gimic mods...

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squarepants

squarepants

Ex. Club Member
basiclly mods that dont make a diffrence...done some re-search, found out myself and asked people who have had parts fitted and didnt make a diffrence... i now see the light, most mods are a waste of money....
heres my list

strut braces... (front & rear)

uparted HT leads

standard anti roll bars, uprated anti roll bars (proven by fitting whiteline ones, and then fitting standard ones, then removing the front roll bar) altough removing rear could make a diffrnace...

induction kits (unless its tuned length or panel)

de-cat (not worth the hasstle for 1 bhp imo)

back box's... (agian i noticed a slight diffrnace to response, but not worth spending £100 on a brand new one)

braided Brake Lines.

Whiteline Castor Kit...

fair engough i have some of this stuff, altough i didnt pay for most of it, and i use them for looks and sound rather than performance....
 
I agree with
"induction kits (unless its tuned length or panel)

de-cat (not worth the hasstle for 1 bhp imo)

back box's... (agian i noticed a slight diffrnace to response, but not worth spending £100 on a brand new one)"

Everything else enables you to use the car and tyres more if you know how and the rest of the cars setup for it.
 
uparted shocks and springs give you good handling, i dont justify paying £200 for whiteline rollbars when you already have an awsome set up.
 
squarepants said:
uparted shocks and springs give you good handling, i dont justify paying £200 for whiteline rollbars when you already have an awsome set up.
Click to expand...

Justify paying £200? If it gets you that little bit better to great handling then i do, but perhaps not on a micra then.
 
now you say it makes no difference. i dissagree.... every part you put on your car makes a little difference and the result is usualy greater than the sum of the parts.

i mean what about f1? every micron and 10th of a bhp counts.

if your on a track or want a car that will out corner anything else. then all of these do make a difference.

i defy anyone to race my car with 99% of this stuff fitted agains a standard one and say they make no difference..

on their own maybe, but together they make all the difference between well sorted and not even close..
 
but most of the popular mods, if you wade through the bull$ht are 95% cosmetic and 5% effective (at best)
 
true. but 90% of them dont make sensasionalist claims of improvements. they are not quantitative on the gains as every car is different. simply that there is one.

for instance i noticed a big difference whn my backbox fell off on the motorway (standard one) the car lurched forwards and picked up quite a bit. now if this is the case with most back boxes then they do improve things slightly, even if its just removing the final restriction.

the thing i think that is trying to be put across is that no single modification on this list is going to turn your car into a track weapon nor is it going to make you michael schumacher......
 
So if I took my car, completely stock tuning wise. Added a induction kit, manifold, and backbox, I wouldnt notice any power increase? Isnt there a page on these forums saying you can get, and i quote 'almost 100bhp' from these mods.
 
in the process your spending £££'s and it only makes your car abit better...why spend ££££'s on a micra when you can spend silly money on somthing that is already faster standard....

dont get me wrong i have no problem with buy 4branch manifolds and cams as they make a big diffrance...i.e imporoving the car from what was crap standard i.e the manifold could be a better design...so iam uprating it for a perpourse, not spending money on somthing that doesnt need to be uprated i.e roll bars....
 
Joe.Powell said:
So if I took my car, completely stock tuning wise. Added a induction kit, manifold, and backbox, I wouldnt notice any power increase? Isnt there a page on these forums saying you can get, and i quote 'almost 100bhp' from these mods.
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yeh, a tubular manifold is quite effective (on a 1.3/1.4) and ONLY at high revs imo
 
Good to know, I agree, next insurance year, im tempted with a new backbox and a induction kit, mainly for looks, but I dont want all that money wasted.
 
squarepants said:
in the process your spending £££'s and it only makes your car abit better...why spend ££££'s on a micra when you can spend silly money on somthing that is already faster standard....

dont get me wrong i have no problem with buy 4branch manifolds and cams as they make a big diffrance...i.e imporoving the car from what was crap standard i.e the manifold could be a better design...so iam uprating it for a perpourse, not spending money on somthing that doesnt need to be uprated i.e roll bars....
Click to expand...

edit, what he just said lol
 
frank said:
but most of the popular mods, if you wade through the bull$ht are 95% cosmetic and 5% effective (at best)
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Well put, its all about wading through the b/s, problem is the convincing the yoof.

I had a mate with a tricked out cinquecento 1.1 sporting (it was alreasdy tricked out when he bought it), which had many mods including some 14" deep dish brock alloys (which basically means they weighed a lot more than the originals), a clio sport style cat back system (on a 54bhp car, yes thats right an extra 110cc's and no more powerful than a cg10) and a half stripped out interior with a false floor made out of such thick wood it weighed more than the bits taken out!

And after all that the cambelt snapped on it after 4 months of owning it, which came as an annoyance as he still to this day believes it would have been faster than my 1.4! grr
 
Although induction kits dont make a significant difference, i think most people fit them just because of the nice sound they make
 
Robb said:
as he still to this day believes it would have been faster than my 1.4! grr
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It wouldn't surprise me tbh.. Would be a close one though. I had a cinq sporting and it was faster (top end) than my micra. They weigh nothing, there's nothing to them!
 
no chance..ive had a seicento sporting 1.1 abarth with a janspeed cat back system and that got 106mph down hill with the wind behind....reving the hell out of it. micra would pi** that.
 
Robert said:
It wouldn't surprise me tbh.. Would be a close one though. I had a cinq sporting and it was faster (top end) than my micra. They weigh nothing, there's nothing to them!
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They are nearly two seconds slower on paper (against a cg13) to start with and trust me his was slower than stock, that was the only point i was trying to make like, cos when he stripped it after it broke, those wheels weighed a lot!

A stock cinquecento will never beat a stock micra end of, but the point i was aiming at was his cinquecento after all the work put in, actually made it slower, and i forgot to mention he knows nothing about cars lol. :) very little, zip, which i meant to tie back to the yoof thing etc.
 
have to agree however not with the decat (ppl gasp)

if we are talking micras (which we are) then by decating one especially 1.3/1.4 you are going to see a big difference like ppl have said by gettin a full exhaust system u remove both cats and it has been proven that this can increase power by a third (75bhp to 100bhp).

Jordan.
 
with a cat back you dont remove any cats, if your running a 4branch manifold you rid of one cat... thats a good setup. (running the middle cat) altough if your running no cats you dont have alot of back presurre (ive been in a 1.3 micra fully de-catted) and it was terribale at pulling up hills even in first! sounded crap, and was stupid loud...
 
I can't agree with the strut brace. I read the test a guy did a while back; He measured the increase/decrease in distance between the the struts. He concluded that on his Micra it made no difference at all, i.e there was hardly any movement. I don't fault that. A strut brace is required when you take the car past what the chassis was designed to handle and arguably, a fair bit before that. For example, if you are doing 100mph with lowered and stiffened suspension on a race track round a long sweeping corner.

Ht leads get my vote

Anti roll bars; same as strut braces.

Induction Kits get my vote
Backbox's the same

Not sure about braided brake lines. I have never driven the same car with and without.

Not sure what a Castor kit is ??
 
the braided brake lines apprently reduce spongeyness of the brake pedal (i carnt tell the diffrance tho) also they dont corrode.

castor kit aids high speed stability....
 
what does the castor kit do? what is it? I know the braided brake lines flex less under pressure, just never had the chance to tell for myself.
 
richj said:
what does the castor kit do? what is it? I know the braided brake lines flex less under pressure, just never had the chance to tell for myself.
Click to expand...

it increases the kingpin inclination (extra rake, like chopper bike forks) and gives the steering more weight, also increases the negative camber on lock on the outside wheel (ie more lock = more n/c).
welcome back btw ;)
 
squarepants said:
in the process your spending £££'s and it only makes your car abit better...why spend ££££'s on a micra when you can spend silly money on somthing that is already faster standard....
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but this thread is rubbish, your arguing that for what they do they are just worth the money. Yet at the beggining of the thread you argue that they do nothing.
What is it?
If you don't know what a castor kit is then the likely hood is your not going to use one or see the point of the £200.
 
Still it wouldnt be different if we all modded boring old Skylines and Civics would it, honestly tell me, how many Micra's you see in the streets that look modifyed, Thats why im loving it, everyone looks, its different. And you get what you pay for imo, if you pay for a massive spoiler, in your mind it gives extra downforce, its money well spent :p If that makes sense or im just rambling.
 
I wouldn't say that the Strut brace is a waste of money. They definitely do something to aid driving. For one thing I can go round corners without going off line. The car drives as it should, goes where I point it and is much tighter instead of feeling like I'm driving a sponge cake.

I'd like one for the back and underneath as well :D

Induction kits, exhaust Back boxes, they only work when there's no back pressure and the cars timing is correct but not by what Haynes says.

Braided brake kits are far superior imo, they're surrounded by interwoven wire and keep their pressure for a lot longer making sure that the end fittings are stainless steel and not anodised, the Rubber ones can perish quite quickly what with all the road crud that goes there and of course gets forgotten about which is when you normally fail the MOT.

I rest my case m'lud ;)
 
the main reason why i have a decat is so that my system is fully stainless steel, it would annoy me if i had stainless manifold downpipe and cat back and then a little bit of mild stell rotting in the middle.

And Squarepants - surely if you don't have a licence and don't own many of these parts then how can you pass judgement on if they work or not?
 
iam not saying dont buy them, just sating they dont really do anything...(altough i havent tried all of them, manily info off friends that have..)

iam also saying that i dont justfiy buying these parts from new, i.e £100 strut brace thats not noticeable...i rather spend £20 on a strut brace second hand...

as frank has said, 95% looks 5%performance... they will tell you anything so you buy them.

and modded, just because i dont own some of these parts doesnt mean i havent drove cars with this stuff on.... also CATs are cast, so wont rot like the rest of the system....
 
Well I still think having a drive and driving day to day in many different conditions are 2 very different things.
 
decats, arb's, ht-leads, strut-braces and alike all play a part in improving a vehicles performance - wether spending the £££s for often unnoticable improvement is worth it (espically in a daily driver) is highly subjective, but as Ant said it all adds up in the bigger picture...

imho gimic mods are stuff like under-chasis lighting, over-sized alloys and unnessacery bodykits/wings etc. ie stuff that does nothing to improve performance whatsoever..
 
i have just sat back and bit my tongue and cheek and i aint going to say anything as i could be here for quite a while

edit:
cant keep shut tongue broke my teeth i can tell you now even though i havnt been driving long like most on here that by them selves they dont do much yet when you put it all togeather it makes quite a bit of a differance my dad had to borrow my car as his bmw broke out side of work (we both work for nissan btw) so i drove his car home and he got my micra and he couldnt believe how quick and responsive it was in the corners etc and he has been driving for well over 25 years and been in quite a few cars he drove my car before all my mods and after the mods and even he says they do make a differance

mine is fully decated yet mine doesnt struggle up hills etc and my car aint slow either in the twisties my car can keep up with aalmera gti with quite a few mods done to it yet he would have left me if it was standard i even managed to beat a 2.0 vw passet estate diesel from round about to round about down the a19 and the bloke couldnt believe it

and to prove that decattin works i have dyno print outs on my blog
 
jim_bling said:
i have just sat back and bit my tongue and cheek and i aint going to say anything as i could be here for quite a while
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go on, voice your opinion kenny :grinning:.
negative camber on the front, to reduce the understeer aint no gimmic, here,s a couple of pics of how much n/c we used to run on our stockrods, on the outside front (and it still scrubbed the outer edge of the tyre :suspect:)
http://www.micra.org.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=11370&stc=1&d=1231105976
http://www.micra.org.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=11371&stc=1&d=1231105976
 

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who said owt about negitive camber beeing a gimic? lol because i swaer i didnt say anything about whiteline camber adjuster kit?
 
lol yearh i know...

for the record just because ive posted this thread doesnt mean i wont buy any of these parts.. but if i do i wont pay full wack for them....

also as ive stated in the thread ''i havent tried all of them, most is manily info''

altough the ones i have fitted i.e strut barce etc might actually make a diffrnace... just not a noticeable one. therefore me and others beliving they dont work... ;)
 
how can you say a strut brace doesnt make a dif and a notible one before i got my lowering kit i was driving about without one and felt horrible as i turned and then after i put it on it was a little bit sharper in the corners most of the body roll dissapeared there is even a vid on you tube showing you how much it diff it makes
 
i swear by my front strut brace, the steering felt more direct, the squeeking i got in the front strut tops arround roundabouts stopped and the understeer is less pronounced.. they make a huge difference if your driving your car hard enough to need them.
 
Antony said:
i swear by my front strut brace, the steering felt more direct, the squeeking i got in the front strut tops arround roundabouts stopped and the understeer is less pronounced.. they make a huge difference if your driving your car hard enough to need them.
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Ant, I totally agree with you, it transformed my K11s handling!!!
 
squarepants said:
also as ive stated in the thread ''i havent tried all of them, most is manily info''
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Hence the reason half the net and the majority of people in this world thinking they know something when they are simply clueless as they have no personal experience, or logical proof of many of their ideas. Most is repeated from whatever source they first came across or biased towards friend who equally heard it down the pup etc...

So many people here would be so much better off if they actually listened to the people on here who have been here done that got the t-shirt. however we still see the same repeated fudge ups again and again!!!
 
Agree, that's one thing I have very little experience at but it would be good fun all the same.
 
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