Aston martin V8 Vantage club sport type thing
Discussion
Nothing that big on this one but i am working on a few more significant changes.
It occured to me that i had given the impression that this car had been more or less plain sailing, well, yea, not so much. I mean all the moaning i am about to do is fairly small beer in real terms, but never the less.
Problems:
1, the car has needed to be repaired at the roadside 3 times in a month. Fortunately Aston martin supply 50p (at best) heyco stubby screwdriver that enabled an effective repair (more below) - Fixed
2. b
d thing constantly failed to start as the battery was as flat as an arse - Fixed
3. Passenger side window is going bats hit and is just generally useless (linked to point 2) - not fixed (Sort of fixed by not having passengers)
4. the boot lid started to fall off - fixed
5. doors try and guillotine your legs off - soon to be fixed
So, problem one.
This fked me over a few time, always in an embarrassing way, overtook a van, twang, stuck in 3rd, just about to give a gti a seeing to, twang, stuck in third again.
Having nursed it to a B&Q carpark it became apparent that the ball socket had come off the lever, i pushed it back on, and carried on my way, the second time i was able to just shove it back on through the gaiter without stopping but not before losing my stride, it popped off at least once more and was "repaired again" obviously though it was fked. Fortunately Vauxhaull vivaro van also have this issue.so my mate matt gave me a repair clamp, it was way way too big,
But i own an angle grinder, a file and lots of taps. so made this.
Lets see you pop off now you little fker.
I also made up a lever extension, the stock one if both too short (too far away from hand when hand is on wheel not on cigar) and too stiff in action. Making the lever longer solves those issues and i will shorten the throw later in the process if it works nicely
Looks stupid, works brilliantly
anyway took it out for a test spin, fast 3rd to 4th, twang, stuck in 3rd again. FFS!
This time it had sheared off the plastic support that fits through the gearbox fork (it was cracked and noticed during the clutch change but i thought the ziptie would sort it). So i did the thing i had been avoided and chocked out £219.72 for a new selector cable. £200 for a glorified bike brake cable, FML. I also stumped up for two new aston martin door struts which were surprisingly cheap at £21.03 each which will hopefully stop the door trying to kill me.
You can see the missing plastic below
I fitted the brake cable in the dark (1am, because i am super weird) but it was not a challenging job, just tie some string to the old one, then use the string to pull the new one back in.
I then refitted my cable clamp to be sure, and so far, its not all fallen apart of broken
The cable studs are 10mm
So now i know this and have a spare cable, all be it a broken one, i am going to see if i can get something far far more resilient made up as i dont trust this setup at all.
Problems 2,3 & 4 to come when i have the time to write it up
It occured to me that i had given the impression that this car had been more or less plain sailing, well, yea, not so much. I mean all the moaning i am about to do is fairly small beer in real terms, but never the less.
Problems:
1, the car has needed to be repaired at the roadside 3 times in a month. Fortunately Aston martin supply 50p (at best) heyco stubby screwdriver that enabled an effective repair (more below) - Fixed
2. b
d thing constantly failed to start as the battery was as flat as an arse - Fixed3. Passenger side window is going bats hit and is just generally useless (linked to point 2) - not fixed (Sort of fixed by not having passengers)
4. the boot lid started to fall off - fixed
5. doors try and guillotine your legs off - soon to be fixed
So, problem one.
This f
ked me over a few time, always in an embarrassing way, overtook a van, twang, stuck in 3rd, just about to give a gti a seeing to, twang, stuck in third again.Having nursed it to a B&Q carpark it became apparent that the ball socket had come off the lever, i pushed it back on, and carried on my way, the second time i was able to just shove it back on through the gaiter without stopping but not before losing my stride, it popped off at least once more and was "repaired again" obviously though it was f
ked. Fortunately Vauxhaull vivaro van also have this issue.so my mate matt gave me a repair clamp, it was way way too big,But i own an angle grinder, a file and lots of taps. so made this.
Lets see you pop off now you little f
ker.I also made up a lever extension, the stock one if both too short (too far away from hand when hand is on wheel not on cigar) and too stiff in action. Making the lever longer solves those issues and i will shorten the throw later in the process if it works nicely
Looks stupid, works brilliantly
anyway took it out for a test spin, fast 3rd to 4th, twang, stuck in 3rd again. FFS!
This time it had sheared off the plastic support that fits through the gearbox fork (it was cracked and noticed during the clutch change but i thought the ziptie would sort it). So i did the thing i had been avoided and chocked out £219.72 for a new selector cable. £200 for a glorified bike brake cable, FML. I also stumped up for two new aston martin door struts which were surprisingly cheap at £21.03 each which will hopefully stop the door trying to kill me.
You can see the missing plastic below
I fitted the brake cable in the dark (1am, because i am super weird) but it was not a challenging job, just tie some string to the old one, then use the string to pull the new one back in.
I then refitted my cable clamp to be sure, and so far, its not all fallen apart of broken
The cable studs are 10mm
So now i know this and have a spare cable, all be it a broken one, i am going to see if i can get something far far more resilient made up as i dont trust this setup at all.
Problems 2,3 & 4 to come when i have the time to write it up
Edited by IainWhy on Monday 27th June 18:17
olv said:
OLV! sorry for missing your question, Just been flat out with work and actually prepping the car etc etc add in a few kids and there is little time to play with!
So in answer yo your question (i assume you have sorted this) yep, its possible but will be a real faff as there is so much sticky glue ridden tape. SO hats off to you if you did bother to unpin it!
If you did did you ascertain which pins related to the seat airbags? i need to sort mine out but have been too lazy so far!
Finally, yours looks fantastic and as you are not using such silly seats your receptacle is better placed!
olv said:
IainWhy said:
So in answer yo your question (i assume you have sorted this) yep, its possible but will be a real faff as there is so much sticky glue ridden tape. SO hats off to you if you did bother to unpin it!
If you did did you ascertain which pins related to the seat airbags?
Don't worry, all the info you provided was really helpful. I had the added excitement of having a memory control module under there, which I ended up just carrying over with the wiring. And no, I didn't have the patience to unpick it all, after 5 minutes of getting covered in gluey tape I gave up on that idea.If you did did you ascertain which pins related to the seat airbags?
Before I started messing with the seats I had David Appleby Engineering fit their airbag delete resistor kit (it's a little heatshrinked plug on the airbag connector) whilst my car was there having their Nitron dampers fitted. I had read that once you trigger the airbag light you need the proper Aston diag software to clear the fault so wanted to avoid triggering it in the first place.
I am sure i can replicate it, not too worried on the turning off as i am intending to have all the EGR coded out so i can cover that at the same time if i have the balast resistor in but have not yet spend enough time trying to diagnose astons terrible wiring diagrams
olv said:
You can just about make out the airbag resistor in the white airbag plug here.
I noted your car doesn’t have memory functions for the seats, I assume that’s what the oblong control box is part of, seemed simpler just to bring it all across.
Many thanks, that takes a loat of dicking about out of my day.
As the the electrics, yea, don't know precisely what would happen without that control box. I dare say it could be omitted as there is clearly no central function for the seat control like a comfort module, si i would think that sits between the switch and the motor. My wiring tidy is on the todo list, but the to do list is so very very long.
Will see if i can get this updated tonight.......
On holiday in the Czech republic, so finally found some time to write this up, though the beer and pickle intake may make this somewhat stream of consciousness.
So in my last post I had just finished extending my knob (still working wonderfully btw, much lighter throw and closer to the wheel, I will weld on a new socket ball to it next week which will reduce the throw).
Anyway, i was madly prepping for the trackday i had at Jurby airfield.
The big part of this was running about like a moron trying to get the new suspension onto the car. the short version of this is that i had bought this suspension before i had actually bought the car. its likely to be the peak of my suspension game so when i saw it come up i didnt really think all that carefully about it and just went in headfirst with the assumption i would be able to resolve the issues as they presented themselves (arrogant I appreciate, but nothing new).
Essentially i had bought sachs motorsport formula matric 4 way dampers, these are a good way more significant (cost wise) that the gt4 stuff, so not sure where its off but the graphs that Sachs kindly sent to me indicated that aston martin was the client.
Suffice it to say that attaching them to a road car proved to be a bit more work than I had originally envisaged.
The first hurdle was the obvious one of top mounts, gt4 ones were cost prohibitive, and unfortunately franky so were some of the other manufactured options available. Fortunately other suppliers of suspension kits in the uk also produce kits for this car using a clevis mount and an m10 bolt. A breif conversation yielded a bill of about 300 quid and 4 topmounts in my sweaty palm
Hurdle 1 (the largest) cleared. this lest me with bolt size issues as the stock rear size is an m14. Fortunately a mate of mine murned out some nice little tophat reducers so i was able to use the smaller bolts on the front wich are a simple clevis using a variety of misalignment spacers, reducing collars and top hats.
As these are fully rose jointed road going longevity was a bit of a concern, i have used open joints on road cars in the past and frankly found the issue to be overblown as long as you use a good lithium soap on them regularly, but given that this car has spent far to much time in bits already i was keen to cut down on avoidable faff so packed the joints and modified some rod end covers to fit
This sorted the fronts from a fitment perspective but left me with a bolt problem on the rear and a spring rate choice.
I drew diagrams on bits of paper, built a little model to look at spring ratios, look at what every other kit came with, worked out the existing spring rates using the wire diameter and ultimately pushed myself into the trap of not making a choice through data overload. so thew all my hard work to the wind and made an (not very) educated best guess. I needed to run a long main spring as the dampers were short so my droop needed to be small otherwise i would run out of ride height, so went with a 300lb eibach tender to give some limited compliance and a 600ld main front and rear which totally flys in the face of the usual approach of running a stiffer rear and much lower rates.
I couldn't get 2"ID springs in the length i needed so after speaking to BG motorsport who told me that the correct Sachs rings would be so expensive that tit would make my cry, kindly turned out some nice seat adaptors for sensible costs.
This left me with this massive pile of stuff
These were turned into complete units but not without some considerable faffing as the complete spring stack was too long for the damper body, i did know this, but had not accounted for the fact that my spring compressors would foul on the spring hats, fortunately zipties are surprisingly robust.
Having not been killed by foolishness i then had another issue, I needed to get some threaded inserts to reduce the rear fittings from m14 to M10 as these had a captive thread in the rear arm.
I had a week to go before the trackday, so plenty of time, i decided i would fit the fronts now then crack on with the rears as soon as the bits arrived, no probs, all fine.
So I calculated the compressed spring height and slapped them on.
|https://thumbsnap.com/Y4eoRdab[/url]
I fitted them inverted to maintain good access to the adjusters and keep the valves further away from road grime, the entire unit was them covered by a coilver cover from the appropriately named coilovercovers.co.uk (no affiliation other than their product seems excellent and the service was great)
As can be seen this immediately brought to light that my "calculations" were absolute toss, i did take the car for a short spin but it was far far too low, and other than proving that i could grade my driveway with the front splitter i learned nothing other than it was stupidly low.
I broke out the c spanners and gave it another 10mm of compression onto the tender (essentially just removing front droop) which resulted in a much more sensible ride height, whih even if it didn't look quite so "tucked fam, innit" did mean i could get to the main road without having to re shell the car.
While waiting for the rear thread reducers, i had also bought some new light wheels in better sizes, namely 18x10j all round, same offset so i can spin the tyres round front to back, so i popped these on with some cheap fun time Zestino ultra soft track tyres.
Worth noting, these wheels only come in two colors, black and gunmetal. i didn't want either, bt i did want that style and more importantly the PCD and fitment. At some point They will get painted, but as to when is anyone's guess.
Also the car looks weird here as its on Sachs on the front and bone stock on the rear.
[url]
Getting late now so will aim to write some ore up tomorrow.
So in my last post I had just finished extending my knob (still working wonderfully btw, much lighter throw and closer to the wheel, I will weld on a new socket ball to it next week which will reduce the throw).
Anyway, i was madly prepping for the trackday i had at Jurby airfield.
The big part of this was running about like a moron trying to get the new suspension onto the car. the short version of this is that i had bought this suspension before i had actually bought the car. its likely to be the peak of my suspension game so when i saw it come up i didnt really think all that carefully about it and just went in headfirst with the assumption i would be able to resolve the issues as they presented themselves (arrogant I appreciate, but nothing new).
Essentially i had bought sachs motorsport formula matric 4 way dampers, these are a good way more significant (cost wise) that the gt4 stuff, so not sure where its off but the graphs that Sachs kindly sent to me indicated that aston martin was the client.
Suffice it to say that attaching them to a road car proved to be a bit more work than I had originally envisaged.
The first hurdle was the obvious one of top mounts, gt4 ones were cost prohibitive, and unfortunately franky so were some of the other manufactured options available. Fortunately other suppliers of suspension kits in the uk also produce kits for this car using a clevis mount and an m10 bolt. A breif conversation yielded a bill of about 300 quid and 4 topmounts in my sweaty palm
Hurdle 1 (the largest) cleared. this lest me with bolt size issues as the stock rear size is an m14. Fortunately a mate of mine murned out some nice little tophat reducers so i was able to use the smaller bolts on the front wich are a simple clevis using a variety of misalignment spacers, reducing collars and top hats.
As these are fully rose jointed road going longevity was a bit of a concern, i have used open joints on road cars in the past and frankly found the issue to be overblown as long as you use a good lithium soap on them regularly, but given that this car has spent far to much time in bits already i was keen to cut down on avoidable faff so packed the joints and modified some rod end covers to fit
This sorted the fronts from a fitment perspective but left me with a bolt problem on the rear and a spring rate choice.
I drew diagrams on bits of paper, built a little model to look at spring ratios, look at what every other kit came with, worked out the existing spring rates using the wire diameter and ultimately pushed myself into the trap of not making a choice through data overload. so thew all my hard work to the wind and made an (not very) educated best guess. I needed to run a long main spring as the dampers were short so my droop needed to be small otherwise i would run out of ride height, so went with a 300lb eibach tender to give some limited compliance and a 600ld main front and rear which totally flys in the face of the usual approach of running a stiffer rear and much lower rates.
I couldn't get 2"ID springs in the length i needed so after speaking to BG motorsport who told me that the correct Sachs rings would be so expensive that tit would make my cry, kindly turned out some nice seat adaptors for sensible costs.
This left me with this massive pile of stuff
These were turned into complete units but not without some considerable faffing as the complete spring stack was too long for the damper body, i did know this, but had not accounted for the fact that my spring compressors would foul on the spring hats, fortunately zipties are surprisingly robust.
Having not been killed by foolishness i then had another issue, I needed to get some threaded inserts to reduce the rear fittings from m14 to M10 as these had a captive thread in the rear arm.
I had a week to go before the trackday, so plenty of time, i decided i would fit the fronts now then crack on with the rears as soon as the bits arrived, no probs, all fine.
So I calculated the compressed spring height and slapped them on.
|https://thumbsnap.com/Y4eoRdab[/url]I fitted them inverted to maintain good access to the adjusters and keep the valves further away from road grime, the entire unit was them covered by a coilver cover from the appropriately named coilovercovers.co.uk (no affiliation other than their product seems excellent and the service was great)
As can be seen this immediately brought to light that my "calculations" were absolute toss, i did take the car for a short spin but it was far far too low, and other than proving that i could grade my driveway with the front splitter i learned nothing other than it was stupidly low.
I broke out the c spanners and gave it another 10mm of compression onto the tender (essentially just removing front droop) which resulted in a much more sensible ride height, whih even if it didn't look quite so "tucked fam, innit" did mean i could get to the main road without having to re shell the car.
While waiting for the rear thread reducers, i had also bought some new light wheels in better sizes, namely 18x10j all round, same offset so i can spin the tyres round front to back, so i popped these on with some cheap fun time Zestino ultra soft track tyres.
Worth noting, these wheels only come in two colors, black and gunmetal. i didn't want either, bt i did want that style and more importantly the PCD and fitment. At some point They will get painted, but as to when is anyone's guess.
Also the car looks weird here as its on Sachs on the front and bone stock on the rear.
[url]Getting late now so will aim to write some ore up tomorrow.
continuing this carry on after too much hottub time really so will probably be a little briefer.
So, at this point I had the fronts on, some wheels and tyres and had ordered some correct reducers in marine stainless from a specialist fastener company. they initially advised that the through hole versions were out of stock so the only option was blind fittings, i could handle this so asked them to get them out ASP. Now i am not a fastener enthusiast, and certainly not a specialist but it was apparent to me when i shook them out into my hand that they were not m14x1.5, not even close. Having spoken to them they confirmed that self tappers had been sent in error and credit where it is due immediately sent out the correct items by special delivery, which the Isle of Man post office assumed was intrinsically valuable and immediately stole/lost. Given that i had seen the way the wind was blowing on this job i had ordered at higher cost the correct reducing through hole versions from another supplier.
and short of it, nothing turned up on time, so i had the option to bail on the day or just run as was with stock rear suspension and the sachs on the front, or put all the stock stuff back on.
I went with opton B and accepted it would understeer like a pig, which it did.
How did the day go? Eh ok, i was keen to give te car a shake down and find the next set of issues but childcare meant it was going to have to be cut short, it was sessioned (which i hate) and the organiser was slow to get going them made the choice of sending a load of classic mini's out first, inevitably this resulted in a number of them doing what old mini's do and exploding and leaking everwhere, ultimately this meant from a 9am start, i didnt turn a wheel until gone 12, i was not very happy by that point to be honest.
Session one was good, mostly dominated by figuring out what worked and what didn't given the very compromised setup of the car, it was very understeery which was certainly not helped by me over driving the ca somewhat and the tyres were a bit odd but it felt pretty good though the traction is too intrusive so either needs to go, or be improved. (i would like to keep it as this is not a dedicated track car so driving it home is very much the name of the game) .
Having completed the session and kept the e92 m3 DCT's honest revealed a few things. The pads were close to on fire (bear in mind these are world endurance pads), the PAS had puked out a lot of oil, the engine oil can sticker thing had melted off, but otherwise all good.
Session two was going well until about 2 minutes from the end when coming braking into a hairpin left me once again with no gears, this time with no drive so coasting into the hairpin at over a ton, not ideal.
Managed to negotiate the turn and had plenty of momentum to coast to the marshals hut for a short chat about the amount of cement dust it takes to clear up after a classic mini before getting towed back to parc ferme in ignominy
I knew what the issue was (cable off gearbox end) and being that the car is a hatch i had packed the big jack all the travel tools and even a comfort mat for just such an issue so cracked on repairing it, which it seemed the other attendees dd not expect
the repair job was minutes (rear under tray off and just reach up and put the cable back on, but it was of course fking hot so i did need to let it cool off a bit which robbed me of more time. When i did eventually brave getting my face meted off by a graziano transaxle i was disgusted by the compete lack of actual force required to re seat it. the plastic inner sleeve becomes more pliant as the gearbox gets hotter, and as a result, comes off with almost no effort.
By the time i had repaired the car my child care window was expiring, and with the feeling that it would almost certainly come off again, i had to bit the bullet pack up and head off.
I at least had been able to identify a few issues before i head off to europe with the car even if the testing had been very truncated and not with the vehicle in the correct format.
On the plus side, it was the only one there, a number of people suggested it was the best sounding thing they had heard, and it was fairly fast, so, every cloud.
So, at this point I had the fronts on, some wheels and tyres and had ordered some correct reducers in marine stainless from a specialist fastener company. they initially advised that the through hole versions were out of stock so the only option was blind fittings, i could handle this so asked them to get them out ASP. Now i am not a fastener enthusiast, and certainly not a specialist but it was apparent to me when i shook them out into my hand that they were not m14x1.5, not even close. Having spoken to them they confirmed that self tappers had been sent in error and credit where it is due immediately sent out the correct items by special delivery, which the Isle of Man post office assumed was intrinsically valuable and immediately stole/lost. Given that i had seen the way the wind was blowing on this job i had ordered at higher cost the correct reducing through hole versions from another supplier.
and short of it, nothing turned up on time, so i had the option to bail on the day or just run as was with stock rear suspension and the sachs on the front, or put all the stock stuff back on.
I went with opton B and accepted it would understeer like a pig, which it did.
How did the day go? Eh ok, i was keen to give te car a shake down and find the next set of issues but childcare meant it was going to have to be cut short, it was sessioned (which i hate) and the organiser was slow to get going them made the choice of sending a load of classic mini's out first, inevitably this resulted in a number of them doing what old mini's do and exploding and leaking everwhere, ultimately this meant from a 9am start, i didnt turn a wheel until gone 12, i was not very happy by that point to be honest.
Session one was good, mostly dominated by figuring out what worked and what didn't given the very compromised setup of the car, it was very understeery which was certainly not helped by me over driving the ca somewhat and the tyres were a bit odd but it felt pretty good though the traction is too intrusive so either needs to go, or be improved. (i would like to keep it as this is not a dedicated track car so driving it home is very much the name of the game) .
Having completed the session and kept the e92 m3 DCT's honest revealed a few things. The pads were close to on fire (bear in mind these are world endurance pads), the PAS had puked out a lot of oil, the engine oil can sticker thing had melted off, but otherwise all good.
Session two was going well until about 2 minutes from the end when coming braking into a hairpin left me once again with no gears, this time with no drive so coasting into the hairpin at over a ton, not ideal.
Managed to negotiate the turn and had plenty of momentum to coast to the marshals hut for a short chat about the amount of cement dust it takes to clear up after a classic mini before getting towed back to parc ferme in ignominy
I knew what the issue was (cable off gearbox end) and being that the car is a hatch i had packed the big jack all the travel tools and even a comfort mat for just such an issue so cracked on repairing it, which it seemed the other attendees dd not expect
the repair job was minutes (rear under tray off and just reach up and put the cable back on, but it was of course f
king hot so i did need to let it cool off a bit which robbed me of more time. When i did eventually brave getting my face meted off by a graziano transaxle i was disgusted by the compete lack of actual force required to re seat it. the plastic inner sleeve becomes more pliant as the gearbox gets hotter, and as a result, comes off with almost no effort.By the time i had repaired the car my child care window was expiring, and with the feeling that it would almost certainly come off again, i had to bit the bullet pack up and head off.
I at least had been able to identify a few issues before i head off to europe with the car even if the testing had been very truncated and not with the vehicle in the correct format.
On the plus side, it was the only one there, a number of people suggested it was the best sounding thing they had heard, and it was fairly fast, so, every cloud.
English expat said:
Great to hear the next round of updates (even if you couldn’t fit the rear suspension). Will you be able to engineer a small cage to hold the cable in position at the rear?
Very much on the case with that, though likely the next issue will be snapping the plastic collet on the gearbox fork 
So post trackday i had quite the to do list added to the existing growing one.
It looks like this (this is partially for my benefit) in no particular order.
1: fit rear suspension
2. fix airbag light
2a. stop airbag flapping about
3. better rear pads
4. better brake cooling
5. better geometry
6. stop PAS puking its guts
7. stop doors trying to kill you while exiting the car
8. stop fking gear lever cables coming off, breaking, failing and just being generally st
9. get a temperature probe in the oil and coolant, i don't trust the oem gauges and i wasn't to see where the oil is getting to under load (i a assured they are fine, but for my ignorance is not bliss)
10. bushings
11.Rebuild rear beam
12. procure spares for good measure and testing.
13, proper harness solution
14. some sort of steering wheel game
15. many other things, primarily weight reducton
16. throttle map
17. remove EGR
18. who knows!
So on with the first bit:
To get the rear shock on with an m10 bolt you end up with something like this collection of bits
Which is an m14 to m10 stainless reducer some metric to imperial misalignment spacers, a bespoke top hat and and a 10.9 graded bolt, what a faff.
Anyway, all fitted up and on the car without any drama other than the usual Aston thing of having to take quite a lot of car off to complete the job.
The result was frankly terrible, and i mean dreadful, the car wallowed at the rear, felt unstable crashed and banged over every bump and felt wildly unstable. cranking up the high and low speed compression did make it a bit better but it was still dire by any sensible measure.
By this time i was starting to wonder if i had a problem. it was a bit confusing as the fronts were essentially perfect, set up with low settings on high speed and medium on low they rode better than the stock shocks on the road and had a firm grip of the spring and wheel on the track. I didn't confess to anyone that i was a bit concerned at the time, but the reality of it was that I was starting to get rather worried.
Having given it a bit more thought it occurred to me that be setting a 10mm rake front to rear i was basically riding on the main 600lb main spring at the back which in effect dramatically reduced the droop on the damper and was i suspected leading to it topping out. the obvious solution would be to drop the rear ride height, but with these being race shocks they are short, and dropping the height while preserving the rake would leave the car grading the road flat again. I needed to essentially extend the rear damper to get the correct droop without losing height.
with this in mind i drew this up (not the final version as i ended up including two PCD's as i coldn't remember which i needed)
Bought some 15mm Nylon 66 engineering plate
Cut it out on my small CNC
took all the rear topmounts off and fitted te spacers with longer bolts
The result was i am relieved to say, dramatic, I was genuinely astonished at the difference shifting the piston down 15mm made, i can only surmise that the topping out issue was impacting terribly on the weight transfer as well as making awful noises as the car now rode well, with all crashign gone and felt properly connected to the road.
Winner.
Next up.
Puking PAS
Aston delt with this on the gt4 simply, but just spalling a load of tube off the cap.
Initially i considered this as a load of toss, however having considered it, it occurred to me that this was quite smart, it allowed the fluid to expand into the tube when the volume increased, but rather than trapping it in a tank (as i has planned) it allowed to to return back to the main reservoir as it cooled.
So i essentially just copied it using 10mm pneumatic nylon and fittings, this allows you to take the cap off by simply disconnecting the tube and the hole thing hangs of a fitting that rides of the turret rather than relying on some sticky pads that will come off in the engine bay heat
I am calling that solved, until experience proves me incorrect.
2a was up next.
The steering wheel airbag has always rattled about like a poorly attached claymore since i bought the car, its unnerving not only as its a poorly restrained explosive but it also feels like the column is coming loose.
Being that its Aston, they make a fix for this, that they will sell you (rather than fixing it as a recall like all other manufacturers) tis is a small plastic sleeve that fits over the airbag bolts. they are very cheap (and so they should be) and can be fitted in minutes by simply removing the airbag bolts, sliding on the packers and putting the bolt back in. Hand wringers will tell you to remove the battery and have the bomb disposal team on speed dial, alternately you can just do them one at a time and not stand in front of it, doing the latter gets you all done in 2 mins flat.
.
Next up: door struts, brake cooling, and gt4 filters..........
It looks like this (this is partially for my benefit) in no particular order.
1: fit rear suspension
2. fix airbag light
2a. stop airbag flapping about
3. better rear pads
4. better brake cooling
5. better geometry
6. stop PAS puking its guts
7. stop doors trying to kill you while exiting the car
8. stop f
king gear lever cables coming off, breaking, failing and just being generally st9. get a temperature probe in the oil and coolant, i don't trust the oem gauges and i wasn't to see where the oil is getting to under load (i a assured they are fine, but for my ignorance is not bliss)
10. bushings
11.Rebuild rear beam
12. procure spares for good measure and testing.
13, proper harness solution
14. some sort of steering wheel game
15. many other things, primarily weight reducton
16. throttle map
17. remove EGR
18. who knows!
So on with the first bit:
To get the rear shock on with an m10 bolt you end up with something like this collection of bits
Which is an m14 to m10 stainless reducer some metric to imperial misalignment spacers, a bespoke top hat and and a 10.9 graded bolt, what a faff.
Anyway, all fitted up and on the car without any drama other than the usual Aston thing of having to take quite a lot of car off to complete the job.
The result was frankly terrible, and i mean dreadful, the car wallowed at the rear, felt unstable crashed and banged over every bump and felt wildly unstable. cranking up the high and low speed compression did make it a bit better but it was still dire by any sensible measure.
By this time i was starting to wonder if i had a problem. it was a bit confusing as the fronts were essentially perfect, set up with low settings on high speed and medium on low they rode better than the stock shocks on the road and had a firm grip of the spring and wheel on the track. I didn't confess to anyone that i was a bit concerned at the time, but the reality of it was that I was starting to get rather worried.
Having given it a bit more thought it occurred to me that be setting a 10mm rake front to rear i was basically riding on the main 600lb main spring at the back which in effect dramatically reduced the droop on the damper and was i suspected leading to it topping out. the obvious solution would be to drop the rear ride height, but with these being race shocks they are short, and dropping the height while preserving the rake would leave the car grading the road flat again. I needed to essentially extend the rear damper to get the correct droop without losing height.
with this in mind i drew this up (not the final version as i ended up including two PCD's as i coldn't remember which i needed)
Bought some 15mm Nylon 66 engineering plate
Cut it out on my small CNC
took all the rear topmounts off and fitted te spacers with longer bolts
The result was i am relieved to say, dramatic, I was genuinely astonished at the difference shifting the piston down 15mm made, i can only surmise that the topping out issue was impacting terribly on the weight transfer as well as making awful noises as the car now rode well, with all crashign gone and felt properly connected to the road.
Winner.
Next up.
Puking PAS
Aston delt with this on the gt4 simply, but just spalling a load of tube off the cap.
Initially i considered this as a load of toss, however having considered it, it occurred to me that this was quite smart, it allowed the fluid to expand into the tube when the volume increased, but rather than trapping it in a tank (as i has planned) it allowed to to return back to the main reservoir as it cooled.
So i essentially just copied it using 10mm pneumatic nylon and fittings, this allows you to take the cap off by simply disconnecting the tube and the hole thing hangs of a fitting that rides of the turret rather than relying on some sticky pads that will come off in the engine bay heat
I am calling that solved, until experience proves me incorrect.
2a was up next.
The steering wheel airbag has always rattled about like a poorly attached claymore since i bought the car, its unnerving not only as its a poorly restrained explosive but it also feels like the column is coming loose.
Being that its Aston, they make a fix for this, that they will sell you (rather than fixing it as a recall like all other manufacturers) tis is a small plastic sleeve that fits over the airbag bolts. they are very cheap (and so they should be) and can be fitted in minutes by simply removing the airbag bolts, sliding on the packers and putting the bolt back in. Hand wringers will tell you to remove the battery and have the bomb disposal team on speed dial, alternately you can just do them one at a time and not stand in front of it, doing the latter gets you all done in 2 mins flat.
.Next up: door struts, brake cooling, and gt4 filters..........
Edited by IainWhy on Friday 26th August 01:45
Meeten-5dulx said:
And wheels…..
Thought i mentioned those dude? 18x10 all round, nice and light, from 2forge, they only come in two colors so at some point will get a coat of painttherealsamdailly said:
This is such an entertaining journey. Got any 'stance' shots of the car with front and rear suspension on?
For reasons i cant explain, not currently, i think its because i want to adjust the rear setting to get it level before I do, but that may just be me justifying not having any. Fairly well battered after a trip to the highest peak in Czech (and some more beer and sauna) but still committed to trying to bring this up to date!
1600 odd meters
anyway,
Next items on the list (as usual in no real order)
Using some of the infor shared by Olv, i was able to identify the airbag plug with no actual effort on my part, which is the type of effort I like best
So a quick trip to ebay to buy thecheapest best airbag simulators on the market and a few minutes with a soldering iron yielded these, will find out if they work when it gets plugged into AMDS in September.
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/rFqB3eXu[/url
Until proved wrong, i will as per usual call that complete.
Next up was the biggie, brake cooling, now i am not going to lie, this is essentially a story of abject failure.
Quite a few months ago, i came across the front airboxes off a vantage v12 lemans car, and i purchased them for a small price as they needed a bit of repair. these are fully nuts and hang out of the front bumper and are an adjustment to the point where they completely scrap the MAF and run a MAP sensor in one side. I then also bought thecheapest best aston martin front bumper on ebay with a pan to chop one or possibly all of it up so i could un huge air snorkels out of the front, glorious.
These are them and how they would/should have sat in the donor bumper
Sort version of this is that the time came to try and mock all this up, so i called in my Mate Dave who kindly loaned me his workshop and agreed to paint a few bits for me including the new donor bumper. I spent an age stripling the entire front off and fighting rusted fittings and started the mocking up, well , i just couldn't make it work as a whole, the absence of the MAF tube in the race cars gives them more space and even with that discounted i think they run a thinner headlamp, they fouled on the front crash structure (not used on the race cars) and would have required a large reducer at a horrible angle.
All of these issues were solvable, the crash bar could be profiled, the maf's moved up in the intake path the intake tubes cut out and replaced with stock dimension ones. But given the biggest restriction is supposedly the plenum / throttle the benefit would be marginal (other than being awesome) and i just didn't have the time for this work right now. So with reluctance, i have put these to one side for now, i will come back to this at some point, probably.
Anyway having accepted reality (for once) i replaced the door struts, first one was a complete bd, second one was a doddle one you have the knack, its a stupid design and i would urge anyone doing it to remove the full arch liner and not believe any tripe about just moving the back out of the way. you need all the access and visibility you can get.
This left me with a bumper (a PDC bumper no less on a non front pdc car) so it was time to look to sort the brake cooling (probably) Again, the factory cars do it like this:
BUt no one is selling gt4 bumpers on ebay for £150 so i got Dave to freehand something close into the donor bumper and asked him to paint it and a replacement side skirt (that i will fit at some time in the future).
I kept the bits cut out for dimensions, and spent some time teaching myself the basics of Autodesk Fusion 360 (i am very much at the formation stages of this process but my advice would be to watch you youtube video of the guy modelling a coffee pot and the one that covers lofting and offset planes on the same axis, if you can remember 20% of what's in them, you can design stuff
Using my very basic skills and ability i designed these
And did a quick and dirty print in black PLA resulting in this
These are designed to take a 75mm reenforced ducting hose (that i have a load of in the garage...
More tomorrow..
1600 odd meters
anyway,
Next items on the list (as usual in no real order)
Using some of the infor shared by Olv, i was able to identify the airbag plug with no actual effort on my part, which is the type of effort I like best
So a quick trip to ebay to buy the
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/rFqB3eXu[/urlUntil proved wrong, i will as per usual call that complete.
Next up was the biggie, brake cooling, now i am not going to lie, this is essentially a story of abject failure.
Quite a few months ago, i came across the front airboxes off a vantage v12 lemans car, and i purchased them for a small price as they needed a bit of repair. these are fully nuts and hang out of the front bumper and are an adjustment to the point where they completely scrap the MAF and run a MAP sensor in one side. I then also bought the
These are them and how they would/should have sat in the donor bumper
Sort version of this is that the time came to try and mock all this up, so i called in my Mate Dave who kindly loaned me his workshop and agreed to paint a few bits for me including the new donor bumper. I spent an age stripling the entire front off and fighting rusted fittings and started the mocking up, well , i just couldn't make it work as a whole, the absence of the MAF tube in the race cars gives them more space and even with that discounted i think they run a thinner headlamp, they fouled on the front crash structure (not used on the race cars) and would have required a large reducer at a horrible angle.
All of these issues were solvable, the crash bar could be profiled, the maf's moved up in the intake path the intake tubes cut out and replaced with stock dimension ones. But given the biggest restriction is supposedly the plenum / throttle the benefit would be marginal (other than being awesome) and i just didn't have the time for this work right now. So with reluctance, i have put these to one side for now, i will come back to this at some point, probably.
Anyway having accepted reality (for once) i replaced the door struts, first one was a complete b
d, second one was a doddle one you have the knack, its a stupid design and i would urge anyone doing it to remove the full arch liner and not believe any tripe about just moving the back out of the way. you need all the access and visibility you can get.This left me with a bumper (a PDC bumper no less on a non front pdc car) so it was time to look to sort the brake cooling (probably) Again, the factory cars do it like this:
BUt no one is selling gt4 bumpers on ebay for £150 so i got Dave to freehand something close into the donor bumper and asked him to paint it and a replacement side skirt (that i will fit at some time in the future).
I kept the bits cut out for dimensions, and spent some time teaching myself the basics of Autodesk Fusion 360 (i am very much at the formation stages of this process but my advice would be to watch you youtube video of the guy modelling a coffee pot and the one that covers lofting and offset planes on the same axis, if you can remember 20% of what's in them, you can design stuff
Using my very basic skills and ability i designed these
And did a quick and dirty print in black PLA resulting in this
These are designed to take a 75mm reenforced ducting hose (that i have a load of in the garage...
More tomorrow..
Edited by IainWhy on Friday 26th August 01:35
Mark Benson said:
Clubzport said:
This is an extremely interesting and enjoyable read, thank you for continuing to update it 
Agreed, just the kind of thing I come to PH for.fred bloggs said:
Where in Czech were you visiting? I have In laws there, been many times. They live Up in the north east.
I hired this for one trip
Příchovice at the moment, my Mrs is Czech so it makes for a simple holiday, though she is from Chomutov on the German boarder. I will sadly be winding up in a few days and she and the kids will stay on for a bit to see family elsewhere. I hired this for one trip
its a nice place! I have hire car envy though as i currently have the 8 or 9 furious horsepower that cam with my Polish rental i20, which is a hateful piece of s
t with no redeeming features other than the distance it will travel on the sniff of an oily ragWell what can i say, tomorrow never came! Or rather with more honesty i became busy again and priorities slipped?
The slippage of things will be an ongoing theme here as i failed to document much of what has been done properly becuase i was tired/lazy/rushing/poorly organised, so please accept my appologies in advance.
picking up where i left off (though that seems long ago)
I had printed up some ducts, and got a friend of mine to chop some holes in a spare bumper and paint it. so the call came in that it was all done, as such i zipped down to Daves unit at about 9pm to get cracking and get it fitted, i thought that would be done by about midnight. when i finally left at 3am i realised i had infact miscalculated, however the job was done.
|https://thumbsnap.com/S1QGHoWj[/url]
If i am honest fitting this was a complete bd. As the sneering bald man from bamforsd will tell you (sneery voice) "only morons fit gt4 filters as they dont make any power" well there is another reason, and that reason is cooling, the airboxes are in the way of meaningful ducting so they have to go, as such they did and my car now just has a few simple ram air cones on the ends of the MAF's. this allows (once you have cut away the front airbox mount. and a bit of the arch liner and fought with the undertray for an hour) to run 75mm ducting from the front air dam to the wheel arch. It would be more effective again to run this directly to the backing plate of the disk, but in all honesty this them creates another issue where the wheel lock then needs to be restricted, or you will rip the hose off, so in my case they just point at the disk from the inside edge of the wheel liner.
I also fitted porsch air guides to the arb, these were initialy just too big in that location and were constantly hitting the ground, origially i was just going to let them self fit but being as i was there i thought i should trim them down a bit which resulted in this.
[url]
As this was all prep for Spa and Zolder i also slapped a load of temperature trackers all over the brakes and some other bits of the car so i could see if my genius (fkn lol) was actually working.
Next up, as i was making a trip to the uk, i had arranged to see HWM to get a map put on the car. Big reasons for me here were to get the EGR coded out which tends to cause surging, trim the cars appetite for fuel (these run horribly rich to cool the cats, mad eh?) and sort out the throttle response. In preparation for this i needed to put some of the cats up for re-homing.
Normal way to do this is to remove the secondary cats, but this has some downsides on the 4.3 and either your paying out the wazoo for some fairly basic race cats or your gutting the secondaries from the oem can which will create a big drop in gas speed.
As such i did something different.
Shopping at my favourite race part shop (ebay) i bought a pair of 4.7 cats for a couple of hundred pounds (i should be able to scrap them for more if i ever remember to actually do it) on the basis that i could use the flanges and ball socket on the theends or possibly even the secondary as a primary low cell count.
Its not possible to simply fit the 4.7 secondaries onto the 4.3 as they are both longer and a different shape as you can see below.
Given that these needed some significant adjustment, i decided to go all the way so procured some, lets call them "ultra low" cell count cats and the angle grinder and welder put in the hours.
![](https://thumbsnap.com/sc/GbWvPs1S.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/iLwocRcV" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/iLwocRcV.jpg)
This naturally illuminated even more warning lights on the dash and turned loud mode into unbearable mode, which was ace. Fortuantately with the flaps shut, it was still as quiet as a gently driven honda jizz
Given that the car is a morass of road coloured grey, I was rather concerned that i was going to get collected on track, as such i figured i should pay a man to chintz it up a bit and employed the excellent services of Szilveszter at isle of wraps to do a thing.
this being the end result (the slightly instagrammy picture at the end was taken by a mate of mine who kindly dropped me off to collect the car, it wasnt me being a massive tart, but i will use it anyway)
This is very simply a copy of the early N24 car livery
Much more to go, so i will aim to write it up this week beore it all becomes an even more distant memory.
The slippage of things will be an ongoing theme here as i failed to document much of what has been done properly becuase i was tired/lazy/rushing/poorly organised, so please accept my appologies in advance.
picking up where i left off (though that seems long ago)
I had printed up some ducts, and got a friend of mine to chop some holes in a spare bumper and paint it. so the call came in that it was all done, as such i zipped down to Daves unit at about 9pm to get cracking and get it fitted, i thought that would be done by about midnight. when i finally left at 3am i realised i had infact miscalculated, however the job was done.
|https://thumbsnap.com/S1QGHoWj[/url]If i am honest fitting this was a complete b
d. As the sneering bald man from bamforsd will tell you (sneery voice) "only morons fit gt4 filters as they dont make any power" well there is another reason, and that reason is cooling, the airboxes are in the way of meaningful ducting so they have to go, as such they did and my car now just has a few simple ram air cones on the ends of the MAF's. this allows (once you have cut away the front airbox mount. and a bit of the arch liner and fought with the undertray for an hour) to run 75mm ducting from the front air dam to the wheel arch. It would be more effective again to run this directly to the backing plate of the disk, but in all honesty this them creates another issue where the wheel lock then needs to be restricted, or you will rip the hose off, so in my case they just point at the disk from the inside edge of the wheel liner. I also fitted porsch air guides to the arb, these were initialy just too big in that location and were constantly hitting the ground, origially i was just going to let them self fit but being as i was there i thought i should trim them down a bit which resulted in this.
[url]As this was all prep for Spa and Zolder i also slapped a load of temperature trackers all over the brakes and some other bits of the car so i could see if my genius (fkn lol) was actually working.
Next up, as i was making a trip to the uk, i had arranged to see HWM to get a map put on the car. Big reasons for me here were to get the EGR coded out which tends to cause surging, trim the cars appetite for fuel (these run horribly rich to cool the cats, mad eh?) and sort out the throttle response. In preparation for this i needed to put some of the cats up for re-homing.
Normal way to do this is to remove the secondary cats, but this has some downsides on the 4.3 and either your paying out the wazoo for some fairly basic race cats or your gutting the secondaries from the oem can which will create a big drop in gas speed.
As such i did something different.
Shopping at my favourite race part shop (ebay) i bought a pair of 4.7 cats for a couple of hundred pounds (i should be able to scrap them for more if i ever remember to actually do it) on the basis that i could use the flanges and ball socket on the theends or possibly even the secondary as a primary low cell count.
Its not possible to simply fit the 4.7 secondaries onto the 4.3 as they are both longer and a different shape as you can see below.
Given that these needed some significant adjustment, i decided to go all the way so procured some, lets call them "ultra low" cell count cats and the angle grinder and welder put in the hours.
This naturally illuminated even more warning lights on the dash and turned loud mode into unbearable mode, which was ace. Fortuantately with the flaps shut, it was still as quiet as a gently driven honda jizz
Given that the car is a morass of road coloured grey, I was rather concerned that i was going to get collected on track, as such i figured i should pay a man to chintz it up a bit and employed the excellent services of Szilveszter at isle of wraps to do a thing.
this being the end result (the slightly instagrammy picture at the end was taken by a mate of mine who kindly dropped me off to collect the car, it wasnt me being a massive tart, but i will use it anyway)
This is very simply a copy of the early N24 car livery
Much more to go, so i will aim to write it up this week beore it all becomes an even more distant memory.
SturdyHSV said:
Splash of lipstick in hooker red, I didn't imagine you as the type 
So is that just a 'wrap' in terms of a couple of red strips etc.? Just curious really as I'd really like the Monaro orange, but keep the A pillars / roof etc. black, but that would require the orange wrap to end flat on a bit of bodywork, rather like your red stripes do at the bottom of the A pillar and I wasn't sure if this was doable...
Look forward to seeing what else you do and how the car gets on at Spa etc.
Yea its a bit of an embarrassment really So is that just a 'wrap' in terms of a couple of red strips etc.? Just curious really as I'd really like the Monaro orange, but keep the A pillars / roof etc. black, but that would require the orange wrap to end flat on a bit of bodywork, rather like your red stripes do at the bottom of the A pillar and I wasn't sure if this was doable...
Look forward to seeing what else you do and how the car gets on at Spa etc.
It is indeed a wrap, and its only on as i have agreed to take it back next month to be redone as he was not happy with it, too much stretch required to make the material work apparently. either way when it goes back it will lose the bonnet stripes and the a pillar profile will change to match an alternate version of the n24 livery.
At some point i may consider a full colour change, but many things more pressing in the immediate future.
Firstly, thank you all for your comments, its always nice to know that people are getting something out of it rather than just feeling your posting random st on the internet.
I’m not sure what the standard backing plates on the car are like, but wondered if it would be worthwhile modifying them to include an air scoop similar to this BMW part off an F30.
With the scoop in the right place and the duct pointed at it, it might be a nice halfway house between what you have now and a duct fastened straight to the backing plate. Hopefully it would get some more air to the centre portion of the disc and out through the vanes in it.
Part number: 34116792238
Its an interesting idea and one i will definitely consider, there is no chance that the part will fit as the Aston knuckles are completely different to anything bmw have come up with (sadly or i would have parts for dayz) but the idea should work, my reservation would be if it was possible to angle it enough to actually get it into the airflow given the offset and width of the wheel (10j 275).
I am tracking the temps and currently they look to be stable and good, however on a shorter circuit it may well still be inadequate
t on the internet.Jhonno said:
Brilliant thread and read.. Love what you are doing with it!
Be prepared to do the ducting again though, if they are still PLA.. It doesn't like being outside UV/heat etc..
These need re making, I originally sized them from the cutout, and as such the dimensions are a little off, they would also look better if i remade them in a slightly different shape. The next lot, provided they are better will be produced in black nylon. Be prepared to do the ducting again though, if they are still PLA.. It doesn't like being outside UV/heat etc..
d_a_n1979 said:
What a superb project
Love the colour on it now; makes it very unique
I am sure its a bit marmite, there are those that will hate it, primarily the objective was to ensure that it was a bit more visible on track where failing top be seen can make things a bit exciting.Love the colour on it now; makes it very unique
Terra1 said:
Another great project thread, thanks for sharing and keep up the good work and updates! I love this being a leftfield choice for a homebrew track car. Can't imagine there are many more that have been transformed by their owners?!
Yea, i am sure there are a few, but I can only think of one or two others, more commonly there were some N24 cars that were road registered, but in both cases, i have never seen them actually doing anythingPflanzgarten said:
Hmm, strange chap, still if he's happy i'm happy Demelitia said:
IainWhy said:
It would be more effective again to run this directly to the backing plate of the disk, but in all honesty this them creates another issue where the wheel lock then needs to be restricted, or you will rip the hose off, so in my case they just point at the disk from the inside edge of the wheel liner.
I don’t know why but I do love threads that involve a brake cooling mods section. I’m not sure what the standard backing plates on the car are like, but wondered if it would be worthwhile modifying them to include an air scoop similar to this BMW part off an F30.
With the scoop in the right place and the duct pointed at it, it might be a nice halfway house between what you have now and a duct fastened straight to the backing plate. Hopefully it would get some more air to the centre portion of the disc and out through the vanes in it.
Part number: 34116792238
I am tracking the temps and currently they look to be stable and good, however on a shorter circuit it may well still be inadequate
Demelitia said:
IainWhy said:
Its an interesting idea and one i will definitely consider, there is no chance that the part will fit as the Aston knuckles are completely different to anything bmw have come up with (sadly or i would have parts for dayz) but the idea should work, my reservation would be if it was possible to angle it enough to actually get it into the airflow given the offset and width of the wheel (10j 275).
I am tracking the temps and currently they look to be stable and good, however on a shorter circuit it may well still be inadequate
It was more just an easy way to illustrate the idea rather than suggest using those exact parts.I am tracking the temps and currently they look to be stable and good, however on a shorter circuit it may well still be inadequate
I wonder if you could at least include a scoop/elongated hole in the plates that your brake ducts would be pointing at at least some of the time when the wheels are more or less straight.
Whatever you do, I’m looking forward to seeing how things progress.
braddo said:
What a fantastic thread, really enjoyed reading it all last night. The humour and all the improvised solutions make for an entertaining read.
Looking forward to seeing how the weight reduction goes. And whether that throws up more issues for suspension and ride heights
Glad your enjoying it! Looking forward to seeing how the weight reduction goes. And whether that throws up more issues for suspension and ride heights
Hopefully the ride height should be fine, i could run the car far lower than currently so if i do get lift and topping out i can easily drop it down. It doesnt look all that low in the pictures, but in reality any lower and i am going to take the underside off it, the 18 inch wheels also optically raise it up a bit. By eye i would say that the arms are close to parralel as it currently stands, so dropping it down much would also likely put the roll centre underground, or at least outside the mass of the car.
I definately need to look at the rake of the car though, at present its about level, but I would prefer a bit of positive rake fromt the rear...the messing never ends
Ok, so will try and get this stuff down in one hit, so this may be quite a long one.
With little time to go things were getting a bit busy, i had no confidence that rh Zestino softs would last the trip, but the Z4 race car that i co own with ollie runs a compatible tyre size and that car is currently on NS2-R's which we also had some spares for. So i asked ollie to chuck a pair in the discovery to give me a bit of backup and ordered a pair of 285/18 NS2-R's for the rear. We know from experience that the NS2-r's just last forever even on quite a heavy car, and while they are the last word in absolutely nothing being quite a slow tyre in track tyre terms, they are more than fine for having a bit of fun.
I still had PDC holes in the front bumper so printed out a pair or blanks and painted them with a brush with the left over paint from the bumper (pebble beach here i come).
I also needed to be able to properly charge devices as its a long old drive, i printed out this weird looking thing:
cut a sheet of aluminum to replace the existing "cup holder" base and painted it black, i then nicked the voltmeter / usb ports out of the m3 race car and connected it to a little clip in spur loom that runs off the fag lighter.
I will re make this in a few weeks as although its ok, it could be better and more functional. it did however give me a way to track battery drain and give me for warning of any "no start" condition something the tracker has been giving me too frequently.
At this point the new rear boots turned up and were thrown on the back , i did make a half hearted attempts at getting some geometry on the car, but ultimately i had left it too late, the car drives straight but the toe is unequal and its a bit blunt, still sometimes you just have to work with what you have.
So just the commute aspect of the trip looked like this, plus 3 days on track, 2 days at SPA with RMA and then a day at zolder with Skylimit
That map incorporates me going to see my mum in the Cotswold's and a trip to AHM to get the car mapped, the EGR coded out and the tracker decommissioned, air bag lights shut off etc etc etc.
So, rocked up at my old dears at 3am then off at 7am same day to get down the AHM. Nice easy drive and a nice setup at AHM, adrian seems a very decent chap and doesn't blow smoke about anything he doesn't know which was refreshing.
All the software changes were completed though the complete removal of the secondary sensors may take another tweak. Post changes the car felt a good bit stronger, throttle response was finally something worth talking about most of the lights were out and the tracker didnt run the battery flat in two days. so all in all a bit of a result.
Bill was a bit aston martin-y which is why all else is DIY but somethings you just cant do, and sadly i dont have the knowledge or AMDS to self serve on coding side. Either way, good people to deal with and a good job done so a thumbs up from me. You also get to spend some time in Hartley Wintney, where you will feel simultaneously poor and like an extra in mid summer murders.
With the coding work done, i caught up with my family for a day (about 6 hours too long) before heading down to folkstone to catch the sea tube, then onto Spa.
This was as you can imagine, a fair hike but the car was drama free and was reporting considerably improved economy post remap as you no longer have to fuel cool the cats.
Day one at Spa greeted us with bright sunshine and post the standard briefing and arm banding we were good to go. Worth noting that these days run to Euro rules, to its over taking both sides, not just on the straights etc etc.
I popped out just to start re familiarizing myself (been 12 months since last at Spa) particularly as the car on track is new to me, when i noticed Ollie in the grass at Stavelot so came in to see what the drama was, turned out that the e36 had eaten its own face off when the front splitter had been dragged under the front wheels, this had pulled the rad into the pullies killed the belts etc etc
We spent some time getting it fundamentally back straight before Ollie jumped back in with me for a few laps. (it made a full recovery later in the day with the addition of a bag of zip ties).
At this point i thought i would see if i could get away with running the exhaust open. which it seems i cant, but only just.
Here is a little footage with the flaps open. its all a bit tentative and a bit of a mess, but really this is just for the sound.
Shortly after this, i was black flagged for noise (expected)
As you can see from my posterity mugshot, the car was pumping out 104db, the limit was 105, as such i think they were a bit concerned that i would be at some point infringing the limit, so a set the flaps to closed and carried on without issue as the car is whisper quiet when baffled, too quit really as it gives you a little bit less audible signal that you would ideally want.
Day one passed without incident, many many laps, many many tanks of fuel and the zestino's were unsurprisingly looking a bit sad, some of this will have been down to Geo as the centers still looked pretty good but the inner and outer were pretty skinny and largely attached to the wrong side of the rim.
on the plus side brake cooling was looking spot on with the temp trackers showing no signs of anything concerning even after 40 minute stints.
Here is the car in pride of place (outside the lower paddock bogs) and covered in a thousand miles of road grime and rubber and a few of it going round where even though i am too cheap to but the images you can see its minging in the thumbnails
The evening was spent talking bks, and eating carpaccio and steak on a rock and pinoccio's
carpaccio, is something that you just don't see in the uk, and its a real shame, I think its something to do with our aversion to raw things.
Then onto day 2, where it was fking tiling it down.
With my front tyres being a bit iffy i buggered off to try and get the nankangs fitted, this involved visiting a number of Belgian garages , in once case where the proprietor was chatting with his mate in an empty garage where i was told he was far to busy for my bullst ultimately a kindly local showed me a place in Malmedy "Mr Pnus" who understood my rubbish French and fitted both tyres in 5 minutes flat for 40 eur, use these guys if your in a jam at Spa.
With the tyres fitted i returned to the track and just got on with it, frankly the car was really not bad at all in the wet and the NS2-r's which have been frankly a bit frightening on the z4 on anything other than a dry track seemed to work really quite well all things considered.
As the day progressed the climate became kinder and the track largely dried.
This resulted in a sub 3 minute time in the car which i was pretty pleased with considering the modest tyre, vehicle weight and carrying 85kgs of penalty bacon (ollie passengering).
Some slightly more cohesive laps here:
Please note, these sound super boring as the exhaust is quiet, and there is the occasional odd noise from the passenger as he was looking at times. best lap probably starts at around 9mins so you don't have to be subject to the preceeding tedium, Also as i am not in a audi TDI and am not ithe reincarnation of Fangio, I wasnt able to set an all out track record to the soundtrack of fat of the land.
With all this "positivity" there was bound to be some fail, coming to the end of Kemmel i slightly fked and upshift resulting in me having to give the gear lever a bit of a shove, which then felt weird, and then revealed itself at the downshift at Les Combs to be buggered in that once again i was left with a floppy shaft and no drive.
We coasted to a stop at Bruxelles to enjoy some marshal hospitality
Having created a rolling yellow to get recovered i got under the car and burned my arm on the gearbox to find that the securing clamp had opened up and buggered off resutling in the cable doing its usual trick of coming off .THe CV had vented a little grease on the same side so initially that looked a bit concerning. Fortunately the clamp had not gone far and was sitting on top of the transaxle (located with a bit of hand in oven feeling about) so i hammered it back into shape, put the cable back on, did the clamp up really really tight and carried on lapping to the end of the day.
From there it was a case of not bothering to wash the car and getting packed up for the trip to Zolder, this was preceded by a trip to see Valient Ecosse and the Ring, to spend a load of euros on something unnecessary and stupid but will cover that at another time.
More when i get a chance.
With little time to go things were getting a bit busy, i had no confidence that rh Zestino softs would last the trip, but the Z4 race car that i co own with ollie runs a compatible tyre size and that car is currently on NS2-R's which we also had some spares for. So i asked ollie to chuck a pair in the discovery to give me a bit of backup and ordered a pair of 285/18 NS2-R's for the rear. We know from experience that the NS2-r's just last forever even on quite a heavy car, and while they are the last word in absolutely nothing being quite a slow tyre in track tyre terms, they are more than fine for having a bit of fun.
I still had PDC holes in the front bumper so printed out a pair or blanks and painted them with a brush with the left over paint from the bumper (pebble beach here i come).
I also needed to be able to properly charge devices as its a long old drive, i printed out this weird looking thing:
cut a sheet of aluminum to replace the existing "cup holder" base and painted it black, i then nicked the voltmeter / usb ports out of the m3 race car and connected it to a little clip in spur loom that runs off the fag lighter.
I will re make this in a few weeks as although its ok, it could be better and more functional. it did however give me a way to track battery drain and give me for warning of any "no start" condition something the tracker has been giving me too frequently.
At this point the new rear boots turned up and were thrown on the back , i did make a half hearted attempts at getting some geometry on the car, but ultimately i had left it too late, the car drives straight but the toe is unequal and its a bit blunt, still sometimes you just have to work with what you have.
So just the commute aspect of the trip looked like this, plus 3 days on track, 2 days at SPA with RMA and then a day at zolder with Skylimit
That map incorporates me going to see my mum in the Cotswold's and a trip to AHM to get the car mapped, the EGR coded out and the tracker decommissioned, air bag lights shut off etc etc etc.
So, rocked up at my old dears at 3am then off at 7am same day to get down the AHM. Nice easy drive and a nice setup at AHM, adrian seems a very decent chap and doesn't blow smoke about anything he doesn't know which was refreshing.
All the software changes were completed though the complete removal of the secondary sensors may take another tweak. Post changes the car felt a good bit stronger, throttle response was finally something worth talking about most of the lights were out and the tracker didnt run the battery flat in two days. so all in all a bit of a result.
Bill was a bit aston martin-y which is why all else is DIY but somethings you just cant do, and sadly i dont have the knowledge or AMDS to self serve on coding side. Either way, good people to deal with and a good job done so a thumbs up from me. You also get to spend some time in Hartley Wintney, where you will feel simultaneously poor and like an extra in mid summer murders.
With the coding work done, i caught up with my family for a day (about 6 hours too long) before heading down to folkstone to catch the sea tube, then onto Spa.
This was as you can imagine, a fair hike but the car was drama free and was reporting considerably improved economy post remap as you no longer have to fuel cool the cats.
Day one at Spa greeted us with bright sunshine and post the standard briefing and arm banding we were good to go. Worth noting that these days run to Euro rules, to its over taking both sides, not just on the straights etc etc.
I popped out just to start re familiarizing myself (been 12 months since last at Spa) particularly as the car on track is new to me, when i noticed Ollie in the grass at Stavelot so came in to see what the drama was, turned out that the e36 had eaten its own face off when the front splitter had been dragged under the front wheels, this had pulled the rad into the pullies killed the belts etc etc
We spent some time getting it fundamentally back straight before Ollie jumped back in with me for a few laps. (it made a full recovery later in the day with the addition of a bag of zip ties).
At this point i thought i would see if i could get away with running the exhaust open. which it seems i cant, but only just.
Here is a little footage with the flaps open. its all a bit tentative and a bit of a mess, but really this is just for the sound.
Shortly after this, i was black flagged for noise (expected)
As you can see from my posterity mugshot, the car was pumping out 104db, the limit was 105, as such i think they were a bit concerned that i would be at some point infringing the limit, so a set the flaps to closed and carried on without issue as the car is whisper quiet when baffled, too quit really as it gives you a little bit less audible signal that you would ideally want.
Day one passed without incident, many many laps, many many tanks of fuel and the zestino's were unsurprisingly looking a bit sad, some of this will have been down to Geo as the centers still looked pretty good but the inner and outer were pretty skinny and largely attached to the wrong side of the rim.
on the plus side brake cooling was looking spot on with the temp trackers showing no signs of anything concerning even after 40 minute stints.
Here is the car in pride of place (outside the lower paddock bogs) and covered in a thousand miles of road grime and rubber and a few of it going round where even though i am too cheap to but the images you can see its minging in the thumbnails
The evening was spent talking b
ks, and eating carpaccio and steak on a rock and pinoccio's carpaccio, is something that you just don't see in the uk, and its a real shame, I think its something to do with our aversion to raw things.
Then onto day 2, where it was f
king tiling it down. With my front tyres being a bit iffy i buggered off to try and get the nankangs fitted, this involved visiting a number of Belgian garages , in once case where the proprietor was chatting with his mate in an empty garage where i was told he was far to busy for my bulls
t ultimately a kindly local showed me a place in Malmedy "Mr Pnus" who understood my rubbish French and fitted both tyres in 5 minutes flat for 40 eur, use these guys if your in a jam at Spa. With the tyres fitted i returned to the track and just got on with it, frankly the car was really not bad at all in the wet and the NS2-r's which have been frankly a bit frightening on the z4 on anything other than a dry track seemed to work really quite well all things considered.
As the day progressed the climate became kinder and the track largely dried.
This resulted in a sub 3 minute time in the car which i was pretty pleased with considering the modest tyre, vehicle weight and carrying 85kgs of penalty bacon (ollie passengering).
Some slightly more cohesive laps here:
Please note, these sound super boring as the exhaust is quiet, and there is the occasional odd noise from the passenger as he was looking at times. best lap probably starts at around 9mins so you don't have to be subject to the preceeding tedium, Also as i am not in a audi TDI and am not ithe reincarnation of Fangio, I wasnt able to set an all out track record to the soundtrack of fat of the land.
With all this "positivity" there was bound to be some fail, coming to the end of Kemmel i slightly f
ked and upshift resulting in me having to give the gear lever a bit of a shove, which then felt weird, and then revealed itself at the downshift at Les Combs to be buggered in that once again i was left with a floppy shaft and no drive. We coasted to a stop at Bruxelles to enjoy some marshal hospitality
Having created a rolling yellow to get recovered i got under the car and burned my arm on the gearbox to find that the securing clamp had opened up and buggered off resutling in the cable doing its usual trick of coming off .THe CV had vented a little grease on the same side so initially that looked a bit concerning. Fortunately the clamp had not gone far and was sitting on top of the transaxle (located with a bit of hand in oven feeling about) so i hammered it back into shape, put the cable back on, did the clamp up really really tight and carried on lapping to the end of the day.
From there it was a case of not bothering to wash the car and getting packed up for the trip to Zolder, this was preceded by a trip to see Valient Ecosse and the Ring, to spend a load of euros on something unnecessary and stupid but will cover that at another time.
More when i get a chance.
Edited by IainWhy on Monday 26th September 00:44
Edited by IainWhy on Monday 26th September 01:11
seefarr said:
Great stuff. The noise with the valves open is pretty bloody addictive - I swapped to my good headphones to get the full experience!
Yea, it does sound great but its a little much really, the issue i now have is that quiet is a bit too quiet and loud is a bit too loud, i need to find the goldilocks' zone. i think i know how to do it but until i test the idea i wont know if i am just fantasizing BrettMRC said:
That's awesome - the brakes seem to be holding up really well too!
They really did, there is a bit of air in the rear still as once fully upto temperature the pedal feel changes (firms up) which i think is pressure in the system so another fluid change is on the cards.Carlos24 said:
I can’t believe how much quieter the exhaust is with the flaps shut, sounds mega with them open. Do you get any reduction in performance with the flaps shut at all?
Yea, its a real polar opposite, basically with the flaps open it bypasses the v12 backbox entirely so its more or less straight through.Its hard to know performance wise, with the map and other adjustments the car should be making over 400HP (until i dyno it this is pure speculation) so if having the flaps shut costs you 10 hp would you notice? i ran the car down kemmel flat out with the valves open and shut, and didnt notice any significant drop in pace with the flaps shut, but then so much of that is how many of my balls i extracted from my purse into la source so its hard to know.
Ultimately, i think its something for a dyno run to decide at some point
Carlos24 said:
I can’t imagine it loses anything going through the V12 backbox to be fair I didn’t realise that it just bypassed it in full noise mode but that makes sense from hearing it. I remember hearing a normal V8 vantage and thinking it sounded brilliant (not sure if it was a 4.3 or 4.7) so yours in the flesh must sound amazing, I’m fairly surprised I can’t hear it occasionally as I live by the coast in heysham/Morecambe haha
Its a little bit too loud as it currently is, certainly not something you can use near people, it also telegraphs your speed over a bit too long a distance for my liking, as in on the right day with the right wind, i recon you could hear it it Heysham therealsamdailly said:
Thanks for the update. I love this thread so much, it gets better everytime
Thanks dude, always nice to know people get something out of it.Ok so aiming to wrap up this trip and talk a bit about what next.
Picking up from where i left off, we packed up and headed down to Zolder, or at least i did, Ollie decided that it was far too late to be trailering st about in the pissing rain so i aquaplaned my way down the motorway for a bit, then faffed about trying to wake someone up in the hotel to let me in. I was just about hitting the point where i was starting to come to terms with it being a night trying to sleep in a bucket seat when the intercom came to life and i was informed that there was a key at reception and i could find my own damn room
Following a good kip and a superb breakfast it was still absolutely tiling it down. At this point i kind of chickened out a bit, Zolder is probably my favorite all round circuit experience, but it also feels like somewhere you could have a good accident. I have come off there before at the end of the pit straight when i blew a coolant hose, and while its funny now, it could have been a pretty bad do.
As such when ollie rocked up[ in the morning we signed on dumped the car and trailer in the paddock and buggered off across belgium to pick up a load of old e30 Group A parts, this took fking ages.
By the time we made it back it was midday and it was still pissing it down. I finally managed to get a solitary testicle out of my purse and get out, where upon it was absolutely fine, the tender springs produced some grip where higher rates wouldn't and the car felt largely stable even at reasonable pace with only 4wd's and those on wets running significantly quicker. This was a bit annoying as ultimately i had wasted quite a bit of track time by being a fanny.
There are only a few pictures of the car as even though it started to dry up, i think the photographer had sacked tit off early as a st job, which to be fair was entirely understandable.
So Leason leaned, stop being a fanny when it rains and you dont have wets.
towards the very end of the day the track was starting to dry and get greasy which lead to some faster is slidier laps. I did crack the exhaust open which resulted in a pretty much immediate black flagging. In all the times i have been to zolder i have come to the conclusion that they honestly dont give a solitary toss about anything other than noise. "you want to go 4 abreast into over a blind crest into a chicane, no worries, just do it quietly" Its ont of the reasons its always an exciting day.
We lapped until the closing minutes of the day where another red flag closed the day down 10 minutes early, before heading off to the onsite bar for a celebratory beer and bizarre cigar.
The return leg was as you would image a drive from zolder to welshpool to be, long, faffy and not in any way fulfilling other than having made it without significant issue.
By the time i arrived at Ollies my car was so minging that if you drushed against the outside you needed a change of clothes.
The above picture doesnt adequately convey the ming but you can see on the sill where just by getting in and out i have cleaned part of the skirt with my leg, the whole car was sort of brown.
Given that Ollie has just set up a fancy New storage facility " Apex storage " I availed myself of all his cleaning gear and set to work. to be fair this is probably the cleanest its been in months, but i felt i should reward it for generally being good (weird i know).
#
From here i pressed on the following day upto Heysham to complete my ferry back home.
All in all the car had covered the best part of 2500 miles in a week with a good number of those being on track, before leaving i had changed the oil for Shell Helix 10-60 racing which to be honest i swaer by (i run it in all my track cars and also in the engines produced for Ollies and its always been excellent at keeping the insides on the inside) It still looks golden so the internal temperatures look to have been good, never the less it will be changed again in the next week or two (another 10 litres of liquid gold)
So whats next?
Yea, the n24 dash, this is what i went off to buy in Germany
It was really expensive and probably really unnecessary, but i had decided i wanted it. It will enable, eventually some significant weight saving but will also be a complete knob to fit as all the electronics that are integrated into the center console form part of both the CAN gateways and the MOST network so if anyone knows someone who is a particular genius on these cars electronically I would love to hear about it!
It is i believe one of 2 left, all the GT4 cars are flappy paddle, so only the N24 cars had a manual console, and there were only 25? i think, n24 cars produced.
It will be a long old job to fit it properly, but i hope, it will be worth the effort. Its in raw prepreg but i have waxed it just to keep it looking nice.
That, is where i am at currently, i will continue to update as things progress.
Thanks for reading!
Picking up from where i left off, we packed up and headed down to Zolder, or at least i did, Ollie decided that it was far too late to be trailering s
t about in the pissing rain so i aquaplaned my way down the motorway for a bit, then faffed about trying to wake someone up in the hotel to let me in. I was just about hitting the point where i was starting to come to terms with it being a night trying to sleep in a bucket seat when the intercom came to life and i was informed that there was a key at reception and i could find my own damn room Following a good kip and a superb breakfast it was still absolutely tiling it down. At this point i kind of chickened out a bit, Zolder is probably my favorite all round circuit experience, but it also feels like somewhere you could have a good accident. I have come off there before at the end of the pit straight when i blew a coolant hose, and while its funny now, it could have been a pretty bad do.
As such when ollie rocked up[ in the morning we signed on dumped the car and trailer in the paddock and buggered off across belgium to pick up a load of old e30 Group A parts, this took f
king ages. By the time we made it back it was midday and it was still pissing it down. I finally managed to get a solitary testicle out of my purse and get out, where upon it was absolutely fine, the tender springs produced some grip where higher rates wouldn't and the car felt largely stable even at reasonable pace with only 4wd's and those on wets running significantly quicker. This was a bit annoying as ultimately i had wasted quite a bit of track time by being a fanny.
There are only a few pictures of the car as even though it started to dry up, i think the photographer had sacked tit off early as a s
t job, which to be fair was entirely understandable. So Leason leaned, stop being a fanny when it rains and you dont have wets.
towards the very end of the day the track was starting to dry and get greasy which lead to some faster is slidier laps. I did crack the exhaust open which resulted in a pretty much immediate black flagging. In all the times i have been to zolder i have come to the conclusion that they honestly dont give a solitary toss about anything other than noise. "you want to go 4 abreast into over a blind crest into a chicane, no worries, just do it quietly" Its ont of the reasons its always an exciting day.
We lapped until the closing minutes of the day where another red flag closed the day down 10 minutes early, before heading off to the onsite bar for a celebratory beer and bizarre cigar.
The return leg was as you would image a drive from zolder to welshpool to be, long, faffy and not in any way fulfilling other than having made it without significant issue.
By the time i arrived at Ollies my car was so minging that if you drushed against the outside you needed a change of clothes.
The above picture doesnt adequately convey the ming but you can see on the sill where just by getting in and out i have cleaned part of the skirt with my leg, the whole car was sort of brown.
Given that Ollie has just set up a fancy New storage facility " Apex storage " I availed myself of all his cleaning gear and set to work. to be fair this is probably the cleanest its been in months, but i felt i should reward it for generally being good (weird i know).
# From here i pressed on the following day upto Heysham to complete my ferry back home.
All in all the car had covered the best part of 2500 miles in a week with a good number of those being on track, before leaving i had changed the oil for Shell Helix 10-60 racing which to be honest i swaer by (i run it in all my track cars and also in the engines produced for Ollies and its always been excellent at keeping the insides on the inside) It still looks golden so the internal temperatures look to have been good, never the less it will be changed again in the next week or two (another 10 litres of liquid gold
) So whats next?
- Loads, too much to go in to really, more work on the suspension side though bushing and geometry related this time.
- I need some sort of cage and harness solution. i had rubbed the skin off my left knee holding myself in the seat against the tunnel by the end of the 3rd day.
- I need some sort of final solution for the gearbox cables as it cant keep on coming off
- more weight out
- maybe some sort of moderate aero
- some quality of life upgrades
- make "loud" less loud so i can make a bit more noise without it being so excessive
- probably a little bit of tarting about (not much)
- Fit the n24 dashboard
Yea, the n24 dash, this is what i went off to buy in Germany
It was really expensive and probably really unnecessary, but i had decided i wanted it. It will enable, eventually some significant weight saving but will also be a complete knob to fit as all the electronics that are integrated into the center console form part of both the CAN gateways and the MOST network so if anyone knows someone who is a particular genius on these cars electronically I would love to hear about it!
It is i believe one of 2 left, all the GT4 cars are flappy paddle, so only the N24 cars had a manual console, and there were only 25? i think, n24 cars produced.
It will be a long old job to fit it properly, but i hope, it will be worth the effort. Its in raw prepreg but i have waxed it just to keep it looking nice.
That, is where i am at currently, i will continue to update as things progress.
Thanks for reading!
Edited by IainWhy on Thursday 29th September 12:01
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