Yowser

Happy Birthday Mate :duffer:

Avoid driving the car with the problem, you will lose water, overheat and cook the headgasket. If you do a heater matrix bypass then it will be fine to drive it. Basically involved connecting the two water pipes in the engine bay that exter the firewall together so they create a loop and bypass the leaking matrix. If you do a forum search you will find more detail on how to do that. Its not a dashboard out job to replace matrix, but its best to take to a specialist as its only a couple of hours work for them but get quotes first as many will charge more than needed becuase its not a pleasant job and they are avoiding it.

Looking good. :cool: Reckon she'd benefit from some nice smoothly shaped skirts to match the front now.

Halfords are more expensive on some items than local factors, but cheaper on a lot of stuff- especially the higher end expensive goods.

yes, peanut oil, not peanut butter! lol

I'll be there. Been there quite a few times, its a Hungry Horse pub. Car park is seperated in 2 with quite a number of spaces but does get pretty busy.

Interested to see the results. Have been Tempted myself, but Pity they are about £100 more than before though :(

Yeh, 2 stone Thats the Pump, Bracket, Condensor, Radiator, pipes There is the aircon unit under the dash to, that could be removed, and thats another 4kg

Have you changed your Thermostat yet though?

1kg = 2.2 Pounds 14 pounds in a stone.

16kg. Not as much as most would expect I imagine...but there is ofcourse the added airflow/cooling benefits to its removal.

the slicktop is around 100kg lighter than a LWB targa ;)

Yep, thats lee @ Import-ance. There's a few threads on here about it.

I believe Jimmer is running the GT525's on 19psi and recorded a flywheel figure of 376 at the wheels, which is around 450 at the fly.

Unfortunatly it could very well be mechanical, you dont tend to get any noises when it is, and your symptons are very typical of mechanical failure. However you really need to get the diagnostics to work to see if there are any errors. I've not got any suggestions for that other than retry it, carefully checking your following the procedure exactly.

Not a huge amount - 30kg , providing spec is the same. Although a lot of slicktops came with other weight saving measures that would make the difference larger - manual seats, No ABS ...etc

The U.S Dyno figure results are never comparable to the U.K dyno figures. Yours mods with 12.5psi would barely see 350hp at the flywheel here.

Happy birthday mate :duffer:

Sounds to me that because of their inexperience with the job its taken them far too much time, and they have charged it out on the hourly rate. Really should of got a quote beforehand. I would suggest you phone up Ztech and Zedworld, and ask them for written quotes to do the job (email/fax) , then take the quotes from the Speciliast Z garages to your garage to show them and explain you are unprepared to pay the bill as it in unreasonable. If they refuse to compromise then you'll have to go down the legal route.

Rough costs, and all IMO.... Starting with a completely stock car 400hp Fly is about the max possible with Stock Turbos, Injectors and Intercoolers, so your going to have to invest in aftmarket. forging the engine for reliablity - 555 Injectors - £500 Z1 GT525 Turbos or JWT Sport500 - £1200 Aftermarket FMIC or SMIC - £300-£600 Boost controller - £150 Wiesco Forged pistons - £400 Cometic Head gasket - £100 Engien gasket set - £150 Rechipped ECU - £100 Induction kit - £80 Decat & Downpipes - £150 Catback exhaust - £400 RPS Max clutch - £400 Labour for engine removal, rebuild and fitting of parts : £1500 - £2000 or if you kept standard internals - 555 Injectors - £500 Z1 GT525 Turbos or JWT Sport500 - £1200 Aftermarket FMIC or SMIC - £300-£600 Boost controller - £150 Rechipped ECU - £100 Induction kit - £80 Decat & Downpipes - £150 Catback exhaust - £400 RPS Max clutch - £400 Labour for engine removal and fitting of parts - £1000 Personally a stock engine in good condition would run 450hp reliably providing the car has good mapping, but a fresh rebuild with forged pistons is always going to be a benefit in reliability.

He prefers them slippery

First thing to do is an an ECU test to check for error codes

Personally I would just go 2nd hand, but buy one you can test first. Noises and/or syncro problems are still very rare for Manual boxes. If however you went for the brand new box then its a 98+ version which has an improved design with better syncros. Fitting should cost no more than £250, so you would be looking at around £1500 inclusive. (£1250 box and shipping + £250 fitting labour)

A z31 I presume (1984-1989).

You did'nt say which struts your fitting ? If its the likes of KYB/Koni ...etc then they use your old stock top mounts, but its worth getting new stock items. If your getting coilovers then they will come with their own top mounts. no, you dont get adjustable camber with the Tein top mounts for the 300zx, only for other cars (200sx..etc).