Ekona

^^^ This. A satnav is a good guide to get you roughly where you need to be, but common sense and the ability to look at the road signs instead of your satnav screen should always be employed first. In essence, you've done basically what this guy did, just with a slightly better outcome. Count yourself lucky and learn from the mistake, don't bitch at the police for doing their job (although I would agree that a stern telling off would probably have sufficed, but if there were loads of cars going down there like you say then the only way to get people to stop doing it is to get tough).

1680 at home but only 1024 on the works laptop which I vary rarely use. I actually have no idea what res I use on the Mac at home though...

Are you using the spring washers that came with it? Shouldn't come loose with those on, and certainly mine have never moved at all between changes.

Not sure about JDMs and OBDII, I know some cars aren't compatible but am not 100% on the Zed. I would imagine that it's fine given that no-one has mentioned it before, but it's worth waiting for someone who knows for sure to comment before committing.

Assuming you actually have the CEL (Check Engine Light) lit on your instrument display, then you either need an OBDII reader or you can use the ECU reset procedure to get the codes off. If it were me I'd spend a few quid on a code reader either via eBay or get the RAC one from Argos rather than use the ECU reset, but there's no technical reason behind that: I'm just lazy and would rather do things the simple way!

Just sent mine over too, nice one for sorting all this matey

In all honesty, I'm not that keen on it. I know that a lot of that is due to my absolute stubborn resistance to any kind of change, but I will point out a couple of things: 1. There's a hell of a lot of open space on this new look, and it makes for a slightly disjointed viewing IMHO. Tbh apart from playing with the font sizes (which I know I can do from this end, but I'm thinking more of a new user visiting here for the first time) I'm not really sure there's much you can do. Limiting avatar + sig sizes may go some way to sorting this, but phpBB3 does tend to do it's own thing with regard to sizing anyway. 2. The PM indicator in the top left really doesn't stand out enough for my taste. It's much better than in the old version, but having noticed that you can have colours in that top bar (Discounts + Donate), is it possible to change the colour to maybe blue when a new PM has arrived? Like I say, they're only niggly little things so nothing major. On the flip side, all the quick links above the forum look so much better than before, and I do love how the picture of the Zed reflects the logo from the other side of the page IYSWIM. It's a much better use of colour all round than before too, and I'd certainly agree it makes the site feel far more mature than in the previous version. Big thanks for doing all this, as I can appreciate just how awkward it can be upgrading from previous phpBB versions and I know from experience just how much there is to go wrong!

I'm in for that too

Good point, I forgot that! Also DON'T put your handbrake on once you've come back in, just leave it in neutral with the engine running for a few mins to circulate the excess heat, then switch it off and pop the car into 1st. If you put your handbrake on you'll stick the pads to the discs and wreck your brakes.

1. When you say 'new brakes', you you mean discs + pads + fluid, or just pads? If so then it might be worth changing the brake fluid as well if it's over a year old. Also make sure your pads are well bedded in before you go on track. Other than that it's just the obvious stuff, make sure all your fluid levels are ok etc. Oh, and don't forget your helmet and long sleeved top & trousers! 2. I doubt it. Unless you seriously start mis-shifting all over the place then you're not actually putting that much strain on the clutch as you're not doing many standing starts at all, and far less than you would just pottering through town. 3. Personally I've never bothered in the past as there really should be no need for it if the day is well marshalled and you're not driving like a tit, and normally the insurance costs at least as much as the day itself. Also worth remembering that the excess on the policy will usually be at least 10% of the car's value, so you may have a light brush and still not end up being able to claim on the policy. That said, I've now got track cover included as part of my regular policy with Richard Eggar, so it'd be worth trying them as they do separate TD cover too. Also CCI are highly recommended.

Hmmm, maybe you've got two different issues here then. If the fouling stopped after changing the plugs then you must've had a duff plug, as you say you've swapped all the coil packs round to prove they're all fine. If that's the case, I wonder if there's something electrical going on as well? In all honesty I'm not sure where the earth connections are on the Zed, but the info must be out there on the interweb somewhere! Might be worth running a new earth as well just to see if that does change anything. Do you know which cylinder is misfiring? Is it still all of them randomly?

I think that for £10K and for a car purely for track use you're far better off getting an Elise or Caterham. Either of those will walk all over a Zed costing the same money on track as that's what they were designed for. There's no denying that the 350 is a fun car on track, but it's simply too heavy to seriously consider as a track car unless you've got an incredible amount of money to throw at it.

Dodgy injector? Would account for the masses of fuel by one plug at any rate, and if there's too much fuel then it wouldn't fire correctly. Failing that, if it's a multiple misfire then I'd be tempted to check the ground connections. I've had this on a previous car where it threw all kinds of misfire codes at me, and whilst it was on a slightly more modified project to this day I'm still 95% sure it was an earth issue.

Agreed. If you're going to have to sell it eventually, best sell it now before it gets another year added to its age and the 370Z really grabs a hold in the market.

I'd hope you'd get at least a length on it off the lights, seeing as how it limits the power in 1st gear and it's FWD... Definitely don't try and outdrag in on the motorway though I quite like it. I don't normally lust over FWD cars, but after hearing the designer of it say that they'd rather have made a lighter FWD car with plenty of feedback than a heavy lardass 4WD lump, I can really appreciate what they were aiming for with the car.

But you'd get far more sex in a 308GTB...!

I don't think it's a particularly fast car, but then that's part of the reason I chose it in the first place. My previous car was just too fast for the public roads really and whilst it was decimating on track, you simply couldn't use all the power effectively when driving around normally. Personally speaking, I find that the Zed has exactly the right amount of power to remain totally useable on the roads, either motorways or country lanes. Put your foot down in the right gear and will move along at a fair rate of knots, but it's never feels like it's going too fast to kill you.

I've got a Monster cable that I use for my iPhone 2G and it works a treat. Plug it into the rear socket and tuck the cable and phone into the small cubby in the arm rest, or tuck the cable itself in there and close the lid, leaving the phone resting on the part just behing the gear lever (where the small flap you roll back is). Works a treat on my 06, although I do realize that the early cars have a different setup with regard to storage in the armrest.

Can't wait to see the Aston in the flesh at LM this year

Nope, I do it too along with resetting the trip counter too. Always nice to know just how hard I've been driving the car per tankful

You can get lighter-weight versions which reduce the CoG by suh a tiny fraction that you'd never notice but could be used as part of an overall weightloss program, but other than that I can't see any other purpose other than styling. The OEM item is very well engineered and does all you'd need it to. The only reason I changed mine was for looks, ayway.

Or you could switch to FireFox, which doesn't have that issue at all

Rich, bungs in and it's much quieter at cruising than your old H&S (think that's what you had anyway) was, and by some margin. Bungs out it's much louder, but if you're only ever doing short trips then who cares? I'm off on holiday this week for almost 3 weeks, but gimme a shout when I get back and I'll happily take you out in mine.

Sorry, should've said that was at 3/4 max revs, so about 4.5K rpm on mine. I thought it was a bit quiet as well, but I've done my own tests with two different track-day spec noise meters and they all came out the same. It really is surprising how much noise the bungs do remove from the exhaust, but if you consider that every 3dB is a doubling in volume, then without bungs the K1 is over 5 times louder

Nice one, cheers matey!