surrey86

70% yeah ;-)

Yeah Road wouldn't be ideal, I'd have thought you'd need a fairly safe track with plenty of run off to really test it.

They use the wrong type of hose, most silicone hosing isn't suitable for oils/fuels etc from what I've read and has been a known issue with these types of kit. The universal doesn't come with hoses so I'll do my own in correctly spec'd rubber hoses, probably works out cheaper anyway and can do them in braided to match my Sprintex hoses or plain to match OEM.
The only other one I'd consider is the Saikou Michi but that's quite a bit extra money and you have to get it in from the USA (hint hint Lucas). Almost all of the other cheaper ones aren't baffled.

It's been a few months since the last update, but my latest addition to my car is a set of AP Racing 4 Pot calipers with 330mm grooved discs. How this came about was in part due to a recent track day I did at Oulton Park. Whilst attempting the 'Island bend 100mph challenge', it became brutally apparent that stopping in time for Shell Oils Hairpin was a growing concern. I've been running stock brakes with Project Mu HC800 pads. These are actually pretty good, having a really nice level of feel to them, but I was murdering them on track. Now,  I'm not the last of the late brakers, but I really like to trail brake which requires a consistent and good feel from the brakes and they do actually need to work. I was finding that after two or three laps they were really struggling and well, not sounding that good. All said and done I felt I was going over the limit for what was achievable with a stock setup. 
I admit there was  big part of me thinking just how good the car would be if I had brakes that could take a bit more heat and provide a greater level of consistency whilst on the track. I'd also noted when sprinting that I felt like I was just killing the brakes. Whilst it's only one flyer of a lap, you tend to brake later to try and save a few hundredths of a second absolutely anywhere you can. 
So, I went away and had a think about it. The only thing really that was putting me off, was the price. They seemed to come out at £2K+ which is a lot of money. I thought about the cheaper alternatives, like K-Sport with their seemingly over engineered 8 pot setup. Willwood also do a 4 Pot setup for around £1K. But again whilst I've heard nothing bad about Willwood, racing teams don't tend to use them. I didn't consider shite like D2 and all that, but still I was put off by K-Sport being a sub-premium brand and well it came down to the AP's and Brembos but they were even more expensive. It was only after posing the question to the forum that got the link to Reyland Motors who did an AP 4 pot setup with their supplied discs. This brought the price down to a far more appealing £1500. Still a lot of money and yes it is. But my thinking with my car is that I'm careful about how I modify it and when I do it, I only want to do it once. I don't want to mess around endlessly swopping parts and inevitably wasting money in the process. I admit, though, I'm quite good at talking myself into stuff. 
There were a few options on the Reyland site, see; http://www.reyland.co.uk/subaru-impreza/ what with for another £250 you can have AP discs to really go for it, or for £150 you can having floating discs which expand more freely than a fixed disc to the bell. But having considered my usage, I felt that it was key to get the AP 4 pots and well I can always upgrade to a floating disc setup or go full AP on the discs in the future should I wish. Something to note, you have to call Reyland using a phone, you can't order online, so it was slightly unsettling to hand over £1500 on my card with no email confirmation or anything! It's what we used to do, but it's feels odd after years of just clicking the mouse and getting your order details instantly. 
I naturally chose Toyota RRG Macclesfield to do the work and I knew the Master himself, Gary would be doing the work and I knew he'd really enjoy doing it. Stuff like this matters. 
Here's what the calipers looked like out of the box: 
Image 17-11-2017 at 22.02 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
Discs wrapped up: 
IMG_5049 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
The kit came with braided brake lines, all bolts needed, CNC aluminium mounting bracket to fit the calipers to the hubs and Ferodo DS 2500 pads which are a street/track type pad:
IMG_5049 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
Gary got on with the install. Richard commented that one of the mounting brackets didn't have it's thread tapped properly. No problem though, Gary got out his tap and die and sorted it. It's for reasons like this I use RRG Macc. Gary sent me pics on Facebook of progress: 
23621988_1774765709209175_2878800822716104916_n by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
Here's the caliper mounted with the disc. Looking good. I went for black calipers as they were cheaper than red and wouldn't clash with my red wheels:
23621988_1774765709209175_2878800822716104916_n by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
Setup on the car when I picked it up. Note the colour of the discs. 
IMG_5049 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
Richard kindly lent me his 2017 Clubsport GT86. It hasn't been leant to anyone else before which was noted when they were doing the loan car agreement! 
It's interesting to drive the newer version in stock form to compare to mine.
IMG_5049 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
I was really interested to what the car felt like on the drive home, but it was in rush hour traffic, so no heavy braking at all. It felt good, pedal pressure is a little reduced, though I was recalibrating myself after driving the demonstrator which felt different from my brakes did and were a bit more grabby on initial bite than my previous Project Mu's. I decided to after rush hour had subsided to bed the brakes in. I took the car out on a national speed limit dual carriageway and started to heat the brakes by braking firmly at around 60mph and repeated this around 15 times. The instructions say to use 50% of the braking power and repeat 25-30 times. Seems like quite a lot. I then moved onto increasing my speed and braking harder and harder another 20 times or so. It's definitely not an efficient way to drive! I did this until I could smell the brakes and then I knew I was done. The brakes felt a bit glassy when I started but I could really feel them starting to bite greatly improving the stopping of the car once I'd done 20 runs or so. 
I stopped at the local Shell and as you can see the discs have gone a bit blue. This shows that the pad material has transferred to the disc and increases the friction. 
IMG_5057 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
I've driven the car for work today covering about 50 miles which is pretty average for a day. No real hard braking. I've noticed that initial bite when cold is better than the Project Mu's, but probably similar to what the demonstrator GT86 I had felt like. Except the progression was better which made it very easy to modulate. I'm really interested in how much feel I will get out when on the track and how repeatable it will be. Certainly in town driving there is no fuss, the brakes work well but just feel a bit 'stronger' than stock brakes. 
The real test will come when I'm out on track at Oulton Park on the 9th December. I am rather looking forward to it.
 

Been playing with the app recently. They are continually updating it and it now has Dashboards, basically gauges, which can be setup and customised and with logging speeds the same or better than standard ProECU on the laptop. This makes it much easier to use and a world away from using Torque etc. Anyway, below are a couple of themes that I have been testing/creating over the last week. For reference these are on a Google Pixel, different size screens like tablets/iPads etc allow for different configurations.
Futuristic
I'd seen a similar one for the GTR so this was my 1st attempt.

GT86
You can have multiple screens on one theme that increases the logging parameters and accessed by swiping across, as seen here.


Gazoo Racing
Bye bye TRD, GR are the new official tuning arm of Toyota.



Abbey Motorsport
Thought I'd do one for my favourite garage too.

Fortunately they are!  

Interesting report. I also find the Oem speakers horrible at speed, even my wife has complained which is saying something.
As soon as you start sound deadening it is a very slippery slope though, always room for a 'little more'. I'm not sure I want to start on it!

Can't beat a brand new set of Rays though. Lots of leaflets full of Japanese writing you've no hope of understanding, mmmm.

Can't beat a brand new set of Rays though. Lots of leaflets full of Japanese writing you've no hope of understanding, mmmm.

Can't beat a brand new set of Rays though. Lots of leaflets full of Japanese writing you've no hope of understanding, mmmm.

Exclusive forum deals!
From now up to Black Friday (24th) I will be posting one product per day that is discounted for you only.
Today's pick; 
RAYS Gram Lights 57CR in Gunmetal Blue - 18x9.5 ET38 (perfect fitment)
£1199.52 + Shipping


 

I have the GT3 ducts and don't think they do a lot either. The best thing about them was the Porsche shaped Haribos that came in the box.

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 -
 

I had a similar renewal. Nice to get a car insurance company that doesn't wack up the price each time.

I've found a 'magic sponge' works to get rid the of the steering wheel grease in seconds. You've just to be careful to keep it wet and only give it as much wipes as required - as it will start taking the leather off.

Cosworth Sump Plate/Baffle
  I picked up a Cosworth sump plate baffle in part box bank holiday discounts. Its very nice piece with baffle plates that stick up into the engine to help reduce breather oil pickup. It has a total of 10 trap doors to ensure oil can return quickly to the sump but being very soft and flexible they close fast and seal nicely to stop oil pouring away from the pickup on long high G corners.   The plan eventually to run slick tyres.   Here some picture of the install:                

I can see how this might not have been the best time to post a for sale thread
 
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
 

Does this mean they are back to doing UK market cars?!
The US stuff was boring. 

I have some sympathy for you, but no one here is silly enough to believe that. A bit of honesty goes a long way, you sell more here than half the paid up traders.

You have been asked over and over about not posting pictures up. I don't single you out, I do the same to everyone. You have had issues where you have bought items off other members only to relist them at a higher price a few weeks later. Understandably this pisses people off. It's supposed to be about the members helping each other, not maximum profit. It is abundantly clear that you are a bedroom trader and you don't pay any trader fees. I really think you should! 
You should be posting pictures up in a thread like everybody else easily manages to do rather than linking them to a gallery. It's a shit way of doing it. 
You effectively cause me a lot of work in not following basic rules of posting pictures up and often not providing the detail that is necessary to describe an item. I am bored to death of constantly having to pull you up on this. 
You wouldn't be singled out if you followed the basic and simple rules about for sale items, but you don't. 

They have ruined the internet tbf

Haha that looked pretty loose there, kept the rest of the lap together well considering there must have been a blip in the sphincter department. Great video.

Best lap but could have been quicker without the sloppy oversteer moment.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1cKL33cjTw&t=5s&pbjreload=10