Lauren

Are you getting your suspenders sorted at the same time?

Should be easy, the AE86 can barely cruise at 70mph.

A really big improvement there, I think, Ross.

Okay will try for that. Will FB message etc if I'm not going to make it as have to drop off Indy first in Warrington.

I think you get away with it more easily with Rays wheels which have long come in some pretty mad colours.

I prefer the Yokos over the Contis full stop. But I do drive my car very hard at times and it's for those times I prefer them.

Not really 30 year old N2 AE86's have been lapping in under a minute for quite some time. It's a long vid, but start at 7 minutes in and turn the volume up for the qualifying runs. No GT yet can rival the sound of a hot 4AGE. Or treat yourself and watch the lot!

F1's are for people that don't really push and are I guess well suited to that. Sidewalls like jelly though. I've tried the Conti 5's on the rear of my car. They were fine through the winter. Nice and progressive. Again a tyre suited to somebody that doesn't push too hard I think as I don't think they have the lateral grip of the Yokos. But the Conti is better off the line, but that's all really. Prefer the feel of the Yoko's. I took off the rear Conti 5's before the start of the TSS to replace them with Yoko V105's. I may use the Conti's come next winter to use them up, but I wasn't interested in trying them on track.

Well, up to you, but I'll bet if you put some red into the gunmetal no-one will notice it.

Isn't it just easier to meet at Sandbach services?

White as gunmetal is a tad conservative really.

The answer is possibly from my point of view if it fits in with timings. I would like to be at the hotel by 4pm though at the latest and it's a good two and a half hour drive for me from Manchester at low speeds with the AE86 present. I reckon I will hopefully be passing Sandbach by 1.30pm latest.

Joe, you may want to see how Mike B's car comes out as he's going for the TEIN Street Advance set up which has 5/5kg spring rate and is more tuned for the street. He is having EDFC Active fitted as well. All happening at RRG this week. I think it's entirely possible to get a better ride than stock. I would say mine rides better than stock for the most part. Obviously it's vastly better in respect of handling compared to a stock car. So the answer to your question is, yes. But you will need to do your homework.

Looks good! I'll bet you'll notice some improvement over the winter tyres and obviously over the Primacy tyre. You have been busy getting the other stuff organised. Exciting stuff. I think just lower it 20mm.

Here's an easy way to help you sort it. This is a chart for Yokohama tyres and what are the minimum and maximum width wheels according to tyre width: https://www.yokohamatire.com/tires-101/basic-information/customizing/rim-wheel-width I have an 8" rim with 215/45's which is well within spec on the GT, so I could print that out if I was worried about it. On the AE86 I have 7.5" rims with 195/50's which actually looks like the maximum width rim is 7"! Oops, though that's for a 14" rim not a 15. I see it doesn't list your sizes. But I'm sure you could maybe find another chart of contact Yokohama, some proof would help here. It's better to get it from the tyre manufacturer if you can. See this one: http://www.tyresizecalculator.com/charts/tire-width-for-a-wheel-rim-size-chart http://www.brick-yard.co.uk/forum/tyre-size-for-rim-width_topic60146.html By the looks of it, your front tyres are well out of spec and your rears are just outside of it. So you probably are pushing it with the boys in blue. So I would say as your sizes on the front fall out of spec you won't get any paperwork saying it's okay.

Pics please.

They don't make any noise really. Just been out in my AE86. That has a plate diff, much noisier. So it's not that.

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but he doesn't go into that much detail about how it all works.

The rear camber will increase as you lower it. You need offset bushes for the lower arms. Or adjustable lower arms to correct it to what you want. It will tend to on the rear be slightly more negative camber than you want when you lower it.

Looks like an epic trip. It must be thirteen years since I've done that route (well most of it). How were the roads? Was it quiet in the holidays and highlights? I remember Tongue near Melness being fab for scenery with the best driving roads being from the far northwest down to Ullapool.

It certainly can be done, set the cruise, sorted.

1. Yes unless you want to hand the car back with all the audio. Don't bother with rear speakers. Decent speakers in the front with tweeters ideally in the door tops and a sub in the boot is what you need. Given all the work I've done with my car I opted to pay the car off and keep it. Seemed much easier. 2. Seriously lose the rear speakers they are useless and you don't need them. The stock head unit is rubbish as it doesn't have any pre-outs for an amp which is what you need. There are ways around it if you're so inclined. 3. I thought active was driven by an integrated amp and a passive wasn't. Go for the passive and three channel amp. One channel to drive the sub, the other two to drive the front speakers with a crossover for the tweeters.

Welcome, quite a change from a Yaris! Enjoy!

Saxon, thanks. I remember those terrible Aiwa midi systems. All midi systems were terrible for the most part. I've had separates since I was 16 in the search for decent audio. I think you have to remember that most people aren't into their music, but there are some of us that are and care about the quality. It does make a world of difference and I admit with this car I wanted to treat myself to something special as though I've played around with various things in car audio over the years changing every stock head unit I've ever had and adding subs once I discovered the difference they made, I wanted a system that was well matched. So I did it properly. The GT is quite noisy at cruising speeds and it helps to have a bit of welly to cut all that out. I've found that by using subs with decent speakers you can take the bass load off of the front speakers using a high pass filter. The gem in my system is the Audison Bit 10 digital sound processor as it means that timings for the speakers can be set giving the impression that you are sitting in the middle of the car and drastically improving the stereo effect. I have done over 84K miles in three years so it was important to me to be able to turn it up and hit the cruise control on the motorway and just enjoy the sound quality.

Richard at Blink is an old friend of mine from Bookatrack days! As long as your geo is alright, i.e. the toe is okay, then the tyres don't wear any differently than they did before. I went for the maximum camber I could that wouldn't affect tyre wear. Toe being out seems to be more of a factor with premature tyre wear than camber. So there isn't a trade off as long as you don't go mad with the camber. Factory settings are safe and you have to remember that there is no provision to adjust camber on a stock car. A factory car will tend to understeer. Mine doesn't.