Latest trip to the 'Ring...

[sixspeed]

Well just got back a few days ago from another 'Ring trip. Excellent weather this time (compared with Easter!) and managed to meet up with RussRamz and see his lovely black Coupe The thing was going very nicely, and his TCK suspension setup seemed to be giving him a lot more confidence than I had through some of the bumpier sections! Looks like some coilovers are very, very close now!

Managed to best my previous video'd lap time as well, which I was over the moon about. Didn't especially push hard for the lap, but it was fairly clear, and I guess I'm just learning the place more and more with each visit. I worked it out to be about an 8:36, bridge-to-gantry.. which will do for now (for reference, the published "full-lap" time for the Z4M is 8:11 IIRC, and the section of track between gantry and bridge is worth about 25 seconds, tho it depends on the car, so I'm still about 50 seconds off the pace of a pro.. but never mind! ).

[youtube]IMw2L-NvLRc[/youtube]

 

[Gids]

Nice vid mate, car sounds superb. Are you running stock brakes?

 

[Rom3n]

Nice run Six your car sounds great you should have coilovers no question

 

[iain]

Great run/video/superb car....I'm considering modding my car particularly the front brakes....and note that you've done much to your car, I'd really appreciate your thoughts concerning what have been the most effective improvements. Thanks

 

[sixspeed]

The brakes on mine consist of Pagid RS29 (Yellow) pads, braided lines and uprated DOT 4 fluid...

I'd argue that for the occasional track day user, these are more than enough, and that an AP (or other BBK) kit isn't really warranted unless you want to fork out the extra cash. Yes, the AP kit will be better, but I'm not sure it's £2000 better than what these upgrades already provide for most people that are looking to improve the standard setup. Besides which you'd want to do the lines and fluid with a BBK kit anyway, so you're only really factoring the cost of uprated pads. I've done some hard miles in my car with this setup, and the brakes are truely fantastic, confidence inspiring, and have not given up on me on track since the changes were made. With the standard pads the complete opposite was true! I will move to APs in the future, but their priority is much further down the list than I first anticipated when i got the car...

I think it depends what you want from/use the car for, as to what mods you do. Are you looking at just fast road performance, occasional track use, hard track use, or just something to spend some money on?

 

[Gids]

Interesting, certainly a lot cheaper than the AP upgrade. What are they like day to day for the commute etc (performance when cold, noise, dust) ?

 

[sixspeed]

They've been fine for me. I've had no problems with cold performance (even down to about -6degC in Germany at Easter). They *can* be a bit noisy at times, but silent at others. Seems to depend on a number of factors, of which I've not fully worked out yet! But as it's not my daily driver, I don't let it bother me too much. This may be an issue for some though. Dust-wise, it's about the same as stock.