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Dan's 645Ci thread


Ekona

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Have to say its quite a compelling watch all of that, watching all the different cars gun it out of the place!

I found that too. Also interesting to see who's willing to "perform" for the camera. :lol:

 

I was literally waiting to see one of them get too carried away and end up in the bushes. :drive1

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Have to say its quite a compelling watch all of that, watching all the different cars gun it out of the place!

I found that too. Also interesting to see who's willing to "perform" for the camera. :lol:

 

I was literally waiting to see one of them get too carried away and end up in the bushes. :drive1

 

sorry i missed this meet

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It is indeed a thing of pure comfort wonderness, along with super duper supportability. :D

 

Although I think I need to add a little more padding under my bony arse cheeks, so I'll just cut a little bit of foam I've got sitting around at home and try putting that under it first. What Cobras have you got in yours?

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I'd just like to say, I've never been sure on the wing on Dan's car. On Sunday I saw it in the flesh and my God it looks good! Everyone there was taking pictures and on the way home he got several flashes and thumbs up too!

I'm rather fond of it. Anything that distracts from that bangle butt is a good thing.

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Another year, another MOT passed with just a couple of minors (rusting brake lines, dodgy OSF wheel bearing) which I'll get sorted in Jan. I also had the CDV removed...

 

For those who don't know, and I didn't, modern non-M manual BMWs have a fitting in the clutch pipe called a Clutch Delay Valve. Essentially this is a restrictor that won't allow the fluid to flow back too quickly when disengaging the clutch, the idea being it allows for a slower and smother gear change. The downside here is that by doing so it's essentially slipping the clutch every single time you change gear, and heel and toe changes are much harder to do. By removing it you make it like every other car and any jerkiness is purely down to the driver, but you're now able to do very rapid gear changes.

 

Now, a lot of people complain that the gearbox in the manual 6er is crap, and I'm convinced this is the reason why. Having removed it, changes can now be much smoother and also much snappier, and it's significantly better in feel too. It was a bugger to bleed apparently, but on a drive across to a mate's house to re-bleed it decided to self-bleed and is now perfect. Removal of the CDV takes about half an hour, and you can either just remove the entire valve and pull the metal clutch line over to bridge the gap, or just pop the guts of the valve out using a small punch then replace it back in situ.

 

For anyone with a roughly 2000 onwards manual BMW (E39 & E46 eras), this is a must-do mod. Go try it, you'll be pleasantly surprised. :)

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I never got around to removing the CDV from my old E85 or E92 but they do swear by it on the Z4 forum. I dont know if ive learnt to live with it but the one on the F11 is much better. I found the E92 would sometimes run away from you at slow speeds as you never had real control of the clutch.

Edited by un1eash
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  • 3 weeks later...

Given that I'm *still* faffing around with suspension/geo settings trying to get this thing to feel right, I've decided to bite the bullet and have booked her in at Center Gravity for a full day chassis tune. They're the same folks I took my 911 to when I wanted the car to feel a bit less planted and more rear-engined, which Chris certainly managed to achieve. This time I want the opposite, as I'm still lacking confidence on front end turn in and through high speed corners. The car will take them happily at pace if you man up and put your foot down, but it just feels floaty and unsure. It's much, much better than it was, but I know it can be better still.

 

It's not a cheap day, but I know it'll be worth every penny. I'm booked in for the 20th, so I've got time to get the bits the MOT picked up on fixed as well beforehand. Then I can start getting some trackdays booked up! :D :D :D

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Love the comment as I pull out of Goodwood :lol: :lol: :lol:

That was a good event, me and my brother leaving at 11:11 into the video (Laguna Seca Blue M3 and my Night Blue Z), very slippy! :teeth: Forgot to turn the TC off! :blush: Edited by N4eay
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Given that I'm *still* faffing around with suspension/geo settings trying to get this thing to feel right, I've decided to bite the bullet and have booked her in at Center Gravity for a full day chassis tune. They're the same folks I took my 911 to when I wanted the car to feel a bit less planted and more rear-engined, which Chris certainly managed to achieve. This time I want the opposite, as I'm still lacking confidence on front end turn in and through high speed corners. The car will take them happily at pace if you man up and put your foot down, but it just feels floaty and unsure. It's much, much better than it was, but I know it can be better still.

 

It's not a cheap day, but I know it'll be worth every penny. I'm booked in for the 20th, so I've got time to get the bits the MOT picked up on fixed as well beforehand. Then I can start getting some trackdays booked up! :D :D :D

 

What tyres are you running?

 

The GTR felt the same on MPSS tyres at Thruxton, it sort of wobbled across the track on the high speed corner on the back straight, quite worrying at 120-130mph, but with the change to the R888 & R888R no such wobble.

 

Will be interested to see how much that they can get out of the car with geo.

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MPSS (of course!), but then it was on these from day one (or day two, after I picked her up). The car was absolutely fantastic on the OEM suspension in terms of feel into a corner, there was just too much body roll hence me changing it for something better. Well, and the fact that 100k dampers are clearly not going to be as good as new ones anyway. I was able to walk away from my mate with the Gallardo in Wales such was the confidence I had in the car, but I've really struggled to get that back ever since. All my little tweaks (adjusting the front ARB, adjusting the balance front to rear on the dampers, adjusting the toe/camber) have helped, but I'm still not there and I'm fed up of faffing :lol:

 

It's the one drawback to doing too much at once: You don't know what caused the 'problem'. I did wheels with spacers, dampers and ARBs at the same time, so I don't really have the time to fiddle with each one to get it right.

 

Funny you mention the 888Rs though, as I'll be getting a set for mine once the MPSS run a bit lower. I suspect it'll be superb fun :)

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MPSS (of course!), but then it was on these from day one (or day two, after I picked her up). The car was absolutely fantastic on the OEM suspension in terms of feel into a corner, there was just too much body roll hence me changing it for something better. Well, and the fact that 100k dampers are clearly not going to be as good as new ones anyway. I was able to walk away from my mate with the Gallardo in Wales such was the confidence I had in the car, but I've really struggled to get that back ever since. All my little tweaks (adjusting the front ARB, adjusting the balance front to rear on the dampers, adjusting the toe/camber) have helped, but I'm still not there and I'm fed up of faffing :lol:

 

It's the one drawback to doing too much at once: You don't know what caused the 'problem'. I did wheels with spacers, dampers and ARBs at the same time, so I don't really have the time to fiddle with each one to get it right.

 

Funny you mention the 888Rs though, as I'll be getting a set for mine once the MPSS run a bit lower. I suspect it'll be superb fun :)

 

Makes a lot more sense..... yeah, 100k dampers, not really something you want to push that hard :)

 

Completely understand, did the same in a previous car and it went from decent to terrible. Look forward to seeing the results.

 

888Rs are awesome!!! In the dry, they are just fantastic, in wet greasy conditions with sub 3mm on the fronts, not so good. Been fine on the road so far and I have been driving a lot over December.

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How do they compare in the damp/greasy stuff to the 888s?

 

I never had the R888s in the these sorts of conditions on track, only dry tracks and they were brilliant.

 

Honestly they were shocking and quite well worn, so not a great comparison. Conditions wise, Brands was a lot worse than Silverstone and the GTR was losing traction and sideways constantly, ended up switching the traction control off and turning the boost down. It was great fun, but slow as hell!!! A lot of that is down to the weight and power of the car, I run something like 285 and 315 tyres it was just hilarious!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Blimey, two years today. That's gone quick. Looks a bit different now too! :lol:

 

OSF wheel bearing, brake fluid and very rusty rear brake lines all changed out yesterday, so she's good to go now for Friday. Tyres are looking a little low (down to 3mm front and rear on the inside) now, so will have to do some serious thinking sooner rather than later on the tyre front.

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Tyres are looking a little low (down to 3mm front and rear on the inside) now, so will have to do some serious thinking sooner rather than later on the tyre front.

 

Your photos don't look like you're running excessive camber, is it usual to wear the inside edges or is it just because they're wider than OEM? How many miles have you had out of the tyres so far?

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I run a f*ck-ton of toe out :D I'm also running maximum camber at the front too, hence everything wears that little bit quicker. The rears I run with minimum camber, but I do like to slide the back end a tad...

 

Hard to say on mileage as I've swapped tyres around a fair bit, but at a guess I'd say about 12K on the fronts and probably 8k from the rears, which is about right given the usage of the car. If I set everything up to be OEM and pootled everywhere then I'd probably double that, I reckon.

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