Tom's Track Car - BMW E46 -Engine Number 3

And a couple of other bits to arrive shortly! :wink:

Have you got a photo of the tool for removing the lower arm ball joints mate?


I have no idea what you mean! Appears that large post is on the previous page so no one will see it now! haha

This is the set up. Had to slightly grind a ball joint socket to get it to fit. Make sure you bolt it into position or you've never get the force through it and it'll slip off. 35mm or 36mm over the top of it and as much leverage as you can.

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Hi Tom..hope you have a great time..i will look into joining you but one of my work mate is going for a deputy headship at another school,and we organised a night out for her this Sat..so will see how i feel on Sunday...
thanks for letting me know..
 
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Hi Tom..hope you have a great time..i will look into joining you but one of my work mate is going for a deputy headship at another school,and we organised a night out for her this Sat..so will see how i feel on Sunday...
thanks for letting me know..

Sounds good, Let me know it you think of making it down even if it's only for the afternoon. You've got my mobile number haven't you?

A friend of mind was digging through some photos from Oulton. Sent me over a few of them but I really liked these two.

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Anglesey Update 4th Feb 2018

Really busy weekend which started with the loading of the trailer on Saturday before heading down to Anglesey on the Saturday evening. It's only a two hour drive for me so set off towing about 7:30 aiming to get there after 9 to set up camp for the evening in the van.
Weirdly the VW Transporter decided to throw a fault code and engine management light on the A55 on the way down to Bangor. Luckily I have full diagnostics for VAG's. Able to read and reset the fault code so I wasn't driving in limp mode and get back on my way after 10 mins with the laptop. Luckily the over boost fault that appeared never reappeared so I think it was a random anomaly.

The track day
Weather conditions were perfect on the Sunday morning waking up to blue skies and a slightly damp track from the night before. Signed on with the guys at Circuit days and found out there was only 30 cars booked on for the day - Perfect!
Only had to wait in the pitlane once when we came in for a red flag and I decided to line up ready to go straight back out rather going back to the garage for 5 minutes while a car was pulled from the mud.

Morning started with Sighting laps followed by the first session which I went out on the wet tyres just to give the car a run and get used to driving it again and get back into heel toeing on track.

Back into the garage. Suspension changed from road dampening back to where I had it set at Oulton in the dry in November. Rainsports swapped for RSR's on the cup wheels and the spacers removed from the rear to reduce the grip a little, always find it helps on track not to run the rear spacers.

Big set of two piece stoppers at 335mm hiding under the Clio Cup wheels.

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The morning went off without a hitch, only making slight adjustments to the car. Running the RSR's are a slightly lower 30psi hot at 3.5 degrees of camber and adding a little more dampening to the rear and 32psi rear tyres to get the car to rotate/oversteer a little more in corners when provoked.

The day was a great day with 6 of us booked on together split across 4 garages. So many friends came down during the day to do passenger laps, share the driving or just to come down and hangout at the track for the day. Always a good 10-15 people hanging around the garages at one time makes for a great atmosphere. Good to meet up with @R27WTF on track too and him sit in with me for some passenger laps.

Clio sharing the garage with my friends Civic race car which they were out testing ready for racing.

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Car performed flawlessly. Geometry set up feels fantastic along with the slightly tweeked suspension and tyre set up. Anglesey was a really good test for the car because I know the circuit so well. Really able to see the benefits of having the gripper diff fitted in the car.

Trusting the car in other peoples hands

Also let a couple of friends take my car out for a spin to see what they thought. One of them only owning a Clio 197 for two weeks before hand was able to give the Clio a good test against his fairly stardard car and helped persuade him (it didn't take much anyway) to get it sorted into a full fledged track car. Photo of me going for the overtake past him in the afternoon.
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Finally just some circuit days photos to finish off the post along with a little present I picked up while I was at Anglesey.

Car is now parked up on the drive tested and ready to go to Spa when it's had a wash and some new brake pads and two front tyres.

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Also took an engine crane down to the track day with me to pick up a couple of little spares for the garage.........

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Love tour write ups Tom and car was faultless loved it and completely changed my mind on what route to go with on my set up.

Such a decent bloke and some decent mates who are always willing to help and there to chat.




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glad all went perfect..nothing better than a cracking day behind the wheel with no part failure..
a new engine??
 
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Not seen this since having the yellow additions - looks properly good mate. Calipers to go yellow next?

If that's a meg engine, good choice, boost is the way forward!
 
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Awesome mate, any videos? And what's with the crane and engine??

Not seen this since having the yellow additions - looks properly good mate. Calipers to go yellow next?

If that's a meg engine, good choice, boost is the way forward!

Does that come from you Rich?:openmouth::openmouth:
 
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Does that come from you Rich?:openmouth::openmouth:

lol, I wondered if anyone would pick up that I said that!!! But yeah indeed, I bought a brand new F54 Clubman S just before xmas for my pimp new daily, and I love turbo noises!! lol. This thing drives like an NA in terms of being absolutely zero lag, decent response and so linear etc. (and yeah despite that I'd still pick NA as my favourite).....but basically I've been wrong all this time to be so dismissive of boost!! It's got it's own character, something different to NA, and appreciated in that way it is unquestionably fun!!! :smiley:
(shocking admission there I know!!)
 
@R27WTF I'm glad taking you out on track in it made you realise the potential of the standard engine and how quick they can be driven with the right mods. I think what you're doing now with the gearbox and diff is the right way to go to start.

@Pav @Sean197 Yes you're correct you spy a Megane engine which may potentially make it's way into the Clio in the future, cheeky little spot there Sean but the head/boost pipe on these and TB location is a give away isn't it.

@TB Rich I've been asked a few times about the calipers. In between going Yellow I actually went all red including spoiler end caps until I put the cage in and moved everything to yellow. The rear calipers will need some paint work in the near future so that might be the way to go with them yellow.

Highlight video from the day is currently being exported. Will be on Youtube by the end of the night.

More photos from Anglesey... Taken by @R27WTF

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No probs was a good day. Can’t wait to get mine out now. Final few bits to sort for spa now.

Thanks for the advice again.


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Man I'm getting itchy feet wanting to get out there...depending on what happens when we get there on the Tuesday, I may pop down for a few passenger laps in the afternoon at Spa if that's cool with you Tom? Eager to see this in action!