N0ddie
Platinum Member
The crunchy 197
- Thread starter RSRowe
- Start date
massivewangers
Paid Member
That wing is massive. Each to their own I guess. I know someone who fitted one to his Corsa VXR, but it only lasted a couple of months as he got so much grief for it lol
RSRowe
Paid Member
He does make me chuckle as he’s set it to flat as it was knocking too much speed off him down the straights 
RSRowe
Paid Member
We were limited to 20 minute sessions. So after 1 warm up and 1 cool down lap it’s probably around 8-10 laps. Anglesey (I’m told) is notoriously hard on tyres.
The AR1 were fantastic! Much better than my V70a’s which surprised me. There was much more grip, they felt more progressive, and they turned in quickly. They were worn when I fitted them.... quite badly in the centre from previous over inflation.
Prior to fitting my coilovers it was always a battle with pressure to stop wear on the outer edge, and to stop over inflation.
Now I have coilovers fitted, I’m hoping with fresh tyres I will be able to find the sweet spot easier.
The AR1 were fantastic! Much better than my V70a’s which surprised me. There was much more grip, they felt more progressive, and they turned in quickly. They were worn when I fitted them.... quite badly in the centre from previous over inflation.
Prior to fitting my coilovers it was always a battle with pressure to stop wear on the outer edge, and to stop over inflation.
Now I have coilovers fitted, I’m hoping with fresh tyres I will be able to find the sweet spot easier.
PITA
Paid Member
RSRowe
Paid Member
I’m doing well with this ktec alternator relocation bracket.
Second time now
Only lost one this time though...... found the end of it in the under tray, so I can’t imagine it happening whilst I was driving.
Ktec seem keen to help me resolve it. Though it seems I’m the only person who’s having this issue.
Ring in 2 weeks
Still have to do an oil change and fit some new tyres.
Second time now
Only lost one this time though...... found the end of it in the under tray, so I can’t imagine it happening whilst I was driving.
Ktec seem keen to help me resolve it. Though it seems I’m the only person who’s having this issue.
Ring in 2 weeks
Still have to do an oil change and fit some new tyres.
RSRowe
Paid Member
@suj reminded me that I hadn't updated this for a while... whoops.
Bit of a bigger update with some writing in this one as me and the boys went over to the Neurburgring for 4 nights last month. Only 4 of the original 10 planned ended up making it - 'rona being the excuses. One of my mates from the Northeast had to get a negative test done within 48 hours of the trip in order for him to return home.
Apart from wearing masks over there, it felt relatively normal, and was a welcome break for me as I'd not been since April 2019 due to house purchase and 'rona cancelling all plans for April 2020.
If you cast your minds back to Anglesey, I managed to start delaminating my semi slicks. This meant that I needed to source something for the trip. I had originally planned on a set of MRF's but just couldn't bring myself to paying out near 700 quid for a set. One of my mates suggested that I try some hard compound rally tyres. A quick search on eBay later resulted in me bagging some skinny Kumho TM02's. Obligatory new TD's to go with the fresh rubber (the wheel and tyre package still costing less than a set of MRF's)
The car needed nothing more than a nut and bolt check and packing up. Obviously, my ktec alternator bracket had again snapped one of it's pins..... but instead of sorting it out, I packed my old (standard) alternator and ac bracket, and the old belt. It's beginning to look likely that I'll replace this with the PMS/Cup pulley setup in the future.
Day 1
2am wake up. We'd previously loaded the blue car on the trailer so had to swing by my mates work to collect it with my daily 5 series. The trip down to the Eurotunnel is 'only' 4.5 hours for us, and we accounted for plenty of time to get there and have some breakfast before the train. The trip was completely traffic-less, but after a fill-up, we still ended up being late. Can just about make out my ugly mug, which was really happy at this point as I'd managed to spill an entire can of energy drink on the passenger seat.
The journey across the continent was pretty boring aswell. Sat at 60mph with no cruise control (as it's decided to break) was rather boring.....
We all got to the accommodation, sorted our luggage and the cars out, and decided to head out for some food and a bit of a tour of the area, as one of the lads hadn't been before. This resulted in the following....
Day 2
A bit of an eventful one.... I swapped the car onto it's semi's and went out with the two other cars in tow for a couple of steady TF laps (which I usually do purely for the photos) 2 laps of credit added to my greenhell pass, and off we went. 1st lap with the lads behind went fine (or so I thought)... I lined up at the barrier, swiped my card, and merrily made my way down the track, but this time a little faster so the lad behind me could learn the lines. The car felt ace and the tyres had improved alot from the lap prior.
View attachment 20201015_181757676_iOS.jpg
I got to a part of the track which is called Bergwerk. As I chucked the car into the right hander, there was a horrific noise and a really bad vibration. I slowed right down and got off the 'racing' line. My initial thoughts were that I had had a wheel bearing collapse. After a few moments my mate following me come up to the side of me and gave me a bit of a hand gesture to signal that my wheel was wobbling.
I limped the car to the next safe point I could get to which was Hohe Acht. I popped the car behind the barrier and got out to assess what had gone on. After wobbling the car I could see that the wheel was shifting and the wheel nuts had come loose. It was at this point I knew I was going to be facing a big bill.
Against my better judgement, I finger tightened the nuts as tight as I could, and slowly made my way to the end of the lap. It felt like the remaining miles took about 30 minutes. I stopped a further 3 times (behind the barrier) to check the nuts were still on, thankfully they were. I made it off the track and after a sever German grilling from the marshall, I made my way over to the gravel carpark where my mate was waiting with a torque wrench.
I torqued the nuts and put the problem down to having freshly manufactured and painted wheels. We headed over to Brunnchen to meet the other lads and told them what had happened. I laughed it all off and we headed back to the house in Herschbroich (just down the road)... after a few hundred meters, guess what started happening... the wheel was wobbling again.
I got back to the house and got the wheels taken off. Seems that in my complete laziness to get the wheels swapped over, using an impact gun on the stud and nut conversion had backed the studs out to the point where they were barely engaging on the thread in the hub/disc. I checked over the remaining studs and all seemed to be a little loose. Fortunately Ben had bought a spare tub of loctite with him, so we went about removing and refitting the studs on all the cars.
If you're still reading at this point, I would take my mistake as a bit of a lesson. DO NOT USE AN IMPACT GUN ON STUD AND NUT CONVERSIONS
Day 3
The day of the trackday. The weather was absolutely vile. Wet, windy, and cold.
The Neurburgring has a habit of biting even the best of drivers in the arse, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared at the thought of a wet track.
View attachment 20201015_181749924_iOS.jpg
With having the most 'experience' it was my job to go at the front of the Clio pack. The grip varied from some to none without warning, but I managed to keep the car relatively under control. The track did dry out quite alot towards the end of the day, but was still fully wet in alot fo sections, which made the experience that extra bit more terrifying.
Plenty of expensive metal did get bent throughout the course of the day... an Audi TT which crashed and then drove a number of miles spilling oil, an R8 nudged itself into the barrier, but the worst crash of the day was the E46
That's essentially it. Day 3 was completely uneventful and resulted in mostly tourist sight seeing, as all the viewpoints around the track were closed because of Covid.
The journey home was quite a lonely one for me as I ended getting split from all the others.
Overall, the trip was still a good one. I'm happy that we all made it back in one piece, and can add that tick to the 'done the ring in the wet' achievement.
Squad picture having met up ready for the train home. Pretty evident which one of my mates has far too much money...
Finally home. 1295.5 miles travelled at an average of 29.3mpg (inc the trackday)
Bit of a bigger update with some writing in this one as me and the boys went over to the Neurburgring for 4 nights last month. Only 4 of the original 10 planned ended up making it - 'rona being the excuses. One of my mates from the Northeast had to get a negative test done within 48 hours of the trip in order for him to return home.
Apart from wearing masks over there, it felt relatively normal, and was a welcome break for me as I'd not been since April 2019 due to house purchase and 'rona cancelling all plans for April 2020.
If you cast your minds back to Anglesey, I managed to start delaminating my semi slicks. This meant that I needed to source something for the trip. I had originally planned on a set of MRF's but just couldn't bring myself to paying out near 700 quid for a set. One of my mates suggested that I try some hard compound rally tyres. A quick search on eBay later resulted in me bagging some skinny Kumho TM02's. Obligatory new TD's to go with the fresh rubber (the wheel and tyre package still costing less than a set of MRF's)
The car needed nothing more than a nut and bolt check and packing up. Obviously, my ktec alternator bracket had again snapped one of it's pins..... but instead of sorting it out, I packed my old (standard) alternator and ac bracket, and the old belt. It's beginning to look likely that I'll replace this with the PMS/Cup pulley setup in the future.
Day 1
2am wake up. We'd previously loaded the blue car on the trailer so had to swing by my mates work to collect it with my daily 5 series. The trip down to the Eurotunnel is 'only' 4.5 hours for us, and we accounted for plenty of time to get there and have some breakfast before the train. The trip was completely traffic-less, but after a fill-up, we still ended up being late. Can just about make out my ugly mug, which was really happy at this point as I'd managed to spill an entire can of energy drink on the passenger seat.
The journey across the continent was pretty boring aswell. Sat at 60mph with no cruise control (as it's decided to break) was rather boring.....
We all got to the accommodation, sorted our luggage and the cars out, and decided to head out for some food and a bit of a tour of the area, as one of the lads hadn't been before. This resulted in the following....
Day 2
A bit of an eventful one.... I swapped the car onto it's semi's and went out with the two other cars in tow for a couple of steady TF laps (which I usually do purely for the photos) 2 laps of credit added to my greenhell pass, and off we went. 1st lap with the lads behind went fine (or so I thought)... I lined up at the barrier, swiped my card, and merrily made my way down the track, but this time a little faster so the lad behind me could learn the lines. The car felt ace and the tyres had improved alot from the lap prior.
View attachment 20201015_181757676_iOS.jpg
I got to a part of the track which is called Bergwerk. As I chucked the car into the right hander, there was a horrific noise and a really bad vibration. I slowed right down and got off the 'racing' line. My initial thoughts were that I had had a wheel bearing collapse. After a few moments my mate following me come up to the side of me and gave me a bit of a hand gesture to signal that my wheel was wobbling.
I limped the car to the next safe point I could get to which was Hohe Acht. I popped the car behind the barrier and got out to assess what had gone on. After wobbling the car I could see that the wheel was shifting and the wheel nuts had come loose. It was at this point I knew I was going to be facing a big bill.
Against my better judgement, I finger tightened the nuts as tight as I could, and slowly made my way to the end of the lap. It felt like the remaining miles took about 30 minutes. I stopped a further 3 times (behind the barrier) to check the nuts were still on, thankfully they were. I made it off the track and after a sever German grilling from the marshall, I made my way over to the gravel carpark where my mate was waiting with a torque wrench.
I torqued the nuts and put the problem down to having freshly manufactured and painted wheels. We headed over to Brunnchen to meet the other lads and told them what had happened. I laughed it all off and we headed back to the house in Herschbroich (just down the road)... after a few hundred meters, guess what started happening... the wheel was wobbling again.
I got back to the house and got the wheels taken off. Seems that in my complete laziness to get the wheels swapped over, using an impact gun on the stud and nut conversion had backed the studs out to the point where they were barely engaging on the thread in the hub/disc. I checked over the remaining studs and all seemed to be a little loose. Fortunately Ben had bought a spare tub of loctite with him, so we went about removing and refitting the studs on all the cars.
If you're still reading at this point, I would take my mistake as a bit of a lesson. DO NOT USE AN IMPACT GUN ON STUD AND NUT CONVERSIONS
Day 3
The day of the trackday. The weather was absolutely vile. Wet, windy, and cold.
The Neurburgring has a habit of biting even the best of drivers in the arse, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared at the thought of a wet track.
View attachment 20201015_181749924_iOS.jpg
With having the most 'experience' it was my job to go at the front of the Clio pack. The grip varied from some to none without warning, but I managed to keep the car relatively under control. The track did dry out quite alot towards the end of the day, but was still fully wet in alot fo sections, which made the experience that extra bit more terrifying.
Plenty of expensive metal did get bent throughout the course of the day... an Audi TT which crashed and then drove a number of miles spilling oil, an R8 nudged itself into the barrier, but the worst crash of the day was the E46
That's essentially it. Day 3 was completely uneventful and resulted in mostly tourist sight seeing, as all the viewpoints around the track were closed because of Covid.
The journey home was quite a lonely one for me as I ended getting split from all the others.
Overall, the trip was still a good one. I'm happy that we all made it back in one piece, and can add that tick to the 'done the ring in the wet' achievement.
Squad picture having met up ready for the train home. Pretty evident which one of my mates has far too much money...
Finally home. 1295.5 miles travelled at an average of 29.3mpg (inc the trackday)
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suj
Paid Member
Good write up Nath.
Loose wheel bolts are the scariest thing in the world, I am glad it didn't end up worse!
Haha as you said Ring in the wet is shit scary, some places are like sheet ice!
Car looks great on TDs, how did the tyres fair?
EDIT, they're TM02s right? Not heard of TC02s, what size did you go?
Loose wheel bolts are the scariest thing in the world, I am glad it didn't end up worse!
Haha as you said Ring in the wet is shit scary, some places are like sheet ice!
Car looks great on TDs, how did the tyres fair?
EDIT, they're TM02s right? Not heard of TC02s, what size did you go?
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RSRowe
Paid Member
They were ‘alright’ for the first lap. The second they felt much better until the nut incident. I’m hoping for some dry-ish weather when I go to Oulton in December to try them out.
They’re 190/630/17. So a little narrow, but perfect for the TD’s as they’re only 7j.
Yes they’re TM02’s.... a fat finger moment from me.
They’re 190/630/17. So a little narrow, but perfect for the TD’s as they’re only 7j.
Yes they’re TM02’s.... a fat finger moment from me.
