brillomaster

what year/engine do you have? some engines use more oil than others... i have a DE and it doesnt use any at all. but even so, 2 litres in a month is definitely high!

oh definitely, if i had the money an E46 M3 would be my ideal track car i think, fair play to you for going for it! in terms of handling balance, just have to drive it and see how you get on - we were finding that we could turn in and clip apexes just fine, but then when it comes to getting on the power again, the front just starts washing wide, which is frustrating and not what you want from a RWD car! but we have made precisely zero dynamic mods to the 330ci so far (only been on two trackdays with it, the old E36 managed 12). i imagine if its set up as a track car it will probably be plenty grippy enough. our plan in the not to distant future is 245/35/18 Federal 595 RS-Rs front and rear, and then get the alignment sorted for zero front toe. fair enough staying on airfields - although avoid Keevil as its only got 4 corners, no challenge at all. Snetterton is a good starter circuit as well, good amount of run off. Cadwell and Brands, maybe wait until you have more experience! Castle combe is down south as well, again good track for learning, we had great fun there in our E36 on our second ever trackday, taking the first corner flat at around 90mph!

Me, Will and Ken have been tracking an old 3 series for about a year and a half now - been all over the country with it. Started with an E36 328i, now we're on an E46 330ci (cant afford an M3!) in terms of handling balance, we find out cars understeer at the limit in the dry, so look at geometry of front wheels and tyre widths front and rear to try and get back to a neutral style. I imagine if you've bought a track car it will be running a square setup already, rather than the staggered setup it left the factory with. also when the back does let go in the wet, its quite easy to gather it up and correct it - certainly not snappy at the limit - although slicks will let go quicker and with less warning than road tyres! also, we've just been mounting the rear harnesses to the rear seatbelt mounting points... its a bit of an angle, but we've never had a problem with it... we cant afford to put a cage in it! as for hullavington, its ok, if you like terrorising cones. personally we've got bored of airfields now, and only do proper circuits. would recommend you make a visit to Bedford if you want to see what the cars like. only the area around the pits has anything to hit, the rest is like an airfield, but it has actual corners and kerbs to enjoy.

ah that was it, flew Thomas Cook down to Tenerife and it was pretty bad - legroom was virtually non existent. very uncomfortable 4 hrs.

I thought the racing was pretty good at the weekend - track looked like a good layout, the fast turn three looked epic. disagree with Grosjeans penalty though, not sure what else he could have done to avoid a collision, its very hard to trim a racing line to not use the exit of the corner. the other driver should have given up the move, overtaking on the outside into that kind of corner just isn't going to work, as Bottas showed later on. a drive from last to 2nd is a brilliant drive from Rosberg - makes you wonder what he would have done had he not fluffled the first turn. But I suspect Hamilton could have gone faster, but was just controlling his pace at the front. seems a shame that rosberg seems unable to play the long game - its a 50 lap race, you don't need to be leading it at the start, as long as you're leading it at the end. And yes the tyre choices did hamper the excitement, but I cant blame Pirelli for being conservative - after all if it had turned out to be a high abrasion track and they brought super soft tyres, drivers would have been coming into the pits every dozen laps or so.

looks fun, have a great day! hope the weather holds out for you... don't fancy paddock hill bend in the wet! our next trackday is donnington in two weeks, then hopefully snetterton 3 weeks after that. only do weekend days though.

we've just flown Ryanair down to Italy and didn't actually have any problems at all, in fact it was the easiest flying experience we've ever had. no check in baggage and pre printed boarding cards mean that as soon as we got to the airport, went straight through to security and into departure lounge, then plane took off on time. without problems. Made sure we were the last to board the plane, by which time everyone else was already on and in their seats. even with backpacks under our seats, still had ample legroom, and since the seats don't recline, didn't have to put up with the seat in front of us being right under our noses. yes they do try and sell you stuff, but hardly bothered us. and all for £40 return each. would definitely fly Ryanair again!

*sigh* don't you just wish you had a closed alpine road and a drift car... and a hot girlfriend also with a drift car...

Wow. That's a serious bit of kit! Would love to come out in it once you've got to grips with it. When's the first trackday?!

ah yes donington! let us know how you get on, we'll be there in 2 weeks!

whens the next outing mate?

we could get into a very lengthy discussion here about risk, excitement and driver safety, but i really should do some work so i'll keep this brief and on topic - there would be no reduction in the excitement of F1 with a closed cockpit, there would still be the exact same level of speed and wheel to wheel racing as before, so why the reluctance to introduce it? the only excitement it would remove is the small possibility that a driver gets a suspension component or a wheel impact to his head, which might kill him... which is one excitement i'm quite prepared to live without.

Drivers won't be moving at all when they're dead.

and the other half was a scream of a high revving V8 or V10 engine... that went out the door didn't it!

hmm, seems that LMP1 cars probably have closed cockpits because they can, and because its better - didn't realise the current F1 regulations forbid closed cockpits.

I always thought F1 should be the pinnacle of racing, whatever form that takes. obviously cars today look completely different to when f1 started, and a lot of those changes are dictated by safety requirements. F1 is already severely hampered by the FIA regulations regarding engine size, the cars could go faster but rules dictate how fast they go - and the reduction in speed is down to safety. I don't see anything wrong with a cockpit for the driver - the concept posted above looks awesome. the FIA just needs to make it a rule and teams will make it work. in contrast to F1, why did the FIA decide that LMP1 cars must have a closed cockpit design, if not for the fact that the ridiculous speeds involved mandated a closed cockpit for safety? EDIT just read that LMP1 and LMP2 cars can be either closed or open cockpit design, so let me rephrase the question - why have Audi, Porsche and Nissan all adopted closed cockpit designs for their LMP1 cars?

i'll be taking the locking wheel nuts off the wheels on the track car and replacing them with standard. considering that we'll be tightening/changing wheels fairly regularly, its just a faff having to keep swapping on a locking wheel key. Nobody is going to want some ancient bmw wheels in need of a refurb anyways. On the zed i'll keep them on - wheels get changed a lot less regularly.

speed isn't everything, if it was we'd all be driving round in the mother of all Subaru Imprezas.

so why is it again that F1 cars don't have closed cockpits? i'm sure its not aerodynamics or ease of exit, as top flight LMP1 cars have had closed cockpits for years... which leads me to believe its aesthetics, because an F1 car with a cockpit doesn't look as F1 as an open car.

you were cruising at 80 and only managed 25mpg from Lincoln to london? I can manage 27mpg on a hoon round wales, did you have all the windows down and 4 flat tyres?!?

I cant believe that ricciardo is on so little compared to Vettel, and yet this year hes been the faster driver. still, pretty good money saving move by red bull if they're swapping a driver paid 22m to one whos only paid 250,000, quite a saving! and raikkonen does seem to be somewhat overpaid - considering hes currently languishing in 11th place in the championship - he gets paid more 5 of the drivers ahead of him combined.

welcome along! how did you get on with the 650i? i'm kind of considering going the other way and swapping my 350z in for a 645ci, what was the servicing like?

have you considered a buddyclub system? similar price to the first linked exhaust above.

Well after a couple of years of faithful service stuck to my windscreen, my trusty 350z tax disc holder decided this evening to unstick itself and fall on the floor, merely days after the new rules meant you don't have to display a tax disc any more. Message received tax disc, my windscreen does look a lot better without you in bottom corner... clever tax disc! so, one 350z tax disc holder, free to a good home?

sheesh that's an awful lot of cash for an awful lot of bodykit. I think a better game would be 'what else can you spend £135,000 on instead of that monstrosity?' I'll start the bidding with this: http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201409247659683/sort/default/price-from/100000/postcode/cv313bf/onesearchad/used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew/make/lamborghini/radius/1500/page/2/usedcars?logcode=p