nerdstrike

Funny story - been messing about with Forza 7. Not only have they done a great job on replicating the interior of '86 well, but the mother-loving developers have also accurately recreated the gauge cluster hood reflection in the mother-loving windscreen!

Shameful effort! Nobody stood around for ten minutes sucking their teeth, nobody fed anything under the wheels only to be fired out the other side, nobody sitting on the boot lip. You won't get far like that my son!

You could always loosen the nuts on the manifold...

Interesting solution, though it appears to make some assumptions about how robust the towing holes are. I suppose the question is how much torque will it apply to the mountings? They're reasonably robust, but they might not take well to twisting forces from the weight of the bike. Also, you've basically created two lances to impale anyone who rear-ends you... is that a feature or a problem?

It also drives me nuts that the bluetooth music source option automatically tries to play whatever media was last on your phone. Doesn't matter what it was... youtube, the custom ringtone you loaded on. There's some not-quite-joined-up thinking in this department, especially with Google music. The app won't auto-start. Between that and my phone going mental when connected by USB, I have a frustrating music experience

I do wonder about this aspect of the car. You're pretty boned with keyless entry if your battery dies. Perhaps it's a good plan to lubricate and/or warm the lock in winter before going blood and thunder on the puny key. If you remove the battery or it goes dead, you're also in the situation of not being able to lock the car very easily either. Batteries die right? Especially as the car gets older. Perhaps it's worth exercising the lock a few times a year to make sure it moves before Twigman's debacle occurs to the rest of us?

I've got a pair of snow socks (acquired in anticipation of difficulty in the hills, which never really materialised), but I haven't put them to work yet. Helpfully they fit in the space under the boot carpet along with puncture kit and such. They're very clear about their use - to get your out of trouble, not for driving distance. There's a limit to how much you can do to give traction to a lightweight RWD car, sometimes you're better off with a shovel or ratchet strap in the boot, or simply some weight at the back of the car.

I think adding several hundreds of pounds of additional gear to the car does go beyond the initial scope of the upgrade, but fair play to you. You're still quids in on the dealer fit JBL setup. I am starting to feel like any further speaker upgrades would benefit from more rigid mounting than the relatively flimsy door cards and speaker grilles. At least judging by how they pulse in time to the music.

Lucas, you're a bad bad man.

Yes. It's a feedback loop of sorts, comprising suspension travel, engine fuelling, transmission slack and throttle pedal. I've experienced it in three different rear wheel drive cars with a performance bent. You have to figure out how to break the cycle - sometimes a dab of throttle will settle it, or a brief press of the clutch pedal and so on.

Tyres tyres tyres. They're the first thing to show when somebody fancies a drift, and also the first thing to be replaced cheaply. Inspect their handiwork fixing the bumper, get your head down there if you can. Reject anything that looks like a bodge. Check the rear view mirror. Some of ours have delaminated and the glass has dropped off. You can see what looks a bit like corrosion round the edges if it starts to go. Warranty replacement. The car is pretty young, so not much else will be evident. Expect second gear to be tricky when cold, but if anything else seems off on the gearbox, flag it up. Enjoy your new car!

I'd be wary of the value of the extended warranty - they'll wriggle out of anything they can. Then you can blaze the trail for the rest of us on what everything costs to repair

For the record, I found heel-toe easier on the RX8 than this car. I feel the OP's position, in that it seems you have to be applying some brake pedal travel before it becomes reasonable. Nevertheless, I am inspired to work at it in my morning commute!

I'm up in Cambridge - i.e. too far away, but I've got some 4-5mm primacys that came off the original rims in me shed. Let me know if you're interested.

Thanks Lowe. Nevertheless do keep an eye on the LTFT and see if it drifts slowly positive as the ECU compensates your gains away. I hope it's not the case! AFR would give more immediate diagnostics, but you would need a base-line to compare against. The power band would endure longest without correction, as it doesn't get much chance to run in closed-loop mode up high.

Can you keep an eye on the fuel trims? I like the directness of the intake design, but I wonder if it is MAF confusion that gives you this peppy feeling, rather than a legitimate drop in intake restriction. Grimmspeed have put some flow guides in the tubing, but I wonder if it's enough? Apologies, I am an intake skeptic and I'm surprised to hear somebody genuinely impressed. Normally these changes are only detected by placebo bum-dyno.

Hot damn sequential!

Quite a few small town cars once came with a clutchless manual option in the 90s. Very very very bad - see also "Dualogic" and "semi-automatic transmission". Presumably a gimmick to stir up some press, rather than a deliberate choice over the large number of hybrid-suitable transmission designs there are now.

Gearbox feel is often rather different with RWD gearboxes than FWD ones, as the shift linkage is much shorter. Additionally the GT86 is designed with the expectation of some abuse, not to mention weight and cost savings. This makes it feel much more of a naked gearshift than both regular cars, and the heavier sports saloons. That said, I do wish it would shift into second on first try out of the house in winter. It's really satisfying once it's nice and hot, but seems clumsy in the cold.

May the rice be with you!

600 is ok from what I recall. 800 is hot, but I used to regularly see that on my old RX8.

Are they 2-amp USB sockets?

Nice work on the bezel filling, but does sound like a lot of fiddling about to make it fit flush. I fear I'll have to do something similar when I ultimately ditch the Toyota unit. It may not suck Subaru blue balls, but it's still annoying a lot of the time. Is the Pioneer bolted in? i.e. can someone pinch it with some coat hangers?

Indeed. I suffered this out in the hebrides. Not a jot of high octane to be seen, so travelled 350 miles with lacklustre performance. The car feels distinctly average on 95.

In general it is a good thing that we're not all in a fug of lead-infused petrol vapour these days, some environmental regulation is good! It's just the low hanging fruit for performance gains which are hard to ignore. Are there any other aftermarket catted manifold providers?