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I just got back from the Classic Car show at the NEC and WOW, what a weekend, but more on that in a minute! If you remember from the previous blog that damage was going to be fixed by a company that my employer had arranged, so I went over to drop the car off on the Wednesday (1 week before the show). Here is a transcribe of the conversation: Me: "Hi, I'm here to drop off my car" Matey: *pokes damage* "I can do that, but it will be a different colour" (no self introduction) Me: "Sorry, what? Why?" Matey: "Its an old car, its faded" Me: "Its been in storage most of its life and on Friday it had the bonnet, both wings and both bumpers resprayed and they matched fine" Matey: *Walks around car twice* "Oh yeah, well its irrelevant because I'm booked up until January" Me: "It's booked in today at 10am, there is a hire car due here any minute for me." Matey: "I'm not taking it today" Short argument about car needed at car show in 6 days time and my employer told me it was booked in for 10am Matey: "Come back Monday, I might have it ready Wednesday evening." Me: "Hmmmm" As you can imagine this conversation didn't instil a lot of confidence in the car being ready in time or the quality of the dodge, I mean fix! On the drive home, I happened to be passing my guy who did the panels 4 days previous and on the 1% chance of him saying he could do it and more just wanting to show him I popped in: Me: "You know your hard work....well look at this" *points* Glynn: "?!?!?!" Me: "Its bad I know" Glynn: "?!?!?!?!" Me: "Is there anything you can do?" Glynn: "?!?!?!!" Me: "Its due at the car show a week tomorrow..." Glynn: "?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" Me: "?????" Glynn: "I had a phone call today, some guy was supposed to drop his car in 20 minutes ago, he has cancelled. I could do it for you" Me: "I could kiss you" Glynn: "Please dont..." So 2 days later, I got a phone call: Before: After: I could not believe it, I couldn't see or feel any damage! Glynn even polished and waxed the car as well as taking out a few scratches and swirl marks he found too. Thanks Glynn (Again!) So the car was set, I was set and after an age, Thursday came round. I got up at 03:00, left at 04:00. got to the meeting point at 08:45, jet washed the road crap off the car, topped up the tank, waiting for @Aff68 and @AndrewG and then drove convoy to the NEC where @ianl was setting up the stand already. Thursday was a blur of setting up the stand, washing, cleaning, polishing, cleaning again, polishing again, pointing out a missed bit, cleaning again until my entire body hurt. @RichardS dropped in to say hi, to help out and keep us fed and watered which was really nice! At about 18:00 we felt the stand and the cars were ready and I had decided I needed professional help as I found myself cleaning the inside of my wheel arches: "Hello, My name is Tom and I have a problem....!" We had a walk around the show, some clubs were still setting up and others were ready. Having a quick look around really showed the logistical nightmare. When you visit for a day, you don't realise just how much work goes into putting on a show like this. Take our stand for example: A van and trailer stuffed to the gills with professional lights and equipment that had been begged, borrowed and "stolen" was driven up the day before we arrived by some Ian and volunteers, The lighting rig was put up and all the lights setup before we got there, the next day, by Ian and his volunteers. The van was needed else where, so returned to its home, the trailer was left in a carpark the other side of the county and the volunteers had to make their own way home. We had never met these people and yet they were prepared to give up their time to help setup our stand. A massive thank you to them! During our walk around that evening, I turned into a gooey mess when offered a chance to sit in my dream car, which I did not turn down! Then it was off to the AirBnB that had been rented for us for the weekend. The next day we were up early ready for the first day. We cleaned the cars again, tidied the stand and got ready to meet and greet the public! We took it in turn to man the stand, so we could also have a look around the show. Ian and myself managed at two halls a day. Here are a few photos from the day: We met up with Howard and Richard for dinner before heading back to the house to have a beer and sleep. The next day was a long day, the show was opened at 09:00 (so we had to be there at 08:00) and closed at 18:30. Being a Saturday it was a lot busier and where the Friday had lull periods, Saturday was a continuous, constant stream of visitors. Being on your feet for 10 hours is hard work! I had a visit from a special person on Saturday which made my day too! Sunday was the last day of the show. We got there at 08:00-ish again and made sure the cars and stand was perfect. Craig popped in with some club leaflets and t-shirts to make us look a bit more professional which was great! The day was busier still, but went really quickly and at 17:00 it was announced that the show had finished and was closed, to which every car beeped and held their horn on for a good two minutes in celebration. After 4 days, 39 hours on stand, 23-ish hours sleep, 47 microfibre cloths and one stig visit we had done it! However we couldn't leave just yet: Teardown was just starting. Once again, massive thank you to Ian's volunteers, they turned up with a van, a dodge pickup and the trailer from the car park miles away to breakdown the rig, pack everything away and load it up into the vehicles. We stayed on to help as much as we could, but these guys were like a well oiled machine and I think we hindered more than helped in some cases. By 20:15 everything had be packed up, we said our thank yous and good byes and we all drove out. I found it quite emotional, we had been a small part of one of the most prestigious car shows in the country, our humble cars had been lined up with Astons, GT 40s, even a £1.5m Bugatti Veyron and had held their own. So many people had come over to talk to us, to tell us that they had owned one, that they had one or that they wanted one. People young and old were taking photos and asking questions and taking an interest in our cars in such large numbers that it made you realise that young people don't just live on their playstations, older people don't only care about MGs and flat caps and that, most importantly, no matter how much electric gets pushed through in the coming years, people still want to see a massive, complicated JDM V6! Here are some photos from the last day: The drive home for me was the longest at 186 miles. Andrew, Ian and I convoyed until Andrew stopped to get some fuel. Ian and I carried on until he turned off on the M25 and then I carried on by myself until I got home just after 23:00. I am truly thankful for being given the opportunity to take part in the show and to help the club in promoting itself to new comers, un-registered owners and people interested in owning our beloved Zeds. I am also incredibly thankful to @ianl and his team who gave up their time, petrol and money to help us put on the amazing stand that we had. Without them, we would have had a square of carpet and 4 cars. I do hope I get offered the chance to help out and show my car next year, but if others wish to have the experience, I will willingly give up my place for them as it is an amazing experience. Yes its hard work, yes its tiring, yes your feet hurt, yes you spend too much on autoglynn products, but the four of us helped each other along, spurred each other on, supported each other and became really good friends in the process! Until next year....

So what has happened since my last blog back in May? Well quite a lot as it turns out! 1) The national roadtrip was held in June with my friend Simon, @Aff68 and his son Fu'ad. 2) The Simply Japanese show at Bealieu 3) The GoJapan show held at Brands Hatch 4) The clubs AGM held at The National Motor Museum in Gaydon. Not much has happened to the car as its been out and about too much (not a bad thing). I always try to plan work on the car to be done during the winter so that it is ready for the summer month to be enjoyed. This does mean that it has to been driven to and from places sometimes, but that can't be helped and I always pressure wash the underneath afterwards! National Roadtrip So as most of you know by now I planned a national road trip from Eastbourne to John O'Groats, then to Lands End and then home again. I'm sure most of you kept up to date with the thread that was running at the time: and by now have probably watched the videos I created on Youtube, if you havent you can here: https://youtu.be/k2irjY3J7x0 The trip was planned to go through most of the club areas so that people who couldn't make the whole trip could meet us up with us for a morning or an afternoons drive or meet us for lunch and/or dinner and drinks in the evening. Unfortunately this didn't happen, however @JaiKai very kindly invited us to his for a cup of tea, bacon sandwiches and a perv at his awesome purple machine... (his car people, get your mind out of the gutter...). It was really nice to meet up with someone from the club who in normal circumstances we wouldn't get to meet (top of Scotland is quite far away!). The trip itself was amazing. Simon, Aff and Fu'ad were amazing company and we had a huge laugh. A proper boys own adventure, and just like a Top Gear/Grand Tour adventure it had its ups (many) and downs (one). The first couple of days were just motorway driving, but we kept ourselves entertained with playing "I spy" over the walkie talkies, trying to film close up footage with the GoPros and checking out the amazing scenery from sections of the M6, most of the M74 and all of the A9. The day from John O Groats through the Highlands to Fort William was stunning and apart from a small mishap, which meant Simon was my passenger for the rest of the trip, it was an excellent day. I highly recommend the Scottish 500 route to people. We did a large chuck of it, The A9 from Inverness to John O Groat and from there around to Ullapool, although I never made it to Ullapool ? I had planned the route to avoid Motorway and even dual carriageway as much as possible, I think there was only about 800 miles in the 2300 mile trip, 700 miles of it was the first couple of days just getting to the top of Scotland. I had been careful with the planning, all the roads used were either: 1) I had driven on in the Zed before, 2) I had driven on in another car before, but knew the Zed would be OK or 3) I hadn't driven on, but while planning, I spent hours scrolling along the road in Google street view to make sure there were no surprises. I knew that Affs car was lower than mine, so I really tried to make sure his would be OK, I knew mine would be fine. It turns out that there were sections where his car did bottom out, Wrynose pass in the Lake district, jumps to mind and an unplanned diversion in Devon due to the police closing the main road (not my fault ?). One of the many things that Aff took away from the trip was that the Zed, even lowered and modified can still cope with a lot, he followed me along roads that he later admitted he would never ever go near, but quickly realised that the Zed isn't a delicate flower to be parked in a garage, but it can be taken up and down mountains or off road (Devon diversion, again not my fault! ?). We did agree however that his has been lowered a bit too much and raising it 10mm on each corner would have stopped 80% of the times he "kissed" the tarmac. If you are thinking of lowering your car, lower it to what you think works and then add 10mm! My friend Simon had never met Aff and Fu'ad, Aff and Fu'ad had never met Simon, Fu'ad had never met Simon and I, so there was the possibility for awkwardness, but not once did that happen and by the end of the trip it felt like we had know each other for years. Fu'ad was quite taken with the trip and has decided he wants to join the Zed world, but due to age and financial restrictions, he will hopefully be buying a 350Z ready for the planned roadtrip for 2023. I know, I know, its not a Z32, but a Zed is a Zed and you have to start somewhere. He has 8 months to go.... At the end of the trip, arriving at Lands End was actually quite emotional. I will admit that the footage of us, filmed by Simon, driving into Lands End car park I had a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye! I think that evening through the haze of shots and pints, we all had lumps in our throats and tears in our eyes as it hit us what we had done and that it was over. It was an amazing experience, probably once in a life time although I would do it again in a heart beat. If I did it again, I would plan it to be 14 days rather than 9 days. We were doing between 230-280miles per day, which we did in 5-8 hours which was fine, we had no problems and the Zed were so comfortable, but maybe cutting it down to 150-200 miles per day and 4-5 hours driving would be better. Simply Japanese Show The Simply Japanese car show at Beaulieu is always an excellent show and each year gets well over 1000 cars turn up. It is one of the highlights in our clubs calendar with 6 cars taking part this year! Myself, @ianl @RichardS @icewhitebear @GSC and @Stephen all turning up for a great day. The show consists of the normal motor museum halls and stands along with all the Japanese cars being parked up around the main grounds. There are various side shows going on such as the Show and Shine and the People Choice vote (which our very own @Joely P has won in the past). It is an excellent day out, even for the whole family as there is plenty for everyone to see and do. This year was excellent, I picked up my friend who rode shotgun to the show with me, we met up with Richard and Ice at the Tesco car park meeting point and then drove to the show. After about 30 minutes of queuing we were on the stand and could start looking around. The days was a mixture of talking to other club members sitting among the cars and looking around the show. I managed to miss Ian all day though! My friend and I left around 3 pm as we had a 2 hour drive home. Thanks for a great day out guys! This is an annual show, it will be on again in 2023, keep an eye on the Events forum page and make sure you book yourself in for this must see show! Short video found here: https://youtu.be/Tq92eQN3ZHg Go Japan Show This show is another highlight on the clubs calendar. It hasn't been running very long, I think 2021 was its first year, but it is a brilliant day out. Its held at Brands Hatch track so there is plenty to see and do. The track has constant racing on it from time attack cars racing around at crazy speeds to the national drift championship. If the action on the track gets tiresome, you can look around the hundreds of show cars and club cars that attend. I didn't count them, but the two years I have been going it must be well over 500 cars. There are plenty of stalls and shops to have a look around and various Japanese/Asian themed events going on. Another excellent event for the whole family. Last year we had a good turnout, I think we had 9 cars on the stand at one point, however this year not so good. I was the only car arriving on time. @sumshiftyguy did arrive about 10am with his car (which is awesome by the way!) to stop mine looking so lonely. I kept thinking of the song from "Team America" that the evil dictator sings about being so lonely ?. @Raja93 also turned up to keep us company, although his beast of a machine wasn't quite ready at that point. We had a great time at the show, did quite a bit of chatting, looking at cars and watching the action on track. One of the highlights, although not for the driver, was when one of the time attack cars grounded out on the pit straight, ripped his front splitter completely off and then ran it over. Strangely we didn't see that car back out on track after that! This is an annual show, it will be on again in 2023, keep an eye on the Events forum page and make sure you book yourself in for this must see show! The Club AGM 2022 The clubs Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held at The National Motor Museum in Gaydon. Some of us drove up to Warwick on the Saturday and met at a hotel. We had dinner and drinks together which was really nice, some of our partners came which was lovely to see them again/meet for the first time! The next day, although we were 10 minutes down the road from the museum I had planned a nice 60 mile round trip to get there. Some minutes later (ahem) and ,due a slightly tipsy conversation the night before, Richard trying to prove that red Zeds are not faster than blue ones (ahem) we arrived. We parked up and chatted while waiting for people to arrive. Unfortunately turn out wasn't great. Gary drove up that morning, but that was it. We waited in the car park until after 11am just in-case anyone else turned up, but then decided to start having a look around the museum. We looked around and chatted for an hour or so and then went up to the conference room that had been booked for us. We had a lunch provided by the club while discussing the club and its future. It was an excellent meeting and it would have been good to have more people attend to give more input to how members want the club to be run and any improvements that could be made. There will be meeting notes shortly for all to view. Some of us then headed back to the cars for a chat before driving home as I had a 3.5 hour drive hour. The AGM was great fun, We had a lovely meal and drinks in the hotel. It was great to see each other and have a drink! Most of the time we are at shows together and have to drive home, so cant have a pint. Having the partners there was also great because we got to meet everyone and it felt more like a adult meetup rather than a boys day out in a field as a lot of car shows can feel like. The AGM happens every year, hence the name!? So look out for it in the calendar and book that week off some that we can all meet up, stay over night and enjoy the weekend! It's also a really good time to help the committee direct the club for the upcoming year and make suggestions for improvement. Remember that old adage: If you don't vote, you can't moan about the government... Future Plans So what does the future hold? Well: 1) The last meetup of the year is being held in the south on the 30th October. Meetup in Eastbourne and drive to Box Hill. You are more than welcome to come down the Saturday and stay over night in Eastbourne. A couple of people are already doing that. We can meet up on the saturday for a meal and I'll show you the delights of Eastbourne afterwards! 2) I have found some UK OEM wheels that I plan to get refurb'ed over the winter and then fitted before next year. They are currently sitting in my garage! 3) I am trying (and failing) to locate a good manual conversion kit. After being warned off two kits, letting one slip through my fingers due to not checking my email for two days (sorry @jimmer!) and having a low milage donor car escape my finger tips, I am starting to give up on the idea that it will be converted this winter. I might just start buying all the bits individually over the next 12 months and do it next winter. If you know of any parts/kits and a low mileage manual box, then please contact me! 4) I want to start planning the shows, trips and meetups for next year to give people as much time as possible to plan around the mand therefore attend. Please keep an eye on the National Events and South Events forum pages. I do not have any form of social media, so cant not post on Face-a-gram, Instra-book and Tik-Chat. so please keep an eye on those forum pages. I am trying to plan something big for next June as well, so if you want to take part in something similar to the National Roadtrip, then keep your June calendar free ?

So during a few days away, the car landed at Jims for a full service, timing belt change, gearbox flush and refill and a few other jobs that Jim very kindly completed! I was very happy and impressed with Jim's service and will definitely be using him again. I just hope my wife and I didn't annoy him too much with all the chatting! When picking up the car, Jim showed me the old bits and pieces that had been taken off, it turns out that the old timing belt was actually the original factory fitted belt from 1989! It still said Nissan on it and had the old "hamburger" logo, the spark plugs were factory fitted as well. To my untrained eye, Jim jump in here if needed, they didn't look old or well used other than being 32 years old! I am glad it's got a fresh belt and bit on it now though! The car drives wonderfully now, gear changed are super smooth and I can actually stretch its legs a little ? All in all, a wonderful service experience with a car clean, two cups of tea, two cans of San Pellegrino and many bits of help and advice added in for free! Thank Jim! 1) Moments before setting off 2) Engine porn Short entry this time, with few pictures i'm afraid....Ill try harder next time!

September has come around again meaning one thing: My holiday! This year due to COVID we decided to stay within the confines of the UK and rented a cottage in the Lake District. We drove up to Stoke-on-Trent and stayed two nights with friends that we knew from China and then up to the Lakes for 7 nights. My brother lives in the Lakes, so he was our guide for a couple of days. We did the usual Wrynose and Hardknott passes (among others), but we also saw a few new things such as Cathedral cavern, Honister pass and Windlatter forest. The car was great, comfortable on the drive up. It was fun around the lakes, however the roads are so narrow that you can't really fully enjoy the car! The drive back was in one hit (one pee stop), 350 miles in 7 hours & 10 minutes. I broke a personal record twice as well: None of my previous cars have ever managed to get more than 300 miles out of a single tank (says a lot about my previous cars!). This car broke that twice: 350 miles on the way up and 331 (with 1/4 tank left) on the way down! I have found I am growing to the autobox, it pulls well and its comfortable on long journey, especially when setting the cruise control, however when I did manage to let the cars hair down, I really missed the manual box; holding the car in a gear for bends, double declutch downshifting and generally just making more noise! I won't be converting it until the auto box dies, but when it comes to manual boxes, you don't know what you have lost until its gone... One last thing: @AndrewG check out the rear wheels... ?

Welcome to the 2023 show season! It started well with a trip to the Japanese Assemble at the Bicester Airfield. The zed was then throughly rinsed down and put away until the salt had gone! During Easter My wife and I went 'up 't 'north (up norff in southern speak) to stay the weekend with @Aff68 and his other half. We took the zed and it was perfect! I was still training for the London Marathon, so Aff and his partner were very accommodating in letting me take over the mornings plans so that I could run to the local parkrun and do it as part of my training ! We then spent the afternoon in Nottingham which was cool! At the end of April, the club committee decided to make yours truely to the National Events Organiser, shortened to NEO. As a massive Matrix AND Keanu Reeves fan, how could I say no?! 😁 My first action was to make a long list of car shows planned, to be planned and to investigated. I organised a few for this year and as luck would have it, had my first failure as NEO with my first show: The south east BHP show. After extensive advertising on the forum and the club paying £75 for a club stand and 5 tickets, we couldnt give them away. The evening before, I was the only confirmed member attending and wondered what to do. Swing an' a miss.... After speaking to the commitee I decided to not attend and we would chalk this up to a learning experience. My NEO probation was still safe! I have since learnt that good advertising using the forum, the facebook group and page (which I have access to now) and the twitter page is essential for getting all of you involved. Some of you use the forum and not facebook, some do both, some only do facebook, so I have to bear this in mind when promoting an event. The next show was the Chiltern Hills Classic Rally, Although I intended to attend this show, work surprised me with a business trip to Newcastle for a week and due to meeting timings, I needed to travel up on the Sunday. However the guys that attended said it was a good show and should be an annual event for the club. More recently (yesterday) we attended the Bromley Pageant of Motoring. Excellent show, 7 of us represented the club and had a great show! So what has been going on with the car? Over the winter I planned to paint the UK spec alloys and get them fitted, but took a financial hit over the winter, long story.... (thanks UPS/parcelmonkey)... so that is still on the list. I have managed to source a replica rear spoiler to replace my original foam one which is soaking up water and getting worse, I have a 2nd MAF now and would like to find a Selin to convert to a dual MAF setup. I would also like to get some smaller front plates for the car and some show plates! The auto box is growing on me more and more, Ive had memebers with 400-600bhp comment when driving with me how fast and responsive my car is: They follow me into a corner, concetrate on not writing off their car, exit the apex, look ahead and im already at the next corner! Ive also had many comment from people following me on how quickly and tight the car turns into corners, I assume this is down to a fully fuctioning HICAS system rather than my driving skills! As a result, Im leaning more and more to keeping it in its stock configuration. Lastly: Whatever I do to the car, I know it will never change how it makes me feel when I drive it. Happiness. I know it sounds cheesy, but I drive around and see all these angry people driving metal boxes that all look the same and yet I cruise around with a massive smile on the face. That is what owning these cars is about, not how much BHP you have or how much money you spent on it or even how it compares to other peoples cars. You bought your car to enjoy it, get out there and enjoy it!

Over the weekend, after my shift, The engineers at work put my car up in the air to have a look underneath, we were all impressed with how it looked. I then took it home to give it a clean and a first layer of polish. I tried to get some of the scratches and marks out left by the car cover which worked to a certain extent, but will need more work and/or a professional. 1) Up we go! 2) Boot floor and fuel tank 3) Rear subframe 4) Under engine, looking back 5) Rear seats 6) Front of car, still needs a bit more cleaning 7) Dust.....noooooo! 8 ) Installed my usb cable for charging phone. It extends and retracts into air vents 9) The seats are not too bad, one 1" cut on the passenger seat just out of shot 10) I love all the japanese stickers everywhere! 11) After first polish 12) There are a couple of marks on the bumper from a touch up pen 13) Fuel flap is a struggle to open, having to gently slip my debit card iin to open it at the moment. Not sure how to fix that yet! 14) I like the original deal sticker on the bumper 15) This will need replacing before it soaks up too much water and starts rotting the bootlid 16) Difficult to tell, but some of those marks are from the car cover, not sun glare 17) More marks 18) Faint black marks from car cover, hard to see in picture, but can see in real All in all, I love it. A bit of work here and there and this will come up nice! Drove my wifes Audi TT to work yesterday and stalled it as not used to using a clutch anymore!

It's been awhile since my last blog entry due to it being winter and not using the car much. It's been safely parked up out of the weather and salt in a garage since the NEC show I did release it in February to have the scuttles, wiper arms and the roof beams painted. The pictures don't do it justice as it was a bit dirty! In preparation for my birthday road-trip (on the forum as the national road-trip) I bought a few GoPros as some of you will know. The first trip I did with them was in April. @arthur and I met in Folkstone and drove to Ashdown Forest for an ice cream. It was a good test of the cameras, but I found that the batteries only last 2 hours. I managed to record all of the trip by myself to Folkstone, but only about 15 minutes of driving with arthur. See the video below. As a result, I needed more batteries and although the 2nd hand GoPros I had bought did come with some included I would need quite a lot for the 5 cameras I had bought for the road trip. 5x cameras, 4-6hours usage per day = 15+ batteries per day! I then looked into charging the cameras while driving. They use the same USB as my dashcam and I had previously bought a fuse box USB hardwire kit which worked really well. I then found some GoPro cases with a hole in them to allow cables to be plugged in, although not waterproof they should be fine in the dry and mild damp. Anything wetter I have bluetack and insulation tape to make them spray/rain proof. So after looking around the car I decided to connect the front one to the fuse box in the engine bay. This made it easier to hard wire it and meant I didn't have to faff around getting wires through the firewall. I used the hardwire kit in the fuse slot for the horn, so if it ever blew a fuse then only the horn would stop working and nothing important like engine/lights/AC would die! If the horn stopped working it would also warn me that the gopro wasn't charging anymore, so nice bit of system feedback there! As you can see I had to drill a small hole in the fuse box lid as it was too tight a seal and was crushing the cable. The hole has been sealed with blacktack. The cabling runs down under the N/S headlight, nose panel and then behind the front bumper, its all cable tied in place with just enough slack to reach the GoPro. The camera is mounted upside down on the bumper behind the number plate. One of my requirements was that everything must be hidden as the GoPro mounts DO NOT come off....ever.... The camera gets some good "Gran Turismo" footage, as my friend likes to say. The red LED on the camera means its got power! Please ignore the mass death, the car will be getting a clean shortly! The rear camera was a bit more of a faff. As far as i'm aware there is no fuse box towards the rear of my car and as my other requirement was that all the wiring could be removed if I needed, (e.g no hacking into looms) then it had to be the fuse box next to the accelerator. My hard wire kit wasn't long enough, but luckily I have a roll of 14AWG (for my model railway) in the garage. I ran the cable from the fuse box, under the carpet by the door sill, then up the rear seat side trim and into the boot. The hard wire kit was attached and then threaded through the rubber grommet that takes the wires through the boot floor and down to the rear number plate lights. I then attached the hard wire kit at the other end to the fuse box and hey presto we had power! As you can see from the pictures the cable is long enough to charge the camera, but tucks away nicely when not in use. The camera is off to the side so not to block the number plate as that would be bad! The mount will never come off, but if I do need to chisel it off, at least it's on a part of the bumper that won't be seen and if it does need a respray it's cheaper to spray a bumper rather than a car! Again the red LED means the camera has power! Here is a picture of the fuse box: My fuse box diagram is in Japanese, so I've had to google where I want them plugged in. The left one is the dashcam, that's plugged into the rear window heater, if it blows a fuse, not the end of the world. It's been wired in since last summer and never had a problem. It has a continuous feed even when the key is out so that I can leave the dashcam running in a car park for example, however I do have to remember to disconnect the cable from the dashcam when I park the car up in the garage for weeks/months otherwise I have a flat battery. The right hand one is the rear GoPro hardwire kit, that's plugged into the front wipers. Now this isn't ideal, but due to the 90 degree and thickness of the fuse adaptor it doesn't always fit where you want it to go. My reasoning is that I mainly drive the car in the summer, so rain is less probable, the odds of blowing a fuse is low and if I do and the wipers stop, then I will pull the hard wire kit out and put in a spare 20Amp fuse that is on the fuse box flap. Also if the wipers do stop working at least I know the camera has stopped charging! I looked into the power draw of the cameras, the Hero 4 (I have 4x hero 4 silver and 1x hero 4 black) is 2.8w when recording or 3.8 when recording with wifi turned on. The dashcam is between 2-3w depending on the information source. All three kits use a 3amp fuse. nothing there should overload anything. Lastly to protect the USB cables, I put some insulation tape on the end to protect them from grim and rain. The front one gets tucked away behind the bumper out of sight and at 14 cm long it's nowhere near the spinning fan....yes I checked that too!!! A couple of weekends ago @AndrewG, @ianl and @GSC and I went to the BHP car show in Kent. It was a really good day out and Ian and I had great fun driving to the show together. There will be a video upcoming, it's still in production at the moment! I should point out that although I currently have 5 cameras, 2 were actually bought for two friends that are going on the road trip. I will only keep three for myself, 1x front, 1x rear and one with a triple suction mount that can be attached all around the car. The idea is that we can get footage from all the vehicles taking recording all the other vehicles and of course the scenery! The cameras on my car will keep one battery in them at all times incase the cable stops charging, they will work without batteries in them though. All the cameras have 128GB sd cards in them which at 1080p 30fps will store 8 hours 3 minutes of footage, according to the GoPros themselves. The cameras were won on a popular auction site, they were 2nd hand and came with various accessories. The cheapest bundle I won was £52, the most expensive was £132. The cases with holes for cables were £11 and the hardwire kits were £10 each. I also had to buy a 4TB external hard drive to store the footage as 5x cameras at 128GB per day is 640GB. Times that by 9 days is 5.7TB (5760GB)! I suddenly have more respect for Top Gear and The Grand Tour because I'm filming in 1080p. They film in 4K, I dread to think how many hard drives they take with them on a road trip special, nopt to mention the backup hard drives because if they loose the footage, they cant really go back and film it again! So until next time, keep Zeddin'

This is the start of a blog of my new purchase of a Nissan 300zx. I recently sold my two cars; a 1991 twin turbo manual in red and a black manual NA (Almost sold) to raise the funds for my new purchase. A few reasons convinced me that this was the right thing to do; 1) I realised I hardly ever drove both cars and when going to meetups, I always picked my red TT, 2) The wife was getting upset I was using her Audi TT for trips to the tip and other messy/dirty jobs and suggested owning one 300zx and one more practical car would be better, 3) Although I enjoy spannering with cars and learning new skills, I was finding that sometimes I just wanted to get in and drive. Not spanner for 2 hours just to drive. 4) The list of improvements/jobs/plans for both cars was longer than my.....arm lets say! 5) By selling both mediocre cars I might be able to find something/import something in good condition. A stable base to concentrate all my energy and funds onto. Enter (stage left) my best friend.... After a joking conversation with him a few weeks ago along the lines of "If you ever sell your zed, let me know" thinking full well that he wouldn't, he came back to me and said, you can have it for (insert low price here). Jaw dropped. I didn't really expect that, so the challenge was on to sell both my cars! On Thursday 20th May 2021 I took ownership of my new car: A 1989 Nissan 300zx Twin Turbo automatic in red with 44630 miles on the clock. My friend had imported this car himself from Japan to the UK in 2016, MoT'd it, got it registered and then put it in dry storage where it hadn't moved since. First job of the day was making space to remove car from where it was stored, then check fluids and other checks to make sure it could/would start. We connected the original japanese battery expecting it to be flat, however the dash lit up and it started instantly on the first try, we were both surprised! We left it running to let it gently circulate fluids and warm up after its hibernation. We checked everything and it all still worked including the AC (I have never owned a car with working AC) even the tyres had 25psi in them still. It was then off to the MoT via a petrol station for a drink of BP's finest. I was genuinely worried about the MoT because if it failed, I couldn't tax the car and I don't have anywhere off road to keep the car while waiting for work to be done and the re-test, but my fears were unfounded. Not only was it a pass, but a "green pass" (If you use the "vehicle smart" app you will understand: no advisories), The tester said he was surprised by the condition of the underneath. He said it was cleaner than most new cars he MoT's and was completely factory underneath. A pristine example was a phrase he used! I must admit, I have not managed to have a look under the car yet due to weather and work. It was then off home to celebrate by taxing the car! The next day I used the car to go to work, it drove fantastic. It was smooth and comfortable, no rattles or bangs. The auto box was smooth with no jerky gear changes, the steering light when it should be and "heavy" when it needed to be, it was a joy to drive and a world apart from the usual 100000k+ cars I am used to driving (My old Audi 80 coupe was on 365k!). I took it very easy of course as although its not yet at its 60k service, it has been sitting around for years and I'm worried about the timing belt. It is booked in with Jimmer in June for service and timing belt kit. There are one or two other little problems that need sorting: 1) It was in KMs, however my friend gave me his set of UK clocks he had in his garage, so now it's in MPH and delimited (I believe) 2) The original rear spoiler has a chip/crack so that will start soaking up water and needs replacing asap with the fibreglass copy to stop the boot lid from rotting through 3) My friend had a car cover on it for some of its time in storage and the cover seems to have rubbed the paint in certain areas. I am hoping a good polish will solve this, but it might need something/someone more professional to look at it 4) One of the alloys paint was touched up on a kerb mark with the wrong colour paint 5) A couple of the interior panels, the A pillar trims and one of the door cards, have little bubbles, so they will need replacing 6) It is on the japanese tyres it came with which are in good condition for their ages, but they are 205's. They need changing really for 225 atleast So I have a few things to do, but nothing scary. Enough of the text I can hear you saying, where are the damn pictures!? So here are some (bad) pictures! 1) Just before starting her 2) Battery connected 3) Interior (a bit muddy) 4) Outside warming up 5) Another frontal shot 6) Rear view 7) Another rear view ? Post-MoT exterior wash (it started raining just as I finished!) So there we have it! Plans for this car? Well I did have plans; new suspension, new wheels, spoiler, more power etc. But I feel that this is a bit of a snapshot, I feel that it needs to be kept stock, as OEM as possible for as long as possible. I will be looking for a secure, dry place to store it as I only have outside on the road at the moment as my drive is very steep. I will finish the jobs listed above and use it for shows, meetups, drives and the odd trip to work. I will refrain from using it in the winter, but this is not a static display, I will be using it. Cars like this were designed to be driven, it's in their souls and I can't deny her that. After we have all spent a year locked up, I like to think that is how some cars feel locked away in a dark garage, only to see the sun once in a while....