Beavo's SE Fabia, AKA 'Beast'

[hutchysrs50]

I've spent many Saturday... And Sunday... Nights the same! It's a hard life enjoying cars

Never seen anyone make anything to keep the clips in place mind, could be a good solution to all the other pipes that pop off!

[stevobeavo]

I've spent many Saturday... And Sunday... Nights the same! It's a hard life enjoying cars

Never seen anyone make anything to keep the clips in place mind, could be a good solution to all the other pipes that pop off!

I'm not sure if the two inserts are really needed with the mikalor clamp but it was with the cable tie. Would be intresting to see if it does help people who's lower standard pipes keeps popping off.

Only cost me £2 from the ebay too.

[andsoutham]

Do you know what boost you're running at the moment? Im on 1.85bar but planning on upping it to 2bar once my decat is on. May need to look into this

[stevobeavo]

It's spikes to 2.0/2.1 bar and settles around around 1.9 bar.

But I've only had this problem since installing the last solid mount. Might be worth doing it as a precaution though, or just see how much slack ins in your clip.

[andsoutham]

It's spikes to 2.0/2.1 bar and settles around around 1.9 bar.

But I've only had this problem since installing the last solid mount. Might be worth doing it as a precaution though, or just see how much slack ins in your clip.

Ah yeah i remember saying about the mounts. Guess ill get the map tweaked and wait and see. Are you booked into bedford track day on the 16th may?

[stevobeavo]

Ah yeah i remember saying about the mounts. Guess ill get the map tweaked and wait and see. Are you booked into bedford track day on the 16th may?

I'm going to give that one a miss, I have brands next month but I'll hopefully be on the next BossFox day out lol, or I might get my mates together and do snetterton in the summer as that's a central track for us.

[andsoutham]

I'm going to give that one a miss, I have brands next month but I'll hopefully be on the next BossFox day out lol, or I might get my mates together and do snetterton in the summer as that's a central track for us.

Ah fair enough then

[stevobeavo]

A number of weeks back I started to make a custom grill, a bit like dark hero's (didn't realise he had one until I started lol) I took a few photos of the process to help people out if they fancy doing it.

First up was to use a dremel and cut the slates off and then sand down the remains.

Next step was to mix up some body filler, never done any filling or body type work before but turns out it went better than I thought lol.

I then sanded it down and did all the repeated everywhere on the grill.

I then lightly dusted primer on and used a finer sanding disc to get a better finish followed by more primer then wet sanding.

I then painted it in plasti-dip

I fitted the mesh by placing it over the back and pushing on it to mould it to the right shape. I then trimmed it with 10mm on the edges and folded it over the back and glued it in place. I'll get some pictures of that tomorrow.

And on the car, my new badges will go on tomorrow.

Edit - excuse the state of the front bumper, the new one will go on after brands hatch.

Edited 23 March, 2016 by stevobeavo

[Dark_Hero]

That looks brilliant. Nicely finished too.

You may find that the badge won't stick to the plasti dip, so may need to remove some of it

[DarrellGB]

Looks brilliant,i love Plastidip, so much you can do with it

[stevobeavo]

That looks brilliant. Nicely finished too.

You may find that the badge won't stick to the plasti dip, so may need to remove some of it

Cheers, I'm really pleased how it came out, much more work involved than I thought lol. Not a bad suggestion about removing some of the dip.

[stevobeavo]

Put my badge on the grill, personally I really like it if it's not raining tomorrow I'll get some pictures of how I got the mesh to fit like I mentioned yesterday

[DarrellGB]

Put my badge on the grill, personally I really like it if it's not raining tomorrow I'll get some pictures of how I got the mesh to fit like I mentioned yesterday

 

Brilliant, ties the theme of the car together perfectly, get subtle Beast graphics next 

[stevobeavo]

As promised, pictures of how I fitted the mesh to the grille.

Simply trimmed and bent over the edges then glued it down with a weight on the mesh.

Also with Brands approaching I remembered that my tow eye is buggered. Both the thread on the eye and on the car are gone, I've also noticed the hard pipe kit is in the way quite a bit too. So I thought I'd quickly make one up on lunch.

Bumper off

Quickly spray painted the number plate brackets and removed the tiny number plate that was behind the main plate still lol (couldn't be bothered to remove the old sticky tape lol )

Thread was ground down and the tow eye was cut

Drilled an 8mm hole through the part on the car inserted the tow eye and marked and drilled. Then drilled another 8mm hole at the end going vertical. Cut the end of some old ratchet strapping and folded it over and used a huge penny washer to sandwich it together when bolting it up, and there we have it

Tested it too by being towed around the yard and seemed to work pretty well, even survived some rather jerky action

Edited 31 March, 2016 by stevobeavo

[stevobeavo]

Put some stickers on the car today, bit of Unit 18 repping

Also quickly gave it a wash, Gyeon cancoat holding up well after 6/7 months

Edited 1 April, 2016 by stevobeavo

[stevobeavo]

Well today was the day I popped my brands hatch cherry and my what an amazing day out, I went with a mate who's done it a few times but never in anything that fast.

Dispite bbc weather saying at 6:30 this morning it would be cloudy until 6 tonight before it rained, the moment I turned up the website had updated itself for rain at 3pm...wonderful, just what I want after my mishap at snetterton.

After the briefing I did my sighting laps, first time Down paddock hill bend resulting in lots of swearing....its so steep!!! Second time I noticed how my stomach goes like when I'm on a roller coaster, third lap I think I let out a little yippee . Great corner.

So the car, how did it perform.

Car - Dry

Was brilliant. Once I got a feel for the circuit and worked out some lines and references for braking I got more and more confident. I was able to brake quite late into the corners and trail brake through druids and Graham hill making the rear come round a tad letting me get straight on the throttle locking the differential dragging me out of the corners.

The brakes stayed strong all day no fade what so ever. We did get a couple early sessions when the brakes did smell a bit but that soon went when we cooled the car down in the garage.

Tyres.....well boy do they grip. When we got them warm, after the first 4 laps we pulled in to adjust pressures. The front and rears were reading 38/39psi and 37psi. Dropped the fronts to 33 and the rears 31 and off we went again. We were only doing 7/8 laps before oil temp got to 120 degrees (I set this limit as a safe precaution) so came in to cool the car before setting off again.

This was the N/S front at about midday, holding up well.

The Ns2r's were nice and sticky at this point lol.

And the O/S rear

Then it was lunch and the dreaded rain came early!!!

I was a bit nervous so I sat and watched the other cars for 15/20 mins, talking to my mate we came to the conclusion no one's is having any real moments so off we go.

Car - Wet

Again first few laps were very caution but it was clear it felt like a completely different car to snetterton. Despite the wet track the only real issues was traction out of the corners. We upped the pace and discovered that even though we had traction issues we could keep up and even over take some fully fledged race cars such as the G40 ginettas, some 944 porsches and an audi TT. The exit of Paddock hill bend seems to be were we would close up. The diff scrabbled for traction but slipping both wheels a bit pulled us through the rest of the circuit.

The rain and colder weather helped oil temp stay below 105 most of the time. Rain stopped about 3:30/3:45 but the track remained damp, at 4 my mate went out and did a 20 min stint with only 8 cars on track. After the car cooled down we swspped over and I went out and did a solid 30 mins of track time, oil never went above 107 and with only 2/3 other cars on track it was something special. Pulled in cooled the car down, packed up and then headed home after a great day out.

I've worked out that combined the car did 115-120 laps today with a split of 60/40 of driving between me and my mate, which was the most of any car there by a long way. Not one mechanical issue reared it's head, no boost issues either which was at the back of my mind. I did today from leaving my house (26 miles away) to getting home on 1 tank of fuel and still have 70 miles left!!!!

All in all I'd recommend brands hatch to anyone.

Random pics (videos will come when I get them from my mate)

New wheels don't fit!!!

This is going to get a lot dirtier

Getting there

Annnnnd filth

Number plate off = race car mode

Mates truck made 104.8 decibels, not bad for a diesel

Seems like the limit of plasti dip is just under 100mph, bye bye badge lol.

And the going home picture

[RobLarby]

Jealous! Looked like a really good day Really tempted to do some track time but I'm scared to make the jump just yet.

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[stevobeavo]

Jealous! Looked like a really good day Really tempted to do some track time but I'm scared to make the jump just yet.

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You should definitely do it. Brands it local to you too isn't it. I'd be up for doing another one or even an evening one start of summer or something if you fancy giving it ago.

[coskev]

Great write up

I've used plasti**** once and never again,like a bin bag in a aerosol!!!

[stevobeavo]

Great write up

I've used plasti**** once and never again,like a bin bag in a aerosol!!!

Cheers. I was surprised by how well the car held up against a lot better machines.

It is good stufffor certain things, my mate sprays the bottom half of his truck when he goes off roading to help against scratches from twigs etc.

[andsoutham]

Great write up. My favourite thing is trackdays at the moment! Do you have an oil cooler fitted?

Jealous! Looked like a really good day Really tempted to do some track time but I'm scared to make the jump just yet.

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I'd deffo say do it! The ones richard (bossfox) organise get good takeup from guys on here so we usually end up with 20-30 cars booked in and biskoda guys are good people for first trackday experience

[stevobeavo]

Great write up. My favourite thing is trackdays at the moment! Do you have an oil cooler fitted?

No I don't but it's now on the never ending parts list that I want. I Ali at unit 18 said the temperature limit for pd oil is around 150, so I could have stayed out for longer in the hotter weather but I wanted to be uber safe. In the cooler conditions it was fine. My oil temp never goes above 75/80 in normal day to day driving.

I feel some uprated rear pads are needed though. I'm sure it was them that started smelling lol.

[fabianski47vrs]

Excellent write up stevobeavo.

Wish was there to witness this on track. (Cant wait for videos)

Brands hatch is just awesome. Hoping we get another chance at it before end of the year.

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[stevobeavo]

Cheers mate, I'm tempted to do one in July as I have 2 weeks off. Maybe we can arrange a mini fabia meet.

[fabianski47vrs]

Cheers mate, I'm tempted to do one in July as I have 2 weeks off. Maybe we can arrange a mini fabia meet.

#I'll be theeeeere

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