Your fleet running reports

[Richard]

A terrible thing has happened!

I’ve cracked the windscreen in my car!

Actually, what looked like a coin or washer hit it on the motorway. It’s got a lovely 5-6cm single line crack, right in the middle of the windscreen, meaning it’s a full replacement job, rather than filling it. Gavin from Autoglass will be over on Friday, hopefully

So that’s me £100 lighter. Cheers, Jesus

What do they do with the old windscreens? Are they recycled? I’m guessing that’s quite tough with laminated glass.

[ste]

They make smaller windscreens from them.

[speedingfine]

The usual new car program continues.

Noisy Bosch wipers swapped for some lovely piaa silicone jobbies. Thankfully that came with loads of adapters so quickly and easily convert from a retrofit hook mount to or style clip on.

Borderless, dealerless numberplates ordered

Tried swapping the drl/sidelights for some eBay compatible led ones. They weren't. And started smoking. Bought some expensive amazon mito specific led ones with nice metal bases. They work if you only plug one in. Fit both and it gives errors and won't bother lighting either of them shame as when they were working they were a decent colour match for the hids.

You can get white look filament bulbs, but they blue tinted glass which is very visible and looks crap, I don't want it to look like some odd undercover police car

Where'd you get the wipers please Ian? Anywhere cheaper than their site?

[mik]

The usual new car program continues.

Noisy Bosch wipers swapped for some lovely piaa silicone jobbies. Thankfully that came with loads of adapters so quickly and easily convert from a retrofit hook mount to or style clip on.

Borderless, dealerless numberplates ordered

Tried swapping the drl/sidelights for some eBay compatible led ones. They weren't. And started smoking. Bought some expensive amazon mito specific led ones with nice metal bases. They work if you only plug one in. Fit both and it gives errors and won't bother lighting either of them shame as when they were working they were a decent colour match for the hids.

You can get white look filament bulbs, but they blue tinted glass which is very visible and looks crap, I don't want it to look like some odd undercover police car

Where'd you get the wipers please Ian? Anywhere cheaper than their site?

Yeah Ian - where did you get them from?

[Simon]

The usual new car program continues.

Noisy Bosch wipers swapped for some lovely piaa silicone jobbies. Thankfully that came with loads of adapters so quickly and easily convert from a retrofit hook mount to or style clip on.

Borderless, dealerless numberplates ordered

Tried swapping the drl/sidelights for some eBay compatible led ones. They weren't. And started smoking. Bought some expensive amazon mito specific led ones with nice metal bases. They work if you only plug one in. Fit both and it gives errors and won't bother lighting either of them shame as when they were working they were a decent colour match for the hids.

You can get white look filament bulbs, but they blue tinted glass which is very visible and looks crap, I don't want it to look like some odd undercover police car

Where'd you get the wipers please Ian? Anywhere cheaper than their site?

Yeah Ian - where did you get them from?

+1

[integrale_evo]

Performancebulbs on eBay are the cheapest I've found, £19.99 each inc postage and a little bit of a discount for a multibuy.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 2489810753

As usual, look expensive, but a set of normal Bosch ones are almost £30 at somewhere like euro car parts, and I think these work better and seem to last forever.

[NotoriousREV]

Performancebulbs on eBay are the cheapest I've found, £19.99 each inc postage and a little bit of a discount for a multibuy.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 2489810753

As usual, look expensive, but a set of normal Bosch ones are almost £30 at somewhere like euro car parts, and I think these work better and seem to last forever.

Thanks Ian.

[JonMad]

Longer write up please!

I was joking unfortunaely, we weren't green laning. We did another Targa Rally and that was the access road to one of the stages, or "tests" as they call them. Jon was navigating for me.

It was the Bramley Targa, organised by Farnborough District Motor Club at Bramley Camp, an Army training area just north of Basingstoke. Usual format of a wiggly route around the site passing through numbered cones. Mostly nice firm surfaces this time but some of the secluded bits were VERY slippery with moss-covered mud over concrete. Kind of turn-the-steering-wheel-and-nothing-happens slippery.

This was also the first time out for Compact #1 with LSD and non-buggered engine & beam mounts. And they did seem to make a difference ! At first I wasn't sure if the LSD was helping or not as the back just seemed to spin up all the time, but I eventually decided it was just the slippery conditions. I could get up to third gear with the wheels still spinning. I think it was also creating a tendancy for the front to push on but lowering the pressures and giving it a touch of toe-out helped balance it out a bit. A few times I managed to get a really nice drift going on and the car felt good I think Jon actually whooped and waved at a marshall at one point as we slid past them

I'm not sure where we finished overall as I had to rush off straight after the last test but I'd guess we were mid field and that's fine by me. It was a lot of fun.

I've got the M44 engine to go in still, but on an event like that, lack of power was definitely not a problem. Apparently fastest time of the day was by a 106 Rallye and was a minute and a half clear of everyone else. Light, nimble, with a very good driver = winning.

Next event is an AutoSolo at Abingdon on the 7th. That's all tarmac and hopefully it'll be dry. Some more power *will* be useful there.


Also - professional photos are being sent out in the next day or two. I'm hoping for some good ones.

Another excellent day out in the woods with Steve

I'm getting more likely to want to buy a little car for this sort of thing. Maybe not the well specced MX-5 I saw though, as whilst it had all the kit I don't want the spectre of having to get it welded every year, and it was always a bit snug in my old one, though loads of fun. A well looked after Ford Ka or something for £500 might fit the bill (or, some chaps ran a £400 Suzuki Ignis and were going well - dent a bit of bodywork? Meh.

[scotta]

Loltus sitting a bit higher than usual this week. Wheels are off for a refurb.

In the same colour?

Needs a good clean under there while the wheels are off and a clear side indicator!

Yes.
Yes. Im also going to give the suspension a wire brush and hammerite. The callipers need a good clean as well while the wheels are off. The red has gone a bit black after being on track.
No. They’ll be staying orange to match the front.

[Sundayjumper]

I'm getting the 318ti ECU chipped (no, not by Jayson ) ready for the engine swap - it might make a couple more bhp but more importantly it'll disable the immobiliser and the traction control, and take the rev limiter up to 7000rpm (currently 6500).

My Tuna (someone I have known for ages and trust on this) reckons these engines are good but are held back by the standard ECU. He recently spoke to someone running a standalone who's getting 160-170bhp.

I'm also going to do the coil-on-plug upgrade. For some reason BMW went a bit old-school on the 4-cyl engines and used a seperate coil pack. You can mix & match some bits from the 6-cyl engines to use individual coil packs for a healthier spark.

Harry - have you done any of this kind of tinkering on yours ?

[mik]

Harry - have you done any of this kind of tinkering on yours ?

Who? Why not ask Ian?

[JLv3.0]

That had me totally flummoxed yesterday

Ian? Who the fuck is Ian?

[Sundayjumper]

I clearly missed the memo.

[DeskJockey]

I clearly missed the memo.

It was very clear, surprised you missed it. Harry is Ian, when he isn't Harry (mostly, but not exclusively on Tuesdays).

[scotta]

That had me totally flummoxed yesterday

Ian? Who the fuck is Ian?

Confused me as well Jason.

[JLv3.0]

Tuesdays only.

[speedingfine]

Thanks Haryian, ordered 'em!

[integrale_evo]

The only people who call me ian are my parents. I thought I'd been naughty

I didn't ever really look into engine tuning, I was happy just leaving it as a runaround, but it did always feel like it was being held back a bit at the top end, which is weird as it has the bits to be able to make more power. Even the standard cam pulleys are adjustable.

My homebrew exhaust seemed to help, I'm sure a lighter flywheel would make them feel a lot more lively too.

The basic engine is really strong, people will go on about the m42 having forged rods, but really, unless you're going forced inductions or over 100bhp/litre it's not an issue and the slight torque increase from the extra 100cc is probably more useful.

[Sundayjumper]

It was very clear, surprised you missed it.

Nobody told me there was a communication problem

[Coaster1]

Thanks Haryian, ordered 'em!

Haryian Performante