Bianca Ratlye

[Ben_w]

Feel free fella......not too much to see right now and hopefully hauling it off to take the engine out and do the engine bay soon!!!

[C2K]

Well then, set about doing the driveshaft seal that was leaking such that I could drive it, and so that it stopped leaking oil on the driveway!

Got the seal out no bother (had to be the long shaft didn't it). and then couldn't get the roller wishbone to go back in the hole it came out of. Cue much swearing! Anyway, new driveshaft seal and gearbox oil done and onto the engine oil. Time for a new filter and some Fuchs Titan. Life started poorly when the sandwich plate for the oil cooler rotated instead of the oil filter.... ended up removing the radiator to get my mitts on it, and the front end to tip the oil cooler up and do the change properly. With that done and rebuilt, onto the coolant and thermostat.

That didn't go well either when I hamfistedly managed to snap the plastic elbow, having only just fitted my spare when i rebuilt the head. Off to Peugeot for a new one, thankfully only £14, and convenient that Peugeot is about 100 metres from work. New coolant and a new thermostat and good to go. As a courtesy, a new supercharger belt went on and new sparks.

So I've basically just been driving this and she's lapping it up. Really pleasing to have it working well I must say, with no major niggles. Managed to make it water and oil tight and i'm really pleased with it. This is the culmination of a lot of hard work since returning from South Africa. Many times i'd thought about giving it up, but I wanted to finish it. I need to get some trackdays booked after the wedding, i've identified a couple of potentials and i'll see how I get on. I'm running short of holidays and would rather avoid Saturday trackdays when i'm basically just going to kill my tyres on purpose.

Managed to lose the steering clonk. It turned out that the steering rack was shuttling on the bolts on the subframe. One of the bolts moved maybe 1/8 of a turn, and the other one seemed to go about 2 turns at the same level of tightness before going FT. I'll have to keep an eye on that, i'll pick up some new square section nylocs if that happens again, can only assume I overlooked torquing them up when I built it all the way back at the start of the project (seam welded subframe). Having been at the long driveshaft to change the box seal, I must've reseated the brake disc a little better as the little wobble I had on the first few uses has gone.

Here she is tucked up in her new home.

[C2K]

To describe myself as a pig in sh!t would be about right at the moment. Took it out for an extended hoon this evening, and she's lapping it up - aside from highlighting she needs tracking of course. It's filthy, but here she is purring away.






Was quite lucky without realising actually. Had heard on the radio at teatime there was a fatal smash on the A45 last night by Rugby, as I came off the previous roundabout in the Rallye and nailed it to drop a 5 series on my tail I thought better of it at the speed limit and chilled. Came around the blind left (dual carriageway) and hey presto two cops and an unmarked V70 at the crash site. Met the same pair in the same car a little later when rolling up to the second lane of a set of lights, just as i was about to nail it through the fresh green before the lanes converge! Would've got myself pulled for sure had I not seen them earlier! They followed me all the way back to town too whilst i was driving like a saint.

[C2K]

Bump!

So finally the track slag has made it to a track. Much like the aligning of planets, my time and the working of the car aligned to take my to Bedford track day today.

Shall write it up once the pics arrive on the website!

[Matt]

It looks so clean! I'm going to have to put major effort into my bodywork to get it this fresh good work

Glad to hear it finally made a track too

[C2K]

So Monday was the day she finally made it to a track day. Like the aligning of planets, the car working and me having some free time came together. Bedford autodrome innit.

I was late arriving after jumping in the car and finding the fuse for the clocks etc had blown so couldn't see what speed I was doing on the way down. I�d had it before (see earlier in the thread) but couldn�t remember which was the right one so pulled a few fuses and couldn't find the right one but had to go, so just followed one of the lads who worked for me down there. Traffic was horrific and I was late for the briefing but tbh, didn't seem like i missed much so they must've been late starting and it�s pretty standard anyway.

Interesting mix of cars in the car park. Three or four Mk7 Golf R's (no way is my GTD ever seeing a track!), a C63 AMG mercedes with track rubber on and his plate taped up lol, a Ferrari 458 Spider, an R8 V10, a 997 GT3 RS 911, and then all sorts of mix and match machinery. New Fiesta St, track slag A3 turbo (which died spectacularly on track lol), an E92 M3 V8, a few E46 M3s including a track prepped one, standard 350Z, standard M135i brand new, your typical track slag MX5s, few caterhams, few E36 slag beemers, few evos and scoobies etc, standard Clio 197, even a 140 VVC MG ZR lol. Had the car noise tested at 85 db but no idea what revs, cat still in as i couldn't get the smegging lambda out of it when i took it off last week and couldn't risk breaking anything..

I did the sighting laps on the Oz wheels and you could tell the tyres are s**t (they�re 5 years old now), it was a bit skitty and of course i'd not set the tyre pressures as had only just arrived. Came in from the sighting laps to let everyone loose and sorted those out and my fuse. By the time i'd done that, this R33 track slag skyline had been towed off the circuit and he never made it again, so guess that was terminal. Went out on track, set myself 3 laps to get the car going, then came in and checked tyre pressures again. At that point i noticed some drips off the front of the car, so whipped off the front bumper and intercooler and found the RHS union on the engine oil cooler weeping quite a bit. Only had mole grips with me and had to use those to bollock both of them up tight. Bumper back on and out again with lower tyre pressures and really started to have some fun.

Photos have only just gone on the website, i'll work out which ones to buy later as there's loads, here's a few snaps tho.








Car was working really well, had the windows down a bit and the heaters on to keep things cooler, though the water temp was pretty rock solid all day long around the stat temp unless doing like 7 or 8 laps and then it would come up to 90. Every time i came in off a cool down lap the fans had already stopped. The 40mph (!) winds were quite useful as the car cooled down within 10 minutes every time inc tyres and brakes!!. I'd worried that the brakes were warped on the front, but having ridden them fairly normally all morning to give them a fighting chance of being useful they were getting better and better and better. Reckon i got somewhere around 30 laps in in the morning, but the tyres were barely wearing really and after 5 laps or so they were understeering really badly.

They said track was shut 12-2 but i must not have heard properly. We went off to town to get a Maccys, came back and put the track wheels on to kill those tyres off, lots less tread to roll of course. At that point (1pm) everyone started going back out, so we did too. Did about 4 laps and then noticed the fuel gauge was sitting in the red zone on corners. Headed off to the nearest shell about 5 miles away, and no fecking VPower. Lsot about half an hour there finding the next shell and filling up, should've just used the 102 octane fuel at the circuit in hindsight.

The toyos were much softer. Forgetting they were 5 years old and never been driven on by me, I turned into the first corner and the back end just carried on, nice little catch and away we went. Tortured them all afternoon, started to lean very heavily on the brakes (which, by this point were insanely good). You got to like 75m, stood on the brakes and could've stopped the car by the corner. ABS cuts in on the bumps but is gone by the time you'd react anyway, quite unintrusive on the whole. The gearing meant that exiting a few corners i was having to reach for the shifter, like coming off the 2nd hairpin which wasn't ideal but i don't mind. Started to have real fun with it by this point, throwing it around. Even with standard beam it was handling fine, could feel the rear dancing about but you knew exactly what it was doing 100% of the time. Again, you could get about 7 laps in before the road tyres just had enough, and you started to wildly understeer. Chased the C63 but couldn't catch him - his power and track rubber were too much for me and i would've ended up binning it. Here's me practically doing an endo on the brakes in the process



We were an even keel though and i'm on old road rubber!! Diff worked phenomenally well, you could really feel it sucking you out of the corners on the throttle, honestly a real hoot to drive. . That's what trackdays are like i guess, and bedford is a power circuit after all. The R8, C63, Ferrari and some Astra VXR track slag thing all came together - the latter was really quite quick but that had track rubber too.

Mechanically it worked well all day aside from the cooler weep, and only noticed a leak when i got it back home. Power steering must've started dripping on the way home as it wasn't far below minimum. It has dropped a bit on the drive though as obv it's hot and thin. I guess the hose is leaking where it sits on the pump but I was shattered so just left it for another day. Considering how long it's been in the making, i'm absolutely chuffed it made it there and back in one piece. Come the weekend or one evening i'll give it a once over, look at the brakes etc as i noticed the pedal sitting deeper in the afternoon than the morning, but of course the brakes were getting hammered. Felt like i'd done enough by the end of the day though and went home shattered.

Need to get the beam on at the very least for next trackday, and hopefully if i drive it around a bit i can kill 1 set of this dodgy rubber off, else i'll do a cheap spring day. Glad it worked well, need to find an annoying heatshield type rattle which drove me potty all day (magnex baffles I suspect), and need to put my top mounts on. Need to fix some rusty bits, find something that's rattlingg around somewhere in the back but can't be found, wire in my oil pressure/temp gauge and possibly invest in some better brake fluid after the next day.

Considering how long it's been in the making, and how heath robinson some of it is it worked well, but maybe the weather didn't help for interaction. A pretty antisocial trackday, since nobody came to look at the car, didn't feel like anyone wanted to be approached, loads of people left early etc

Missed the smell of hot brakes and rubber though!!!

[C2K]

Cheers ears.

So, post trackday I started to take a look at the car last night. It was so windy though I just pushed it out on the drive and had a look at the spare beam instead. This is an 80k Phase 2 Xsara VTS beam off my mates care with 21mm TB's and previously lowered by a "reputable garage". It sat with me since I was away in South Africa so it's been loitering for a while.

First torsion bar came out with 3 taps of a slide hammer. Remnants of copper grease on the splines, so we're off to a good start. Other side was stuck fast, the front (naturally) and was not up for budging. Decided to knock the whole trailings arm out such as to get some purchase on the torsion bar and rebuild the beam properly if required.

First side came out, all looked fantastic, lots of grease and clean as a whistle, things looking in good shape:




Second side looked..well.. not so good really. Looks like some twat put it back together with a damaged seal on the end of the cross member tube.



Not an ideal start to a beam refurb, granted it's been sat around a while which might explain the amount of rust, but not it's presence. On the good side the bearings are fine and so is the shaft, on the other side the inner race is fine but the outer race is badly corroded/missing needles. Hopefully the races have protected the tube on the bearing lands at least.

Once I can confirm if the tube is recoverable I shall be off to buy them bits off the fella in Poland I think as his prices seem excellent.

[C2K]

Taking advantage of some daylight for a change, I set about cleaning it this morning. It was covered in greasy sminge post trackday, so gave it a nice bath. The wheels were ridiculously dusty with brake pad remnants. :laugh




Here she is sitting on the compos, these will get slicks at some point but the tyres must die first!
a
They are awesome wheels, crying shame the halfwit i bought them off has kerbed them in a few places but no matter.

Took it up to the end of the road and back, and sure enough nipping the pas jubilee up cured nothing and it was still weeping fluid. Got it up in the air, took the hose off and had a good look. Cut back the overbraid and voila:



That pinhole will be why then, straight through the wall. When i took it off the donor car originally i suspect i just used the hose without checking. Checking this time around i noticed it had 15mm hose on the 16mm connections, which had resulted in the hump the eagle eyed amongst you will have seen on the pic above. Ah well, popped to the motor factors and grabbed some hose and fluid, and all done and bled.

[C2K]

So, about time I made an update to this I suppose.

As per previous posts it seems that my beam was best taken apart looking at the state of the arm shaft and bearings. Blessing in disguise that I had reason to take it apart I suppose as it wouldn't have lasted long.

So, out with the outer bearings. One came willingly:


The other required a puller using some M14 stud and a backplate:


Which also worked nicely for pulling the inner bearings out. So it was obvious that there was some surface rust in the tube, so cue a handy wire brush with a cable tie and a length of airline...


That worked to clean the beam up a treat, and blew it out with an airline afterwards to clean it up.

Looking at my trailing arms I had a torsion bar stuck in the one trailing arm. Took it to work, and through judicious use of a BFOH and a Bigger BFOH the torsion bar was soon free. The penetrating fluid i'd been applying liberally had worked it's way through in most places, but was then leaking through the first full thickness path so no longer having much effect. Regardless, they both came out in the end:



I took the arm shafts to work and used the press to pop them both out, and brought the arms home so I could clean everything up.


Stripping the old seals and carriers off:


Now, I needed to knock the new bearings into the tube. You can use various tools to do this, but I happened to choose a sleeve for an English Electric 500MW emergency governor trip bolt, which happened to be the perfect size. I used no 1, but no2 would also suffice.





Outer bearings I just used a lump of ally I had kicking about which was perfectly sized:


Cleaned up the end plates ready for my hybrid arb. I noticed the new shafts were capable of accepting the 30mm ARB so i'm on the lookout for one of those casually.


Torsion bars powdercoated and greased up, arm shafts pressed in and all ready to go back together, I added in some solid beam mounts and used a dummy shock I got made at work to set the ride height aiming for a 30mm drop on 21mm VTS bars.

Just need to pick some new Nylocs up for the shock and mount bolts tomorrow and job done, had all the bolts on the wire brush on the grinder so all nice and clean. Very pleased with how it turned out even though i just threw whatever paints I had kicking about at it lol.



So in one hit i'll have solid beam mounts, lowered 30mm, VTS 21mm bars and a Hybrid arb.

Aside from that i've just been driving it really. Haven't had any bother from her at all and had been umming and ahhing about a track day when I had a nasty accident on my road bike which wasn't pleasant. I got a tax reminder on the mat this week reminding me she's due for an MOT, can't believe it's been a year already. I've gotta get it booked in for an MOT and then the beam can go on, along with my Russian guy top mounts.

Only frustration is my Magnex if making a right racket. Buzzes like mad at 4k which is the Baffles, but as it warms through i get lots of strange noises and it's generally very irritating. Going to have to cut it open and see what's what I think.

[Matt-Rallye]

Good beam work! looks spot on that does!

In regards to the magnex, just f*ck it off and buy a scorpion if you find one! i have and honestly its 20x the exhaust my magnex was a pile of rubbish.

[Toms306]

Magnex are shite, I've had them on both '6s now, far too damn loud and don't take well to being twatted up a kerb it seems. I thought you'd have had something more subtle on it already tbf!

The beam, and in fact the rest of it, are looking really good though!

[Matt-Rallye]

Magnex are shite, I've had them on both '6s now, far too damn loud and don't take well to being twatted up a kerb it seems. I thought you'd have had something more subtle on it already tbf!

The beam, and in fact the rest of it, are looking really good though!

Every 306 magnex ive come across falls to shit zakks does the same and his car never moves!

[C2K]

I've been happy with the volume on the smaller tailpipe magnex generally, but after a few months it's just sounding worse and worse. As it goes on track I need something that's not too offensive.

It sounded fine when it first went on, then slowly gained the 4000rpm buzzing, but now it's deafening. Piece of crap!

I of course need something with a sensible bore for the supercharger.

[Matt-Rallye]

Honestly i cant recommend the scorpion enough, nice large bore but not too loud, just a nice throaty tone when you really open the taps and the build quality is far superior

[C2K]

Well I suppose I better update this.

Car went for the MOT at end of May, passed with flying colours. MOT tester laughed at the response to the advisory on worn front brake discs last year, by complimenting the Brembos. I had to go away with work a couple times in June so pretty much just brought it home from the MOT and parked it in the garage out the Mrs' way.

I make a conscious effort to get a couple jobs done on it, so took a couple days off work this week to crack on.

Yesterday was the job of the rear beam. 21mm VTS bars, solid rear mounts, hybrid ARB going on all at the same time. Ummed and ahhed about doing it in the garage but rolled it out to be on the safe side, only for it to spend the entire f*cking morning raining, stopping, raining, stopping, raining, stopping. Basically meaning the floor was wet enough to be soaked through by the time i'd finished.


I'd done a beam before on my P3 HDi with EBD, so a bit of faffing around with the load compensator later, and voila - dirty old beam:



Had a few issues with a brake line that didn't want to play ball, but generally wen ok. Pleased with the result, here's a before and after:





Seems awfully close to the tyre on the right but the beam's not for going any further to the left so may have to get the persuader on the arch if it decides to rub. That was Thursday's mission complete anyway, no thanks to the constant showers.

Today brought the job i'd been dreading for a long time. Heater matrix. I had been driving through the winter in the Rallye and was plagued by a misting windscreen and had a small amount of coolant going walkies when checking the levels. I figured that the HG going had probably killed it off, or so I thought.

So, since I have a roll cage I knew this was going to be a lady garden of a job. And I was right. Took a bit of faffing and fiddling getting the front half of the cage to come out, but eventually won the fight. Into the engine bay, spending ages undoing the wipers, motor, dash bolts etc and the most ridiculous heater matrix connection ever. Into the car, spend ages using the force to find all the sodding bolts in random locations before eventually winning the fight:





It was at this point, that my heart sank a little. I realised that the bodge artist who owned the car before me (whichever person it may be) had obviously done the matrix before, since there were no screws holding the matrix into the blower unit and the plastic end cap of the matrix was not there. Had no time to do anything about that really as can't have the car in pieces for days. Still, confirmed that it was the source of my coolant loss as evidenced by the damage and sminge-filled housing.





It had loads of bits of leaves and s**te in there which can only be from when the monglet who owned it before me threw away all the trim and ran just with the rain guard over the fan intake. The bit of a fin missing bit off the end was me being a bit heavy handed taking it out as I was thoroughly frustrated at that point. But then the fun began, trying to get the matrix pipes to go in. A simple feat of plugging two pipes into two pipes but noooooooooooooooo. on the 57th attempt I managed to get the matrix into the bulkhead connector and then same fun and games again with the heater matrix hose in the bay! Dunno why the rallye matrix faq said to remove it really as it achieved nothing but wasting time!! Brake light switch was muchos fun, til I stopped and realised I was being a tit and did it from the drivers door in about 5 seconds lol.

Car finally back in one piece prettymuch. What I lost because I had a cage I gained by not having a full interior. Need to take a pic of the larger white plug in the drivers footwell though as I thought I unplugged something and need some confirmation whether it's unused on a rallye since I have no plugs to go into it - everything seems to work though.

Only snag of the day seems to be that my heater cable only goes to about 80% hot now, as I noticed when running the car up to temp. IT'll go all the way but springs back so obviously has found some extra resistance. I'm shattered tbh and can't be arsed to fix it now. Neither was a particularly fun job but deffo wouldn't advise anyone doing a matrix without some help. took me about 6 hours including the cage, which I haven't yet put back in because I want to paint it. Would have been uber to have an extra pair of hands to speed things up/pass tools/attempt frustrating jobs differently etc.

I feel like a cross between a contortionist and a sado-masochist after today. Arms as red as buggery!

[Matt-Rallye]

New ride height looks much more in keeping with the car driven it yet to test the ride?

Heater matrix is a complete ballache, took me about 7 hours on my first dturbo and im putting it off on my rallye but i used to smell coolant when running the heaters on hot so i think it was definitely on the way out

Looks like good work though and nice to see it getting some loving! now take a few days off to actually drive the thing!

[C2K]

I drove it around the block, but mainly to get the coolant up to temp after the matrix. I was away at Wimbledon yesterday watching Murray win.

t was rubbing the tyre on more than 50% acceleration and any type of cornering lol. I realised after I got home I had forgotten to crank up the shock stiffness on my GAZ golds, so that will also make a difference. I can try again to nudge it over a little as it's not too tricky, but failing that it's a lump hammer job... and I have lots of hammers haha

After having done the beam I of course flushed through the brake fluid on all 6 nipples, using a vacuum bleeder on a compressor someone gave me. What an effortless way to bleed brakes I must say.

Overall I wouldn't say its a tricky job, just time consuming. Get some help and the banter will while away the time for sure. Took me 7 hours inc the cage removal and a couple of tea breaks. Bleeding of the coolant is just a time wasting exercise on the whole, but you lose time fetching tools, getting in and our the car to swap sides etc.

I didn't bother to remove the exhaust heatshield, just the top two bolts, and I didn't see the point of disconnecting the hoses on the matrix elbow in the engine bay.

[C2K]

So a few days have passed by now. I wasn't thrilled about driving the car with half the roll cage missing, due to the proximity of a large piece of cage unguarded next to my head! I drove it just a few times to establish the correct coolant level as I knew it hadn't fully replenished, and to make sure nothing obvious was tits up with the matrix.

I had hated the red cage since I got the car, it was a real colour clash with the blue seats and white car, so it had to go. Having the front half out the car was a perfect opportunity to start painting it. Harry Potter curtains left by the previous owners of our house provided the perfect protection.

In progress:


Colour transformation complete. I'll not be painting any cars any time soon thats for sure..




Added some carbon wrap to the door bars to stop them chipping/rubbing the paint off.

Also found the roof gutter trims that I bought in the corner of the garage, so thought it rude not to fit them, seeing as the gutter always looked dirty otherwise.



Also adjusted the door cards to stop the handles continually separating the surrounds. Picked up a cheap spare Bosch lambda off the forum to enable me to swap decat/lambda together as the one on the cat is properly seized and no point destroying it.

All I need to do now is stop the rubbing and fit the decat then it's ready for a trackday. Got my adjustable top mounts to go on, but not had much time to do that.

I've hopefully got a few days off this week and I need to reset the handbrake as it's lobsided, and there is some rust in the wheelarch I need to attend to which shouldn't take long.

Loving the fact it's almost a finished project lol.

[C2K]

Ok so i spent all night updating the links in my project thread, since dropbox decided to move them all (thanks for that Dropbox, appreciate it..)

Anyway, went to Bedford Autodrome on Monday for a trackday with Berger. It had hammered it down in the morning which means the track was very wet and very slippery. I just had road tyres on the car which although old, did well enough to have an absolute hoot of a day. Seemed that an entire Clio forum turned up for the day with everything from Phase 1 Turbos to Phase 3 197s. Even bumped into Oliver from here in his Blaze 6 which was giving him handling grief all day.

Good chance to try out the new beam and that, but sadly forgot my action camera to record the day. As the morning went on the track was drying out nicely and it was getting faster and faster. Shame then that over lunch it p**sed it down again and made the track even more wet than the morning. Ah well, still had fun.







:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

Negative of the day for me was the jumped up pen!s in a TTRS driving like a f**king maniac all day, should've been thrown off the trackday in the morning.

[C2K]

So I spent the whole day today just checking things over after the track day. The exhaust had rotated again between backbox and centre section, which leads to it rubbing the bumper and transmitting all sorts of awful racket into the cabin. It's easily fixed, but the clamp is as tight as it will go without snapping so i've lashed it full of gun gum this time too to try and stick it there. The design of the magnex is really poor tbh on the whole, why it only has two hangers and not 3 is beyond me as there's nothing to support the NS of the exhaust.

My power steering inlet pipe split again on the way home from the track. I need to rotate the pump inlet elbow slightly but it won't budge on the car. Made a better pipe anyway so will see if it last. Failing that I will rotate my spare pump elbow off the car and then exchange it.

Failing that it seems to be working well, nothing major to report post track day although the brakes and tyres have taken an incredible amount of abuse and soldier on. Working towards some R888rs for the compos, but keeping an eye out for discount. Next track day booked for end of Jan.

[Eeyore]

Just caught up on this. Not sure how i hadnt seen it for ages. Great stuff as always!

[C2K]

Cheers

Just been investigating the heaters trying to work out what's going on with the control knob not reaching full, and the air being luke warm. Found a couple of things worth a nosey at so the dash is in bits at the minute. Wants for nothing ahead of the next track day so i'm safe in the respect, just need to get the tyres i'm after so will be watching xmas/new year 'sales' like a hawk for discount codes.

[Eeyore]

let me know if you find why the heaters are only luke warm. mine are the same.

[C2K]

It’s very annoying. Did yours start after a new matrix? I think it’s coincidental but did start after the matrix swap. Knob seems a bit better already as I found the casing of the heater box opened up slightly on the joint and pushed it back together.

Had to take a bar out the roll cage just to get into the footwell to look!

Trying to remember when I changed the stat... did you also change it?

[Eeyore]

Ive put a brand new stat in mine which improved things a bit but it still never gets "hot". My heater control illuminations also dont work. They do light up in a rallye dont they? The left heater speed knob is incredibly stiff to move to the closed position. Something must be caught or routed wrong.

Never had an issue starting!

[C2K]

Given it was completely lashing it down I set out to complete some interior jobs - i.e. find why my centre console didn't light up. It's a little different than my HDi was, and given none of the 4 bulbs lit up I expected to find it unplugged (as with everything else on this car, formerly owned by a muppet), but to my surprise all 4 bulbs were blown.

Bombsite:


Light at the end of the tunnel:


Seen the light:

Yeah they light up, as per my previous repair.

Running out of things to check but I remember changing the stat and wondered when that was. Need to look at the resistor to check the condition but that shouldn’t be it.

I don’t mean starting the car lol, I mean did your heater problem first appear with a new matrix...

[Bertman]

Enjoyed the read mate, nice to see you stuck with it! Through thick and thin... I think 306s have a knack of being incredibly frustrating to work on sometimes! I've threatened to scrap mine many times hah

[C2K]

Thanks man. Find it quite satisfying to fix things as I like problem solving, but I wouldn’t want to take the cage and dash out again!

[C2K]

Present to myself after Xmas, ahead of the next trackday..




New R888Rs now fitted to my Compos.

[C2K]

So off to Donington I went yesterday, armed with some semi-slicks. Got up there, swapped wheels, attended the safety briefing and then watched the heavens open as sighting laps commenced.....

It thoroughly pissed it down for about an hour, meaning the track was pretty wet and getting wetter by the minute. Standing water running across the track in the middle of the craner curve means for some edgy moments in the morning with lots of people dropping it and causing track closure after track closure. There was a distinct lack of grip at McLeans and next to no grip at Coppice for most of the morning, at least for those of us FWD. There were a few rwd cars and 4wd cars that could drive out of the corner much better than my not-yet-bedded-in Toyos and diff could achieve. I found that if you did the same thing 3 times you got 3 different positions and had to really gingerly use the throttle all corner to come out with any sort of speed. The toyos are a lot squarer and i rolled the arch before but there was a light rub on the tyres so out came the jack handle to do some ghetto arch rolling... i'll tidy it up when i get a chance..

Track started to dry out around 11 o'clock and having managed just shy of 60 miles all morning on track i did just shy of 35 in one sitting, getting faster and faster and almost a gear higher consistently. Picked up a slight vibration and came into the pits to investigate and found the wheel bolts had come loose (torqued up when the wheels were swapped). Put it down to the load on the front left, but it happened again first session just after lunch. Bit more torque and they didn't come loose again that day, just got in the habit of checking all 16 with the torque wrench before going back out.

With the track shut for lunch more showers came and wetted the drying line again which wasn't ideal but with no more rain forecast it dried pretty quickly and was a real hoot after lunch. Berger came with me off here and had a couple goes in the car and it was great fun even as a passenger.

Morning pics:








Drying track...









Afternoon was a total hoot and levelled the playing field with the cars that had done well in the morning. Was with a golf r for a few laps which I didn't want to let past but he positioned himself in traffic such that I had to yield.Annoying as because he then held me up in braking and cornering and then he was 0.1mph faster on the straights and wouldn't let me past. Lasted a good few laps though without his brakes melting which i was surprised by. Couple of fiestas which were very surprising in terms of speed including 1 that was apparently a 1.0 EcoBoost but had an intercooler bigger than mine and he walked away on the wet track with his road tyres. It was faster than the Mk6 MR200 he was with which wasn't much slower than us.

Oil temps stable at 115 all day, coolant barely went above 85 all day so a good day in that respect though the dipstick for oil is on min which makes me think i'm losing a bit through the breather as I can't see any leaks anywhere and it was higher the day before. Will invest in a catch tank before the next day I think as the breather at the moment just runs to air but i've never lost any before..oddness.

There was a race truck that turned up with an M3 which you can see in the pics, another random race car, some hot rod thing, a bentley and a radical in a race track. Not sure radicals should be on track days tbh as they're stupidly fast. The Bentley came out in front of us after a track closure and then after 1 lap dropped it in the craner curves and went into the tyres.... uh oh. expensive mistake with lots of carbon bits on he recovery truck...


I've had a random issue a few times with fuse 25 blowing on the car, for instance it blew randomly last week when i was driving back with the toyos in the boot. I hadn't ever sat down to look for this, but knew which fuse it was and carried spares. The guide just says "5A clock/fuse" but mines' only ever had a 10A in and it was blowing. I put 3 in over the course of the morning and they lasted anything from 5 mins to 30 mins and each time it popped the speedo/revs/fuel gauge died - not handy on a trackday. I had to up to a 20A fuse which isn't ideal, but it worked for the rest of the day and got me home at which point I took it out. I could smell hot wiring when i was unloading the boot and putting a 10A into the circuit yielded a popped fuse instantly with ignition off. Quick look at the Haynes diagrams and lo and behold fuse 25 is boot light via the switch... which I don't have anymore. Turns out the idiot who owned the car before just cut the two wires, leaving them capable of touching each other but in this instance also shorting on the speaker wiring which is still there. I'll get rid of it at some point when i can be arsed, but with those taped up i'm back to a 5A fuse and no popping... result. This is why the lights weren't on in the pics above as i wasn't sure if it was related or not.

Now needs new brake fluid, pas elbow rotating and new fluid, new engine oil etc... All in the garage already but just need the time to service it. A good day all in.