DTA (UK)

Steve, My suggestion is that you go out and buy the best unmodified car you can get (UK/J-spec makes no difference except at insurance time). Nine times out of ten you'll find that modified ones have been thrashed and are far more expensive to insure (holds true for both UK and J-spec models). Not saying you won't find a well looked after modified one but with cars of this calibre and age it pays to buy a well running stock one. Then spend some money on making sure it runs absolutely spot on (i.e., get your cambelt and auxilary belts changed, have a service done, etc) and then slowly add the upgrades (keeping in mind that you must declare these to your insurance company as non-disclosure may invalidate your policy). Two years ago I went out and searched for well over 6 months for a good stock Zed. Seen and tried out many different ones and about 15 Zeds later decided to buy the one I have now. Don't let your heart and emotions rule your purchase and shop around. These cars are awesome and in the long run you will appreciate not buying the first one you see/try. Apologies if this sounds a bit like a lecture - was not so intended. Hope you find a good one mate! Regards,

Glynn, Not really mate. To get to the cambelt you need to remove the intake pipes, radiator, PTU, etc, which in itself is no mean feat. Then when you can see the belt its condition may not become apparent until the belt is off the pulleys and you can bend it to see if there is any cracking. Not an easy job. If you are in doubt then the best thing to do is to have it replaced. Don't go to Nissan as they rip you off and actually buggered up my cambelt change two years ago. Go to Jeff at Zedworld - he does more cambelt changes than anyone I know! Good bloke too and knows his Zeds inside out. He's on the Traders Forum. Cheers!

Hi Mike, Yes, no problem running a JWT chip with your current set up. I am running this configuration at the moment as well. You'll need to get your ECU professionally socketed before you can fit the chip and also get some boost jets installed. One word of advise - check with your insurance company what this mod will do to your premium as non disclosure may invalidate your policy at the time of a claim. Seen this go wrong once to often now. Regards,

Hey Ben, Yes, the oil pressure sender unit degrades over time due to the internal construction of it and hence it will only indicate a faulty reading. Best thing to do is to get an aftermarket oil pressure guage which you can plumb in somewhere other than the original pressure sender unit. You can also get a new oil pressure sender unit from Nissan - thought they cost around £90 and are very easy to fit. HTH Regards,

Wasn't me but there is also a gorgeous dark blue metallic K-reg Convertible in Cambridge. A customer of mine recently sold it to a bloke there so keep an eye out for it! Regards,

Could be a fueling problem - check fuel pump, filter, regulators, etc. I know nothing about VWs so am just chucking out what sounds logical. HTH Regards,

Hey Hugh, May I suggest our A'PEXi induction kit and GZA chrome covers/dipsticks for the engine ... all courtesy of http://www.dta-motorsport.co.uk ... Regards mate!

Mark, No problem mate. As a daily drive I rate it sort of 5/10. Reason being it is very rough on your body (don't think I've driven a stiffer setup that the 355 although mine had the Fiorano handling kit fitted which obviously lowers and stiffens the car considerably). Also, clutch can be quite heavy especially when cold and when in traffic - don't know why but it seemed to go heavier as it stood in traffic longer although it could just be my left leg getting tired. Other than that I have driven it abou 2k miles on a round trip from Marbella to my appartment in Holland and back via Germany & Switzerland - not a single problem encountered! It always started first time, never ran rough and gave me an even bigger smile than driving the Zed! There are two points I would like to mention though: (1) If you worry about parking your Zed and finding it with dents and scratches or even vandalised then multiply that worry by 10 and you'll get close to what it is like to park your 355 anywhere. (2) I understand that you have experience with running cars obtained from a salvage yard. Bear in mind that if anything does go wrong with a 355 you have no come-back on the salvage yard and it can be a very expensive exercise to put right. Also if you are thinking of selling it on after a while I know for a fact that trying to shift a "salvaged" exotic is more difficult than brokering peace in the Middle East. Let me know if you want to talk about any of this. (07044016586). Regards,

Mark, I very briefly owned a '98 355 GTS (black, colour coded t-tops, camel leather interior and challenger grille) for about 8 months three years ago during my "prosperous days" whilst working as a company director in Marbella. You are not going to find a forum like this one for the 355, or any Ferrari for that matter. If you are looking to buy a good one I suggest you contact the Ferrari owners club who will be able to put you in contact with the right people. If buying from a dealer they will generally perform a major service (whether it needs it or not) before selling it to you and if not they offer a guarantee on any maintenance within 1 year of owning the car. Mind that the service costs for 355's are approx. £450 for a minor service and £1100 for a major service (not as bad as for a Testarossa which weighs in at £10k for a belt change = engine out job!) I had mine serviced in the UK (once) by a small dealer near London who collected the car on a flatbed in Marbella, did the service in London and then returned the car within 7 days all for about £1200. If you want any more info let me know - not sure how much I can tell you but every little bit helps! Regards,

Hi Homebrew! I myself run a JWT chip (with boost jets set for 12psi) as well as a JWT induction kit. Having been involved in chipping various Zeds over the past two years I can not stress enough that the car must be running well before you start upping boost. So many guys I have refused to upgrade their boost by means of a chip because their car had existing problems. When you up the boost things which are already not functioning properly will most definitely go kaput and cost you a lot of money. I just wanted to get this in before answering your original question. You say you have a JWT chip, presumably you also have boost jets and an intake (what type have you got). Assuming your car is running fine and you have no fueling, cooling, or ignition problems, you can safely run upto 12psi (i.e., 0.8bar) of boost on stock engine internals. I would not suggest going any higher than that until you are absolutely convinced that your turbos are in perfect working order and again, you have no other running problems. The air/fuel maps in the JWT chips are good for anything upto 16psi. Above that you'll need to make some further modifications to your injectors, fueling, air intake, exhaust, etc. Furthermore, inform your insurance company of any modifications you have made which affect the bhp output of the car. If you don't you may invalidate your policy. An acquaintance of mine recently wrote off his TVR Tuscan S in an accident, he didn't inform his insurance company that he made certain modifications and now the insurance company will not pay him. He is not a happy bunny. Apologies for part of this sounding like a lecture but I have seen too many Zeds with blown turbos, engines and worse. HTH Regards,

1. No idea 2. Standard size is 4" x 6" but people (incl. me) have fitted 6" x 9" with a bit of "massaging". HTH Regards,

:slap: Thanks Gio - once a foreigner, always a foreigner! Regards,

Code 21 is an ignition circuit fault - mostly related to the PTU (Power Transistor Unit). As stated above, carefully remove the connector to the PTU and clean off any corrosion or oxidation to ensure a good, clean contact. Dave Marley is talking about purchasing a Series II PTU from Courtesy Nissan (http://www.courtesyparts.com/z32/index.html ). These are (a) newer and (b) of a new design to improve cooling efficiency (which is the main cause of PTU failure). Hopefully that will sort your problem. HTH Regards,

Don't think we've got it working on Symbian OS yet ... but never say never! ;) And just to throw a little oil on the fire ... having taken a closer look at the "new" product, it would "apear" that there is a lot of "similar" displays and possibly underlying coding to our ConZult ... This could get interesting ... Regards,

Hi guys, Having just come across this post I wanted to give a general statement with regard to our ConZult and this new product: I'm not going to get drawn into a debate on price vs functionality between the ConZult (as sold by me at DTA-Motorsport.co.uk) and this product at this moment in time - that is for the creators of the ConZult to sort out. Mike - getting the cables shouldn't be a problem, the problem is getting a plug which fits the Consult DDL in the car - next to impossible to get a hold of and when you do it is extortionately and prohibitively expensive. The product from 300degrees looks interesting but does, at first glance, do exactly the same as our ConZult. We can port (parts of) the software to PDA's as well, it is operational on the same vehicles plus Skylines and GTI-R's, etc. We'll hopefully get a chance to evaluate the product in the near future and then we can comment better on any advantages/disadvantages of the 300degrees product vs our ConZult. Regards,

Guys, Just a friendly reminder to get your orders in by this coming Saturday 27th September for the A'PEXi and Chrome engine parts Group Buys. At the moment we need 9 more A'PEXi orders and 8 more Chrome orders to meet the minimum order quantity of 10 units. You wanted these items, I got them for you at excellent prices, so please get ordering. Regards,

Danny not in help and advice cheerZ MAC;)

Very funny Smithy! :D :slap: I'm afraid that this problem appears to be mechanical rather than electrical so a ConZult will not help (although I did plug it in to confirm all is well with all other sensors). Thanks everyone else for your input. I will try and sort this gremlin out over the weekend. I have just recently cleaned the TB's and all electrical contacts in sight but will now give the idle valve assembly a clean (thanks Andy D.) Suppose that when you spray the TB's with carb cleaner it has got to go somewhere, and seeing as how the idle valve assembly sits at the back all the gunk probably ends up in there! Happy Zedding everyone!

FASTREDZ: I have a J-spec car and can confirm that they only have a front fog light switch on the right hand side binacle. To operate the rear fogs (which I have wired in with a relay to operate the inner brake lights) I have flush fitted a 12V rocker switch (with red LED = MOT requirement) to the top of the same binacle. Looks professional enough. I have also seen similar switches fitted next to the clock, on the centre console and on the dash underneath the steering wheel. HTH Regards,

Hi Guys, Just a quick question: Had to brake rather suddenly and quite hard to dodge some snotty kid running after his football crossing the road - ABS works great by the way. I wasn't going all that fast so the car stopped dead in its tracks, all was ok for a second or two and then the rpms dropped to about 250~300 and nearly stalled the car! Looks like the ECU kicked in and raised the revs to normal level and all is fine. However, I can replicate this "near stalling" experience every time I brake hard. Under normal braking or hard cornering the car behaves perfectly normal. Could this potentially be a PCV valve problem? I've never experienced it before nor have I heard of this problem so am grabbing at straws at the moment. My p/s PCV valve and hose was changed about 6k miles ago and I have yet to get to the driver's side one. My car is a J-spec Auto 2+2 TT. Any feedback or suggestion are much appreciated. Regards,

Great to see so many new faces yesterday - had a great time, thank you Leigh for sorting this one out! Regards,

Hi all, Just a quick note to let you know that we have started two group buys on (1) A'PEXi PowerFlow Induction Kits and (2) Chrome Parts for the engine and Speedo Rings. Have a look at the DTA-Motorsport.co.uk section over in the Traders Forum. Regards,

Hi Dave, I will do my utmost to make it to this meet in the capacity of Manager of DTA-Motorsport.co.uk (please see our new website at http://www.dta-motorsport.co.uk). I will be bringing the ConZult for use/demo on 300ZX's, S13/S14's, Gti-R's and hopefully a Beta version for Skylines. Will also have some chromed engine parts (covers, etc.) to show off. Seeing the entertainment the pub is putting on I might bring the Mrs as well! See you soon! Regards,

The black spot indicates a thread you have posted a response in. Regards,

Like my Zed, yours may have a very small oil leak from the rocker cover at the back of the engine. Mine has a tiny leak that drips oil onto the hot manifold during "spirited" motoring, hence producing an oily smell when I exit the car. Apparently it is a real PITA to rectify the problem as the upper plenum has to come off. HTH. Regards,