Lauren

Doh, it was that blue square that had me! You'll need to get it touched up. Something like that is probably around the £100 mark or so. I've had a couple done myself, best just to get it done then you forget about it!

Well, that the issue. 225's are the ideal size for the rim width.

I know it sounds mad, but I can't see any damage.

Have a look on here James; http://www.willtheyfit.com 245 may be the absolute limit, but check this link and see.

Well stiffer bars can allow lower spring rates but don't forget the bar acts as a spring. If I was you I'd fit your new suspension first and see how it is before changing ARB's.

Just a thought but if the airflow exits underneath the car, raising the rear of the bonnet will disrupt this and make it worse. Just as an example years ago I did some experimenting with intercooling on a MK1 MR2 Supercharger. Some people tried pushing air down from the top using a snorkel type arrangement. However the air flow was from underneath and went up through the intercooler exiting on the engine lid where there was low pressure area. So effectively by trying to push air down onto the intercooler from the top you were stalling the air flow. It was much better to utilise the updraught from underneath the car and out of the top of the engine lid as that was the way the air wanted to flow.

One of the guys on here, trying to think it was, swopped back to standard sized ARBs, he had the Litchfield kit on but the bar size was verging on silly. If you go too big it will affect traction. I would suggest only a slight increase say 2mm and I'd be tempted to try stiffening the rear first, just for the fun of course.

If you're thinking of going the winter tyre route, I'd say just buy some secondhand OEM rims. They're cheap to pick up and really is it worth paying full price for OEM rims when they don't have much value secondhand? Then just put winter tyres on them, sorted. I did this, cost me £300 for a set of rims with tyres (Primacy's), I just put the winter tyres on the spare rims and used up the Primacys in the summer. To be fair last winter didn't need winter tyres, but I guess you never know. Think I'll wait till December or even January till I put them on, but I reckon two to three monhts is about all you need to use winter tyres for in the UK, though you never know I guess.

Probably 235's. There is a tyre size calclulator you can google for. The trouble is if you fit too wide a tyre it won't feel good at all.

But even if it gets hot it still doesn't mean it's an issue and what's hot really? There will be plenty of air flowing in the engine bay, I'd be surprised if it's an issue. The way I look at it, it ain't broken why worry about fixing it? As for bonnet raisers, they look terrible, IMO but personal taste and all that. I'm all for improving things if they need doing, but I'm really not convinced on this one.

Ah, that old chestnut.

Do people really know that the under bonnet temperatures are an issue? Or are we just thinking it's an issue?

All the names of things are changed in Initial D, it is fictional after all, but just about everything is a play on names, so Trest, BItz etc. Mount Haruna becomes Mount Akina and so on.

Looks like you had some fun there.

Don't take any notice of what Keith says about the colour, Matt, we all know blue is poverty spec and here's the proof:

You can go with lowering springs but I seemed to find that they didn't match te stock dampers so well plus you lose some damper travel too which is not great. They tended to make the stock dampers feel a bit under damped but that's not suprising really. I looked at all the options and took the plunge which is obviously more expensive, but I'm very much into handling and I wanted to improve it and improve the ride quality. I think I've done that with the Tein setup I have and with two others we worked with Tein UK to optimise the setup. It does work well but isn't cheap of course.

Good stuff. Yes, you'll need to uprate the brakes and suspension to work with it I think.

So they do. Stephen seems to want longer travel dampers. The GT86 has short stroke dampers, so there is no way in getting more travel really. Unless he spent £4K and upwards for some serious kit that will require rebuilding on occasion, like Ohlins, AST etc. Those dampers won't necessarily have any more travel but are much higher quality.

Ah I see! I can see straightaway why such crazy ARB sizes would cause a problem! What were they thinking really?

Well, just so you know, I had my dealer (RRG Macc) fit my Tein coilovers with EDFC Active Pro and all the other modifications too, to my car. All covered under warranty. But if you went the simple route and just fitted lowering springs that wouldn't void the warranty anyway.

Welcome aboard. Don't listen to Rob, the heaters are essential IMO. I've even had the heated seats on this week in the mornings. It looks good with the wheels but you know what I'm going to say next don't you? Lowering!

Any that have the height adjustment separate such as Tein and I think HKS. All you have to do is look at the strut and see, it's fairly obvious.

It's worth noting that there are a number of coilover options out there that mean you lose no damper travel at all. BC's not being one of them though. I don't think you can mess with damper travel unless you can buy dampers that have more travel than standard? So I'm not sure how any of these ideas will be any use really.

Ah, so you've just uprated the front ARB? If that's the case I'm not suprised that yoiu've increased the understeer. Better to increase the rear ARB's first, if that's what you want to do. 22/18 will probably be an absolute disaster unless you're entering a drift championship. As for getting the rear end out as long as you keep the grip levels down, then you can still hang the back out pretty well.

Interesting thoughts on the ARB's. How much is the rear up over standard? I thought the OEM rear ARB was 14mm?