RobinJI

Well I've sorted some wheels out. Got a set of 4 15" BBS RZ (BMW E30 wheels) being dropped at my brothers place tomorrow morning. £100 including tyres (federals with loads of tread). They need a re-spray but I thought that seemed more than fair price wise. Just need to hope work can collect them during a delivery to London they said they'd be making soon, if not then it'll be a good excuse to go and see my brother. I'm thinking of painting them with red spokes and a polished lip. Should look good I think, I did like the red Porsche wheels I used to have on it. Plus as it starts getting more track orientated I can make the red a bit of a theme, roll cage, random brackets and things like that.

Yeah, hopefully not. Only had to call 999 once so far, and it's not something I'd like to repeat. (Luckily everything was fine in the end that time.) Been getting back in the hills riding a fair bit recently, so it'll be a good thing to have, I always feel a bit nervous when I'm miles from the car, the car's miles from anywhere and my phone's showing no signal.

Interesting stuff. I knew about the signal stuff, but didn't have a clue you could text them! Have any of you actually registered for it yet?

I guess so. Mk1/2 saloons were called jetta's, mk3 vento and mk4 bora. Think they were all called Jetta's in the states, and I think the estate's might be called a jetta over there too, not sure on that though? I think Mk5/6 estates are also called a Jetta just to confuse things!

Yeah, that looks like a whole lot of fun. How stiff springs are you running? On a course like that I can see how a standard Megane RS could have an advantage suspension wise on the non-track bits, as yours looks like it's set-up quite stiff. As Nick says, the track section looks great, but I'd have thought the time you'd loose there because of a softer set-up would be more than made up for in the rougher bits. That does sound like a bit of a joke about the trophies. It seems only fair that you'd get at least something to show your success. That's definitely what we found on the Grass surface stuff I've been doing in the summers the last couple of years. The RWD cars are great fun and brilliant to watch, but they don't make progress as fast as the FWD unless they're driven super carefully to keep traction, when there's a lot less time lost from spinning up in the FWD stuff. There was a couple of mk2 escorts, nicely modified that were always beaten by a standard diesel Vectra estate haha.

That is a little on the small side yeah. A long time back it used to be 38x3 (1 1/2" x 1/8"), but in more recent years it's been 45x2.5mm or 50x2mm for the main members (so the basic 6 point structure and at least one of the rear diagonals), and 38x2.0 or 40x2.5 for additional bracing (so door bars, additional diagonals etc.). That's because of MSA regs, but at the end of the day the regs are there for a reason. Admittedly going thinner wont make it unsafe as such, as long as the designs right it'll still be helping, just to a lesser extent (as long as it's CDS!) Personally though I'd want to do it right, no point in the trouble, cost, effort and obstruction of the thing if it's not up to scratch. (MSA Regs on cages are all found here) One thing you could do is bring the cage down early, along the line where a quarterlight would be in larger diameter, and then make the tight fitting a-pillar support in the smaller stuff as an additional piece. So basically build it like Prawns cage, coming down steep for strength and ignoring the cars original pillar positioning all together, but then add additional bits running down the a-pillars (if you want to.) Prawns cage: It all depends how much protection you actually want from it though. If you just want it to be a little tougher than standard, just shaping a tube to fit each pillar and welding it in won't be unsafe, it will help the cars strength but it'll still be a fraction of the strength of a proper cage.

Basically for the reason I said about avoiding bends. Modern cages now seem to be following the a-pillars very closely, but they add a near vertical bar coming down from the top of the a-pillar to the floor to regain the strength lost, this bar is basically necessary with modern windscreen angles anyway, so if you've got that you can get away with better fitting but weaker a-pillar bars.

Turreted? Do you mean gusseted? But yeah, that is the nicer way to do things, the closer to the pillars the better, more headroom and visibility's always good. I'd probably just build it to MSA regs anyway, they're there for a reason, they are a sensible minimum standard, you can't really make a cage that doesn't meet them without it being quite flawed. Matching the contours is good as long as it doesn't mean loads of bends, you want things as straight as possible, with any bends supported by an adjoining tube if possible. If the a-pillars are very sloped it's worth either bringing the front legs down where a quarterlight would be, or adding an extra leg there, just following the standard pillars if they're very sloped can lead to it being quite weak. So yeah, basically just following what the regs say, there's reasoning behind it all. What car is it you want to make it for?

How on earth do you know there's no tracking marks on the other side Most speed cameras on single carriageways do have them on both sides of the road. Also you can't really guess what speed will set one off without knowing what the speed limit is, I'd hope 55 wouldn't set one off in a 60/70 limit or the film's not going to last very long! But yeah, regardless of the reasoning, as said, a true Gatso (The massive ones with a square lens) can't get you head on, I'm not sure about the other types though. I think it's basically only the posh digital ones that don't have to flash that can, Off to try and sort my inner CV's later on, along with maybe tackling a couple of other little jobs depending on how I get on time wise.

Just been sent a couple of photos of the Mini I did a lot of restoration work on in the summer, really pleased with how it's turned out, the guy's done a really good job of finishing it off.

35 first attempt, but I'm knackered after work and only just fired up the computer. I'll have another go once I'm feeling a little more awake!

Not sure I'd agree that stiffer ARB bush's aren't worth while. They will act to stiffen the ARB, which if it's what you want could well be a good thing. You've basically just got to think of the bushes and the ARB as 2 springs which are in series. If you place springs in series then they're combined stiffness is softer than that of either spring alone*. Replacing the bushes with a much stiffer material can effectively increase the ARB's rate quite a lot. Admittedly this is only relevant until the bush flexes to it's full extent, but then body-roll mid corner shouldn't really be a huge deflection of the suspension anyway. It can be a handy way of balancing the cars handling a bit more for cheep too. (i.e. only polybushing the rear ARB instead of uprating the bar its self.) Admittedly I've not tried it my self, and it'll depend a lot on the bush design, but on some cars they are supposed to make a noticeable difference. If it's only £6 difference like Jardo says I'd probably do the same as him about go for poly ones. Speaking of which I had a go at casting polyurethane the other day, cool stuff to use and I'm quite tempted to have a go at making some bushes at some point in the future. Just need to work out what for! *The combined spring rate = (1/spring 'a' + 1/spring 'b')^-1 (exactly the same calculation as electrical resistance in parallel)

Yeah, sort the camber but that's unlikely to be the issue. The top mount not being square is probably just a result of the wishbones being at a funky angle and the camber, but as Jolfa said there's normally a slight gap there. I've been told it's only worth changing them if it's a gap big enough to get your little finger in. Check the ARB bushes for the knocking noise, make sure both front wheels are in the air to check it though, so it's unloaded. Plus what Jolfa said. Also I guess you'd have seen when you did the top-mounts, but make sure the assembly of nuts and washers through them's correct, I've seen a few sets of coilovers fitted where they've put the top-mount assembly together in the wrong order or missing bits. (Just google for a diagram to see what order it should be in and what parts there's meant to be.)

Really? I've always thought it was more than that. Tyres seem dirt cheap but the couriers seem to get scared of having damage claimed for on alloys. I'll get in touch with him if I can get them posted that cheap.

et42 wouldn't matter really. It's a good thing from a geometry point of view, especially as I plan to wide-track the car sometime, and I can just run spacers in the mean time.

Haha, I like that price range! The ones on e-bay are £60 starting and I doubt will get much interest, as he's only bothered with a single poor photo of one face and hasn't even cleaned them. Rover sized tyres will need swapping for mine I expect, but that should cost sod all now I've finally found a decent friendly local garage. They're only about an hour from me, which is good going around here. I think hairpins might be the way to go, seems like there's a good supply of them cheep, which is good as my future mods will make wheel fitment quite specific, so being able to get spare sets once it's a track car will be a big bonus. Only real downside's that the centre-bores are smaller than VW, so they'll need taking out a little, I can sort that easily enough though. Just seen that Mark W's location's listed as Blackpool, which is a LONG way from here, and the cost of a courier is a bit of a big hit with cheap wheels.

Cheers Adam, not sure who Mark is, but I'm guessing Luke would be able to put me in touch? I've found a set on e-bay pretty locally for good money, but they're an auction not buy it now. Might see if I can pinch a mates account to ask if he'd do a deal outside e-bay, as I'm in a bit of a hurry. I'm seriously bored of driving carefully and being embarrassed because of having miss-matched wheels.

No worries Luke, shit happens I guess . Probably better in the long run, most Rover alloys I've seen appeared to be made of cheese and as a result weigh loads and bend at the mere sight of a pot-hole. I'd still consider some to see me over though. Right now I just want straight wheels that'll clear my brakes and not make me look like a chav. Edit, that said, having reminded my self that hair-pins are actually quite nice looking wheels, and seem to be pretty cheap I'll be keeping an eye out for some. They look good for brake clearance too, which is a bonus. (It's clearance to the back of the spokes I'm after rather than the diameter, as I want 4-pots but don't want low-offset wheels.) Greetings. The Scirocco would be fine for basic competition, and future plans mean it'll eventually be built up specifically for it, so I'm fine for a car. It's more the hidden costs that get expensive over here, plus the risk of braking the car. I do a sort of autocross/test/solo thing in the summer that a local club runs, but it's pretty short and just a laugh really, it's weekly and I've never made enough of the events to be competitive in it. Unfortunately the Top-Gear episode about Rally-Cross massively exaggerated how cheaply you can do it. There's a lot more hidden costs than they made out. I think the plan will just be to start doing some track-days then either hill-climbs (there's a few good local courses) and/or time-attack. I'd love to do events like the ones you have been, but they all tend to need an MSA logbooked car in the UK, which is a good idea for safety, but it can get really quite expensive meeting the regs. Once I'm working full time properly I should be able to do some, but I'm still recovering from being a student at the moment.

Sounds awesome Greetings. I'd love to do some competitive driving, just don't have anywhere near the cash at the moment. A bit of a long shot as most of you guys seem to be completely the other end of the country from me, but I don't suppose anyone has any 15 or 16" 4x100 wheels they'd sell for sensible money do they? I need something to throw on the Scirocco as these Azev replica's have turned out to be crap (bent, heavy, sod all brake clearance). Need something with a 'medium' offset (35-20 ideally) and 7 to 8.5" wide. Other than that anything will be considered as long as it's not hideous or loads of money. If they're 15s I'll need tyres for them, if they're 16s I can swap mine over, so they're not essential. Cheers.

Jardo, you wouldn't spend 20k on a Golf (Neither would I, I'd probably get a UR Quattro and a Lotus Europa, then keep the change for fuel money and modding the lotus!) Yeah, I think Jardo's more bothered about just wanting a figure to know what difference it's made. I'm less bothered by that, hence not really being worried, I'd still be curious though, so I'd say a run on the rollers would be a big bonus, but not a necessity if it was much cheaper not to.

If it's just a generic off the shelf map then I don't really see an issue. As long as the maps from a reputable company it's not really any different to replacing a fuel pressure reg and taking it out for a drive, or any other part like that. It's not as nice way of doing it as checking everything on a rolling road after, but it's not really pikey either in my eyes.

Jolfa, that is awesome! Lows, new wheels and it'd be amazing! Or is the plan to rob the moving bits for your nato one? (if you even still have that?) if so, that's even better

Yeah, that was mine: Awesome car, besides the wind noise (acceptable in a small light hatchback, not what you want in a big luxurious barge) and awful fuel economy (27mpg) thanks to having the aerodynamics of well, a brick. I'd love another with a modern diesel engine in it though, or a turbo Volvo lump if I had deep pockets and/or did an annual mileage of about 7 miles.

Cool brick, I miss my 240 GLT

If you're after more lateral grip then other than the obvious posher dampers option you need to lower the weight, lower the GofG, increase the tyres grip and improve your suspension geometry. Any or all of those will help, but obviously some are easier than others! I'm guessing you don't want to remove, or move around the cars weight as it's a daily, so that leaves tyres and geo. Tyre's are simple enough and you know what you're doing there. Geo wise, LCR hubs and wishbones, add camber and reduce flex (rose-joint/polybush/chassis bracing). Obviously adding camber will hurt tyre wear unless you drive flat-out everywhere, and will hurt straight line grip. There's not a whole lot more you can do with your suspension set-up without going crazy.