Notax compact update

[notax]

our fraction of the price "carbon copy" will look look starship enterprise compared to your million pound donkey notax!! you'll need a bigger spade to beat us!!!!
seriously though what tyres/compounds are you using at the moment? just curious to see what the wear rate is on a heavy car!!!

Mine looks like the mutts nuts it just goes like a one legged donkey

Use whatever second hand tyres I can get my hands on - possibly a false economy I realise...

The wear has reduced dramatically since we improved the set up. Originally it used to eat front tyres and was amazingly good at the rear. To such an extent I used to use softer compounds at the back, not what you expect in a RWD car with nearly 300bhp! Set up now far better and even and very low tyre wear front and back. My preference is Dunlops and I tend to use X12 if cold or X08 as mediums. I have loads of Pirellis but am not too keen. I also really like Kumhos - even the K11 supersofts seem to last very well and give loads of grip... On MV events tyres will last you ages, it is only the super agressive SV runways at some events that really make any impact

[notax]

Thanks for the advice Sideways Sid. Which car is SteveR running and what power/torque is he putting out? The only shafts I've broken so far (two in around 30 events with M3 power) have been caused by other issues - hitting a lump of concrete and running with very ebnt rear arms and beam the other.

CWP have held up pretty well too for us, again only on my second set in around 40 events...

[bruvs1]

will be on the look out for kumhos as they've been good on the 320is in 15" but got some near new 18"pirelli's cheap to have a go with first, pound for pound the kumho does take a bit of beating though.

[Daishag]

Funny how people are mentioning the Kumho's as i was up at Mark Jones's (Blue M3 C.L.Jones Builders) the other day getting some tyres off him for my 1st event in a couple of weeks, and he gave me 8 Pirelli's and 8 Kumho's !!!!! And when i say Gave i mean GAVE !!!!!! Cheers Mark

What he did say was he preferred the Kumho's as they were very consistent ie they behaved in the same way, tyre after tyre ........ where as the Pirelli's are a better tyre BUT its a 50 50 gamble on weather you get a good tyre ????? Some times they are good they stick like s**t to a blanket BUT he's had quite a few that are s**t and just spin up with a lack of grip big time ????? So recommends the Kumho's as they are consistent ...... His Words "Every Tyre Is The Same ...... You Know What You Are Getting"

He did say the BF Goodrich are awesome !!!!!! But to get 2nd hand ones is nigh on impossible

Cheers Dave aka Daishag Rallying 07805835655

[notax]

Interesting that none of us are a fan of Pirellis, I agree that there is variation in their performance - although that may just be because mine have been varying years old...

Never tried Goodrich, got on ok with one set of Hankooks and may be getting a few more to try. Kumho or Dunlop for me...

[M3 Compact]

Very interesting tyre debate.
If a fight broke out in my tyre cupboard they wouldn't need penalties to decide who'd won. ...

Kumho 32 - 0 Pirelli.

I think Pirelli won one a few years ago, but it never gets mentioned nowadays.

[phiwp66]

chris take a tip off a man with experience of the drenth gearbox and leave it in holland so you dont have to send it back every other rally. i run a top spec escort for a customer with a drenth DG400 in it (black mk2 that serviced next to you in caerwent last year) and i have fixed it once and sent it back to holland 3 times in the last year, it is currently on its way back there again after deciding it would like to change up when it feels like it instead of when you want it to. the list of retirements is growing with all bar one of them down to gearbox issues and every time i refit it i just wonder if it will last the next event. we were supposed to be doing brawdy next week but the box wont be back in time once again.
on a cheerier note im glad your happy with some of the shell preparation on the red car and i hope its the bits that i did lol.

[notax]

Good to hear from you The shell is very good, so thanks for your efforts! Your experiences with the Drenth are a bit worrying, the last thing I need is less reliability! I had thought Drenth had an excellent reputation? I am not committed to it yet, but getting close. Drenth make a bellhousing to mate to the BMW S50 engine and seem to have more experience with them than anyone else - the default choice of BMWs running in Europe. Do you know of other people who have had problems, or is yours an 'unlucky' box? Has it been the same problem recurring?

[phiwp66]

its the same 2 problems most of the time, changing up on its own is the most common one and jamming in gear is the other.
mark the owner spoke to mr drenth himself on thursday i believe and he assured him it would be right this time and that the person we had been dealing with was no longer with them.
time will tell but we were warned that when a drenth needs a rebuild sell it and buy something else as its never right after.
hold fire on it for now and watch this space before you throw another pile of money down the pan and we will see if mr drenth comes up with the goods.
good luck chris i hope you have some success with the car soon.

[notax]

Thanks, I've been speaking to Johan Drenth too and can confirm the chap that used to sort the boxes for him has left. I have asked on the British Rally forum about Drenth experiences but no responses yet...

[Daishag]

Cliff's F2000 Spec Compact runs a DG400 Drenth in it but on the std Drenth Gear Change and not on Paddle Shift (if thats an option on a Drenth ???) his motor is running 317bhp from 4 pot E30 M3 Evo S14 motor, not sure on the torque figure though, but obviously won't be as much as a 6 pot M3 motor.

As yet he has'nt had any problems with the box apart from a slight clearence problem with the rose jointed linkgae from the gear shift to gear stick, and also the clutch slave cylinder has a small plastic tit on the end of the actuating rod, and this melts and destroys it self with the severe conditions and thus you can fully disengage the clutch etc, but both of them faults are down to the Drenth Box.

Hope i havent jinked it now by saying he has'nt had any faults with it, The Irish Boy he bought it off had done approx 4 or 5 events with the car and Cliff has done 5 but DNF on 2 of them.

Cheers Dave aka Daishag Rallying 07805835655

[notax]

Thanks, someone on the British Rally forum is claiming that another BMW Compact binned their DG400 after 2 events, may be trolling though... Just had a look at Cliff's F2000 thread, very nice

[bruvs1]

think that was a blue one! seen some pics but have a feeling it was a duratec powered one, might have been a hockley too? i think it did epynt earlier in the year.

[notax]

Not sure I've seen that one, will have to try and get posting some photos of Zippy soon - I hope you'll be impressed...

and even more impressed when we get some good results

[notax]

Still haven't sorted out posting any photos, but thought I'd give a quick update on Zippy. The car has always had a problem with overheating ever since it was built. The first engine lasted a suprisingly long time and we eventually found the problem after it went bang - when the heater matrix was removed very early in the build it was replumbed incorrectly so that water wasn't circulating the block properly.

With this identified we thought the issue would go and put another engine in the car. Still overheating issues and couldn't work out why. This engine seemed really good, but it too succumbed - a real bugger as I was hoping to sell it to help fund the new race engine I'm building. I had to take the original blue one out of retirement for my last event At least we won a pot for a class finish...

With the latest engine removed we decided to check out the massive radiator which had been custom made for the car. In spite of its vast size and capacity we have found it actually flows worse than a standard one. It seems it was fitted with a cheap and badly designed core New radiator being built...

The new engine has taken ages to put together. I bought JE pistons from the US and gradually collected all the parts I needed. Build started only to find one piston ring was missing! Took weeks to get a replacement. Just started the build again and found that the Schrick cams don't fit This is in spite of them being the correct part number. It turns out Schrick built a whole batch of 3.2 cams on the wrong blanks. Yet more waiting... Hope our luck improves soon! Next event is Prima Stages on 9th September, just hope engine sorted by then as I really don't want to use BKZ again and pussy foot around like last time preserving the pristine bodywork and newly fitted engine which I replaced ready to sell it. Until Zippy sorted it is useful to have a spare car....