brillomaster

seems fairly straightforward to me. all to do with a vowel sound. however, whilst thinking about a slightly ambiguous letter H... would you say: I have a HSBC bank account. I have an HSBC bank account. cos surely it depends if you pronounce 'H' as 'aitch' or haitch', which is still widely debated as which way is correct!

episode 5 was alright i thought! celeb bit wasnt very long, feature film was good fun.

Seems F1 does have a sense of humour after all!

if it was tracking they'd likely be bald on one of the shoulders. i'm going with fwd scrabblewagon being at fault, conversely the rear tyres will go for 50,000 miles cos all they do is hold the rear of the car up.

problem with stripping a car like a zed is that it quite quickly becomes unusable day to day, and you haven't actually saved a lot of weight. its a heavy car, take out 100kgs and its still a heavy car. That said, I've been in a couple of fairly standard zeds on trackdays and they perform well anyways - if you're thinking of tracking a car id start off in a fairly standard zed (perhaps with just some brake upgrades) and see how you get on. if the bug bites, you can then decide how much to invest, and what compromises you're prepared to put up with - or alternatively you might find you're better off buying a cheap bmw/mx5 and going to town on it, knowing its not your daily driver. reducing weight is great if you can get big gains for free, but brakes, tyres, suspension and driver tuition will make you faster round a track.

they're definitely a budget tyre, but id rather them than anything evergreen/riken/landsail/other super budget tyres. thing is, even in 18" or 19" sizes, the difference between nankangs and something i'd consider decent but cheap like hankooks or yokohamas is only like a tenner a tyre. Sure avoid the premium brands with premium price tags if you must, but the lowest i'd ever go is a falken, hankook, avon, kumho.

popadoms don't have the sidewall stiffness, you need naan breads. I also find deep pan pizzas give good turn in response.

sounds like a belt squealing to me. happens a lot when they're cold and wet, once the engine warms up it goes away.

by steering in, do you mean understeer? cos wider rear tyres will increase understeer.

i was going on different information, which suggests a 265/35/18 can go on an 8.5". but its there or therabout. http://www.lvvta.org.nz/documents/infosheets/LVVTA_Info_01-2009_V2_Tyre_Size_to_Wheel_Size_Compatibility_Guide.pdf

that didn't come out quite how you intended it...

255 on an 8.5 rim would fit fine. heck a 265 could go on comfortably as well. could always change the entire setup - go from 225/45 and 245/45 to 245/40 and 265/40. if you don't have TCS on you don't need to worry too much about the correct ratio between front and rear diameters - but i'd try and keep them within 2% of standard. on a related note, why do you want wider tyres, it is just a looks thing? cos it will affect the characteristics of the car, and if its more grip you're looking for you'd be better off upgrading the tyre, rather than just going wider.

useful... I never knew there was a external boot switch switch!

hooray, an actual grand tour! a good old fashioned road trip, with a trackday thrown in. nothing particularly new or entertaining, but its what i want to see. makes me want to go to italy in the summertime! and yep no american, just need to get rid of the celebrity comedy death section and all will be good.

I think it'll be someone from a smaller team, someone like Bottas, or Hulkenberg... still, next year is going to be a complete change of guard, 3 big names retiring now, and raikonnen is probably for the chop. could be a whole load more verstappens next year!

find a better carpark

you could do worse than finding an empty carpark, turning the tcs off and putting your foot down, see what happens...

well that's interesting news! wonder who is going to replace him?

it'd be great to just see an equal playing field, but F1 is as much about the technology of the cars as who is the best driver. personally, I think F1 should reduce the championship calendar to 15 races, and then have 6 exhibition races, where they can try out various things like ballast, reverse grids, short sprint races, enforced choice of tyres, balance of performance on the cars, all that kind of stuff. Without affecting the overall championship.

indeed, some trackday organisers and circuits seem more draconian then others. Bedford marshalls are really strict, constantly getting black flagged for the slightest hint of fun. However, at the end of the day at a Blyton park trackday I was throwing some big angles around, backing it into corners, trail braking, aggressive throttle application, all great fun. Airfields are even better for learning the ropes, at the end of the day when a lot of people have gone home, you can have the track to yourself to have a play. I've never really liked skidpan sessions as the level of grip is so low I don't think you learn a lot. I think you need a proper track where there is normal levels of grip, and then to learn what happens if you overstep the mark. a skidpan you'll be wildly pirouetting at 15mph which isn't realistic. And as for turning TCS off on the roads, i'd never bother. theres very little to be gained, and a heck of a lot to lose, it just isn't worth it for me. Unless you're very confident in your own driving abilities i'd be keeping it on. but if you are driving and see the tcs light flashing, think why its flashing and what you can do different in the same situation.

if we're handing out best driver awards, then surely Verstappen is in with a pretty good shout? has anyone else made more on track overtakes this season than him?

As much as I prefer Hamilton to Nico, its not just about the driver - its the entire package, driver, car and mechanics. Nicos combination was better than Hamiltons this season. Sure you can put the best driver in the world in a car, but if the car keeps breaking down and DNF then hes not going to win the championship. Team Hamilton was a good driver let down by an unreliable car, and team Nico was a very good reliable car, possibly making up for a slight deficit on the driver. But that deficit is fractional, Nico has had some great wins this season as well as Hamilton. And winning a championship isn't about winning races, its about consistently banking points, which Nico did. Still don't particularly like him though. Heres hoping the regs change next year mix things up a bit, i'm getting a bit bored of Mercedes domination now.

others will disagree but i'd see no problem in running a 235/40/19 front. you'll be fractionally more understeer and the rear wheels might be allowed fractionally more slip before the tcs cuts in, but I doubt anyone other than a professional vehicle dynamics expert would notice. I wouldn't drop to a 35 profile though, unless you do the same to the rear, and also lower the car to correct for the increased arch gap.

squeal from a loose/worn belt? pop the bonnet and listen for any weird noises when you start the engine from cold.

I'll be honest, they're not quite the shows I was hoping they would be. hopefully they'll do what top gear USA did after two seasons, which was ditch the studio, celebrities and track sections entirely, and just have an on location from start to finish, which was a lot better. have to say, I think I preferred the last three episodes of new top gear to the first two episode of the grand tour. and the advertising is completely different to the actual show, three friends, yes, but one incredible adventure? not from what I've seen so far, there wasn't any continuity between the two episodes other than the studio tent.