Ekona

Very nice

I really, really want to do an LS2/LS3 swap on the Zed. I reckon it can be done all-in for under £10K easy, which compares pretty favourably with an FI solution on the stock engine. 400+ NA ponies plus that noise? Yes please!

Really? Wow, doesn't look that bad from the photo, guess I got that a bit wrong then! Hey, each to their own, I can see why some people are bothered but it doesn't even cross my mind when on track. That said, I can run pretty fast when I want to so heaven help anyone who smacks into me!

Don't bother. With all due respect to Greekman (and I think he's even said that it was totally his own fault), if you drive within your limits then you won't ever have an issue due to anything you've done, and if the problem comes from around you (i.e. people driving like tits) then either stay well clear or, even better, report them to the TDO on the day who should sort it. If they don't, then at least you know not to spend your money there again. That said, if you can get it built into your main policy when you take it out then go for it. I'm with Richard Egger mainly because they gave a great price and don't care at all about mods, but having trackday cover added in is a nice bonus. As Darren says though, the excess is going to be at least 10% of the cost of the vehicle, and you'd have to be doing something really stupid to cause that much damage to your car in the first place. For all the damage that Greekman did, it's not £2000 worth there so even if he'd had cover (he may have done, I don't know) it still wouldn't have helped him. I didn't even bother with it when I had the VXR220 despite each clam costing £2500 to replace as it simply wasn't cost-effective.

As far as ditching that bastard piece of 'software' that is Norton goes, try Avast. It does everything you need it to do and is very unobtrusive, as well as using about a tenth of the memory that Norton wants. Get the home version for free mind, not the Pro version unless you really want to make use of the extra bits. Others are Sophos (as mentioned) and AVG, or anything apart from Norton or McAfee.

Norton is made of fail and AIDS. Horrible piece of bloatware. But yeah, Win7 is a great improvement over Vista in terms of how it structures things on the desktop, but it's not really any different underneath. Few tweaks here and there sure, but it's still Windows. Plus I'm still bitter that Vista worked first time for me, but with Win7 I had to spend 6 hours trying a billion different drivers for my 9800GTX before the stupid thing would work out the resolution for my monitor

I don't think it's too sensitive for spirited driving at all, as if you drive the car neatly then it never kicks in (even on track, a tidy line doesn't set it off). The times when it is far too intrusive is when trying to make a sharp exit from a junction, or even booting it in a straight line in the shift from 1st to 2nd. I'm not saying your driving isn't neat and tidy as the quickest line through a corner is with a degree of slip as I'm sure you know, but that's not something I particularly want to do on the road anyway. I've confidence in my own ability and confidence in the car, but it's the surface on the road that I don't trust and that's why I wouldn't try and take a corner like that. Each to their own and all that.

If you've got matching tyres of the appropriate depths, and everything else is mechanically fine and you're still lighting that little light up, then you're driving the car wrong/badly. The Zed isn't the first car to be built with a big engine up front and power at the back, and people managed for years perfectly fine before ESP was ever invented with far worse chassis/tyre combinations, so if you're driving correctly for the conditions then there should be either no need to have it on at all or at least ever see the light on. Relying on it to save you should something go wrong because of a poor driving style is a seriously worrying trend IMHO.

I only know there's about six as that's what the Nissan tech guy said to me when I asked about it. They've got a set of of different ones on a single keychain at my local dealer, so they just grab the lot and try them all on your car until they get one that fits, that way they never have to hunt around the owner's car for the elusive locking nut key

Or (and I think this is a much better solution) is to buy a new locking wheel nut key for £14 from Nissan themselves. Take your car in, ask them to tell you what locking nut key you need (there's about 6 different ones IIRC) and order it up at the parts desk. Hey presto, you've solved all your issues in one go.

Agreed. Why on earth people would buy something that bug-eyed and ugly when there's so many better looking cars that do everything the Micra does for equal money is beyond me.

No reason why not AFAIK, not sure if it would feel any good though as don't the roadsters have different suspension settings than the coupes?

I've had about 9000 miles out of the rears but that did include one trackday and two very abrasive airfield days, so that's very reasonable I think. Fronts are still going strong, I expect them to last at least the 18K it'll take before I have to replace the rears again.

+millionty They'll **** all over the Falkens.

Sorry, I mean the height of the beam. As stock it'll be set fairly in the middle of the max range of adjustment to ensure it passes MOTs and whatnot, but you can still set it to the highest limit and it'll pass without blinding others. That's what I did any way, and haven't looked back.

I had a similar issue with my lights, so I asked my local dealer to adjust them right up to their maximum legal limit instead of somewhere in the middle. Made them a billion times better and now I don't even need to consider different lights. Worth a try before spending mega bucks?

I've yet to try one, but they certainly look an awesome piece of kit and I've never heard anything bad about them. I was tempted to buy one but the wait put me off more than anything, so I plumped for the MS one last week and I don't feel too hard done by tbh as it's a solid piece of kit.

Sadly the G27/25 aren't compatible with the 360, the only ones that are are the official MS 360 wheel (which I've got and am quite happy with) or the Fanatec Porsche wheels which are on an 8 week back order.

Sorry, never gotten round to it It doesn't exactly blend in with the car, but it does do everything very well and is a piece of cake to use quickly when on the move. It seems weird now thinking of all the CDs I used to carry round when I had the Bose in there, and I couldn't imagine going back.

For £300 you could get an Alpine head unit that's iPod compatible with no CDs at all AND an iPod and have a billion times more music in your car I've got a X305 in mine and it's fantastic, really improves the sound no end and I haven't even gotten round to changing the speakers yet...

Brilliant link, nice one Chris

Give it a chance, if you can. The FWD cars seemed awful to me on first play, but when I started being a bit more subtle with them I found they're a delight: Getting the nose to pitch in under light braking was a beautiful thing. The MR/FR cars will feel radically different, and it can take some adjustment, but then it does in real life so I think they've got it spot-on. Just to prove what an incredibly sad bastard I am, I bought a 350Z on there then added power to bring it to MY06 levels, put some decent rubber on, sorted the brakes, did the chassis, and then fiddled with the suspension settings until it was a carbon copy of my own car as I've got a printout that DMS did for me of my geo. With a wheel, it's just about as accurate as I expected it to be and handles like a dream. Stick with it, it's a sim not a twitchy arcade thing like NFS:S.

I thought he was going to start chatting me up at any moment

If you are down to the metal on the inside pads you'll almost certainly need new discs as well. Might be a good time for an upgrade and also to rule out any disc issues for the future.

It doesn't look as good as GT5P for me as it's far too shiny and clean, however the physics and (especially) the racing AI lifts it far above any other racing game I've ever played, including F2. Watching two AI cars scrap for the lead and then take each other out into the gravel doesn't get boring I just wish they'd paid for some decent menu music, as the supplied stuff is utter dirge