DTA (UK)

Yes, clear side repeaters/markers are legal. Yes, I have them in stock @ £22 including silvertec bulbs and postage. You can contact me on 07044 016586 of send me a PM. Regards, Dan

Hey StellaZ, Most USB converters can be used with generic "usb/rs232 converter drivers" downloadable from the net. However, our ConZult software may have problems with it. The latest approved version of the diagnostic software is v2.3 - this is optimised for use with a USB converter. Older versions tend to freeze when accessing certain screens. If the ConZult equipments isn't yours perhaps you can ask the owner to contact me and purchase a USB converter (with drivers) = £15. If the owner is registered he/she will also receive a free copy of the latest software. If you have any further questions please let me know. Regards, Dan

Hi, Got your tension rods in but still waiting on the HID parts. I have been told the kits have left the suppliers earlier this week but as per usual I'm waiting on Customs to send me their import duty/vat invoice. Could be a few more days I'm afraid. Regards, Dan PS - will put up pics of our pre-chromed 99-spec inserts later this afternoon. I need to sort the pics out first!

Two points to consider: (1) HID's use approximately 35W power which is less than stock 55W bulbs, therefore the headlight enclosure doesn't get as hot. (2) You can use a Plasticote chrome paint on the inserts - shouldn't be a problem. However, chroming the inserts will not increase the brightness of your headlights. It merely updates the look and could potentially cause unwanted light "scatter". If you really want to go the whole way I can supply pre-chromed 99-spec inserts. Not exactly cheap at £290 but they do look superb with HIDs! HTH Dan

Alex, Please give me a call regarding the tensioner and the garage your car's at. 07044 016586 - Thanks! Dan EDIT: Ok - have spoken to you. Hope it went well.

Hi, As promised, I can now state the prices for stock pulley belt kits (Alt/Powersteering/Aircon): JDM TT ( UK TT ( Postage will be £3 via recorded delivery Prices for cars built after 1994 and NA's will follow as soon as I get the invoice for those belts. Regards, Dan

I think you phoned me around 6.45pm today but I was unable to take your call - my apologies for that. I can source you a complete kit - will get a price for you in the morning. If you're still after this kit please phone me again in the morning (after 9am) and I should be able to give more info. Regards, Dan

Haven't got personal experience of either clutches you refer to but can tell you that a 6 puck clutch is either on or off. They really are not suited to road driving and should only be used in track going cars. If you're after a good upgraded clutch for fast road conditions then I would suggest a RPS Street Max clutch. At £425 they are a great deal and can handle a lot of power/abuse. RPS clutches have an excellent reputation and long track record of satisfied customers. Let me know if you're interested. Dan

LOL :D :mac1: I can see how my previous post could have cast me in a particularly greedy, captalistic light ... Not to worry, discounts are coming the club's way very soon. As for the belt prices ... won't know how much they cost me until I get the invoice (Monday/Tuesday) and will post up then.

I apologise for the fault in the website. It's been acting up ever since the site moved to a new server ... Will need to have a look at it again this weekend. I can certainly help with the 2 large silicone couplers. What you need are: 2x ID63 Couplers @ £6.49 each = £12.98 Postage on these two items will be £1.50 Do you also require the clips to secure the couplers? If so, a set of 4 clip for the above hoses comes to £5.60 (full stainless steel). Postage remains the same as above. Please also specify which colour you're after. I've currently got red, blue, yellow and black in stock. As for the intercooler hoses, you'll need to be a bit more specific. Are you talking side mounted stock intercoolers, front mounted, etc. I'll need specific diameters and lengths. Regards, Dan

For stock UK wheels the sizes are: Front: 225/50/16 Rear: 245/45/16 Good tyres (from personal experience): Falken FK452, Bridgestone SO3, Toyo Proxes T1R (in no particular order). HTH Dan

Yes you can. Buy a regular H3 bulb, solder on a second lead (onto the metal base) with spade a connector at the other end and plug them into the stock bulb connector. Alternatively give me a shout and I can supply you with a pair of Jap-spec H3C bulbs (uprated too!) Or uprated H3 bulbs. Or a HID kit for that matter! ;) Regards, Dan

The idea behind the radiator slam panel is to force air through the radiator rather than having it go out the top. At a certain speed the air hitting the radiator will be forced back on itself and up (simple aerodynamics of air hitting a mesh object). This acts as a "wall" which prevents more cold air from entering the radiator. If you block the gap between the top of the radiator and the cross bar then you're effectively forcing more air through the radiator which would otherwise escape over the top of it. Techtom and ConZult tests have proven that with a slam panel fitted coolant temperature levels dropped between 3~8 degrees C. Not exactly an awful lot but still a reduction of sorts. Also, the big fan placed between the radiator and engine block actually "pulls" air through the radiator, not blow onto it. The electric fan at the front pushes air towards the radiator. HTH Dan

Hi Dave, I'll put the prices up later this afternoon (not at my own desk at the moment) and will respond to your PM as well. Regards, Dan

Hi Elmo, I have a few full sets of belts for both JDM and UK-spec cars on order - will be with me just after the weekend. If it's any use to you I can reserve you a set. Regards, Dan PS - I'm assuming you're not running an under drive crank pulley ...

Standard brakes are not as crap as everyone makes them out to be. Fair enough, you can't compare them to Ferrari F50 brakes but then you do need to remember that they are mostly between 10 and 17 years old. Chances are that the fluid has never been changed, the rubber brake lines have either perished or become flexible and the callipers have probably never been cleaned/refurbished. After 10-17 years of abuse they are likely not to be in the best condition. So, if you do not want to go down the route of upgraded brakes (ie a big brake conversion) what can you do? A simple and cost effective solution would be to do the following: 1. change the rubber brake lines to braided ones (roughly £85~£105) 2. flush the brake system and refill with new fluid - Dot4.1 is fine (roughly £30) 3. take the callipers off the car and refurbish them, not forgetting to change the piston seals (roughly £30~£40/pair) 4. replace the standard disc with DBA discs (£210/pair) 5. replace the standard pads with Porterfield pads (£140 for all four corners) You don't need to do all of the above, you could just do no's 2 and 3 and replace the pads with standard pads. That will already make a difference. If anyone needs any further advise on replacing brake parts or wanting to "go large" then please get in touch as all brake parts are available to purchase through us. HTH Dan

I'll second the recommendation to use 1and1.co.uk. Have been with them for three years and have 7 websites hosted there. As Royal said, the foreign call centres can be a pain but they do get it sorted and will follow up every e-mail support request. Good luck Leigh! Dan

A quick and rough translation of the Dutch language article: "A 26 year old (Dutch) driver was killed on the E40 in Belgium. For as yet unknown reasons the driver lost control of the vehicle and ended up on the wrong side of the carriage way where he collided head-on with a German lorry. The car caught fire upon impact which was quickly extinguised by witnesses to the crash. Unfortunately help came too late for the Dutch driver. The driver of the lorry remained unhurt in the crash. There is no Armco separating the two carriage ways at the place of the accident." Dan

I live in the Midlands (Warwickshire) and it's been very bad indeed since Friday afternoon. I drove to Sutton Coldfield in the morning to drop off a HKS exhaust and it wasn't too bad yet - lots of standing water on the M42/M6 but copable with. On my return it was already a lot worse and took me a lot longer to get home than normal. Spent a lot of time driving up the wrong side of the road to avoid deep standing water. Bad thing was that I was in my Zed and bricking it that the filter/maf got wet. I must say that I got very lucky and made it home in one piece. That's more than can be said for a lot of other people around our village. On Saturday I took a short walk to survey the flooding and was astounded by the amount of abandoned cars - even 4x4's were stranded around here! On Sunday most of the roads had dried out sufficiently to make a reasonable journey. At one point we passed over a bridge near Evesham (on the A46 by-pass) and were absolutely amazed at the level of flooding. The river Avon is normally no wider than about 5 meters where it passes under the bridge but on Sunday it was about 250 meters wide!! Couldn't believe it. I think we got very lucky at home because although both our front and rear gardens were flooded the water got to within an inch of the door. I'm just wondering how much ground water has gotten in under the house and under the floorboards! Guess we'll see in time. Dan

They are 110 degree bends. If you can find a stainless steel supplier they will either have these on the shelf or can mandrel bend one for you. Is not too expensive depending on the grade of S/S. The internal diamet will need to be 76mm (or 3" for the "imperial" boys ...) I can supply the silicone couplers and clips if they are needed. HTH Dan

My car has had the same symptoms in the past (and recently again) and it was definitely air in the cooling system. Do as Mark (Topless) suggested and get the air out of the system - this will definitely stop the "loo flushing" sounds! LOL Don't forget to keep checking the coolant level for a few days in a row - you'll probabaly find that the level is dropping every few days or so.

That's great! Let me know what you want, when you can! LOL :) With respect to the exhaust, any aftermarket exhaust is classed as a "free flow" exhaust because it replaces the "restricted" stock exhaust. Basically, it allows the exhaust gasses to exit the car more freely than with the stock system in place. Prices for cat-back exhausts vary widely and there are quite a few sources. For a decent system you should budget between £400 and £500 excluding fitting, a little less if you're buying second hand. I can source you a Mongoose cat-back system for around £490 delivered. This is generally considered a good system which isn't too loud and retains the stock look of the car (the exhaust tips can be had as either twin 3" or one 6"x4" oval). One thing I forgot to mention in my previous PM is that you can also get free flowing down pipes. This will free up even more horses but is not strictly necessary if you're not chasing big bhp. Regards, Dan

Hi Si, I originally worked in telecommunications (AT&T Asia Pacific in Hong Kong) where I was Director of new business development for Europe, Middle East and Africa. It was a fairly autonomous role with 80% travel between Hong Kong and Europe. Secretary back in HK and seven direct reports. Excellent role and would have loved to have continued with it but AT&T merged with BT to form a company called "Concert" and within a few months it became apparent that the growth potential had been taken away. I then briefly worked as a Director for fixed line communications for a start-up in Marbella & Madrid, Spain. That was short lived as the financial markets crashed and I lost about $7 million in funding over night :headvswal I then changed completely out of the telecoms industry and set up a "Corporate Change Management" consultancy. In a nutshell, I was hired by companies to analyse their current position relative to where they want to be (so to speak). I then developed the relevant policies, communication strategies and marketing plans to successfully bring the company to a new level. This role was very much more a strategic role than the role at AT&T. The skill set relevant to the job was also relatively similar - mainly project management and training skills. It is certainly possible to change carreers and many people have done so successfully. The most important thing for you to do is to decide EXACTLY what it is you want from a carreer. Then analyse your current skill set and if your skills are lacking in a certain area then get them by taking a course, etc. before you leave your current job. Then once you are confident that you have the knowledge to successfully make the change go and do it! There is little more satisfying than doing something new and doing it well. You'll find that prospective employers are currently far less likely to hire someone who doesn't fit their criteria EXACTLY as they have an enormous pool of potential candidates to choose from. Don't let this discourage you, it's an opportunity - so grab it by the horns and run with it. You won't regret it, I'm sure. Do I regret leaving AT&T and ending up self employed, running a couple of small internet retailers, making about 1/100th of the annual salary I used to command? No, absolutely not! What I do regret though is moving to bloody rainy Blighty! But I blame that on my wife! LOL ;) Good luck mate! Dan

Hi there, I'm sure we can help you with your chip requirements. To answer your first question (total price), yes, £95 gets you a custom burned chip and your ECU professionally socketed. The only additional cost will be the shipping cost for the ECU to get from you to the place where it gets socketed and back. If you opt for say Royal Mail Special Delivery (insured to £500 value) then you're looking at around £7.87 each way (so roughly £16 return postage). Secondly, suggested modifications include: 1. Boost controller (you've already got that) 2. A'PEXi induction Kit (£65 delivered from us) 3. Free flow cat-back exhaust (perhaps a Mongoose exhaust if you're looking to keep the car's appearance as close to stock as possible - again, we can source this for you) 4. De-cat pipes (you've read the pros and cons so I'll leave that decision to you) If you perform the above modifications and run the car with our chip I guarantee you won't be disappointed! :) I've got all the above mods on my own TT, except I haven't decatted the car, and it's very fast. I wouldn't bother with the turbos and intercoolers until you have decided you want to go for BIG bhp (400bhp +). The stock intercoolers and turbos will see you up to roughly 365-380 bhp provided everything is in top condition. Remember, if you're going to change the intercoolers and turbos you will not see any benefit until you fit larger injectors (NISMO 555's for example). With regard to your final question (hard pipe kit), yes, I sell the complete kit (stainless steel hard pipes, silicone couplers and stainless steel bands). The silicone couplers are available in red, blue, black and yellow. Hard pipe kits are available for the four boost pipes as well as the radiator pipes (both upper and lower). Cost is £248 for the boost pipes and £148 for the radiator pipes (includes shipping). If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me or post it here on the forum. All the best, Dan

Power gains are very difficult to quantify as each car is different and will therefore produce different results. The DTA chip has been optimised to run on UK fuel, can safely handle up to 15psi (which is when the stock injectors max out) and has optimised mappings for low- and mid-range torque (ie the car becomes more "driveable"). I run one of our DTA chips and am very pleased with the increase in "grunt" as well as the apparent increase in MPG. I haven't dyno'd the car with a standard chip vs. our DTA chip but we do have a (customer) car running award winning 1/4 mile runs. As for fitting it yourself - yes, this is possible although I wouldn't recommend it if you haven't got a socketed ECU. Contact an electronics repair shop local to you and ask them to (a) remove the stock chip and (b) solder in an eprom socket (supplied with the DTA chip). You can then insert our chip (or whatever other chip) into the socket as and when you please. HTH Dan PS - if you car has specific modifications we can customise the chip for your particular setup.