Lauren

Looks good, I did wonder why you had gone a bit deaf at JAE.

Nigel, your seats are not a factory option, they were fitted at Portbury Docks like everyone elses. All cars are made in the same factory in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. I've been there. The half leather are leather/alcantara, not leather/cloth. Scott, the stock sound system can be vastly improved by fitting different speakers. Focal do a direct replacement which is not too pricey and makes a big difference. Unfortunately the stock head unit is poor with no seperate line out for an an amp and sub etc, but if you haven't got the sat nav then it might be worth considering swopping the head unit for something decent. But it all depends upon how much you like to hear your music of course. You can fit the arm rest yourself, it's a matter of drilling some holes into your centre console, a number have done it without issue. Or you could pay for your dealer to fit it, I suspect it wouldn't take that long.

Welcome aboard. With regard to the seats, the full leather wasn't available until 2013. This could be possible that a 62 plate has them, but it was certainly not an option when I ordered mine in January 2013, so I can't work out how Nick has them on a 12 plate. The only options available then were the cloth seats or leather/alcantara which is what I have.

Everyone on the forum has to choose a unique username, so these things can happen. As long as his username is unique, that is all that is required. If only people would pick less cryptic usernames eh?

Scott, that is just the flywheel, not the clutch and coverplate, which I presume you have? Would be good to post a pic of the clutch itself to show the lack of wear on it.

Can you put prices on the items, please Scott?

Cool. It's crying out to be lowered now. I would say that 235s won't have any stretch and 225 would only be a very small amount. I'd go for 225's on a rim that width, it's perfect for it.

I might see you down there, Ste. I'm in for a service Monday morning.

Welcome aboard. I would say get the TEIN coilovers first and drive it before you go for bigger anti-roll bars as I don't think it's necessary.

Welcome aboard. Any plans for the car?

Yoko Advan V105, Contisport Contact 6 are good options.

Option 3 I'd prefer to record the race (I doubt it will be live on C4 anyway) and watch it when I get home. So a 10.30-11am start for me is preferred.

In my diary.

Think it cost me £16 to have mine replaced.

When it comes to wiper blades, I've always found it best to use OEM.

Welcome aboard, the wait will soon be over.

Okay, in my calendar. Probably an idea to start a thread in Social Meets, Neal.

Go ahead and organise one I say. We're busy for the next two weekends with JAE and TSS Croft, but try after that.

I think Chris was on Eagle F1's (I might be wrong though). The trouble is, I've learnt that when the tread gets low on the rear (and it does so much, much sooner than the fronts), the car gets really flighty in standing water at speed. I had some serious moments myself last year, then looked at the rears and realised they were barely legal. So sorry to hear the news, Chris, what a nightmare. That looks like a lot of panel damage unfortunately, I Hope they repair it. Big hugs. x

I've been wanting to sort out the AE86 suspension since I bought the car, but making the decision in regard to what way to go with it has been difficult. This is in part due to the lack of choice to a point. It's also the issue that most of them seem to be slammed to the floor with very high spring rates. I remember following the AE86 guys on track in my GT86 round Castle Combe at Japfest in 2015 and how stiff they looked on track. The irony was that they bounced around too much in the corners and I could just drive round them in the GT86. Now my thinking is, if the GT86 weighs in at 1250kg and has a spring rate of 5kg front 6kg rear, that an AE86 must be way too stiff with the popular spring rate of 8kg front 6kg rear. My AE86 is not a track car, it's a car to be enjoyed on a fast B road. So I really wanted a setup that wasn't going to bounce around on the road. Also we have to remember that the AE86 has a live axle on the rear and mid corner bumps are much more of an issue than they are with the GT86's double wishbone which is far, far superior. The AE86 has an old school fairly crude setup with MacPherson Struts up front, live axle rear with four links and a Panhard rod. When it came to suspension, I didn't want Taiwanese parts on my car, so the off the shelf options like BC coilovers were not in the running, even though I know they work alright and are fairly good pricewise. There is also the CS2's from Driftworks which are HSD's from what I can work out. These are not cheap but are based on a budget brand and again are Taiwanese. I want Japanese parts on my car and I wanted something different. My AE86 now has an agreed value of £10K and it's only going to go in one direction. My thinking was that whatever I do needs to add value to the car and to be careful not to detract from it. I've been having a long chat with my friend Yukiko who is the UK and Europe manager for TEIN UK. I became friends with her when I worked with her on the development of a UK setup of TEIN's streetflex coilovers and EDFC Active Pro on my GT86. I had custom spring rates specified which have now become known as the 'Lauren spring rate'. That's what they tell me anyway! So, following a number of conversations with Yukiko, I asked if they could do me a custom setup for the AE86. TEIN do not do an off the shelf setup for the AE86, but they do have a 'Specialised damper programme'. This is good. But what is not so good is that they do not supply (like BC and the CS2's) the complete front strut/leg with the spindle on the bottom. The AE86 suspension is very 1970's in it's design! This meant that TEIN would need a pair of front legs and they would cut them off and weld on their struts. This is not the work of a moment. It also meant that if I didn't want to lose the front legs already on my car, I'd have to source another pair. I managed to get a pair off a friend and got him to ship it over to Yukiko, just in time for one of her trips over to TEIN in Yokohama. She took them on as luggage on her flight! This was one of them. Though these have had collars welded on, the leg would be cut near the spindle and the rest thrown away! AE86 chassis legs by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr Here’s what OEM legs look like, but given it was only the spindles at the bottom of the leg that were needed it doesn't matter: Old AE86 front legs by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr I was asked to measure the ride heights as they were on the car so that TEIN had a datum point. Front: Measuring ride heights AE86 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr The problem I had was that the rears were measuring 25mm lower than the front. I've always thought that there needs to be a bit of rake in the opposite direction as the car has always understeered. Now this is in part due to there being no camber adjustment on the AE86, which is never going to help, but with those crazy wheels I have with their low offsets of zero on the front and -5 on the rear, I needed to lift the rear a bit anyway. My thinking also was that the suspension needs to be able to move in order to work and whilst it may be cool to have an AE86 dropped on the floor with only the possibility of inserting a silver Rizzla between the tyre and wheel arch, I just couldn’t cope with any more wheel arch rubbing, so up it had to go! After some discussion and bear in mind that having suspension made to your specification does increase the price, I opted for TEIN Street Advance with a 6kg front and 5kg rear spring rate. In my experience I don’t like that much variation in spring rates front to rear. I had been suggested an 8/6kg and 5/3.5kg spring rate, but I felt something in the middle would be more what I was looking for. I also specified adjustable pillow ball mounts on the fronts to get some camber adjustment which the car so desperately needed. Four months after those old front legs went off to Yokohama, look what arrived by air freight: TEIN AE86 Suspension by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr Mark went off to see a friend to get them fitted and they were inspected by TEIN UK at their base in Milton Keynes. So this is what happened with the ride height Before FR:301mm FL:305mm RR:285mm RL:280mm After FR:298mm FL:299mm RR:305mm RL:305mm Here’s how the car looked before: AE86 old suspension by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr AE86 old suspension by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr If you look carefully, you can see how low the rear is. The front though, was about where I wanted it. Here’s what the suspension looks like on the car; Here’s the front left. If you look carefully you can see the ‘specialised damper’ branding: Measuring ride heights AE86 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr The rear: Measuring ride heights AE86 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr Whilst we were there we fitted a Techno Toy Tuning adjustable Panhard rod which makes it nice and easy to get the rear axle aligned as any change in ride height from stock puts it way out: Techno Toy Tuning Panhard Road AE86 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr And on the car: Measuring ride heights AE86 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr Adjustable top mounts: Measuring ride heights AE86 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr Camber here is maxed out at 1.75 degrees. We think the adjustment is limited as my car has roll centre adjusters on the bottom of the legs. Still, it should be enough for the road. We also took the opportunity to fit Techno Toy Tuning tension rods on the front as I picked these up nearly a year ago from a friend. AE86 TEIN suspension by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr The other thing I really wanted to change was the tyres. The Work Meister S1 wheels that I had bought a year previously had Direzza Z2’s on and these are a track orientated tyre and very grippy indeed. But, for me I wanted to balance the grip with the level of power the car has and 122bhp is not a lot, so with the Direzzas it felt like you just had too much grip and couldn’t move the car around in the corners. With a 15” wheel there is not much choice when it comes to tyres. I took the best option I could for a road tyre which was a Michelin Pilot Sport 3. These were put on at the same time as the geo setup was done as RRG Macclesfield Toyota who did the geometry setup for me. I really wanted to get the front toe back to parallel and importantly square up that rear end. The irony was, is that it wasn’t far off as it turned out, but never mind! Old tyres off: Old Direzza by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr New tyres on: AE86 new tyres by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr We had to replace the rear spring seats and this was done after we installed the suspension. This had the effect of lifting the rear a little making the front look a bit lower compared to the front. So we had the front raised by 5mm to get the rake right which is a 5mm drop from rear to front. Here’s how it looks: AE86 suspension testing by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr AE86 suspension testing by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr In the above photos I was on a testing run with the new setup. The first thing I noticed after changing out the old Direzzas to the Pilot Sport 3’s was how much better the ride was. Those Direzzas must have very stiff sidewalls. The difference in respect of the handling between the old suspension and the new is dramatic. It feels obviously stiffer as a spring rate of 5/6kg is still quite high on a car that weighs 970kg and in comparison to the GT86, the ride is noticeably firmer, but it no longer rubs the wheels in the arches and at last the damping matches the spring rate. For the first time in the five odd years I’ve owned the car it actually handles. It was always a disappointment to me previously as it was over damped and under sprung with the mishmash of suspension that it came over with from Japan. I also have a very well sorted GT86 and that just served to make it feel worse. But now, it’s a car that can at least try to keep up with the admittedly much quicker GT86 and it finally does the legend proud. What I found through testing is that the understeer at the front end is now banished thanks to now having some negative camber on the front. The rear end though, rolls too much and whilst it is good that it grips, I’d rather it grips a little less. With the low power of the car there is no possibility of pushing the rear end wide on the exit of corners, so I will be fitting a bigger rear anti-roll bar and I hope that will address the issue. In terms of the ride, it’s not bad, no longer does it wallow around, but it is actually reasonably comfortable and far improved on how it was before, feeling far more agile. The suspension is adjustable in terms of damping force which alters the bump and rebound together. I may in the future fit EDFC, but I really want to get the balance of the car right first. It’s good after so long to have the car I wanted it to be in the first place and I must say it’s really close now to being that car I can just hoon down a country road and get a very big smile on my face.

Nothing is being changed with your engine ECU, it's the PS ECU, so I don't see why it would affect any maps you have on there.

If the lifetime warranty is not just for the original purchaser, then that's a good thing.

The problem may be that buying a Milltek secondhand means no warranty and though I do not yet know of a non-res Milltek with a flexi cracking, it may be putting people off.

Mine is being done when the car is serviced on the 12th.

I got 37K out of OEM pads. Had Stoptechs on as I got given the front set. They seem to last just as well. No squeal and are fine on trackdays and sprints. I've done a year's worth of sprinting in them, a trackday and a Euro trip and plenty of fast road driving and they seem to hold up well.