surrey86

Apologies for the delay people, not been feeling too well this week so was in no mood to sort out the vid from last weekend but here it is -

So the last round of the Toyota Sprint Series took place last weekend at Snetterton over in Norwich. The sprint took place on the small 100 circuit while a trackday was occurring on the 200 circuit. The whether was great, the company was great and competition was great, sadly, I was not. All day, I just wasn't feeling it. I think after my lil accident over at Croft, it's caused me to lose a lot of confidence it doesn't help that I had never done the 100 circuit before but what was worse was that because the 100 circuit is within the 200 circuit, there were some pretty solid looking barriers all around and in some areas, not that big of a run off before reaching the barrier.

After the first timed lap, you can see that I went a lil wide on the fast corner at the end of the first lap, I ended up riding some of the meshing just past the rumble strips which depending on the conditions can be very slippery, at which point you end up on the grass heading straight for the solid barrier with very little slowing you down at that point. Because of this, after every run for the first few runs, my heart would be pounding once I returned to the pits, the fear was there and knowing that I'm so close to coming 3rd overall meant that I had to push on which just made the feeling even worse.

However all that soon changed, as the day progressed, my confidence began to build up and as the competition started to heat up, it forced me to push on and I think I eventually managed to push past the fear but some of it was still there I think. My fastest time was littered with mistakes which now that I've seen the video clearly, I can see where I could have easily have improved but ultimately it was too little too late. What Mike and myself thought we'd be fighting for 3rd soon turned into a fight for 4th since a relatively new comer Tim, who seemed to know his stuff and was a lot more experienced than us it seemed, joined our class (so now you had Lauren, Kevin and Tim all scrambling for 1st). Sadly that soon changed too, with the addition of Tomáš and Alexander who also joined part way through the season, they seemed to seriously get into the groove of things after lunch, it turned into a 4 way scrambled for 4th which I've got to admit, was pretty epic even if it was just for 4th. There was less than half a second between us each and this was the point that I could feel myself pushing past the mental block however, because of the competitiveness of us all, we all started scrambling for a faster time which ultimately meant that we ended up pushing harder and that lead to mistakes for most of us, the exception was Tomáš.

Lauren sadly had a check engine light come on part way through the day (another coil pack issue) so she decided to retire early thinking she would finish 3rd (though she still won the overall championship for our class so she wasn't bothered plus she also won the award for the fastest NA car in the series I think it was, congrats Lauren!), but out of nowhere, new comer Tomáš pulled a massive one out of the bag and netted a 3rd place time behind Tim and the leader Kev (who pretty much set a winning time by lunch only to continue improving it slightly after lunch, congrats Kev!). Alexander who had only recently added a fair few mods to his awesome Blanco was also pulling some awesome times and ultimately beat Mike to 5th, who subsequently beat me to 6th leaving me with a 7th place out of a whopping 9 cars in our class, the biggest to date I believe and the biggest class in the TSS this year. This also meant that I finished 20th overall that day out of 42 cars and sadly meant only a 4th place in N1 Street class for the overall championship which to be fair, isn't bad going considering it was my first full season. I'm happy knowing that I technically beat Mike in more rounds and even won a 2nd place trophy this year, I'm just kicking myself that I didn't do better at Blyton as ultimately that's what lost me my 3rd place overall.

But all in all, an awesome season and the after party was as amusing as the others that I have attended in the past, such a great bunch. So a massive thank you to Adrian Smith and his team for organising this awesome sprint, Javelin and their team for hosting each round and more importantly all those who competed and took part. I'm looking forward to another season next year and I'm hoping we can get more onboard.....this competition malarkey seems quite addictive

I've just booked mine for Donnington, excess was double (so 300 x 2) as they said it would be. Also added a few mods for free at the same time, good company. 

I've just booked mine for Donnington, excess was double (so 300 x 2) as they said it would be. Also added a few mods for free at the same time, good company. 

rear toe/camber also makes a difference to understeer as well we have found.
A lot of camber on the front makes a car not nice on our bad roads, a rear bar stops the understeer but allows a reasonable amount of front camber to be run that doesn't make the car tram line to much.

@Keethos mentioned they'd said double excess to him too so hopefully the chap I spoke to just had it wrong 🖒

That is interesting, I was told specifically double and part of the basis of taking the policy. 
I rang up a week or so ago to book the days insurance but was told they only do it a few days beforehand...

I stole an idea from the FT86 forums of using Porsche GT3 brake cooling ducts on our cars.
It's a very cheap way of getting extra brake cooling and has been proven to lower temperatures.
The oem Porsche parts are being sold for £25 on ebay - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201600599082
There is a bit of modification needed, and I'd say about 4 fairly beefy tie wraps per side to make them a secure fit.
Control arm before:

The duct as it arrives:

-Cut along the green lines with a sharp stanley knife,
-Drill the holes marked with green circles
-Attach to the control arm with tie-wraps at marked points

Pic of it attached (minus two tie-wraps on the middle loops I added later)

Frontal profile:

 
 
 
 
 

I stole an idea from the FT86 forums of using Porsche GT3 brake cooling ducts on our cars.
It's a very cheap way of getting extra brake cooling and has been proven to lower temperatures.
The oem Porsche parts are being sold for £25 on ebay - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201600599082
There is a bit of modification needed, and I'd say about 4 fairly beefy tie wraps per side to make them a secure fit.
Control arm before:

The duct as it arrives:

-Cut along the green lines with a sharp stanley knife,
-Drill the holes marked with green circles
-Attach to the control arm with tie-wraps at marked points

Pic of it attached (minus two tie-wraps on the middle loops I added later)

Frontal profile:

 
 
 
 
 

Was anyone else at the Rallyday 2016 event at Castle Combe in September? I was initially co-driving and managed some track laps at the end of the day (not in my GT86 though - although there was one circulating)

It was good to see this Rally GT86 in the flesh

Video below - GT86 followed by spectacular Fiesta Rallycar demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQJTVIfZjTE


 

So here we are guys: 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Write up will follow shortly in a seperate post. 
 
Enjoy

Great report, enjoyed that and the video. Looked like it snapped round pretty quickly.

The NSX has aged well, hasn't it?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah I've noticed lots of approved used GT86's with standard 17" wheels listed as 18", it must be a mistake in the Toyota system template.

If you arnt on track dedicated tyres, the cooler temps will only help tyre temps.
 
Im tempted! 

You need to be doing something really special like a 720 yoloflip to hit anything other than a car at bedford. 
I bet now that i've said that it happens to me 

So next on my list was to get some coilovers, after being told the Teins weren't available for when I needed, I researched the American forums and found ST Suspension. ST XTA coilover is what I went for, manufactured directly at KW, they have adjustable damping with top mounts, also a nice drop in height was a must!

The coilovers and alignment were carried out at Fensport, a great service and highly recommended. I asked for a fast road/ track setup and the car feels unbelievable, after letting a number of people with performance cars drive my car, they have commented on how great my 86 is and how much enjoyement you can have in it.

The 86 at the ring... it was quite daunting going on to the track, once the barriers had gone up there was no going back! The respect you have to have for the track is unreal, it was highly challenging but after a few laps then having Bennett coach me it became very rewarding. The car performed faultlessly, I completed 9 laps in total over the long weekend, but by the end to say I was hooked is an understatement! I really hope to complete some driver training and UK trackdays before getting back out there next year, 3/4 trips next year is the aim.
Next on the list for me is upgraded brake pads and lines, the oem discs and pads worked well but if I want to push on some better pads should help me out. I also need to have the car raised slightly as my front arch liners took a beating, I believe it was the bottom of Foxhole and the Carousel which took these out! Seeing so many stripped out cars with cages and upgraded seats really got me thinking how far to go with the car, next year the stripping process may begin.

The early BRZ's only had 3 years warranty, think these were the 2012 ones - check this.
The later cars had 3 years full warranty followed by 2 years 'powerline' - full details on Subaru's website but basically covers engine and gearbox etc.

When Faith, Mike, Chris and Rich decided to do a Scotland trip, I was gutted I couldn't join them earlier this year. Shortly after, another friend of mine said that him and his mates were going to do something similar, once again I was unable to attend, but then when another group of mates said that they were going to this trip during the same week I had already booked off for a wedding up north, this worked out beautifully.
A massive thanks to my friends Paul and Lee for inviting me to join them in their Scotland North Coast 500 run, Paul in his amazing BMW 1M Coupe and Lee in his awesome pocket rocket Ford Fiesta ST. The weather was on and off but it always held out when we were on the nice fast and twisty roads.

We started off in Leamington Spa and drove up in convoy up to Dumbarton on the Sunday. The following morning we headed up to Inverness but we took a quick detour around to Stronachlachar Pier, which took a while due to the very tight and bumpy one track lanes but the views were worth it, we then made the mistake of driving over to the opposite side to Inversnaid, the roads were still tight and there wasn't a lot to see when we got there (literally just turned around and headed back) but it was nice to drive along side the loch. We then continued up towards Inverness while coming across some awesomely tight and twisty roads along the way, some up hill hair pins to boot. We even stopped part way through at the Dalwhinnie Distillery for a quick tour which was interesting. The rest of the way was just single to dual carriageways.
The next day we ventured from Inverness to Ullapool via the north coast of Scotland, this time round it was a combination of single track lanes with plenty of over taking areas and fast sweeping corners, a much faster pace that then day before but it was still a good 7 hour journey. We stopped part way through at John O'Groats for a spot of lunch and pics before we carried on. We made another stop later on so I could swap over my SD cards from my dash cams while giving Paul some well deserved rest after a sleepless night from some sort of food poisoning the night before.....haggis stuffed chicken anyone? I also discovered a stowaway when we stopped, luckily the car had already dealt with it and decided to eat it, I was warned about the sheep on the road but luckily none of them were feeling suicidal....sadly I couldn't say the same about the birds, there was loads of them flying low down past the front of my car for some reason....luckily the poor one in the picture didn't cause any damage to the car.

The next day was an even longer day, we continued around the coast driving from Ullapool via Applecross, then cutting across back to Inverness and then down pass Loch Ness past For Williams before arriving back in Dumbarton. The reason for the major detour was even before we began the journey, we knew petrol could be a problem, being religious users of Shell V-Power we had to tactically choose out routes based on where the Shell garages were....however once you went past Inverness, you were crap out of luck of Shell garages so we had to make do with any petrol station with super unleaded.....sadly there wasn't that many around either, so after leaving Ullapool, we wouldn't have been able to make it to Dumbarton so we had to take a detour back to Inverness to refuel in order to make it back to Dumbarton. This meant going down the Applecross pass which in pictures looks amazing, steep twisty turns and hair pins...but in reality it was a nightmare, proper steep drops with very very narrow roads. We had to creep down and constantly stop in very small overtaking spots....and with old geezers not knowing how big their cars were, we got into a pickle at one point....wouldn't want to tackle that again....just glad we were doing down and not up it. The rest of the roads were awesome, during the last stretch, we went high up into the mountains where there was a lot of mist, really moody atmospheric settings with really fast of open roads.....very fast.

On the last day (Thursday), we had a bit of a lie in before the long journey home, however for myself, it was just another journey to be had, I had to make my way down to Halifax for my mates wedding so rather than taking the boring motorway down, I departed from the convoy down near Carisle to tackle some of the back roads through the lake district, some nice roads and pretty scenery there but not really an idea location for driving enthusiasts as most of the roads were 40mph for no apparent reason and the roads were just full of really slow ass drivers. Managed to find a couple of nice twisty roads but not a lot.

All in all a very long and exhausting week, each night I was always out cold, one night I tried to get comfy in bed first before I turned everything off to go to sleep however as soon as my head hit the pillow I was out cold, the next night, after having a shower, I sat down, had a look at my phone, closed my eyes and the next time I opened them again, it was 2:30 in the morning.....I was still sat there stark naked. The roads were awesome but some of it did drag on a bit, think we needed to take more breaks or visit more set locations, to my understanding, the North Coast 500 should normally be done over 4-5 days, we did it in 3 so that's pretty impressive....but very tiring. I'd definitely be up for something like this again, I'm sure there are more awesome roads to be discovered but at the same time, bring on some Euro trips!  I've got about 300GB of footage to sieve through (footage from my front dash cam as well as nabbing my sister's dash cam to point backwards) so videos to follow at some point but in the mean time, here are some pics I tool.
 

The track looks like Bedford after a zombie apocalypse.
Nice videos, sprinting seems fun.
 

The track looks like Bedford after a zombie apocalypse.
Nice videos, sprinting seems fun.
 

Yes, not too much grip, Maurice, so you can still light them up should you so wish. That's what I like about them, not too grippy. 

It was a big improvement over last week.

Hello everyone,
I've been lurking for a few weeks on here so thought I'd better introduce myself now I've got a couple decent pics of the car.
After much deliberation over colour I went for a starlight silver with heated seats and touch & go.
I'm really pleased with the car so far, it handles really well and feels pretty quick in a straight line - I think the light weight just makes everything feel responsive.
I'm in Caterham, Surrey so hopefully will see some of you about.
Cheers
 
 
 
 
 

Hello everyone,
I've been lurking for a few weeks on here so thought I'd better introduce myself now I've got a couple decent pics of the car.
After much deliberation over colour I went for a starlight silver with heated seats and touch & go.
I'm really pleased with the car so far, it handles really well and feels pretty quick in a straight line - I think the light weight just makes everything feel responsive.
I'm in Caterham, Surrey so hopefully will see some of you about.
Cheers