j0hn's Hybrid Mk2. MOAR BRAKE!

[j0hn]

Thanks Rob,

 

I'm happy with the way it came out definitely, the orange works well against a dark grey wheel. But the plot thickens........ (I'll come on to that).

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Untitledby 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

 

Unfortunately not. Which 3 months later, isn't much use to you (sorry :() 

I ended up putting it on the Cappucino Barge (dad's Superb), which has apparently made something of a difference along with his NQSBBK.

 

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

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

I definitely toyed with the idea, looked at the cost, spoke to a couple of people and then promptly decided against it on nothing other than a cost basis. 

In my last post I'd bought all of the subframe bolts to renew the bent/stretched ones. These made a massive difference and, torqued up to approximately FT, the subframe is going nowhere. I had the alignment done and caster is now correct, although camber is still uneven left to right. I suspect this is because either the front offside strut is bent and/or the hub. I am trying to debate whether I strip these off the car and send them off to H&R to be rebuilt or to try and source another set to replace them. I still have the hub in the cellar, which can be fitted at the same time and hopefully that would iron out any remaining alignment issues. As soon as my favourite friendly tuner reproduces his own deadset kit (at a much reduced cost), I'll consider fitting one then.

 

For the eagle-eyed amongst you, I have my Porsche NQSBBK up for sale. The reason for this is very simple and came in a box....

 

Untitledby John Alexander, on Flickr

 

And in the box was....

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Any ideas?

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

A pair of TT-RS front calipers. The paint job is not the best, but I got them off eBay from a company that remanufactures (so they had new seals and bleed nipples and were painted in a colour of my choosing) when eBay did their 25% off discount code. So they didn't really cost that much.

They're still in the box, in house, while I continue to debate whether or not I am going to fit them and this is all down to disc choice.

 

I could run a TT-RS 370mm disc with the standard carrier. They cost £399 per pair and are known to have issues either to do with one side warping (they are not 'handed', so the vanes inside cool one side better than the other) or picking up heavy pad deposits. The new revisions are apparently much bette, but I still don't really want to do £400 on a pair of discs, only to have to replace them because one has gone south.

 

They look a bit like this (on the JKM car, photographed by Mr J5:

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Option 2 is a 350mm disc from a Merc ML350 using a caliper adaptor. Discs work out to about £120 per pair (for high carbon Brembo items) and the carrier is somewhere in the region of £150 - £200 as a one off. The discs need a centering ring which I'm not terribly keen on. They look like this (pic shamelessly stolen from the internet):

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Option 3 is the 340mm disc from an Audi TT-S (I believe you can use the 345mm disc from the S3 also), which again can be sourced for about £120 per pair and require a caliper adaptor at £200.

They look like this (bizarrely the only decent photo I can find and shamelessly steal from the internet):

 

20150405_145015_zpsem52ieja by John Alexander, on Flickr

 

Option 4 is a kit from VagBremTechnic/AKS to allow the fitment of a 362mm AP disc - this comes out to something daft like £1200 - £1400 including pads, so that's a no-no. However if you're going to go to the effort of putting bloody great big brakes on, then you want them to look more like JKM's in option 1 than either of option 2 or 3, especially as in the real world the difference is not going to be noticeable vs using the NQSBBK with a decent quality pad.

 

There are other options, which seem quite expensive but offer a compromise over paying for the 362mm AP stuff and the 340mm TT-S. Both Compbrake and Stasis (Revo) offer a 2 piece 370mm disc which ought to replace the TT-RS disc. It's still not cheap, but it does mean that replacement rotors come down to about £270 per pair, which is not that different to buying a pair of EBC BSD discs or something from TAROX. So it's definitely an option.

 

Nothing much else - got some LED numberplate units for Christmas, that didn't fit. Will have to try and source some others. Also got some new LEDs for the interior to replace the knackered ones, these are whiter and, whilst still incredibly bright, are a little easier on the eyes in the dark.

 

The car hasn't really seen much use since my course in Nottingham ended in May and I spent the summer driving around in other people's cars before recommencing my course ten minutes walk down the road.

I put a tank of petrol in on the 19th October and didn't buy another one until 11th November. That sounds good, but bearing in my most of my travelling was around town and general pottering about, that tank lasted 195 miles. 13 gallons. That's 15 mpg. Good skills.

 

Finally, I had the car cleaned. Yes, that's right I paid somebody else to turn up at the house and wash the car. It was too cold, too wet and Mrs j0hn had guilted me into not washing her Leon for some considerable time. It now looks like this (sort of):

 

Untitledby John Alexander, on Flickr

In its natural habitat.

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

I pick all of the best places to take a photo.

 

Untitled by John Alexander, on Flickr

Edited 4 January, 2016 by j0hn

[Turbobell]

I may have some parts that interest you mate. Breaking my Occy.

Dale

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[Brimma]

Option 5, keep the NQSBBK