Drivin Ivan

Yaseen why did you hit that side, exactly the same place I hit mine! Unlucky that yours was a lamp post, mine was a tyre wall so I only damaged the door, but it is the same door in the same colour........... Bad luck mate, I may be in touch if you are breaking. Ivan

I need to thank those people who helped me out as well. I don't know who gave me a roll of tape to put my wing mirror back on with but great job thanks very much. Yami gave the number of someone who is breaking a shortie so I should be able to get that fixed fairly quick, thanks again. Within 5 minutes of returning to the stand I had most of my problems sorted out :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: great bunch of people. Ivan

It took a while to get the car set up to my liking but the results speak for themselves. Today was my first real chance to give it everything, and I found the limit. I new the Z car had potential to be a truly fast car even with standard power. I have been driving round Coombe for a few years now, I know which way to turn. Ivan

It was a great day, the Z car stand was one of the best and many thanks to Suzy for organising everything. :bow: I did have a minor incident involving a tyre wall and a red flag, the car was going so well :hyper: I just kept pushing and pushing until something finally let go. I suspect it was the rear wheel steering that casued the back end to twitch and just the wrong moment - looks like it will have to go. I did make the Z car look good on the track. Some of the comments people made about how much power I have were quite funny, especially the guy with the 200sx with 350 bhp, the car is standard under the bonnet. and I was running a standard brake pad today. Drivin Ivan

No real harm done :slap: (just need a door and she'll be ok again) my passenger and I are fine and I was having sooo much fun out there, I was more upset about standing on my Oakleys earlier in the day than I was about the car damage. Ivan :smw:

Valvoline Turbo V £15 5 litres every 5000 miles! Ivan

Make sure you support the caliper while it is unbolted or you will damage the rubber brake hoses, and this is generally considered to be a bad thing! Ivan

If you have the traffic news on your RDS radio switched on then the ariel will stay up, on my old sony head unit when TA is switched off the ariel is down when playing discs. Ivan

After last year (yes that was my red Z in the vid) I was wondering if there would be any mileage in offering up my passenger seat for one of the track sessions. The kid who sat there last year did go a very pale shade and ran away very fast when we parked up, cheeky f****r didn't even say thanks. Ok it was a bit wet but I did take the trouble to do a proper warm up lap before hitting the gas (hard). Any interest? Ivan

The video worked this time. Err it's a video of parade laps around Coombe - that's not what the race track is for :headvswal It was so much fun at high speed, but your point taken about brakes. If they are standard then it was a wise choice to go at that speed. Ivan

I got up there before 9am and was gone again by 12:30 ish, I was on track at 10:15 :nana2: . Looks like I should have spent more time wandering around the paddock and I might have seen more Z cars. :nelson: I was impressed by the speed the guy in the Corvette managed to get to on the main straight - at least 150 Mph, the Z car only managed just shy of 130Mph on my best lap. Ivan

Was up at Castle Coombe Race track on Saturday getting in a sneaky bit of practice for Japfest. I saw one other Z (not on the track) a silver Shortie driving around sometime around noon, was it anyone we know? Ivan P.S. I made the Z car look good on the track :hyper: :hyper: , went out last of all and passed pretty much all of the other cars within 7 laps.

It looks like it could be a home made job (welding up some stainless is not tricky) with some off the shelf rear cans, these will be the source of the noise. If you get some back boxes fitted there will be a noticeable drop in sound. Ivan P.s. Long Life put stickers on the top of the pipes and on the car.

The best advice on the net for speeding notices, check out the MCN link. http://www.pepipoo.com/ Ivan

After about 150 mph everything starts to go a bit blurry but if you do it at night then you can't see it happening! The Z car is the most stable car I have been in at high speed and I would be confident in letting go of the wheel at 150 in mine (I haven't done this). The car slips through the air so sweet at that speed but I must admit that when faced with a corner at 165 I did lift. I did cover 450KM in just over a couple of hours cruising at high speed accross Europe last year and the car just loved it. Ivan

Knocking is probably the shocks, if you think they are on the way out anyway then replace them. Ivan

It took me a long time to get the rear of the car to handle in a predictable way and many things had to be done to get it sorted. First if the car is over 10 years a set of shocks would do it no harm at all and the standard Jap spec are pretty weak affairs - this causes the most dramtic wandering sensation if they are broke (you should be able to hear a knocking noise too). Second get a rear strut brace it makes such a difference to the rear handling - try the traders or Cusco have an online shop which is where I got mine - £100 and a couple of hours to fit (you have to chop a hole in the plastic trim above the turrets). New springs will help and are also a cheap (ish) option. And if you have cheap tyres then expect to crash! The final thing to spend your money on is a laser alignment of all 4 wheels at a reputable establishment. Ivan

To be honest I thought he had gone for a full on Celica conversion!!! :hurl: Ivan

I sometimes get the vents in the centre console working and sometimes they do not - If I throw it around a corner you can year something fall into place and then they start to work. Other times it works fine, but the annoying rattle in the dash is definately the bit that moves around and controls the airflow into the vents. Ivan Series 1 Jap import (SWB slick top manual TT :tongue: )

It is a lot of camber and it is doing the tyres no favours, and you can't imagine some of the slides :x: I have had from the salt on the roads. Standard Camber is 1'30" (degrees and seconds) on the front and 1' on the rear. But I think I have now found the perfect rear tyre pressure (33 psi) for grip in the current conditions. The car is very easy to drive quickly through twisty mountain roads of the type found in a certain Western German mountain range .............. Ivan

When I dropped mine by 30mm the camber was increased by exactly one degree. I now have 2'30" of camber on the front and 2' on the rear - perfect for tight fast corners! Ivan

That's not a real problem for PK!

I have laid my hands on the Ring timetable for March - May and it looks like it is going to be the Easter weekend for the first trip to the ring this year. Ivan

Hi Rich welcome to the world of the Z car. I like the guys here they are generally a nice bunch. What version of the Z car did you get? Ivan

I do come on here from time to time and I think I may know the John you are reffering to (what with him pulling up outside the house with the silly little swift). Do I know you? Ivan