Bought a Z3 roadster

Stubiter · Post by **Stubiter** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 08:06

Here is the Z3 roadster I ended up buying.

1997 2.8 litre 6 cylinder version.

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My general impressions after 2 weeks of ownership.
- Driving this car screws up my perception of speed (100 km/hr feels like 60 km/hr), (130 km/hr feels like 100 km/hr).
- It attracts bogans in Mitsubishis who want to drag you at the lights.
- Its feels pretty secure at speed on good quality roads but tramlining on crap roads is very noticeable.

I'm not looking to mod the exterior in any way but will probably look into a strut brace subject to insurance implications.

icarus · Post by **icarus** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 13:29

- Its feels pretty secure at speed on good quality roads but tramlining on crap roads is very noticeable.

Excuse my ignorance everybody- whats tramlining?

Jon Miller · Post by **Jon Miller** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 13:39

Tramlining is when the car follows the ruts and grooves in a poorly surfaced road rather than ride over them in a straight line.

It makes the car feel as though it is skitish in a straight line.

I fitted Z3M top strut mounts to my 2.8 roadster to try to help this. The Z3M mounts give an increase in the amount of castor (the element of steering geometry which keeps the front wheels in the straight ahead position) which helped considerably.

Cheers
Jon

burmagirl · Post by **burmagirl** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 13:43

I added the strut brace to my insurance (Tesco) at no extra cost - they just need to understand that you are not changing the engine power in any way. On Thursday I called Tesco to change my ins - px'ing for a 3.0i - & have told them to add a strut brace to the ins for that too, although they are out of stock so it won't go on until the end of the month. Again, there's no extra charge.

I think the key is to make sure they understand that it helps to stabilise the car, that Z3s suffer from chassis flex, & that it's just a bit of metal which has no effect on power or engine performance at all.

burmagirl

spokey · Post by **spokey** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 13:55

Looking at the photo, it seems that you may not have the same tyres right round -- the Z3 doesn't like that. Try to get all four tyres the same, the handling should improve.

smartypants · Post by **smartypants** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 14:13

Congrats on the purchase - black with red leather is the best!

321bhp · Post by **321bhp** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 16:08

ill second that

icarus · Post by **icarus** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 16:35

So taken with your description of tramlining I forgot to say how much I liked your new Z. Do you really live in New Zealand Stubiter ?

icarus · Post by **icarus** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 17:59

icarus wrote: Do you really live in New Zealand Stubiter ?

Sorry Stubiter I must over tired - no excuse for getting the country wrong!

whiteminks · Post by **whiteminks** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 18:16

Lovely car

Yes tram-lining is slightly disturbing.

I hadn't experienced it until I had the Zed but as I hadn't had a sports car before it was hardly surprising!

Still we love our Zeds don't we

c_w · Post by **c_w** » Sat 13 Jan, 2007 18:26

Jon Miller wrote:Tramlining is when the car follows the ruts and grooves in a poorly surfaced road rather than ride over them in a straight line.

It makes the car feel as though it is skitish in a straight line.

I fitted Z3M top strut mounts to my 2.8 roadster to try to help this. The Z3M mounts give an increase in the amount of castor (the element of steering geometry which keeps the front wheels in the straight ahead position) which helped considerably.

Cheers
Jon

I did too, I think it was after I read about it on your webpage!?

If anyone has a Z3 that has bad tramlining then the Z3M top mounts do solve a lot of it BUT the standard Z3 front springs/dampers are wider than the Z3M units so they sometimes catch the inner arch. However, I have a set of Z3M shocks and springs if anyone is interested in them which would fit a non-M fine.

Stubiter · Post by **Stubiter** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 13:27

spokey wrote:Looking at the photo, it seems that you may not have the same tyres right round -- the Z3 doesn't like that. Try to get all four tyres the same, the handling should improve.

The front are Pirelli's, the back are Falken. I'm still a novice to a lot of sports car stuff. When I organised a pre-inspection prior to buying, the report said there was about 40% useful life left on the rear tyres.

Actually now with another few weeks of driving I've come to think that its mainly the road surface quality re: tramlining. I've done a bit of driving on some country roads and come to the conclusion that the road funding stops about 25km outside of Perth... We don't have B roads like you have in the UK (some are more like D- and you have to repeat a year of school roads here).

Only had one experience driving in the wet and felt pretty stable. I wasn't being too adventurous because of other traffic at the time.

///M_aniac · Post by **///M_aniac** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 14:09

spokey wrote:Looking at the photo, it seems that you may not have the same tyres right round -- the Z3 doesn't like that. Try to get all four tyres the same, the handling should improve.

So true. I used to have a mix of Bridestone and Michelin on my Zed. The difference putting four new Eagle F1s on the car was massive. Zeds need the same tyres all round.

cleomantra · Post by **cleomantra** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 18:57

shes a beauty