Ekona

Depending on final cost that may be the route, we'll see. How can a single piston be better than multi though? Weight perhaps, but otherwise I'm struggling to see it.

True though

Only OEM at this point, albeit brand new stuff so I know how it's been used. Trouble is I'm loathe to drop a grand on pads and discs to end up only a fraction better off, I can barely trigger the ABS in this car so I know it's clamping force I'm missing out on too, hence wanting more pistons.

They're ace on track, very light and that engine revs to high heaven. Cheap to run as well, which is good.

I'll give them a shout, cheers fella.

Unless the equipment fails to record the data because of breakdown, then the operator enters a pass or fail manually. Allegedly.

Won't fit sadly And also mega bucks, probably double the value of the car if I fitted them

Mate of mine who has my old VXR220 outbraked himself on that corner once, put it onto the wet grass in a spin and went sailing straight across on the track the other side of the banking... VERY lucky there wasn't anything on that side of the track!

Ooh that could be a good option, thanks Adrian Not sure exactly what specs you'd need, but I'm looking at 355x32 front and rear, four piston front and twin piston rear (OEM is single piston front and rear, anything has to be an improvement on that!). I'm guessing a large part of the cost would be the adaptor bracket which would need to be spot on. Oh, and the rear disc is a handbrake drum setup, just like the 350. You can see why I'm thinking this might be the way to go...

Given the pisspoor brakes on track on the Bummer at the weekend, it would seem a reasonable place to start looking to upgrade. I was going to go for just pads and discs, but tbh I may as well look and see if I can do a BBK for sensible money. Unfortunately the only sensible money option is Stoptech, which would be fine but you need a 19" wheel to make it fit which I do not want to do. So my brain starts thinking, how hard is it to build a custom setup? Thinking about the Brembo setup on the 350, the cars weigh about the same (mine is 1640 and a roadster is about the same) and I was always happy with the setup on my old car, so why not start there? So what do I need in theory? - Calipers - Brackets - What else? Ignoring any balance issues here for now, as I suspect that more or less the car layout will be fine for this (happy to be proven wrong), is it literally just a case of custom brackets? What other things do I need to take into account? What issues may/will I come up against? The BMW has brake pad wear sensors, I'm assuming I can simply by pass these somehow though and not worry about it. Current calipers are single pot right now, albeit a f*cking great big one. Cooling ducts installed as standard. All theoretical for flow, but I'd love to expand my knowledge on this. Any and all helpful input welcome.

Lucky, lucky man! That corner catches a lot of people out, it's a much later turn in than people give it credit for. Love Anglesey, second favourite track behind Spa.

Darwin in action

Easy answer is to disconnect the dashcam, and see if the problem carries on. If it doesn't then the problem is the battery, if not it's the dsshcam. Although I also have a Blackvue and I've had zero battery issues, even on the Bummer with it's ridiculously complex battery conditioning gumpf.

I was disappointed with that, I didn't enjoy the way the levels rushed you if you wanted to get certain executions. Hitman for me always worked best as a game you could take your time with.

On an aftermarket turbo conversion from a private seller? Would any warranty company even cover that? Genuine question, I've no idea. I rather like that. Very sleeper.

I had the Summit x-brace under mine, even at stock heights it was almost sacrificial at times with the scraping

Also, if anyone has a GTX 1070 or 1080, I have a code available for either For Honor or Wildlands if you want to make me an offer for it. Must be one of those two cards though sadly, and even a cheeky offer will do as it'll just go to waste otherwise.

I caved and bought Ghost Recon Wldlands. Despite the horrendous bugs (and they're still there, from getting trapped in the landscape to textures not loading to entire mission-critical objects not loading!), there's a wealth of fun content here. Map is huge, loads to do albeit repetitive, but no denying it is fun. Frustrating though is that the air defence and hammers spawn back after about 30mins, which seems ridiculous. And god forbid you come across a Unidad force, that just escalates like a madman. I also bought a GTX 1080 following the huge £150 price drop before the 1080Ti is launched, and I'm all set for Mass Effect Andromeda this week Bought Origin Access too, £20 for the year plus £10 off games, so it's only cost me £15 so far really as I was always going to get MEA

Is that thread still going the rounds?! Good read though.

Doubt it, more like slips the guy a fresh £20 on top. Or maybe there are belts fitted?

People get terrified about oil usage and engine rebuilds, but they don't realise that rotary engines are specifically designed to use oil injected from the sump as well as wear the tips of the rotors, so although they seem to be terribly fragile that's just how they are! Assuming he had a compression test done (if not do so asap), install a Sohn adaptor and feed the engine two-stroke instead. Easiest thing in the world to do, much easier to keep the engine in good nick then.

The flick after Brundle was fine, no issues with a loose rear there at all: In fact I was amazed at just how well the car changed direction at that point. Coming onto the pit straight was much more awkward though, without decent brakes it meant I was never really able to carry enough speed through Coram to really get the car on it. Yup, on 18s, and will be grabbing something stickier soon. Probably going to stick with either Toyos or Michelin, although it's a bugger trying to find a 275 rear. Will have a look and see if we're busy on the 17th, may well take you up on that

If you mean IMS, no. It doesn't have the direct injection of the gen2 3.4, but neither does it have the intermediate main shaft design.

Nearly two years exactly after her first track day, I final got a chance to take the Bummer back out and this is the first time she's been tracked since I started the upgrade program. Snetterton 300 was the destination, never been there before either so a baptism of fire all round Nice and dry all day, temps in double figures, couldn't really ask for better conditions. The track layout is reasonably easy to learn and get to grips with, and there aren't any really odd corners that need you to take a bizarre line or anything like that. As long as you remember that every single corner here is a very late apex, you can't go wrong. So how was the car? Both superb and useless, in equal measures I spent the first couple of sessions with the dampers in road settings to get used to the track, however these proved to be way too soft still so I bumped them up by a further 5 clicks all round (now sitting at 5 from stiff at the front and 10 from stiff at the rear). This transformed the handling, and meant I had far more confidence to really lean on the car. At 1642kg full it's not really something you can throw in, and I had to massively adjust my driving style to suit as it simply won't pivot very quickly on the apex. It means you can't really chuck the car in as I usually do on track, and you must maintain a very smooth driving style to keep the balance and pace up. Actually very rewarding when you get it right, and start a nice flow going. I also tried a little experiment... To wing or not to wing, that is the question? Center Gravity suggested that where I located the wing along with the angle of it meant that it might actually be doing something useful after all, so I removed it and tried some hideously unscientific tests. On the Bentley Straight I was losing about 10mph by the braking point due to drag (not really surprising), however it was the corners that fascinated me. Low speed stuff was irrelevant, but the higher speed corners like Riches and Coram were very noticeable: With wing off, turn in was sharper however I was unable to get the power down quite so quickly without unsettling the rear. Wing back on and I got the opposite, turn in was blunted but the grip under power was improved. I mean we're talking fractions here really, and tbh either setting didn't make such a difference that I'd prefer it, so the wing stays on purely for looks. The biggest issue I had were the brakes. I'm on OEM all round, great on the road but one hard lap and they're toast. Grumbly, fading, squealing, just not good. Coming into Brundle (fnar) I ended up lifting and doing two applications, just to get the car to slow down enough. I'm already looking at discs and pads (looks like I share a brake pad size with the E92 M3 so CL RC5+ should be available, and a disc with the E92 335i so options there too) as going for a full BBK setup is north of £3K, and tbh I don't and won't track the car that much to make it worth while. Comparing the car to others on the, I was noticeably faster through Hamilton than pretty much everything else barring the Caterhams, and I'd not sure why. I caught a 997.2 GT3 through there and into Oggies at a rapid rate of knots every lap, but he'd then murder me under braking and bugger off. I managed to blag a few pax rides with a race-spec EP3 and a Mountune FRS mk3, and my entry speeds were almost identical to theirs so I was pleased in that respect as both drivers were seriously capable of piloting their machines. We were all on road tyres too (me on MPSS, EP3 on ContiSC5, and the FRS on Neovas) so nothing to distinguish there. This is the first time I've properly tracked the MPSS, and given they're half dead already I was cautious with my use of them as I didn't want to kill them sliding round the hairpins all day. Which, btw, is hilariously easy to do in something as big as the Bummer. No need to fear though, they were absolutely wonderful. Plenty of dry grip, nowhere near as squealing as the Contis, and they wore perfectly evenly all over which shows what a great job CG did on the alignment for me. I still want a set of semi slicks for the car, but no-one should fear tracking on MPSS at all. The Contis I wouldn't use, as the Civic owner had to stop by 3pm as they'd started to disintegrate with chunks coming off the outer shoulder...! Not good. All in all, it was a brilliant day and in a brilliant car only hampered by typical BMW brakes. Everything else though came together perfectly, from the suspension settings to the seat being proper comfy AND supportive enough for track use, and being able to finally use the power the car has. Time to book the next one up now, methinks

Only illegal if you use them, otherwise they remain an MOT failure only.