Great work and progress. Do you have any idea what circuit series you may be able to enter ? Trying to find something that would suit old VAG and 350ish bhp also. Are you running mk3 uprights for speed sensors when you run traction control ?
Thanks. I haven't started looking for circuit series yet. I'll probably start with hill climb/ sprint and work from there. I don't know how I'm going to mount the sensors yet. There are a couple of types of sensors, so I have options. None of that will happen for a few months, as I've got a lot to do first.
I went for a drive to South Wales today. A massive thanks to Hotgolf for fixing the box, and turning it around so quickly. Part way through, diff stripped: Unfortunately a couple of the planetary gears have seen better days: However, they're usable for now, so it was put back together. I've ordered some spares from Peloquin already, more great service. It now looks like this: Fitting it tomorrow with a bit of luck.
I tackled fitting the gearbox today. I was out at the car by 8:30, and trying to fit it myself by 9. I just couldn't get it at the right angle by myself. I persevered for nearly an hour, than gave up and asked John to help. It to about 3 minutes to get it in, on the spline and all three bolts in. lol He wandered off and I set about fitting the rest of the bits. Pretty quickly I remembered the bolt for the rear mount fouls against the subframe, and I had to shuffle the box off a bit, turn it up and fit the bolt. Got through that, and the rest of the fitting went quite smoothly. Everything except for the driveshafts was done by 12, so I stopped for some lunch. After lunch I fitted the driveshafts, and loosely put the big nuts on the end of the CVs. I then decided to start the car. It started straight away. Err, except there was fuel spraying out of the top of one of the injectors!! Quickly turn off the car, unplug the battery, and breath a sigh of relief. I'd taken the fuel rail off when trying to find a way to fit the hook for the support beam. Took it off to find the rubber o-ring on the injector had twisted. Straight them all out, and put it back on. While the fuel was drying off, I dropped the car on to it's wheels and tightened the CV nuts. The drivers side went fine, but the passenger side didn't feel right. I took the nut off, and all the threads on the nut were gone, and all the threads on the CV were damaged. I have no idea what happened, as the nut was on straight. Fortunately I had a spare that Nige gave me a while back, so swapped the damaged one out and fitted that. Only took about 30 minutes!! I'm getting better at this stuff. lol The fuel had dried, so I started the car, and let it idle up to temperature while I tidied up. A quick test drive, including stopping at the local Shell to fill up on V-Power, and I'm ready for tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to Curborough, although I've not done any of the updates I was hoping to do. Never mind, tomorrow is going to be amazing.
Hope you have a great day Alex and nothing to serious brakes ( something almost always brakes just hope it's minor )
So, Curborough. With work being so mad, it was a rush to get the car done. However, I was done and packed by about 4pm. I'd fitted the ATS DTCs with the 205 section R888s as I wanted to try them. I tried to leave the spacers on the back, but the tyres were far too wide, so the spacers came off. My alarm woke me up at 6:30 on Sunday morning, and I had an uneventful trip over. I met up with Joe (jommanjo) at the exit of the toll road, and he followed me there. I unpacked, said hi to everyone, and spent a bit of time catching up. With such a selection of tasty machinery around, it wasn't hard to find something to drool over. RobT's Radical, Duncan's JMR built 16v on throttle bodies, jommanjo's immaculate Mk2 with carbon roof, it went on and on. Drivers briefing came and went, and it was time to get on track. So I went and got a sandwich as I was hungry. Then out I went. A steady first lap just feeling the car on the new wheels and tyres, but the car felt good. It's still not got enough mid corner grip though, and the rears are still locking. This is because I can't get any heat in to the front brakes, so I'll just live with it. The next three laps I pushed on a bit, and all three were within 1/10th of a second of each other. I'm really, really pleased by that. I know there's more time there, as the fastest of the three was done when I ran wide at the top of the circuit. My last lap before lunch I completely out braked myself in to the hairpin, black lines, clouds of smoke and very slow. After lunch, I took passengers out for the first two laps, so took it easy. I then started playing with the front damping. It was 5 clicks off hardest, where as the rear is only one click off hardest. I added three clicks to the front, and the car felt much, much better mid corner. I then added another click, and the car again felt better. I also changed my line in to the mole hill, using the rumble strips a lot more. That also felt better. I'm sure I was carrying more speed through there. Despite all this, all my times in the afternoon were slower. However, Prawn went from road tyres to R tyres after lunch, and all his times were slower too, so the track was slower in the afternoon. All my times were very close to Prawn's, and he's my benchmark around there, so I'm very pleased with the progress of the car and driver. I improved my personal best around Curborough by about 8/10ths of a second, and was only 8/100ths behind Nick. The best bit about the day was I got to drive it home!! Here's a picture:
Great that you drove there, had a full day and drove home I also had a lastminute.com gearbox fitting but bottled driving it there! Should have, as it was fine. Great car, this!
I had a bit of time this morning, so decided to fit some of the company logos I've had made up. My first attempt at the bonnet didn't go well, I messed up the D. You can see it's stretched. However, I wanted to at least get it on, so I could see what it looked like. I'm going to redo that, I don't like it. I've got some bigger options coming next week, so will try just the logo in the middle, with the writing somewhere else. The back window went better. I then went for a quick drive, because I could. Immediately noticed the steering wheel wasn't straight, and the car didn't feel right. It felt like the suspension arm had let go again. Back home, get the jack out, and find this: It's time to bin them. I've lost confidence in them now. I don't know if it's because they've fatigued from the crash, or if it's just the design, but I'm changing to standard arms. I've ordered a new set of Passat arms from GSF using the Fathers Day discount. I still have the original set, so will compare them and see if they're up to the job. I now need to decide on which bushes to use. SCCH do some spherical bearings for the front and rear, and I want to get their ball joint spacers anyway, so I'll have a chat with them soon. Alternatively there's the Powerflex black items. The silver lining is that I'll now be able to fit ARBs all round, and play with them to see the difference. Mart has offered to take the gearbox apart again to see why it's whining, so I'll pull the front end off again soon. The replacement planetary gears are here, so at least they can be fitted at the same time.
Don't bin them I'll have a look at them and see if I can sort them Might take a while but if you're going to chuck em you can't be bothered
Not much progress due to work, but the letting agency is now sold. I have a week off next week, then a few days tidying up some loose ends, then it's DTA all the way. I've managed to find the time to pull the gearbox out, and also worked out how to do it myself use the engine support bar. It's going back to Mart for him to look at next week. I ordered the SCCH spherical bearings to go in the new arms, as well the ones for the rear. Hopefully they'll be here by the time I'm back from holiday. I have a spare set of front hubs which I'll fit the SCCH ball joint extenders to, then put new bearings in. I also want to look at the mounting holes for the ABS sensors to see if I can fit some Hall effect sensors in the existing locations for traction control. I want to get the car back on the road for Retro Rides at Shelsley Walsh on 23rd August, as a shakedown for Curborough on the 6th September.
Gearbox is back, and in the car. Spherical bearings only ship next week, so I'm fitting an old pair of arms with unknown poly bushes in for this weekend, so I can try and get to Retro Rides. I also want to change the set up of the top mounts. I then need to get the wheel alignment done on Saturday. I'm also have the stickers applied to the car tomorrow morning. Hoping to use this weekend as a bit of a shakedown for Curborough in a couple of weeks.
A couple of pictures of the advertising going on: I wasn't happy with the mangled front bonnet sticker, so I've taken that off. I didn't have another one to go on, so will do that later.
Full Retro Rides report to follow. Found this in the meantime. I had no idea it sounded like this!! It's awesome! https://instagram.com/p/6uwN20tFwF/?tagged=rrg15
Nice I take it you had wets on lol Sounding and looking good Remember sponsorship can pay for parts damage wear and tear and the car still belongs to you not the company
