Gio

Before I bought my Zed, I was looking for a Porker. Number escapes me but does 944S2 make sense? Anyway, three and a bit years ago, the best I could find was 1989 with 123,000 miles and the Z I found was 1990 with 45,000 miles. No contest, really. Not regretted a moment since (well, mostly :D ) Cheers - Gio

a) £12k to spend on a car? You lucky, lucky b*stard - I always wanted crucifixion. :D b) all things being equal, get the best condition, lowest mileage you can. I would have thought you would get a better overall result for by spending £9k on a car and £2k on preventative as opposed to £5k on a car and £6k on a rebuild. Another way of putting it is to say even if you spend £6k on a 10 year old car what you have is a 10 year old car in good nick. c) don't over-mod. The 300ZX Z32 is a Japanese supercar with 5.something 0-60 and 280bhp as stock. Lovely lovely lovely. d) if you want something to mod, it's safer to pick a more common / popular car. Count the ads in Japanese Performance or Banzai for specialists. Almost no Zeds, loads of Supras, Scoobys, Mazdas, and so on. e) there are loads of experts on this forum who think that keeping stock is a bit limp-wristed. Fair comment guys but I just don't have the time or expertise to do complicated things. For my own opinion, stock is fine - and keeps risks down. f) if you want to mod - either body or mechanicals, either make sure you know exactly what you are doing or make sure you have an expert on hand or loads of dosh and a lot of patience. h) where's g? g) oh there it is i) buy a Zed Cheers - Gio

Hang on a minute, shall we RTFQ? :D (Well there's always a first time hehe) I would imagine you could well use modeller RF and relay gear but using modeller servos to drive a real full-size car? Really? It sounds more like doing the Bond BMW controlled via the mobile sort of thing. Where do you get big servo stuff like that?

If you decide to stay with the original type spoiler it's not going to be worth repainting it. They always go sooner or later - water gets in, rots the metal support and lifts the paint so you get bubbles on the surface. If you want to stay with the original look, you can get a replacement f/g one from http://www.zcentre.co.uk as fitted to JeffTTs's and mine. Cheers - Gio

Just a thought but why not try asking Mike Feeney for advice? He's over your way (well - ish) and might well know someone who can help out. Cheers - Gio

or maybe the candelabra or piano?

Full marks for trying, Clarkey. This was one of those things which I (and I am sure loads of others) were thinking about getting round to one day. With apologies, I had to vote "bad" but only from the design not the attempt. They're right - the colour scheme should match this one. (and font, logos etc) Only one layout comment - if you are working in windows smaller than full screen, it sort of bleeds off the edge and you can't see it all. How about some direct links to Traders areas in the form? Cheers - Gio

About 4 posts down on this thread http://217.158.136.46/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7668&highlight=avatar is more than you will ever want to know on the derivation of avatar! Cheers - Gio

http://www.300zx.org.uk/tech_20.htm In addition, post where you are - there may be someone from here who can come with you. Condition is all important - and as much service history (genuine) as you can get. If over 60,000 you must either have proof that the timing belt has changed or budget to change it. Find a good one that has been looked after and you're laughing. Pick a doggy one and the bloke wot sold it to you will be. Lastly, there are a couple of really good ones for sale here - AndyD's, John Newcombe and others. It's worth checking here for spec / price and if the one you are seeing on Friday can't beat it - try one of the forum ones for sale. Have fun and good luck - Gio

hahahahaha you know - for a pregnant bird, you've gotta GSOH (or is that just cos you've had to find something else to fill the time over the past few months? :D :D ) How's it goin', Wendy - must be soon now? Cheers - Gio PS must get new curtains....

Well done cully Z - another convert! Your green 8-incher does sound like a parking aid. Some of them telescope, I believe. And some don't. Apart from reading all this stuff and also http://www.300zx.org.uk and there's also a Z Club for all Zeds from 240 on http://www.zclub.net . Get it checked over by a Zed specialist - preferably one on here - asap. And make damn sure you know when the timing belt was changed (if you don't know for sure, do it now). Good luck and welcome. You must be a bright guy/gal - look at your choice of car! Cheers - Gio

Ouch, John-boy - thank buddha you're OK. Get your legal insurance on the case asap - and make sure you also claim for pain / distress etc as well as damage to the Z. I found a place which can check the chassis alignment by ultrasound to within 1mm of Nissan spec. It cost me £80 and a morning. So if you wanted to see if the chassis is bent beyond repair or can be put back as good as new give them a call D & G Cars Hayes Middx UB4 0SL 020 8561 9500 They are huge bodyshop - and this type of measurement appears to be streets ahead from either a manual jig or the "suspension out and re-jig to suspension points" at £400 - £500. HTH - Gio

:p

Just click on the Windows calculator and turn it into Scientific. With a simple clickety click you can turn 44 into 2C - so I'm still a twenty-something in hex! FFS don't hit the Oct button - that's 54. :eek: A mate of mine refused to accept any age which began "fifty-". He just substituted letters so 54 became forty-E Or just go binary - I'm 101100 ! Cheers - Gio

Frank de Ruiter - frank.r@de-ruiter7.myweb.nl was what he used when he sent me lots of useful info earlier in the year. Cheers - Gio

Thanks Guys and Mrs Guys - just got back. Knackered. The idea was to troll up there gently on Monday, check out the site in daylight. Get to the B&B (Abbesyfield) and go for a beer - or even wake the Turbos! The do the install nice and early Tuesday to have a clear afternoon and go for celebratory bevvies through the evening. Anyone else do installs (of anything really) for a living? Do they all go to plan? Exactly. So arrive in the middle of N Wales in dark in the p*ssing rain. That A5 up the Ogwen valley toward Bangor is feckin' amusing with a Zed who doesn't know where he's going going one way and a bunch of one-eyed Welsh lorry drivers sitting above the spray level booting it toward civilisation in the other. I found out adrenalin is brown. Still, I was lucky it was dark - if I had seen how close I got to the stone walls (which I saw in daylight today) I think I would have parked and walked. ;) Install takes all day including negotiating with the builders and the headmaster and a 1.5 hour mobile call to the French network centre. Buy the spannermen a drink in the evening and collapse exhausted in the Abbeyfield. Go back this morning for final site testing - still works - hooray! So thanks all for the suggestions - saved for next time. Will post earlier so Timmy knows where I am and can give me a good kicking :D Mrs T - thanks for the invite - see above for poor excuses otherwise would have loved to. Still, enjoyed the Snowdonia thing on the way back today - very pretty. Nice roads - lots of loud pedal, big grins. And a couple of ooops - oh look the back end does snap back eventually. hehe. Know what you mean about Bethesda - had one (and ran) in the Victoria Hotel and the next night went to the y Llangollen next door. The Old Speckled Hen was OK. Diolch n vaur as they say in the middle of bloody nowhere! - Gio

AndyP - aha - that looks good - just downloaded it. For work, we use http://www.bandwidthplace.com as a quick and easy test. Hairsy - yes I get BT (ISDN) pausing at times. It is known that the BT DNS is *ahem* not what it should be. And their recent reduction of BT Anytime to BT Whenwefeellikeit is just another illustration of how you cannot have free bandwidth / unlimited bandwidth. When ADSL is first connected in an exchange, the first few customers will get top performance - always assuming the rest of the network (both BT core and ROW) is hunky dory. However, if a lot of punters sign up, there may not be enough fibre connecting the exchanges to the networks so although the DSLAM (the bit connecting your phone line in ADSL-stylee to BTs IP network) is OK, the DSLAM istelf does not have enough connectivity to the outside world. Hey-ho - another case of marketing speak vs real world tech. Cheers - Gio

hahahahaha :D sometimes it stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer or something like that. EG Greenstuff brake pads are aftermarket but Nissan ones are OEM. Here it means a spoiler that looks exactly like the original. HTH - Gio

Cleaned and lubed mine - but still doesn't work! These may help: http://www.aus300zxclub.com/tech/acfan.htm http://www.twinturbo.net/ttnetfaq/FAQpages/tempfan.html Cheers - Gio

No mate, not a CRAPO - thank buddha. Boring mainlander but had a flirtation with a small island not a zillion miles away until I discovered Zs. So do I want a nice quiet life or to live somewhere I can drive my Z? Nice wheels - & nice Z (more importantly) ;) Cheers - Gio

Short notice I know but it looks as if I need to be in N Wales for a couple of nights starting Monday. Always assuming the install goes well (hah!), and I get some time off (double hah!), is there anywhere I can get a decent pint of bitter without having to drive 5 hours back home? (Also always assuming Mr & Mrs Turbo don't send the dogs out :D ) Site is Bethesda or Tal-y-Bont Cheers - Gio

I've just seen that in the backgound on Scrapheap Challenge! :D lol Hi Mark - yes Jeff did have a Luke OEM fitted when I met him at Solihull. Very nice job indeed. That's the main reason I bought one! (Wish I'd had mine fitted by Jeff, tho.)

Bummer - maybe it's a Swansea thing? Got to the Eisteddfod and been to Cardiff twice since then and so far (fingers firmly crossed) no probs. Perhaps Bob can get you one of those proximity alarms which says "Move away from the car" at very high volume. But still - quite clearly you have better taste and higher intelligence than the lowlifes who drive bourgemobiles. Which I hope is a consolation. May your Zed be ding-free from now on - Gio

Good Lord, it's a Guernsey donkey :D OK that makes you and darkman2 owners of Zeds on little islands with little speed limits. IIRC Guernsey is 30mph and Montserrat is 20mph. Anyone else? Welcome anyway - any Zed owner must have their head screwed on right even if where they live is a little velocity-challenged. Have you had a go at the Val de Terre hillclimb yet? Cheers - Gio

Yes Jez, that's how I think it works (but I'm not a broker so don't take my word for it :) ). Two points - just about every insurer has a different profile of risk and hence cost - that's one of the reasons we all get such widely varying quotes whenever we ring round. But not one insurance company will always be lower on all quotes. And with brokers, you could undercut them all by charging no commission at all but then you wouldn't make any money so no-one does this. I think that's what I meant to say but I blame the red wine (Waitrose Good Ordinary Claret which does exactly what it says on the tin) Cheers - Gio