Varelco

Welcome Chris! I think the TWS would be the best choice, they suit the car very well and as you know, are ridiculously light. The SSR's however would need quite aggressive fitment and stance to pull it off, i cant imagine you will have much of  lip with the 8.5s either.

Struggling to see the relationship with debadging and vauxhalls. Anyway, IMO I prefer removing off the badges on all my cars it cleans up the rear end

Struggling to see the relationship with debadging and vauxhalls. Anyway, IMO I prefer removing off the badges on all my cars it cleans up the rear end

Since I cut my own hair....does that make me an 86 hairdresser?

Lets hope its true! If its anything to go by mine arrived at the dealers yesterday Finally! However I won't get mine until early next week as the dealer is fitting the JBL sound pack for me as a goodwill gesture for the month delay.

Lets hope its true! If its anything to go by mine arrived at the dealers yesterday Finally! However I won't get mine until early next week as the dealer is fitting the JBL sound pack for me as a goodwill gesture for the month delay.

Nope. Our plate is on retention but the dealer has the certificate. It's all done online so in instantly registered in a couple of minutes.

I build maybe 100 engines per year and strip a lot of those on regular intervals so get to observe the wear.  My running in procedure consists of 2 heat cycles.  Engines that come in that have been "pussied" generally have excess build up of fuel gunk and glazed bores.  I've never ever ran an engine in and no idea why manufacturers say to do this when they run them hard on the test bench before they go in the car.  My GT86 was on a trackday 3 days after it came out of the showroom and i've pulled it apart twice since.  It's still like new inside

It's not NA though is it lol. Forced induction is forced induction whether it's generated by gas, belts or electricity.

I'll be interested to see how you get on with the ESC (confusingly ESC stands for Electric Speed Controller too), i love the ingiuity and the fact its pretty unique. Small brushless motors and speed controllers have come on a hell of a long way over the past few years, however not proven in the car world yet.

It's not NA though is it lol. Forced induction is forced induction whether it's generated by gas, belts or electricity.

I'll be interested to see how you get on with the ESC (confusingly ESC stands for Electric Speed Controller too), i love the ingiuity and the fact its pretty unique. Small brushless motors and speed controllers have come on a hell of a long way over the past few years, however not proven in the car world yet.

My perception is that they ride better than stock - although it's a long time since I was stock. They are definitely better than any other lowering option I've tried. The street I live on is VERY bumpy at one end - my car now rides it with a comparable level of comfort to my girlfriends unmodified KA on standard suspension and 14" wheels with balloon tyres.

The hbs is difficult to quantify. Tein themselves on their US blog say it works better on vehicles with longer dampers like saloons and people carriers and less noticeably on shorter dampers (like ours).

My perception is that when you hit a big bump (like a pot hole) you still feel that impact (they aren't magic after all!) but the edge is taken off the impact and they return to stability with no 'bouncing' that some suspension can suffer (I've noticed it in my friends, very softly sprung, new Honda Civic).

The fact the ride is so good at the ride height I have it set at I also find amazing to be honest.

Hope that helps!

I got them from James at Amber - 100% recommended.

If you can get them for around £1200 to your door that's pretty impressive, I was expecting them to be quite a bit more expensive than that! Thanks for the insight. Look forward to seeing which route you go down.

Great thread James just read it from start to finish. That engine is gonna be revvy as hell, youll have to post some videos once its all fitted! A quick question for you, seeing as you've had the Tein luxury masters on for a while now, how do you find them? Whats the ride comfort like compared to the standard set up? Does it affect the handling characteristics of the car at all? Ive shortlisted the Teins as they seem to have the closest spring rates to the stock set up and I just want to find out a bit more about them.
 
EDIT: With regards to the crank pulley, I've heard some people just stick the car is 6th gear and get a hefty breaker bar on it? More importantly though( as its already been mentioned), is to ensure the crankshaft pulley spacer doesn't come out when you remove the pulley as its an absolute nightmare to refit apparently. see here:
 
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26386
 
 
 
Cheers,
Matt

It was a good read, you've been very selective about what you've done with the car which seems to of paid off nicely. Thanks for taking to time to give me a review! That's great, pretty much exactly what I needed to hear, looks like I will go down the Tein route. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your build, I like the reasoning behind keeping it n/a.