Nice work. Really coming together.
Red hood is eye catching.
Red hood is eye catching.
AlexGSi2000's Z3
- Thread starter AlexGSi2000
- Start date
AlexGSi2000
Dedicated Member
Had my first "spirited" run since the engine swap over the weekend, managed to get out around North Wales late one evening.
The car has now ticked the box of rekindling the fun I used to have when I first started driving.
The car feels like it has the right amount of power, doesn't feel like its lacking.
The next immediate area is as I fully expected - brakes.
The current brakes put a stop (pardon the pun) to all the fun at one-point whilst I was out - long downhill section with lots of twisties, started loosing the pedal so had to back off.
Granted I've not even looked at the brakes whilst Ive had the car - I suspect they will be just cheap pads, discs don't look like they've been changed in a while as the pads don't seem to be contacting the entire surface.
Luckily, I purchased a set of 330i brakes from Andyboy a few months ago which are sat waiting to go on.
I've ordered a caliper rebuild kit - just to freshen them up, along with a set of Bosch pads & ATE Typ200 fluid.
Always found the standard Bosch pads to be quite good for road use, I was tempted to go for the likes of PBS / Ferodo DS2500, however being fairly conscious of cost I'll see how the £35 Bosch pads go for now, if improvements or a track day looms, I'll go for something a little more suited to higher temperatures.
Once the brakes are on - hopefully by the end of the week, that should be enough to satisfy me for this season.
Progress will more than likely slow down / halt until next year, the plan for then will be to refresh the front end - all the suspension arms / bushes.etc look original to the car, so will be replacing those and polybushing wherever I can, along with a set of camber plates for the coilovers.
The car feels like it would benefit from a proper suspension / geometry setup and perhaps even corner weighting - will focus on refreshing the suspension components first.
The only other upgrade it may see in the interim other than the brakes is a new radiator - the current radiator fitted is original, it looks like there may be a slight weep from the smaller upper pipe - I suspect its probably gone a little brittle so I dare touch it. I've seen a few aluminium radiators on eBay for the same price as an OEM radiator - so may be tempted by one of those.
I may be taking the car over to France early September, if that's the case I'll get it replaced.
The car has now ticked the box of rekindling the fun I used to have when I first started driving.
The car feels like it has the right amount of power, doesn't feel like its lacking.
The next immediate area is as I fully expected - brakes.
The current brakes put a stop (pardon the pun) to all the fun at one-point whilst I was out - long downhill section with lots of twisties, started loosing the pedal so had to back off.
Granted I've not even looked at the brakes whilst Ive had the car - I suspect they will be just cheap pads, discs don't look like they've been changed in a while as the pads don't seem to be contacting the entire surface.
Luckily, I purchased a set of 330i brakes from Andyboy a few months ago which are sat waiting to go on.
I've ordered a caliper rebuild kit - just to freshen them up, along with a set of Bosch pads & ATE Typ200 fluid.
Always found the standard Bosch pads to be quite good for road use, I was tempted to go for the likes of PBS / Ferodo DS2500, however being fairly conscious of cost I'll see how the £35 Bosch pads go for now, if improvements or a track day looms, I'll go for something a little more suited to higher temperatures.
Once the brakes are on - hopefully by the end of the week, that should be enough to satisfy me for this season.
Progress will more than likely slow down / halt until next year, the plan for then will be to refresh the front end - all the suspension arms / bushes.etc look original to the car, so will be replacing those and polybushing wherever I can, along with a set of camber plates for the coilovers.
The car feels like it would benefit from a proper suspension / geometry setup and perhaps even corner weighting - will focus on refreshing the suspension components first.
The only other upgrade it may see in the interim other than the brakes is a new radiator - the current radiator fitted is original, it looks like there may be a slight weep from the smaller upper pipe - I suspect its probably gone a little brittle so I dare touch it. I've seen a few aluminium radiators on eBay for the same price as an OEM radiator - so may be tempted by one of those.
I may be taking the car over to France early September, if that's the case I'll get it replaced.