docwra

I can beat it - Ive been considering a new car recently and wanted to test drive a Focus RS. First garage flatly refused a test drive "unless you buy it first" and the second one took 5 minutes of arguing before they'd let me drive it. Apparently its quite normal to spend 30 grand on a car youve never driven. This is considering I was booking in advance, turned up in a very tidy Z33, and had test driven a £58K Lexus and a £71K Porsche the day before. Way to make a sale guys.

Just took mine in for service - the aircon wasnt regassed like Id paid for, the car wasnt cleaned like they actually made a point of asking and they charged me for filling the washer bottle that I dont have. FNSH probably finishes here

I happened to have a tour of the Ferrari factory a few weeks back, including the production line for the 458 (they m,ake the Cali on the same line, V12's are upstairs). It is absolutely achingly beautiful, and seeing them being driven off to Fiorano to be tested I can confirm it makes an amazing noise too. The McLaren is going to have to be something special to come near to the soul stirring effect the 458 has, for sure. All of the cars they are making for at least the next 3 months are sold, and I was surprised to see about 3 in 10 were RHD as well. I also asked if they had any test driver jobs going but sadly they are all taken

So what widths and offsets are you looking at then??

Aye, its the old function/form argument. I keep getting told my car nmeeds to be lower to the ground by extreme modification types, but as it stands it wont go over speedbumps without much teeth clenching. Like that So I have the choice of being a hero to a load of keyboard warriors who probably drive Fiesta diesels, or actually being able to drive the car. Tricky one that.

On a standard, unmolested arch I dont think you could go much past 10J ET0. With rolling and flaring you might get another 15mm, so 10J ET -15 or 12 ET10, but Ive not seen it done Id hasten to add. Thats a 19x11 ET4 but I know theres some archwork done there. Thats 18x10.5 ET-8 and looks like its just been lipped, not flared. www.rimtuck.com is your friend BTW, Im running 10 ET -44 but thats with a 65mm arch extension ...........

After reading the threads. I think i will stick to stock setup. However i do admit that the car has a better stance with spacers on. The difference is not as great as the OP is making out IMO. He works in this area and therefore has a better 'feel' for this kind of thing. He notices every slight difference in this area, I probably wouldn't notice if someone pinched a wheel and replaced it with my spacesaver I would get them, if you notice a difference and you don't like it you will easily sell them on without losing much Ive got to disagree with you there SMDave (cracking handle BTW) Ive driven Skylines and S12/13/14/15 200SX's with and without spacers (Im running spacers on both of my S13's) and the difference really isnt noticable, but with my Z33 it really took the edge off a great handling car for me. I didnt ever look into it enough to find out why though, but it does seem the Z suffers a lot more. I think you are right on the advice though - if you fancy them, try them and if you dont like just sell them on

You wont need to do anything to the arches, trust me. I was running a 10J ET15 on a standard arch and using my magic offset calculator I can see you will be 3mm further in than I was and have 23mm more inner clearance. It looked like this BTW: please excuse weird angle. I dont want to be funny here, but Im a little concerned youve got all of the advice above regarding arch mods without anyone even bothering to check the widths ........ Id call that "essential" myself As regards a 235 on the back of a 350, once again when it comes to this site I appear to be the single most outspoken person in the world on the subject of tyres, but Ive been happily running 235/18's on the back of my 400hp turbocharged driftcar with rock solid suspension, a paddle clutch and a 2 way diff. Amazingly Im not dead yet. IMO a 235 Bridgestone RE050 will **** all over a 255 Nankang NS2, in all conditions, for all driving styles, all of the time, but no doubt someone who has probably only ever used one make of tyres on their Z33 will be along to tell me different shortly. Flame away

Does it not depend on the wheel width and the tyre thats being used? I reckon you could get a 10J ET5 on the back running a 235 with the arch lipped, if not as standard. And upon checking the ad, those are staggered 8's and 9s', so youd have no issue making them fit. £850 isnt too bad for those wheels either IMHO

You could strip it back to standard, make a profit on the mods, and then sell it onto WBAC for £5975. Everyones a winner

/cracked record Ive lost count of the number of times Ive said this now. Ive sold three cars to WBAC and each time the price has been better than I was offered on trade in. No-one has forced me to sell the cars to them either. Wheres the con there?? Anyone actually bothered to check the trade values of 350Z's recently?? I bet its less than you thought it was :nod:

Theres one, potentially two on the way and the companies in question are confident there will be no underlying electrical issues ......... There will be 3 if I win the Lottery

Nope. My '03 import is £190. How?? Mine is an 03 too ....... tell me your secret

Bear in mind all imports, even pre 06 ones are £400 tax. The bastards. As a daily I think its superb - if you want economy then buy a Diesel and arrive at work fed up. I tried it for about 3 weeks then bought the 350 instead

Well, seeing as they are a rally developed evolution model thats hardly surprising is it?? Im not sure what "finer points" you are referring too, other than the way it looks and by their nature rally cars generally are ugly beasts. They are quite happy pootling round town, they are 10 times as practical as a Z33, easy to drive, pretty safe, decently built, reliable, easy to get parts for and find mechanics and experts and have really good aftermarket support, both with modifications and also general information. The fact that an Evo won the WRC a few times and has a pretty incredible racing pedigree is neither here nor there either

My brother has an FQ320 and I have a Zed - Ive driven both extensively. The MR FQ Evo's actually have very good seats and a decent equipment level (insluding 2 back doors and 2 back seats), so I think you are being a bit harsh on the comfort thing, but Id agree, the thing my brother dislikes most about his Evo is the chavvy looks. Performance, the Zed is a brilliant car to drive and great fun with it, but the Evo destroys it in pretty much every department (other than drifting ) The Evo is also much easier to mod - with a decat and a remap you are looking at 400/380 from one, which I think you would agree is adequate. Add 4WD and the AYC and the Evo is up there as the second fastest point to point car Ive ever driven (after a GTR) Running costs are a shedload more on the Evo though, particularly if you do some miles. 18mpg is about as good as you are going to get without driving like your Mum, they need servicing by an Evo specialist every 4K miles ideally, they go through tyres very quickly, insurance is going to be higher and things like clutches will go more quickly too. TBH, drive it and see what you reckon. Both are very good cars, but the Evo is not for everyone

Mine came in at 87 dB Decatted so you will be fine. 95 dB is pretty loud, certainly not possible with standard exhaust

One of the things I have found that amuses me is that I can faster mechanical type answers from the SXOC than I can from the "proper" owners club boards - with some of them they dont even bother replying Whats the point of an unused webboard?

They arent all bad. 306GTI-6, SXOC and Skylineowners are all good for advice and banter and I enjoy Driftworks, although its not for everybody .........

Kerazy thread bumpage, but the missus is hassling me to sort out our cellar so I reckon Im going to be getting rid of this diffuser - who wants it??

Do import engines look different chaps? Was there ever a definitive power output for them?? (I read they were slighly more powerful than the UK cars)

I dont understand why they get such a bad press - they dont force you to accept their offers or anything Ive sold three cars to them now, all three of which I was offered a lower trade in/sale price from dealers than I got from WBAC. One was an S2K with a noisy clutch that I would have had to fix to sell privately, another was an MR2 that had dents on it that would have needed to be sorted along with a few other bits too. In both cases, I drove up, and 15 mins later walked out with the money - whats wrong with that?? If youve got a pre 02 car, or your is immaculate with low mileage then of course you arent going to get the price you would selling privately, but if the car isnt perfect, particularly mechanically or you need a quick sale they are a bloody good option. That said, the advert does make me want to kill people.

Avons are not that bad its just bad when they are mixed! I know I said Id leave it alone but read back what you have just written. You are saying that the front tyres you use are actually changing the grip levels of your back tyres. If you use ZZ3's on the front then the ZZ3's on the back magically become better somehow??

Much like the guy who swapped the ZZ3's off his car, I think thats the improvement youve got from taking off budget tyres and replacing them with something halfway decent. Ive never even heard of Autogrips myself .......

You mean you didnt die??!! I dont think a test day is really viable as there will be so many different combinations it would be impossible to do them all - you would really have to use the same car as well, and you then open the "everyones car is different" can of worms. Despite my lack of a technical background, I can see it would be a pretty pointless exercise You *could* ask a load of guys who get through loads of tyres regularly (sometimes 10/12 per day) what their opinions of the best combinations are but I imagine they would probably confirm, as you have probably just found, replacing a cheaper, less grippy tyre with a grippier one generally has one major effect - it makes the car grip better. Oh and Dblock - thanks.