BenF

Lovely car Mike - and a bargain for someone. Would love a 911 one day, having already ticked the Cayman box. In a couple of years, if my business goes well... So you think that the base model is actually the best option for a daily driver? Some people seem to turn their nose up at them and insist on an S. Seemed strange to me as even a standard Carrera is ridiculously competent.

If you are after an S3 chassis car, this is a much better bet than a DeDion car (speaking as someone who has a CSR). Especially considering the dreadful state of UK roads.

Decent looking 2006 k series in the For Sale section now...

I would also look at Sevens and Classics. Your target spec is pretty good, although I would not worry too much about the wheels, as they are easily changed. An LSD is nice but you will likely find that most cars of that spec have open diffs.

Very interesting... and apparently only 2kg? That's a big weight saving over a Banner, IIRC.

Interested too

What is the point of insulting a polite and knowlegeable member of the club? Consider that you haven't covered yourself in glory with some of your own posts.

I guess so Sam - I always associate G with acceleration, I'd find it quite confusing to have the dot going in the counter-intuitive direction to the acceleration.

Regarding the G-meter, one thing I do wonder - why is the g going in wrong direction? You turned left and the dot went to the right. This seems quite common - I had a similar display on my Cayman and it annoyed me that it was the wrong way round!

Jason, you have blatmail.

Simon, if you look at that video (3:40 as you say), you see suspension movement, but this is the kind of lower frequency movement which is mainly affected by suspension kinematics, suspension stiffness and not damping. I'm not really sure what that proves. However it is true that that kind of vehicle has a lot of suspension movement compared to almost any performance car or conventional racing car, which does make damping proportionately more significant as a tuning tool. Nowadays, teams tend to define their damper curves from ride modelling and then just get a manufacturer to produce a damper to that spec, which is as light as possible, reliable and consistent. There are a lot of damper brands out there, but that's just the sign of a mature market. I've not seen much in the way of innovation in the last years, the last significant step was the Multimatic dampers using spool valves, as they were regarded as very consistent.

Simon, this is not about negativity, it is about objectivity. It is very easy to be seduced into thinking an upgrade is better, if you don't have data to back it up. This does not just apply to suspension upgrades. When I suggested you post data/results, it was not about posting your damper curves. They are of course your intellectual property and it's understandable that you don't want to publish this. What I meant was results from your car - I assume you confirmed the ride was better objectively, by doing PSDs of accelerometers fitted to the car? By showing the heave and pitch response from your logged data, a clear improvement in ride should be seen. This makes it completely obvious that the damper change has made a difference. The exact analogy with engines would be to post a dyno power curve, showing the results of an upgrade - you would not expect an engine builder to publish his secrets either - but you could imagine they want to show that objectively there was an improvement. I speak from experience of running and analysing performance data of racing cars over 23 years. I don't claim to have all the answers. It's true, sometimes you can be surprised and find a benefit where there previously was none. But generally I would want to see hard data to back it up. When people do these upgrades, my impression is that they very rarely do the due diligence of dynoing the old dampers, changing to the new dampers whilst keeping the same springs, doing the corner weights and setup and then going back to baseline at the end for a proper test. In my professional life, I've heard drivers swear blind some damper tweak was a big improvement, only for this to be negated by going back to baseline.

Stephen - I think the solution of 55W heater and an indoor cover is fine - I just am not sure if I really need to. With a lot of things, it's just about peace of mind, but I'm trying nowadays to avoid buying unnecessary bits, which then just gather dust for most of the time. Will give it some thought.

I'm near Buckingham, so I'd expect similar weather to Somerset. I think the garage is more of a factor. Yours looks much nicer than mine.

The problem with bling dampers or many upgrades, is that people can be seduced easily by sales techniques. I saw this myself as a professional working with racing cars, to be fair this has dropped off in the last decade as the gains are now recognised to be small. A change in dampers can make a difference if the original dampers were knackered, or the damper change is done with a change of spring rate as well - as this is the dominant factor for ride and kerb strikes. Anecdotal evidence does not really cut it - if you take adjustable dampers and put in some crazy settings, then of course you would expect a difference by dialling them back into the ballpark. Simon, I did ask in a previous thread if you could provide some ride simulation results, four poster test results etc, but nothing was forthcoming. Even if you just explain your qualifications in vehicle dynamics, I am sure that would put some of us at ease.

Hi Stephen, Those covers do look nice, but I'm wondering whether I can really justify buying one. My garage is not the driest, but it's not overly damp - I'm not sure that I really need such a nice cover. I like the idea of this if it's a cheap and easy solution.

Any recommendations for an indoor car cover? The Caterham indoor cover is an astonishing 278 quid. I've seen some DustPRO covers (not as nice looking) for around 80 quid. Is one 55W tube heater enough?

PeterM's idea seems good - not heard of that done before but makes a lot of sense. What mileage is the car? With 23 year old dampers, if they are high mileage, they might benefit from a refresh while you're at it (can be done by Bilstein, I think the cost is around 75 pounds per damper). Avoid being seduced by people saying that you need expensive adjustable dampers. The baseline Bilstein characteristic is fine. Are you able to measure the corner weights of the car on reliable scales, as the car is now?

You don't need the Gemzoe splitter, if you use the method SamC recommends. Try that first - it will cost you nothing, except a few minutes of your time and will save you buying an unnecessary tool. You just need to find a socket which is the right height to fit between the nut and the upright.

I would guess the body does not move and the mirror glass is held by a mounting screw and loosening this allows the mirror glass to be oriented correctly.

Nigel's height is stated in the ad. It does look like a very cool little car, I am a bit amazed that Nigel can fit in OK - I'm the same height and I struggle in an MX5, which you'd expect to be a bit bigger.

I'd strongly recommend just raising it. I originally planned to make the CSR sump guard as recommended on another thread, but instead just raised the car. I now have a similar clearance to Jonathan (93mm with no driver, I live alone so cannot check with me sitting in the car!). This is probably excessive, but I don't feel that I would ever notice the performance/handling loss for road use and I have more peace of mind.

I don't think they need to be anodised. However I would wait for SamC to reply as he will know.

Oh no Pete! Looks like you need an easy-out to get that out now. With regards to the 7Nm, SamC recommended that, I assume it's from the build manual, but also with the Loctite I assume it will not loosen off. My torque wrench only goes down to 8Nm and was too large to use, so I practiced on feeling what 8Nm was like and just nipped the bolts up with a normal ratchet.

No assembly lube, all dry fitted.