markff

Fitted some bilsteins b14 suspension and replaced the track rod ends recently as i wanted a smoother ride compared to the KW coilovers. Car had developed abit of a tendency to wander on uneven roads and i was still on the original track rod ends. They weren't knocking but they were very floppy inside the joints. Anyway i booked the car into today along with my brothers R53 mini. Have to say Joe did a top job, the car is spot on and the wheel is dead centre. My brother has always struggled to find a decent place to get his car set up and he says the work that Joe has done has made the car much better. His car is a Cooper S but converted from supercharger to turbo charger and is putting about 400bhp to the front wheels. Getting the front wheels all pointing in the right direction has made putting the power down alot easier. He says the torque steer is alot better now. I know you guys are quite expensive but you definitely get what you pay for. There are too many places that just take the money and don't even bother to get the basics right. Make sure you give Joe a pat on the back Tony, job well done

Thanks for the great explanation. I'm just relieved that everything lined up correctly after pulling so much apart. I was going to take it to a local place and assist them in doing the alignment but i very much doubt they would of known the amount of detail as you guys. Plus you never know whether the vast majority of garages actually bother to get their equipment checked and calibrated. It was well worth making the trip round the m25

Hi Tony, Just got back from a trouble free visit to your place. I opted for the fast road set up in the end and im well impressed. The rear of the car seems so much more stable than it did when i have had it done by other places. Maybe its the because im running alot less camber than previously on the rear? I just need to invest in some new fronts as my federal 595 rsr's are feeling their age. As you can see the alignment was abit of a mess and driving it to your place it was quite a handful when going over any bumps. The trip down gave a good chance for the polybushes to settle down

To be honest tony i expected it to be a pain but it was an absolute slog cutting, burning, pressing. Luckily i done it over the course of about a month doing a few hours here and there which meant i could walk away from it when it became a pain! The joys of having a garage i guess. Pretty much every bolt or adjuster was like this, even an air hammer couldnt shift it. Its not one of those jobs i would ever want to do again. I made sure everything was lubricated so hopefully it wont need to be done for a good few years. This is the setup i have ran for the last few years with pretty decent tyre wear and no real issues. I will probably opt for something like this. At the moment i have pushed both caster adjusters to their max and i quite like it with alot of caster. I wont be doing any more trackdays in the car as its too big a risk if i bin it. Too much money tied into it.

Wow abit of a thread revival here. I still own this car and its now supercharged with about 400bhp. A hefty mortgage put paid to the trackdays but access to a decent sized garage means the car gets looked after. I decided for my sins to rebush the suspension knowing that at least one caster adjuster was seized. Cutting a long story short most of the camber adjusters were seized as well as both caster adjusters. I cut them all out and replaced with new and greased them with marine grease. Everything is assembled and ready for the wheel alignment to be set up. So far i have taken the car for a test drive and not had any issues and everythings been checked and double checked. I'm booked in next Wednesday and hoping all my hardwork was worth it. It seems to be getting harder and harder to find places nearby that actually know what they are doing in terms of set up. Even if i give them the settings i want they dont really inspire much confidence that they will do the basics right. Glad that wheels in motion is still around!

Cheers Tony, They aren't going to get used much over the spring and the only time i really drive fast or push the car now is in the summer when things are dry. On the track assuming its dry then getting them up to temperature shouldn't be a problem. I will get them fitted in 3 weeks or so time and rack some miles up on them and then bring it in to be aligned. I will probably go with similar as last time alignment wise but abit more rear toe. It will be abit of an unknown handling wise as the last trackday was a washout with the wet track so i couldn't learn anything about the the KW suspension. I will be happy if i get a middle of the road set up with a tiny bit less oversteer.

Right abit of progress in terms of parts, I got my new OEM toe arms and bolts etc. from http://www.hondapartsonline.net/. Saved loads of money ie Rear toe arms from Honda UK are £240 for two. In the USA they are $80 for the two. Even when you add shipping and tax i still saved over £150 on parts. The adjuster bolts are massively cheaper in the US then they are over here. Its a poor show from Honda really. Fully Assembled arm with new fasteners adjusters etc. I will be making sure i put alot of grease on the shanked part of the bolts to prevent seizure to the inner ring of the bushes. These are tough old items compared to what i have fitted at the moment so i will be glad to swap them over. Baffled Sump ready to be fitted as oil surge is something i dont really want especially as im going to stickier rubber. Kumho V70A tyres from camskill, new with 4.8mm of tread so i dont expect them to last much past the summer at most but should bring alot of fun! Tony im after abit of advice regarding the tyres, do you think i should scrub them in with the current alignment settings WIM set me up with for a few miles before alignment? I was thinking of fitting them and getting 100 or so miles on them and then changing the rear toe arms which will put all the alignment out of bonk and then driving it to WIM to get it corrected. I know one thing for sure i have a busy month as i also have a leaking rocker cover gasket which i need to do and also brakes and other things to bleed. Its good thou i enjoy the work when its not p**sing down!

Cheers for that, didn't realise it had been about so long. Would be interesting to see a video of it actually trying to deal with a transformer fire.

No problem Tony, i thought it was a crazy idea when i first saw it. Like putting water on a chip pan fire!. We have had the fire equipment go off by accident before but it is designed in such a way that it shouldn't cause the transformer any problems whilst it is going off. Was an impressive sight thou!

Its a refined mineral oil, once it has been used on transformers it gets reused in cosmetic products believe it or not! Alot of the older oil contains PCB's which were added to prevent fires but is very bad for humans. The PCB's get in your skin and once its got in your system your body cant get rid of it. Over the years the levels will build up and up if you don't use the correct protection. Luckily most equipment has had the PCB's removed from the oil making it alot safer. Transformers are efficient but only to a certain extent. Say a transformer was 99% efficient then most of the 1% loss would be through heat which is why most transformers have some sort of cooling on them. Sound would be one of the energy losses through the transformer. The forces on the two sets of winding causes a vibration of the internal components which is why you get the humming. In my experience the harder the transformer is working the worse the humming gets. I can often remember as a kid going into lee valley park just down the road from me and hearing the supergrid transformers at waltham cross substation humming away. The substation was over a mile away but you couldn't mistake the humming. Never thought i would end up working there thou! Those transformers were replaced in the late 90's because during there 30 year life they had taken an absolute battering trying to supply london. The newer transformers were uprated and the noise massively reduced. As for the water as the means of fire fighting, if you see the video i posted there is red pipe work everywhere, that is the fire deluge system which is designed to prevent a major transformer fire. It uses 1000's of litres of water but is sprayed as a fine mist which suffocates the fire rather than making it worse. The video of the transformer on fire, well that could be anyones guess because i doubt the equipment was even isolated which just adds the danger. You would assume they knew what they were doing but i wouldn't be that close to the fire. This is one of ours that expired last year http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Huge-electricity-substation-Cottingham-Beverley/story-18814388-detail/story.html

Thought you might be interested in this Tony, one of our super grid transformers on load in north london. The only part of the job that un nerves me is standing next to a tank full of 100,000 litres of transformer oil with 275kv inside it. And what one looks like when it goes bang!

I would be tempted to take it to another garage where they have a hunter wheel alignment machine but also offer a free vehicle check. I took my car to STS tyre pro's and they put the car on the machine and measured all the angles. They admitted that they weren't the experts when it came to setting up the S2000 and pointed me in the direction of Wheels in motion. Didn't charge me a penny. At least that way they can give you a printout and even if you have no intention of getting them to adjust it you know where you stand.

Cheers Tony, all useful information. I appreciate you spending time on the subject I know when the car was at this height before and set up on a hunter machine the operator set 2.3 degree negative camber and 0.30 total toe with the OEM arms. I run alot less than that nowdays so fingers crossed i should be fine when i bring it to WIM. I have ordered the new arms from the states for peanuts compared to the UK price, brand new Honda original parts with new bushes and balljoint for the hub. When they arrive i will book some time off work and get them fitted up. Will keep the thread updated and i will take some proper photos of the adjustable arms to see any signs of wear tear etc. Chances are they are fine but worth having a once over. Thanks for the help!

Hi Tony, That photo wasn't of my car, just an example of what i have fitted. Grab a photo outside earlier this is what mine looks like with all 4 wheels on the ground. Not the best angle but the arm looks quite square to me. Quite surprised at the amount of corrosion on the adjuster nuts, as well as the bottom of the car. Will need to get under the car in the summer with a drill and wire brush and get everything cleaned up and painted. From looking at the angle of the rear toe arm it looks correct. It be as horizontal as possible when the car is at rest? I know that as the suspension compress the angle of the arm changes and thus the toe changes with it. Am i right in thinking that if you took a unmodified S2000 then the original toe arm should be horizontal but if you then lower the car thats where you cause the arms angle to change and the bumpsteer issue becomes worse. With stiffer suspension then this should be less of an issue? As the suspension wont move as much thus not effecting the toe to such a large extent? On a smooth track with stiff suspension settings you probably wouldn't suffer any problems unless you started bumping the car up alot of curbs. Sorry if im talking crap here Tony, I know its irrelevant really as im going to get the OEM items fitted anyway but it interests me. I might stop being lazy and fit the new OEM toe arms myself and then drive it up to get aligned, i have ordered all new bolts washers etc. I cant imagine its a massive job unless everythings seized which is unlikely seeing as they were fitted in March.

Looking at the lower photo the most worrying part for me is how far the arm is spaced off on the section that goes through the hub. It must put alot of stress on the threaded balljoint type section. I know its there to correct the angle of the toe arm to fix the bump steer but it just doesnt look right from a mechanical point of view.

Afternoon all, Well its a new year and i have booked two trackdays up already. One at the end of Feb and one in summer but hopefully they will be the first of many. I have sold my old Meister R coilovers and a few other bits and pieces i had lying around cluttering the place up. One thing i am concerned about at the moment is my aftermarket Rear toe/ bump steer kit. During the years that these kits have been out there have been alot of failures or knackered rose joints leading to knocking or suspension failures, My car is taking a battering on the roads at the moment. Potholes everywhere from the poor maintenance done by Hertfordshire Highways. Then when the car is on track the suspension will get quite a through work out. What worries me is that if i suffered one of these failures it could end up in a big accident, whether its on the road or track. Thats just one of the failures of other brands of rear toe arms/bumpsteer kit but i do worry that my Megan ones will oneday give up the ghost, When i had them installed one of the threads sheared off very easily which didn't put my mind at ease. What i want to ask one of the technical guru's is will i really miss the rear toe arms if i go back to the OEM items. When i had them fitted i didn't notice a massive difference in how the car handled. The main bonus for me was that it made the job for the alignment person easier because they adjusted it on a thread and not on a concentric bolt adjuster that has the potential to seize. The bolts are not seized at the moment and if i grease them there's no reason for them to seize if i went back to the OEM toe arms. I have heard that with the S2000 that if you want to run the car low with lots of camber then it can put the toe measurement out to such an extent that you cant get it within the correct range using the standard toe adjusters but i shouldn't suffer that problem as i don't run excessive camber or run the car low. If anything i have the car lowered maybe 10mm or so with less than 2degree's negative camber. The OEM items are reassuringly tough and strong compared to the aftermarket items available Obviously without slating these brands etc what do you think about these aftermarket suspension arms. Is it something you would recommend to your customers? Most of them use a rose joint type bearing without any protection from the elements. I have these at the moment except mine use a rubber boot to protect them from the elements. I have read no failures from people who use the megan kit like i have below apart from worn out joints but then most of the racers replace there's every 12 months or so. I have already ordered some brand new OEM toe arms as it will put my mind at ease. I have also ordered some new rear tyres so i will probably run the car into WIM before my first trackday and get them to install the OEM arms and set everything back up properly. Be interesting to read some of your opinions.

My cousin is a mobile tyre fitter and had a lorry tyre explode next to him. He was pumping it up from a distance, got to the correct pressure switched the compressor off. When he approached the tyre it exploded and deafened him. He was very lucky that he was still some distance away but goes to show how dangerous they are!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYBYNPEVAkw&feature=youtu.be This guy crashed his back in May (2.30mins onwards). He entered the corner doing 70mph where as im doing 60 with AD08's. I have been to Snetterton 6 times this year and on 3 occasions i have been told about separate S2000's that have crashed. In the dry thou mine feels pretty good and when it does break away its progressively, in the wet its a different story. I bet if you looked at the cars that crashed you would find most of them weren't set up correctly or had recent alignment. It makes a huge difference but people are paranoid about getting the alignment done and finding loads of seized adjusters!

Copper and aluminium are pretty much all that i have seen used, good conductor of electricity and also strong enough to not sag or bend over quite long lengths. The busbars are also hollow, there is something called the skin effect which means electricity flows around the outside of the conductor so making them solid is a waste of time and money. Good job as well because copper weighs a ton and trying to work with solid ones would make my job alot harder. The only issue we sometimes have with copper is that when you make a connection you have to "tin" the end of the bar which is basically a material we paint onto the bar and then heat up using oxy acetylene. It gets to a certain temperature and you wipe it off and it leaves a nice shiny silver type finish. This is ideal for making joints as it wont turn green like copper does when left in the elements. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdMOWEUgWQY This video shows someone from our company (i don't know who) Working on a piece of dead equipment that is picking up voltage from nearby circuits. This person is a plonker because the earth he is using drawing the arc shouldn't be applied by hand it should be done using insulated tools. I did msg him through youtube but he hasn't learnt his lesson it seems! He even shocks himself in the video! Im glad no one in the team i work with is like that!

Very true, i have had a moment in the wet before when i tried to provoke it quite gently and it just went, no chance to correct it. Slammed the brakes on and came to an embarrassing stop pointing the wrong way! I need to see if i can get on a car limits day and get some proper tuiton on how to correct a slide, i think it would give me abit more confidence plus an airfield has even more room for error than a track. This a video of the day of one of my brothers friends in his mini, shows how slippy it was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyx7b_VE4Xk

We only tend to use 3 metals. -Copper was used in the past and seems to normally be problem free but since the price has gone up so massively new installations don't use it -Aluminium is now what everything is made out of and its what the joint in the photo is made of. It is a pain to clean it up to get a good connection hence why this one is hot. The busbars are larger with aluminium as its not as good a conductor as copper . Benefits are cheap and its lightweight - Brass. We only really use brass when making a joint between copper and aluminium, its just there to stop a reaction between the two metals. The transformer in the photo supplies network rail, it has a cable that runs from Elstree to Bushey Arches where it then feeds the railway. In terms of the amount of electricity flowing through it its minimal compared to some of the equipment we have. Interesting website which shows the breakdown of generation and it shows how wind generates hardly any electricity compared to coal, nuclear etc. http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Very true Tony. Got a phonecall of Friday about a fault on one of our circuits. Overhead line had come down whilst people were on site. One of lads saw the circuit breaker operate and a huge flash, 10 seconds later the circuit breaker closed and then tripped open again. Next thing they know members of public have reported that a line has come down and the tree is on fire. It probably only short circuit for 100ms but 1000 amps at 275000 doesn't take long to fry something. Big investigation to find out why it happened now. For the last two weeks ive been doing surveys on our transformers to check for anything strange or abnormal on them We use a thermal camera to check the conductors for what we call hot joints where two pieces of conductor join, this is a perfect example of a fault. Corrosion gets into the joint and causes a high resistance. With that resistance it builds up more heat. It will have to be stripped down at some point and reassembled and then it should go back to normal temperature. I have to admit i was tempted to take the camera to Snetterton yesterday and get a cool picture of glowing brake discs! At 40K a camera thou i would be in the s**t if anything happened!

I think what i will do Tony is leave everything as it is at the moment and then see sometime next year how i get on when i attend a day with dry conditions. It really was an eye opener because the rear of the car was just all over the place in the wet. When it started drying and the AD08's got warm it was completely different. I have driven in the wet there before in the summer and the car was fine but i guess the tyres were probably warm where as yesterday the weather was 2-3 degree's.

Well today turned out to be a mixed day. Lovely sunshine but the over night rain refused to dry out until about 2pm. Morning session, I could tell after the sighting laps that it would be an eventful day, the track was very very greasy, felt like ice!. On my first time out of the pits i got to the second corner and saw an MX5 spin onto the grass in front of me, hmm better take it easy. Started making my way round and the low sunlight made it very hard to tell what areas were dry and what were wet. The car was an absolute handful!. The AD08's offered very little grip in these conditions and i could not get any sort of heat into them. Even my brother was struggling to get his car to go round without sliding everywhere and thats a fwd mini cooper s that is normally great under all conditions. I set the KW as they came out of the box, i was well aware that this would not be suitable for wet conditions but figured that i would take it easy and see how i get on. On my first lap i went into a corner and as i got just out of the apex and onto the gas i could gently feel the rear begin to slid, not a massive slid but it continued on for what felt an age and when i corrected it i thought i had possibly put too much opposite lock on as the car reacted quite harshly. The car was sliding with even a hint of power at the rear which made things very difficult. Really did not feel confident enough in my abilities to drive in these sort of conditions. The AD08's really weren't working well. This moment completely ruined my morning session because it really felt like the car was on an edge. I went out a couple of times after that but everything was going past me, i think sometimes im quite harsh on my driving ability as alot of other cars have electrical aids like TC and these make a huge difference. My friend in his Seat Leon Cupra could chuck it into any corner and the car seemed to spit him out the otherside. Where as with my car its my ability thats keeping it on or off the road. Im the first to admit that im not a great trackday driver but i cant help but look at some of the other cars and think how much of that fast lap was down to the TC and not the driver? I mean anyone can slam there foot to the floor mid corner and let the TC sort it out for them. I adjusted the front and rear dampers right down to pretty much full soft and it had little effect on the car. It still felt very very nervy. At this point i was getting abit frustrated because the last time i done a trackday back in august the car was spot on but then again i had done 5 on that suspension and pretty much got it setup how i liked it. Afternoon Session We went back out on track at 1 oclock and a dry line was beginning to form and the sun was out but the cold winds and low temperatures seem to hamper any of the drying out of the track. The car felt alot better but it was very difficult to get a consistent pace because some parts of the track were bone dry and others were still damp. Requires alot of concentration which is difficult when you've got traffic in front and behind. Had a few small moments and then came into the pits to chill out for abit. Went out again at 2pm and it was like a totally differant car compared to earlier, on the dryline the car was immense and i was really starting to up my pace. Instead of going backwards like i had done in the morning session i was holding my own. Came into the pits and the tyres were actually warm this time and the pressures had gone up a fair bit. After abit of tweaking with the pressures i went out twice more and eachtime the track got drier i became alot more confident. The damp line was still very dodgy and my lack of ability to heel and toe on downshifts meant that sometimes changing down i could feel the rear throwing a wobbly. Standard of driving was pretty poor today, I always move over as soon as i see someone quicker than me in my mirrors. Twice today i was stuck behind people who refused to indicate or acknowledge that i was there. I really don't understand the mentality of these people. On a wet day like today it is even more annoying because you know that if you duck inside the corner its more than likely going to have no grip and your going to struggle to get round. Drivers brief was interesting with some of the highlights below - The guy doing the briefing had just stated " YOU MUST WEAR A HELMET ON THE SIGHTING LAPS", Some plonker 10 seconds later puts his hand up and asks that very exact question again. - Someone asked if they have to tape up there lights One guy got black flagged for driving with his door open.......... So i have a few things to mull over at the moment, im pretty sure my rear anti roll bar is too stiff, it made a big difference going from the OEM bar to the Eibach bar and im wondering whether i should remove it and refit the softer OEM on. Even more so now that i have a stiff spring rate and some good dampers all round. Plus it wont cost me anything to remove the bar and refit the old one. If the rear of the car feels too soft then i can always stiffen it up abit. My AD08's are nearing the end of there life and i need to decide whether to buy some AD08r's or look elsewhere. Overall it wasn't the best trackday I've been to but it was enjoyable, im glad it got better in the afternoon otherwise i would of left the day feeling abit dejected. My videos have been ruined by the low sunlight so nothing to see im afraid people. It was a good education into how slippery a race track can be with just a tiny bit of dampness.