G1en's 95% race car 5% stickers Zed build

[Kieran O'Quick]

Racing Jap white.. Rattle can 

[G1en]

Rattle can on a £1700 set of wheels?

 

booked in at powder coaters week after next so you will see the new colour at next round, hopefully they will have some nice options. 

[G1en]

Next Installment:

 

The week after the last event, I decided to assess the damage and get the car sorted. Below is the pic of my cherished wheel that took the brunt of the impact but testament to its strength, no cracks or buckeling:

 

and the small amount of bodywork damage was touched up with a little primer and black paint, some of you will cringe at this but its now 90% race car (may need to edit title again....)

so minor cosmetic issues are disregarded now:

 

 

If you watch the video, I am still amazed at how little damage there was to the car after hitting a barrier, I still needed to get it aligned and checked over for any unforeseen damage so I booked in at my usual place and thought why not order a couple of Ultra racing braces from @Tarmac@TarmacSportz while I am at it and get them fitted also. So a couple of days later these turned up:

 

 

I had them fitted, straight bolt on jobby, the underseal I have done to the car paid dividence as the old braces unbolted straight out with no issues and these were plug and play, I did take a full picture of the underside whilst it was up in the air but must have accidently deleted it from my phone so only got the following 2 pics which are not great:

 

 

Anybody that read my other thread will know I had a banging noise over bumps and I now know why. The old brace was catching speed humps and the new ultra racing brace sits even lower and catches them more so my shiny new brace is now battle scared after a couple of weeks, at least I can now avoid speed humps like the plague or crawl over at 1mph.

 

 

Now, also for the people that haven't read the whole build, around 18 months back I had a lot of work done and whilst at the cougarstore, I removed the W brace to give it some TLC, now no-one needs me to tell them that these things rust as soon as they see a cloud in the sky, but I thought that sanding down, then a base coat of red oxide primer, followed by 2 coats of black hammerite, then at a later date when undersealing the car adding a layer of POV-15 and finally a coat of dynax UB would be enough to suffice and keep this thing together, here is the pic below when removed:

 

 

still the thing finds a way to rust sticking its middle finger up at some of the best products on the market, so please, if you have never checked your W brace, assume the worst (and by the worst, I mean assume its no longer even on the car!) and buy a replacement.

 

Next up were the wheels, I turned to Google for a recommendation and Mr Google told me RAW wheels at York were very good and reasonable price (£60 per wheel if you leave the car) or £50 per wheel if you just take the wheels into them. I have to say, I love the new colour, it may not be to everyones taste and I did love the original colour but I thought whilst I am having them powder coated I may as well try a different look so here it is, slightly dirty as I haven't had time to seal them yet but you get the idea:

 

 

So onto today, just done another round at Harewood and I won't go into too much detail but finished 2nd with a time of 64.99 (once again behind @Kieran O'Quick ) which is getting tiring now (just kidding mate) but the 350z gang locking out the top 2 places again. I was fairly pleased with creeping into the 64's as I gradually got quicker each run and looking now at my best times from August, I am 6 tenths down after 2 sectors so there is a chunk of time to get there. I was having starting issues all day and just couldn't get off the line fast, I have had this problem all year but somehow managed to sort it in August with 2.5 sec starts (acceptable) but quickest getaway today of 2.85 just isn't good enough, need to really sort this area out for next year. It may not have helped that when getting the car realigned (the wheel that got hit by the way was out 3 deg on toe) I decided to add more camber to the rears, car sits at around -2 camber all round now and added a little toe out to help with cornering but this will have a detrimental effect on getting of the line, reduced contact patch so time will tell if I need to tweak things further.

Pic below from today showing the new look with the satin gold wheels and my times for the day along with the final standings for the class. I was car 94.

As you can see, progressively got quicker each run and a possible 6 tenths to come off if I nail the starts but that will still leave me around quarter of a second behind Kieran, may need to get some new rubber for next season as we think the nankangs don't heat up quick enough for sprints although there is no denying they are a fantastic tyre when upto temp and great value.

 

[G1en]

Well, new year, new update. Fair amount to catch up on but always forget to capture photos when I should do, anyway, here goes:

 

At the end of September/beginning of October, can't remember exactly, Harewood had its final round of the hillclimb championship. I arrived looking to get into the 64's again and after 3 timed runs my best was a few hundredths shy. The start was the big holdback, seeing me lose half a second on previous times by sector 2, I did manage to claw back around 3 tenths on the rest of the run as the -2 camber on the rear and slight toe out helped with cornering but just didn't make up for the time lost on the start line. I can see why on circuit racing the bigger cambers help but on sprints/hillclimbs there is so much time to be gained or lost from the start I am gonna have to go back to neutral toe or slightly toe in and -1 camber or even -0.5 as when the power is put down the rear squats down as well making any camber even greater. Also I always changed up gear into 3rd one particular corner as I tried 2nd at the practice day and ended up squirming/drifting out of the corner (but that was on road tyres) with nothing to lose on the last run of the day, I tried leaving it in second, powering out and gained 3 tenths on that segment compared to any previous attempt so definitely another banker for next/this year provided its dry that is.

Anyway, final results saw me comfortably take second again with @Kieran O'Quick taking the win again with a phonominal time in the 63's now he had fully got to grips with the supercharger upgrade and pushing right upto the limit.

 

I then decided to buy a set of rays to put some wet weather tyres on ready for 2019 in case we encounter another downpour at an event as not only is it no fun in slicks but its bordering on stupidly dangerous, so thanks to @ZMANALEX I purchased a set of 4 rears in order to have a square setup and make tyre purchasing a bit simpler. Now a lot of guys in sprints run Extreme tyres and for those many of you that will not have heard about these, they are rally remoulds from Poland that come in a variety of wet and dry compounds and depending on who you talk to in the paddock are either worth 2 seconds or are a waste of money. So ever the optimist I purchased a set of wets in a soft compound which in theory would be just the ticket for a wet cold british day. I got them on the wheels and then booked a full service down at Horsham Developments. Yes its nearly 200 miles each way but I thought the car never gets a good run out and I can bed the new tyres in and check them out.

 

A few pics below as I got the SSR wheels off for the winter, the new wheels and tyres on and whilst I had the chance, gave the wheel arches and suspension components a good clean.

 

 

Then with the SSR's off and recently powder coated in the satin gold, I used one of my many products on hand to get them ceramic coated. Gtechniq C5 is well known to most people and needs no introduction but I cannot stress enough how easy it is to apply and for the price is a no brainer if you remotely like your wheels (even on a daily) as it also makes cleaning them a doddle. It probably* saves its initial cost in the amount of product (wheel cleaners) you won't have to use over its 2 year average life span. 

*this has not been tested by @ilogikal yet and I take no responsibility for the accuracy of my own comments!!! 

Anyway, pic of finished result:

 

 

Onto November and the drive down to Horsham was straightforward and without drama. I even had chance to push the Extreme tyres on some quiet country roads which at the early hour I set off were very greasy and it was around 4/5 degrees. The exact conditions I purchased them for and they didn't disappoint. The grip was immense and beyond anything I had driven in damp conditions before. When I got to Horsham and for those that have been, will know its at the end of a gravel lane, the tyres were completely coated with gravel and debris and were hot to the touch confirming that they warm up remarkably in cold conditions. 

I took a taxi into Newbury whilst the guys at Horsham did there stuff. It was a full P3 service which also included changing every oil/fluid in the car. Jez was great as he had ordered in the exact engine oil, and clutch fluid I requested along with the various other bits. Now it may be me being a tight northerner but the taxi into Newbury was about £40 IIRC and for what, around 10 miles (15 minutes) needless to say I had the same charge coming back so my Costa coffee breakfast turned out to be around the same price as my holiday to Majorca.

With my pants pulled back up to where they should reside, I got back to Jez and the team to find they had finished the car in double quick time and got me away for around 2 so I should get back for 6 which is when I had strict instruction for (I was already braced for a massive argument so this was a god send)

BUT in true Glen fashion its never quite that straightforward, oh no, the good fortune from earlier was countered with a puncture in the outside lane at 69.99mph* on the way home. The car just switched lanes to the middle lane without any input on the steering wheel and was followed with the sound of a flapping tyre, I was very surprised at how stable the car was which I am sure is partly down to the many modifications done and the setup. Anyhow, I slowed down the the hard shoulder and got out fearing the worst knowing I don't even keep the spacesaver in the boot either (weight saving for racing yo!) The rear drivers side tyre was still inflated but the tread was literally flapping around and loose, I can only descried it as delamination they talk about in F1 

So with not only a poorly zed but the prospect of a wifes wrath (as lets face it, the puncture was entirely my fault and I did it on purpose in order to spend 8 hours getting home) I headed off the motorway and to the nearest garage which thanks to google was only a couple of miles away. The car drove but it had a mind of its own and just drifted left and right but keeping to 20mph and with hazards on I got to the garage who just as I would expect had no tyres in the right size, fortunately there was a mobile tyre fitter there who worked for a tyre place in Northampton (15 miles away) so he checked what they had in stock and I asked for Michelin PS4 which they did have. Off I trundled at 20mph in what can only be described as the topgear scene when they go caravanning with a mile of tailbacks. Eventually and £300 lighter I got both rears swapped just so @Ekona does not hurl any abuse at me. Car felt back to normal and I eventually got back home as I eluded to earlier at 10:00 taking 8 hours for the 3 hour journey.

It is worth noting again, when I inspected the tyres on the hard shoulder that were very hot, too hot in my view. The temp was still low around 5 degrees but it was dry and these are a wet tyre so possibly they overheated causing them to delaminate or possibly they were a bad batch, time will tell as I still have the fronts on (which didn't get as hot) Some people will say its the age old saying, buy cheap buy twice and these are a road legal tyre so the jury is still out, what I will say is in my opinion, don't buy them as a road tyre. I will fully update on their track performance when I get to use them (and also the PS4 performance)

 

So after that escapade, the Zed was tucked up in the garage for the winter.

 

Which brings it upto this week and on new years eve I purchased this:

 

 

Before you give the dreaded sigh, let me explain. The company car (Audi A3) is costing me a fortune in tax (£200 a month) I'll not explain how it works if you don't know as I CBA but also a big factor was the cash payment I get in luei of a company car if I use my own car so I decided to get a cheap daily driver for crunching the commuting mileage. With not having any spare cash so wanting to keep it as cheap as possible whilst still adhering to the company rules (5 years old max, 5 doors, euro ncap 4/5, I googled which cars depreciate fastest and the Peugeot 308 popped up on several webpages. Strangely enough its also fairly well regarded by most reviewers. So after scouring most options on autotrader I realised that yes indeed, you could get a newer, lower mileage example of the 308 than almost every other family sized option (Focus, Golf, Leon, Civic, I30 etc..) 

What sealed the deal was this is a Blue HDI version (I take full responsibility for the little bit of sick that appeared in your mouth) but needs must and I do a lot of miles.

A few stats, 120bhp 1.6l diesel, claimed 90mpg combined! Zero Road tax, emissions of 82g, and its is nice on the inside, full touch screen display with sat nav and apple car play etc.. All for under 6k

The only downside was the edge of the drivers door had a thin strip of grey paint down to cover what I can only assume was chips that had rusted so off I went to Halford for a touch up kit to cover the paint with the right colour and also fill the numerous stone chips on the bonnet. It looks a bit of a bodge but its only along the front edge and at least its now the same colour. Love this cup which I always brew a cuppa in when working on my cars.

 

 

So that's it, welcome 2019

A massive thanks to anyone that's become a customer of Wax and Shine

A Big happy new year to everyone on the Forum

Lets see what 2019 has in store for us.

 

 

[davey_83]

Car looks fresh in the RAYS wherls.

 

Dude!! I'd have fully $hit myself on the motorway - good save pal. Surely somewhere local could have carried out the P3 service on the 350z.......

 

Happy New Year Glen 

Edited January 2, 2019 by davey_83

[G1en]

I would rather take it to @Jez @ H-Dev than trust a local garage to be honest. Always used Mitz (cougarstore) but his lift is broke and he cant get lowered cars on his other lift so have to travel. The problem with your standard garages is they dont know what your asking for. When the clutch fluid boiled before and i got it back to a local garage i asked for the RBF660 stuff and showed him it on demontweeks. He rung his two suppliers who had never heard of it or knew what it was so then said he could only change it with the bog standard stuff he had in stock which is obviously no good for my use. 

 

[G1en]

Quick Update:

 

Just finished first Harewood hillclimb event of the season, finishing 5th from 23 entered in Class 1C. 

It was a mixed bag of feelings, I knew when I rocked up at 7am to frost it was not going to be quick times on the Nankangs and things never warmed up as the day went on. My starts as per usual were abysmal BUT some of the other sectors despite the ice cold tyres were relatively quick and I even managed a PB in one sector on the final run. Each run had problems of some capacity though meaning my quickest time of 66.6 was actually 4 tenths slower than my best on the practice day the previous month in very similar conditions. 

Never the less as I said, they were some positives to take away as well as the frustration. One was the fact that the car is now feels very neutral mid corner and much of the understeer has disappear with the front camber being increase to almost -3 BUT the rear tweaking from -2 to -1 has not helped the getaways at all and I half filled the fuel tank today to try and get more weight over the rear but to no avail. I just think the Zed really needs warm tyres and warm track temps to start quick as the weight distribution is not quite there or my technique (to which I have tried many ) is S***e. Being best part of a second down within 50 yards is asking a lot to make up!

 

If you have never been to a sprint/hillclimb event, get yourself down, if you don't want to risk the car, there is plenty of action to see and every type of car you can imagine from the relatively common clio sport to the exotic supercars and single seaters. Below is just a selection of cars I was competing against today. Its modified production class so basically road legal production cars with road legal tyres (from a set list) and an MOT but some modifications are allowed (that's a hot topic it seems at the minute as the Blue Book of regs is very grey in lots of areas)

 

The Wax and Shine Machine:

 

The Beautiful Porsche 911 GT3 RS next me

 

An Aston Martin V8 Vantage:

 

An old school Porsche 911:

 

A Turbo Volvo 940:

 

An the one that always seems to get the most attention, the 40 year old Talbot Sunbeam (still mixing it with the big boys)

 

Video below shows my best run of the day although almost losing it at what is called Orchard and subsequently sliding wide onto the grass meant I finished half a second behind the said Talbot above and narrowly missed out on a top 4 prize, anyway, onwards and upwards to the next events. Just booked Japfest last week as well before the cut-off so will see many of you there, can't say my Zed will be reaching for anyones attention after the bumps and scrapes its had but I will do my best to try and at least make it look like I sell detailing stuff!

 

 

 

 

 

[Andy_Muxlow]

Some nice looking cars buddy. video wont play for me unfortunately.

[G1en]

https://youtu.be/ITkapLKeZTU

try this bud

[Andy_Muxlow]

On further inspection I think it was my Internet lol. Great video, thanks for sharing. 

[G1en]

Japfest Silverstone & Prep

 

Back home from another great Japfest day and first of all a big thank you to Andy and everyone involved in organising. Got to chat to lots of members as well as having a look round the usual mix of japans finest motoring icons. Sadly did not get the chance to watch any of the drifting as i stopped to help someone from the stand in a 350 who had broken down mid track session. Unfortunately we could not get him back running so had to call the AA. Hopefully he got home at a reasonable hour. I did get a poster signed by Bizz though (350 v8 drifter) for Masons bedroom, he might be 18 months old but never too young to start his petrolhead adventure. 

 

Anyways, rewind a week and I wanted to get the Zed looking its best for Japfest so booked in with the boss aka wife to let me have 4 hrs last Saturday and 4hrs yesterday to give the car some much needed TLC. 

If only I knew someone who sold detailing stuff locally.... but alas, i dont so had to take the strenuous 8mt walk to my wax and shine store aka utility room and raid that (again) 

 

I will quickly run through the process and products used. It was by no means a professional job but I am happy with the overall result from the time invested and it fit in well with all the other zeds on the stand today!

 

Day 1:

step 1 - spray wheels with carchem citrus degreaser diluted approx 1:10 and agitate with hogs hair brush including barrels of alloys then rinse. Wheels have already been coated in gtechniq C5 which makes cleaning much quicker and easy. 

 

Step 2 - using one of scotches finest brillo pads and some more citrus cleaner, scrub into tyres. Take note with this, if you get a “brown” lather then you will need to rinse and repeat until the suds are the normal white and most of the oils and dirt have been worked from the sidewalls. I only needed one pass as the tyres were relatively clean and had been previously coated. 

 

Step 3 - Fallout remover. You may think the wheels are now clean as i did but always remember to decontaminate them as you will be suprised how much fallout can build up. As i mainly use the car in anger now and the brakes take some abuse, i sprayed carchem revolt onto the wheels and left for a few minutes which resulted in this:

 

Step 4 - Pre Rinse of car and blast off any chunks of dirt and get into the arches and give the underside a blast best as possible with karcher k4 i use. 

 

Step 5 - Snow Foam. I mixed some more citrus cleaner in with some dedicated carchem snowfoam into the lance as it would help both clean the car and strip it of previously applied wax/sealants. Then rinsed. 

 

Step 6 - 2 Bucket Wash. I used some random shampoo i had in the garage as i didn't need it to do anything other than lubricate for the wash mitt and it did have a lovely orange sent. Yes i know i need some grit guards, might even start selling them soon...

 

Step 7 - Claying. As i had clayed the car twice in the previous 12 months i opted this time for Bilt Hambers “soft” clay which turned out to be a good choice as it was very cold and even the soft stuff took some working to make it plyable with the added benefit of not being too aggressive on the paintwork. Lubricated with some very watered down carchem clay lubricant. (You only actually need water with BH clays) but again the bubblegum scented clay lube won me over. 

 

Step 8 - DA Polisher. Then out came the DA for a one step polish on the Zed using a Lake Country Orange light cutting pad and Scholl S17 compound which is a good all rounder to give a moderate amount of cut and nice finish. If i had more time i would have used the S3 for the couple of deep marks and the S40 for the finishing but time is not my friend at this stage of my life so the one pass it had to be. 

 

One thing you can save time on when “correcting”  paint is you dont have to buff off any claying residue as such, the polish sorts all that out:

 

The paint came up quite well taking into account the polish is 3 years old and i was rushing. Reflection shot:

 

So day one finished and car looking good:

 

Day 2

step 9 - Clean Glass. Quick spray with carchem clarity glass cleaner and gtechniq mf5 glass cloth, then buffed with MF1 microfibre. 

 

Step 10 - Panel Wipe. Sprayed onto microfibres then every panel wiped so to remove all polishing residues and any other contaminants. Its at this stage you find out how good/bad your paintwork actually is. I still had minor marks and light scratches in a couple of spots but it was too late to start worrying now and overall i would say it was sitting at 7/10

 

Step 11 - Ceramic Coating. Now to do it “properly” you would do a base layer in one form of ceramic for scratch protection and a top layer in a different product for gloss/hydrophobicity. I did not have the time or patience for both so I used the gtechniq Exo V4 top coat which you can use on its own and gtechniq say do 2 coats if using it as a stand alone product, so i did, and it still has some anti swirl protection properties with it, just not as much as using a dedicated base layer ceramic. Another thing to note with these products is the car has to be dry when applying and kept dry for around 10-12 hours after. I checked apple weather which said 0% chance of rain yesterday, I then checked my eyes and the sky which was telling me something different. I decided to play it safe and move into the garage which had 3 drawbacks. I only had around a foot of space all way round the car, the lighting isnt the best and due to drawback 1 it meant i had to manipulate my body into positions it didnt want to go so my back and neck is killing me. 

My workspace below:

 

Never the less, off we go and 10 mins after starting their is hailstones coming down outside, thank the lord of my eyeballs i ignored the iphone weather forecast. 1st coat done and this is the bottle:

 

I had used slightly more than half but coat 2 goes on much faster as your not concentrating on making sure you get every last spot so it worked out i had the exact right amount in the 30ml bottle. Leave to fully cure overnight. 

 

Step 12 - Exhaust. Used some metal polish and a foam pad to clean up the back box and exhaust tips, something many people overlook as its mainly hidden beneath the car but it came up really well. 

 

Step 13 - Tyre Dressing. Some gtechniq T1 tyres dressing was applied with a sponge applicator then buffed with a microfibre. Gtechniq say to use one coat for a satin finish or 2 coates for a glossy wet look finish. 

 

Step 14 - turn up at a show and admire your own and everyone else's hard work and pride of joys. 

 

 

[davey_83]

My kind of update love that Glen, raid that store haha - wheel colour now looks immense pal too. I can not recommended these enough, very tough due to there intended purpose, super cheap compared to detailing wash buckets and the volume of water means the mitt is never close to the dirty at the bottom throughout the wash process.

 

https://www.toppstiles.co.uk/tprod8768/bal-mixing-bucket-225ltr.html

 

[StormWhite]

15 hours ago, G1en@waxandshine said:

Step 11 - Ceramic Coating.

 

I wondered why your car was so shiny - It looked fantastic.

[davey_83]

These track cars are cleaner than most Z daily drivers 

[ilogikal1]

1 hour ago, davey_83 said:

These track cars are cleaner than most Z daily drivers 

Well yeah, cars that spend more time the garage than on the road probably will be...

[G1en]

Update time you sexy people...

 

Let me start off by saying its been a month of ups and downs for me and the Zed, and like any good relationship we have both come off a little battered and bruised but have made up and are determined to make it work for the sake of the kids. 

 

So going back to start of May, and after Japfest I had another hillclimb round of which things didn't go the way i'd planned. You may have read on other threads about this but allow me fill you in. The weather had been predicting rain all week and sure enough the day before it rained and on the morning it was damp outside so I decided to take 2 spare wheels with the extreme wet tyres on as I could only fit 2 in the car along with everything else. My plan was if it was damp or light rain to put the wets on the rear as that's where I have most problems (traction off line and out of corners) If it was dry/dryish the nankangs would stay on. 2 practice runs in the morning were done in very nice conditions, things were looking good:

 

 

Then whilst breaking for lunch the heavens opened and although it made my car stand out with some good bead action, I decided it was time to put the wets on:

 

 

As it can take quite a while to wait for your timed run after being called in batches, lady luck was not on my side and out came that chinese man I didn't bargain for going by the name of FU King Sun. the track dried and let me tell you, having dry tyres on the front and wets on the back when its dry does not work, the back end losing traction and sliding all over resulting in a poo time of around 70 seconds. back to the paddock and on went the nankangs for the next run. But my weather God have another trick to play and on the way down to the start the heavens opened, I must have run over a cat on the way to the event as this was getting annoying. Because due to the number we were only getting 2 runs I had to push on ( I say had to, its not not formula 1 so I could have just took it easy and settled for 7th out of 15) but No, why do that when you can find out how crap semi-slicks are in the wet and smash into the tyre wall, that's much more fun right.

 

So the day ended with me stuck under the car trying figure out what fluids were pissing out everywhere getting royally soaked because by now hurricane kick you in the bollocks had decided to turn up and have a laugh as well. I drove home steadily scattering gravel all over the roads and parked the Zed in the garage to take a good look at another day.

 

Damage Assesment:

Front Bumper needed: check

 

Power steering Cooler needed: check

 

Washer bottle, pipes needed: check

 

More bumps and scrapes on the car: check

 

Main Radiator front support needed: check

 

Luckily the main radiators and oil cooler were ok, the undertray took a big hit as well but luckily being aluminium z-speed one it could be fettled back into some kind of shape. I managed to strip the front end down in the very limited space in the garage which meant I could do bits each night after work. Double bonus really as I get to learn more about the car and it gets me out of sitting through 2 hours of sh^t telly each night. stripped down I was faced with this:

 

 

Anyhow, I've forgot to mention that I think the reason for coming off lie with the car and not my mastery behind the wheel, I was questioning my ability at one point but like any good F1 driver, if theres anyone else or any thing you can blame then do that as it must be there fault, right?

So all the lights lit up on the dashboard and the wheels seemed to all lock up, I had no braking and no steering which when you combine the two it doesn't need dick dastardly to tell you, you may be in trouble. So I put out the SOS to the forum and decided to install one of @cs2000 fancy turn off assists chips. That way the possible sensors or driver aids at fault could not scupper my Hamilton like skills and if I did come off again, then I would know there was something else to pin the blame on.

 

pic below of the unit, I could not get the connector out so had to unbolt the entire unit and do everything in situ:

 

and managed to put the button in the spare slot I had next to the 2 buttons for the heated seats that don't work because I don't have heated seats.

 

 

Over the last 2 weeks I had to purchase the new bits required to get the car back running and looking respectable, so like any man, I did my man maths and thought why not upgrade while we are at it. Just ask the wife, its unbelievable how cheap some aftermarket parts are, she couldn't believe that to get the car back to normal and for the amount of parcels I got delivered, they only came to £24.95 she said I must be mistaken, to which I had to agree, i'd got it slightly wrong, the parts were £20 and the postage was £4.95!

 

New Main radiator support was purchased from Nissan, and new mishimoto power steering cooler and fluid from demon tweeks:

looks the business next to the oil cooler, just had to fabricate a bracket out of some aluminium angle I had around:

 

 

Bashed the undertray back into shape and did away with the washer bottle and hoses for the headlight washers, who uses them anyway, just bought a couple of plastic plugs and silicone them into where the hoses went in the main washer bottle. Cheap mod and saves weight yo.

Then purchased a KBD Nismo V2 polyurethane bumper from a chap on ebay that had originally purchased it from tarmac sportz and never fitted it, it was still folded up in the box as per pics he sent me, I got it relatively cheap (£10 to the wife) and the extra weight was offset by the mod previous. The polyurethane bumpers are supposed to be virtually indestructible (I will probably at some point test this knowing me)

The fitment I would say is okay, needs work if you have a show car, but perfectly acceptable if its a drift/race/trackday focussed car:

 

 

After it was all back together, I gave the car a good clean ready for next hillclimb event and purchased a square type JDM number plate to finish off. Not had chance to finish bumber, may well get in wrapped in near future rather than painted.

 

 

Fast forward to now, just finished another round of harewood hillclimb championship. Now I was getting De-Ja-Vu during the week as its been forecast showers/rain for Sunday all week but luckily on Saturday it changed to just afternoon so I took the decision to just go on the nankangs and leave the others at home. its was very cloudy on arrival but dry and fairly warm so things were looking ok, heading down for first practice but who turns up, yep, Suzy Showers, nooooooo, I was ready to go cry in a corner but it turned out it was just a brief shower and that set the tone for the day really, warm and humid with the occasion light shower, so onto times. I was conscious I had not really posted any time of note so far this year and in my eagerness to get into the top few positions on the leaderboard I probably overdrove the first run squeeling round every corner and the brakes seem to be "going off" there is plenty of meat left on them but I was having trouble slowing down and I was breaking in the same spots as previous, really pushing the pedal and it just was not stopping quick enough, not locking up either so something I will have to look at moving forward. anyway a 67 second time was posted to put me in 4th. onto run 2, similar conditions and dialled back slightly to record a 66 sec, upto 3rd. still having big trouble at a sharp 120deg right where you brake from 70 to next to nothing. 

For run 3 I increased the tyre pressures to 36 rear, 37 front. I had been reducing them all day to the point of around 32psi but thought what the hell, lets just try upping them as according to nankang, for 1400kg+ cars pressure should be 34-42.

It must have made a difference as last run (albeit with a brief sunny spell as well) was a 65 second effort to get me into 2nd in class. It was by no means a clean run as you could tell from the video below, a few mistakes/corrections and I was coming off power slightly earlier than ideal due to fading brakes so it bodes well for future, its still amazes me how much better the nankangs are when the sun is out or its warm and how relatively poor they are when its cold.

Best not finish without saying that @Kieran O'Quick once again took the win which normally is a given BUT earnt extra brownie points today as he had car issues all day, (fuel pump intermittent) sensors needed changing, had an OFF and hit a pear tree, tried to copy me in wrecking a bumper and generally spent more time under the car than in it), so well done and sitting currently 2nd in the championship.

I am lying around 15th with all the issues but still hoping to get into top 10 come end of year with hopefully some warm sunny days to come.

 

Times from today (my number was 115)

It was basically a battle of JDM Vs the Germans

 

Myself, Kieren (350z) and Andy (MR2 turbo) along with non JDM Terry in his Talbot Subeam vs various BMW M3s, Z3s, Z4s, Minis and Porsches

And I have only just realised now that us 4 took the top 4 spots with all Zi Germans behind us

 

And another trophy to finish the day which goes a little way to making up for the hours and money spent last month, onwards and upwards!

 

 

Video to follow of final run, lots more time available!

Thankyou and Goodnight.

 

 

[Keyser]

Nice write up as always mate and congrats on the trophy

[Ebized]

1 hour ago, Keyser said:

Nice write up as always mate and congrats on the trophy

Agree with that and look forward to the video 

[G1en]

Finally got youtube to play ball

 

 

[Kieran O'Quick]

Fair play to you for keeping your spirits up, putting the work in, turning out again and getting back close to the pace. For comparison, I got off a lot lighter than you on Sunday but I was still close to throwing a match in the b*stard...

 

Btw, I'm cutting and pasting parts of these write-ups for my scrapbook whenever I get round to it

[G1en]

Another Couple of Months, another mix of emotions.

 

After having braking issues I decided to give the pads and calipers a good clean and check if there was anything obvious that was hindering the stopping power of the heavy beast. Plenty of brake dust embedded in the front calipers:

 

so gave them a good clean with APC and they came up nice:

 

 

Inspected the front pads and although a little glazed, overall were in decent nick and roughly half the "meat" still left on them:

 

 

It was a different story at the rear, have alook at the discs and see what you can spot:

 

 

Not only were the grooved choked up with brake fallout but because of that the pads must have dragged it around the disc creating lots of ridges/scoring that was very pronounced to the touch and looked like the rings of Saturn. The pads were also very unevenly worn with peaks and troughs.

a magnetic screwdriver reveals the amount of metal filings below:

 

I decided to bite the bullet and purchase some new rear discs whilst filing the rear pads to get them smooth again. New EBC Turbo discs arrived which looked the part:

 

 

So all fitted, it was onto the next event in July which was a nice warm one I was looking forward to. Practice was 2 runs and the second effort got me a 64.8 (only a tenth off my PB) so I was expecting big things in the afternoon. 

 

 

Sadly, the times went backwards. My practice run was smooth and precise rather than balls out. The afternoon runs, with me thinking I can smash my PB were just too aggressive and loose. The late braking (and the dreaded brake fade) did not work as I just couldn't stop for the corners so was sliding round losing time. That coupled with lots of accidents/hold ups on the day meant we only got 2 timed runs and my quickest was 65.48, still good enough for 3rd but 2nd was identical time to my practice run so should have been mine. I put the brake fade down to shear heat of the day but something was still not right.

Times below, me number 59

 

The following day was the visit of the UK hillclimb Championship and also a Car show so I had to pay a visit as a spectator. Some awesomely quick cars on show, mainly single seaters but watching the speed they can take a corner compared to road cars is incredible. 

Couple of pics from the show, the first, an incredibly small car, the picture does not show that, but this thing was tiny:

 

 

And a nice R34 GTR

 

 

So back home, I decided to take the wheels off again and inspect the brakes as it was costing me about half a second. Fronts fine, back discs gouged into, this is after 1 hillclimb event and a 20 miles drive either way. The pads were gouged also, so I don't know what the issue is, I have a brand new set of discs that are almost ruined and pads that must be made from adamantium. I decided the bast course of action was to put some OEM pads back on, so on went the hawk road pads I still had lying in the garage, most of the braking is done at the front anyway right?

 

Onto Yesterday, and another hot one at Harewood, now you may think I haven't explained if my brakes were ok, and you would be right. its amazing what a busy work /home life does for ones limited memory span. Practice one was a 66 second steady sighter run as always. Practice 2 is when everyone tries to fine the limits of grip. for me that was missing the last corner completely and you guessed it, the brakes had gone (now I had been slamming on both on the way to the events and during thinking I needed to warm them up but in hindsight, that was probably a bad decision)

Now common sense dictates that I would take a steady run next or not at all, but for me I left that common sense at the start line so went for it, 40 seconds later I was sliding off up a 45deg banking heading for the same tree Kieren had taken out previously, luckily it was no longer there so I slammed back down onto the tarmac, tootled back the the paddock for damage assessment part 6 2019.

 

Main rad support broke again, oil cooler fubared, undertray was origamied into one of those swans they make on your bed in the Caribbean, and the 2 front wheels were cambered the same way to the left, great for the hill billy oval racing I suspect but not so good when you have to turn left and right.

BUT and its a small consolation, my PU bumper had took several whacks and come out screaming  F--- You Mastercard. You will not be making any more money out of Mr Shaw this time, despite all the impacts, the bumper had a slight kink at one side, if only all the rest of the front end could be made of the same. 

Amazingly the oil cooler is not leaking and seems to functioning fine so that can wait while the winter, I think I may try and fibreglass the rad support as I cant have the expense of yet another. With a little help from my fellow professionals, I adjusted the camber back to negative, all done by eye. The undertray was panel beaten from a swan back to the front doorstep or as close as and hey presto we are back in the game. It was during this damage assessment that the wife turned up with the kids for support. Now as you may have read on a previous page, one of the benefits about having a non-petrol head partner is this will only cost £40 to fix and she is happy. In fact she can never get her head round why her Fiat 500 and previous ford fiesta cost so much for parts and tyres when mine should cost more, hmmmm that is strange love.

Anyway, with a car that refuses to slow down and a brake pedal that goes to the floor and with family watching, I set out for the final run, Don't crash, don't crash again you muppet, was going through my head. out came that inner Hamilton in me and put in a 64.96 

Now that is my fastest run of this year (that counts) and although 2 tenths of my best and it being a disappointment in general this year, I was well happy with that. I was literally braking 10 metres earlier for every corner with pedal to floor not knowing if I was gonna scrub enough speed off for the corner or not. A wheel alignment that could be sending me to Glasgow or Manchester. Its amazing what a bit of support can do for you. and speaking of support, here is the little man getting prepped to take over the car in 16 years time, if its still held together by that point.

 

 

And time below, finished in 4th place but considering everything, I will take it

and a failed run to boot for exceeding track limits - did I mention its the brakes?

 

 

So onto today as this was a full weekend double header and after some calm thought process I concluded my brake fluid must be cooked or past its sell-by date, I had 2 bottles of RBF660 fluid in the garage so took them along with me and was praying that the bleeding process was not as bleeding difficult as people on here sometimes make out. Spot the PUN) I also went through super early to drop off my spare set of wets as the forecast for the afternoon was thundery showers:

 

 

By the time I returned with the Zed, which decided to eat through a front arch liner on route, we were well on the way to starting practice so I had to do a run before sorting the brake fluid, needless to say, that was a sunday drive and confirmed the brakes needed attention. Big thanks to @Kieran O'Quick and another fellow competitor for helping me flush through some new fluid and between the 3 of us, we managed it in double quick time. around 45 mins I would guess, no dramas apart from Kieran spilling some of the fluid on the discs which wasn't ideal as we had no brake cleaner with us.

Onto practice 2, unknown brakes, covered in fluid, unknown alignment setup, unknown oil cooler condition. I was for once, cautious, brakes felt a little spongy still but their was bite on the pads that I had not felt for several months and at Orchard where I had been off several times I actually slowed enough to pick a line round the bend rather than trying to push the brake pedal into the engine bay, shutting my eyes, turning the wheel and hoping I come out the other end pointing in right direction.

Have it sorted the braking issue, partly, The first timed run, I could push a little harder and finished with a 65.2 We were back in the game and once again, a high 64 or possibly a PB was in the offering until...…..

……..watching some action with Julian, one of the cars careered off the track and head on into a farm building at around 50mph. the car went up into the air nose up before crashing back down and coming to rest luckily right way up. The ambulance crew rushed in and took the gent away and after 40 mins or so the event was called off, reason given was the building was deemed unstable. the car had taken out 7 or 8 of the stone wall blocks. Latest report is the chap is ok and should just be in hospital for one night, a timely reminder that motorsport can be dangerous and another reminder why we have to wear helmets, suits etc..

On a lighter note, I was leading at that point and on for some good points so it will hurt me ( and others) in the championship as you need to make the most of the dry days. With finishing early I also never got to try out the wets as we missed the afternoon showers so that was another wasted opportunity.

So brakes feeling better but more testing needed, I may have to get some new pads, any ideas why the rear carbonne Lorraine pads are chewing through discs but the fronts are fine?

 

Shot below of someone else going off just to prove its not just me that cant drive:

 

and a nice landscape/sky/weather/moody shot of the zed, don't know what correct term is.

 

 

Next up is the Coventry indoor show in 2 weeks, always a great selection of cars, and will be good to catch up with some fellow forum members. I may have to change the thread title to 95% race car 5% show car now though as it has more dents and scrapes than a builders wheelbarrow. I really will be showing the stand up so will park right at the end because its "racecar Yo"

 

Till Next Time.

[Stutopia]

Show car taking a kicking! Looks like you’re loving it though

 

[Kieran O'Quick]

On 04/08/2019 at 21:44, G1en@waxandshine said:

I may have to change the thread title to 95% race car 5% show car now though as it has more dents and scrapes than a builders wheelbarrow. I

Cough, not all your fault. When I jacked up mine and there was a bit of a creak you said I should move the jack in a bit more to the sill. I repositioned it and then whanged the handle ....right down your wing. Soo much ouch...

 

[G1en]

Yep, now down to 4% show car

[G1en]

Right then peeps, sit down and buckle up. If you can't buckle up then for christs sake fit some seatbelts on your sofas, do you not take health and safety seriously??

We have a bumper double bill in store for you:

 

So next up as mentioned was the JPS show in Coventry. Now I didn't take any pics but some of you will have already seen I did make a short video of the show and I do have a picture of my Zed ready to go in the morning after waking up the neighbours at 5:30

Freshly waxed but the front bumper is gonna have to wait until the winter to get painted/wrapped. 

 

 

It was great to meet up with the forum massive once again and some new faces as well. Great selection of Zeds on the group stand although as someone said, the 350s are starting to get thin on the ground now some of them are 16/17 years old! Video below:

 

 

Next up was another Hillclimb round at the end of August and I needed to really fix the front damage again for the second time. Now at this point, even though I had been massively understating the cost of parts to the other half, even she was beginning to add them all up and several £20 and £30 still run into hundreds that in her mind could be (lets put this diplomatically) be better spent elsewhere. With this in mind and to try and score some brownie points I said I would fix it myself so I took the front indestructible bumper off (this thing is worth its weight in polyurethane!) and was greeted with this:

 

 

I did not want to take the main rad support off again as 1- its a pain, 2- it would mean disconnecting the power steering cooler, 3- there are lots of bolts/clips and I just couldn't be arsed. So I purchased a fibreglass repair kit for £15 and decided to fix it in situ. I also decided to make a new bracket for the oil cooler out of angle iron and bolts lying around, I could re-use the oil cooler lines so only needed to purchase the main oil cooler rad which was around £120. The undertray could be just beaten back into submission for the 4th time, that thing is another lifesaver.

 

So step one: Angle grind out the cracks to leave a nice hole to fix:

 

 

Step Two- put some cardboard behind said hole and start filling with fibreglass matting and resin.

Word of caution to anyone thinking of taking on something like this, do not mix anywhere like the amount of hardener you think you'll need in with the resin. I think the instructions said something like a pea size amount of hardener per 10ml resin and it gives you 5mins of working time. Well I think I was working to mushy peas rather than garden peas as it went off in around half that time, so I only had chance to do 4 layers of matting, still enough to do the job and seems strong enough to hold:

 

 

Then the good old rattle cans came out, just anything I had lying around in the garage, some grey plastic primer first and in between coats I was "fabricating" a new oil cooler bracket and working out how it can be fixed and secured to the rad support:

 

 

I then unscrewed the oil cooler pipes at height so the oil would stay in them meaning I would lose very little oil, just what was inside the battered rad. New rad fitted and I went for a silver one this time to match, well sort of match the power steering rad so it looks much cooler from the front when you look through the gaping mouth of the bumper. I had some kuro black spray paint so this went over the grey primer to blend in. To do a proper job it should have been filled and sanded but as its for the most part unseen I'm not that bothered, plus knowing me it will be wrecked again shortly, in hindsight I should have repaired the first one and saved £150 cough cough, sorry wife, I meant should have saved the £30.

 

 

Whilst I had the car in service mode and after recently bleeding the brakes I thought to myself, wonder how that 6 month old clutch fluid is doing, well, not to well...

 

 

recent brake fluid on the left, clutch on the right, both RBF660 so not wanting to start another "why wont my clutch bleed" type thread I just syringed out as much "old" fluid as I could using the son's calpol syringe and filled back up with fresh, what difference it will make I don't know but it looks orange again in the reservoir so that's good enough for now. They say prevention is cheaper than the cure so I have bought some volcanic rock heat wrap stuff to fit during the winter. I think the root cause is the unshielded high flow cats are getting so hot when I am waiting to race and during racing that its partly cooking the fluids even with high temp stuff. If anyone can chip in if its safe to heatwrap sports cats or which section would be best to heatwrap than please chip in. The joblist for winter is starting to grow as I now have warp speed indicator blinking again so either the resistors behind the rear bumper have packed in or somethings come loose, either way I need to take the rear bumper off and sort out.

 

So onto the hillclimbing: round 7 and we had a lovely day for it, this was the early morning shots:

 

 

Yes, A lovely Renault Alpine A110 had come to have a go. The mature owner had only had it a month and just come back from a 2000 mile trip round Europe so needless to say, he didn't trouble the top of the leaderboard understandibly but it did get a lot of attention throughout the day.

Bit of a frustrating day for me as braking wasn't the best yet again. I think in hindsight this was in part due to the 2 year old nankangs being well past their best and then me putting standard pads back on thinking they were the issue so the last 2 sectors I was losing chunks of time meaning my best time of 65.46 was well down on similar conditions from previous year. something needed doing but what....

 

 

In the 3 weeks between round 7 and the double header of this weekend (rounds 8 & 9) the wife decided to sell her Fiat 500X and buy a mini. She has always wanted one ever since passing her test ages ago and now has convinced herself is the perfect time to get one. I did try to twist her arm to get a supercharged one but I had to settle for the 120hp Cooper model. It is a nice low mileage example and being the car enthusiast I am, after she had pestered long enough I agreed and gave it a thorough clean and protection. I also took the opertunity to video it with the iPhone so if you literally want to stick pins in your eyelids for 30 minutes and you are that dull that there is nothing else you can do in the 30 minutes then watch away.

 

 

Fast forward to this weekend and we had a double header at Harewood to finish the season. In a last ditch attempt to get back into the 64's I went and purchased a set of Extreme tyres. Now most of you reading will not know or have heard about these tyres and why would you. They are ex rally remould tyres from Poland/Germany available in a range of compounds to suit sprints/track days/rallying. The benefit is they are fairly cheap, around £100 each for 18" and they are road legal, the drawbacks are they wouldn't last 2 minutes on the road and they chew up very easy if they overheat, the quality is very dubious also but it seems everyone at the top of each class is using them so as the old saying goes, If you cant beat them, Cheat. or it could be join them, I never can quite remember. Anyway I decided to be a sheep and follow everyone else, Saturday was a nice relatively warm sunny day which resulted in:

 

 

All 3 timed runs in the 64's The grip these things give you and the confidence to thrown it round corners is incredible. I have said this before and will just stress again, now wonder F1 spends hours debating tyres, almost a second quicker just chucking on a new set and in T1 beat my PB by 3 tengths. I honestly thought I was on for a 63 but excitement got the better of me and a mistake in the next 2 runs cost me half a second each time. I wwas on for the win as well but Terry in the Talbot pipped me on the last run to snatch victory away (he too set a new PB on Extremes) @Kieran O'Quick had an unusual off day and problems/errors meant he finished behind Me and Terry.

Just for info I have the soft R5 compound on the rears and the medium R7 compound on the fronts, to stress the unusual quality the 255 fronts and 265 rears are exactly the same width, when you offer them up side by side or stack them laying flat they are identical, im not sure if the seating part is different as they seem to fit the different width wheels I have fine. To give you an idea of how "soft" they are, I travelled to the event in them, around 20 miles cruising on the motorway at 60mph as I had issues with the wet tyre offering from them overheating on the motorway if you recall. I arrived at harewood around 7:30, the grass was wet and when I parked up the rear tyres were steaming, they were very hot to the touch and burning off the moisture from the ground so again, I would not recommend them for a daily car unless you got the hard compound.

 

Onto Today (Sunday) and to quote another quote, "what a difference a day makes"

From the dizzy heights of a PB and regular 64's we arrived today to find that what the british weather gaves us in one hand, they now taketh away in the other. fairly cold, windy and rain in the air, although not forecast till the afternoon, it was looking bleak all day. The tyres, even the softs could not switch on until the latter part of the run meaning everyone was complaining about poor starts and lack of grip. There were several first turn incidents including Julian in our class in his MX5 who never managed to record a time. Jonathan who was 2nd in the championship had major problems and didn't get to record a time and lots of people had offs probably due to a number of factors but the colder conditions definitely didn't help. My times were consistently in the low 65's but I just couldn't get a 64. Terry was in the exact same boat and we were posting almost identical times all day. I finally finished 0.05 secs in front of him but we were both frustrated. Kieran grabbed the win again after he must have been up all night crying at both not getting a trophy Saturday and blowing the chance of a top 3 finish in the Championship, he ultimately finished 5th so will get a trophy at the awards night. Myself and Terry after a season long battle ultimately finished just outside the top 10 in 14th and 12th respectively but still not a bad showing, gonna have a long think about what to do for next season to get into the elusive top 10, maybe new cams???

Final leaderboard below out of 164 championship contenders:

 

harewood championship 150919.pdf

 

Video below of my best run today 65.07 good enough for 2nd (again) worth noting I got 4 new sector PBs yesterday so my best virtual time is 63.6 whilst that may be unrealistic I think on a perfect day (bright sunshine to heat the tarmac but low air temps for higher power) a 63 something just may be possible. Apologies for noise, I need to get a better camera, I'm not sure where it picks the rattling up from as it doesn't seem to move, need to find a better setup. the camera did not work either yesterday so havn't got my new PB run which is gutting as well:

 

 

Well, that concludes this months edition

and what have we learnt?

1- Don't use too much hardner when using a fibreglass repair kit

2- Lying to the other half about spending will still come back to bite you. (although it will prolong the solicitors letter)

3- Extreme tyres are better for hillclimbing than anything else (although that's all you can use them for)

4- I will never be a youtube sensation (or even a voiceover guy)

 

Until next time...