TWiR 1986 S3 TWR

[KiwiDave]

So ... yesterday I was mostly doing this .....













Open wide and say 'Braaap' that looks healthy after a days play



Was super slippy for most of the morning session with only a thin dry line appearing before lunch. Cars were spinning off on sighting laps!
Out of Clearways onto the straight was a killer off line and I had a most unintentional journey from there to the pit entry sideways ... only halted by a nice dry patch of tarmac which pointed me toward the pits in the right direction ....

Out of clearways and off line but no dry tarmac for this guy ...





Sense of humor not completely gone though



The day was run by Mazda on Track http://www.mazdaontrack.co.uk/ and as is usual, a mix of MX5's including a 300+ horsepower BBR turbo . RX'8's and a few NOT mazdas just for variety.
I particularly liked this RX8 here



Now, I'm not usually a fan of all this carbon fibre and stick on chrome stuff but this is one serious piece of kit and it all does something and makes sense. Owner is one 'Exiled Viking' ... a very nice guy from 'up north' somewhere's who clearly has a taste for quilted leather (suit you sir ohhh !!) and is very proud of his baby.













And yes, that's a camera which sees speed bumps and gives info via a screen graph if said obstacle is about to munch the front bodywork
And did I say it's supercharged as well !!

And .... it lives .... it breathes

Before




After


Video

[KiwiDave]

I did a demonstration of the backlash check and bearing preload checks to the new owner of the S3 Torsen LSD. No photos, but happy to say it was incredibly close for a base setting (and probably would have been fine) but decreased the backlash 0.04mm and checked and reset the bearing preload to within 0.03mm of target.

Even better settings than the factory untouched open diffs had for comparison.

I hope you're happy with it bud.

Well .... I found this guy who does a good line in LSD and I thought the addition of said substance (sorry) , err, device would make damp track days a little more rewarding.

Mr TOOL kindly offered to take two hours off from his hectic schedule to fit the LSD and the plan was for me to spanner a few things as well while possibly learning a thing or two. What I fatally did not consider was that TWiR is quite attached to her associated componentry and does not see why a bolt that has been happily doing it's job for 28 years, should be disturbed. And I should have learned my lesson after the suspension bush saga!

It all started off so well. Then one handbrake cable just fell off. Then the little screws that center the brake discs were frozen. Then the backing plate nuts and bolts refused to budge, point blank refused! TOOL resorted to the chisel of death. The worst offender by far though was the right side axle shaft .... not moving, well a few millimeters maybe. And you can't change a diff without removing them And it was, literally , hours of bashing with Mr BIG Hammer. Hours as in ' two hours was only an estimate sir'. Hours as a measure of my life expectancy because Mr TOOL was not Mr Happy Pants :x

In the end, I think I probably loosened it as Mr TOOL tagged in for the final round and in the best kiwi tradition, knocked the bastard off. The left side shaft took about four blows from Mr BIG Hammer and out it popped. Go figure

Now, by this time, it was dark which is the greatest time for assembling stuff. I was fecking about with a few nuts and bolts which were refusing to play nicely, TOOL was assembling the diff and putting things back together before going in search of a squeezy bottle to fill the diff up. All told , I think it amounted to six hours, maybe more! All because TWiR does not do 'change of situation' very well at all.

No time for testing either, I buggered off quite quickly and hoped that Tool's family still recognised him after the 'two hour' job. And when I eventually got home, some of the diff oil had escaped to the underside of the car courtesy of one missing bolt. And the rear brakes were kinda warm and needed attention ... but that's the joy of doing it in the dark, I guess

A massive thanks to Tool though for duty above and beyond. And apparently, I am no longer allowed to start a conversation with 'would you mind giving me a hand with (insert seemingly straightforward job here) ' ?

I've just finished finding a bolt for the diff and getting the rear brakes playing nicely. Assessment drive coming up over the weekend hopefully.

[RamoNZ]

What... No pics?

[TOOL]

Just to clarify, I had only just had the black FC vert removed from my driveway on the back of a low loader at 10.30am then Dave comes over at 1pm and then his car's in pieces on my driveway.

Not a good look.

But fortunately, I have nice neighbours who leant us some light and a hacksaw (don't ask).

But yes, never again!

[TOOL]

What... No pics?

By the time we started assembly, it was too dark for pics

[KiwiDave]

Not posed or lit very well Nik ... sorry mate Letting the side down I know





It's a silicone cap type thingy and pretty much the right color too although you'd never tell from the image quality. I'll measure the OD of the larger fitting and see what I can find of a similar ilk. (now, there's a good word .. ILK .. that's in the Codge vocabularium isn't it) ?

Following on from this, I measured the other pipe fitting and it's approx 22mm OD. A proper silicon cap on this size is silly money - £14.00 to Mr Samco. I have found a better solution here
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221124356712? ... 1439.l2649

and here it is in action



Another small victory

[KiwiDave]

Neat job Dave, but you know what you need to top it off................A nice blue blanking plug for that unused pipe on the air filter box.
P.M me your address and I will pop you one in the post, beats gaffa tape

Keith, if you have not found a solution for the larger pipe, PM me your address and I'll send you one.

[myatt1972]

You are a gent Dave, I havnt found a decent bung so will pm you.

[myatt1972]

My bung arrived today ! Thanks Dave, you post things quicker than I do

[RamoNZ]

Yo Dave. What's the feedback on road driving since the diff went in? Does it have noticeably more traction in the wet now??