S18 RSG

Is it not C7P? Lightning red?

One of the main things I was told by people who tested the TD car is how linear the power delivery was. In fact, doing some research today suggests that would be the case. They run really low boost on their turbo kit, so the package seems to be more reliant on tuning and a combination of parts, rather than just boost. Need to try it myself, obviously, but I've heard nothing bad.

Nope, not had a ride in a TD car yet. As soon as I have chance I'm gonna pop up and see Mike, and hopefully pop in and see Mark on the way too, so I get to experience a demo car and a customer car.

I am considering TD, I wrote it in my first reply I had a conversation with Mike in PM's, and unless someone contacts me offering another choice for £3,500 or less, then I'm going with them. I didn't realise TD's kit was so well priced.

I did, and to be honest it was one of the reasons I started looking again today. Great price, but I'd prefer to buy new for the main reason of aftercare. If something goes wrong, I want someone to be on the end of the phone who knows the install and the kit front to back, and can replace parts under warranty should anything fail. Aside from that, I won't be in a position to have £3k spare by the time that kit sells :/

I would love to fit the kit myself, would be good fun. My problem is, having the space to do it. My garage opens out to a fairly busy road in a residential area, so not really any room to work. I've already been in contact with Mark with regards to the Harrop kit, just waiting to hear back on prices etc. One thing I didn't consider, mostly because of my own ignorance, was the turbo options. I didn't realise, for example, the TD turbo kit is so reasonably priced, and having heard feedback from various people who went in it at the meet a few months back, it seems like a potential alternative.

To retrofit, I know of no kits that exist. The 2017 wheel may be able to be retrofitted, but as an OEM Toyota item, don't be surprised if the price is near a grand. If you wanted to do it yourself, you could. You'd have to trace the volume up/down wires in the harness, and wire a switch to each of them, then find a neat solution to add two switches to the wheel. Could be done for as little as a few quid, but would look shit. Long story short, just forget about it.

Stock secondary cat kills a lot of power. best idea would be getting that replaced.

True, but a full leather retrim just on the seats is likely to run you near a grand. These covers are less than half that.

The Cabana and Autowear seats come in blue, but the design is a bit Halfords. Those 86Vantage DAMD's would look great with blue stitching.

Those DAMD tan covers are gorgeous. Price actually isn't too bad either. Wish I could see them in the flesh first though.

Keith said most of what I was in the middle of writing, but just a few more points to add. Firstly, while accidents are rare, they happen, and in some scenarios it can be completely out of your control. Having accepted the fact that you could NOT afford to pay for repairs or replacement, I would perhaps suggest that you don't try and rush into things, just because you want to. There are plenty of ways you can get experience on track without risking your own car. So that would be my main advice, to maybe look for tuition or track days with rental cars, especially if you can find somewhere with an Elise, MX5 or GT86, to help you learn how to drive a RWD car. Of course, you could just go ahead and take the risk like many others, and that's completely your decision. If you were to gain your experience at an event with the club, I would suggest asking someone with a bit more experience (Lauren, Ade, Kev or someone) to take you for a passenger lap, and maybe even join you in your car for a few laps. This isn't a replacement for tuition, although I would assume certainly Lauren could do a great job at that, but having someone who is on your level and helping you out of the goodness of their heart can be great. I did this at the Nurburgring. Asked a local Porsche driver for a passenger lap, then asked him to join me for my first 2 laps. By 5 laps of experience I ran a sub 10 minute BTG time in traffic. Main point to take away, is as Keith said. Work within your own boundaries. Don't try and impress people, just do it to have fun and if you manage to improve, great.

There's nothing I like more than a good debate. Especially a mature debate

At the end of the day, an opinion is just that, an opinion. No opinion (without definitive proof through testing) carries more weight than any other, because there are far too many factors to consider. The main factor being that everybody drives differently. What works for one person might cause too much understeer for someone else, or might be too stiff for someone else. It's all about finding what works for you. Let's be honest, if there was one setup that showed up as the "best" through thorough testing, I'm sure we'd all gravitate towards that. Fact is, nobody on here, traders included, has even scratched the surface when it comes to testing setups for this car, which is why there are so many opinions being thrown around. There is no concrete evidence proving one way or the other. My background in engineering qualifies me to understand the theory behind how suspension works, but at the same time, I'm not hugely experienced setting up car suspension, so my input will be purely theory based, but here goes: With regards to which ARB/spring rate/alignment setup is best, you guys need to remember that all aspects being mentioned have a direct impact on each other. Running a lot of negative camber at the front, for example, may suit stock ARB's as you're getting your turn in response and under/oversteer balance through alignment, whereas running a low amount of negative camber may benefit from a thicker rear bar to aid the reduction of understeer that way. Same thing with spring rates. Running an equal F/R spring rate may benefit from a thicker rear ARB, whereas running higher rear spring rate may be better suited to the stock ARB's. This kind of discussion requires far too many caveats for there to be any reasonable conclusion. It's best discussed on a case-by-case basis, rather than a general blanket statement.

Wheels and suspension, in my experience, hardly noticable, maybe £50-60 a year. Turbo is where you're gonna suffer. A near 50% increase in power puts this car into the same league as Porsche 911's, M3's etc. so insurance companies won't go easy on you. I wouldn't be surprised if that premium more than doubled at your age. I pay around £450 on mine, all mods declared, but supercharger prices came in around £750-800 a year, and I'm nearly 26 with 8 years NCB (thank you accelerated 10 month policies). The question would be, do you NEED a turbo? Far too many young drivers get into accidents because they drive cars they have no reason to own, and no experience to help them along. Don't mean to sound like an old fart, but that is the reason why your premiums would be so hgh. I was happy to build up experience in my early 20's, take advantage of advanced driver training and track driving experience, and learn to really be able to drive, before owning anything too silly.

If you've already signed paperwork, you're completely within your right to refuse a further increase, providing of course, that the contract you signed didn't state something along the lines of "this is subject to change". If they want a sale, £800 isn't exactly the end of the world. They're making good enough money from your with the finance as it is.

Much more straightforward doesn't surprise me. Consoles are all the same. One Xbox is identical to another. With PC development, you have to take into account NVIDIA and ATI graphics drivers, a broad range of programming languages and philosophies, not to mention making sure anything you implement doesn't clash with other software which could be installed on the machine and so on. Console development is far more linear, but trying to develop within limitations must be frustrating. I have an interview published somewhere online, I believe it was on behalf of Yahoo, where I spoke to the guys at Projekt Red (guys behind the Witcher series), and one of my questions to them was exactly this subject. They all agreed that they preferred PC game development because they could push the boundaries of what's possible much further than with console tools.

Only just read through your reply @Willtl, a couple of things. You're right, games consoles are effectively PC's (always have been back as far as early consoles), the problem is, when developing a game for a console, regardless of using a PC as a development tool, there are too many limitations to make the game great. Developing for PC, means they can go all out in the development stage, as most PC's these days are far more powerful than a console, then optimise and re-evaluate the importance of certain features for less powerful machines and consoles pre-release. But, at least they weren't too limited during development. Console platforms force developers to consider those inherent system limits during development, so they never even get to explore some features they may want. I'm sure, over time, there have been countless thousands of ideas left on the cutting room floor due to console limitations, and that's why I will never take a multiplatform game seriously if it's been developed primarily for a console.

215 is ideal for 7J and 7.5J, 225 for 8J and 8.5J and 245 shouldn't really be used on anything below a 9J wheel imo. You can get away with 245 on an 8.5J wheel without issue, but I would rather take a small stretch and therefore a slightly stiffer sidewall. Although this comes down to the specific tyre, as some are naturally wider than others. Less flex in the sidewall = more accurate translation of driver input to the road. For this reason, it's not always advantageous to go for a wider tyre, just for the sake of having a wider tyre. It's almost always better to go narrower if the size is better suited to the width of the wheel.

£250 for a real, painted TRD rear spoiler, £190 for a painted front aero fin and £220 for the carbon strut brace. I wish we didn't have to get stung with such stupid import charges. I'd pay those prices today if I could.

The only reason I kept consoles was for Guitar Hero and Forza. Now Forza is moving to PC (although Horizon 3 seemed to be a flop at launch) and I have discovered the world of GH3 custom songs, I almost have no use for Xbox. If it wasn't for two friends I have who only have Xbox consoles, I would've sold by now. A note on PC optimisation, and specifically PC porting. In my opinion, if a PC game is ported from console, it's not worth playing. Every developer knows the benefit of PC gaming, which is why 90% of games at shows (Gamescom, Eurogamer etc.) are played on development PC's with the relevant controller plugged in. I'm sorry, but if a developer makes a game for console, then ports to PC, rather than making the game as good as it can be on PC, then dumbs it down for console, then they're not a company I want to fund, as that logic is insane. Also, while some exclusives may be worth getting on consoles (Uncharted series, Gran Turismo, Forza until this year, Gears of War etc.), in most cases there are equivalent games that you may not have heard of already on PC. I can understand being invested in the storyline of a series such as Uncharted, but aside from that, there's very little reason to play on a console these days. Even the convenience factor, which used to be my excuse, isn't really relevant. Console gaming used to be great as you could press the on button and be playing within seconds, whereas a PC took a lot more effort to get into a game. But these days, what with the constant console updates and game updates, and how quick modern PC's boot up (mine literally takes 15 seconds to boot, and I have Steam in my startup folder), I can be in game on PC, playing with a controller if necessary, before my Xbox even wakes up.

Sounds like there's a story here that I'm unaware of...

Yes, I think that would the better way to go about it. It just means cutting the current pipework and welding a new flange in place. If necessary, I can get the guys that fabricated to exhaust to do it, but if you could do it while I'm there, even better.

I don't have pictures, but it's easy enough to explain. The main difference is that the front pipe and mid pipe and different lengths. As I wanted to have an interchangable cat/decat pipe, they cut out the original cat, and welded on a new flange, so the cat pipe is about 6 inches longer than the cat, as opposed to a 2-3 foot pipe. Here's a quick drawing of the difference: (Key: | - Flange, = - 2.5" Tube) Original layout: ||=Overpipe=||=(Original Secondary Cat)===(Resonator)====||===Mid Pipe===||===Back Box==> My system: ||=Overpipe=||=(Original Secondary Cat)=||============Silenced Mid Pipe===||===Back Box==> So effectively, the current mid pipe will need to be cut and have a new flange welded in place to fix to the new front pipe you're supplying. Hopefully this makes sense.

@Mark@Abbey M/S Any further thoughts on mine? Obviously I'll need to head to your place to have it fitted and/or fabricated. Any chance you could send me over prices and dates for this?