67 replies to this topic

[sford]

So I thought I'd document my current ownership so as not to just think of all the annoying bits and to look back and reminiss.  I've had the car for around 4 years having purchased it on 02/12/2010 from a forum member on here named Karl in Redditch. It was the fourth car I'd been to see having test driven three of the others and found them to be in quite poor mechanical condition. The one I purchased felt like everything was still (relatively) tight and there were no horrible bumps/rattles. Took the buying guide along with me, probably really annoyed Karl with the questions I asked but was happy. Got home and it looked like this;


 
It was around the time we had loads of snow so I couldn't really get to drive the car for a while. First accident happened at this point, drove into a car park and clipped the number plate on a curb ripping it off and cracking it. Had to buy a new plate.
The car is a Y reg NA with red roof, 64k miles, black leather seats, ITG carbon fibre induction kit, VSE and turbo splitters. Looking back, the standard wheels are my favourite looking wheel on the car.
 
Snow shot
 


 
Got fed up with the missing exhaust heat shield plastic so fitted some pipe and bought a chavy aerial. Standard one made the car look like a remote control car.
 
Then the radiator blew up.
 

 
Replaced with a high pressure rad. At the same point I replaced the cracked inner sill and DIY covered my door cards. Also bought a carbon gear stick cover from here.
 


 
The door triangles looked old and scabby so tried wrapping them. It was crap.
 

 
 

[sford]

[font="arial, sans-serif;"]Started going to meets and met Mr Simba, Si, Giles and a few others.[/font]
 
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Seeing as the suspension was a bit old and tired I purchased some low mileage replacements.[/font]
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And ordered some Ultimate Carbon door triangles.[/font]
 
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[sford]

[font="arial, sans-serif;"]Went to Brunters with Mani et al. First experience on track and enjoyed it. [/font]
 
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Booked another track day at Castle Combe. It rained and was pretty miserable.[/font]
 
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At this point, I went to MMG for a service and other assorted things. New toe links (standard replacement) and geo. Turned out half the bushes were rusted in solid. A lot of them were cut out. New bushes at this point. Poly bushed all round and the car felt like new. Braided lines fitted/brake bleed as well.[/font]
I decided I like the Exige wing so bought Jimmy's old one.
 
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Got it all painted, ordered new gaskets and then chickened out. Decided I prefered it without.[/font]
Then some twat put a boat on the car.
 
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[sford]

[font="arial, sans-serif;"]Mr Simba kindly came to the rescue and offered his polishing services to try and get some of the damage out. The one on the bonnet was just too bad.[/font]
 
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Did a france trip, 2,500 miles in total all the way to Monaco, Mont Blanc and other assorted places. [/font]
 
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Then moved house and got a garage, wrapped the windscreen surround and did some hill climbing.[/font]
 
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Edited by sford, 31 March 2015 - 10:48 PM.

[sford]

 

Did Brunters again.

 

 

[font="Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10.5pt;"]Fitted an FLD splitter. Bought some new wheels and tyres. Polished my knob and retrimmed the centre console.[/font]

 

 

Edited by sford, 31 March 2015 - 10:51 PM.

[sford]

For ages I had been saying it sounded like there was rattle from the sill, like a biro or something rolling around. Took it apart and found this. 

 

 

Took the time to change hub carrier bolts, drill out pre-cat and put a new exhaust manifold on. Mine was cracked.

 

 

Changed to a black roof.

 

 

[font="Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10.5pt;"]Father in law came to visit with his new toy. Pretty much the reason I wanted to get a sports car.[/font]

 

Moved house again.

 

 

[sford]

Bought some cuff links to match the car.

 

 

[font="Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10.5pt;"]And some more parts. Took the time to replace the full length of the vacuum hose. What a pain in the ass that was.[/font]

 

 

Did the local motoring show and got married in the same weekend. My car was 'wedding bombed' by my mother and sister while on display.
 

 

Did another track day at Castle Combe.

 

 

[font="Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10.5pt;"]This brings me pretty much up to the current state of the car. This winter it's been on axle stands having all of the suspension renewed. [/font]

 

 

[font="arial, sans-serif;"]The new spec is new bolts/nuts/shims/ball joints/drop links everywhere. NSS2's and uprated ARB (cheers Joe). I've always wanted the car for both european road trips and a bit of track and think that the new spec will be just what I want. Having not driven it for 6 months I'm quite missing it. Nothing better than having an aweful day at work and then remembering you took the VX that day and going the long route home. It's now all back together and I drove it for the first time since September 2014. Geo is hugely out and the car feels horrible. It'll be off to Dan Webster from MLOC at [/font][font="calibri, sans-serif;"][font="arial, sans-serif;"]http://www.hpeauto.co.uk/[/font][/font] [font="arial, sans-serif;"]for the work.[/font]

[Ormes]

Nice

[Tonie Pettersson]

Really nice car. How did you end up with a boat on the car?  

Can´t imagine the pita to change the vacuum hose, a job I´m not looking forward to do...

[sford]

Went to a car limits activity day and thoroughly enjoyed myself. While it was only the cheaper option and not the full on tuition day I spent time talking with the instructors in between exercises and tried to apply that whilst driving. I felt I learnt a huge amount about driving the car and the balance, managing to improve throughout the day on all the activities we were set.

Next up was a trip to Anglesey with some friends and had an absolute whale of a time. Hopefully do a national if I organise myself and there is another there. We had perfect weather all day and the car didn't miss a beat. Everything felt tight and precise with the winters refresh justifying itself. Anglesey is an amazing track and I felt towards the end of the day I was doing well. The jets flying over between sessions was a good distraction. A real boys play ground.

The activity day helped a lot with using the throttle to balance the car mid corner. There were a few times where I had a bit of understeer (presumably to do with the uprated anti roll bar and the geo) but having Dan@HPE explain when that would happen and the tuition I knew how to combat it and this gave me a huge amount more confidence in the car. I ended up keeping pace and having to short shift with one of my faster friends in front when he was leading. Previously he was far faster than me. Really really happy with the car at the minute. Only niggle is the anti roll bar creaked loads as the day went on however having taken it all apart again, I've re-greased it and everything now seems fine.



Next up is Castle Combe on the 24/07/2015.

[sford]

Castle Combe came and went. It was a little bit wet. Was fun trying the limits of tyres/skills in those conditions but not a fun as a full on day. Locked up at a couple of chicanes and had to go straight on but otherwise fairly uneventful. Found my gearbox breather and filter had worked loose so made a new bracket for that. Fitted my carbon door cards from the group buy. 4 of us went on the day that knew one-another however one elise drive didn't want to risk his car. The purple S2 lost an alternator (the S1's one gave up at Anglesey) but the plucky Vauxhall just keeps going! Couple of shots from the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up is Brunters with Mani and the usual rabble. Looking forward to catching up with you all. Hopefully the weather will be nicer. Might try and squeeze a td in towards the end of August as well yet but not sure where. Really want to go to brands but getting the rest of the guys motivated to drive that far is proving hard. 

Edited by sford, 29 July 2015 - 02:01 PM.

[nicollow]

Some good shots there. Looks like you're enjoying the #plasticshitbox Long may it continue.

[sford]

I think I could have taken the wheels off and used a paddle and gone faster. There was an Audi RS4 there that appeared to be tanking around who was doing 1.45's apparently. I think I was late 1.50's so didn't feel too disheartened when I heard. All timed by someone at the side of the track with a watch so not accurate at all. Think we were around 1.30 ish last year in the dry. This is all new to me really and still finding my feet with the car and track driving experience. Done about 5 or 6 now. It is a completely different event than driving on the road and the car feels so much more capable. I actually think the uprated ARB makes a huge difference although I don't think this can be felt on the road that much. It's not just the turn in that improves but the mid corner adjustments feel like they make a bigger difference. It's only the 7/8ths one but set to the stiffest setting. At Anglesey I was following a Fiesta ST that was understeering round the first hairpin after the pit join and he just seemed to go straight. I was able to follow a much tighter line and got power on sooner so ended up overtaking him as soon as we came out the bend. It felt a lot more confidence inspiring than last year prior to fitting.

[GiGo]

Only just noticed this thread Tom.  Nice write up

 

I remember meeting you at the Waterman some 5 years ago.  Taking each other down the road in our cars.  You saying my car was loud as it pushed it past the 5000RPM mark, then you told me you had a VSE and I demanded you took me down the road with it, watching your face when you revved yours passed the 5000RPM mark was excellent!

 

The next meet you told me 'I'm driving it more like that know, it sounds so so so good!'

 

Hope to catch up with you soon mate, been too long, here's too another five years of ownership 

[e7 jmc]

Good review makes my documentary a bit inadequate...

[sford]

Took all four wheels off the car to check the summer's toll on all the nice new parts and everything was clean. Gave it all a wipe down and re-acf50'd it all.

 

I have felt for a while that my clutch is approaching the end of it's life and at Brunters I was having issues selecting 3rd gear. Travel through the entire gate has become more difficult recently with it not liking to engage gears easily. Double clutching seems to help with this and from the people I've spoken to it seems to point to the synchros going.

 

The car is fast approaching 90k with the gearbox having no work done to it to my knowledge so this winter I am going down the route of gearbox off, lightened fly wheel/new clutch etc. Spoken with DanR and I'm going to have his gearbox hopefully, just got to convince my wife that the 3 hour round trip to get it on a weekend away is needed. 

 

I will be looking at other 'while I'm there jobs' but don't really want to acknowledge the whole sub-frame splitting and shim replacement just yet. Clam will be coming off, oil change will be done along with brake/clutch bleed. SC maybe next winter. Other than that, still makes me happy. Gearbox off will be the biggest thing I've done on the car yet but with Nev's guide I'm sure it should be relatively straight forward.

[tommobot]

Nev's guide for gearbox change is fantastic! I'm sure you'll find it a doddle anyway..

[sford]

I'll be coming to you for help when I get stuck Tom 

[sford]

Eliseparts lightweight flywheel here already, they are good there. Ordered it the thursday, arrived friday and free delivery.

 

Picking up my lower mileage gearbox from DanR on here on saturday. 

 

What is the consensus on clutches? Obviously there are uprated ones but seeing as the standard one has lasted 90k and is probably still ok, should I just replace with OE?

 

Eurocarparts do the slave cylinder http://www.eurocarpa...45720011/p/home, should I go with that and a clutch kit from them http://www.eurocarparts.com/search/641722120/p/home? About £200

 

Or plump for the Courtney fast road and their slave cylinder at £320 all in? http://www.courtenay...e/prod_919.html

 

What are people's experiences?

[sford]

Started amassing parts ready to carry out the work. So far I have the EP lightened flywheel and CS fast road clutch/slave cylinder. 

 

 

All the bits and bobs look good. Will update as I fit parts. Had to also order the nuts to go from the flywheel to the cover plate. These came from Ebay after vocky recommended them, 6x M8 AEROTIGHT METAL SELF LOCKING NUTS STEEL ZINC/YELLOW PLATED at a cost of £3.40. 

Edited by sford, 03 November 2015 - 04:25 PM.