lol

 

mine or the tannoy ben

 

both

 

Hi RIch,

Was it you I met in the car park?!

I met someone called Rich

 

you met me at the barrier that thats you onto the 2nd half of the track. Got out of Jims BMW. I think you know Jim, i was the other one

Nice to meet mate

 

I LOVE this pic Ryan, car looks stunning mate!



Glad everything went ok mate

 

Yeah, I thought he was just top Escort not 1600 Escort if that makes sense mate lol

 

Dan,

You should come on a trip to the ring. You wil love it

 

EVERYONE should, awesome holiday every time.
Great food, good socialising, and plenty of petrol head stuff to do karting/offroading/museum and thats before you take into account the fact you are at the best racetrack (sorry, i mean road if any insurers are reading, lol) in the world

 

I'd love to fella and probably will once the car is abit more capable, which wont be long

Although i'd be more interested in the beer than the driving!

you doing Le Man again this year Rich? I'm fucking gutted i'm missing it this year, that was a quality car holiday!

 

yes im going to le mans, but the ring trip treads all over it imo. Le mans is for watching true race cars race and the drive over from Calais. The ring trip is yourself driving around the most dangerous circuit in the world putting yourself and your car on the line

 

Its like comparing a strip show to a brothel

 

Great!!

Rich, I loved listening to the the cars through the night at Le Mans, was mental, but do want to do Germany and want to do Gatebil too!

 

unfortuantely after going to the ring, it really does spoil you, and makes all other tracks seem a bit shite.

glad you enjoyed yourself rich.

dan, yeah everything went well. better than expected as i was on such a rushed timescale and really hadnt tested the car properly.

 

Enjoyed myself is an understatement.

 

Good to see the old girl did you proud Ryan, Also good to see the wheels and hubs took the abuse.

 

No reason they shouldn't seeing as they are touring car rims John Why you getting rid of yours!?

Ryan, I thought you might be rushed, you didn't reply to my text you lord!

Get onto Rainbum and sort the AB springs out, I need mine ASAP too!

 

My AB 3door rear springs sit the car too low at the back IMHO

Im not convinced they are the best option for your car Ryan.

 

are they deffo AB ones chip? and for a 3dr and not saph ones?

as mine has has AB springs on the front and that sits them very high compared to the others, so i would have thought the rears would be similar, do you have a picture?

 

[quote=Ryan;3288446]luke car was awesome, aboslutely faultless, brakes stood up to the punishment, but the rear end springs were far far to soft, which we knew they would be but still was flying round there and i was really really shocked at the handling of it, although i had a few hairy moment after following the pace of a gt3 rs threw aa few bends and quickly realised it wasnt going to happen as all 4 wheels got light and the car jumped a few inches to the right at the crest of a a hill.

quote]

Awesome news mate, glad all was a success for you, id like to join you lot next year if you go.

 

According to Mike Rainbird who supplied the springs and shocks, they are AB 3door ones.
Front ones are fine, its just the rear thats a little lower than I feel is optimum.


I'll dig out a picture but my photobucket isnt working at the moment for some reason, so it will be a little later on when it is.

 

Chip,

What stiffness do you have your rear shocks set on?

 

no worries chip, would be interesting to see, im hoping that bringing the rears up, it will bring the fronts down slightly, by transfering a bit more weight to the front, as IMO the fronts are too high on the AB's, but may be perfect once the rears are sorted out.

 

Mike has said that the AB Springs lower the car all round by about 15mm max

 

What a trip !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Big thanks to Ben, Ryan, Kelv, James and Mike for a great weekend


It all began with a phone call from Kelv to say there was a spare space, so i excitedly agreed to go.

Left Plymouth at 0030 for the 155 mile drive to Ryan's house, arrived about 0300 and we put Shonky away in his garage under the cover of darkness

Then left about 0430 for the 95mile drive to meet Kelv and James at the M25 services.

Left services and met Ben at his house then went to the Ferry Terminal to meet Mike.

Got on the ferry and we all had big breakfasts

Got off the ferry at 1300 local time and then the fun began

280 miles to the B&B so it was race on Nice convoy including 996 turbo, Escos, 3 door, Scooby and RS4

Got to B&B early evening, had shower and it was off to Sabines for steak on a stone

Got to bed about 0200 saturday morning, after 570 mile drive and 41 hours awake


Got woken saturday morning about 0800 by the sound of numerous 997GT3 RS getting abused. Which idiot had booked the B&B next to a race track


Overall a great weekend with lovely weather, an awesome location and of course great company

Good to meet everyone again and apologies to anyone i missed/ignored


A few pictures

Arty shot




Man whore



Scallys @ The Showboat




Your going to 'Get Raped'






More pics to come

 

Ryan, here you go mate:



(forgive the silly angle, it was an arty one from a mag photoshoot, lol)

 

Id prefer it if the back went up slightly and the front went down slightly.

 

Nice one Richie!

 

can see what you mean chip, think thats very similar to how mine sits, hmmmmm

guess there's no way to know on 18's unless i try, its gotta be higher than mine is at the moment, as its slammed on the rear

 

All this talk of centrelocks being unfit for road use that what i meant Dan

Mine have to go as I need the cash, im bloody skint since the house extension was done and cant justify a 3k set of wheels. Car needs some money spending to get it running right

 

I can bring my springs up sometime for you to try if you like mate?
(or shall I just send the whole car up rather than all this messing about bit by bit rebuilding it into your shell )

 

if your ever pasing mate that would be awesome, as there is a long wait on the springs, and knowing my luck, they will turn up and be too low anyway.

yeah drive it up and i'll have the bumper too

 

I'll see if anyone local can lend me some standard ones to whack in their place so I can still manouvre the car when I take them off, as I need to pull it out of the garage to take them off and then push it back in again and obviously i cant do that with no springs.

 

Had an amazing time, ran the car on 1.5 bar the whole weekend, as the ambient temps were a bit extreme. The car never went above 117°C oil and 105°C water - and that was a particularly "hot" lap. The weekend started tentatively and I was overtaken by quite a lot, as I was scared to push the car incase the untried front end gave up the ghost (drive-shaft wise). However, as the weekend progressed and I gained confidence in the car, I gradually picked up the pace and by Monday, I felt that Peggy was "back" . After playing catch up to the green CSL and his mate (and then finally managing to get passed - they really didn't want to let a Ford through ), I then had a couple of awesome laps with James (Johnny Bravo) as passenger. By then I had completely regained my confidence in the car, and despite some hectic traffic, we had two really good laps - one of which was managing to sneak past the green Supra after following him round for half a lap, short shifting at 6500 - 7000 to stay with him. Once I saw an opportunty to get past (we had a better line out of the fast uphill corner after the bit where Niki Lauda crashed), I had to use all the revs to out drag him up the hill (still on 1.5 bar), we then played cat and mouse as it was his turn to follow me as we threaded our way through the traffic.

It was a very enjoyable lap despite being slowed down by plenty of accidents and traffic. However, this was the lap where we discovered the problem. As we coasted down the main straight to cool the car off, I could hear a very faint ticha, ticha, ticha, ticha as something was either rubbing somewhere or the noise lifters make when they are low on oil. Given the car had just been hammered for 3 laps, my first though was that maybe the oil had run low, so we went back to the hotel to check.

This was 3mm above the minium, so I put half a litre in for good measure and then went to start the car to see if it had alleviated any of the noise. Bizzarely (so we thought at the time), the car wouldn't start. After numerous attempts with the Pectel monitor in the position to check the sensors, all we got was the normal "low battery" warning that you get when the car is cranking. I then decided to whip out the plugs to see if fuel was getting through, as it didn't appear to even be catching, so was obviously lacking spark or fuel. The plug inspection revealed perfectly coloured, but dry plugs on all four cylinders (relief - no oil or other issues ), so no fuel was getting through. A quick phone call to Harvey and he suggested that if the voltage dropped below a certain level, then the ECU wouldn't allow the car to start, so we borrowed a jumper pack from the garage next door and tried that with high hopes, but to no avail. By this time Guido had turned up and him and James stood at the front of the car while I turned it over. It was at this point that they spotted the bottom crank pulley wobbling around as the car was turning over. Another quick phone call to Harvey suggest that the bolt "may" have come undone, but he was sure it had been loctited. I could tell the concern in his voice, and asked what he thought it was if it wasn't this, and he just said "crank has snapped" . With hopes that it was the bolt lose, I jacked the car up and James leapt underneath and started to remove the fans so we could check the bolt. With this done he got under there and tried to see if it was tight. Suddenly the car started rolling back off the jack, I yelled, but luckily Jame's cat like reflexes had allowed him to scrabble out just in time as in slow motion the car fell off the scissor jack. In the rush, I had forgotten to put the car in gear and apply the handbrake fully . After a brief cigarette to calm his nerves while I got the car back into position, James went back under and checked the bolt, which was completely tight and would not budge.

Phoned Harvey and explained this, where he sounded extremely dispondent, "Have you tried undoing it?" he asked. "Nope" - "Try that and then call me back". So then it as a case of removing the alternator belt (swapping the pony Ford jack from one side to the other to do so), where I then got in the car, put it into fourth and stood on the brakes as James attempted to undo the bolt. He couldn't budge it, so I went and got my breaker bar from in the garage and gave him that to try. Back in position, James finally managed to crack the bolt and he shouted from under the car that it was definitely Loctited, as he could feel the courseness in the thread as he undid it. Unfortunately three full turns later and the pulley was off in his hands .

I don't know whether to consider this bad luck or good luck . Obviously it is bad luck to have failed when it did, but then again it is good luck that it hasn't (seemed to have) done any other damage (fingers crossed).

Apart from that, this was probably one of the best weekends for socialising that I have ever been on .

 

blocks of wood work chip

 

There better not be Ryan, Mike told me 3 weeks wait for them 2 weeks ago!

 

I've got some you can borrow

 

Shame James didnt get crushed the murdering bastard

Seriously though, couple of lucky escapes there Mike in the grand scheme of things!

 

Mike, luck really as it could have obviously wrecked the entire engine as you know

I trust that another crank shall be purchased/warrantied?

 

Nice one, just trying to think easiest way to get them over to me, dont suppose you are likely to see anyone who knows me anytime soon?