S18 RSG

My renewal isn't due for a while, but if you guys can beat £350 a year for a 24 year old with a modified GT86, you'll have a new customer. I was shocked when I saw how cheap my quote was.

Hi all. I posted in a recent meet thread about some past experiences with organising meets for another club. I've tried to avoid it for the past few years, but since I can see myself keeping this car for quite some time, I figure it might be worth meeting a few like minded owners and trying to set up some regular meets. I'm in South Wales, but am more than happy to travel to a more mutually convenient location, providing it's within a reasonable distance of myself, within 100 miles or so. Like most of you (I imagine), weekends are really the only chance I get to take the car on a proper drive, so 99% of the time this will be Saturdays/Sundays (with the others being bank holidays), and if the football is on, a nice country pub might be on the cards. Just wanted to put the feelers out there and get a gauge for numbers and locations. If we can come to a mutual agreement of various meeting points, I have no problem organising the meets (booking tables, organising routes etc.). In my last club, these meets were generally on the first weekend of the month, but again, we can decide on frequency etc. at a later date. Let me know if you would be interested, and if necessary, let me know your approximate location so I can draw up a map and try and find a relatively central location. Cheers

Thanks @rob275, that certainly saves me some work. I did find that last night, but of course that's after I posted this topic. From the members already on the map, it seems like somewhere along the M4 would suit most people in our area. That leaves options for meeting at places like Stonehenge, in South Downs etc. When a few others have added themselves to the list we'll get a better idea, and maybe next week we can come up with some ideas for a meet in February or something

I've seen the Dashlinq unit, looks good. Was very tempted to buy the one that was in the for sale section recently. Likelihood is I'll end up going for an Alpine/Pioneer unit, but the idea of a unit that's designed to fit in the standard hole is quite appealing. I've seen quite a few aftermarket installs, and without meaning to offend anyone, they can look dreadful. @Lauren - I certainly won't be buying any of these cheap Chinese units. My dad bought one for his camper (he wanted a reversing camera, DAB and sat nav so it was ideal), but I don't even like the interface of it. They scream aftermarket as soon as you start using them, and that's not my intention. I'll have to do some proper research first though.

There's a lot of information around the web, if you're really interested, you can probably find a Youtube video or something explaining it. I'm an electrical engineer, not a sound engineer, but I'll try and explain. In terms of some principles of how/where to soundproof, it's all about finding a good balance. In it's purest form, the idea of sound deadening is to absorb noise (imagine distortion as noise). A good example is between the inner and outer skins of the door panel. Without sound proofing, a sound wave between those two panels will effectively bounce off all the metalwork, creating 'noise'. Introducing even one layer of sound deadening means that the sound wave causing the noise will be absorbed, resulting in less unwanted 'noise', and therefore better quality sound. The balance, in this case, is being careful not to go overboard. I don't believe there is a particular audible downside to OVER sound proofing, however, in a car, going too far adds weight. A sheet of dynamat the size of a car door weighs around 1kg (maybe more). You can quite easily imagine how someone could go overboard with this, and plaster every panel in soundproofing, adding significant weight to the car. For the sake of getting a noticeable improvement in a car as small as ours, simply covering under the door cards would go a long way. The more you add in various places around the car, the quieter the car will be inside. You will help to reduce outside noise, as well as unwanted rattles etc. but again, remember that every panel you soundproof adds weight.

Well, as there are clearly still some questions, I'll try and take some time to do some testing while I'm in the car. Step 1: Sound deadening. This is the cheapest and easiest mod, and realistically should make a noticeable difference. Step 2: Fit the amp with stock speakers. Step 3: Swap out the speakers for the new Focal items. To answer a question I glossed over, yes, the head unit will end up getting changed, just need to find something OEM looking with good navigation software, DAB etc. and I'll pick one up. As I said initially, this is just something that's been bugging me since I bought the car, and shouldn't be too expensive or difficult to improve. At the end of the day, a car will never be a match for listening to music at home, and that's why I've invested well into four figures on my home audio setup, but for the times I am listening to music in the car, I'd like to at least enjoy it, not have some distorted, completely flat version of my favourite songs

Well, as per recommendations, and partly due to my impatience, I ordered a set of the Focal speakers we discussed yesterday. Bought them from Amazon, and will be with me tomorrow. Also ordered an extremely compact 4 channel Amp to go along with it. Should all be here ready to fit over the weekend, and I'll report back with findings after the deed is done. Thanks all.

Not completely through my own choice, just hasn't been adjusted since it was last checked. Was just an observation given the current settings. For my preference, I'd be happier at around -2 deg all around, just gotta get around to getting it back in the garage

I read through the other thread, where @suggestable mentioned those speakers. To be honest, they're probably gonna go on order fairly soon, just wanted to know if there was some kind of known path that's proven to be a great upgrade for cheap (like the panel filter power increase).

True, but I've had that responsibility in the past. I was organising a meet every few weeks, and from experience, if anything goes wrong it just comes back to the organiser. I stepped away from organising anything for that reason

I run 6/6, but also run a fair amount of camber (-2.5deg front, -3deg rear) and I have no issues with understeer. There are always other options to help balance over/understeer (alignment, adjustable ARBs etc.)

Damn it, why do I have to live so far away from everyone. It's a 3 hour drive for me, yet I'm still tempted, simply to come and actually meet some of you. I'll try and convince myself to come along.

Cheers for the comments everyone. Discs/calipers are definitely looking a little sorry for themselves behind these wheels. I may look into some OEM+ options (Impreza/Legacy fitment, which I can imagine being tidy upgrades), but this will certainly be on my mind. Any suggestions would be welcomed. The 225 width tyres have made some interesting changes to the car. Certainly seems a lot more planted, and much more controllable during a slide. Though in fairness, the last owner couldn't seem to make his mind up on tyres, as the car came to me with 4 different tyres, all of which were down to around 4mm of tread. I'm sure that had a lot to do with the cars' unhealthy love of being sideways. When we get a dry weekend down here in South Wales (never), I'll be looking at fitting my front splitter, then making a decision on height. Now the suspension has settled more, the front is certainly sitting ever-so-slightly higher than the back, which needs to be fixed. The rear wheels are also sitting slightly too far inside the arches for my liking, so maybe a set of 5/6mm spacers may be required.

...and I think it paid off. Coming from the VW scene with my previous couple cars, and the T5 camper we also own, I've always loved 3SDM wheels, but never thought a Euro style wheel would work on a jap car like this. I've seen a few pics of the black versions on a GT86, but I'm not a huge fan of black wheels, so I took quite a risk buying a set in polished silver. After waiting for a little over a week for the wheels, then a couple hours for the tyres to be sourced and fitted, this was the result: I'm sure there will be many different opinions on this, but I couldn't be happier (which is, of course, all that matters) but I still figured I'd share with you guys as it's something (maybe?) different. Specs wise, they're 18x8.5 all round (9.5 wouldn't fit on the front without a severe stretch, and I didn't want staggered fitment). I've gone for 225/40 tyres (Vredesteins, swear by them). I think I will end up dropping the car by another 10-15mm just to get the stance perfect (for me), but it's not a million miles away right now. Any more pics required, let me know. Regards (and happy new year by the way) Ross

Hey everyone. I've been trying to come up with a plan for what order to go with in terms of mods for the 86. I've already done a few of the cheaper things that everyone seems to do (air filter, decat, gear knob), but now the next stage is more difficult to decide. Over the next 3 months, I want to get the remap done, complete the rest of the exhaust (over pipe and cat back) and do a few other smaller things (arm rest, springs, bushes, ARB's etc.) but I'm not sure what order to do these in, and wanted some opinions based on what you guys found to be the most impactful changes. I'm sure the remap would probably be the biggest change, but would it be more useful for me to wait until the exhaust is finished. On my previous cars, I've always done exhaust first, as on turbo cars I know that tuning is effected quite heavily by exhaust (boost is lowered if you have a decat, for example) but I didn't know if it was as important on an NA car. Each stage is looking to be around the £500 mark, and while I would love to do it all at once, I don't think throwing £1,500 at the car in one go is necessarily the best idea, so what would you guys suggest? LIttle things first, exhaust, then remap? Or go straight for the remap and worry about everything else later? Cheers all.

No worries Keith, I'll get some up. Main reason for not doing so is that I posted this up when I had a spare 5 minutes at work, so obviously I can't just walk down to the garage now, and knowing my luck I'd forget to post this up when I got home. I'll grab a few pics when I get home, and update the OP.

Hi guys, Some of you may have read in an earlier thread that I swapped out my springs for a full set of coilovers, after having some issues at the garage that fitted them, so therefore, I have a basically brand new set of Sportline springs for sale (the 35mm drop ones). You all know what they look like, but I have no issue throwing a few pics up if required. They've done around 10 miles on my car, and so are therefore in perfect condition. This also means I don't really have much of an opinion on them, as I barely drove with them on. Included in the original box are the necessary bump stops and dust guards (as supplied by Fensport). I paid retail for these (minus club discount) so given their condition, I would ideally like around £200 for them (still a decent saving over buying brand new) considering there will likely be a significant cost to shipping. If you would prefer to pick them up from South Wales, we can discuss a different price, or we can come to some kind of arrangement to meet on a weekend somewhere. Open to any offers/suggestions however, as they are only taking up space in the garage

I'm sure this might be a bit of a trek for you Smudge, but there's a custom place in South Wales, not too far from me, which I swear by, as do a lot of enthusiasts in this area. The company is called Prospeed Exhausts. I've personally seen them work on anything from a Fiesta to a Ferrari. Their website is full of testimonials and images of their builds, including some of mine (they've done all of my last 4 cars, and will be doing my 86 also). As an idea, they quoted me £500 for a UEL manifold, £450 for a 2.5" cat back, and £150 for a overpipe/front pipe combo with a decat. I've never heard a bad word said about them, and I would doubt the truth was being told if I did. They're fantastic.

Hi everyone. I've already introduced myself by way of a few posts elsewhere, but figured I should officially say hi here also. I'm Ross. I'm 24 and live in a small town around 20 miles away from Cardiff in South Wales. I recently picked up my red '62' plate GT86 after a few months of searching and deliberating, and so far couldn't be happier. My car history started with a Peugeot 106 1.1 (for about a month), and then a typical Vauxhall Corsa. With the "young driver" phase out of the way, I went into a Skoda Fabia VRS at 19, which I had running at stage 2, at around 190bhp and 300lb/ft of torque. While it was a monster, I had some serious bad luck with turbos. I blew the original turbo around 3 months after it was mapped, and then blew the upgraded turbo 3 weeks after it was fitted (due to it NOT being a brand new part, as specified). All these events put me off the car completely, so I sold it on and bought a 2010 Seat Ibiza Cupra. As with the Fabia, the Ibiza was immediately mapped and taken to a safer version of stage 2 (with a full turbo back exhaust with sports cat and remap). The Ibiza dyno'd at 220hp and 240lb/ft of torque, and was a bit of an animal (it was nearly 100kg lighter than stock, and ran low 5's for 0-60 at GTI International). Alas, after nearly 4 years of ownership and still loving the car, the time had come for a change. I test drove an E90 M3, a C63 AMG and a Lexus ISF before realising that I can't afford to run a 15mpg V8, so I started looking at the 370Z/G37S, and then even started looking at modern hot hatches (new Astra VXR and Megane 265) before realising that the answer was in front of me the whole time. I originally saw a GT86 at Wilton House Supercar day in 2012. I sat in the driver's seat and loved it. I said from that day, "if they made one with 250hp, I'd buy one tomorrow". That attitude is what forced me to look elsewhere. After coming full circle and realising that the GT86 was a possibility, I test drove one. Despite being down on power to my Ibiza, and way down on power to what I'd been looking at previously, I loved it. I loved the character of the engine, I loved the interior, I loved how it went around corners, and most of all, I loved that it was the most fun per £ of any car I had tried. With a few weeks of grinding and looking for the right car, a 300 mile round trip and some money later, brings me to today. In terms of plans for the car, I've already got it booked in for a secondary decat next Saturday (£110 fitted at Prospeed exhausts in Cardiff, the only place I will ever go for an exhaust), and will be looking at options when there regarding a cat back system a few weeks down the line. I'm in the market for some initial, "sensible" upgrades (new gear knob, front splitter, armrest options and a few others) and when all that is out of the way, I'll start looking at some more expensive and significant changes. The end game plan, is that in around 2 years time, the car will be supercharged (I just want to find a good twin-screw system before taking the plunge), on 18" wheels, slightly lower, bigger brakes and perhaps wrapped. The wrap is the only real unknown yet, as I'm not sure if I want to change the colour, but everything else is certainly in the plan. I look forward to hopefully meeting a load of you at various shows as the year goes on, and look forward to sharing my progress, as well as following a lot of yours as I have been already.

Nah, Boxster S. Had a 993 911, didn't like it. Wanted to see what the fuss was about with the 987 Boxster, realised it quickly.

I tried driving the Porsche 2 years ago when we last had a decent amount of snow, put me off driving any decent car in snow ever again, especially rear drive cars. We have enough cars in the family that it's luckily not an issue, so I never bother with winter tyres, but I might be tempted to find an empty car park this year.

I dread to think what it's like in the snow. I think mine will be staying tucked away in the garage, along with the Porsche, and I'll be back in the parents' Renault Scenic during the winter months. But I wouldn't change it for the world. This car taught me what the term "fun car" meant. Previously, I always thought the most fun you could have in a car was going fast in a straight line.

Hey, the 20 yards I drove on the springs felt great! It just so happens that as soon as the dampers had to do their job, they failed horribly XD. But yeah, at least you can get off my back about coilovers now I gave in to you in the end.

Hi guys, Safe to say, today isn't exactly my day. On Tuesday, I put my car into my local garage to get some work done. I bought some 35mm Eibach springs, and front and rear camber adjustment bolts/bushes. A fairly simple job for which I was quoted 4 hours labour + wheel alignment. 6 hours later, I get a phone call saying the car won't be finished, so I could collect it the next morning, when they call me. 2pm the next day, I call up, "It's still not ready, you can have it by the end of the day". I rock up at 5pm, car still isn't done. I hang around until 6pm, car still isn't ready, they need to finish it tomorrow. The car is finally ready at 12pm the next day, so I collect it, and relieve myself of £280 for labour (6 hours, not the quoted 4). As soon as I turn the corner, I hear an awful knocking coming from the rear. It continues over every bump, but I figured it may have been the poly bushes, or simply the springs bedding in. I got home after the rest of my work day, and took a look at the alignment of the wheels, and noticed the rear wheels seemed to have a crazy amount of negative camber (after I had asked for 1.5 degrees all around). The issue here was, I never received a printout of the settings, just a "take my word for it" kind of statement from the mechanic. Anyway, the next day, to put my mind at ease, I took it to a local tyre fitting place which does full 4 wheel laser alignment, and these were the settings (obviously before is top): As can be seen, the rear toe was a mile out. I was told by the mechanic that did the alignment, that he wasn't surprised about my complaints of the car feeling loose and nervous on the road, because those settings were dangerous to the point of being undriveable. I was also told that the knocking was caused by the rear top mounts. So, I took the car back to the garage this morning and asked them to sort out the knocking, and lower the rear camber slightly to get it more towards 2 degrees. At 2pm I went to the garage, at which point I was shown the car, and was told that 3 out of the 4 shock absorbers (for reference both rears and the front right shock) had blown their seals and were leaking fluid. This was because the shocks were probably on their way out already, and the springs accelerated this. The problem, of course, is that I found the car was never test drove after the work was done, so it was literally driven 30 yards from the ramp to the car park, and then 50 yards by me around the corner when I noticed the knocking. There is no way I blew the seals on 3 shock absorbers in 80 yards. Obviously, seeing as though it is a bank holiday, I have now had to leave my car in the garage again (although I will be collecting it on Monday, there is no way am I allowing them to touch my car again) in order to get it somewhere decent, to have all 4 shock absorbers changed. My question is, would everyone here share my opinion, of these issues being caused by the sheer incompetence of the garage in not doing my wheel alignment? Also, could anyone give me a technical breakdown of exactly WHY this issue would be caused by this, so I can use it as evidence on Tuesday when I go back to the garage, as I am fighting for not only a full refund, but a full set of shock absorbers plus reimbursment of my lost time, as I will have been without a car for over a week. I also told them I had a driving holiday booked this weekend, which I've had to cancel and have lost another few hundred pound from that. I'm not fighting for that, as it's a lie, but I wanted to make them feel bad. Opinions please. PS. Could a mod edit the title please? OCD hits me hard

Thanks guys. Keith, I got an offer from Fensport for a full set of OEM dampers, £200, but they're second hand, so my guess is that OEM dampers are worth a pretty penny themselves. Either way, by the time the springs are sold, and the coilovers are fitted, I'd had paid around £350 for coilovers, including fitting. That's not at all bad considering (although the 10 days without a car aren't exactly worth it)