Prawn and BigAls A3 Track Car

Dont do what I did and get angry with the retainging plates, I over tightened the allen bolts and started to disform the plates haha.
 
Thinking in general regarding the suspension and the clunks etc, since we have been running slicks with this setup, the g forces are considerable and what used to be, will NOT be now. Has to be more wear and tear on everything. I remember putting wider more grippy tyres on the A4. Wheel bearings did not like it. Not what it was intended for. So had to uprate. We have the choice, maybe extreme ironing, fishing, (get real) gardening, oh and crosswords. OR track cars.
 
8 in total Daz. Not the cheapest!

most of them were about £2 each, but i think the subframe ones were something silly like £4.90 each, so it bumped up the bost.

4x subframe bolts, and 4x wishbone bolts with nuts. Will fit those and spanner check everything again. i've also softened the front ARB to soft last weekend, so looking forward to seeing how that changes things.

Next up - a bit more remedial work to the splitter with some wood glue, then new discs and pads and more cooling :)
 
was out today and thought of you :jester:
DSCF0286 :p
 
I went to curborough today:



I had fun:





That'll do pig. That'll do....
 
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Nice!!!!
Well done dude!!!
Enjoyed yourself then! Lol
 
jimmcgee said:
How did you manage to get the erse out on that first run , cold tyres ?
Click to expand...

Just being really aggressive on the outlap Jim. Being a sprint, you get a 30s outlap, then just 30s flyer to make it count, so on the outlap I'm as aggressive as possible on the throttle / brakes and steering to try and generate some heat in the tyre and brakess in the very short time you have.

Aggressive turn in on power with a big lift sees the back end swinging round no trouble, even on warm tyres :)
 
:o.k: Cool , was at Knockhill yesterday watching the time attack :racer: , and was surprised that no one was running an Audi :uhm:
even the ex touring car golf was only running 300bhp , anyhow , here is another wee picture for you , if only you had these yesterday :thumbsup: DSCF0352
 
So, time for a slightly better write up of Curborough.

Yesterday was the first Club GTI Curborough Sprint of the year. CGTI usually run 2 days a year, in May and September. This was my first time attending a CGTI Sprint, and my second time at Curborough.

AndyP came with me for the day, and we left mine at 06:30. No pictures. it was early!

There were 22 cars in attendance, from standard mk2 8v GTI's, to turbo'd mk1's, mk4 track cars, and all sorts in between. I was the only non golf on the whole day!

We took a vote in the morning, and decided to run the new figure of 8 layout in the morning, then switch to the old traditional layout in the afternoon to get times comparable to past events.

Sadly, it rained LOTS early on, so no pics, and I didn't remember to film any of the morning runs on the new figure of 8 layout. was too busy having fun!

It started to dry up a bit later though:





A little pic of Gurds amazing mk1 - ABF turbo with a GT28RS. Such an awesome car!



And a few pics on track that Andy took:









Queing up to head out:



There was lots of queing in the pitlane, and moving forward one car at a time. It got a bit tiring jumping in and starting it each time, so we found ourselves a Sam Gunn :laugh:



The day went really well, and I even managed to come home with something for the mantle piece :)





Videos from above repeated, just to keep it all in one post:





Top day out :)
 
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So, time for a slightly better write up of Curborough.

Yesterday was the first Club GTI Curborough Sprint of the year. CGTI usually run 2 days a year, in May and September. This was my first time attending a CGTI Sprint, and my second time at Curborough.

AndyP came with me for the day, and we left mine at 06:30. No pictures. it was early!

There were 22 cars in attendance, from standard mk2 8v GTI's, to turbo'd mk1's, mk4 track cars, and all sorts in between. I was the only non golf on the whole day!

We took a vote in the morning, and decided to run the new figure of 8 layout in the morning, then switch to the old traditional layout in the afternoon to get times comparable to past events.

Sadly, it rained LOTS early on, so no pics, and I didn't remember to film any of the morning runs on the new figure of 8 layout. was too busy having fun!

It started to dry up a bit later though:





A little pic of Gurds amazing mk1 - ABF turbo with a GT28RS. Such an awesome car!



And a few pics on track that Andy took:









Queing up to head out:



There was lots of queing in the pitlane, and moving forward one car at a time. It got a bit tiring jumping in and starting it each time, so we found ourselves a Sam Gunn :laugh:



The day went really well, and I even managed to come home with something for the mantle piece :)





Videos from above repeated, just to keep it all in one post:





Top day out :)
 
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Just got some pics through from Neil Birkitt of Volkswagen Driver magazine - Big thanks to Neil for sending these over :) - especially so quickly after the event!











I really love this one:






 
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obviously I wasn't there, did softening the front ARB make much difference on slower turn in's
 
Hard to say BBD, as it was all pretty slow. Car was certainly handling well though :)

Noise is still there, but I'm not too worried. A bunch of had a good look over it, and checked vital parts whilst it was knocking by walking along side the car with hands on components.

I'll strip off the splitter at some point and check everything that's hidden under it.
 
There is very little body roll on the sharp left hander you liked, especially considering you have softened the front up.
 
Thanks Bill. I used the hard compound Dunlop Direzzas that we use for road miles. The CGTI day requires road legal E-marked tyres, so no slicks or wets tried at all as it's not in the 'spirit' of the day :)

Was a really good fun day though, I was pleasantly surprised by how the heavyweight A3 performed compared to the featherweight mk1's!

I think a crash course in weight loss is certainly in the pipe line over winter. It'll improve it in every way I think.
 
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What exactly are you going to remove though?
Have you lost all excess wire?
How about cut out all excess metal from inside the car?
How much more weight do you think you can lose?
 
All of the above :racer:

There is loads of excess metal inside still, double skinned areas etc etc, the radio and CD changer are still in at the moment, all the original wiring. I think it should be fairly easy to strip more out, but only once the car lives tucked away in a nice garage away from the elements
 
OMG £££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££ Garages
 
SMALL??? 6 m full height inspection pit, (the end of which is for storing tyres) overhead storage in roof space, electric hoist (two way) for engine removal, toilet and shower, 65" plasma television with surround sound, and wifi . Can't think of anything else at the moment but will work on it. I'm full of ideas.
 
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Congratulations Prawny, wish I could have popped down for the day to see you on your own personal time attack lap, but work stopped play for me. :(

You still running a similar set-up to when we met down at JKM?
 
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Hurdy said:
Congratulations Prawny, wish I could have popped down for the day to see you on your own personal time attack lap, but work stopped play for me. :(

You still running a similar set-up to when we met down at JKM?
Click to expand...

Cheers John! Good to see you on here too :)

Same setup as at JKM pretty much yea, aside from an added inline fuel pump that we found to be the cause of the issues I had at JKM :)

Will you be at the September Curby event?
 
Prawn said:
Cheers John! Good to see you on here too :)

Same setup as at JKM pretty much yea, aside from an added inline fuel pump that we found to be the cause of the issues I had at JKM :)

Will you be at the September Curby event?
Click to expand...

If I can swap shifts I'll be at Curby. :arco:
 
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A3-Lee said:
Did you ever sort out that clunk mate
Click to expand...

Also interested to know if you sorted this?? Had a look over mine and found a bolt missing from the dogbone mount and excessive movement in the front drivers side coilover where the shaft goes into the shock :(. Time to look into the kw rebuild service or maybe new coilovers. Im sure youve checked this though so probably not related to your issue at all
 
I'VE ONLY GONE AND FIXED THE ****** CLUNK!!!!!

YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update at 9pm after good TV :)
 
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So, a good day today. I had LOADS of random jobs to do, and seemed to get a fair few done. feeling happy :)

We started the day like this:



Up on stands 5 minutes later, and splitter off. My captive mounts were doing their job. Considerable wear on the bar here, but easily removed still :)



The splitter has taken a real beating over winter, and has delaminated a little. I decided to get busy with the wood glue today, and I've also sanded it down ready for a fresh coat of paint all over to try and get it looking fresh again:



the threads on my gearbox looked a little worse for wear, so I decided whilst it was all apart to helicoil both of them.

The holes were drilled out, and tapped:



And the inserts wound in:



To create a nice new stainless steel thread:



Also, as part of my clunk hunting, I replaced the front wishbone bolts.

Now, I know I said I replaced these last week, but if I'm honest, I actually only replaced the rears, as SURELY the fronts couldn't be causing an issue.....

.....could they?

Old vs new:



I'm told that shoulder is a feature, not wear, but whatever it is, changing them has cured the knock! SO amazingly happy that the knock has gone!!!!!!!! :laugh:

Quite a fiddly one to do the 90 degrees for the stretch when at ground level. So I torqued them up to VAG spec, and marked them with a vertical line, then tightened them until the lines were horizontal :)



Going well so far......

On to brakes.

It was time to retire the old second hand AP 330mm drilled rotors:



The replacements: a set of Compbrake Powervane 335mm rotors:



To be combined with some Mintex F4R pads. Steve at Questmead has been trying to sell me a set of these for 3 years, so I finally gave in. Time will tell how good they are :)
 
So, a good day today. I had LOADS of random jobs to do, and seemed to get a fair few done. feeling happy :)

We started the day like this:



Up on stands 5 minutes later, and splitter off. My captive mounts were doing their job. Considerable wear on the bar here, but easily removed still :)



The splitter has taken a real beating over winter, and has delaminated a little. I decided to get busy with the wood glue today, and I've also sanded it down ready for a fresh coat of paint all over to try and get it looking fresh again:



the threads on my gearbox looked a little worse for wear, so I decided whilst it was all apart to helicoil both of them.

The holes were drilled out, and tapped:



And the inserts wound in:



To create a nice new stainless steel thread:



Also, as part of my clunk hunting, I replaced the front wishbone bolts.

Now, I know I said I replaced these last week, but if I'm honest, I actually only replaced the rears, as SURELY the fronts couldn't be causing an issue.....

.....could they?

Old vs new:



I'm told that shoulder is a feature, not wear, but whatever it is, changing them has cured the knock! SO amazingly happy that the knock has gone!!!!!!!! :laugh:

Quite a fiddly one to do the 90 degrees for the stretch when at ground level. So I torqued them up to VAG spec, and marked them with a vertical line, then tightened them until the lines were horizontal :)



Going well so far......

On to brakes.

It was time to retire the old second hand AP 330mm drilled rotors:



The replacements: a set of Compbrake Powervane 335mm rotors:



To be combined with some Mintex F4R pads. Steve at Questmead has been trying to sell me a set of these for 3 years, so I finally gave in. Time will tell how good they are :)

 
So you went through the hassle of buying all those bolts and left those 2
Tut tut tut
Glad its fixed discs look good. Look a lot bigger not just 5mm
 
I stripped down the discs, and put all the bobbing and fittings into the ultra sonic cleaner to get them nice and new for refitting:



Then it was time to assemble the discs. This takes quite a while as you need to make sure everything goes together properly and doesn't bind





With those assembled, it was time to turn my attention to cooling.

This is the current setup:



I got busy with the CAD:



Then transfered it to steel:







Initial offering:



trimmed for brake pad clearance:



And drilled and bolted on using existing splash guard mountings:





Tried to get it fitting as tight as possible around the ABS ring. This will be secured with lock nuts to finalise position when it's done:




And the otherside done:



I'm really pleased with how closely these fit the back of the discs:





The plan is to add spigots to the backplates, to attach my cooling ducts. Thus force feeding air to the brakes, rather than pointing it in the general direction and hoping it gets there!



I've not finished these yet obviously, so still work in progress :)
 
So, last up was getting the 330mm brake setup to fit the 335mm discs.

Thankfully, this was a simple job, jsut requiring a radial caliper spacer.

£5's worth of 3mm alloy plate on ebay, and 5 mins on the grinder sorted that out:



And they're on! 335mm powervane rotors, Badger 5 floating bells, and AP CP5200 calipers - the brakes I've wanted for over 3 years!





 
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