I was glad to pop around on Tuesday for a visit at your new DTA premises. Place has lots of potential and I can see it getting well populated with lots gear real quick before the next time I pop by! It was the first time I have seen this MME paddle shift work in real life all I can say is oh waw, what a piece of mechatronics! The speed of and strength of shifts on the demo, you just hope the gearbox is happy with it in the long term. I suspect the rate of shifts can be calibrated to be less ferocious if required yes? DTA E-gas also pretty much OE operation and the DTA dash I like. Look forward to the finished car as it will be a monster on track.
Looking great. The padle shift is epic, looks so race car! If you haven't figured out already, the two extra wires on the alternator are for AC
It started yesterday!! So the last 6 months went something like this. Short version without the copious amounts of swearing. Gearbox - what should have happened Fit gearbox to engine, fit in car. Gearbox - what happened I ordered an 02M gearbox, but was told to get on 02Q. I specifically asked if it fitted, and was told it did. It doesn't. The chassis mounting points are different. A hole has to be drilled in to the case of the gearbox, and tapped. Not the end of the world. Once the suspension saga was complete (see below), the driveshafts were fitted. Or not. The transfer box on the 02Q is a different size to the 02M, so requires a different driveshaft. Not only that, but there isn't a VAG parts bin item the right size, so a custom driveshaft has to be made. 6 week lead time. Rear suspension - what should have happened: Unbolt existing suspension, fit solid mounts, fit new shocks and springs, set ride height. Done. Rear suspension - what happened Unbolt existing suspension. Try to fit solid mounts. Only 4 of 8 shipped. My fault, didn't read the small print. Get more. Try to fit rear suspension. Struts don't fit, had the wrong fittings at the top. There were no fitting instructions. The springs just wouldn't sit right. Instructions sent, but wrong ones. Many emails back and forth with KW and Bill, until they managed to explain how the fitted. New strut mounting hardware sent eventually. This was over the course of a few weeks. Front suspension - what should have happened Unbolt old suspension, fit new suspension. This happened. Then the car was put on the ground. Even with the suspension fully extended the car was on it's nose. The struts were about 2 inches to short. In addition the rear, in the lowest possible setting, was far too high. More emails, and they eventually decided to remake the suspension. This meant another 6 week delay. Needless to say, Bill had moved on to other projects, so I lost my build slot with him. More delay. However, it's being mapped tomorrow, and I'll be going up at the weekend to finalise some other bits. Who knows, it may actually be on a track next month!
It's alive, and out for it's first run on Monday at Curborough. Still on running in map and oil. After Monday, we'll chuck some proper oil in and finalise the map. Paddle shift isn't fitted, as I just want to drive the damn thing. Massive thanks to Bill at Badger5 for all the hard work and patience.
First day out was great fun. The car survived, apart from a random knock on the left front every now and then. I think it's drive shaft bolts, but I've not checked yet. It turns out there's a problem with the front brakes: The first time I stamped on the brakes, the pedal went to the floor, and locked the rears. Nothing serious, just made sure to keep it on the tarmac, and tried again. Obviously I had to leave some margin for braking, as there was a lack of front brakes. Apart from that, the car went well. My only aim was to drive it back on the trailer at the end of the day, which I did. The tyres have turned to concrete, so I struggled to put the power down. I have a couple of sets of slicks that I'll use next time out. Lateral grip was quite good, and the feedback from the car was good. I was able to get the back to move quite easily, and then control it as well. This was fun: I held it all the way around the top corner. Next up, finish the brakes, then test them, and get on another test day.
Looked like it was going well, sounded awesome Had a similar issue on the S3 and bleeding the master cylinder (2 bleed nipples) before and after bleeding the calipers seemed to do the trick
Brakes are working, although only tested across the workshop. I now need to book on to something for a proper test.
Get it up to Brands at the end of the year. I think there were still spaces at Cadwell if you are not already on that list.
I went to Donington on Sunday. I had a mixed day, but I'm please I went. The front brakes still don't work properly, so I was having to leave loads of braking room. The rear of the car was very loose, but it got better during the day with suspension changes. I got black flagged for noise (103.2dB), broke 3 of yoofs small drill bits trying to drill holes to lock wire the extra silencer on, got a puncture (no spare wheel, so had to take the spare tyre to the nearest KwikFit), spun on the sighting laps (although that was because I wanted to find out how bad the brakes were - turns out very bad), spun trying to move over to let someone past (due to the tyre already deflating) and spun again when I tried to push the brakes too hard, and ended in the gravel trap. However, I figured out how to adjust the damping on the suspension, so went full hard on the front, and full soft on the rear which helped, and then disconnected the rear ARB when changing the wheel with the puncture. Each change made the car better. I'll now pull the calipers off and get them refurbed, and also get a big centre silencer fitted. I also need some new tyres, as these are all starting to resemble 50p pieces after all the spinning. Some pictures:
In hindsight with the brakes developments going on, it was a good thing you did not make it to Cadwell. Glad to see you are making progress sorting out the teething issues.
Seat Sport 4 pots, effectively the AP 6600 calipers. I've either got a sticky caliper, air somewhere (unlikely) or a failed master cylinder. The pedal goes most of the way to the floor. Standing on the pedal just locks the rears. The calipers themselves aren't bad, there's a problem elsewhere. However, apparently 312mm brakes won't be enough, so I'm planning to go up to 330ish with something like the AP5200, and some decent pads.
They should be 325mm with the set 4 pots same as what I'm using on our S3 and our weight is 1320kg and we have no problems stopping pedal is right at the top