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Lauren

Lauren's GT86 100K miles and onwards

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I think I might be getting this too. It only happens intermittently though so I'm not sure.

lauren, do you think I'd be able to see it by crawling under the car with a torch, or would it need to go up on a ramp?

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As my car is approaching 100K miles (in the next week or two!) I thought time for a refresh of some parts and a few small upgrades. First up is these things of absolute beauty. I know they're bonkers expensive, but once you see them, that's it, the card comes out and well, I had to have them. Do it once and all that. 

SPL Rear Lower Arms machined out of billet aluminium with some very nice rose jointed ends. 

35391989476_fe37820648_c.jpgSPL Rear Lower Arms by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

35391990956_430a0bdb7f_c.jpgSPL Rear Lower Arms by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

35391992646_cfd9ffd446_c.jpgSPL Rear Lower Arms by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

35391993936_90bf540723_c.jpgSPL Rear Lower Arms by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

These are going on with a full polybush kit and some new adjustable drop links.

More tuning mods to come. :) 

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They are very nice looking arms! :)....  however best get a box of replacment rosejoints ready as they dont  generally last long on the Uk roads :( ..., hopefully these ones fair better though.

 

Ian

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53 minutes ago, thetyrant said:

They are very nice looking arms! :)....  however best get a box of replacment rosejoints ready as they dont  generally last long on the Uk roads :( ..., hopefully these ones fair better though.

 

Ian

I think* they are titanium rose joints which will help. 

*description doesnt make it clear.

 

@Lauren when you say full bush kit, all of the suspension?

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12 minutes ago, Ade said:

I think* they are titanium rose joints which will help. 

*description doesnt make it clear.

 

@Lauren when you say full bush kit, all of the suspension?

The issue with rose joints on the road is lack of protection from the elements and road grime etc, it soon gets into the bearings and they then wear very fast, if they are titanium (which it doesnt look like to me, maybe the fixing they are screwed into?) then it wont make much difference imo, in a highly exposed area like this and with no protection it wont last long, very nice while they are in good order though and should feel crisp if all other bushes are done as well.

 

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4 minutes ago, thetyrant said:

The issue with rose joints on the road is lack of protection from the elements and road grime etc, it soon gets into the bearings and they then wear very fast, if they are titanium (which it doesnt look like to me, maybe the fixing they are screwed into?) then it wont make much difference imo, in a highly exposed area like this and with no protection it wont last long, very nice while they are in good order though and should feel crisp if all other bushes are done as well.

 

Looking on the ft86club thread, you are right the main hardware is CAD plated 10.9 high tensile steel. 

I blame @TTR for telling me they are titanium. 

Lovely bits of kit though, designed using FEA to ensure they are strong enough and a good weight saving. 

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Lauren, you will notice the difference having them fitted rather than adjustable bushes. The car feels stiffer and more poised with adjustability.

The arms are CNC milled 6061 billet aluminium, the clamp is also 6061 alumninium and the Rose joint and hardware is titanium with teflon coatings. The three bolts are CAD (cadmium) plated.

Enjoy your new set up when all fitted 😉

IMG_2658.JPG

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3 hours ago, Ade said:

I think* they are titanium rose joints which will help. 

*description doesnt make it clear.

 

@Lauren when you say full bush kit, all of the suspension?

Rose joints themselves are steel. The bolt that threads into the arm is titanium you can see by the colour of the metal. 

Yes, full polybush kit. 

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3 hours ago, Lauren said:

Rose joints themselves are steel. The bolt that threads into the arm is titanium you can see by the colour of the metal. 

Yes, full polybush kit. 

 

6 hours ago, TTR said:

Shouldn't believe everything you hear on the Internet :ph34r:

We manufacture titanium mainly for aerospace applications. Of course these are a generic "Rose joint" from another manufacturer, and not from Rose Bearings which originated the manufacture of the joint.  

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On 21/06/2017 at 7:33 PM, Lauren said:

Rose joints themselves are steel. The bolt that threads into the arm is titanium you can see by the colour of the metal. 

Yes, full polybush kit. 

That could be pretty brutal on a daily driven car?

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7 minutes ago, maurice said:

That could be pretty brutal on a daily driven car?

No, it won't be. Just one rose joint. It'll just be more accurate. Had a few rose jointed parts on the AE86. You'd never know. 

I've had a full polybush kit on one of my cars  before, they don't really make it more harsh,  just a bit more accurate. Win, win pretty much. 

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Well, only one way to truly find out. I do expect there to be an increase of NVH, though I've already got coilovers with pillowball mounts and they do increase it a bit. We'll see. 

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Well, it's all on and I picked the car up. Richard had even called me the day before to tell me how good it was. He even said it's the best GT86 he has ever driven! Well that set the expectations high! 

So what did I have done. Well firstly Gary at RRG Macc' installed a full polybush kit including subframe inserts on the car. My car has done 100K miles so I thought there must be some wear in the bushes. 

Here's what the box looks like and it was a full box indeed:

35220537673_c7dca9ff20_c.jpgSuper Pro Poly bushes by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Gary kindly sent me some pics of work in progress. Love RRG for this kind of thing. :)

35641339590_62de565006_c.jpgPoly bush and SPL install by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

In the picture you can see all the bushes installed to the suspension arms and you can also see the beautiful works of art that are the SPL rear lower arms. These things are the kind of parts that you get out of the box just so you can touch them. They are beautifully machined out of billet aluminium and the adjuster bolts are titanium with a steel 'rose' jointed ends where they bolt to the subframe. Expensive? Yes, very but just so lovely. :) 

Perhaps a little surprisingly even the bushes on the steering rack are replaced. Weirdly there were no bushes for the anti-roll bars so I will stick that on the list of additional things to do. 

35641339930_29078c0223_c.jpgPoly bush and SPL install by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Here's a pic of them on the car:

35641340120_eec2e60169_c.jpgPoly bush and SPL install by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

During the installation Richard kept me updated on progress. It turns out that the part number for the one of the bushes is wrong and this means the pin has a smaller inside diameter so it won't fit. But don't worry this wasn't a problem as such. Gary took them home and had a quick run through on his lathe just to increase the inside diameter slightly so the bolts would go through. Then there was another slight glitch as the spherical bushings on the hub were found to have play. Richard told me that Gary wasn't happy installing them back on due to the play. He added that it's likely wear but given how much pressure they needed with the press they could have been damaged when they were removed. He couldn't get new spherical bushes overnight, but he could get the complete hub assembly. So RRG kindly replaced both sides so I have new hubs including new bushes on the rear of the car! How's that for service? 

The car was in for three days and also had it's 100K service whilst there which is just a full service. I also had two new rear tyres, Yoko Advan V105 as usual which had been put aside for me a month earlier for when I needed them. 

The car was at RRG for three days, it would have been two if it weren't for the hub issue. 

35989118016_c0bde17142_c.jpgPoly bush and SPL install by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

I picked the car up on my birthday, how very fitting. Richard was keen for me to test it and it was a shame I had to go into work. I really should have taken the day off, but never mind. The first thing I noticed was just how tight the car felt. No slack, no give, nothing. It felt more precise than when I drove it off the forecourt as a new car. Any fears people had about it being noisier were unfounded. It was already a bit noisy on poor road surfaces with solid top mounts due to the coilovers and I've not noticed it being any noisier. 

But what about how it handles? Well in my commute I have a lovely test corner, namely being the slip road to Manchester Airport eastbound on the M56. I usually drive in Sport mode but noticed that the stability control seemed to be cutting in more. I now realise this was the new rear tyres of course. But in all honesty I'm bored of it's interfering nannying nature so I just decided to turn it off all the time now, no more getting in the way, no more spoiling my fun! :)

What I can say is that the car is now just so accurate, everything is pin sharp and the feedback is of course better too. I can report on the slip road that I have increased my maximum by 4km/h, all significant things. But really it's made a car with 100K miles on the clock feel like it's never ever been better. I just love it. The only slight error I made was not getting aftermarket and longer track rods as this has limited the camber on the rear to 1.75 degrees instead of the 2 degrees I wanted. Small details though a quarter of a degree is quite a small amount when you think about it. 

35220892383_5a1becba7c_c.jpg7 July 2017 Geo setup GT86 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

So, I'm very happy with how the car is feeling, it's a very worthwhile mod and excellent service from RRG Macclesfield as always. :)

But, I wasn't finished yet. The following week I took my car up to see Mike at Tuning Developments for the obligatory now it seems, equal length manifold paired with a resonated TD exhaust system and subsequent remap. Yes I was having fun with my car's 100K presents. :)

Warrington early on a Thursday morning: 

35904012725_563f1fb6c2_c.jpgGT86- Manifold and Exhaust by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

The car was with Mike and Nick for the day and as I work only four miles away in the town centre it worked out pretty well. 

Here's a pic of the exhaust pipe after the manifold:

35904008995_58a4edfba5_c.jpgGT86- Manifold and Exhaust by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

I fully expect this looks familiar to many! 

My Milltek is now no longer on my car: 

35904016765_9b07bdd928_c.jpgGT86- Manifold and Exhaust by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

35904014525_c2ac375293_c.jpgGT86- Manifold and Exhaust by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

And finally the important bit because short of crawling under the car the important bit is the printout from the dyno of course of a before and after. Note the big difference in torque in the mid range which shows the difference the manifold makes: 

35904006895_32c3d89433_c.jpgGT86- Manifold and Exhaust by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Don't forget my car all ready had a decat and remap, induction kit, so I was never going to get huge peak gains and to be fair my car has always produced good power making 201bhp just with a decat and induction kit pre-remap. But, this is good power for an engine with a hundred thousand miles on the clock and is on a par with what others are making with the same mods which is pretty much all of the top of N1 Class in TSS! 

On the road it's the torque you notice the most. Where there was previously a dip there now is a peak. You notice this the most in the lower gears but also it's right at that acceleration point around 80mph on the motorway which is helpful when you want to pull into another lane to overtake on the motorway. The engine feels that little bit eager too. It's subtle, but obvious if that makes sense? I honestly think it's one of the best mods you can do with that manifold, it just widens the power band further and when you look closely at the graph you'll see I've gained nearly 40lbft just under 4000rpm. Also it's interesting to see the brake horsepower gains in that important mid range between 3500-4500rpm which is dead handy on the road. The gains further up the rev range are less of course but still there. 

It's like the car has had a new lease of life for it's second hundred thousand miles ahead! :)

On Tuesday the 18th July after just over four and a half years of ownership I clocked that magical one hundred thousand miles. This is a significant event in a car's life for sure and the first time I've had a car where I've done all those miles myself. Some achievement. I'll write up a special post of the history for this one I think as it not something that happens often. What's great is that I still look forward to getting in the car everytime I go to drive it. :)

35191858464_7542a12f35_c.jpg100K miles on the odometer GT86 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

 

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