Funkysi

Read my above. It's a complete mis-conception that leaving a stone cold engine on idle is in anyway a good thing to do. It is NOT.

You've got no oil at the top of the engine when starting from cold, the best way to get oil up there is to drive it. Oil won't get up to the top end as quickly if it's just sat at idle. The oil is more viscous (resistance to pour) when cold. Engine on idle produces low oil pressure. So, you've got thick oil in a cold engine with no pressure. What's it not doing? It's not getting through the oil galleries properly and not getting up to the top end. Metal against metal! Oil doesn't really work until it's at operating temperature, meaning the more you just leave it idling doing nothing, the more wear you're creating. You need to get some heat into the oil, get it moving, quickest way to do that is to drive it gradually bringing the revs up. Obviously don't get in it and thrash the nuts off it as you'll screw the turbos up and do damage to the internals. But light driving is the best way to warm the oil up and keeping the wear low. Makes me laugh when I hear people leaving their car to warm up for 10 minutes or so thinking they're doing the car some good, when in actual fact, they are doing the complete reverse.

When the bushes go, it basicially looks as if someone's poured Treacle over them. It's not watery, a thick type gel. I believe they are a form of silicone.

Selling already!!?? http://pistonheads.com/sales/807631.htm £1600 cash 3 weeks ago! LOL

What actually happened to that Alan? I can't find the original thread.

Mine's in the garage under a dust sheet. Too much filth and salt on the roads at the moment.

Don't ever leave the car idling from cold to warm up. One of the worst things you can do to an engine. You're wrecking the engine. What filler are you talking about? Coolant or oil?

If you balance it out with bigger rear brakes, ABS is still effective.

MJP. Cheap as chips. I think they are around the £10 mark.

It'll do just as much harm having a cold engine sat there idling for 10 -15 minutes. Idling engines make me squirm. Warm up can be done efficiently with a good drive. Cool down (turbos) should be off boost. Not a 10 minute idle. It's why I hate turbo timers. You're protecting the turbos, but you're not doing a great deal for the rest of the engine. Driver intuition and forward planning are the best ways to warm up and cool down a car sufficiently :) Personally, I'd get an old beater if I was doing short journeys.

Not always, you can get coolant into the cylinders. Depends where the HG fails. But as has been mentioned, the K-series is know for this.

I'm guessing it's oil cap as he's referring to his dip-stick. How bad is it? In most cases, it's just a bit of oily/water emulsion (mayo) that collects there as a result of a lot of short journeys. It's winter now, so condensation levels inside the engine will be increased as external and component items become cooler. It's a normal occurance in cars where people drive the car for about 5 minutes a day and leave it. It's not a good for the engine by eny stretch of the imagination, because the engine doesn't have chance to burn off the water content and it tends to collect in the breathers or filler cap area.

No, I don't like venoms because they don't suit the Z in any shape or form. Stock rear lights still look pretty modern (if 99-spec) as there's practically nothing else around that looks quite like them, which is why people say the Z still looks quite fresh. It is theeeeeee most distinguishable part of the car. If you want to go down the LED route on stock rears, and want to do the job properly, you need to get 2 PCBs made up and have them highly populated with miniature high power SMD LEDs. These are so small, the when correctly populated, all you'll see is the really cool synthetic glow of LEDs without any of the dimples that the great big old conventional LEDs have. My design, which I will eventually try and get manufactured with contacts I have within the electronic industry is a design using a profile cut PCB (profile being a template copy of the side of each individual light diffuser) in the rear lights. Having that populated with single phase LEDs at the top for the indicators and 2 stage LEDs at the bottom for brake and side light operation. The beauty of Micro SMD LEDs is that, because of their size, you can populate PCBs with vast numbers of them meaning that you won't loose the contours of the light bezels as well as having a nice even glow. It means you need to find someone with a pick-and-place machine and to let you borrow their wave soldering machine. I've seen LED converted rear lights before, and whilst they can look ok, have square illuminated edges rather than follow the curves of the outer and inner part of the diffuser/bezel. If it works, then I’ll aim to manufacture a few kits for those that want them. I still have more research do on the subject regarding films/coatings etc. The great things about these, is that the lights will visially look stock, but their LED conversion should look professional and slick looking. That's the aim anyway.

Hacky sacks!

Having seen tired looms, I am guessing it's the pastic and joints around the connectors which is what tends to fail. I think the wires themselves are reasonbly well sheilded. But the connectors break up like rich-tea buscuits and and their joints tend to fray and work their way loose.

I'd love one of those. :)

I think Lisa was more concerned wth the complex shape of the rear screen.If you were to try and tint that....well, you just wouldn't.

They've probably stapled his paws together and superglued him on. PS, your golden retriever was Ginger! You have a ginger dog! :wack: ;)

Haha! Jonny-cab!

Watch the BBC link and it tells you. It doubles up as a satnav/info centre as well.

Shame she doesn't, just the talking monkey on the dash!

:confused:

I have practically ZERO interest in small cars. But this thing is pretty cool. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7752602.stm

:rofl:

I'm not talking about the GT series type cars. I'll try and find the photo I saw.