Ekona

Non-S, manual, buckets, exhaust. Fin.

Then you might as well do it properly with a quality set of lowering springs, no? A 30mm lowered Zed doesn’t have issues with 99% of roads, unless you’ve some fancy exhaust that’s sitting much much lower than stock?

I couldn’t imagine ever using it. It annoys me that Porsche won’t let you turn it off unless you turn the TCS off too, that’s utterly bonkers.

Yes, is the easy answer. I’m more shocked by a Festa ST being nearly £25k!

Burrrrrrnnnn

This is really excellent work, and I genuinely mean that. Mechanicals I can do, but electronics is wizardry to me so I find this amazing My only caveat would be that’s almost certainly going to be impossible to insure as a mod, as I’m struggling to think of how you’d describe it without the insurer running away in a panic

Then what makes you think that any lowering of any kind is a good idea? Levelling out = lowering the rear = a bigger chance of scraping the exhaust.

Actually I said MPS4S, not MPS4.

Cars handle and look better if the rear sits a tad higher, tbh. That nose-down look is more aggressive than having it flat, as you may find it looks a little odd if you just do that. I tend to agree that a mild spring change in the 20-30mm range would be better, but I don’t know how sharp your driveway is. 60mm is just daft though!

Not all insurers allow mods: As a general rule, it’s the cheaper ones that don’t or get extremely fussy/expensive if you do try and add a mod to your policy. Companies like Sky, Adrian Flux, REIS etc are good as gold but you will be paying more for the privilege. You’ll have to ask each one individually really, unless they’re a specialist. You should be able to do a general Meerkat-style quote where you can add on the mods you intend to do, and get an idea of how much the premiums would go up by.

Apart from Sipar who posted directly above you half an hour before you posted, obviously.

2002, earliest jap cars. But the maths are still wrong lol. Long day

050As are pretty decent in the wet, tbh. It’s the 040s that are dire. What other tyres are you looking at? But the answer is MPS4S.

If you mean do it properly, then yes that horrible feature is only on the newer 718s, thankfully.

Harness is better than a seatbelt, even in day to day use, in terms of safety as long as it's worn and mounted correctly. Basically if you can still breathe when wearing it, then it's not tight enough! Some may say that visibility can be limited as you can't move your head as much, but it's really not an issue at all. I've had harnesses in a few cars now, and whilst you can't reach the stereo as easily I never found any issues with visibility.

If you don’t think an E46 is a nicer place to be than a 350z, you need your eyes testing But yeah, we are some way off tangent here. All I know is that every German car I’ve owned has been equally as fun and soulful as anything Japanese, and I’ve had equal amounts of both (ish).

Rubbish. Jap cars got away with ‘soul’ because they had sh*t interiors, German cars got labelled as bland because they didn’t. I don’t buy into that at all, any car that’s fun has soul regardless of where it’s from.

Might not be, but you don’t know until you give it a try

At least you didn't post the hideous back end...

I never said far superior. I said better in every measurable way, which it is. Where are you getting your lap times from? Power isn't everything, just ask Caterham owners.

Exactly the same, yup.

How far down the process with Nissan are you?

Assuming the car weights were the same, and the power levels were the same, then yes the M3 would be quicker. It's the chassis that will do it, and in terms of feel the E46 is one of the best and most neutral cars I've ever driven (and given how bloody good the Z33 is, that's high praise!). It's likely the driver in front of you was crap, but then you also don't know how hard he was pushing or whether the car was 100% or level of experience etc. I refer back to the video I posted some years back of me in an MR2 all over the arse of a 360 at Anglesey: Now there's no way that's down to the car, it's got to be down to the driver. Trackdays are a terrible way of comparing cars unless you're willing to swap keys with someone else to do back to back runs. And that S54 is one of the all-time great engines. The DE (or even HR) cannot get anywhere close to it, it's like comparing a filet mignon with a Big Mac. Keep everything the same including drivers, track, day, weather etc and the E46 M3 will be quicker. More enjoyable? Perhaps, certainly I think so but there's an awfully good case for the 350Z to be equally or more so. I personally wouldn't buy an E46 over a 350Z, but I won't argue it's the better car.

They all look the same anyway

It’s really not. Better is better, regardless. Especially now both cars are very affordable...