Steve-o

pps don't want to get rid of the undertray do you :)

PS, I've got spare stock indicators, a tinted screen and exhaust if you needed them mate, all free.

The good side isn't far off mine, best colour scheme IMHO :) well other than the repsols. Looks like some nasty damage, hope you didn't damage your self too much! The cosmetics are easy done, not sure on the engine though :( There are always lots of fairing parts for f3's on ebay for a few quid, mirrors, engine casings are all cheap, so fingers crossed nothing has got in there. Cheers,

Cheers for the replies. I've got some impact sockets, they are a lot chunkier, perhaps I should try one, the problem is the round part to get a socket on is only around 10mm so not a lot to grip. The garage today tried some locking wheel nut removing sockets and broke three, not sure what type though as I wasn't there. The locker has three small lugs and a round 10mm centre guiding bit. I don't think they heated it up, I did think of that last night but wasn't confident putting my torch to it as it's so deep in the alloy, any ideas on how to heat it up without killing the alloy? I just called another place and they recomended welding a socket on to the nut, sounds like it might be a good plan. Cheers!

We bought a 206 for the wife, but the tool we bought it from neglected to inform us that he had lost the locking wheel nut socket. As a result we managed to get three off and replace them, but the front drivers one will not budge. We spent the whole of yesterday trying to remove it, hamering a socket on and trying to twist it, but it wouldn't budge. We split four sockets and wrecked a load of others, we had to hammer the head of it down with a chisel and then smash a socket on to it each time but it just wouldn't move. I got my dad to drop it in to a couple of garages today, one tyre place worked on it for an hour or so and gave up, they took it to another place, and they kindly worked on it for another two hours trying to remove it, they busted three locking nut removing tools, and said they had never seen anything like it, result is, it's STILL on the car. They advised the only option would be to cut away the alloy, which I do not want to do, I don't see how thats going to solve getting the nut out. I could try drilling I guess, but I know a hand drill won't be man enough and it would just burn out the drills. Can anyone give me some advice or any recomendations on what / where might be able to sort this for me? Cheers guys.

Aye still around somewhere James :) Not too bad Rich, give me a shout on MSN some time. The thing with the air filter for me was that the weather guard wasn't underneath it, I'm not sure why this mattered, but it did for some reason and it kept stalling with an induction sat there. When I re-fitted the tray on the bottom of the induction it stopped stalling. It could well be the bov's I had a couple of turbo XS on mine that needed packing out with some more washers to get the right tension. Cheers,

Go for the braided, less flex, more stopping power :)

Aye, as jimmer said, piston rings can cause this, as well as turbo seals and valve stem seals. My old Z smoked on rundown, turned out to be the rings and turbo seals :(

BOV's as in PTsssssch or WHeeeee lol :) In other words, replacing the stock recircs :)

I had a similar thing, was the induction kit and where the weather guard underneath was removed, it was causing some weird swirl there with the air and making it stall. I put a new weather tray in on the bottom of the induction and no stalling.

That's the thing though, I've had to use high level instead of RCA's as it's a factory unit. I thought that might be causing the interference, but if I connect those lines to speakers they are perfect with no noise, so it must be picking it up on the amp somewhere.

That's him! Damn, knew I should have stayed friends with him.........

Hi Guys, I've just purchased a new set of 6x9's for the pug which I want to amp up. The problem is I want to use the factory system and set up, so I had to go with a high level input into the amp on the left and right channels from the rear speakers. After wiring the amp in and doing some tuning it sounded great, but I've got the dreaded engine noise / interference somewhere in the set up. My first thought was because I was using high-level as an input, but there is no noise to the speakers if I plug the wires on direct, so there can't be noise going into the amp. My second thought was the ground to the amp and the ground to the high level input, so I split them up, I'd already tried putting them together, and I tried several different grounding locations but nothing made a difference. My next thought was the live, but I was using 17amp (although amp should have 20amp), and it was only running the 6x9's at a very low level (amp was barely on) so I'm not sure if it was dragging anything in through that. Any ideas? I got so pissed off I just stripped it all back out, I don't want to drive around sounding like I have a swarm of angry bee's in the back. Cheers!

Who's he? I used to go to school many moons ago with a bloke called that.

Done by paypal

It's bought a tear to my eyes reading this mate, having a daughter who is 6 who is my life and means everything to me is making this a hard read, I love kids and hate to see them / hear of them going through things like this. I'm not sure what to say other than keep strong, pull together as a team and help her and each other get through this. I'll be thinking of you guys, I wish you, Abi and your family all the best from the bottom of my heart mate.

I can so say the same, I used to stand my Z in the winter and drive my DD, and after returning it to the road, used to have nothing but issues, binding rear callipers, missing, starting issues, all sorts. Even if your not going to use it much, treat it to a nice run every other week to keep everything moving.

Yeh I'd disconnect it and leave it a day to reset. As the guys said, 9x's out of 10 you stick a new maf on and hey presto, you can go over 3k again and no popping or missing! But depends how long it was ****ed for and if something else is giving you grief too. GL!

p.s. for the maf just meet up with one of the guys and swap it over if they are kind enough, it's only a 10 min job getting the nose cone and clips off, just swap the T piece over or Y as it looks more like with the MAF in place :)

PTU as mentioned or perhaps MAF? I've seen two MAF's on their way out that made the car a dog to start, and hard to rev over 1.5 to 3k and missed like crazy. Other times when it dried out and the weather was fine it ran perfect. Other simple thing is coil packs and plugs (check connectors, nearly all the plastic clips get brittle and snap meaning they move easy off the plugs), if not loose and a coil is breaking down, it's likely to happen when the engine is warm, you could check the sparks (blue / white good, yellow / orange = shit). Good luck!

P.S hopefully it's something simple like oil :)

Id check the tranny oil level first, then make sure it is decent, not burnt, low or fluffy, if so change it. Low oil / shit oil can sometimes make it seem to slip. Other than that torque convertor ****ed? 1200 sounds right for a s/h or recon, but expect 2k for a nice job, so cheaper to go manual for 700ish of parts.

I fitted some stainless to my 200 and my bike, same result, louder more humming / reverbing for a bit until they built up some grime. After a couple of months the humming and reverbing settled down, but it does generally make systems louder. If I was that worried I would replace the rear can / cans to smooth it out a bit.

used to do 32's all round, seemed fine, didn't want too much give, but equally didn't want them too solid that they would stress when warm.

I'd do something similar, only I would use 1200, flat it all around the area to get the flaky shit off. Once thats done flat it down with the 1200 so it's dull on that area, get some decent laquer an aerosol will be fine (but not halfords shite) such as a clear varnish as they call it in most dealers, and spray it on finely from a few inches away, let it dry over a few hours, do again, then polish it in with some cutting paste or safecut and wax, job done :)