Robin
Premium Member
Registered: 7th Jan 04
Location: Northants Drives: Clio 182 Cup
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quote:
Originally posted by Graham88
quote:
Originally posted by Robin
Anyone do a quick rack for these? You seem to have to turn the wheel a lot. Either that or it was understeering all the time because of the cold?
CSL one is slightly quicker I think, can't say I've noticed it myself, don't remember any understeer not on the Ring video anyway as I cut the first bit as was warming the tyres up. What do you mean I have to turn the wheel alot anyway, on tighter sections or in general?
Dunno, might just be me but it seems to need more steering input than I'd expect but it could just be the video.
If it feels alright it's obviously not a problem 
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M Sutton
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Registered: 11th Jan 03
Location: Northamptonshire
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Looks like a great trip! BMW seems to go really well and sounds lovely 
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Graham88
Member
Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
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quote:
Originally posted by Robin
Dunno, might just be me but it seems to need more steering input than I'd expect but it could just be the video.
If it feels alright it's obviously not a problem
Only reason I asked for more specific details is cause nobody else has ever mentioned that feels fine to me but its what I'm used too now!
quote:
Originally posted by M Sutton
Looks like a great trip! BMW seems to go really well and sounds lovely
Thanks mate :-)
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flybikeslee
Member
Registered: 2nd Jan 07
Location: Liverpool
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looks so good on the TD's!
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broster
Premium Member
Registered: 6th Dec 02
Location: Drives: E39
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Makes me want an e46 m3 sooo much!!! Wanna swap!
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Graham88
Member
Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
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Cheers Lee!
If you can fix my clutch issue you can have a go Mark lol
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DansCorsaSXi
Organiser: Yorkshire
Premium Member
Registered: 13th Jan 10
Location: Worksop
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Loved the video Graham.
Car looks awesome in pics. 
Star silver C20XE SXi Project thread
Smoke Grey Corsa GSi Project thread
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SVM 286
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Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
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Just wondering Graham, did you ever consider incorporating a fire wall, when you were having all the prep and paint and cage work done in the back of the car? 
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Wrighty
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Registered: 28th Feb 04
Location: Howden
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fair play for ripping an m3 to bits as far as you have
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Haimsey
Premium Member
Registered: 8th May 05
Location: Nottingham Drives: Corsa B
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Just read your thread from start to finish, great read. Certainly been no expense spared on it
Looks fantastic from the outside especially!
Good job.
Marcy Marc 
White Sport Progress Thread
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Graham88
Member
Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by SVM 286
Just wondering Graham, did you ever consider incorporating a fire wall, when you were having all the prep and paint and cage work done in the back of the car?
I did consider it yeah as I saw an E36 M3 with one installed with the cage going through which I liked. And then putting thin felt and giving it the Clubsport effect instead of painting it. In the end I just went with painting, simply because it was easier
quote:
Originally posted by Wrighty
fair play for ripping an m3 to bits as far as you have
In terms of some people I know with M3's that have bought them purely for track cars, mine seems very normal still
quote:
Originally posted by Haimsey
Just read your thread from start to finish, great read. Certainly been no expense spared on it
Looks fantastic from the outside especially!
Good job.
Cheers mate. Nice to see someone appreciating the efforts and time put into it 
________________________
Just realised I haven't updated it since I came back from Ring. As you may remember I was having clutch/gearbox woes. Gave me no end of problems at Spa as it was obviously getting hot which seemed to be making the crunchy synchros worse. In the end around 4pm it was refusing to select 3rd so I called it a day, bit gutted but I had to bare in mind a 400 mile journey home the next day, or rather everyone else told me to stop going out and slamming it into gear as I'd decided the box had had it so I didn't care anymore! Once it cooled down the next morning it was ok again (still crunchy) but it was selecting gear at least as that would have been a pain driving home.
So back in the UK I looked into rebuild costs for my gearbox as new ones on eBay were £700+ for a manual box, £400 for an SMG one. Everyone basically said they weren't economical to repair, with parts costs being more than buying a new box, and that's if you can get the parts. So I set to buying a new box, and after a bit of research it turned out the SMG used the same gearbox as the manual except it was controlled by a pump and actuator instead of a gearstick obviously. So I bought one and we set changing it over.
There was actually 2 differences once we had both gearboxes next to each other. Because of the way the SMG is controlled and with displaying the gear on the speedo, it doesn't have a reverse light switch like the manual.
Manual:
SMG:
So we tapped a thread out for that, but the tap design means it wouldn't thread right into the box like manual, so as it wouldn't sit in enough it wasn't 'switching' like it should as we were testing it with a buzz meter,this was proper confusing as me and a couple of mates were trying to figure out when it should be buzzing and when it shouldn't
In the SMG picture you can see a dowel and basically a spring sits in this which presses the switch in the you put it into reverse and puts the reverse lights on which looks like this:
The manual dowel was shorter, but as the switch wasn't sitting in the box as tight as it should, we had to use the longer one, but this meant there was loads of thread showing and the switch couldn't be tightened so it could loosen over time and then not work anymore.
And basically with lots of trial and error this is how it ended up:
And great success the reverse lights worked when we mocked it up and there were high fives all round. I'm not even joking!
Now we hit our second issue, the gear selector rod was loose as arseholes on the SMG box, and basically this is because the actuator holds it in position whereas on a manual it literally goes straight up to the gearstick, so this means the gearstick would have been really sloppy. This is due to a simple spring setup in the manual box to hold the selector rod in position. This is machined into the box so I was now cursing as this also had detent springs machined in aswell, basically alot more work than I thought this was going to be as I was told the SMG box was a straight fit. The SMG gearset is exactly the same as SMG is just a sequential manual gearbox so I looked into getting the gearset swapped over to my manual box, and again it was coming back as uneconomical to do, I was close to burning my car out at this point!
With the manual box being fucked anyway me and my mate decided to just take it apart and have a look, so we drained the oil out and took the bell housing off. After looking at the gearset and thinking fuck that I looked at the bellhousing and the spring setup I needed was in the bell housing holding the end of the selector rod in position 
Manual:
SMG:
So we just swapped the bell housing from manual to the SMG box and great success, the selector rod was held in position by the spring, and I was happy again 
I also swapped the flywheel from the lightened one back to the Dual Mass, as this was the last thing left in the puzzle of what could be causing the clutch fault.
Put it all back in and drove it, all seemed good, noticed no difference in the flywheels either....
My mate rang me and said there was a Novice evening at Brands for BMW's, can't have done more than 3 trackdays for £49.....so we booked on.
Was brilliant weather, I ragged my car for 2 hours, it didn't go wrong, the gearbox feels like brand new (SMG can't crunch gears so synchros felt NICE!) and the clutch was returning how it should be. So after 9 months of problems and god knows how much money spent on the clutch system it seems like the lightened flywheel was the problem after all....not happy about that so I'll be getting my money back on that!
Also got a 55.2 second lap round Brands so chuffed with the cars performance now! Little hack with my mate in his Dad's CSL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiznskOoyPc
I should mention I did that with rear brake pads on the metal  luckily I found someone who deals in AP pads near Brands Hatch and cheap, so got some Pagid RS29's the next day and put them in.
Then I attended BHP Show at Lydden Hill on Bank Holiday Monday and did a private session with a few mates just to show the car off more than anything if I'm honest to show it gets used and not just a poser car. The video is shite as I must have knocked my Go Pro mount and my car wasn't really any good around the track which was slippery as fuck so struggling for traction out the bends, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVVhxpsMnq0 but it was a good crack and good to test the box out again before booking a full days trackday again.
You can see my line of tread I was leaving out this corner
That's all folks!
[Edited on 13-05-2013 by Graham88]
[Edited on 13-05-2013 by Graham88]
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flybikeslee
Member
Registered: 2nd Jan 07
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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beauty
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IainW
Member
Registered: 12th May 12
Location: NW Kent
User status: Offline
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Saw this at BHP, looks amazing both on and off track, hats off to you for doing all this to an M3, but at least it gets used properly!
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Graham88
Member
Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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Thanks mate :-)
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Online
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Gearbox choice looked like a full on gamble, was thinking about the selector springs when I was reading it. Glad that paid off, you saved some money doing it that way?
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willay
Moderator
Organiser: South East, National Events
Premium Member
Registered: 10th Nov 02
Location: Roydon, Essex
User status: Offline
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what a lovely story
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Graham88
Member
Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Ian
Gearbox choice looked like a full on gamble, was thinking about the selector springs when I was reading it. Glad that paid off, you saved some money doing it that way?
It was a new thing to me all this! But glad I've done it now as I learnt so much...
Saved loads. Cheapest manual box I've found is £695 + VAT
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Toby
Premium Member
Registered: 29th Nov 05
User status: Offline
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Good work! why was the SMG box so cheap?
[Edited on 13-05-2013 by Toby]
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Daimo B
Member
Registered: 20th Mar 00
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Good lap time at Brands, its what Im aiming for on my bike this year (doing 1.03's in the wet/cold).
Odd for Lydden not being grippy though, as thats extremly abrasive surface, it totally destroys my bike rear tyre in one day  Its so grippy. Had the rallyX been on recently at all? Bet Lyddens a bit small for your M3 though
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Graham88
Member
Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Good work! why was the SMG box so cheap?
Think it's just because there is so many SMG boxes available. Because it's cheaper to replace a box than rebuild it that's why there's not many manual boxes about. Whereas the SMG boxes people can't crunch gears or blow them up it's only the pumps that go wrong which is a seperate part, so there's loads of them for sale!
quote:
Originally posted by Daimo B
Good lap time at Brands, its what Im aiming for on my bike this year (doing 1.03's in the wet/cold).
Odd for Lydden not being grippy though, as thats extremly abrasive surface, it totally destroys my bike rear tyre in one day Its so grippy. Had the rallyX been on recently at all? Bet Lyddens a bit small for your M3 though
I've not done it in the wet but I imagine I'd be about the same dependant how big my balls were feeling that day
I dunno what it was, it was so bad. Understeer which then turned to oversteer, awful! Yeah it wasn't really enough to stretch it's legs, top of 2nd out of the hairpin and 3rd for the rest, proper boring
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flybikeslee
Member
Registered: 2nd Jan 07
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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if i was you id be buying up all the SMG and doing manual conversions to sell!
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Graham88
Member
Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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Mate I've thought about it! But you need manual bellhousings :-(
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Graham88
Member
Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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Nothing too exciting but I felt like writing something here
Bought these ages ago when I was having gearbox troubles, UUC transmission mounts for streets cars that see mild track use. Annoying thing is with the gearbox out the car it would have taken 30 seconds to change. Because they took so long to come the gearbox is done and sorted now but I thought I'd fit them anyway, took an hour cause everything is so tight. Nightmare! Vibrates the car a bit more but can't notice sod all difference
Put new rear pads in after going metal to metal at Brands a while back. For some reason they glazed over and made the worst squealing noise ever at slow speed which made town driving very painful and embarrassing. Whipped em out rubbed them down and copper greased the backs and it's now stopped thankfully.
I bought a Go Pro 2 with Wifi Bacpac to make recording a bit easier for the rear cam. In theory (I've not tried it yet) Harry's Laptimer on the iPhone should now start the rear camera at the same time as it starts the lap which means I cut out about 10 minutes of wasted footage and battery life every time whilst I put helmet, gloves, harnesses & queue in the pit lane.
Visited Brands the other day and GP trackday was on, ridiculous amount of money in metal was in the pitlane and was perfect weather. Shot this as I drove out.
Been playing more with my other toy really so gave it a clean up the other day
Also bought a new daily as I wanted one with a bit more luxury and speed.
Has a couple of problems to sort so I started one the other day, which was worse than I thought.
Rear window wouldn't open and door wouldn't unlock, found out why!
Crimped the wires up best I could given the small space I had.
Sorted and all works now!
Got Brands evening session on Monday which really looking forwards too as haven't been on track much recently. Booked Destination Nurburgring Trackday in August which is a 1.5 day trackday, can't wait for that.
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Darryl H
Organiser: South Central
Premium Member
Registered: 19th Nov 09
Location: Camberley Drives: Porsche 944
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The car's still looking good! The astra looks alright for a daily
When in August are you going to Nurburg? I'm going out on the 19th to 25th
|My Corsa|SC|My Instagram|
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Graham88
Member
Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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It's not bad nice to have a bit of power for a daily. The other back door was the same I had to sort that today seems to be a common problem.
I'm going 4th to 7th mate
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