thrown around in these arguments (the kind that would make a real difference to how much fuel you were getting) just don't happen, so although the theory is sound, it just doesn't translate into the real world. Just to back myself up here, this is coming from an aviation background where you want to be VERY sure how much fuel you actually have in the aircraft. If pilots and ground crews consider the difference to be negligible and safe to ignore, then i think differences in cars with much smaller tanks are going to be close to zero. DB

Lots of hard work and at the end you feel like someone else could have done a better job? actually LOL'd at that, not good as i'm supposed to be working I find cleaning the outside is just tiring mainly (spent about 6 hours out there yesterday), but doing a good interior detail is properly relaxing, maybe because it involves lots of sitting down. DB

The results of today's pre-winter 'wax the crap out of it' session. My efforts look practically shoddy next to some of you guys but i'm still a noob at this so hey ho And now a lesser car reflected in the Zed's awesomeness:

Yep, mine does it at anything over 80, and it's because the driver's window doesn't stop quite as high as the passenger window. it's done it ever since i replaced the window motor, so i'd imagine it was bacause i didn't do the reset quite right or something. when i can be arsed to have the door apart again i'll see if another reset fixes it. DB

You might be surprised; my ex's dad (pretty stupidly) left his 5 series with about 50 miles on the clock parked in cardiff and came back to a metal-deep scratch along the entire length of the car. He couldn't be arsed but I reported it and it turns out someone in the house opposite had seen two people acting suspiciously around the car. About three hours later the police phoned and said they'd arrested two people for the vandalism who agreed to roll over and pay up without it going to court. Result. DB

Got to be white for a wedding surely? and I reckon it would look nicer. Oh and Congrats DB

Or you could pay a little more to avoid commiting insurance fraud I think he just meant to get the quote as a new customer you'd have to change your DOB on the comparison site to get 'clean' quotes and then phone the insurer directly. Or at least i hope that's what was meant because insurers need far less reason than that to void a policy. DB

Believe me i know your pain well, during the first week of having the car and parking it on the road outside my house it got keyed three times on three seperate days I can't help feeling i shouldn't have to park it in a private garage round the corner to stop it getting vandalised. Megs ultimate compound with a DA polisher has made them less visible, especially when waxed (sorry to the detailing gurus, i know there's no reason wax should help, but it does seem to) but the ones that go down to the primer will never disappear because they expose a different colour. I'm trying to justify getting mine fully resprayed as it now has a bad scratch or chip on every panel. DB

Surely if it was a JDM import it wouldn't have cruise control (which it looks like it has), or am I wrong in thinking none of them had it? DB

Way to sh*t on my parade!!! Good thing they aren't troubleshooting then; just a normal service. Here's hoping they don't **** anything up. Yea, sorry about that. TBH there's not much to screw up with a service, i'd just take any advisories they give you with a pinch of salt and ask around on here before you cough up. DB

On WLMG Eastcote; almost bought a car from them and it had a few niggles which i detailed and asked if they would sort out, and the technician i spoke to hadn't got a clue what he was talking about when it came to Zed stuff so i walked away. I then took my car to them (stupidly) to sort out the common window fault and after taking it apart twice and replacing a load of irrelevant stuff for me, they told me i needed a whole new mechanism and that would be £600 on top of the couple of hundred I already owed them. i looked up the problem on here, got the part off alex for half the price and fixed it myself in an hour. they also failed to spot on their free 'health check' that my NSF brake disc is warped and worn (which i already knew), and it's really obvious (even to me) without even getting the car in the air. So needless to say i'm not going anywhere near them again, and i can't recommend you do either. DB

Did Alex not say he had one in your other thread? DB

I casually looked at this the other way around (DE to HR) a while ago, and the message I got was that it would be way more hassle than it's worth. The kind of numbers that were being thrown around for the swap were almost FI money, apparently it isn't a 'plug and play' swap at all. i can't see why it would be easier in reverse. Someone with first hand knowledge feel free to correct me. DB

I know exactly what you mean about the embarassment of a noisy gearbox, mine doesn't sound quite as bad as yours, but i can make a perfectly good 1st to 2nd shift and it sounds like i didn't bother using the clutch, not good when you're round town. I have to double clutch mine for low rev 1st to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd shifts, but it's amazing how much difference that makes, no noise at all. PIA though DB

Driving around with the windows down all day, it's the small things in life DB

Do you know you're missing a bit of your airbox? there should be a bit that connects the hole in the airbox to the square intake hole in the big black plastic bit at the front of the engine bay (no idea what that's called). Where did that escape to i wonder? DB

I think it'd be awesome. I'm having a bit of a dilema though - I'd like to do a V8 conversion on a personal level, but not sure if it'd benefit the business. I'd probably be better off promoting super charger kits and conversions or vq engine rebuilds. The other way to think about it is that you'd turn yourselves into the go-to-guys for 350z V8 swaps. Its incredibly rare in this country, but in the US there are a LOT of LS and even some VK powered zeds. I can't help thinking that this is because your options of garages with proven V8 swap experience over here are almost non-existant, and it would push people more down this route i think if there was an obvious Place to go. You could also flog fitting kits etc. so people wouldn't have to spend double getting it shipped from across the pond. Oh, and you should also do it simply because it would be awesome . DB

Nice job on the headlight surrounds/insides Isn't actually that noticable, which I think is good. Makes the car look better but you don't look at it and straight away think 'that guy spray painted his headlights'. DB

Wow, that's a pretty impressive figure for those mods, is it tuned right to the edge or something? swap the japspeed for a Milltek and that's my shopping list, but i'll be amazed if it hits 300bhp. Very happy, but amazed. DB