DannyBoy

Awesome info, yea they measure dB(A) half a metre from the exhaust tips, I would hope the new exhaust would be just a little quieter than a pneumatic drill DB

Thanks for the responses guys, @ Sam Mcgoo, if your supercharged Zwith true dual and decats came in at 97, i would hope that my NA z with this true dual and HFCs rather than decats would come in 98 or under. Worst case scenario i'll have to stick to bedford autodrome with their 102db limit. DB

I'm seriously considering going for one of the AAM 2.5 inch True Dual exhausts with a set of their high flow cats as well, but as I really would like to track the car once i get it tuned and therefore need to meet the 98db noise limit. Z1 say that the 2.5 inch is pretty tame 'for a true dual', but i have A) never heard a true dual in the flesh so for all i know a tame true dual could still be stupidly loud and don't know how loud 98db is in the real world so i don't know what i'm up against. So basically, i was wondering if anyone who's been to a track day and has an idea of how loud you can get away with and suggest whether i could get away with a reasonably loud exhaust or whether i should forget the whole AAM thing and go for a Milltek and Berks instead. Thanks DB

Haha, it had me disappointed at first as well. Yes it's low down, but according to that list it's still as fast as an M3 (one place above it) and only a second slower than a 911 (assuming 996) turbo. That's how you know the list isn't quite right.. especially when an R32 Golf went faster than all of those three!? A 996 turbo has over a hundred more horses and well over a hundred more ft-lbs of torque, as well as phenomenal straight-line grip, and its only capable of going 1 second faster than an MY03 zed on a circuit that rewards straight line acceleration/speed? yea ok... DB

This man speaks the truth, I actually cycled into Cambridge to work every day for about a year in 2009, and the cyclists here are so bad they actually give other cyclists abuse for doing unthinkable things like blocking the cycle lanes at junctions just because there's this pesky red glowing thing on a pole in front of it. They actually believe (probably because a large proportion of them are foreign students who have never driven in the UK) that no rules apply to them, one Chinese girl looked genuinely puzzled when i explained to her that i was stopped at a crossroads because the light was red and i was legally obliged to. DB

Funny this should come up really, seeing as i have literally just grounded the front bumper on a speed bump not 2 hours ago, and my car is totally stock as far as suspension and bodykits are concerned. The offending speed bump was one of those square ones that sit in the middle of the lane that you're supposed to go one wheel either side of. DO NOT DO THIS. I went over the rest with the right wheels going over the top and that was fine, but that's not going to bring my bumper back DB

PM'd DB

I'd recommend either sanding and re-spraying them, (It's really not that hard), vinyl coating them (again really not that hard), or wait a few weeks by which time I should be set up to do custom carbon fibre skinned interior trim pieces. I would say any of those are better options than the stick on aluminium stuff which IMHO really don't look like they should be on the car. DB

EXACTLY like a Veyron!!!

Some people must buy these things for people to sell them, but who are these people and why aren't they getting the help they need? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Turbo-Superch ... 256672631a DB

Ah! with you now Danny. You will have to decide what build route you are proposing to go before you will know what size and CR of pistons that you will require. There are cheaper and better pistons with rings on the market than Cosworth However these could be a bargain if they fit in with your proposed build, but remember rings are not cheap if they are not included with this package. Alex. On closer inspection, they are the 11.0:1 ones anyway, and I'd really be after the 8.8:1 for my (highly theoretical) FI build, probably should have looked at that first DB

Sorry Alex, when i said 'I am planning on building an engine' I actually meant 'I am planning on paying someone to build me an engine', lol, and probably not for a while yet either, but thought if they were cheap enough it would be worth getting them now and keeping them in the box for 8 months or so. I'd happily bolt a vortech onto the VQ, but have next to no specific knowledge of the real guts of these engines, so not even going to consider doing any bottom end work myself. DB

Is that set supposed to come with piston rings? I know you can get them seperately. This is very tempting as I am planning on building an engine in the medium to long term, but don't think i really know enough about what is involved in swapping pistons to commit to this at the moment. for example would you need to rebore the block for these? DB

Damn, that's a shocker. Thoughts with his family and the rest of the team; goes to show how dangerous flying is, even without anyone shooting at you. On the cause; Hawks have really good glide ratios for a jet, so a flameout would leave enough time to eject. I'd bet on a hydraulics failure leading to loss of control, pretty much nothing the pilot could have done about that, no matter how good he was, and that really sucks. R.I.P Flt Lt Egging

Wow, pretty eye opening that all the traction control and stability control gubbins just totally bailed on you in exactly the kind of situation its there to prevent. good stuff getting her back in a straight line and glad you're alright! DB

Currently developing a carbon fibre skinning technique for the interior trim, so spent a lot of time on this recently. 120 grit wet and dry followed by 240 grit will get rid of the rubber and give you a nice rough but not scratched surface for the paint, exact colour match could be tricky, but go to halfords and look at what they've got, few coats of primer, two or three coats of colour and some satin or matte clearcoat should do the trick. Much cheaper than a replacement part and will look brand spanking and probably last longer than the original (budget a good few hours to do the work though). If you did want new bits, R35LEE is the guy. DB

I recently stripped out my boot to fit some sound deadening, and i can tell you that taking the strut covers off is a lot easier once you've removed the plastic trim around the top edges of the boot (need to remove the panel at the back of the boot as well to get these off) and the trim around the wheel arches. It's all pretty easy to get off, i just used a screwdriver with some electrical tape wrapped around it to find the clips and pop them off. Definitely better to do these things in the right order; seems to me that trying to wrestle trim out from behind other pieces is asking for broken clips, which nissan just love to charge you for. DB Ps. if you haven't had the car long have a rummage in the spare wheel compartment for loose stuff that could be making the noise, i discovered that a rattle that was driving me nuts was actually a pen rolling around under the amp

I was just speaking generally really rather than commenting on the forum itself, i've not been on this forum long, so not really familiar with the atmosphere on here. But, having worked in retail myself i know only too well people tend to mention only the bad, so i always try to mention it when people to a better than average job. DB

After a recent thread which kinda slammed Lee a bit (not here to dispute whether that was justified or not) I thought it would be worth posting that my recent experience (parts arrived today) could not really have been better, as people only tend to shout about negative stuff. Lee had all the parts i was after, asked FAR less than the breakers were asking, and the stuff arrived the day after payment. He kept me updated by text the whole way through, so overall pretty impressed. Just thought I'd post to try and put across another side to the story. DB

My car is currently in bits in the garage being wrapped in real carbon fibre, which could be going better. I have to say i initially tried bending the dial covers out of the way too but then got annoyed and snapped them off, they go back on really easily, i don't even see the need to glue them back on as they each have two screws that seem to hold them nice and flush anyway. on a totally unrelated note, anyone got a spare 350z interior for sale.....

I've got a whole load of stuff from these guys www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk sitting in my garage waiting to go in the car, give them a ring though because they don't have all their stuff on the website. They do an aluminium backed damping material (dynamat substitute) and various grades of acoustic membrane if you want to get rid of road noise too. MUCH cheaper than the branded car audio products, dead easy to order in bulk, and nice flexible delivery. It'll all be going in next week sometime so i should be able to give some info on whether or not this stuff is just cheap because it's sh!te.

I'm fairly new to the Z, but my general knowledge of A/C tells me that unless the A/C is actually on, then the air coming in can only be the temperature of the outside air (or warmer) so it's not surprising that the car is warm without the A/C on at this time of year. with A/C on, if you want it colder than the 18deg the auto mode gives you, whack the temperature right down and the fan right up, it'll refrigerate you. if not, could be time for a re-gas. DB

I remember reading a really in-depth thread on an american forum which was debating something similar, and apparently the idea of low revs putting massive strain on the engine is actually not true. The argument goes that the slightly increased cylinder pressures that are caused by flooring it at low revs are far less damaging than the inertial forces on an engine at very high revs. I'll admit, the noise it makes when you floor it in 6th at 30 makes you cringe, but apparently it does less damage than when it's making a fantastic noise at 6500rpm... who'da thought.

Indeed, personally i think they feel fast enough (don't actually own one yet but have driven many), but then the next fastest thing i've ever driven is a 2.0ltr A3, so maybe when your weekend car is a Gallardo Spyder 'only' 276 horses feels a bit sluggish... From what he's said about some cars i've driven/been in, Clarkson decides whether he's going to like a car before he ever drives it i reckon, then finds reasons to make it good/bad.

Lets be honest, top gear doesn't have a great track record for factual accuracy when it comes to the Z, the film in which clarkson slags off a pre-production 350z whilst spewing out wildly innacurate information springs to mind...