Told ya there'd be more Union Jacks. Blimey's new logo. Won't make him go any faster, and won't even be there when he's on the track... but fun when he's not. Remember... this theme started a lonnnnnng time ago...
Step 12, continued Received my 36" long piece of 1/4" wall 1.5" T6. This is a pretty beefy tube. But needs to be if I have any illusion of maybe getting a little stiffness benefit from the refabricated OEM roll bar. It's going here... So, to fit the crossbar, I had to resort to some old school die grinder work. Covered everything in sheets first to minimize vacuum work later. Aluminum chips are a pain to get out of everything. Very labor-intensive trial and error process. Grind a little, test fit, repeat. Stop every few minutes to pick the embedded aluminum out of my carbide cutter. You wouldn't want to pay what someone would probably charge to do this. Took a few hours. But finally.... Done. Tested... plenty of clearance for whatever is going to attach to this, and for the top to go up and down. Now need to get it over to my TIG welding guy, sometime this week, hopefully. Tack it, pull it out, and weld it. Then will do more shaping and grinding to get the finished product like I want it.
Suggestion: Add some tube gussets to stabilize the bar... Even though its some thick rod, its probably not as strong as you might think.
Yeah... challenge is that there's really no room for them. I need almost all the space to clear the shelf when it hangs on those posts. If I had raised the bar to make room... then it would be too tall visually. A good idea (and mechanically sound)... but not sure I can make it work.
Blimey 2.0 is looking great. Love to see how quick you could do a Dragon run once all mods are complete.
I can sip a macchiato while going 30 on the Dragon. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14J3esvACe4"]talladega nights - you have spilled my macchiato - YouTube[/ame]
Transmogrification Step 13 - Moar Stopping! I replaced my stock 1st gen front calipers and rotors with 2nd gen MCS calipers / rotors a few years ago - a great mod. The stock 1st gen brakes are CRAP... at least for hard driving and the track. As most of you know, the 2nd gen MCS front brakes are the same as the 1st gen JCW brakes, just without the red powder coat. But I've still been running on the stock 1st gen rear calipers for 150k miles now. Many pad and rotor swaps, and installed the bronze bushings several years ago. But otherwise still living with their crappiness. The rears don't do nearly as much work as the fronts... but they don't have the improved lubricated guide pin design and pad design of the 2nd gen brakes, and tend to drag more (especially if you're not diligent in lubing the bronze bushings). Since I'm going to go even more aggressive on the front (stay Tuned), I decided to go to the 2nd gen JCW rears if I could find a set... and I did. These use a 280mm rotor vs. a 259mm rotor for the 1st and 2nd gen MCS brakes. Other things being equal, larger rotor equals more stopping torque and less heat. I'll be running more aggressive pad compounds on the front, and can fine-tune brake bias by changing rear compound friction as needed. Plus the bigger rear rotors just look a lot better... Here's the stuff: 2nd gen JCW rear calipers (came with OEM pads that still have some life in them, I have Carbotech XP8's on the way) SP Performance T06-420 rotors 2nd gen OEM parking brake cables I was also going to swap my rear wheel bearings as PM while I was at it... but someone in Germany put front wheel bearings into rear wheel bearing boxes. Doh. Oh well, my bearings are still fine for now. The 2nd gen brakes are designed to work with the alloy trailing arms, and have the brake line and parking brake cable in different positions than the 1st gen. Which happen to interfere with the 1st gen steel trailing arms. So some grinding on the trailing arms is required to make clearance. I had a good carbide bit for my die grinder, was no big deal. I plan to do the alloy trailing arms retrofit at some point in the future... The 2nd gen brakes also have a different fitting for the end of the Bowden cable housing, so you need 2nd gen parking brake cables. The cables themselves are plug and play, but require some disassembly of the brake handle console and exhaust heat shields to get done. There are instructions around for how to do it... search is your friend. Old vs. new. You can see that the JCW rotors are almost an inch larger: Before: After: And yes, they look goooood with the wheels on. :cornut: Taking a break now, will be later today before I drive it. I don't expect any real improvement, except perhaps at the track and in the mountains. And in lower maintenance and more reliability for the calipers.
Test drive complete... All good. Got most of the coating worn off the new rotors. Averaging 15.0 mpg this tank, so far.
After driving 2013 JCW's at the Miles Ahead MINI Performance Motoring School last Fall I knew I had to do something with the brakes. I put the Brembos on the front a few months ago and I just did this same mod to the rear of my R52 last week. What torque specs did you use? I used 48 and 22 ft/lbs for 'carrier to hub' and 'caliper to carrier', respectively; only because my Bentley manual only goes up to 2006. Did you upgrade to S/S lines too, or had you already done that? ; the stopping power now es muy bueno, even with only Hawk ceramics front and rear. A little less bite, but incredible modulation.
Blimey 2.0's first track day, at CMP. My first time at this track. Great day! Only a handful of folks at the track, almost like a private track day. Well, this happened Video of one good lap and the date with the tire wall. If you're impatient, the exciting part is after 2:20 [ame=http://youtu.be/MXDgUdn1zII]Blimey CMP 20140810 - YouTube[/ame] The good news... Not a ton of damage for what it was. Only cosmetic on the drivers side. Hey, it's a track car. It happens. Will beat out the dents and do it some more. :cornut: It's what this car is all about, no tears shed. Re-seated the tire, drove it home, and will continue the transmogrification.
WOW you were having a great run but it sucks that it ended that way. Your reaction when you stopped was awesome. "Whoo Hoo"