Lauren

What did you change them to just out of interest? 

Now I've had the winter tyres on for nearly a month, I've actually grown to like them. It's a lot more fun than the sticky Advans and I can steer the car on the throttle far more. For the most part I just edge the car a bit on the rear with sport mode on, but it's far more playful which you just can't do with wider and stickier tyres on.
 
So, with this in mind, I've found the car to be a whole load more fun to drive again. I think I'm going to go back to a new set of Primacy's on my TE37's when spring comes round and ditch my part used Advans. I had an absolute ball with it last year, then I put the Advans on and well really the fun just stopped.
 
Sometimes less is more.

I thought I'd start this thread as I admit, I have a bit of a fascination about winter tyres and comparing them with their more summer orientated counterparts. 
 
This is my second year with winter tyres on. Last year was very mild and I think they were not an advantage compared to my summer tyres. 
 
So, this year I'm hoping for colder weather so I can try them out properly. I've discovered that they don't work as well as my summer tyres do at say 7C. I don't think they gain an advantage until it's a fair bit colder. 
 
I've had mine on a week now and the difference between my Advans are fairly marked. The winters (Yoko-W Drives) have done winter for the past two years, so I'm beginning to wonder if they might be past their best. It suprised me at how easily the rear wheels lit up, although the conditions were greasy and they are 10mm less in width compared to my Advans. 
 
In a way it's been a lot of fun so far, though I've had the odd occasion where the lack of grip really surpised me. Fortunately it seems most of the slip is throttle orientated, though I've had the odd four wheel drift where all four wheels slide at the same time, to the same degree. That's been interesting. I've no understeer though. The front end seems quite hooked in, but the rear is lively. 
 
I do have a more aggressive geo setup than standard and obviously I've got my wikkid suspension. From what I recall my car feels a lot livelier this winter than it did on the last. 
 
I'm interested to hear how others are getting along with theirs.

Well, the car drove for the first time in over two years, albeit round the yard to the contained where it's going to live to see out the winter.    It started easily enough, everything working okay. I admit, I did a couple of doughnuts in the yard, only to be requested to do a few more by the guys over other side of the yard who service trucks. So I did a few more.  8)    To be fair they did give me a hand to get it into the container, though I turned down the offer of using a forklift! Thankfully we found some bits of plate steel lying around and used them as ramps to get it in. Was actually quite easy.    Outside the workshop for the first time since August 2012:   The evidence for testing an AE86 does what it's supposed to do:   And finally in the container:  

Hi guys
 
I'm from Denmark, my name is Lars, and I just bought a new GT86.
 
Being from Denmark there is not much of a community around that car. There are Toyota Owners Clubs, but as there is only sold around 12 of these cars in the whole of Denmark, its kind of a "narrow" Owner group 
 
Thats why I have come here - I have already read some interesting forum-threads, and I have ordered a OBDII Bluetooth interface just to try it out.
 
Another thing about being from Denmark, afterpartsmarket is VERY limited, so I hope to get some good ideas off this site too  
 
Oh, and just to let you know, the car that are costing you around 22.000 punds, cost me (hold on to your seats) 38.000 pounds due to 180% taxes on cars in Denmark  
 
Finally a picture of the beauty (the sticker with Probiler has been removed, its the dealers name)
 

In April this year I collected 500+ legs and an LDV Convoy minibus and drove them all the way from Leicester to The Gambia for my charity Legs4Africa. 
 
The second-hand prosthetics were crammed into the back of the minibus, which had just enough MOT to get it out of Europe and a spare engine wedged between the rear seats, just in case.
Before the trip, no-one knew what to expect. This daring and frightening adventure really began when the crowd-funding money began rolling in, the van got kindly donated to us and the pile of donated legs was growing by the week. The smiling supporters and donors reassured us that everything would be fine, so we bowed gracefully to the social pressure, put on our brave faces and kept our fingers so firmly crossed that our wrists went blue.
My journey was truly life-changing (both for me and the Gambian amputees). It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done as we encountered a seemingly endless amount of setbacks, and agree that I will probably never do it again!
Luckily enough for the rest of you, my journey has been recorded for your entertainment in a compelling and personal documentary to be released in Spring 2015.
 
Support our current Crowdfunding project to get 1,000 prosthetic legs out to Africa here
 
It was fair to say that the van had seen better days 

 
The following trailer is for a documentary we made on route and will be releasing in early 2015.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytjMG6cQt0w
 
​We are sending another 1,000 legs out to The Gambia this Christmas and are currently fundraising to cover the costs, you can help us to achieve our goal and have a direct impact on to the lives of many by donating here
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3sg8aW7omk
 
Thanks for reading, please share the videos etc on facebook to spread the word
 
https://www.facebook.com/legs4africa

You can trail brake just fine with the stock brake setup. The car oversteers easily enough if you trail brake into a corner, using the weight transfer to unload the rear. 

Somebody's bought something? Who's bought what? 
 
Sorry!

Somebody's bought something? Who's bought what? 
 
Sorry!

Somebody's bought something? Who's bought what? 
 
Sorry!

I miss read your post. I thought you said "cheap option will do for short sessions" implying that the set up I suggested wouldn't be suitable for more than ten minutes. Sorry my bad. :bangheadonwall

Cheap option is to do shorter on track stints. Stock discs and pads will take a 10 minute track session no problem. 15 minutes and they smoke. That's what I do.

Hello All,
              Just to confirm that the decision from our Directors was favourable and we will be the Principle Sponsors again for the 2015 season.
 
See you all next season,and lets see a few more GT86 entries this time   
 
Richard

I hope it keeps you dry.  

225 isn't great on a 7" rim, the rim isn't wide enough. 225's will make it boring IMO, I ran 225s all this year for sprinting. Tons of grip, not much fun really. I should add that most will prefer more grip it's only me that is slightly deranged.
 
For 225's keep the 45 profile. As for insurance, well you may want to check. 

The car will react more sharply. That is it will turn in more positively. You may notice that the transition to oversteer will be quicker but that is more dependent upon having a better turn in. It won't affect traction per se. 

Now sold.
Cheers.

Winter hibernation. Mark  .  I absolutely hate this time of the year, so best to just hide away in my Man Cave deep in the Royal Forest of Dean, working on the 2015 project    

I drove Maz's car recently and I have to say Version 2 is a huge improvement over his initial setup. The mid range is stronger than I remembered it from the first time and it went banzai over 6K which I really enjoyed because you can really wring it out. 
 
I admit, I like this setup because although it doesn't match the lazy torque of the turbos that you have to work it a bit is no bad thing. It feels like a 3 litre NA which is great as it feels very adjustable. I really like accurate throttle control and I feel this is easier to achieve with a supercharger. I've driven a decent amount of turbos too and they are undoubtedly impressive but I think the throttle control is more accurate with the supercharger, almost as good as an NA. 

Suns out so good time to take another picture.

Taken a step closer as I have started to return my Clubman back to standard

It seems far too many people think the limit here is 45mph on NSL roads even without L plates 

I think it rather seems to be the case, that everyone who has cloth is happy they saved the money and those who went for leather/heated seats option are happy they spent the money! 

Belated thanks to Richard Mckay and his guys over at RRG Macclesfield Toyota for their great service as usual. Have been getting the same error code and check engine light for a while now that comes on and then off again a few days later due to a coil pack. Finally got round to getting that replaced and it hasn't come back on since, even when giving it some.

Also another belated thanks to Adrian Smith and his guys over at Fensport Performance for fitting & aligning my new coilovers as well as updating my ECU to the latest map.

The updated remap has allowed me to stop the car from idling too high in the mornings, before when I start the car up from cold, the car would idle around the 2k rpm mark which with a loud exhaust could be a bit annoying for people in the mornings. To avoid annoying the neighbours I would set off as soon as I started the car, but now with the frosty mornings, I'm going to have to start the car and wait for the car to warm up. So with the new map, the car now idles around the 1k mark which means it's quieter in the mornings....it's still a lil loud....but not as loud. Beside this, Adrian has managed to extract some more power out of the car, don't know how much of a gain but the car feels a lot more smoother and pulls more again in the mid range, definitely keen to get it back on a dyno to see what difference it's made. Not only that, but the car is now returning even more mpg's, before, sitting on the motorway at 60mph on level ground, I could get about high 30's low 40's, now I can get around the high 40's which is a nice bonus.

With regards to the HSD Coilovers, even though they have high spring rates (9kg at the front and 7kg at the rears), the ride still feels rather compliant and not as solid as my Clio 200 was. There's more movement over small minor bumps & imperfections on the road but there's less movement over bigger bumps and undulations. This means that you can feel more of what's going on with the road while not breaking your back over speed bumps. Pot holes and other sudden changes on the road can still be a bit on the harsh side but that's to be expected. There's even less body roll around corners now which makes the car feel even more planted but this does make the back end feel a lil loose, this could just be because of the cold weather but you don't feel the weight transfer as much before the rear breaks traction any more. The car has now been lowered by 30mm (so 345mm at the fronts and 350mm at the rears) and with a bit of Fensport trickery, the fronts which typically only have camber adjustments available, now has a bit of postive caster too. This has added a bit more weight to the steering wheel and the car feels more stable at high speeds like on the motorways, so less input is required to keep the car between the lines where as before, it felt like I was actively adjusting the steering wheel more. What I've also noticed is that while at very low speeds, I find that the steering wheel doesn't want to straighten as much any more so I have to put a bit more effort into turning the wheel back the opposite direction but it's fine when at speed. The camber at the fronts are now -2degs and -1.75degs at the rears while toe is at 0degs front and -1.5degs rear. However, in order to achieve this, I had to buy some front camber bolts as well as rear camber bushes (SuperPro I believe) and for some strange reason, the HSD Coilovers also didn't come with adjustable drop links so I had to get some front BC adjustable drop links. When setting up the car, I didn't even think about this before hand but Dave had a right time trying to adjust the height of the car down the passenger side since he usually measured from the centre of the wheel to the wheel arch, but since mine was mangled, Dave had to find somewhere else to measure to which meant extra measurements were needed each time he swapped sides

Now with a free Saturday, I thought, lets play with the suspension a lil, at the moment the dampers are on the softest setting, I was hoping to tweak them to see if I can dial out some of movement from the minor bumps and road imperfections, but as I was dialling my rear drivers side adjuster.....I snapped the bloody thing didn't I????? MOTHER UCKER!!! Turns out the pin that holds the outer adjuster to the central adjuster shaft snapped so the outer adjuster was free to spin around, I'm sure I only managed 8 or 9 turns (out of 16) before I started to get resistance. Don't actually know what setting I'm on at the moment, tried to turn the central adjuster with some pliers but I don't know if I managed to turn it or not I tried to push the rest of the pin out of the central adjuster but it didn't want to budge (was hoping to just stick another pin in instead). So I didn't even bother adjusting the others, went out for a drive and luckily it doesn't feel that much different than before so I'll leave it as is for the time being. Just hope they're easy to replace without having to remove the actual strut or anything like that

Here are some pics:









Oh and while I was there, I saw this interesting lil nugget which I believe is steveoexige's GT86:

The pictures do no justice at all to this fantastic piece of kit !