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Church

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Posts posted by Church

  2. Posted · Report reply

    215 on 8" will be slight stretch. Still "safe". Impact - a bit reduced sidewall flex, i.e. sharper steering feel but a bit harsher ride. If it's ok, depends on preferences/priorities. If one goes for more street oriented tires which in general often are more mushy, slight stretch certainly won't hurt.

    P.S. If you are thinking of using some aftermarket alloys of VW, IIRC VAG cars had different lugnut seats, no? So some seat adapters or different lugnuts might be required instead of common conical 60dg seat "tuners" lugnuts twins have stock.

    Drawbacks for spacing out wheels would be slight increase in bump radius and slight increase of wheel bearing load/wear. But change of 7mm .. i wouldn't worry about.

    If change to more grip will be to your liking .. it's very subjective. Ignore what manufacturer may have "designed", more think what your own priorities are. If you like those tire chirps here and there at slow/legal speeds, don't go for wide tires/grippy tire models. If you think car is too playful/too easy to loose grip, get grippier ones. Very subjective choice. While yes, balance may stay same with grippier tires .. but fact itself that now one needs to push (sometimes past legal speeds/with less time to react) to intentionally brake traction might not be to liking of some .. and might be something some want. My own choice was grippier tires .. but i get my share of fun in track days. If i would only daily drive mine, i'd probably think of less grippy then top UUHP tires :). I certainly wouldn't get another set of primacies HP due how expensive they are. They were usable for "free tires" included with bought car, but too expensive for another set.

  3. Posted · Report reply

    Hmm? Legal in what sense? What are requirements for catback to be legal in Spain? Having something like TUV certificate? Or having not higher then specific loudness level? Or to not touch in any way existing catalisators? If later, then all catbacks should be legal, as they by name & definition are further back from cats, cat-backs.

    M22 reacted to this

  4. Posted · Report reply

    Advise not to get Milltek. They blew it with catback for twins. Seen too many people too often had problems with to consider theirs for these cars. Even if there is lifetime warranty for original owner, changing few times exhaust with involved time to get replacement and extra work to change to fix something that should work properly in first place seems not what i'd ever wish.

    Also advising not to choose exhausts from youtube vids and other people reviews. Liking or not specific sound and loudness levels is very subjective thing for later, and online video recordings of unknown recording levels and varied recording equipment & settings used also hardly is usable to decide if to buy or not. At most .. if for some specific exhaust there are many many users and all speaking positively and along the lines one expect from product. Best way is to hear specific exhaust bit combo live in person, in eg. some trackday or car meet (unfortunately due pandemia these are rare occasions nowadays) and decide from that if one likes or not.

    M22 reacted to this

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Most common notchiness twins owners with MT gearbox observe - is harder to get into 2nd when cold. Most ignore, as it goes away after 5min of driving.
    Now if it's hard to get 2>3 .. imho it's something else. Unfortunately i don't know well, what it might be and how to fix. One thing i'd try, is to adjust plate that positions lever at right places .. was it reverse lockout plate? If that doesn't help .. while oil change is relatively simplest/cheapest thing to do, so worth trying for that reason, but i somewhat doubt if it will fix (after all, other gear engagement is fine?), i suspect something wrong with gearbox of this specific car. But as it's 2018 .. there should be warranty, no? Make dealership fix/replace it. Disassembly of gearbox to inspect synchros/gears and-or replace will take long time and will cost a lot. New gearbox costs extraorbitant sums (IIRC ~4K?). If warranty is not an option, i'd also explore to get used gearbox (600-1K), as imho it would be cheaper and quicker then disassembly/overhaul/cost of parts/time to receive them

    castroneves reacted to this

  6. Posted · Report reply

    Outlasting not track use wise though, rather whatever daily all-weather driving and also sometimes lacking maintenance may throw at. For example, OE brembos also have single piece rotors .. dual-piece obviously would be better weight wise, in some cases also reduce wearables cost (changing out just outer part).. but cast iron+aluminum have greater chance to have corrosion issues due being electrically dissimilar metals when you splash water with road salt on.Or calipers intended for "OE use" also usually have dust boots around pistons. Race calipers often don't, as track days can burn those dust boots with ease, and also guys tracking theirs often are ok with more regular and costly maintenance/overhauling/replacement if required to keep car in technically good shape. It's not always black and white with OE quality .. as while manufacturers indeed often do much more testing during R&D and Q&A, save a lot with large bulk produce, they still have to make to budget (with marketing bean counters often overruling engineers) and often choose from existing parts bin instead of designing something one car specific. And due 9/10 even sports cars owners driving on public roads only, they also often go for more street oriented design choices when faced compromise.

  7. Posted · Report reply

    High end car, or what might warrant rather more braking - powerful engine + heavy weight, doesn't mean that brakes will be better. There is often in track use context mentioned thing like 'underbraked car', mostly insufficient heat capacity wise. Good example would be big ass SUVs. They weight a LOT .. yet often their brakes are very (relatively) of little heat capacity. They do their job for daily driving for eg. single or two emergency stop, but i guess one can easily boil brakes on those 2+T trucks (especially if with powerful FI engines) with even 5min if not shorter track session or on long downhills. Imho also many american cars in general often are relatively underbraked .. including powerful musclecars, despite their weight of 1.7T.

    Even car being 'sporty' doesn't automatically mean very capable brakes. For example, OE brakes wise i seen S2000 mentioned as more underbraked car then twins. Also the older car is .. there imho is trend that older cars also often had less capable heat-capacity wise brakes, despite them (still) being viewed as sporty ones.

    Ferrari, porsches, mclarens .. they may have often relatively bigger then that of average cars brakes .. but people forget, that most of their buyers are rich people that bought it as status car and/or some GT cruiser and will never take theirs to track (unlike us, with cheap ass toyobarus :)). But such customers will certainly complain if their brakes will squeal like idiot at every traffic light and will work badly at cold stops, hence no matter if car is one of 'supercars' .. their stock pads & fluid are often of normal generic street compounds that won't stand to track abuse, even if supposedly it should be ready to hit the track. Brakes .. and alignment also often is not track-oriented as stock (though such cars often have more means to adjust alignment even in stock trim, eg. adjustable shocks, camber/caster adjustment, not just toe, and so on). Only exception might be some uber-expensive brakes of exotic materials, that can both stand to track abuse & be streetable .. but brakes/pads for such usually cost more then our car costs new, and even most supercars are not equipped with such.

  8. Posted · Report reply

    OE brembo calipers are often not that much different from .. well, OE capability brakes :). Brand alone is not only thing characterizing brakes. Brembo makes different line ups of various purpose and price level, from basic kits to race forged calipers comparable to eg. of AP Racing's Radi-CALs. Price scales up in similar way. But so do capabilities.

    If you ran into deficiencies of stock brake heat capacity, i'd probably think of BBK that is known to provide such, not just that has branding of upper tier brake manufacturers on it. Also adding brake cooling ducts should help. Logo on calipers doesn't stop car, brakes themselves do. And most blind retrofits from other cars with ensuring just mounting capability and how much they cost can result in worse braking then that of OE brakes. Even if now having 'brembo' on calipers.

    Drifting in twins? Good luck, but they are not exactly best fit for that. Main problem being limited max turn angle due limited wheel clearance due wide boxer engine dimensions (for cheaper end you can consider wheel spacers+megan racing tie rod rack ends. won't cost much, but also won't net much of extra angle). Unfortunately most ways to fix that completely are usually too costly (eg. almost complete front suspension replacement with some wisefab kit + some wide body kit due now wider spaced wheels) and can also make car less street legal, or at least compromised for non-drift use (proper drift suspension usually means also very high camber, eg. -4 to -6dg, anti-ackerman geometry, and they usually have pillowball bushings, which don't stand well with winter road salt). With minimum mods/near stock something like old bmw will do better. Twins do very good for normal track use though. But if car is driven hard on limit on track .. i'd certainly wouldn't want to compromise anything in braking. Only something that will really enhance them, even if it may cost more.

  9. Posted · Report reply

    Why not talk about brake bias? Shifting it by random caliper swap from other cars will make braking worse or dangerous depending on direction and extent. Brakes are from most important things in any car. Cheaper way to get brembo logo on calipers but paying for that with compromising braking seems wrong thing to do. And endorcing this swap for others - even more so wrong. So despite your asking not to bring that up again, i feel obligation to so that less tech savvy persons won't follow this route just because they didn't do complete homework and looked at price of specific mod only. You decided that it's ok for you, fine. But it would be nice to not convince more people to compromise their brakes, even if car will never see track, but having car to be able to do reliable emergency stops on public roads is no less important.

  10. Posted · Report reply

    I'm manual owner and have been since almost always. I have never driven auto more then one or two drives, that never was sufficient to get accustomed to it and find it wished for. But perfectly understand those, that driven any car with AT at least month and in city jams, to get easily accustomed & depend on that extra comfort. In some markets, namely US, manuals are almost non-existing .. while it may serve in funny way as extra defense from car thefts, it may also make it harder there to sell it off later on, when potential buyers consist of 95% AT drivers.

    Meanwhile .. from all i've seen, AT in twins is rather good, both reliability and shifting feel wise, not exactly lagging slushbox of past. So i'd say that you can easily go with either, depending on your or your significant other preferences. Mine is both daily and track day car, and as i wanted more involvement feel and also to learn some advanced handling techniques, to improve me as a driver, i went for MT. Both options are good, both can be considered. Individual choice is subjective thing, and as people have different priorities/wishes/preferences, "best" choice is different for many.. 

  11. Posted · Report reply

    31 minutes ago, JohnM said:

    Yep. Tried a 32gb one and it didnt recognise the stick, dropped it down to 16gb and worked no issues. What make of usb are you using please as I would love to be able to use a 128gb one rather than using 2 separate sticks. The radio is a T&G1 in a 2014. Thanks.

    128GB SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0, one that looks like very small plug like that of logitech mouse receiver. This looks like it.

    Don't remember though how i formatted it, was some time ago, but very probably fat32 and from linux. Windows default formatter from gui might not offer format instead telling to use ntfs or exfat though for that size. Hmm, maybe this may help?

    Also, if this doesn't work, maybe there might be differences in firmware of Touch with no Go(satnav module), and Touch & Go. At very least mp3 organizing differs (no more browse/play by folders, but only by mp3 tags in ipod like fashion, so extra lot of hassle to enter them for where they were missing), and IIRC during map update firmware also gets updated, not sure if for satnav module only or for main headunit too. Buying Go satnav though .. strongly advise against. Overpriced, clunky interface, laggy & expensive map updates, extra brick weight to carry along even if i don't use it (prefering by far navigating via Waze on smartphone).

  16. Posted · Report reply

    Fitting just the track oriented pads will ensure good brake friction even on high temps seen on track (cons being that track pads are are less fit for dailydriving use, where they never get upto operating temps, wear off bedded in layer on rotors, after which they squeal and wear at extra rate. Hence reason, many use two pad sets and switch between/after trackday).

    If you had brake fade, it was imho more because boiled fluid then pads. I'd just get some of much higher boiling temps one, eg. PMU G-Four 335, Endless RF650, Castrol SRF, Brembo HTC 64T. Replacing it costs less then pads and is simpler, and has no drawbacks then maybe need to change it quicker (due usually high boiling temp brake fluids being more hygroscopic, so they often absorb moisture quicker and may have their properties worsen by time)

    But in general your problem was overall insufficient brake heat capacity for said track/supercharger/good tires combo. Track has long straight ending with very very heavy braking, supercharger accelerates car quicker thus from higher speed car needs to be braked down to speed it can take turn (and to be converted to heat with brakes kinetic energy is square(!) of the speed), grippier tires - one can turn quicker, exit from corners quicker, get higher speed .. and again more heat for brakes.
    Ideal way for extra heat capacity of brakes would be fitting BBK. But it costs a lot, and may need some other spendings, eg. if currently used wheels don't clear it. You also can increase brake heat capacity with adding cooling solution, eg. brake cooling ducts. Or maybe even something like this :D. But cost & overall complexity of electric cooling .. i'd get "classic BBK" probably first.

  17. Posted · Report reply

    It's everything wrong with paying own money to make car, which is often chosen for handling as driver's car, handle worse, for sake of arguable change of looks few if any but owner will notice, and probably guided by several misconceptions. Things "gained" with staggered setup: inability to even out wear by rotating wheels, limited tire choice that has both sizings available, way more understeery car, twice harder to find/source single replacement wheel in case of damage, harder to find buyers for staggered wheel set later on. And as one of reasons to go staggered was probably to fit widest tires one can, not only car will loose playfulness, but tire cost probably also will be doubled.

    Jay Bamrah reacted to this

  20. Posted · Report reply

    Some dealership markups might be high, and some parts dealerships get only via importing it from other countries .. which in some cases cut in heavily due shipping and import costs.
    eg. recall case when i wanted to retrofit OE MY2015 sharkfin antenna. What costed $150, was 300eur cheapest, in EU.
    I'd search for part number of wished part (regarding bumper cover i'd be extra careful though to get right variance, as there might be different, depending on what type of lights car has, and thus - if bumper has or hasn't cutouts for lights washers), and then do cross search for that part number for maybe if i can get it cheaper somewhere else but at dealership.

  21. Posted · Report reply

    I doubt that spammers 'in person' register and post ads. Most probably, they do some wide internet scans for popular forum engines and in automated/scripted fashion register & post ads (from what observed, usually in forum sections or threads where there is activity / recent posts). As some of posts are using wrong language or for completely non automotive themes, it makes me doubt that there is actual person that does that.

    Imho to not have to deal manually again and again by having people to report & adms/mods to remove such automated spamming, it's worth:

    1) if possible, rename url by which standard new user register form is available at to something non standard, at least to forum software that is used;

    2) check if used captcha or alike mechanisms can be hardened or if some extra steps can be added, eg. verification mails, mod approval of new accounts or whatever alike, that might work to make it harder to register in automated/scripted fashion.

  23. Posted · Report reply

    Tracked with FI .. yeah, i'd consider BBK then (suggested not knowing that, just from 3-4 trackdays bit). Higher acceleration/speed = also from higher speed to slow down before corner, thus more heat into brakes. Sorry, not that familiar with listed options to advise on those myself from own experience.

  24. Posted · Report reply

    Main advantage of Waze is realtime information update, for example traffic jams .. and including user reported stuff, eg. some potholes, accidents, temporary changes due eg. roadworks .. and also mobile speedcams/cops :). Waze works very well due that in countries that have big community of wazers. On the other hand, if wazer count is not that big in country, there is not much of that extra gain in it.

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