'Fecks Nogaro S3'

An early start on Saturday morning and back to the Ring for 8am. We wanted to get as many early laps in as possible as it was expected to be one of the busiest weekends of the year. Unfortunately the track remained closed whilst paint was removed from the track.

We booked a lap in the M3 Ring Taxi which went out as soon as the track opened. It was driven by Dale Lomas who is the guy who runs the Bridge to Gantry website. I've a new found respect for fast BMWs. The power from the new M-cars is something else! Also i can't believe how calm Dale was, giving us a running commentary of what he was doing whilst overtaking boys steady. Even though it was a busy track he still managed an 8 minute lap!

I managed to get another three runs in during the rest of the day inbetween many many yellow and red flags.

The Ring carparks were full all weekend with fast stuff. I'd say a good proportion of cars there were either Clios/Meganes, BMW M3s of all ages, and Porsche 911s. I couldn't get over how many GT3s were there; I mean dozens of them! There were also a few exotics, a few AMG GTs, Lamborghinis and a Gumbert Apollo.

Also some tasty oddball stuff that I liked such as this Opel Kadett

Plenty of reminders all weekend that the Ring can bite hard.

During one of the track closures I headed out to Brunnchen to get a better view of that famous part of the track. As the DTM was also on that weekend the carpark there was full of people, including lots of campers. It seemed like a proper family weekend for plenty of people. I even found another UK-owned Nogaro friend parked nearby

Some friends stayed there whilst I went back for my last run and they got a snap of me there.

On the Saturday evening we went to Pistenklause for steaks on a stone.

Sunday morning we went to ED petrol station near the Ring for some souvenirs and then hit the road back to the ferry.

A quick stop in Rotterdam for a nosey about, ferry to Hull and a blast up to Cairnryan on Monday. Home on Monday night.

Apart from a little hiccup coming out of the Karussell once where the car temporarily went in to limp mode for a few seconds, the S3 didn't let me down at all.

1,260 miles there and back. I drove the S3 1,263 miles the whole 12 months before that lol

I came home wrecked, and skint, but I wouldn't change a thing. The place was so much better than I had ever expected, and it's now under my skin. So much so that we just booked another trip to go this September

That kinda brings me up to date. The car stayed in the garage most of the winter, apart from the odd sunny day. I'd managed to pick up a slow puncture on the passenger rear which turned out to be a screw. It gave me the opportunity to replace the two budget rears that came with the car with Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetric 3s. I've Assymetric 2s on the front, but discovered they don't make them any more. My OCD!!!!

I've just bought a Cookbot manifold heat shield and ordered a straight Samco nomex hose to replace the hose that came with my Trackslag hose. The standard heat jackets are either gone or worse for wear so trying to sort those out this year would be great.

The car must have had a light front end bump at some point in it's life. Both headlights are broken and have never self levelled. One has a screw through it from the top to keep it all together and the other one points upwards and shakes a bit. Still ok to pass MOTs but I do worry I'm dazzling people and so I plan on spending the next few weeks finding out what all I need to get this sorted.

Over the weekend I got the air con system re-gassed and my new Eagle F1s fitted



I also fitted my Cookbot heat shield and Samco Nomex hose (which took 5 blummin' weeks to turn up from Demon Tweeks!!! ).





Top tip: Sharp kitchen knives are ideal tools for cutting hoses haha



New upper radiator hose bought and fitted as somehow the previous hose got a bit chewed up by the radiator fan.






As mentioned in my previous post, the headlights on my car have always been a bit rubbish and the clips holding both of them in place were broken and bodged. This meant that one light always pointed upwards. Over Easter I ordered a new set of bi-xenon headlights from T8ups on here. I got them with ice white high beams, LED sidelights and chrome amber indicators and also ordered a pair of new motors for auto levelling.



Old vs new



Whilst the bumper was coming off I'd also ordered a load of bolts, spacers and fasteners for the lights, bumper and wheel arch trim as well as a new grill emblem.



Headlights in and new grill emblem fitted. I borrowed a VCDS cable and reset the self levelling and I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.





Old vs new. The old lights on the top image threw the light all over the place rather than just in front.

I've been so busy these past few days I haven't even had a chance to drive it at night yet

I'm def going to have to look in to replacing the fogs with LED bulbs now as they look so yellow in comparison to the headlights.

Time to book-end this thread. I took it to the Nurburgring for a second time last September. It pretty much rained the whole weekend but the car was so settled and inspired more confidence that I think I preferred driving it more in the wet than I did the year before when it had been dry.







Once I got home though I realised I needed to either make it go faster or replace it with something else. I looked in to fitting one of Badger5's turbo kits but once I added up everything I needed I couldn't justify it to myself and started looking a replacement.

I'd always wanted an older 80's/90's VAG or Japanese classic and when the opportunity then came up to buy a local 1995 Toyota Supra Twin Turbo my decision was made for me. As much as I'm loving the Supra I couldn't help hanging on to the S3 for a few more months afterwards, but I never drove it so ended up selling it to a friend

Thanks to everyone for all the helpful and useful advice over my many years of S3 ownership and I hope you continue to enjoy your own

Here's a couple of pics of both cars together and one last gratuitous Jap scrap only pic lol