G1en

Unfortunately not as the HR version has holes either end for the twin intakes. I can get a mishimoto power steering rad for £60 new direct which is very reasonable so only worth getting used if its from same place/person as rad support, sorry Ian

Due to a minor indiscretion with a tyre wall i am looking for a front bumper (oem or aftermarket) main radiator support (big section that the rads sit behind and crash bar attaches to) and the power steering radiator/cooler. 

If anybody has anything going cheap before i buy new let me know. It is 350 HR model

 

yes, i have tried Alex 

I have just removed both jets from my bumper after recent crash. The jets/brackets are perfectly fine, depending what i do regarding new bumper i may not use them so will update here if they are available if you don't get sorted before. 

Yeah, i will have to try that kit, stability control i could understand on a corner but going in a straight line? I just think its the abs as i cant recall it ever triggering and i can do some last minute braking, but when i leave it too late the rears seem to lock up first, if i am starting to turn this usually results in a 180/360 spin. If abs was working correctly i would understeer yes?

It all works fine when i re-start the car though, its just strange that its happened at the same place twice and only there. The track was slightly damp on both occasion as well. 

Do you know if abs is front wheels only? 

As on other occasions the rears seem to lock way before the fronts, this may be to do with the 2-way diff, CL6 pads on rear, little weight on rear or prob all 3. 

Think i need to pull the fuses and try it out or the abs module (if there is such a thing) may be faulty as it feels like instead of pulsing the brake pedal (releasing, reapply releasing) it applies then fails (light comes on) then cannot disengage. 

This happens when i am braking full on in a straight line. The brakes seize and stay seized even when i release pedal. I dont know if the car has some sort of G meter that thinks i am in a crash or something as i have uprated brakes and semi slicks and this braking zone is uphill so im going from 65 to 25 in about 10mtrs. As you say i may be overloading the system. I would much rather do the braking myself anyway as abs very rarely kicks in which is why i think something or some sensor may be faulty. 

Which fuses do you pull for the ABS/TC/SC on the HR?

Right then, after the zed today binned me into the gravel and tyre wall for the second time i need to get to bottom of why its happening. 

 

When i slammed on the brakes at around 65mph (on rev limiter in 2nd) the abs light and car skidding light came on and the brakes lock up sending me straight on to certain death (ish)

 

Traction control is always off as its during hillclimbing/sprints. Any ideas whats happening. When i restart the car all lights come on (TC, ABS, Skid car (SC?) and stay on then go off when i pull away. 

 

 

Welcome along

Did you find out the what the issue is?

I too have a red neck and face. The sun literally came out for 5 minutes?

great turnout by us again. 

Big thanks to everyone involved

I must have missed the warning sign at the entrance “caution firing range” as i kept hearing gun shots all day???

Japfest Silverstone & Prep

 

Back home from another great Japfest day and first of all a big thank you to Andy and everyone involved in organising. Got to chat to lots of members as well as having a look round the usual mix of japans finest motoring icons. Sadly did not get the chance to watch any of the drifting as i stopped to help someone from the stand in a 350 who had broken down mid track session. Unfortunately we could not get him back running so had to call the AA. Hopefully he got home at a reasonable hour. I did get a poster signed by Bizz though (350 v8 drifter) for Masons bedroom, he might be 18 months old but never too young to start his petrolhead adventure. 

 

Anyways, rewind a week and I wanted to get the Zed looking its best for Japfest so booked in with the boss aka wife to let me have 4 hrs last Saturday and 4hrs yesterday to give the car some much needed TLC. 

If only I knew someone who sold detailing stuff locally.... but alas, i dont so had to take the strenuous 8mt walk to my wax and shine store aka utility room and raid that (again) 

 

I will quickly run through the process and products used. It was by no means a professional job but I am happy with the overall result from the time invested and it fit in well with all the other zeds on the stand today!

 

Day 1:

step 1 - spray wheels with carchem citrus degreaser diluted approx 1:10 and agitate with hogs hair brush including barrels of alloys then rinse. Wheels have already been coated in gtechniq C5 which makes cleaning much quicker and easy. 

 

Step 2 - using one of scotches finest brillo pads and some more citrus cleaner, scrub into tyres. Take note with this, if you get a “brown” lather then you will need to rinse and repeat until the suds are the normal white and most of the oils and dirt have been worked from the sidewalls. I only needed one pass as the tyres were relatively clean and had been previously coated. 

 

Step 3 - Fallout remover. You may think the wheels are now clean as i did but always remember to decontaminate them as you will be suprised how much fallout can build up. As i mainly use the car in anger now and the brakes take some abuse, i sprayed carchem revolt onto the wheels and left for a few minutes which resulted in this:

 

Step 4 - Pre Rinse of car and blast off any chunks of dirt and get into the arches and give the underside a blast best as possible with karcher k4 i use. 

 

Step 5 - Snow Foam. I mixed some more citrus cleaner in with some dedicated carchem snowfoam into the lance as it would help both clean the car and strip it of previously applied wax/sealants. Then rinsed. 

 

Step 6 - 2 Bucket Wash. I used some random shampoo i had in the garage as i didn't need it to do anything other than lubricate for the wash mitt and it did have a lovely orange sent. Yes i know i need some grit guards, might even start selling them soon...

 

Step 7 - Claying. As i had clayed the car twice in the previous 12 months i opted this time for Bilt Hambers “soft” clay which turned out to be a good choice as it was very cold and even the soft stuff took some working to make it plyable with the added benefit of not being too aggressive on the paintwork. Lubricated with some very watered down carchem clay lubricant. (You only actually need water with BH clays) but again the bubblegum scented clay lube won me over. 

 

Step 8 - DA Polisher. Then out came the DA for a one step polish on the Zed using a Lake Country Orange light cutting pad and Scholl S17 compound which is a good all rounder to give a moderate amount of cut and nice finish. If i had more time i would have used the S3 for the couple of deep marks and the S40 for the finishing but time is not my friend at this stage of my life so the one pass it had to be. 

 

One thing you can save time on when “correcting”  paint is you dont have to buff off any claying residue as such, the polish sorts all that out:

 

The paint came up quite well taking into account the polish is 3 years old and i was rushing. Reflection shot:

 

So day one finished and car looking good:

 

Day 2

step 9 - Clean Glass. Quick spray with carchem clarity glass cleaner and gtechniq mf5 glass cloth, then buffed with MF1 microfibre. 

 

Step 10 - Panel Wipe. Sprayed onto microfibres then every panel wiped so to remove all polishing residues and any other contaminants. Its at this stage you find out how good/bad your paintwork actually is. I still had minor marks and light scratches in a couple of spots but it was too late to start worrying now and overall i would say it was sitting at 7/10

 

Step 11 - Ceramic Coating. Now to do it “properly” you would do a base layer in one form of ceramic for scratch protection and a top layer in a different product for gloss/hydrophobicity. I did not have the time or patience for both so I used the gtechniq Exo V4 top coat which you can use on its own and gtechniq say do 2 coats if using it as a stand alone product, so i did, and it still has some anti swirl protection properties with it, just not as much as using a dedicated base layer ceramic. Another thing to note with these products is the car has to be dry when applying and kept dry for around 10-12 hours after. I checked apple weather which said 0% chance of rain yesterday, I then checked my eyes and the sky which was telling me something different. I decided to play it safe and move into the garage which had 3 drawbacks. I only had around a foot of space all way round the car, the lighting isnt the best and due to drawback 1 it meant i had to manipulate my body into positions it didnt want to go so my back and neck is killing me. 

My workspace below:

 

Never the less, off we go and 10 mins after starting their is hailstones coming down outside, thank the lord of my eyeballs i ignored the iphone weather forecast. 1st coat done and this is the bottle:

 

I had used slightly more than half but coat 2 goes on much faster as your not concentrating on making sure you get every last spot so it worked out i had the exact right amount in the 30ml bottle. Leave to fully cure overnight. 

 

Step 12 - Exhaust. Used some metal polish and a foam pad to clean up the back box and exhaust tips, something many people overlook as its mainly hidden beneath the car but it came up really well. 

 

Step 13 - Tyre Dressing. Some gtechniq T1 tyres dressing was applied with a sponge applicator then buffed with a microfibre. Gtechniq say to use one coat for a satin finish or 2 coates for a glossy wet look finish. 

 

Step 14 - turn up at a show and admire your own and everyone else's hard work and pride of joys. 

 

 

I will meet you guys at LFE

coming down from Leeds. 

Welcome along 

Welcome along 

https://youtu.be/ITkapLKeZTU

try this bud

welcome along. I have same car, agree with above, you can see the swirls in the pics, the black paint is nigh on impossible to stay scratch/swirl free but I gave mine a good going over with the DA to get rid of 95% of the marks then you can protect it with a wax/sealant or proper coating if you have time/money/facilities.

Quick Update:

 

Just finished first Harewood hillclimb event of the season, finishing 5th from 23 entered in Class 1C. 

It was a mixed bag of feelings, I knew when I rocked up at 7am to frost it was not going to be quick times on the Nankangs and things never warmed up as the day went on. My starts as per usual were abysmal BUT some of the other sectors despite the ice cold tyres were relatively quick and I even managed a PB in one sector on the final run. Each run had problems of some capacity though meaning my quickest time of 66.6 was actually 4 tenths slower than my best on the practice day the previous month in very similar conditions. 

Never the less as I said, they were some positives to take away as well as the frustration. One was the fact that the car is now feels very neutral mid corner and much of the understeer has disappear with the front camber being increase to almost -3 BUT the rear tweaking from -2 to -1 has not helped the getaways at all and I half filled the fuel tank today to try and get more weight over the rear but to no avail. I just think the Zed really needs warm tyres and warm track temps to start quick as the weight distribution is not quite there or my technique (to which I have tried many ) is S***e. Being best part of a second down within 50 yards is asking a lot to make up!

 

If you have never been to a sprint/hillclimb event, get yourself down, if you don't want to risk the car, there is plenty of action to see and every type of car you can imagine from the relatively common clio sport to the exotic supercars and single seaters. Below is just a selection of cars I was competing against today. Its modified production class so basically road legal production cars with road legal tyres (from a set list) and an MOT but some modifications are allowed (that's a hot topic it seems at the minute as the Blue Book of regs is very grey in lots of areas)

 

The Wax and Shine Machine:

 

The Beautiful Porsche 911 GT3 RS next me

 

An Aston Martin V8 Vantage:

 

An old school Porsche 911:

 

A Turbo Volvo 940:

 

An the one that always seems to get the most attention, the 40 year old Talbot Sunbeam (still mixing it with the big boys)

 

Video below shows my best run of the day although almost losing it at what is called Orchard and subsequently sliding wide onto the grass meant I finished half a second behind the said Talbot above and narrowly missed out on a top 4 prize, anyway, onwards and upwards to the next events. Just booked Japfest last week as well before the cut-off so will see many of you there, can't say my Zed will be reaching for anyones attention after the bumps and scrapes its had but I will do my best to try and at least make it look like I sell detailing stuff!

 

 

 

 

 

Fiat punto 3rd gen

2005-2018

I can’t process infinity. Can we work on the assumption the universe is flat? 

Maybe, or it maybe just half the thickness of the “skin” of the universe in comparative terms. 

Ah but if you expanded the Earth to the size of the universe, that 12 mile hole would be the distance from Earth to Jupiter. 

 

* may or may not be factually correct?

Excellent job, love it 

I will be there, see you tomorrow 

Can someone add me to the list please 

Welcome