Just dropped a deposit on some M Power - Trackday Project Car

Jamous said:
Iain check this out for you Gibbo?

I'm intrigued;
27/05/2003 it had a fair bit done with the replacement of the big end bearing
28/07/2005 it had the conrod bearing shells replaced

Con-rod bearing shells are big end bearings, same part.
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Yes mate, Iain, maybe first time was not done right? I'll ask him nextweek if you don't first. :)
 
Something Else said:
It wasn't so much of a question but more me saying it was chucking it down, I bet the thing is lovely to drive hard.
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When did you see it in Sainburys mate, not feint for a while? Funnily enough an M3 driver pulled up along me at some traffic lights last night and said "your brave stripping all that weight out, considering how tail happy these are"

In the wet now it's setup properly it handles much better, but respect is demanded but it can now be driven faster in the wet, biggest weakness is tyres. Put something like F1 eagles on it or SuperSports and I suspect be amazing in such conditions. But alignment and tyre wise it's setup as a dry weather car and it's bloody amazing in such conditions. :)

Off to centre gravity now. :)
 
Hi there

Well car setup wise is now finished. :)

Anyone out there with an E46 M3 these are my allignment, ride height settings etc:-

Front:
-3 negative camber either side (shall reduce to circa -2.80 area with eccentric bush)
6:42 caster either side (going to increase this with Z4M/CSL eccentric bush, take it too about 7:15 caster)
Toe: neutral, shall keep this at neutral

Rear:-
-2 negative camber either side
Toe: 14 minutes toe in across the axle.

Ride heights:-
Aim for 580mm front from bottom of wheel lip or 330mm measured from centre
Aim for 570mm rear from bottom of wheel lip or 325mm measured from centre

Corner weights:-
Was 79kg out on cross axle, this is now reduced to just 4kg.
Car weight with half tank fuel 1370kg

All above settings made with driver in the car!!


Damper test and settings:-
KW Clubsports
Test: 0% out between axles, dampers are perfect.
Changed to wet settings:-
Front rebound 9 clicks
Front compression: 6 clicks (1 turn)
Rear rebound: 12 clicks
Rear compression: 1 turn

Track dry settings:-
Front rebound 6 clicks
Front compression: 4 clicks (0.75 turn)
Rear rebound: 9 clicks
Rear compression: 0.5 turn

All suspension waxed!
Front right anti roll bar drop link repaired.


They recommended changing following for road and track use:-
Eccentric bushes for lower arms, stock fitment for Z4M and CSL, about £40 each from BMW and 20 minutes per side to fix. They give more caster and more camber during a turn. Effect on front geo will be less front camber, upto 15 minutes less but more camber preserved during turn, more caster of upto 30-45 minutes. All that will need adjusting is toe back to neutral. For now they said leave as is, do couple of track days and then change to see/feel difference.

Fitting lighter boot lid they commented won't upset corner weighting as no different than having a full tank or empty tank of fuel

Tyres:-
They said Michelins are far better tyres, both road and track compared to Federals and advices cups if track times are important or SuperSports as best all round tyre. Only issue is SuperSports only come in 40 wall profile, I need 35 wall profile ideally on 18" in 255/265 width. They also said AD08 is a very good wet tyre too, but better tyres will give a dramatic improvement on road or in wet conditions, with minor better dry performance. Wheels and tyres weighed 23.5kg each, so not the lightest wheels, gonna weigh a spare tyre I have and work out wheel weight. If heavy of course lighter wheels give quite an improvement. What we did notice is the fronts are 8" wide and rears 9" wide, so the tyres are a little two wide for the width of the wheel, ideal would be 245 width front and 255 width rear, so another reason to buy new wheels and go 9" front and 9.5" rear.

Gonna risk it and book February 15th at Donnington I think, even if it's wet I can get a good feel for how the car is now, though new tyres are at the top of the next job list.

In short after all above, car just feels creamy on the road and the ride quality on the wet settings, very impressive indeed. Of course still harnesses, door cards and rear carpet to sort. :)
 
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Clarkey said:
Should be very good at that :-)
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Aye. :)
Annoyed Michelin don't do the SuperSports in 255/35/18 and 265/35/18, they only do 265/40/18 which no use to me.

However I see the new AD08R's are available in my sizes, guess I'll be grabbing a set of those after a couple of track days. :)
 
Gibbo you should get over on CSL Register. There are lots of boys on there with track experience and who have done quite a bit to their cars. Might pick up some more stuff of use.
 
Housey said:
Gibbo you should get over on CSL Register. There are lots of boys on there with track experience and who have done quite a bit to their cars. Might pick up some more stuff of use.
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Where I got my ride heights and damper settings from. ;)

Shall have a look to see what tyres they run, seems if 19" then SuperSports and cups are the most popular. SuperSports be my no.1 choice as I know they are superb on track and immense on road/wet and as a plus point they last forever. Just not in my size for 18" :(

18" those are not available, not in size I need anyway, so shall see what people have used and experienced, as R888's, V70A's, AD08R's, 595RSR's, F1A2's are all in size I need, shall have a read of what other E46 track guys have used. :)
 
I vote ad08r, the original were a tremendous all rounder. Will most likely get a set for the s15. Bought some re002 for the bmw, getting them on tomorrow so will see what they are like.
 
Clarkey said:
I vote ad08r, the original were a tremendous all rounder. Will most likely get a set for the s15. Bought some re002 for the bmw, getting them on tomorrow so will see what they are like.
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RE-02 that a Bridgestone or something else?
 
Is the Re-002 the 'Adrenaline' one? Quite a new tyre, all the marketing makes it out to be a tyre designed for the sporty driver and high performance, but it still looks like more of a road biased tyre than a track day one? Did ponder them for the mx5 but hardly anybody seems to have used them or know anything about them.
 
Clarkey said:
Yeah Bridgestone
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Yanks rave about them! Let me know how they are in this cold wet weather m8.

The problem seems to me that some high performance track/road tyres have great dry grip but are dire in the cold/damp/wet and very hard to get heat into. I found the 595RSR's and Pirelli Corsas to be like this, nice stiff sidewalls though.

Whereas the Michelin cups are better in the dry but believe it or not also better in the wet too, even with less tread. Simply because you can get heat into them far easier, meaning they work far better on the road and wet track days, just watch for aquaplaning. SuperSports awesome too. Heard R888's are easy to get heat into too, but only fair in wet and sound aweful road noise wise.

Hence why I wanted SuperSports. If I was going for a track dry only tyre I'd go with Federal FZ-201, it's supposed to be amazing in dry and last very well, plus in my sizes too, but again hard to get heat into, so useless for road or wet conditions.
 
Yeah the adrenaline one,I don't expect too much tbh they are cheap after all. I would love to try super sports but no 17"sizes here, sound a lot like ad08 to me though.
 
RE002 are similar to the old S-02 tyre apparently. If so I'd imagine they are dry focused so typical Bridgestone.
 
Simon said:
RE002 are similar to the old S-02 tyre apparently. If so I'd imagine they are dry focused so typical Bridgestone.
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The S-02 was an excellent all round road tyre which worked well in both the wet and dry. It was the late '90s/early '00s equivalent to the Eagle F1, repeatedly winning things like the Autocar tyre test.
 
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