Bad news john! Testament to the strength of the wheels though!!! A lesser wheel would have disintegrated!!!

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I haven't looked yet Rob. I don't know yet to what extent the suspension components have been affected. The impact instantly affected the wheel alignment, hopefully that's the only thing that needs sorting and I haven't bent a strut.

I think the wheel will need welding and I'd be more inclined to buy a new one.

Well, or this.....

Or this....

 

 

not a fan of ronal turbos.  .. well, maybe on a mk1 golf but not for the octavia.  speedlines are nice, but i still prefer the neuspeeds tbh.

I can't make my mind up about the Ronal Turbos. The Speedlines do look good, this style of wheel suits seems to suit the car. BBS CH look too small unless you go for a 19" wheel, CKs are discontinued in decor silver but there are a few set of polished ones about (no thanks). Rota now do a virtually identical wheel to the Neuspeed, but it's only available in 17x7.5, 5x100 but they are only £610 for a set. The biggest issues with replacing the Neuspeed(s) is they're now £250 each and because Awesome probably don't carry stock (at least they didn't when I bought these), then it's another 6 week wait for a wheel.

 

 

Bad news john! Testament to the strength of the wheels though!!! A lesser wheel would have disintegrated!!!


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I think you're probably right although God only knows what the impact has done to the strength of the wheel. Hopefully it'll be OK and it may be repairable.

Turbos don't work for me, unless it's a car of that period - thinking Renault 5 Turbo or the like

 

I do like a good Speedline, as you probably know! Worked really well with the Mk2 IMO - plus they're light.... and strong.

I do indeed know you like a nice Speedline!!

I love Turinis, they are definitely on the list of considerations. What I've discovered recently is that there are now SO many wheel manufacturers and yet so many bloody horrible wheels. I'm sure all of these have sprung up off the back of the Chinese rep makers only now it's getting original designs made instead.

Oh dear. Took the car out to a wheel repairer (not just a sprayer, but one who can weld, straighten and generally repair wheels.

The concensus is that the cosmetic damage looks like it can be repaired but as I left the locking wheel nut key on the dinner table, I couldn't get the wheel off to have it spun, so we still don't know if it's bent/buckled.

On the road, it drives ok up to about 65 mph - at 70, the shake starts so I'm inclined to say it's bent. Now it may be repairable, but I think I may be better off buying another wheel - if Awesome GTI ever come back to me. The other option is to buy from the US but then I'm going to be stung for p&p and customs.

I also have my suspcisions that I've done something to the suspension on the front right corner, it now feels soft enough to rub on certain turns/compressions and I think something has definitely gone wrong there.

I'll have to get it on a ramp. Got to bloody drive it to Cardiff on Friday.

I think the vibration at speed will just be that wheel out of balance rather than bent. The bent wheel on my Audi was quiet apparent even at low speed, in fact it should be really obvious the slower you go.

That could be a big relief. There's no stress mark or evidence of any compression in the spoke. It's worth a go anyway for 60 quid and then I'll have all four refurbed.

i'd fix the wheel and buy a new one.  

 

run the "fixed" wheel until the new one turns up - then keep that as a spare and fit the new one.  that way, you'll save money on re-furb costs, AND if you have a spare neuspeed you can pretty much guarantee by the law of sod that you're never going to need it...

 

man maths.  

 

no need to thank me.

Rob speaks much sense

Man maths. Pffffft.

Can the man maths do all the costs then please?!

All four wheels need refurbing - I lightly nicked the rim of one of them a while back and they've suffered from a little bit of not-being-cleaned, so they could do with being redone.

If I can get this one repaired for £60, they will all be repainted for £200. A new one out of Awesome is £250 and will take 4 to 8 weeks to get here. I will probably end up buying another but I want to wait more towards the back end of the year, when I actually have the money to do it.

Besides, I need to fix the other stuff I managed to break. :(

Argh more stress. Still haven't sorted the wishbone and ball joint out, replaced the front tyres on Friday afternoon with these:

And drove down to Cardiff. Got as far as Coventry Tescos and bought some gaffa tape to try and stick the front undertray to the wheel arch liner to stop it banging about at 60+ mph. I resorted to removing it from the car and stashing it in the boot. It always had one sheared bolt on the subframe end but it turns out the kerb interaction broke the outside mounts off the plastic where it's joined to the subframe. So that's something else to add to the list. With my wife's words of, "are you sure you don't want to drive my car?" ringing in my ears, I got back in only to discover about halfway to Cardiff another problem in the form of a nasty knock/scrape with any kind of left turn applied combined with every braking manoeuvre needing two presses. Car nursed in to Cardiff, 2 days of beer consumed and RAC summoned on Sunday morning. On investigation it appears that the problem was not from the side of the car that I hit, but on the opposite side and it's almost like the inner race of the beating has given up as there is a lot of movement in the hub/bearing (bizarrely no rotational noise, which is why it didn't twig it was a bearing). So the first press of the brake centres the disc in the caliper and the second press makes them work. The bearing was replaced about a fortnight ago after the ABS ring gave up, so it's either not been fitted correctly (can't see that myself) or it's a crap part and has given up. Not good. Either way I came back in a recovery truck, although that did save a bit of fuel. The recovery guy was telling me he's just bought a Corrida Red Mk2 vRS so I naturally told him about this place.

Oh and these will have to do as a temporary measure....

Right time for an update. Well, sort of.

Bearing problem/knocking noise actually turned out to be a loose hub nut. This made me feel especially annoyed because it had only been replaced and tightened the week before. I can't imagine it had worked loose and even more bizarrely, the RAC man couldn't tighten it up either. But it seemed to pull tight and pulled the hub back onto the driveshaft so no idea what happened there. Because the disc was then running off centre (sort of), it then wore down unevenly very quickly - those discs were on their last legs anyway so I replaced them with some of the Brembo high carbon ones out of GSF. I thought I was getting the coated ones but the non-coated ones were sent instead. Never mind.

I've also still not straightened the caster problem. I put a new wishbone and ball joint on, which fixed the caster error on the driver side but then created an error on the passenger side. This is bloody annoying and suggests the subframe is being pulled from one side to the other. On the knackered side, there is a visible difference between how far the wishbone pushes into the console bush on the other side. Looking at that area, it appears that the wishbone bracket (that bolts onto the subframe and wishbone) has suffered a jolt and been moved. I've got a replacement bracket and subframe ready to go on. And if the subframe is being dropped I might as well stick a big ARB on there at the same time......

In other news there is a new intake and a rear disc change resulted in a knackered spline bolt, which led to the hub assembly being removed and locked in a vice. The bolt came off with an easy-out on an impact driver, but not before flexing a 2ft bar without budging.

There's some other stuff to tell but I can't be bothered right now. Most important thing no. 1 is to get the alignment straight and work out where the knock is coming from over big bumps and under heavy breaking or left turns at speed (loading the OSF wheel). Oh and here's some pics.

Intake you gone for dude? That itg was pretty meaty

RAMAIR? How very dare you

I took the ITG off following a conversation with R Tech - there was nothing wrong with the ITG, in fact it flowed very well, but it was more out of interest to see if a different kit - namely the new Revo intake - would flow any better. Haven't dyno'd the car since fitting it but the most positive thing is that the harmonic noise that was present at about 1.5 bar (essentially a musical not caused by a combination of a tuned pipe and a lip inside the compressor housing, which works as a Helmholtz resonator) has all but gone. It comes back if you press on, but sitting on a motorway at 70-75 and there is no more noise.

Excuse the state of the engine bay.

There are so many intake kits to choose from now - the EVOms and the RamAir kits seem to be propping up the bottom end of the market, I can't see they're that much different to anything else on the market despite costing half of what ITG/Revo/APR want for an intake kit. When I was coming to sell the ITG kit, I was amazed to see that Awesome list them for £385 now. I got a little bit of discount on my Revo kit but just after I bought it, TSR sold off a few at £285 for the powder coat version and £335 for the camcoated (ceramic type coating, supposed to help with heat soak) version - that's a very good price when you consider that some tuners are asking £420 for the camcoated item. I need to give the engine bay a scrub and refit the engine cover but I need somebody who is good at fibreglassing to repair a mount.

Oh and I might have accidentally ordered these.

There is nothing really wrong with the Autotech rear bar that's on the car now. I've not had some of the problems that others had with the bushes squeaking, it's been silent and kept the rear end tight even on the medium setting. It also must be half the weight of the H&R bar. Garage Midnight claim it's the stiffest bar on the market and I don't really buy into all the hype between brands - if it does the job, then who cares right? So why have I bought these? With the almighty mess I've made of the front end wishbone/subframe, the subframe has to be dropped to replace the bracket (and probably the subframe as well as I have a spare) - this is clearly the best time to uprate the front bar. I've had a few conversations with the likes of VRS in Northampton, Eibach UK, etc and the general consensus was that ideally you want a good match between front and rear bars. So that's the only reason I went for a pair. Oh and I didn't bother going for the namby-pamby 26/22 bars - these are 28 at the front and 24 at the back so it should be solid.

Incidentally I tried to buy these from Awesome as they're a forum sponsor - I also hoped to score a bit of discount as they're a sponsor and I'm a freedom member. No chance - admittedly Awesome are probably the cheapest on the Internet for these kits, but by the time you add £12 postage (compared to free p&p from many of the others), the deal starts to look less attractive. I also tried to ask Awesome whether there should be a version of 28/24 for cars with and without xenons, as the 26/22 kits are listed with different options and was told I needed the 26/22 kit (not what I asked). So I asked again and didn't get an answer from somebody who seemed like be knew what he was talking about. They also don't keep stock so I was looking at 4-5 days delivery. I decided to give Demon Tweeks a call, who were not only very helpful, but when they couldn't answer my xenon lights question, they rang their supplier to check while I was on the phone. They were also in stock and arrived the following day - I think the total cost (with a bit of effort at a price match) was about £14 more than Awesome and money well spent IMO. With a bit of luck I will get it all fitted up tomorrow and the alignment set once and for all on Monday afternoon when I get back from Scotland.

Good to see your'e still on the journey with the car mate, had missed reading your posts if i'm honest.

Amazed to discover you haven't had an aftermarket front ARB yet, having had mine fitted, even though I'm having issues, the difference it has made to the car is staggering.

I look forward to reading your opinion, particularly or the car's reaction to fast or aggressive changes in direction! I will say no more. ;-)

P.s if this is supposed to be a "last subframe removal for a while" get yourself a deadset kit from tyrolsport, guarantees perfect centring of the subframe, and completely eliminates movement. I have one I'm fitting next week, quality is impressive.

Dale

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Glad to read things are going better now for you John.

At least you have front brakes again! Its a shame you're still having issues following your argument with a kerb, but it sounds like your nearly there now.

 

The car is looking good too

Having seen the brakes in the metal today they do look the nuts.

Itg is what I said

Sounding good John. Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed similar with Awesome 

 

And they're just down the road from me, which takes out the postage issue. Yet I shall not return to grace their door, nor recommend anyone else does the same. Shame really, but there we go.

 

 

Looking good John - those rims are growing on me.

Me too Rob, it's taken some time, but I do think they suit the car, especially as it's sitting now.

 

Sad times John. But at least it's not any worse.

Fingers crossed that the repair costs are as small as they can be

 

Well, if only it was that simple. I haven't read through some of my last posts about this, but to date the bill ran to a track rod, track rod end, wishbone, a second hand subframe (or subframe carrier as the parts catalogue called it) and then having got the car on a lift and looked at how the subframe and suspension was sitting, it seemed prudent to buy a new wishbone bracket. I got a used subframe carrier (with the dogbone bush) from VRS Motorsport in Northampton for £20 (Cheers Will) and, as the bracket was an afterthought, I got this off a guy who had broken an A3 locally for another £15 - so no heartache really. Fortunately I have a mate who is a good mechanic and allows me the use of his workshop and expertise. Having put the new bits on and taken down for alignment, the caster was now seemingly back to normal. In this case reading -7.99 degrees (anywhere between 7.5 and 8.5 is apparently acceptable) and crucially it was the same reading both sides. Dropping the subframe also meant that lovely front ARB could go on, in conjunction with the matching item for the rear. I've now gone from a stock front ARB and a 25mm rear Autotech bar to a 28mm front and 24mm rear. I guess I haven't pushed it that hard yet but it definitely makes a difference. The ride feels different as well - it somehow feels stiffer and definitley less prone to smacking the underside on speedbumps. It's a lot flatter and, with the front set to the hard setting and rear set to soft, seems very flat, composed and predictable.

 

Another issue that became apparent with dropping the subframe was that the bolts were discovered to have either been bent or of little use as they had all stretched. This was a right bugger as it meant plenty of subframe knocking until such a time as I had replaced all of the bolts and, as I had started the job at about 8pm one evening, I couldn't order any new ones on the spot from TPS. Eventually I sat down with the partsbase website and came up with this:

 

More Octavia stuff from the iPhone by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

That there works out to £54 worth of bolts (groan), apparently at trade price. The wishbone, track rod and track rod end owe me £110, the subframe and the new bracket were £35 plus a trip to Northampton (although I think we went in Mrs j0hn's fancy Leon) and the fifty quids' worth of bolts runs us to a total of just shy of £200. All for taking my eye off the road for about 6 seconds. Add to that the knackered wheel and the fact the front right damper is knackered and that the camber is still 1.5 degrees out and it's starting to get annoyingly expensive. At least it's straight and driveable.

 

Good to see your'e still on the journey with the car mate, had missed reading your posts if i'm honest.

Amazed to discover you haven't had an aftermarket front ARB yet, having had mine fitted, even though I'm having issues, the difference it has made to the car is staggering.

I look forward to reading your opinion, particularly or the car's reaction to fast or aggressive changes in direction! I will say no more. ;-)

P.s if this is supposed to be a "last subframe removal for a while" get yourself a deadset kit from tyrolsport, guarantees perfect centring of the subframe, and completely eliminates movement. I have one I'm fitting next week, quality is impressive.
Dale


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I looked into the deadset kit and after forking out the cash to put the car right, I just couldn't spend another £197. The only place that seem to stock them in the UK is Garage Midnight and whilst I have undoubtedly had fantastic service from them, as the sole distributor, I wonder if that affects the UK price. I believe there is a homegrown kit in the pipeline from a supplier I use regularly. If it costs less, I'll almost certainly go for one. According to Tyrolsport (or whoever's website I have read), the subframe doesn't have to be dropped to fit the kit and it appears to come with a new set of stretch bolts. Dave, did you fit yours and how is it?

 

Sounding good John. Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed similar with Awesome 

 

And they're just down the road from me, which takes out the postage issue. Yet I shall not return to grace their door, nor recommend anyone else does the same. Shame really, but there we go.

 

I've bought loads of stuff from Awesome, but they just seem to have gone downhill. I don't know if it's because they've got very big and can't keep up with customer demand (or the demand to satisfy customer queries) or what, but I had an entirely different experience with Demon Tweeks and I'll use them again because of it.

 

So what else is new?
Well here's the list from last time:

 

Bloody good clean

Still not done this - car is a state. Tempted to go to the hand car wash (no really....)
Rear brake upgrade (ongoing)

Done! Hooray! This is really good.
Rear OPS retrofit

Still no nearer to getting this done (sorry Eddie)
OEM Bluetooh and MFSW*

No longer bothered about MFSW, but still want an OEM Bluetooth to be able to stream audio
Sort out the brakes

Done. Kinda....
Paint

Once there are funds the car will go for paint.

 

Brakes

As said the rear brake upgrade is done and the 'sort out the brakes project' is also done. For now.

I had a set of S3 rear calipers sat in the house for MONTHS. I got a pair of 310mm discs for Christmas, so it was knocking on 8 months before I finally got my act together. I knew I wanted something different to normal and got Mrs j0hn (pro graphic designer/studio manager type person) to do some colour mock ups for me.

 

Blue

 

More Octavia stuff from the iPhone by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

More Octavia stuff from the iPhone by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Yellow

 

More Octavia stuff from the iPhone by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

More Octavia stuff from the iPhone by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Orange

 

More Octavia stuff from the iPhone by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

More Octavia stuff from the iPhone by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

I'd spoken to a couple of companies and dismissed Brake Caliper Specialists (cost - they wanted somewhere approaching £800 for a full refurb) and Big Redd (attitude - "I'll stop you there, we don't do Brembo calipers because we always have problems when we split them". Well I've got bloody news for you, these are a monoblock. Eejit A-hole). I was not going to use Brake Caliper Refurbs again after two sets that showed a shoddy paint job - the first in powder, that ended with cracked lacquer and the second in paint, but not much (enough) of it. I'd seem some of the work of Custom Calipers online and liked it, had a good chat with Chris to explain what I wanted and he said he could do it. A full refurb in any colour, with new seals and bleed nipples in all four calipers was a bargain and guaranteed for 2 years. You've seen the state of the caliper that I scuffed with the wheel, well a few days later they looked like this:

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

I was made up. The calipers get bead blasted before being put into primer, paint and lacquer. The decals are added before the lacquer so there is no danger of them peeling off. I questioned whether Brake Caliper Refurbs used lacquer as I'd always been under the impression that they did the same thing, but the previous job saw the decals on top. I had a bit of gip getting one of the rears off, which resulted in this:

 

More Octavia stuff from the iPhone by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

It was the last bolt I had to undo to remove the remaining original rear caliper and as I pushed on the bar, the innards of the bolt gave up. It was fairly simple to remove - if fairly simple is removing the stub axle/hub carrier, locking it in a vice and spinning off the knackered bolt with an Irwin's easy-off and an air gun. We tried a two feet long bar on it to begin with and it was done up so tight, that the bar started to bend.

End result....

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

More Octavia stuff from the iPhone by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Well technically, not the end result as there are no pads fitted in any of the calipers. Every time I started the job, it would chuck it down so I'd have to stop, but it's all done now. I think the bigger rears help modulate the system a little better and the car feels more stable under heavy braking. Which is nice.

I discovered that after removing the bolt through the bottom arm on the back, the nut had stripped and, once back together, it allowed about 50mm of lateral movement in the rear wheel. It took me a few days to work out what was wrong and on any left turn or hard acceleration, the car turned into a pendulum. It was bloody terrifying. I got another nut and bolt (latterly superceded it seems by the same M14 multi spline bolt used for the caliper carrier but with a washer) and all is well.

 

So the list still stands at everything except brakes.

Except it doesn't. Because now I want some more (MOAR bigger) brakes and have set plans in motion to achieve this. More on when I get what I want.

 

That pretty much brings everything up to date. Well sort of.

 

I took my dad out when I went to collect my orange brakes and he was so impressed (not only by the finish but by the significantly reduced mass of a Boxster Brembo) that he decided he was going to have a set for the Cappuccino Barge. He managed to source a set of fronts himself and then I tracked down a set of S3 rears locally for a very good price.

 

Superb Brembo1 by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Superb Front by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Superb Rear by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

The fronts are on and just fit under a Luna wheel (with more clearance than my A4 5 spokes fortunately), but GSF sent the wrong bloody pads and discs for the rear, so that's the next job.

 

Most recently I fitted an R Tech heat shield under the Revo intake - this is a fancy new version that is dual layer, with an air gap in between, which is supposed to insulate the top plate further from heat. I've not run the car since I fitted it this morning and have not taken any logs of intake temp. I might not bother, but it ought to make a bit of difference.

The car got an MOT on the 6th October and needed a new rear hub/bearing assembly as the rubber coating had split and knackered the copper coil. I'd probably done the damage when I wound the old caliper in for the very last set of standard pads, but it was on the way out anyway. With that sorted before the test, the car passed with an advisory on the cut in the rim protector on the tyre, a bit annoying given that it sailed through the previous two tests with no problems and the same tyres.

 

On Friday just gone I paid a visit to AKS for an oil service (with the usual Millers Nanodrive 5w/40) and a couple of niggly bits to be sorted. Alex repaired the broken connector for the pad wear indicator, so I can now adapt a Porsche wear sensor with a plug off an old standard (single piston) pad. He also fitted a new dipstick as the previous one had cracked around the top, wasn't sealed and probably responsible for the engine hunting, and also fitted a new dog bone mount insert. I tried to remove the old ECS one when I dropped the subframe but there was no way it was coming out. I spent far too long trying to decide between £35 worth of ECS from Awesome or a £30 one from Revo. Now fitted is a Superpro insert that cost me £20 inc VAT and seems to do the job admirably. And the service book is now stamped up to date with the latest service at about 102,300 miles. So since 25th September 2011, I've done just over 44,000 fairly happy and mostly trouble-free miles in the car (except for the problems I've caused).

 

I've had a brief chat with certain interested parties about fitting a diff in the near-ish future. If that happens, there is every chance I will never sell this car and will run it until it gives up permanently (and expensively) or it will simply become a toy. There is rust forming in the stone chips on the sills, there is rust on the bottom of the right hand rear passenger door, so this will almost certainly want addressing on the basis that I will keep it. If it gets a diff, then maybe I should treat it to rods and pistons, a bigger turbo and 420 bhp. For starters.....

 

I really can't remember if there's anything else. Well done for reading, I'll go back and correct the spelling mistakes in time!

I don't have any new pictures, so here's an old one.

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

Great update John! That did indeed take a bit of reading

Going back a bit, to ARBs. With your swaps, does that mean you've not got a rear Autotech spare? Drop me a PM if so

I looked into the deadset kit and after forking out the cash to put the car right, I just couldn't spend another £197. The only place that seem to stock them in the UK is Garage Midnight and whilst I have undoubtedly had fantastic service from them, as the sole distributor, I wonder if that affects the UK price. I believe there is a homegrown kit in the pipeline from a supplier I use regularly. If it costs less, I'll almost certainly go for one. According to Tyrolsport (or whoever's website I have read), the subframe doesn't have to be dropped to fit the kit and it appears to come with a new set of stretch bolts. Dave, did you fit yours and how is it?

It's a very clever solution to a rubish initial flaw. Once fitted the subframe is 100% centered. Any alignment tweaks made thereafter are from a solid baseline.

But!

To say it is a nightmare to fit, is the understatement of the century. But then my subframe was miles out to start with, and everything attached to it seems to want to fight you from there.

It is, however, definitely worthwhile if you are going to keep it. New rear subframe bolts are supplied.

Keep up the good work mate

Dale

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love the new caliper colour