surrey86

I got back late on Saturday afternoon from a 2 week trip around Europe in the 86, so I thought I'd share some pics of our hols. We went through France > Switzerland > Italy > Switzerland > Italy > Austria > Germany > Belgium > Holland > Belgium > France, so quite a few border crossings.
Starting off from Surrey on a very early Friday morning to catch a P&O ferry to Calais, I couldn't wait to get my first brew on board. While these days I prefer the tunnel as it's far quicker, the ferry was £160 cheaper this time around. That's a nice breakfast on the ship.
My wife and I are both keen cyclists, so we had two road bikes attached to the car with a very cool Seasucker vacuum rack. A bike rack attached to the roof of GT86 attracts a lot of attention and I was getting questions about it wherever we went.

First stopover in Dijon, then onto Morzine where we had an apartment for a week just on the start of the climb to Avoriaz.

We cycled up the local cols - the Joux Verte, Joux Plane & Ramaz.

The local mtb trails looked great, so we hired out a couple Cannondale Jekyll Enduro bikes and went on a mega chairlift-assisted epic into Switzerland, back to Morzine and around Les Gets. Absolutely breathtaking scenery up in the high mountains.

Naturally, I waited until later that evening to take the car for a quiet lap of the Col de la Joux Verte.

Towards the end of the week, and with an eye on the weather forecast we booked a hotel in Bormio, Italy to drive and ride the Stelvios and Gavia passes. These are huge climbs, well over 20-26km long and finishing at 2700 metres - best avoided in bad weather. Luckily we appeared to have a weather window appearing.
A days driving over, passing through Switzerland (keeping off the motorways as I wasn't gonna pay a years road tax for 2 hours use), into Italy via the St. Bernard tunnel (29 euros - ouch!!) Aosta and Lake Como. It was super hot and 30+ degrees most of the way, until we popped out of the last tunnel 5 mins from Bormio to be greeted by torrential rain and a massive storm!

The next morning was fine though and we cycled up the 2700m Stelvio in the sunshine. There were a fair few slow cars on it, clogging up the road for petrol heads, so I made a mental note to get up early the next morning to drive it. After a cracking 65kph descent on the bikes we then both still felt a little bit fresh, so climbed the Gavia 2600m pass after lunch. This nearly broke me, really hard.
After a fairly large recovery pizza and Gran Reserve Peroni the alarm was set for 6am to get the Stelvio pretty much to ourselves for an hours worth of hard driving. By the time we reached the top, oil temperatures were at track day levels - so I pulled up next to a glacier to cool them down. You don't get these at Donny.

Following a morning of dossing in the local spa, we then drove up to Bad Liebenzell in the Black Forest, which involved going back over the Stelvios pass (again!), in and out of Switzerland, back into Italy, then Austria before hitting the Autobahn in Germany. It all got a bit confusing with the myriad of border crossings and at one point we honestly had no clue what country we were in.
German autobahns themselves are awesome, really smooth, and free. I couldn't go crazy what with having a fairly novel vacuum-mount rack on my roof (see pic), but the miles went by very quickly cruising at a legal 150kph.

The next day we set off for..... yeah you guessed it, the Nurburgring. We had a cracking apartment in Adenau, 5 minutes walk from some of the best viewing points on the track.
After unloading we quickly made our way down to the Nordschliefe entrance for a couple of evening laps. I last came here in 2005 and a lot of things have changed. There's still a great post-lap atmosphere in the car park though, as everyone chills out after a lap with a drink from the cafe. There was at least four 86's circulating so a decent turnout from the twins.

Naturally we returned the next evening for some more laps, but the track had already been closed before I'd made the ticket office. Someone gone out straight from the start and had a massive crash, flipping their beemer over the barriers into the woods at the Foxhole, just 5 minutes into the session. It didn't reopen. 
Friday morning was spent having a good day noseying round the new facilities, weird closed rollercoaster (it was closed down by public health after it crashed twice, and they can't dismantle it as it's part of the building complex) and GP track pits while the VLN endurance race practice was on.

After that it was an autoroute cruise back through Belgium, Holland, Belgium and finally France to make Calais. On arrival we were greeted with a minor farce. Despite being 1 hour 40 mins early for our ferry, we missed it! UK Border Controls screwed everyone over with a massive queue to get through - thousands of people missing their ferries for extra checks. P&O looked after everyone and put us aboard the next available crossing an hour later.
Arriving home, we covered around 1900 miles, at an average of 32mpg. Best fuel ingested was 100 octane in both Italy and Germany, although I did see 102 near the ring.
 

I got back late on Saturday afternoon from a 2 week trip around Europe in the 86, so I thought I'd share some pics of our hols. We went through France > Switzerland > Italy > Switzerland > Italy > Austria > Germany > Belgium > Holland > Belgium > France, so quite a few border crossings.
Starting off from Surrey on a very early Friday morning to catch a P&O ferry to Calais, I couldn't wait to get my first brew on board. While these days I prefer the tunnel as it's far quicker, the ferry was £160 cheaper this time around. That's a nice breakfast on the ship.
My wife and I are both keen cyclists, so we had two road bikes attached to the car with a very cool Seasucker vacuum rack. A bike rack attached to the roof of GT86 attracts a lot of attention and I was getting questions about it wherever we went.

First stopover in Dijon, then onto Morzine where we had an apartment for a week just on the start of the climb to Avoriaz.

We cycled up the local cols - the Joux Verte, Joux Plane & Ramaz.

The local mtb trails looked great, so we hired out a couple Cannondale Jekyll Enduro bikes and went on a mega chairlift-assisted epic into Switzerland, back to Morzine and around Les Gets. Absolutely breathtaking scenery up in the high mountains.

Naturally, I waited until later that evening to take the car for a quiet lap of the Col de la Joux Verte.

Towards the end of the week, and with an eye on the weather forecast we booked a hotel in Bormio, Italy to drive and ride the Stelvios and Gavia passes. These are huge climbs, well over 20-26km long and finishing at 2700 metres - best avoided in bad weather. Luckily we appeared to have a weather window appearing.
A days driving over, passing through Switzerland (keeping off the motorways as I wasn't gonna pay a years road tax for 2 hours use), into Italy via the St. Bernard tunnel (29 euros - ouch!!) Aosta and Lake Como. It was super hot and 30+ degrees most of the way, until we popped out of the last tunnel 5 mins from Bormio to be greeted by torrential rain and a massive storm!

The next morning was fine though and we cycled up the 2700m Stelvio in the sunshine. There were a fair few slow cars on it, clogging up the road for petrol heads, so I made a mental note to get up early the next morning to drive it. After a cracking 65kph descent on the bikes we then both still felt a little bit fresh, so climbed the Gavia 2600m pass after lunch. This nearly broke me, really hard.
After a fairly large recovery pizza and Gran Reserve Peroni the alarm was set for 6am to get the Stelvio pretty much to ourselves for an hours worth of hard driving. By the time we reached the top, oil temperatures were at track day levels - so I pulled up next to a glacier to cool them down. You don't get these at Donny.

Following a morning of dossing in the local spa, we then drove up to Bad Liebenzell in the Black Forest, which involved going back over the Stelvios pass (again!), in and out of Switzerland, back into Italy, then Austria before hitting the Autobahn in Germany. It all got a bit confusing with the myriad of border crossings and at one point we honestly had no clue what country we were in.
German autobahns themselves are awesome, really smooth, and free. I couldn't go crazy what with having a fairly novel vacuum-mount rack on my roof (see pic), but the miles went by very quickly cruising at a legal 150kph.

The next day we set off for..... yeah you guessed it, the Nurburgring. We had a cracking apartment in Adenau, 5 minutes walk from some of the best viewing points on the track.
After unloading we quickly made our way down to the Nordschliefe entrance for a couple of evening laps. I last came here in 2005 and a lot of things have changed. There's still a great post-lap atmosphere in the car park though, as everyone chills out after a lap with a drink from the cafe. There was at least four 86's circulating so a decent turnout from the twins.

Naturally we returned the next evening for some more laps, but the track had already been closed before I'd made the ticket office. Someone gone out straight from the start and had a massive crash, flipping their beemer over the barriers into the woods at the Foxhole, just 5 minutes into the session. It didn't reopen. 
Friday morning was spent having a good day noseying round the new facilities, weird closed rollercoaster (it was closed down by public health after it crashed twice, and they can't dismantle it as it's part of the building complex) and GP track pits while the VLN endurance race practice was on.

After that it was an autoroute cruise back through Belgium, Holland, Belgium and finally France to make Calais. On arrival we were greeted with a minor farce. Despite being 1 hour 40 mins early for our ferry, we missed it! UK Border Controls screwed everyone over with a massive queue to get through - thousands of people missing their ferries for extra checks. P&O looked after everyone and put us aboard the next available crossing an hour later.
Arriving home, we covered around 1900 miles, at an average of 32mpg. Best fuel ingested was 100 octane in both Italy and Germany, although I did see 102 near the ring.
 

Looks awesome! I desperately want to do the San Bernardino pass! 

Car holiday aside, you've got some cojones climbing some of those routes on bicycles! Proper respect for that. Any clown can pay his fee and crash on the ring, but it takes a lot of commitment to pedal up those neverending slopes.
I have visions of the rear window glass lifting off and sailing away with your bicycles, but it can probably handle the drag.

Thanks for post, looks like an awesome trip! Something I'd like to do. Did you plan the whole thing yourself? You seemed to of covered a lot in under 2000 miles. Have you got any photos of the car with the bikes on it? looks very novel.

looks an epic trip and something on my bucket list! 

that bike rack looks to be resting on your rear window which surely is a bad idea? any issues with it? i could do with one myself 

I got back late on Saturday afternoon from a 2 week trip around Europe in the 86, so I thought I'd share some pics of our hols. We went through France > Switzerland > Italy > Switzerland > Italy > Austria > Germany > Belgium > Holland > Belgium > France, so quite a few border crossings.
Starting off from Surrey on a very early Friday morning to catch a P&O ferry to Calais, I couldn't wait to get my first brew on board. While these days I prefer the tunnel as it's far quicker, the ferry was £160 cheaper this time around. That's a nice breakfast on the ship.
My wife and I are both keen cyclists, so we had two road bikes attached to the car with a very cool Seasucker vacuum rack. A bike rack attached to the roof of GT86 attracts a lot of attention and I was getting questions about it wherever we went.

First stopover in Dijon, then onto Morzine where we had an apartment for a week just on the start of the climb to Avoriaz.

We cycled up the local cols - the Joux Verte, Joux Plane & Ramaz.

The local mtb trails looked great, so we hired out a couple Cannondale Jekyll Enduro bikes and went on a mega chairlift-assisted epic into Switzerland, back to Morzine and around Les Gets. Absolutely breathtaking scenery up in the high mountains.

Naturally, I waited until later that evening to take the car for a quiet lap of the Col de la Joux Verte.

Towards the end of the week, and with an eye on the weather forecast we booked a hotel in Bormio, Italy to drive and ride the Stelvios and Gavia passes. These are huge climbs, well over 20-26km long and finishing at 2700 metres - best avoided in bad weather. Luckily we appeared to have a weather window appearing.
A days driving over, passing through Switzerland (keeping off the motorways as I wasn't gonna pay a years road tax for 2 hours use), into Italy via the St. Bernard tunnel (29 euros - ouch!!) Aosta and Lake Como. It was super hot and 30+ degrees most of the way, until we popped out of the last tunnel 5 mins from Bormio to be greeted by torrential rain and a massive storm!

The next morning was fine though and we cycled up the 2700m Stelvio in the sunshine. There were a fair few slow cars on it, clogging up the road for petrol heads, so I made a mental note to get up early the next morning to drive it. After a cracking 65kph descent on the bikes we then both still felt a little bit fresh, so climbed the Gavia 2600m pass after lunch. This nearly broke me, really hard.
After a fairly large recovery pizza and Gran Reserve Peroni the alarm was set for 6am to get the Stelvio pretty much to ourselves for an hours worth of hard driving. By the time we reached the top, oil temperatures were at track day levels - so I pulled up next to a glacier to cool them down. You don't get these at Donny.

Following a morning of dossing in the local spa, we then drove up to Bad Liebenzell in the Black Forest, which involved going back over the Stelvios pass (again!), in and out of Switzerland, back into Italy, then Austria before hitting the Autobahn in Germany. It all got a bit confusing with the myriad of border crossings and at one point we honestly had no clue what country we were in.
German autobahns themselves are awesome, really smooth, and free. I couldn't go crazy what with having a fairly novel vacuum-mount rack on my roof (see pic), but the miles went by very quickly cruising at a legal 150kph.

The next day we set off for..... yeah you guessed it, the Nurburgring. We had a cracking apartment in Adenau, 5 minutes walk from some of the best viewing points on the track.
After unloading we quickly made our way down to the Nordschliefe entrance for a couple of evening laps. I last came here in 2005 and a lot of things have changed. There's still a great post-lap atmosphere in the car park though, as everyone chills out after a lap with a drink from the cafe. There was at least four 86's circulating so a decent turnout from the twins.

Naturally we returned the next evening for some more laps, but the track had already been closed before I'd made the ticket office. Someone gone out straight from the start and had a massive crash, flipping their beemer over the barriers into the woods at the Foxhole, just 5 minutes into the session. It didn't reopen. 
Friday morning was spent having a good day noseying round the new facilities, weird closed rollercoaster (it was closed down by public health after it crashed twice, and they can't dismantle it as it's part of the building complex) and GP track pits while the VLN endurance race practice was on.

After that it was an autoroute cruise back through Belgium, Holland, Belgium and finally France to make Calais. On arrival we were greeted with a minor farce. Despite being 1 hour 40 mins early for our ferry, we missed it! UK Border Controls screwed everyone over with a massive queue to get through - thousands of people missing their ferries for extra checks. P&O looked after everyone and put us aboard the next available crossing an hour later.
Arriving home, we covered around 1900 miles, at an average of 32mpg. Best fuel ingested was 100 octane in both Italy and Germany, although I did see 102 near the ring.
 

Bit of Combe action day footage - 
 
Actually wouldn't mind going as spectator only, looks like a laugh to watch. Wouldn't take my car on track if you held a gun to my head.
 

I know that this might appeal to a select few but for those who put any driving videos together I've been playing around in DashWare to recreate the GT86 gauge clusters. For those that don't know, DashWare is one of a few programs that combines videos with datalog info. This can be got via EcuTek, Torque, Tactrix etc


 
Everything is functional if you log the correct parameters:
Speed
RPM (Includes shift light)
Gear
Oil Temp
Ambient Temp
Accelerator
Brakes
Latitudinal G
Longitudinal G
Steering Angle on MY17
I can share these out if anyone is interested.
I just need to find a GPS app that I can combine with EcuTek's ECUConnect App.

Sorted now 

@jevvy

Ok cool, I'll go for that.
Cheers - booked

Okay Kev and I have booked Lincoln City Centre PI. £49. 

Not far to walk into Louth you are right I didn't have a evening meal when I stayed there but good car park is this not school holiday time? Premier Inn Boston is nice also not too far from Cadwell I might come and watch this event

Just one is enough. Just stick the one you have in the front unless you have one of those naff aftermarket ones stuck permanently in there.

Hi guys.  its been a pretty mad few months, and not had a chance to get on the forums for a long time 
The move to the new premises is now complete, and the dyno is just being installed right now, and will be up and running next week.  We now have a 10,000+ sq ft unit with much nicer showroom / customer waiting area, complete with Xbox driving seat.  More ramps, more efficient dyno area, and loads more room for the all important stock.
We used to use the 0845 number, but are phasing this our with the mobile companies wanting to charge more and more for them.  You can reach us on 01582 664 735, or my direct dial number is 01582 945650.  
I'd like to apologise about my lack of time on here, and any questions or enquiries that may have been missed, but i'm back and with the new unit now all ready to go looking forward to a good 2018.
open day details to follow in the next few weeks 

My girlfriend bought me a new watch for my birthday while we were in Japan over Christmas so I grabbed a picture when I went for fuel today. It's a Seiko Prospex divers watch and a Japanese limited edition which is a nice momento of the holiday:-

I guess the JSS competition would be Hondas, plenty of 2 litre VTEC equipped machines that would be hard to beat on track rubber.

This is exactly what single press of TC is for 👍🏻

I think that everyone who turns the TC off is fully aware of what it does.

I also got to make good use of the winter tyres today on the way to work in the snow that we had. Definitely caused some confusion to other motorists that the 86 seemed to be having no problems while they were sliding all over the place! 😂

I'm surprised that there is a bedding in period, but I look forward to another improvement 😀
It really wasn't that bad at all, they balanced/rested nicely on my thighs. Replaced the speakers with one arm round the side and one arm underneath the door card. Could only really see what i was doing with one eye, but it was enough 😁

Give them a week of use to loosen them up and there will be another improvement again.
I'm struggling to imagine how much of a pain it must have been to do without disconnecting the door cards, but fair enough under 1 hour is quite good!

I'm trying not to be anecdotal, as to be honest individual reports of "mine is fine after xxx track days", "I drive hard" - aren't very helpful in the grand scheme of figuring out what causes it. A trend is.
From reading reports plus my own experience it seems to be more likely to happen when shifting at/near the red line, when there is a lot of heat in the engine bay (i.e. during a track session). If you're shifting at 7k rpm it's less frequent. Once it's happened once during a trackday it will come back a lot easier.
There's some concensus from the US contingent that coil packs are near enough a consumable if tracking the car on a regular basis, although they tend to have warmer ambient temperatures which can't help. Some advocate wrapping the outer in gold reflective heat tape to help them last longer.
The last time I had one pop up was at the end of a Nordschliefe lap when I decided to give it full beans on the huge Dottinger straight. Hot engine bay, first 7400rpm shift and there you go. Not seen since. Annoyingly I bet it will pop up at Oulton next week, but I can't warranty it as I can't reproduce it on the road.
I may put a poll up or something!
 
Edit -
 

The coils on the side that tends to fail aren't too bad to access from the top, when you move an ecu out of the way. It's more the cost of the coil, they are really pricey, £100 a throw.