Lauren

There's no reason why it can't be going in 30 years time, just like my AE86 is. I'll run my GT until I have to buy another car, then I will simply retire it from daily duties like I did with my AE86. I'm not sure about those beaded seat covers, though.

It would seem so!

I had Mark as a passenger holding his tablet (bit naughty!) monitoring them as I was going round. You could get a brodit mount for your phone, but you'd leave the mount in place permanently if that makes sense.

I don't understand. Can you not just click on 'insert other media' and 'insert image from url'?

Joe, please post pics.

I'm not surprised by that, but it's depedendant upon how long you stay out on track. I know I could have got mine a lot higher than 125C but I opted to lift on the long straights which would see it reduce then I'd raise it again on the corners where I was pushing again. I thought 125C was high enough. Certainly if you are doing long stints an oil cooler makes sense.

LOL, I'm going to start charging for how to use EDFC I think! Glad it's feeling better, Mike. As I said, you have a different spring rate and different dampers to me, so you should see my settings as a starting point, but I think it will still work well for you.

Yes, oil temps vary on track, but I think driving round Donington when the ambient temp was 35C gives a good idea of maximum's. I lifted off when it got to 125C, which I'd achieve in three or four laps. So my thinking was once I know this, it's fair to say what the limits will be in terms of track time. But that's fine by me as I don't tend to do more than four laps at a time as a rule and most of my track time is sprinting where the oil just won't get that hot on a single lap.

I did umm and ah about it for a while. My car would need a lot of things changing over to a new one though. All the audio stuff, which is quite a lot of stuff to transfer over and re-do in a new car. Also there is all the EDFC wiring, coilovers and all the other bits and pieces. All of this would mean that whatever good deal I could get on a new car, would be negated by the cost of doing all that stuff. I have kept all the standard parts though. There is also a part of me, that feels that at 80K miles my car is now nicely run in. We all know it produces good power, it uses no oil or any fluids and is exactly where I want it. I've kept to every service schedule meticulously and though I don't spend all my time polishing it, mechanically it is in perfect condition as I never scrimp on anything. I feel I will add my car to my collection and just keep going seeing it over 100K and beyond. I reckon I'll have no trouble getting it up to 150K miles. It may end up a little like Trigger's broom in the end, but when things like bushings and the like wear out, I'll just upgrade them. Also in a years time or so, I should have paid the whole lot off, leaving me plenty of money for other things should I so wish.

Yes, you get a load of letters of course. All I was saying is if you do nothing they will try and take the full final balloon payment from your bank account. And yes, Don, how time flies!

Yes. It's what they do, if you do nothing, which to a point is fair enough. It's up to you to inform them if you have other plans like returning the car etc.

Insurance renewed today with Prestige, same price as last at £606. I have business insurance and this covers me for 30,500 miles, all mods declared of course. That it didn't go up was a main reason for me simply renewing this year. Also I spoke to Toyota Finance about clearing the balloon payment of £8800, they told me that Toyota would be making a withdrawal for the final amount automatically on the 28th January, so whilst I could pay it today, I'd have to inform my bank to sort out the attempt to withdraw the money on the 28th which would still happen even if I paid it today! So I opted just to let Toyota draw it in three days time. Then the car will be mine, save for a £7K personal loan!

Just a little update, I finally got to the point where I was coming home from Reading where the fuel level was going to run till I got the light on in order to get to the Shell garage at Keele services on the M6. As there are no Shell garages from the M6 from Manchester to Reading apart from Keele I normally fill up on the way down, then run with the light on for ten miles or so on the way back and fill up at Keele again on my return. Of course the last time I did this, I broke down, so I thought I'd give it a go and am happy to report that the car was fine and there was, I admit, a little relief to see the low fuel light coming on, indicating all was well with fuel being drawn from the other side of the tank. In other related news, Mike popped round yesterday and I went through the setup of his EDFC Active Pro, giving him my parameters to see how he gets on with it. Mike is running the more expensive Monotube setup with 6/7kg springs, so I'm not sure how my settings will relate, but he'll need to try it for a couple of weeks to see how he gets on. Once we got the calibration sorted, it was dead easy to set the lateral G settings and the speed settings. I'm interested to see how he finds it.

Good work! EDFC Active Pro next?

The Yoko's will far improve that, Joe.

17x7.5" will be fine though.

In terms of tyre wear I seem to see 7K miles out of the rears and I will guess at nearly three times longer for the fronts. They wear evenly, but the rears just get killed it seems.

I think in regard to turn in, it's really rather more to do with geo setup than anything. Else after changing my geo settings significantly, I've got no understeer and a much better turn in than the car was as stock, not that it was poor though anyway.

I did try and watch it last week, but the conclusion I came too, was that it really wasn't worth watching.

Well, what a lovely evening. Rich (Furnate) came along to be someone new for, Mark, Mike, Keith and I to meet. We had a good meal and a few drinks and chatted about seemingly everything. Reckon we could have gone on all night. We called it a day just after midnight! We should do more of these, was just a great way to spend a winter evening.

Just thought I'd mention that the pub is at the end of Beach Road, so you go through Chorlton village, then at the end turn left. The H&J is on a green, parking is around the green. In terms of available spaces YMMV, though I've always managed it. There are some side roads off the green you can use as well if it is busy. See you in an hour.

My dad was a sports journalist for over 30 years. That doesn't qualify me to pretend to know everything about the subject, but I did attend a good number of events with him, mainly golf as that was his passion. However, I have done a bit of writing and stuff for various people and had the odd thing published. I'm also currently getting into presenting rallies which fingers crossed will see me on Motors TV this year. Again that doesn't qualify me, but you need to have very good writing and interview skills. The thing is my day job is a social worker so I've got those very well covered. I think you have to be very outgoing and know how to conduct interviews and more importantly how to put a piece together. I've no idea if this will be particularly useful to you though!

Yep! The story was, when I was racing in 2004, I used this route to 'train' on through the winter and spring time, by going up there on weekdays, sometimes even in snow, just before they closed the road! I lived in Macc at the bottom of the Cat at the time.

108db is stupidly and I repeat stupidly loud. Decibels are not a linear scale, every three decibels or so increase is twice as loud, so that is simply crazy. There does seem to be an issue with Cobra being able to make exhausts that are consistent in respect of how loud they are. Let's hope they have sorted it. In comparison my non-resonated Milltek also with a second cat delete has never registered over 95Db in the usual trackside test, though noise meters at places like Croft do seem to read ridiculously high.

7pm is cool.