Greetings

I'd like to make a point. Not sure who Phoenix riders are but you, Mark and Inspired riders could be a bit biased towards the street trials style of riding? I can kind of understand why you guys could be a good choice for the jury, after all you're very creative with your riding and that's partly what this comp is about but I can't help feel that you'll be more impressed by a style of riding similar to your own than by normal trials moves.

Not a fan of midi but love watching the keyboard. Such an epic piece. [media=]

It's a performance car so you can be sure it's been abused in the past. That's where all the extra costs will stem from. Suspension parts, bushes etc. aren't any more expensive than a standard 3 series and as long as you don't buy every part from a local BMW dealer, you'll be fine. There's plenty of replacement parts from Lemforder or Bilstein which are just as good as original equipment. The only costly maintenance is disc rotors, if you want to use the car at the track you need to buy original - they're around 140 quid each. Engine wise it all depends on how it's been maintained. The 3.2 engine suffers from VANOS rattle (variable valve timing module), this makes it sound like a diesel but usually doesn't affect performance. Valve timing solenoids sometimes pack up, other than that you may have some sensor issues - lambda, CPS, MAF etc. 6 speed Getrag gearboxes are a bit weaker than the 5 speed ZF's in the 3.0 model. You can avoid most of these issues and future expenses by buying a well maintained car.

Yeah, they were ok with tar. There was a lot of hype about them back then but by today's standards, they'd be considered mildly shit.

Definitely, TryAll karbon forks would definitely help.

Yeah the colour is really strange. Varies significantly depending on lighting, whether it's cloudy, what time of day it is etc. I'd highly recommend this car if you can afford one in decent order which probably means spending around 4 grand. They really are a lot of fun. I think Prawn owned a 3 litre one in the past and thoroughly enjoyed his. I also think he was the one who convinced me to buy one back in 2009. Cheers! Will look into padding. Is there anything specific I should look for or will thick-ish polyethylene foam do the job? No idea about the camber yet because there's a fair amount of work that needs to go into the front suspension and steering before it can all be set up. There's a big problem with heavy steering, not yet sure what the cause is. I'm guessing camber is around -4 degrees now? Not entirely convinced so much is a good idea chiefly due to braking, will find out next week during the first visit on a very tight course. The build cost is not a secret, if you count the value of parts that were transferred from the old car, it'd be around 10k. That's the full rebuild, doesn't include the car or swapping the controls over to LHD.

This month? Probably riding in a location I wanted to visit since 2008. Been riding too long to class anything I do as a riding accomplishment, but that would have been the highlight.

I want to ride that. Recently rode a 26" Zhi with a 175mm stem and it felt perfect, doubt a 180mm stem on a 24" would feel odd.

Couldn't find one with the right caption but...

From my limited experience with disc brakes, BB5 with a 203mm roundagon rotor and an SD7 lever. I don't think that setup ever let me down on front wheel gaps, it's unbelievably good. edit: +1 for the Gutsav M, last time I rode one was probably back in 2003, it was a raceline yellow with this strange transparent resevoir. Definitely the most aggressive brake I've tried, it was kind of difficult to use because the lever acted like a switch. It was either off or on in which case the front wheel would instantly lock up no matter what the circumstances.

Ok just a few more pics and I'll shut up for the next 5 days. Promise.

Not that I know of.

Thanks, much appreciated Will have some proper pics taken once the car can legally hit the streets. Possibly next weekend. In the mean time I'm off to get an MOT / register / insure it. One last clip, 0-100mph acceleration, hit the mark in just over 11s. This thing is going to be absolutely mental on sprint events, can't wait to give it a proper go. [media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mapE8mBTOv8

This car has trees and other obstacles to worry about, not bottle scratches I get your point though. Wasn't planning on being too anal about it, it is after all a competition vehicle but it'd be nice to have it look good briefly. Also I was rather enjoying using clay, it's an amazing tool.

For the Jardos and Dans:

Congratulations. I hope you'll modify with pride and dignity!

Yeah, I'm aware of that but this is a heavy feel as if the power steering wasn't doing it's job. You can feel it wrestle against the tyres. Geometry definitely isn't helping either. There is a lot of caster in this car but that would cause the wheel to bounce back to the middle, this isn't happening. Weight wise I have no idea, probably around 1250 and roughly 310bhp. Haha Someone recommended cquartz to me so I got a bottle, was somewhat frustrated to spend 50 quid on 30ml of the stuff but I plan to cover the car in it and just forget about the coat until it's so shoddy it will need a repaint.

I haven't been so full of adrenaline for months. Had my first drive in the M3. The geometry is a mess, steering is heavy for some reason but it goes like the clappers and the sensation of driving it is just unbelievable. Clocked a 0-60 in under 5s from a rolling start from 1000rpm. The gear changes I can only compare to a dog box. The car is dirty, it's missing a few things, final look still to come. Here's the audio from a 0-60 run + some other stuff later before the phone just flew away - sorry about no video but really, there was no way I could have held the phone, let alone aimed it at anything. [media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4YSRxzNBm0

Looking good that My car is apparently ready, got the bill and I'm absolutely stoked at how low it is, especially considering how much of a pain in the arse I was demanding a factory finish on custom mods. I was going to go and fight for every penny due to all the delays but now such an approach just seems wrong. So now it's time to get a trailer, take the car to have an MOT and then register it.

My friend and one of the best trials facial expressions I've seen. Some say he burst into tears after getting up that rock.

The Echo brakes leak due to poor duster seals, you can easily stop that from happening by stretching the finger off a rubber glove over the master cylinder. The slave disc callipers now come with hard anodized pistons, that also helps keep it leak-free. Personally I'd be slightly weary of the Neon because it's not a hugely stiff frame. There are a few people on this forum who have owned the new Bow in 26/20 inch, should be able to help you with the stiffness aspect of these frames.

Well, Bimarco is a Polish brand. They're quite common over here and if they're FIA approved, they probably underwent extensive testing. I sat in one 2 years ago and wasn't hugely impressed, the padding was too thick. It's hard to form an opinion based on just one experience, perhaps the owner of this seat just wanted thicker padding? Either way I would still trust Sparco seats more chiefly because it's a well known brand. I'd highly recommend Sparco Evo seats. Had mine for 4 years now and it's been the best thing ever in terms of comfort. The head protection on the ADV will do fine for track racing and provide extra head support in an impact but the trade off is that if you want to try autocross or simply drive your car around town they can be a bit annoying. Having read what Jardo posted, I think the next thing on my list of things to buy will be a proper passenger seat since I too have a cheap one installed...

You could start with purchasing a small aquarium and some goldfish and take it from there? That way you can fish at home in front of the telly or even better while on Trials Forum, reading your own thread about fishing and listening to this. Sorry for the utterly useless post, I'm horribly bored.

Crap. Every year, round about this time of month when vids from DC start to appear, I regret not going and promise to myself that I'll go next year. This has been going on for 4 years now.

The new SL risers are nicer than Trialtechs in my opinion, probably not as strong though. They are quite a lot lighter than other aluminium bars on the market.