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Before instructing the machine shop to remove material from the top of the block surface, I measured the 'actual' capacity of the combustion chamber in the cylinder head. This was previously original, and has only had a light skim (3 thou). 'The internet' says this should be 36cc, when in fact...

Funnily enough thinking back, the only times ive ever been taken to a weighbridge for a 'check' has been in Wales, says something that 😂 Hindsight, probably not been stopped since before any of those pictures were taken, so <2016. If you've got a shoddy looking/overloaded tow car, a shoddy...

I started towing for track days in ~2010 and thought il play the 'ill never get stopped' game. That lasted around 9 months before I got 3 points and £180 fine for it. These days, id assume its a lot more. The MAMs and limits mean nothing if you get the wrong traffic officer on a bad day...

Best mod you can do on them to be honest, transforms the car more than any power mods ever will!

Hopefully get back there at least once this year 😎

The pistons arrived a short while ago. Block has been machined to a new calculated deck height for maximum compression, bored to suit the new pistons and rings gapped. Now to assemble it 😎

Once the trays were in, the cams were installed and then clearances checked one by one. After stripping and changing the stacks a number of times, i got them all within the range of the CatCam spec, 0.20-0.25mm on each valve. At this point I was nearly ready to put the head back on the...

With the cams arriving and the valves/springs installed in the head, the remaining job was to convert the hydraulic lifters to solid as previously mentioned, and shim them to the correct lash CatCam specify. The hydraulic portion of the standard tappet was stripped, check valve and spring...

No intentions of cleaning it for a while yet 👌

The camshafts and cylinder head could now come off.. Happy with the condition of the bores/pistons and old headgasket, nothing out of the ordinary to show. I'm not changing anything there, it will just get a clean, new gasket a few other bits. Last check was to verify the actual...

Had a bit of time over the past week to crack on. Started with pulling the engine... Its always easier to work on these engines at a lower height, especially when not touching the bottom end or removing the flywheel/clutch etc. Further back in this thread, I had put together a stand for this...

Not in the traditional 'off the shelf' method, but fixed shims, yeah. Completely want to avoid the buckets and lash caps which Cat/Shrick sell, as they have an all too common problem with 'falling off' the valve stem under heavy use. Retaining the bare casing of the internal hydraulic assembly...

Received a nice delivery just in time for Christmas. Then had a couple of hours spare today to get the springs and retainers on the new head. Stripped the old hydraulic lifters and spent some time cleaning the old oil and gunk out of them. More on this soon. Finished by installing...

Hopefully some more RPM and noise with the new top end for next year 👍

Oulton Park started wet, but there was a dry line appearing after lunch, oppertunity to finish off the rear AR-1s. It was a very quiet day, near empty track in the last hour. A few showers meant a bit of caution was required, but still good to get back out for a day. After loading...

I'm not hopeful either 😂

Had a few hours on the cylinder head this weekend. Lapped all 24 valves in, put some new Supertech stem seals on, and cleaned a few other bits. Awaiting arrival of springs, retainers and camshafts now. The good news is an Oulton Park day we booked some time ago for the 12th December is...

After this we booked a few more days in September/October, for them to be cancelled or moved. I had replaced the radiator and the car was sat ready to go whenever required, but the days just were not happening for us. With nothing else planned, I had time to think on what route to take with...

Two days later, Snetterton - again, perfect conditions! Then a couple of days later, Cadwell Park - you guessed it, perfect conditions! At the end of the day, I couldn't stop the car sliding, and noticed the coolant temperature was increasing. It turned out the radiator had made a...

Designed a small circuit board with on board voltage regulator and pullup circuitry, allowing me to log each side of the fuel tank indvidually. It uses a Teensy 3.2 processor and then feeds the data onto the CAN network for the dash to receive. I'm using both hardware and software filtering. The...

Designed and 3D printed some ABS ducts for the foglights (Brake cooling) and inner ducts (for the alternator)... Designed some inner door handles to suit my door cards, rather than a tacky piece of wire hanging out... Removed the original switch panel, built a new one with some CAN...

Not too much has happened this year, as with everything. February time I managed to get hold of a new fiberglass bonnet, wing and door after the damage in 2019. I had them painted, and got them fitted in preperation for heading to Spa at the end of March... Right after this, lockdown...

If you want the ability to chop and change settings back and forward over time its the right solution for sure. Carly is also a good option in that respect. Although if you just want some options setting and don't want to adjust anything else moving forwards, I use ESYSX regularly and can sort...

My mate had his F31 330D (pre-lci) mapped at the same time, he swapped the IC (like for like) and had great results. If you ever get round to it, really does transform them. Here is his before and after, 300hp/650nm.

I use it on an F11 535D LCI. I think a lot of people see it as a placebo on a stock car, yes you can tweak it yourself and the likes, it does smooth a few things out, but you may not really notice. I noticed the differences more post map, most likely down to the massive hike in bottom end...

Yes, I suppose it depends how you drive... I don't launch it every time I set off! The key I found with any of them is alignment... the E series I had previously and F series are terrible for tyre wear otherwise.

Get PS4 over rain sports for circuit use, they are just too soft. I've switched between both for years (well, for wet use). They are average on a dry track, as with any road tyres, but I suppose that depends how fast you are going and level your at. You can get them warm quickly. I've ran PS4...

Got three days in during August, and have a few more planned before the end of the year. Plenty changes have happened... I will get round to updating this thread at some point!

Cooler is wise IF your having continual issues - no offence to Mike but he isn't going anywhere near the limits of the car, tyres or doing anything like racing at the moment so the system will be nowhere near its temperature capacity - if he was spitting fluid out every session then fair enough...

Yeah, considered it, especially ceramic coating, but decided against it in the end. That side of the engine is not so bad once you have air flow through the engine bay when you are moving. The issue seems to be the hot air coming through the radiator/oil/power steering coolers, hitting the front...