So, what happened to our cars?

I have been mulling around this post for a while then, an email from one of our readers reminded me it's time for an update.

You haven't seen posts about our track days, cars, mods etc for a while now. So, what happened?
Well, this year it worked out kind of funny, in my case the MCoupe needed a bit of loving, CG and the Freep have been swamped with work and have not been to the track as much. Still Freep was at Octoberfest up at the Glen instructing and clowning around on snow tires. CG and Adil will be Monday and Tuesday at the Glen immersed in Group 52 greatness. So if you are there and you see the Martini-ExigeS or Adil's 997S (ex CG by the way) stop by and say hello.

Stee is going to be at Summit Point next week end for the NASA races, he has the black Boxster in GT3. He is ready, finally with proper tires and an increasingly well prepared car.

As for me, I'm screwed for a little while longer. Last time I was at Pocono my engine started making this rather loud "clacking" sound. It was similar to the noise e36 m3's make when they come off the track except, louder.
I thought maybe a valve adjustment was in order and I was right but that was not all. Turns out one of the valve lifters on the exhast side of cylinder number six had cracked. Bad news for me was that it scored the camshaft so my best option was a new cam. I could have opted for "hot" cams but given the cost involved and that there was no other planned upgrade (like headers, intake, software etc.) the gain would have been minimal. I decided to save it for tires and gas.

As it turns out it was a good call. The M Coupe is approaching 50,000 miles and a good 40.000 of those have been either at the track or on some nasty bumpy parking lot dodging orange cones, there are consequences perhaps not foreseen by the designers....

Running r-comp tires puts huge stresses on the car and basically if you do this, you need to consider all systems consumables. So while the coupe is up off the ground getting the shocks rebuilt (Konis converted to double adjustable by ProParts) some attention will be paid to the body structure.

I previously had the anti- sway bar hook up points on the trailing arms reinforced, the two middle pivots holding the bushings were now weak and sure enough one popped so now those pints will be hardened.

I had a half shaft flange almost pop out of my differential at Watkins Glen... sure enough the rear trailing arm bushings (Ireland Engineering, urethane) are worn out and allowed some movement.

The flex disk, the mysteriously named "Guibo" is cracked so that will be replaced, a good time to do it since on the MCoupe that means removing most of the exhaust. Finally front shock towers will be reinforced while I'm at it.

Ordinary DIY maintenance will include fitting a new set of front Performance Friction rotor rings and changing brake fluid.

Once the car is buttoned back up it will of course get aligned.

Also the Freep along with Thumper the MasterBlaster worked on my leaking differential. The problem was that the seal between the pumpkin and the M finned cover was not good. They put it back together using a new fancy type of liquid gasket BMW and Mercedes are now recomending and it seems to have worked, all dry back there.

So soon enough I'll be able to roll again and will be able to hunt down the Freep who broke my heater switch. See you at the track!