Hey everyone,

It's been a couple months since I've been on the forum because the story has been to painfull to tell. On 4/10/05 I totaled my Z in an accident. My wife and I were both unharmed but the Z was declared a total loss 2 weeks later.
I don't really want to re-live the details but I will say that flooring the throttle on a cold city street led to me spinning out of control. Luckily no other cars were involved.
After a lot of thought I came to the conclusion that someone like myself didn't need a 500 horsepower car. I wasn't responsible enough with the power I gave my Z and paid the price.
So, I just wanted to say thanks and good bye to all the FI guys and girls on the board for all the help along the way. Maybe I'll stop back in from time to time to see how everyone is doing.

Take care and be safe,
Steve

 

hate to see you go, but completely understand about not being responsible enough,

 

I'm sorry to hear about what happened. It really sucks when you invest so much money into something and then by the blink of an eye its all gone.

Have you decided on what the replacement for the Z will be?

 

Everyone makes mistakes. What makes us stronger is learning from them, and getting back up on our feet! I've done the same, licked my wounds, fixed everything and am now a smarter man because of it.

Don't give up!

 

Good luck, sorry to hear what happened.

 

Best wishes man. Sorry to hear about your loss. A little off topic, but may I enquire how your insurance company handled the reimbursement for the aftermarket parts on the car? Did you lose that money, or was it included in the loss? Thanks, and again, sorry to hear.

 

Thanks for the support everyone. I'm driving an Acura TSX now. It's slow but very nice. My insurance was actually going to pay for the damaged supercharger parts before they discovered the damage underneath. I ended up taking off what I could, but none of it was actually covered in the final payoff.

 

are you selling any of the parts you saved? maybe that stoptech brake kit...lol

 

?

 

zbicklin, do you mind if I ask what tires/wheels, suspension, or LSD you had on your Z to lose traction?

 

I'm sorry to hear about your accident but glad that no one was hurt. It's good that you have learned something about yourself from this very negative experience. As Dirty Harry said, "A man's got to know his limitations." This experience has made you a better man.

 

stock wheels, suspension and LSD, Nittos for tires. I'm not really sure what happened but if I drove more responsibly it wouldn't have happened.
One thing I will say about this forum is that there is a great bunch of people with a lot of automotive knowledge and passion. I'm actually a member of an Acura TSX forum and there is really no comparison to my350z. Best of luck to all of you and be safe!

 

You bring up a very interesting point that I too have very mixed feelings about. Firstly , NOBODY needs a 500hp street vehicle. That much power in a rear drive car is hard to control under even the best road conditions. Even with the all-wheel drive vehicle which I had before, I would end up going so fast so quickly that within seconds I was going WAY faster than anything else around me. I can't tell you the number of times I had to slam on my brakes after even a moderate launch.

Point is that while all that power is a hell of a lot of fun under the right, perfect conditions, one encounters those conditions only rarely. The rest of the time, I do feel that much power is too fast for the street simply due to the fact that there are obstacles around, and you are just so much faster than almost every other vehicle. Even if you are a great driver, others can't deal with that much speed around them.

 

Steve -

Very sorry to hear what happened man. Seemed like only yesterday you were taking a look at my SC system before you bought yours and how excited you were. And then this **** happens. Have fun with the TSX and good luck man!

Aaron

 

Reminds me of when I was living in Miami Fl and was out at this rock quarry in the middle of no where taking pictures of my brand new ride. It was a 1997 WS6 Trans Am with a 4.5 psi supercharger pushing a modest 375 rwhp. As I was taking pictures a rent-a-cop came out of nowhere and told me that I was on private property and that I needed to leave. Being the badass I thought myself to be I got in my car and slowly drove over the rock/gravel back to the paved road less than 100 ft away. As soon as all four tires were on pavement I gunned it. I fish tailed to the left and then suddenly to the right. Except my tires were still slippery from the dry dirt still on them... I ended up doing a complete 180 degree and slid off the road into some tall saw grass weeds. (popular in florida) I sat there for what seemed an eternity going holy **** I just f'd up my car and to make matters worse the rent-a-cop watched the entire thing. As I was getting out of the car he asked me "what the hell are you thinking" and my reply was "I'm an f'ing idiot." At this point I felt like crying while looking at the damage the car was in. The beautiful black paint on the passenger side was "weed whacked" with huge paint scrapes all over the front and rear of the car as well. The rent-a-cop let me use his sell phone to call AAA and then left me to my misery. I had walked 3 miles back to the main public road to wait for the tow truck driver. There would have been little chance for him to find me otherwise. What made things really scary afterwards was that on one side of the road was those saw grass weeds and the other was a huge swamp area with at least 3 ft of water and weeds. If I had swung off the paved road to the right I would have submerged my car and the damage would have been tremendous. Or what if instead of weeds I was on a public road and slammed into a building or a parked car. In the end, the ordeal cost me $2200 + $300 rental car and I was without my car for about 3 weeks. This happened back in 1998 when I was 19 years old. I recognize that at the time I didn’t have enough driving skill or respect for the power in my right foot. The point is that we all do stupid **** and we learn from it.

Zbicklin: In both our cases no one got killed or hurt so the loss was only to our ego and wallet. The Acura TSX is a nice looking vehicle but you will be back in the seat of something more respectable again. Just give yourself time to heal and recognize they came up with the word "humility" for a reason.

 

I was less than a half mile from your house where I crashed bro... Just passed the intersection of Light St. and 95, heading home. If I'm downtown and see a badass Z going vroom, pshhht I'll wave! Thanks again for everyone's support!

 

I am so sorry to hear that man as I am going thru the same thing with you. Mine happened on March 5th and, it's so painful whenever I tried to recap whatever had happened. Good luck with the insurance settlement, I hope they cut you a good check towards purchasing another vehicle.

 

A very mature decision.

After my third performance related accident in my '73 Plymouth Barracuda (340 HP engine) back in the mid-70's I came to the conclusion that my luck or intelligence wasn't good enough for so many horsepower and sold that beast.

Now at age 45 I again feel the need for speed but face the challenge with a different perspective than a 17 year old boy.

Be careful.

 

I wrecked my first Z 2 days after buying it taking a corner too fast. There was a sudden patch of dirt left over from some monsoons that happened a few days beforehand. I was going too fast for that turn and induced some oversteer, jumped the curve and totalled my Z on a palm tree knocking it down.

Had that palm tree not been there, I would have rolled the car over a hill down into a bulldozer and dump truck that were parked.

Before I did this, I was debating about filling up with gas, but decided to do a few WOT runs then get gas. Things could have been a lot different for me, but I walked away from that with only some minor bruises and some minor post traumatic stress disorder - which btw is weird. Every and any little remotely "stressful" thing spikes up your heartrate for a couple seconds. Like if you're at work and suddenly start thinking if you should get up and go to the bathroom or wait a few more minutes - it'll spike up your heart rate. Only lasted about 2 weeks before it was completely gone. So that's my story.

I'm paranoid about having stock grip levels with 2x the power. I'm actually suprised to find out many FI people are running stock tires or 245 and 275mm tires on stock suspension and no LSD. An LSD keeps you from fishtailing. Wider tires give you more traction and braking power. Better tires, depending on brand can even give you really good wet traction, and better suspension/sway bars keeps the 4 tires planted to the ground better in turns. Not only that, but hardly any FI people run 3.3 gears. Everyone runs the stock 3.5 gears. Even vipers with 500 hp run a 3.0 final drive. The C6 corvette with 400hp has 285 tires in the rear. It doesn't make sense to have more power, and less tire...

Many many people have wrecked cars and even their Z. I know a lot of them and am one of them too.

 

that's one of the things I love about nitrous or dual boost controllers...( I still hope that APS will release something for that matter). I want lots of power at the track and moderate on the streets.
I totalled my 3 month old Z in a rain storm out here 3 months ago, suddenly went hydroplaning and lost control hitting a wall and that was without FI. Now the new Z is here and the APS kit is about to arrive...there is a bit of worry on my part.
Back with my turboed Celica I had a dual boost controller, 6 psi for the street 10 psi for the track...perfect, I hope to be able to have that for the Z as well