Done my first trackday in my E30 - Cadwell Park

[bramley]

Bought an E30 a few months ago, spec as follows:

1987 325
stripped
chip
exhaust
braided brake lines
grooved front disks
mintex pads
Dot 5.1 fluid
uprated ARBs
poly bushes
harnesses
spare set of wheels with Toyo R888s

Did a trackday at Cadwell yesterday and my god it was the most fun I've ever had in a car by a long way. The toyos are just awesome, the amount of grip they gave was mind blowing, and when they lost grip they were very progressive. Car felt really well balanced, brakes were brilliant, really strong and didn't fade at all. 180 track miles later and it was still running well, except for a collapsed wheel bearing which I can forgive it for as the warning signs were there, I just chose to ignore them until the rumbling noise became a banging noise thankfully it didn't fail on me whilst cornering at 100mph....

Awesome track, and the E30 was hassling an E36 M3 (it was on road tyres) and not only surprised me but also quite a few others there. I just couldn't believe how much grip was available in the corners, it really hung on and you could get the power down nice and early with no risk of the car swapping ends. In fact it took a Scandinavian flick to get it sideways!

I loved the way a 21 yr old old banger of a 3 series had several people asking me what had been done to the car as it's pace was surprisingly good.

Can't wait to do another one, better start saving.

[Joeey]

Glad you had fun mate, get some pics of your car in the 'Trackday cars' thread if you havnt already!

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... 1&start=75

[JimmyC]

I loved our race at Cadwell, tricky circuit to learn but massive grin factor

[tlee]

Sounds like you had a great time. I loved it at Cadwell and am going again this Friday. Hoping to demolish the lap times from the last outing since the car now has proper rubber and a roll cage.

[bramley]

Yeah Cadwell is a great track, my favourite bit was from the start/finish straight, round Copice and through Charlies felt awesome, we were carrying good speed through Charlies as there seemed to be more grip on that corner than any other.

Couple of laps here if anyone's interested: http://s175.photobucket.com/albums/w141 ... e_0002.flv

[JimmyC]

flat round the left, flat round charlies 1 took me a fair while to believe that though

I was Captain Slow at Cadwell

[bramley]

There was definately more to come from the tyres, especially round there, it was just a confidence thing, I lifted a bit every time despite my head saying 'Don't Lift Don't Lift'!

[Joeey]

Couple of laps here if anyone's interested: http://s175.photobucket.com/albums/w141 ... e_0002.flv

On that video at 2.00 does that blue car overun the corner and hit the tyres lol?

[Jon_Bmw]

No that looks like the pit lane entrance.

[hoshy]

I've done cadwell in my iS on similar tyres - I really know what you mean about "don't lift"

[bramley]

Having mentioned about people coming up to me in the paddock and asking what had been done to the car, it only just occured to me that their surprise at the car's pace might be partly due to the 316 badge I put on the bootlid

[Karan]

god i love cadwell.... its my fave uk track

[bramley]

I loved it too, I chose it because I thought tight and twisty would suit the car better than a wide open circuit. As it turned out, I found the really tight and twisty bits after the mountain the least enjoyable part of the circuit, the rest was superb though.

[Black_Potato]

Great track...

When you replace the wheel bearing dont use cheap ones, use FAG (£50) which is the better one on Eurocarparts or if you can afford it the BMW ones. There maybe others that work but the £25 or less ones are no good for sticky tyres.

[bramley]

I asked my garage to get decent ones, and they were £50 each, and quite likely they're from ECP so that's good. Cheers.