Church

Not perfect, when one babies throttle on ice tracks and/or for balancing weight & grip mid-curve on track. At such occasions i miss extra precision at initial throttle travel.

Linearity of our throttles is a bit arguable :). There still is torque dip and throttle drive-by-wire mapping in stock ecu tune is non linear (probably to fake at low rpms impression as that of a bigger engine :)).

Ade: I wonder why cossie decided to stop with their SC kit. Not enough demand? Imho their NA 1.3 setup was not sufficiently competitive price/performancy or top gains wise, but not so with SC 2.0, where they made good kit competitive enough and with several good points, including ones you mentioned. While i plan to stay NA, cossie SC would have been my first choice if going FI.

380hp SC build in addition for more then advised built engine with strenghtened internals to match also needs uprated clutch, gearbox (heard too often term of grenading gears fir higher power FI builds) and axles. If one takes into account additional costs of accompanying mods, choosing modest boost makes lot of sense.

Twigman: might be local shop offering specific. Here in LV i can easily find online Xi3, WS80, R2 in 205/50R17 size. Of course what i'm actually buying are for my 16" winter wheels, but i see those sizes for 17 offered too.

Proper snow tires do well on snow without studs (soft compound + lot of small sipes in thread). If you see also lot of ice or do trackdays on ice tracks, and it's legal in country i'd think of studded. Studs won't help on snow though. Definitely not fan of adding weight. It may increase a bit pressure on contact patch, but also adds mass inertia to counter when accelerating/braking/turning. In rare cases when grip of current tires need some extra (usually always fitting good proper winter tires at winter season), from hacks one can try rather temporary let out some air pressure from tires. Imho if traction is insufficient without adding weight, main issue is because of too wide tires for car weight. Which might be often the case, if stock size choice might be sporty/summer oriented or even more so owner applies to winter tire sizing same thinking as for summer ones, going too wide, maybe even wider then stock, as result making car/tires snow-plane over snow slush, not pushing through to grippier pavement beneath. Wide tires can add grip in winter too .. but on tarmac. On actual snow & ice - a bit different story. Cars of common 1.5t weight do well on 215 wide tires. Imho 215 is a bit too wide for 1.2t our cars weight, with 195 being more optimal. Most 17" winter tires start from 205 though, so that's what i would go with on stock wheels (with upping profile height one notch 45>50 to compensate width change).

If you don't track/drift, winter tires not used through summer (when soft rubber compound in wrong season will make them wear faster) will last long as any normal tires. Normally only for daily driving used tires usually last for me 3 seasons easily. I guess, you want non-studded and normal winter tires, not ones for soft euro winters, which are closer to all-seasons. I guess, most of top winter tires in most roundups, like michelin x-ice xi3, bridgestone blizzak ws80, nokian hakkapeliita r2, should do well. I'd probably choose no wider then stock, maybe even narrower, eg. 205/50/R17, if used on stock wheels. My own choice was getting R16 wheels for winter though. Tires are often noticeably cheaper, one can find even narrower sized tires for 16" & extra sidewall helps with rim protection over worse roads/potholes.

I'd check which exactly type of "brembo" and state for what type of use. It's manufacturer of misc. brake hardware including pads. Pads for very same manufacturer of different types can be of very different properties.

Burtie178: if "cheap BBK conversion" is fitting from different car used brake set, i advise against. Higher heat capacity is not worth potentially less stable car or longer braking distances due probable brake bias change. I'd much prefer keeping using stock brakes if budget is tight then to retrofit.

Tubbytommy: wait. you got it a bit wrong. They are excellent wet track tyres :). You don't overheat tyres, traction is much better then for those tyres that are designed for most grip and best handling in dry. If lap times you are after and it happens to rain, most probably PS4 will net more grip, speed and control :). It's dry track that imho they don't do well for long, after overheating loosing their edge.

Tubbytommy: my 2 cents - you shouldn't. If you can get hold of PS4S, that is PSS successor (but AFAIK PS4S sold as 17" only in US), then probably different story, but i disliked how almost new PS4 changed after one heavy dry trackday on them (two full tanks driven that day, if indicator of track mileage :)). Weird wear, with lips on outer threadpatches, a bit dropped overall grip, and became rather noisy. I moved in my book PS4 to wet-only-track or good allaround DD tire, but not for dry tracking. Though maybe, just maybe, they may last on track better if used in wide sizing as some use (245-265), but my dry track experience of them stock 215/45 sized doesn't favor them much. Good street tire at wrong type of use.

Ade: Hmm, so if i wasn't that happy with PS4 as dual-use tire tracked, and contis (sportcontact, not premiumcontact, right?) are referred as even worse then PS4, then i shouldn't consider them for DD tire that gets few times tracked aswell? I guess that narrows down tire choice for my use specifics to AD08R & "old" PSS. Currently i'm on ultrac vorti 225/45 (on 17x7.5), but not happy with duller feel vs 215/45 PS4 i had before. Not 100% sure if due tire or due less-stretching sizing.

My experience was - to remove them :). They might be OK if fitted alone, but as i also had gearbox mount & bushing rigid aftermarket one, way less slop in diff bushings meant more backlash passed to gearbox/damped clutch, noises of which in turn got more audible. And if it's choice between gearbox vs diff bushings, i choose former (with different oil). Meanwhile i had ok experience with parts like whiteline rear subframe inserts, perrin steering rack lockdown, poly bushings for front LCA, NVH change from those seemed ok to me or sometimes unnoticeable. Diff bushings, pillowball camberplates - not so. Gearbox mount & bushing also added NVH but seemed worthy tradeoff to gearswitch change.

Burtie178: that may wonder a bit offtopic, thus:

What tires? (model/size)

Not wound up due owning oem brakes, but due you labeling everybody on stock brakes as not knowing how to drive, to rise selfworth by belittling others.

Damaged/burnt piston dust seals won't cause fluid leak. They are more to reduce crap getting in and increasing friction/wear & corrosion, increasing chance of pistons sticking, not retracting. If one tracks his car, one should spend more attention/time for regular brakes maintenance/overhaul irrelevant to if those are stock or aftermarket BBK calipers though. Just like reducing fluid change intervals, inspection of state of misc parts/systems of engine/transmission/suspension. Higher loads, higher wear/degradation, more frequent replacement to keep in good shape.

Hmm, i'd think of aftermarket stiffer then stock exhaust hangers at least then.

Then i suggest to check their state from time to time and eg. replace on need to basis (eg. prior winter, if you use them all year round). Rubber seals not far from gloving red rotors does not seems to be good long lasting match :). Also salt on public roads in winter may add issues not just with calipers without dust seals. Another potentially problematic point might be two-piece rotors of electrically dissimilar metals. Throw on those electrolyte in way of salted winter water ..

Lack of dust seals on BBK caused issues? LOL, remembering people with wast track experience from forum other side of sea telling, that if those soon not crumbling due high temps burning them off, then one brakes on track too light, and hence the reason why many race calipers (for example ones in AP Sprint/Endurance kits) don't have them in first place . Also Toyo 888 .. you should have mentioned sooner that running low threadwear track tires. Yes, certainly, stockers might be far from good match with such. Yet vast majority of twin owners, even if happen to track aswell, mostly daily drive theirs, and most probably won't choose/use for DD car tires with bad wet grip tires with very short life/wear. Hence - your patronizing opinion/choices are applicable as better choice only to very narrow niche of all the owners/drivers. So i guess i'll happily stay among those with "OEM brakes", thus among "those who cant drive".

Imho simplest would be to measure current draw of parked/locked car, if that amount is comparable to other cars/or way above average. Well, what else is there different in UK cars? Alarm was my guess, because you have that small alarm control remote in glove box, that for example i don't have, thus seems UK specific. As for usage pattern .. i had stock 45Ah gone flat even with my usage (and thus changed for free by dealership to bigger one). 65Ah - not yet. And i hadn't seen so much cases of problems with batteries on eg. US or AUDM twins forums. I'm under impression, that many there run just fine with stock 45Ah, and many even install smaller lithium one for track use/weight savings. They certainly have different usage patterns though too, most probably - longer highway driving.

My 65Ah one lasts allready it's 3rd year. And even with stock 45Ah one .. UK forums are ones i saw issues with batteries running flat most often. I speculate, that it might be issue of high stationary current draw of alarms commonly fitted to UK twins, that may cause such often issues with batteries, no?

Without thermal probe to compare temps of inside vs outside of tires most often i keep stock pressure, and letting out excess from tracked hot tires to revert to that. Exception being when i used tire pressures aswell to change grip front-rear bias back then during very first trackdays when i still had stock alignment (imho too understeer-ish and certainly of not enough static negative camber for track). Then i lowered pressure in fronts even more, to add grip there. Cheap tire pressure gauges are .. well, cheap, and at most fuel station stores. If you haven't one, buy one and let out excess from overheated tires as you track. Remember to pump back after end of trackday though.

Not changing pads when going to track may even be amplified on BBK regarding some dailying issues with track capable pads. As due better cooling temps can be even less, thus even harder to keep rotors properly bedded when just daily driving with track capable pads, and have loud squeals at every stop. So not that sure on bit that with BBK one won't need to switch pads. BBK may allow get by with step down in how much track oriented pad compound for same braking, but for optimum braking at track and least NVH issues when DD, two specialized pad sets switched according use will still be best choice. Truth be told, on several BBKs pad change might be even simpler, with taking out/inserting pads from above caliper. When i hear something like to ease bedding to close off brake cooling ducts .. BBK vs stock brakes - probably same thing. One needs to brake harder and from higher speeds to get same temps for bedding/not wear off that layer during generic daily driving.

What do you mean, only a slight improvement from uprated pads? I got rotors gloving red, yet with pads i have now, braking still felt same/as consistent as cold. (CSG spec C1 on stock brakes. MPS4 tires. PMU G-four fluid). Variation between misc pads in feel/Mu/consistency/initial bite/cold stop/flatness of Mu vs temps curve/temp range is great. Modulation also was improved noticeably, i now can much easier to left foot brake right amount, even if skills/reflexes are still not there.