Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 4:47 pm
A productive couple of hours with Sir Hayward on Friday evening and a couple more this morning at the unit have worked wonders.
The gear selection problem was reckoned to be a combination of a bent pipe and potential air in the system. I'll only know for sure once the car has run for about 5 minutes at speed in order to generate enough heat to try to reproduce the circumstances that were encountered at Cadwell, but, fingers crossed.
The ride height has been raised about 25mm at the back and 40mm at the front. This should be much better and remarkably the car still looks low now! Whatever must it have looked like before?
I have taken the advice of Sir Hayward and jonv, a fellow M3 peddlar, and bought some Eibach adjustable top mounts. This enabled me to ditch the swapped OE ones to gain control over set up in a bid to get the car more tuned to my driving style, as and when I get quick enough to justify 'tuning' the handling. Camber and toe settings will be tweaked by Specialist Components on Wednesday AM. These chaps are thoroughly nice and professional. As ex-Lotus boffins, I suppose you would expect that
The small oil leak has been traced (nothing to worry about) and a multitude of small jobs sorted too;
Door cards for numbers fitted for sprint
Timing strut made and fitted for sprint (Thanks Gerry)
More roll cage padding in readiness for passenger seat (not in time for Wednesday but definite for Marham)
Drivers window refitted
New gear knob fitted. This one doesn't even fly off when changing gear which is dead handy :thumb:
I even managed to get the brake lights working
So, there we are. Alignment and other gubbings, a power run at APT and some paintwork are all that stand between me and a track night.
BRING IT ON!!!
The gear selection problem was reckoned to be a combination of a bent pipe and potential air in the system. I'll only know for sure once the car has run for about 5 minutes at speed in order to generate enough heat to try to reproduce the circumstances that were encountered at Cadwell, but, fingers crossed.
The ride height has been raised about 25mm at the back and 40mm at the front. This should be much better and remarkably the car still looks low now! Whatever must it have looked like before?
I have taken the advice of Sir Hayward and jonv, a fellow M3 peddlar, and bought some Eibach adjustable top mounts. This enabled me to ditch the swapped OE ones to gain control over set up in a bid to get the car more tuned to my driving style, as and when I get quick enough to justify 'tuning' the handling. Camber and toe settings will be tweaked by Specialist Components on Wednesday AM. These chaps are thoroughly nice and professional. As ex-Lotus boffins, I suppose you would expect that
The small oil leak has been traced (nothing to worry about) and a multitude of small jobs sorted too;
Door cards for numbers fitted for sprint
Timing strut made and fitted for sprint (Thanks Gerry)
More roll cage padding in readiness for passenger seat (not in time for Wednesday but definite for Marham)
Drivers window refitted
New gear knob fitted. This one doesn't even fly off when changing gear which is dead handy :thumb:
I even managed to get the brake lights working
So, there we are. Alignment and other gubbings, a power run at APT and some paintwork are all that stand between me and a track night.
BRING IT ON!!!
