My P1

[pacerpete]

baz,

pinking could have been cause by it running lean, too much timing, crap fuel. the result of this is combustion detonation happening before the piston hitting tdc, the force of this will cause a bottom end to let go as this one has, simply because the piston is being forced back when its still being mechanically moved up to tdc.

looking at the pistons that are still in the block, you can see damage on the crown of the piston very similar to the damage pinking causes.

Kos,

I im fully aware of what pre-ignition (the correct term) is and its effects so do not need a regurgitated google/wikipdia explanation of what it is.

The forces exerted upon the piston would not be enough to have caused that damage in the pictures and the damage you mention on one of the piston crowns looks like the result of debris impacting the piston in that cylinder.

Another sign that its unlikely to be pinking to have caused the engine failure is the condition and colour of the spark plug electrodes. They still retain their shape, Dan said the guy working on the car checked the plug gaps and they were all ok and finally the colour indicates a good combustion mixture and burn. If the engine has been pinking then the plugs would have been one of the first things to be in trouble

My money is still on a major SPHINCTER / WALLET failure.

[Felix79]

Thanks , Andy and Baz ( Sorry Andy I didn't see you posted just before I did ) so the head gasket failing would be able to cause that much damage , is this a trait that is seen in Boxer engines or could any engine config have blown from a head gasket?

Malc I really think it does make a much more atractive alternative. I was umming and ahhhhing over M3's and naturally Alpina's B3's , but nothing really appealed to me at the time I was looking.

The one car I would love to own is actually in Mr Pacers ownership/care , but I would need to give him shares in Worthers for him to P/X that lovely ACS lidden charriot to me

[Felix79]

I can see a bore with light rust - the sure fire sign of water. My best guess is still head gasket failure, a piston sucking into a load of water, hydraulic lock and then a broken rod.

Is this the one Andy?




Got a message tonight , cars all running and a few other jobs done for me. Remap happens Friday So night to have it up and running , I would be gutted if I had to sat in the garage waiting to be put back together.

[Kos]

baz,

pinking could have been cause by it running lean, too much timing, crap fuel. the result of this is combustion detonation happening before the piston hitting tdc, the force of this will cause a bottom end to let go as this one has, simply because the piston is being forced back when its still being mechanically moved up to tdc.

looking at the pistons that are still in the block, you can see damage on the crown of the piston very similar to the damage pinking causes.

Kos,

I im fully aware of what pre-ignition (the correct term) is and its effects so do not need a regurgitated google/wikipdia explanation of what it is.

The forces exerted upon the piston would not be enough to have caused that damage in the pictures and the damage you mention on one of the piston crowns looks like the result of debris impacting the piston in that cylinder.

Another sign that its unlikely to be pinking to have caused the engine failure is the condition and colour of the spark plug electrodes. They still retain their shape, Dan said the guy working on the car checked the plug gaps and they were all ok and finally the colour indicates a good combustion mixture and burn. If the engine has been pinking then the plugs would have been one of the first things to be in trouble

My money is still on a major mechanical failure.

baz

i am also fully aware that you know what pinking is and the correct term for it, what i've posted is not a copy past/regurgitated from some where else.

i've had pinking destroy and an engine on a R5GTT, and had pinking issues on several cars over the years

i and trevor and some other people i've shown the pictures to are of the opinion that it has been pinking. can pinking cause that sort of damage? yes it can.

as ever, its near impossible to accurately diagnose what has happened. to bend a rod, break another and smash the block to bits is hard work, but i'm thinking some debris in the engine would caused more random damage ?

dan, the picture of the pistons in the block, are they the ones that bent/broke ?

if you look at the head chambers, the damage there is also consistent with pinking. debris would have left some mark on the carbonated chambers would it not ?

as for the rust marks on the block, any engine exposed to water for 24 hours will start building up rust.

either way, i'm of the option its down to owner/driver neglect/abuse.

the car had 4 nankangs on it, had a rebuild in the past and a new turbo some time later.

i'd bet the trubo failure in the past hasnt helped the re built block/bottom end.

a lot of people raised concerns when dan first bought this and its come back to haunt him

do i feel sorry for dan, with all his problems & because he hasnt got a clue ? no, because dan will not listen to anyone

[bss325i]

i've had pinking destroy and an engine on a R5GTT, and had pinking issues on several cars over the years

i and trevor and some other people i've shown the pictures to are of the opinion that it has been pinking. can pinking cause that sort of damage? yes it can.

I have also shown the pictures to very knowledgeable people and they are also of the opinion that pinking could not cause that damage.

I to have experienced pinking back in my RS turbo days when the boost was wound up and fueling was always an issue with the mechanical fuel injection of the old Bosch KE jetronic system they had.

as ever, its near impossible to accurately diagnose what has happened. to bend a rod, break another and smash the block to bits is hard work, but i'm thinking some debris in the engine would caused more random damage ?

Not if you know what you are looking at and debris damage can be localised depending on what has happened.

if you look at the head chambers, the damage there is also consistent with pinking. debris would have left some mark on the carbonated chambers would it not ?

The marks on the head match that of the damage to the piston. Note that on the head, the damage is to the flat part of the head where the flat part of the piston reaches at TDC and not the raised chamber.
This is possibly only here as the the debris could have been that fine that it would not have marked the combustion chamber part of the head but would cause damage when the gap between the piston and head is minimal.
Im not saying that the debris damage to the piston is the cause of the failure.

Note that the damage you say that is from pinking is isolated to one cylinder only.

[Felix79]

Oh I listen to people and I often follow the advice/reconmendation , end of the day I am going to listen more to say Barry/Pete because they know what they are talking about and are easy to talk to.

I went to various sites to get buyers guides and price reconmendations ( I used Parkers for that ). There were set things that I wanted the car to have and for me the biggest thing was I wanted an offical UK spec car. We all know the risks with older Jap cars with dodgey service histories and under seal protection.

I did a HPI check and I had an RAC inspection done , last time I checked that's the right thing to do when buying a car. I would have to be beyond stupid not to do that if I was mechanically minded or not. Espcally with high risk cars like these , again hence the RAC inspection to make sure there was no acident damage.

I knew well that the car would be driven hard , it's what these cars are about. The car had every MOT , a full main dealer service history , extensive logs and recipts of all work carried out on the car. That is all thing that you want when looking for a car. The car was spotless inside and out , hardly any chips in the front splitter and no overspray. He put 4 new tyres on knowing he was selling it and put the more expensive budget tyres, they still had all the tread on them when I changed the tyres over. The previous owner had the car for 5 years , the own before that 3 years and Prodrive owned it for the first 2 years due to it being one of the two press cars.

I don't need or want you pity , the thread is about my P1 and my ownership of it ( I guess like a blog or owners report ) even a build thread in this case. The car is now up and running and I will be able to go out and enjoy it and I am in a very lucky situation that my daily can be something like this , even if it costs more to run.

While I don't do the spanner work , when I am told something needs doing or it is better to do it , I will tell them ok to do it. Barry and Pete again will comfirm this , if needed too. With the case of my P1 , while nothing needed to be done due to it being inbetween it's service intival , there was little room for me to had caused the problem from being naive or wreckless to the cars care. I follow the specalist and Subaru guidelines to allowing the car to warm up properly and it had the turbo timer to let things cool down for the given amount of time. I check the fluid levels every week because turbo car are known to get through a bit of oil. No leaks underneaith and the levels never changed.

With regards to the piston the pitted valve goes with the chamber with the light rust and the scraping and pitting on the piston head. I've been as detailed as I can answering you questions and requests , but I think there is very little than can be useful going over things any further untill Keith from SP has a chance to inspect everything a lot closer and then give me a detailed answer.

[B7]

I can see a bore with light rust - the sure fire sign of water. My best guess is still head gasket failure, a piston sucking into a load of water, hydraulic lock and then a broken rod.

Is this the one Andy?




Got a message tonight , cars all running and a few other jobs done for me. Remap happens Friday So night to have it up and running , I would be gutted if I had to sat in the garage waiting to be put back together.

If you look at the top damage on that piston, it's not all impact damage. There are signs of spark erosion there. The edge of the crown is actually eroded away as it returns into the bore. In my eyes thats been running VERY hot at times. However, I'm kinda with Andy on this one. I reckon it got cooled down very rapidly with a coolant hydraulic lock!

[Jhonno]

Oh I listen to people and I often follow the advice/reconmendation , end of the day I am going to listen more to say Barry/Pete because they know what they are talking about and are easy to talk to.

I went to various sites to get buyers guides and price reconmendations ( I used Parkers for that ). There were set things that I wanted the car to have and for me the biggest thing was I wanted an offical UK spec car. We all know the risks with older Jap cars with dodgey service histories and under seal protection.

I did a HPI check and I had an RAC inspection done , last time I checked that's the right thing to do when buying a car. I would have to be beyond stupid not to do that if I was mechanically minded or not. Espcally with high risk cars like these , again hence the RAC inspection to make sure there was no acident damage.

I knew well that the car would be driven hard , it's what these cars are about. The car had every MOT , a full main dealer service history , extensive logs and recipts of all work carried out on the car. That is all thing that you want when looking for a car. The car was spotless inside and out , hardly any chips in the front splitter and no overspray. He put 4 new tyres on knowing he was selling it and put the more expensive budget tyres, they still had all the tread on them when I changed the tyres over. The previous owner had the car for 5 years , the own before that 3 years and Prodrive owned it for the first 2 years due to it being one of the two press cars.

I don't need or want you pity , the thread is about my P1 and my ownership of it ( I guess like a blog or owners report ) even a build thread in this case. The car is now up and running and I will be able to go out and enjoy it and I am in a very lucky situation that my daily can be something like this , even if it costs more to run.

While I don't do the spanner work , when I am told something needs doing or it is better to do it , I will tell them ok to do it. Barry and Pete again will comfirm this , if needed too. With the case of my P1 , while nothing needed to be done due to it being inbetween it's service intival , there was little room for me to had caused the problem from being naive or wreckless to the cars care. I follow the specalist and Subaru guidelines to allowing the car to warm up properly and it had the turbo timer to let things cool down for the given amount of time. I check the fluid levels every week because turbo car are known to get through a bit of oil. No leaks underneaith and the levels never changed.

With regards to the piston the pitted valve goes with the chamber with the light rust and the scraping and pitting on the piston head. I've been as detailed as I can answering you questions and requests , but I think there is very little than can be useful going over things any further untill Keith from SP has a chance to inspect everything a lot closer and then give me a detailed answer.

Dan,

I don't think it was so much a comment about how you went about buying the car, more that that kinda of car would be expensive trouble.. Which so far seems to have come true

Hope the new engine lives up to it's billing.

[daimlerman]

Dan;

As you probably know,I earn my money as a working driver.

EVERY vehicle that I approach to drive has an oil and water check,every time.
Not once a week,EVERY time!
This is an automatic action.
With a vehicle at work,it is just as automatic to walk round it,I'm looking for obvious,fresh damage(do not want to get the blame!)legal tyres,working lights,properly coupled trailer etc.

Get into the habit of lifting the bonnet on your cars every day before the first engine start and look at that dipstick level,check the header tank level.
Once a week is not good enough on this type of car.Once a week is hardly good enough on my sister's Smart blobby thing...

[pacerpete]

After carefully studying the evidence submitted and analysing all the pictures of the engine damage , I have come to the conclusion that it is properly f4cked !

[B7]

After carefully studying the evidence submitted and analysing all the pictures of the engine damage , I have come to the conclusion that it is properly f4cked !

Pmsl
Nice and constructive as usual pete! Well done.

[Felix79]

After carefully studying the evidence submitted and analysing all the pictures of the engine damage , I have come to the conclusion that it is properly f4cked !

Pmsl
Nice and constructive as usual pete! Well done.

lol

[harry_p]

i agree with b7.

my lancia suffered from dett which partiually melted a couple of pistons, there weren't big chunks missing, it just looked like the edges of the pistons had been eaten away.

thankfully it also ate away the headgasket, which made it obvious something was wrong so i could stop the car before there was any permenant damage. when i fixed it i asked about stronger gaskets but was told the standard ones were a failsafe, if you put a stronger gasket in it'll just keep going until you erode holes all the way through the pistons, at which point you've got pretty serious issues!

in the earlier pics it looks like some of the inlet blades on the turbo are missing, i'd suggest that they are whats caused the metal on metal damage inside the piston, possibly broken as a result of thermal shock and vibration from all the other issues occuring at the same time!

ime it's impossible to hear a noisy turbo car pinking / dettonating when on boost at high revs, which is why even pretty old turbo cars have knock sensors. certainly far far less pronounced than on a nasp car anyway. seems pretty harsh having a go at the chap for not noticing it, he's hardly the first, and not likely to be the last to destroy an engine

[daimlerman]

..... seems pretty harsh having a go at the chap for not noticing it, he's hardly the first, and not likely to be the last to destroy an engine

This.

There but for the grace of God/Alla/etc go most of us.

[Felix79]

Just had some pics sent through of the car , just waiting to be mapped tomorrow...

[Falkster]

Looks nice Dan. I've always liked the P1 or an import version5/6 type r but the worry that some c**t has screwed it to death without looking after it always put me off. Atleast now you'll know it's (fingers crossed) not going to fail again!

[Felix79]

Looks nice Dan. I've always liked the P1 or an import version5/6 type r but the worry that some c**t has screwed it to death without looking after it always put me off. Atleast now you'll know it's (fingers crossed) not going to fail again!

Thanks Falks ,

The Type R's are a bit more hardcore as they have much harder suspention and the ratios on the gear box are pretty short. I think final works out to be 500 rpm higher @ 80mph than the P1. Alot of people like to put the 6 speed box into these because of that.

With the much stronger and higher quality internals it should help avoid any problems. But as you know , with cars like this things can go wrong. I'm pleased as punch to see it together , hopefully they are going to change the exhuast over to something a little more sutle too.

[Felix79]

Little update , I picked the car up this morning and I've done about 140 miles in it. The car feels very different , with all the mapping ( It's lived mapped I think they call it ) they have manged to make the engine feel very responsive across the whole rev range. Feels very easy to drive and felt very responsive to the throttle

Slightly different engine sound , seems less dramatic when at high revs but still keeps the dugga , dugga ,dugga , dugga sound

[Kos]

would it not be sensible to take it easy and not push it to higher RPM's till you've done a couple of 1000 miles

as for you're previous post in reply to my comments

an RAC inspection, well thats proved it worth lol
dodgy service history with jap imports...... FSH and rebuild in the history proved its worth
spotless body work and being undersealed, well thats saved you hasnt it ? unlike your alpina lol
more expensive budget tyres, they are still budgets, any budget tyres on performance car would set alarm bells ringing, it shows the owner didnt want to stretch to proper tyres, what else did they skimp on ? oh yea, engine maintenance !

toyo's and falkens which in all honesty are middle of the road tyres would be the minimum i;d ever have on car like this

any way, looking forward to seeing what goes next.

ps, Parkers price guide and price guides on general are rubbish when valuing cars like this. some so called classic car magazines still value a mint immaculate original low mileage e30 M3 at 12 grand, thats about 8k short of what they go for

[Kos]

i've had pinking destroy and an engine on a R5GTT, and had pinking issues on several cars over the years

i and trevor and some other people i've shown the pictures to are of the opinion that it has been pinking. can pinking cause that sort of damage? yes it can.

I have also shown the pictures to very knowledgeable people and they are also of the opinion that pinking could not cause that damage.

I to have experienced pinking back in my RS turbo days when the boost was wound up and fueling was always an issue with the mechanical fuel injection of the old Bosch KE jetronic system they had.

as ever, its near impossible to accurately diagnose what has happened. to bend a rod, break another and smash the block to bits is hard work, but i'm thinking some debris in the engine would caused more random damage ?

Not if you know what you are looking at and debris damage can be localised depending on what has happened.

if you look at the head chambers, the damage there is also consistent with pinking. debris would have left some mark on the carbonated chambers would it not ?

The marks on the head match that of the damage to the piston. Note that on the head, the damage is to the flat part of the head where the flat part of the piston reaches at TDC and not the raised chamber.
This is possibly only here as the the debris could have been that fine that it would not have marked the combustion chamber part of the head but would cause damage when the gap between the piston and head is minimal.
Im not saying that the debris damage to the piston is the cause of the failure.

Note that the damage you say that is from pinking is isolated to one cylinder only.

we havent seen the other pistons, nor is dan clear about which pictures relate to which bent/broken rod

so, fine debris that will not leave a mark in the combustion chamber but causes enough damage to throw a rod out of the block.

my money is on pinking, dans money ( lots of it ) is in bulging in some one elses pockets

[Felix79]

The ones with the damage on top was piston 1 , it didn't snap . Pistons 3 and 4 were the ones that broke , but the head was not damaged.

As you look forward at the engine the left side is the one that blew the block ( about 3-4cm long and 2cm wide ) Alot of energy to do that , debris then went through the system , hitting the turbo which then cause massive damage to that. Other fragments worked their way down oil pipes and cause oil to spray out all under neiath the car. The valves were bent in chamber 1 ( the pitted one ) rest of the valves were sitting with the head.


Kos at least both my P1 and the Alpina are on the road working , more than what can be said about your own M3 now is it? , Oh and both are HPI clear unlike your beloved 530 sport. Can't be bothered with you trying to find some way rubbish my car when you need to sort your own out first.

[shedrool83]

The engine bay pics look great.
Hope its trouble free for you now Dan.

[pacerpete]

The ones with the damage on top was piston 1 , it didn't snap . Pistons 3 and 4 were the ones that broke , but the head was not damaged.

As you look forward at the engine the left side is the one that blew the block ( about 3-4cm long and 2cm wide ) Alot of energy to do that , debris then went through the system , hitting the turbo which then cause massive damage to that. Other fragments worked their way down oil pipes and cause oil to spray out all under neiath the car. The valves were bent in chamber 1 ( the pitted one ) rest of the valves were sitting with the head.


Kos at least both my P1 and the Alpina are on the road working , more than what can be said about your own M3 now is it? , Oh and both are HPI clear unlike your beloved 530 sport. Can't be bothered with you trying to find some way rubbish my car when you need to sort your own out first.

Wow, so both Kos and his turd are on the register ?

[Kos]

Kos at least both my P1 and the Alpina are on the road working , more than what can be said about your own M3 now is it? , Oh and both are HPI clear unlike your beloved 530 sport. Can't be bothered with you trying to find some way rubbish my car when you need to sort your own out first.

so, my 530 sport is a cat D, wow. we all get burnt once in our lives when we buy a car. i hold my hands up and admit i never HPI'd it but it did buy it from a mates dad, i let my guard down simply because i trusted them. at the end of the day it was repaired by a main dealer and insurance approved the work so it will be off the register shortly by them time the relevant people deal with it. as for it being beloved, its a daily hack which gets washed and serviced, and in better condition that most of the e39 sports out there and proved to be more reliable than your scooby.

i have no intention of selling it, so the cat D while being annoying doesnt affect the value to me. for the record after some investigation the damage was 2 head lamps, bonnet and bumper. substantially less than a re shell

finally the price i paid for it a year ago was significantly less than what one in the same condition goes for today. if you look at the parkers price guide ( which you think is the bible) and todays value for a very good condition car and knock of 25% (which is fair deduction for a cat D) i still paid less than that. so, as said, not a loss which is something you can not claim about the heap which you called an alpina or your scooby

it more reliable than a scooby with nothing to sort out. the only reason you bought the scooby is to try and make friends

as for my M3, you know nothing of the car or my compact or e24 ( which are SORN while i do some work on them ) but i'm sure some one else will feed you information on them 2 cars.

anything else ? oh and please tell us all how much it cost you ?

[B7]

FFS get a room or at least take each other outside to end it once and for all. it's getting f*cking boring! It's not just this thread but Barrys B10 thread an all now!

What with you two and now Magpie and Polsta at it, it's becoming a sad sad place!

[Felix79]

I got all the mapping graphs through today , was intresting in a nerdy type of way looking at the raw data and seeing how and what each tests are done to get the final numbers.



Ample amounts of bhp and torque for my needs and well within the tolerances for the componiates used in the engine and the rest of the car ( transmission / brakes ect ect ).

Next thing I am wanting to do is get the Brembo brake package , hopefully before the end of the year

[aj_mckay]

FFS get a room or at least take each other outside to end it once and for all. it's getting f*cking boring! It's not just this thread but Barrys B10 thread an all now!

What with you two and now Magpie and Polsta at it, it's becoming a sad sad place!

Well said! And precisely the reason I (and I'm sure a lot of others) don't bother with it much these days. To be honest, I'm extremely surprised the mod's let things carry on like they do...! Ah Well.

Car looks great Dan, hope you enjoy it and your studies go well...

[Kedge]

Looked good on Sunday Dan. I've always had a soft spot for these things, along with Evo 6's and R32 Skylines but don't think i'd ever dare go near any of them.

Hopefully with the new engine in there you'll get to enjoy it now.

[Felix79]

Well , it's finally been a year since I first got my P1. I've had heart ache and I have had joy , meet different people and been to different shows and meets.

After getting the new engine done , I was fairly happy with the car , but as I was not using it much I never really put too much thought into what to do next. With my old Alpina I had really wanted to be authentic as I could to the car and I carried this on with my P1.

In January of this year , I took the P1 off the road and started to use a 2006 Fiesta ST as a "daily" , while I cracked on with various things and saved my cash up. Subaru's standard brakes are not really on par with the rest of the car and it's common place for the discs to warp when they get hot , plus you get really bad brake fade when pushing the car.

I knew my brakes were getting close to being nothing more than scrap so I started to look around for better braking options. A very common and well proven route , is to put big Brembo 6 pots on the front and 4 pots on the rear. You can normally get a decent set for around £450 for the fronts and around the same again for the rears. After chatting to some people on the P1 owners forum , some one showed me the brakes that were part of the WR package you could get on the P1. The beefier Prodrive calipers looked the business , so I started my hunt to get some.

Prodrive very rarely have parts in stock for the P1 and a back order is normally needed before they will produce a run. After some of the most slack customer service known to man kind , I managed to source the calpiers 2nd hand off a fellow member on the P1 site , who was just on the other side of Oxfordshire. After I got them I needed the discs and pads. 330mm disc/bell's from Goodspeed brakes and Alcon Blue Stuff pads ( track use only ). After an Sat afternoon at my mate garage they were all installed and I now had the following on my P1......



While the car was up on the ramps , it gave my buddy a good chance to look under the car carefully for me and he started explaining stuff to me , so I had a better understanding of things. The car was in brilliant shape under there and I realised why my exhaust is so loud! Effectively I have a 3.5" straight through system ( Blitz NUR-Spec ) with a de-cat. The quality of the steel seems good and there was no signs of any rust / weak points along the system. A job that may be done in the future is wrapping the whole system so the loud bands and pops the system gives , can then have some pyrotechnics to go with it! Luke then fitted braided pipes all round for me and again showed me how to do things and just went into greater depths why the upgrades made it work better.

I was really fun for me to be able to watch all this work close hand and to have someone to take the time to explain stuff to me. It was a great way to spend an afternoon chatting to one of my best mate about cars and to improve on what I already had.

I then had a 300 mile bedding in period to do before I was allowed to do any heavy braking. 4 days later and a tank of petrol , I had finished bedding them in and was able to experience the difference. The best way I can describe it , is like going from drum brakes to discs for the first time. These suckers stop the car so strongly it physically hurts .

Over this year I have been helping get a local car club going with a group of my car buddies and we have been getting bigger and bigger monthly meets. We are now getting around 100 cars of all different shapes and sizes attending and even the odd e30 has turned up! I've started to get into some of the JDM customisation with stickers and what not and here are a few pics of my car first at a monthly meet and then finally , my car on the P1 stand at JapFest in castlecombe last weekend.







The car has surpized me in many ways , it's reliable , it's easy to drive fast or slow , it can do mid to high 20's mpg and it's so comfortable to drive either short or long distances. I do miss my Alpina in some respects and in other ways I don't. It would be hard for me to jump down in outright performance now , but I do miss the tail happy nature I use to get and I still think an e30 Alpina is one of the best looking cars out there. How ever in the same breath I think the 2 door Impreza and espcally the P1 and 22B are an equal in the looks department and I do love how it's only proper petrol heads respect cars like Alpina's and the P1.

There is more work on the cards and I am really enjoying getting more involved with my own car after all these years. Thanks to some very special Dr's and Physio's I have now managed to get a proper life again and my ambition to learn and mess about with cars with good friends is finally happening. I am thinking about getting an e30 in a few years time as I need to scratch that Alpina itch again and it's only going to be scratch properly if I get a B6.

Thanks for taking the time to read this ,

Regards ,

Felix

[Niko_E30]

Kos at least both my P1 and the Alpina are on the road working , more than what can be said about your own M3 now is it? , Oh and both are HPI clear unlike your beloved 530 sport. Can't be bothered with you trying to find some way rubbish my car when you need to sort your own out first.

so, my 530 sport is a cat D, wow. we all get burnt once in our lives when we buy a car. i hold my hands up and admit i never HPI'd it but it did buy it from a mates dad, i let my guard down simply because i trusted them. at the end of the day it was repaired by a main dealer and insurance approved the work so it will be off the register shortly by them time the relevant people deal with it. as for it being beloved, its a daily hack which gets washed and serviced, and in better condition that most of the e39 sports out there and proved to be more reliable than your scooby.

i have no intention of selling it, so the cat D while being annoying doesnt affect the value to me. for the record after some investigation the damage was 2 head lamps, bonnet and bumper. substantially less than a re shell

finally the price i paid for it a year ago was significantly less than what one in the same condition goes for today. if you look at the parkers price guide ( which you think is the bible) and todays value for a very good condition car and knock of 25% (which is fair deduction for a cat D) i still paid less than that. so, as said, not a loss which is something you can not claim about the heap which you called an alpina or your scooby

it more reliable than a scooby with nothing to sort out. the only reason you bought the scooby is to try and make friends

as for my M3, you know nothing of the car or my compact or e24 ( which are SORN while i do some work on them ) but i'm sure some one else will feed you information on them 2 cars.

anything else ? oh and please tell us all how much it cost you ?

Kos, you are a c0ck of the highest order, I don't understand what your problem is, go get a girlfriend/wife/bum lover (delete as appropriate).

It's people like you that give the zone a bad name, now p!ss off.

[Jhonno]

Kos, you are a c0ck of the highest order, I don't understand what your problem is, go get a girlfriend/wife/bum lover (delete as appropriate).

It's people like you that give the zone a bad name, now p!ss off.

Again with the nothing constructive other than being a bellend. As previous, take your own advice..

[Jhonno]

Prodrive very rarely have parts in stock for the P1 and a back order is normally needed before they will produce a run. After some of the most slack customer service known to man kind , I managed to source the calpiers 2nd hand off a fellow member on the P1 site , who was just on the other side of Oxfordshire. After I got them I needed the discs and pads. 330mm disc/bell's from Goodspeed brakes and Alcon Blue Stuff pads ( track use only ). After an Sat afternoon at my mate garage they were all installed and I now had the following on my P1......



I then had a 300 mile bedding in period to do before I was allowed to do any heavy braking. 4 days later and a tank of petrol , I had finished bedding them in and was able to experience the difference. The best way I can describe it , is like going from drum brakes to discs for the first time. These suckers stop the car so strongly it physically hurts .

Err.. Who gave that bedding in proceedure? Bedding in is usually done in one run, with progressively harder stops, getting heat into the brakes, until you end up standing on them without coming to a halt.. Then allowing them to cool off. Especially for track pads. Are you planning to do a lot of track work with the car, is that why you went for track pads?

[ross_jsy]

Oddly enough a set of pads a friend bought for his Evo came with similar breaking in procedure, how ever we went for the normal way like you have said and they worked perfectly

[Jhonno]

Oddly enough a set of pads a friend bought for his Evo came with similar breaking in procedure, how ever we went for the normal way like you have said and they worked perfectly

Someone I saw recently did the 'normal' way on a set of track pads, and it caused him no end of problems.. Near ruined a track day for him, and spent most of the day trying to clean the discs up in the pits..

[Niko_E30]

Kos, you are a c0ck of the highest order, I don't understand what your problem is, go get a girlfriend/wife/bum lover (delete as appropriate).

It's people like you that give the zone a bad name, now p!ss off.

Again with the nothing constructive other than being a bellend. As previous, take your own advice..

Ah ha!, if it is't our very own resident Mr Carbon Fibre, go and watch Fast and Furious again, you muppet, you might get more idea's for your sack of nails, wasteman.