Simon C

Anyone here actually driven a Mini aside from me? I've drive both Cooper S and Cooper S Works supercharged. They are da schizzle.

Does the AVCR have to be teamed to a PowerFC to do that? Or can it do all those things as a standalone unit? Gear and RPM specific boost would definitely be a nice thing.

No-one seems to know if the Spec Cs came with baffled sump from the factory, although I suspect not.

If you're driving mostly B-roads, keep to the factory stock suspension. You want suspension travel and kinder damping rates / springs for that. Coilovers will be too harsh. For the track though, coilovers are niiiice. Zerosports develop aftermarket stuff only for Subaru, mostly mild engine tuning parts and track-biased suspension. Their stuff is really good quality, but costs a lot. Hard to find reviews of their stuff too, since there's not a lot of it around due to scarcity and price. My suspension is 6kg/mm front and 4kg/mm rear with linear rate springs. That's at the soft end as far as coilovers go. nztintin, I saw those SYMS on TradeMe, you got them for a good price. I was tempted by those myself. How did you find them?

Blasphemy, there is no nicer wheel on the planet than CE28N. Although there are some that run pretty close. I'd have a set if they weren't so bloody expensive.

Stuck new coilovers on yesterday, adjusted the heights today to recommended settings. Now the car looks like a monster truck!

I didn't get them because I had other spending priorities for the car back then, and I wasn't in the mood for a bidding war against DPI Feel free to drive up to Auckland and see if your Volks make your Spec C faster than mine

Running from the police ;D

I have a set of V7 STi unequal length headers and uppipe if you're interested. I've twisted some of the heatshields a bit, but I'm sure you can just retwist them and make them fit. Don't ever plan on reusing them, so they might as well get used by someone.

Didn't realise that yours were 17x8 Paul. Most of the 17" ones I've seen around have been 17x7.5, and Volk don't make those in an offset to clear the Brembos.

I do. 225/45/17 on stock Spec C BBS 17x7.5 rims. They replaced a set of Bridgestone Playz PZ-1s. Impressions: Wet grip is good, but not great. I suspect a directional tire like a T1-R or an Eagle F1 will do better. Dry grip is bloody fantastic, about as grippy as you can get without a semislick. Under track conditions using standard STi pads on Brembos, I couldn't get the ABS to trigger. Ride quality is reasonably awful. They're definately loud. The ultra-stiff sidewalls mean you feel the road buzz a bit more, and bumps are sharper. Steering feel is awesome. The sidewalls don't deflect much, so you get really good turn-in, and you get much better steering feel as well. Be prepared for your car to tramline a little bit. Lifespan is short-ish. I've got 4mm left on mine and have done 9,000km on the set from new, no track work. The last set I had were used ones, with 4mm but bad camber wear on the two which I put on the back. A track day at Taupo balded the insides of the back tires. Price is painful. Tony's in Wellington charged me $370 a rim fitted and balanced. Overall, they're what you expect - a maximum attack track biased tire that's road legal. I heard rumour that they were being phased out for the RE11, but from what I can tell the RE070 is still fitted OEM for the current JDM Civic Type R, and runflat versions are OEM for the R35 GT-R.

You won't get under $1200 without buying used. At least $500 of your budget will get eaten up by the cert and the wheel alignment, and that's assuming you have the tools and know-how to do it yourself. So really, you're after coilovers for $700. Funnily enough, I have a set of Zerosports for sale which will fit within your budget, but you'll have to forgo camber plates and reuse your original top hats. PM me if you're interested. For the record, even if I had camber plates, I would never have made any adjustments or used the extra camber on my daily. Rebuilding struts can get expensive very quickly. If you're lucky enough to live in the same city and can skip freight charges, it's still a few hundred dollars plus per strut to rebuild. And that's assuming that someone can actually source the parts to do it. Most of the big brand name stuff should be serviceable here without needing to be sent overseas, but I don't know about the random cheap Chinese/Taiwanese ones.

It feels slow because the car is 200kg+ heavier. A 3" exhaust, boost controller and a remap will help a lot.

With a 3" exhaust and a VF34, mine would boost to 20psi, then gradually fall back to 14psi at redline.

Mine cut a few hundred RPM off my spool time. Blitz DBSC Type R, dual solenoid intercept unit.

Yes. Big time. From personal experience. Easy to do as well. Not all EBCs are made equal though. Do some reading, I think Blitz make some of the best ones.

Just do pads and fluid, braided lines if you're keen. Brembos are a pain to get wheels for, and by themselves won't drastically increase your braking without the upgrades I just mentioned. If you can overcome the braking on the track with those, then by all means go Brembo hunting.

Much easier to take them out, and it's not hard to do.

You're mad. Superleggeras are nice and light, and it's really hard to find 5x100 wheels that will clear Brembos without stupid offsets. I'd offer you my STi Spec C BBS rims, but I'm quite fond of my tires and they have heaps of life left.

Sounds a lot like my wife's Civic.

Those were standard fitment on the V9 Type RA Spec C.

My S15 did that when it had an exhaust leak.

Her parents live in Napier, so I guess she could pass through. No rush, as the tires on the car are warrantable, but the rubber around the shoulders is cracking.

My flatmate is looking at buying a used car, but the tires all have cracking shoulders and need to be replaced. The size is 195/65 R15. She doesn't need a performance tire, but at the same time she's not interested in Linglong/Triangle/SuperCrap/etc. Anyone in Auckland have hookups on new tires?