A few minor issues here this week. I stripped the rear brakes down to try and sort out a sticking handbrake issue, only to find the handbrake mech had jammed, and once I operated it with pliers, the piston moved out, and decided it was happy there; never to return! I bolted the caliper back up, with the disc removed, to get some real purchase on it to wind the piston back in. Nothing. I used a 3' bar on the wind back tool, and tried so hard it actually distorted the face of the piston - absolutely NO movement. So I gave up and bought some new (ish) calipers: Now, there's a reason I bought 2 sets! The shiney red set (I know I know, I'll paint them black at some point) have been freshly rebuilt, with new seals and dust seals too, and Sharan handbrake return springs. But they are on 4wd carriers. I currently have 4wd carriers with a 6mm spacer for the offset, but like so many, I get this nasty band around the edge of the rear disc: Whilst comparing the 2 sets of calipers, I noticed that the 2wd LCR carriers definitely sat higher than the 4wd ones on a level surface: So I decided to buy both sets, and keep one as a spare. I'll use the 2wd LCR carriers, with the freshly rebuilt calipers. If all goes to plan this will also eliminate the unswept band I've had for so long
more on these rear brakes then. I tried to get a better pic of the carrier difference. But it's pretty tricky to show it clearly in a pic. In the flesh the difference is VERY clear though: Although not one for being too bothered about visuals, even I didn't fancy some BRIGHT RED rear calipers, so I gave them a quick key up, and wire brushed down the LCR carriers, and gave them a quick coat of enamel black. Forgot to get pics of them painted. it's not the best finish by a long way, but it's black, and it'll do! As my rear discs were shot to bits, and the pads pretty old, I decided to go with a fresh set of standard Pagid rears this time around: I bolted the LCR carrier up, and offered in the new pads for the moment of truth: Success! No nasty unswept band! Caliper on: Repeat on the other side: Bleed brakes, test drive. Oh, wait. No. The bleeding process was a nightmare. I've bled the brakes on this car probably 50 times or more, and there still appears to be no guaranteed method for success, other than pouring LOTS of very expensive fluid through it. I bought 1 litre of RBF660 on ebay, at extortionate cost, thinking a full litre would easily be enough. After attempt 1 the pedal feel was SHOCKING. I bled the rears again, and it didn't get much better. So I ended up using all of the remaining fluid, and bleeding all 4 corners again including an ABS cycle on VAGcom. This seems to have returned the pedal to what I'd call 90%, but it's still not quite as sharp as it used to be. I'll end up bleeding them again before it sees the track, but I'll need to speak to my bank manager before ordering any MORE RBF660 lol With that small mess sorted, we went for a drive, and they rear brakes scrub in nicely, covering all of the disc as you'd hope they would! I'd like to think that that's the mystery solved, and the solution to the unswept band is the LCR carriers, but talking to many people on facebook, it appears that SOME factory S3's get this band, and some don't. Even more confusingly, I've spoken to some LCR owners who DO get the unswept band on factory 256mm 2wd rear setups! What is certain is that there are definite differences in the carriers available, positioning the calipers differently by seemingly around 7-8mm. On a totally unrelated note, Dad noticed over the weekend that the rear camber is really obvious with the car parked on the concrete slab, as only part of the tyre makes contact with the ground Still impressed with the Khumos too. had a good blast out down some great little lanes with Dad at the weekend and they really do grip very well indeed. In the dry they'll withhold full boost in 2nd gear from 5k, which seems to be the marker for me.
Looking at rear wing work now. Just need to find some time! Weather was **** today, so instead of getting the Spanners out, I went for a drive Much to my surprise, I saw Jardos old a3 on the m3! It still looked awesome, and appeared to still have a full compliment of ex-Prawn performance parts! After a good 20 mile blast, I met up with this bunch of missfits at Loomies cafe: After a decent meal and a chat, we went or separate ways. Weather was rubbish at home sadly. I spent a few minutes knocking up a VERY rough idea for a rear wing bracket: This is a very rough idea currently, but you can see the idea. I want to have the fixing flush with the surface of the bracket and blended in so they're not visible at all. Just a plate on the surface of the tailgate. It rained lots, so I watched the F1 for the second time today. I then did something very unlike me, and cleaned the car thoroughly, even doing the wheels! Before: And after: Then, I completely took leave of all my senses. I cleaned the tailpipe!!!! I decided at this point that I must be ill, so I sat down, and that's where I am now lol Good day!
No work on Friday due to the bank holiday, so I've decided to nominate today as 'TakeYourTrackCarToWork Wednesday' instead
I went out for a little blast this evening. Bumped into a familiar face at the watering hole: It was such a beautiful evening, perfect for a good evening drive to the pub! Me in the a3 and Andy and Emily in the Bentley lol classy convoy! We met Jardo, mowgli, Tony, and several others at the pub. Much fun was had, ending in jardo and I having a cracking blast home down the 272. Summers evenings - awesome
Today, I made some more progress on the wing It stated last week with some uninteresting marking up of centres and offsets etc: A few plates were cut and taped into place, then some more CAD was used to make up the lower part of the new brackets: This was transferred to steel, and carefully centres on the base plates before welding: I couldn't get the welder set up right for some reason, and it just didn't seem right. I ground the shoddy looking welded back so it looked half presentable, but wasn't keen on the strength, so decided to destructively test one of them. Just as well I did that! It broke fairly easily! More welding practise required. An auto dim mask borrowed from Andy, and lots of time spent chatting to Nige about welding technique (thanks!) Getting there slowly. A considerable improvement on the last lot! After a bit of practise and setting up, I had another go on the wing brackets. It's still far from perfect, but these won't be seen, and they're plenty strong enough now! This was offered up to the roof. I altered the setup so that I could use the existing holes in the tailgate for the old wing. This allows us to revert to the old wing of this one doesn't work, and also saves on further nasty unused holes on the bodywork! Bolts here are very much temporary.
Moving on to the wing itself, the tabs that came with the wing to mount it to the supports were pretty poor. They didn't fit well, didn't sit squarely, and the threaded inserts bonded into the wing didn't sit too squarely either. On the whole - could be better! I decided not to carry on with these, and set about making my own. CAD again: Into steel: Corners radiused to allow the turn buckles to move: Offered up: I wanted this to be perfect, so spent a lot of time marking and measuring before going any further. I taped the new tabs into place and re-joined the centre lines for the holes: I was kindly granted use of the kitchen worktop until 6pm lol All drilled and bolted up perfectly first time: I offset the rear tabs from the front. The front tabs will bolt into the sides of the main mounts, yet the turn buckles will straddle over the main bracket so to keep everything vertical I offset these: More progress was made today, but it's late, and I need sleep, so more to come tomorrow!
#BigGayWingV2 Lots of marking was done. Lots of measuring, and everything checked twice before any final holes were drilled in the tailgate. The top 2 brackets are now drilled, and held here with temprary bolts. I'll either countersink and flush in some bolts, or buy some half smart dome heads if I'm feeling lazy. Lower brackets at this stage are measured up and taped into position. They won't be drilled and finalised until I have the finished brackets ready to install permanently. With these in place. It was time to work out the wing position. Research has told me, that ideally, the wing wants to be as high up, and as far back as possible. Something like GobStopper 2 demonstrates this nicely: However, there comes a point where it's just too high and too far back, and despite working well, it looks Utterly rediculous. Imagine Gobstopper 2 in the Sainsburys carpark..... I wanted it above the roof line in the air flow, but it's worth noting that airflow at this point won't be horizontal, it'll be following the line of the roof, which is on a slight downwards trajectory at the back of the car. To ensure the wing sat above this roof line, the obvious answer was to stick something solid on this line, and rest the wing on it. Enter - Wood! 2 bits of timber, 40mm thick. Ensuring that the lowest part of the wing sits 40mm above the roof line. Concrete block for good measure lol I missed about with a few positions, forward, aft, up a little, down a little, and decided that I liked the 40mm vertical clearance, and decided on a figure of 250mm clear air between the back of the tailgate top, and the leading edge of the wing. Again, the further back the better, but there comes a point where it looks like it's on a different car entirely if it gets too far away :laugh: It was of course, at this point, time for our old friend - CAD After the CAD, I busted out the Jigsaw, and made a pair of these from 6mm MDF: and then it was time to offer it up, minus the timber and concrete block, to get a first impression of what this might actually look like. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present, named by Leigh: #BigGayWingV2 It's enormous, and utterly rediculous. I love it lol I think the shape and size suit the car a treat. It's clearly not subtle in any way, but who cares. The turn buckle adjustment system also appears to have worked a treat too: Hopefully I'll have some more templates cut out to test this evening. Perhaps try a few positions. Then, when I've finalised the position I'll be sending a template over to my friendly expert RobinJI to CAD it up and have it laser cut in ali
I'm pretty sure this wing will divide opinion, just like the last one did! I'm certainly more keen on this one than the last one. Hopefully when it's all finished it'll look spot on. If a little over the top still! Haha I started today by making anther par of brackets, this time with a few changes and a better fit. I got these to a point I was happy with the outer profile, then cut out the middles to get to what I want to end up with: I offered that up to the car, and was happy with it. So I made another: Time for another test fit! Hmmmmmmm. That's not quite as I imagined it. This is more like it! That's about where I left it for today. I've taken a few different pics at various angles, but with mdf brackets and no end plates it's very hard to see the end vision at this point. I can picture it, but you lot will have to wait until it actually exists to make final judgement lol
My plan is to have Ash work out the wings optimal AoA in free air, then relate this to the direction of air flow in the position the wing is to be mounted. I can't confess to knowing the first thing about it myself, but Ash is incredibly good at that sort of analysis and wrote his whole dissertation on Mercedes F1 aero. It was him who offered to do the CFD in the first place. I've started to work out the direction of air flow off the tailgate using some highly specialist equipment bought partly on eBay, and partly in Pound Land lol
Robin works fast! Initial drawing of the bracket Robin has drawn from my template: We spoke about it at length last night. Robin is going to make one or two tiny changes to it, then get some quotes to have a pair made
Until I've worked out the angle I want to set the wing at, I won't know exactly where the hole wants to be. In an ideal world, I'd like the turn buckles fully closed when the wing is in the flattest position I'll ever run it. it became pretty apparent when I offered the wing up on the template that even a tiny change in position of the turn buckle resulted in a huge angle change. I think the angle changes are going to be measured in single turns of the buckle. Due to all the angles involved, the turn buckle needs a cut out of the back leg like this to clear: In light of this cut out, we decided to beef up the lower leg to retain strength, as this will be the main load path downwards into the tailgate. I didn't want the cut out done at this stage until I've offered it all up and made absolutely certain what angle I'll be mounting at. I'll drill the bracket for that single hole and make the cut out notch myself, then once I've tested the wing on the car and I know the mounting system as a whole works, I'll remove it and have it all powdercoated black
Next one planned for me once the wing is on is some form of side skirts. Not so much to have any huge effect, but the car is looking pretty aero heavy front and rear now, and in the middle its very bare indeed and looks a bit out of proportion. I was looking at it the other day, and realised that this is largely down to how the sides of the car sweep in from the door line, so by the time you get down to floorpan height its waisted in by a good 6 per side already. This not only looks a bit daft, but it gives a very clear and easy path for air to sweep in under the car, partially undoing the good work of the splitter. If I could just have an extension downwards, vertically from the bottom of the doors. It wouldnt even need to go lower than floorpan height to have a huge visual impact, as well as genuine aero merit too. Idea stolen 100% from RobT and his (former) lovely Ibiza Sprint car: I believe Rob just used some form of roofing sheets and attached them to the vertical seam under the sills. It was apparently quite effective increasing the efficiency of his splitter by stopping air getting back in under the car, so the splitters gains are felt futher along the underside of the car as I understand it. My plan would be to mount them slightly further outboard for a greater visual impact. Excusing my awful sketch, this is how I interpret the current stock arrangement: And this would be my intended plan: The red indicates a Riv nut in the sill, and again in an inverted V shaped steel bracket. The green then indicates some form of sheet material, most probably using some Mini wheel arch trim along the top edge to give a smart seam / joint to the bodywork. These could be made and tested at varying depths to see if the gains were felt at all. Nige at one point ran his just 30mm off the ground and made from rubber strips, and literally let them find their own height be wearing down until they stopped wearing. In theory, once the brackets are made I could experiment with a few different materials too and see what works best
Massive thanks to Robin again this evening! #BGWV2 has taken a decent step forward Getting excited about the final fitment!
Due to the angles involved, a small cut out is needed in the 'back leg' like this: The depth of that notch is around 10mm. With that rear stay effectively being the main load bearing member, I didn't fancy having it thinner than the others due to the cut out, so I asked Robin to beef it up internally from 30-40mm. We did think about having the bulge in the outside of the rear leg, but it somehow didn't look right. I also projected the roof line onto the bracket template I sent to Robin, and he's sweetened that top line so it flows with the roof line and curves up to the wing now instead of a sharp change like my template. I compared the bracket to my MDF template last night, and given that it took Robin about 30 mins to draw from scratch, I'm amazed that it replicates the template perfectly, even though the template was just a rough free drawn shape. I wish I could use CAD that well! I'll have a test fit this weekend, and make the final holes for the turn buckle and get everything bolted up. Mum and Dad are coming to stay on Tuesday evening, so I'll have it fitted for when Dad comes here so he can see it and we can go for a drive, then I'll whip it all off and hopefully have it all powdercoated next week
Sunday morning breakfast meet It was damp and overcast, which is actually a good thing when you're heading to Loomies, one of the biggest biker cafes in the south coast. Miserable weather meant we were able to get a parking space 1000bhp spread over 3 cars, all running ko4's of some sort
More progress today on #BGWV2 When making the bracket template, I realised I'd totally forgotten about the bolt that goes through the lower mount and into the tailgate. Off the car everything assembles great, then when i offered it up with bolts, the problem became apparent! 5 minutes with the Dremel sorted that out: At this point I got a message from a rather desperate Jardo. He couldn't get access to his workshop, and needed to use the pit and tools to hangs the engine mounts and cv joint on his golf. Because I'm nice ( ) I agreed and gave up my parking space for an afternoons entertainment With Jardo underway causing chaos, I got to work on the first test fit The brackets fitted brilliantly: I bolted the wing up loosely, and positioned the feet so that everything was sat perfectly square. First impressions of how it'll look: I masked up the tailgate, and drew around the mounts ready to drill: No going back now!!! Jardo had finished his cv joint, and was on to changing his rear engine mount: I bolted the lower feet up, and bolted the wing on for the first proper time attached to the car. I'm pleased to report that it seems remarkably solid already once it's all torqued up I'm confident it'll be very sturdy. One more pic for those concerned about glass clearance:
Mum and Dad came round last night, so I was keen to get the wing mounted on the car properly so we could actually head out for a test drive. I didn't take any 'during' pics as I was rushing, but with it all bolted up, I was finally able to stand back and see what I'd created. I was happy. It's still far from finished, as it desperately needs new end plates, and all the brackets need powdercoating too before it can be finally fitted, but last night was the first time I got a half decent impression of how it'll look, and how stable it'll be. Stability wise, I was really happy with how solid it felt. I had had reservations about the 6mm ali being stiff enough side to side, but the completed wing is actually very solid indeed. Adjustment is an absolute piece of cake, taking about a minute from start to finish to crack off the lock nuts and wind the wing up or down. Dad and I set it purely by eye last night to a starting point for a test drive. From low down behind, it looks utterly ridiculous: And I'm fine with that I'll sort some new end plates asap, then when it's all in paint I can mount it up for the final time Next step - side skirts
Ive thought for a while, that with the splitter and the old rear wing, the side of the car was looking a bit bare. There was a really obvious visual difference at the sides, and it just looked a little strange to me: When I added the new wing, I thought this suddenly became even more obvious: So, I needed something to balance it out. Visually more than anything. The curvy sides of the A3 Sills arent ideal from an aero point of view, because due to low pressure created under the car by the splitter, air running down the sides is encouraged to curl round the sills and under the car again, which isnt what you want. By adding some form of side below the sill, you can discourage air from getting back in under the car. How effective these are depends entirely on the depth of course, but anything is better than nothing here, and what Ive done forms part of a larger plan thatll hopefully become clear in the next few months also. So as we all know, I try to do EVERYTHING on a budget, meaning Ill use materials from unusual sources, and make as much as possible myself. I recently helped AndyP out with some work on his house, during which we fitted all new fascia boards and soffit boards front and rear. He just so happened to have a 5m length of Fascia board spare, which got me thinking. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I wonder? A 30 second mock up with some cardboard was all I needed this confirmed that there was at least possible SOME merit in the idea! Maybe Im onto something!
