S18 RSG

I got to drive one briefly, when a buddy had one out on long term test. He eventually bought one when he got back to the US, and at the time I remember thinking that, for the price he paid in the US (under $140,000 or £90,000ish), it was about right. However, the one we had on test here had pretty much everything ticked, carbon fibre wherever it was available, lovely white accented interior, it looked and felt really up market. I agree, I wouldn't spend the money myself, to me it felt like a lower, slightly more techy M3, both in terms of performance and feel, but then an M3 isn't exactly a bad car, and given that he lives in California, where he has to deal with 4 figure gas guzzler tax on almost every other car in the same performance bracket (exclusing Tesla's etc.), it was probably worth it for him. I see what you mean by the performance tough, dying up top, but I honestly wasn't too surprised. Electric power has always been renowned for it's immediacy and torque, as can be seen by looking at performance figures of full electric cars, most of them top out around 125mph. As soon as the electric power dies, it only has a 1.5L turbo, and as I owned a 1.4L turbo with 250hp at the time which did the same thing, I was expectant going in.

Pretty sure I'm right in saying that I've tried my four set ups all on the same suspension set ups so that at least can be eliminated as a factor. What I mean by suspension being a factor, is that results could differ depending on your own suspension setup. If you have a stiff setup, you might find different results to someone with a softer setup. With a stiff ride already, you could find making it stiffer would be undesirable, whereas a softer setup could benefit from some level of stiffening. Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

Suspension setups are a big consideration tbh. There are a few ways to look at it. A heavier wheel, in theory, stays in contact with the road more, because it requires more energy to lift the wheel (obviously). This means the tyre experiences more bumps than a lighter wheel, meaning the suspension has to compensate for more bumps, but because the wheel is harder to lift, the suspension is moving less. On the flip side, a lighter wheel is more likely to lift over bumps, then be forced back down to the tarmac by the suspension. So the suspension is experiencing less bumps, but having to work harder for each bump due to the increased movement. In my experience at least, I found the car became more compliant over bumps after changing wheels, but I also changed to a much better quality tyre, and one that I know to be particularly forgiving from previous cars. I was also still undecided on suspension setups when I changed wheels, so that might have been a contributor. So while my theory stands, perhaps my experience isn't completely fair.

That's basically what I did. I found the car was too obnoxious with no cats whatsoever, and obviously is a ball ache come MOT time. Best to try and decide what you want before committing to anything, otherwise you'll end up spending more money down the line changing things.

I'd still argue you're unlikely to notice much of a difference. You'll be going with wider wheels no matter what you choose, and wider tyres = worse turn in response, which is one of the main advantages of lightweight wheels. You can find light 18x8 wheels, or 18x8.5, but then you have to start considering cost and quality. A lightweight wheel is either going to be smaller than 18", made of poor quality materials, or expensive. Pick one of those and accept the outcome, or stick with what you want. It's simple really.

The stock wheels are actually 9.1kg, or 21lbs, not 11kg, so there is a bit of a difference as Jeff said. My wheels, for reference, are 25lbs, although are an inch bigger and an inch and a half wider (18x8.5), so for me it was worth the sacrifice of 16lbs of increased weight in exchange for (in my opinion) far better looks in comparison to 17's, and wider tyres for lateral grip. It's worth considering however, that while lighter wheels are better for steering response and overall lap times, heavier wheels are less likely to lose traction and will lend themselves towards a more comfortable ride. Both basic mechanic knowledge and various lightweight wheel tests conducted over the years will support this. It's a toss up between what you want to achieve. If you care more about how the car looks than how it drives, get whatever wheels you like, if you want to get every minute percentage of performance out of the car, then go for a lighter wheel, despite the fact it may not be what you want. The differences in performance will be very slight, the difference in your opinion of the car when you look out the window may be something very different.

On 18x8 you should probably run 225/40 tyres. I'm running them on 18x8.5s with a small stretch. As for big brake kits, 18s will be big enough. The limiting factor may be the offset. 48 offset is quite a small offset, so you may find the inside of the wheels would foul with the brakes, meaning you'd need spacers. You could probably run up to a 20mm spacer easily on those wheels anyway, so as long as you bear that in mind, shouldn't be a problem.

New rear lights, new stock wheels, new steering wheel and new fender garnishes all get the thumbs up from me. Rear spoiler looks like an afterthought, and I don't think I'll ever be conviced by the new front end. Don't think I'd mind it if they didn't add those silly little bumps, but with them it just looks a bit drunk. Decent update to be honest, but not 100%.

Brakes depend on your budget. If you have the budget for a BBK, you can't go wrong with K Sport for the money from what I've heard, but I wouldn't say a BBK is necessary, even at nearly 300hp. A popular upgrade path seems to be stoptech (or similar) discs, fast road pads, braided lines and a fluid upgrade. Makes a big difference and is certainly on my list after cooking my brakes this weekend.

I mean, I have some OEM rear clusters in my garage, never had a condensation problem in 25k miles. Although I imagine it may be cheaper for you to go aftermarket, because shipping to Kazakhstan is probably gonna cost a bit.

Hi all, Just throwing this out there as an open invite to anyone who may be in the area for the weekend of the 18th and 19th of June. Myself and Chris (with the blue wrapped stage 4 turbo '86) will be doing a small Welsh drive over that weekend. Details are not completely ironed out yet. As we get closer to the time I could provide meeting times if anyone wanted to tag along. If you are interested, just let me know what day, and where you would be willing to meet us, and we'll work something out. Initial plans are to meet at the Evo triangle, most likely Saturday morning, then drive over towards Snowdonia and potentially stay in a hotel there for the night. Sunday drive down the west coast of Wales and work our way across the Brecon Beacons, before Chris heads off back home to Lincoln and I make the arduous journey down to South Wales.

For those who are coming, it may be a good idea to PM me your mobile numbers in case there are any changes of plan/times etc. in the morning. I have a 3 hour drive to make, so any traffic could delay me.

A lot of the stuff these guys stock is really nice, but nice comes at a premium 😞

Before a mod reminds you, rules require images, price etc. so might wanna update the OP

Well he is making a point of waving his package in our faces, almost begging for compliments, so it's only polite to throw a few his way.

Just a quick reminder on this, in case anyone's recently become available this weekend. We plan to meet at the starting point between 9:30-10am, and do most of the route outlined in my link above on the first day. More than happy for anyone to tag along on any stage of the journey

Amazing value Mike, this should be a no brainer for anyone. I spent around the same money buying similar parts, except I had the hassle of importing parts from the US and having the manifold fitted by a non-GT86 specialist, so this is a truly great price. If only you had this available when I bought my car.

I have no doubt you're right actually. I knew the SA's were 1kg different to the Flex's, for some reason I thought I had seen 7kg somewhere, and that note on the Flex Z's explains why I didn't find them much better. Although strangely they felt slightly more suited to the road, even with stiffer springs. Perhaps it was just a placebo effect of assuming more expensive meant better. EDFC always sounded like a good idea, but you're absolutely right, fitting a £700 set of electronics to a <£500 set of coilovers does seem a little OTT, and part of the reason I never really considered it. Also because of the fact that I've never experienced a car with it fitted, although I've experienced plenty of cars with stiffened chassis' etc. so I know what to expect. Yeah I would appreciate popping out in yours when I get chance. From memory of looking through your list of mods, you've quite extensively upgraded various suspension bits, so I'd be very interested to see the results of all that.

Street Advance I believe @Deacon. I mentioned some time ago that I initially got the Street Advances after the garage destroyed my stock dampers as I couldn't get the Flex's on a short delivery time. I then tried some Flex Z's for a short while when they were back in stock as they seemed to be what most people were running, but aside from the slightly better ride over rough ground (which I assume was thanks to the HBS) I didn't find them noticably better than the Street Advances, so sent the Flex's back and stuck with the cheaper option.

I'm only lowered around 30mm over stock @Ade. I believe it was Stu's blog I saw being discussed. I didn't see too much detail, just that he found over stiffening caused him to lose traction, which I wanted to avoid. As for spring rates, I'm running 7kg/mm front and back, so I think your suggestion sounds good.

I was under the impression that all the EDFC pro does is allow you to change the damper settings from within the cabin? If that's the case, it's not really achieving much more than me just getting out and changing them by hand, unless I'm wrong in my assumption of course.

Ah ok, that does make sense then. I've read everywhere that 16mm rear is ideal. I think the testing was done on some 20-24mm rear ARBs, and they were causing the issues with over-stiffness. Perhaps that's the best place to start looking then. Cheers Jeff. Also, happy 1000th post.

What thickness ARBs are you running? I was reading a thread on here earlier today that talked about someone who had done some testing with ARBs and found the thicker ones to be too stiff, and to be lifting the inside wheel and losing traction :/

I'm not on particularly sticky tyres @Church, and your assumption is correct that it will only be the occasional track day, however, living where I live means I'm driving on twisty B roads every day, and when quiet, I like to drive it hard. Having so much roll is exactly as you say, not very confidence inspiring, and given that roll stiffness and ride stiffness are two different entities, I know I can up the roll stiffness without affecting ride quality too much, which I don't want to do. Another factor, is that while the roads around here are great, the quality of the tarmac is less so, so I really need some forgiveness in the springs, which I currently have after a few months of tweaking here and there. My main goal here is to keep the car very daily-able (soft and compliant over bumps as it currently is), but rigid enough that it remains level under hard cornering. I know it can be achieved, I just want to know the best way. Thanks for the advice @Deacon, anti roll bars would seem like the most obvious way to reduce roll (clue being in the title and all that), just worried about over-stiffening in this department. Last thing I want is to overstiffen and cause the inside wheel to start lifting under heavy cornering. That's fun in FWD, not so much in RWD.

235 on a 9.5 is quite a big stretch, as I mentioned.