Matt's 512bhp EK9 project


The standard seats are really nice tbh, they do weigh a fair bit though! Both standard seats on rails came to near on 40kg! The spg's with rails were 17kg, so that's a huge weight saving of 23kg just from swapping seats.
 
Next up was finally painting the bonnet, another one of my friends (who I happen to work with) is a painter, he's good too so always busy out of hours, I had to wait a few weeks until he could do it but I'm glad I did. We mixed the paint up at work and it wasn't bad considering the cars had bits of paint over the years etc. I added the aerocatches, put washer ets in, decals and a genuine badge for the bonnet, for that nearly oem look lol.
 
The next step was a bit of preventative maintenance really, I'd noticed some underseal flaking off the bottom of the car so I cleaned up the underneath and gave it a healthy dose of stone chip. Once done I left it under the heater that night at work to dry, didn't fancy driving home and getting gravel stuck in it!
 
In preparation for Donington I decided I needed to replace the stock camber arms with some aftermarket adjustable ones. I went for Hardrace items as they seem a good all rounder and I got a good deal on the from Apex Performance.

I got the car in one night after work and cracked on with swapping them, car came to bits very easy and everything was refitted using copper slip so it would come undone in the future. I eyeballed the settings to get me home (4 miles) and then took the car for alignment that weekend. I use the local kwik fit for alignment as they put the measuring equipment on the car and let me do it lol.

I went for 0 toe front and rear, -2.5 camber front and -2 rear, a good base setting I feel.
 
How did you clean the SPG's? I've used woolite for the OEM seats but never my SPG!
 
Yeah I used the dark woolite on the spg's. I figured the oem seats are delicate with them being alcantara so should be fine on the spg's. I doused them pretty good and left them in the conservatory to dry, came up like new as you can see.
 
I booked Donington off the back of my friend saying it was a no noise limit day hosted by RMA trackdays. Personally I'd never heard of RMA trackdays but my friend does a lot with them so I said ok. The cool thing was MadM1ke87 was now ready to hit the track with his beast so he jumped on too.

Once again the car was loaded to the hilt with wheels, fuel and spares lol. When we pulled in to say we got a shock was an understatement! The garages were full of racetrucks, BTCC teams, Ginetta....you name it! The normal cars were Lambo's, Ferrari's, Porches (you get the jist here)......We rolled in two 20 year old Honda civics that we drove there lol!

So we went in our pit garage next to a mclaren and jaguar and i said "eyup" in my Yorkshire accent.....He didn't reply haha!

Off to the drivers briefing we went, we were basically told it was a motorsport test day, spin once you get a telling off, spin twice you're off! Overtake where you want just don't hit anyone!

So back to the garages we went, feeling a bit overwhelmed if I'm honest. Went out in the first session and the car felt sweet, passed quite a few cars too! When me and mike came back to the garages a lot of people walked down pit lane to look at the cars as they couldn't believe how fast they were lol!

As the day went on and we got to know the track better we started really pushing, god I loved it, with the camber arms and seats the car felt so much better, I'd also switched to carbone lorraine RC6 pads which were brilliant!

I went out one last time in the afternoon, quite late on too. I had Mike in with me as I'd been out in his, we were on it and then going round coppice onto the back straight I had a tyre let go! I didn't know what had happened tbh, possibly a shaft but I limped the car back to the pits to find the tyre had started to delaminate.

No damage was sustained so I knew that was a sign to call it a day, back on went the Enkies, loaded the car up and watched for the last hour.
 
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Thanks mate, I was a bit dubious when I first saw it but once painted and fitted I loved it, oh and it worked lol!
Exactly mate it's looks wicked and genuinely helps haha happy days!
 
Awesome build! I had a look through the thread and don't remember seeing a spec for the current engine, is it on one of the pages? What sort of power is it running now that you've upped the boost?

I found the same thing when I went to Brands last year, loads of race teams there with their lorries and support crew and me rocking up in my car with all my stuff in the boot :lol:
Different scenario though as they had booked into an actual track day and not a "test day" so were constrained by specific over taking rules and noise limits. haha

Talk about judging a book by its cover though! :nono:

Also, anywhere in particular you have sourced all the wheels you've bought? I can't find any 5X114 16" wheels anywhere!! I need 16's like yourself as I also have the ATR brakes
 
Awesome build! I had a look through the thread and don't remember seeing a spec for the current engine, is it on one of the pages? What sort of power is it running now that you've upped the boost?

I found the same thing when I went to Brands last year, loads of race teams there with their lorries and support crew and me rocking up in my car with all my stuff in the boot :lol:
Different scenario though as they had booked into an actual track day and not a "test day" so were constrained by specific over taking rules and noise limits. haha

Talk about judging a book by its cover though! :nono:

Also, anywhere in particular you have sourced all the wheels you've bought? I can't find any 5X114 16" wheels anywhere!! I need 16's like yourself as I also have the ATR brakes
Thanks mate! Engine spec for the boost build is on page 1:)).

I found the Enkies for sale on a Facebook site, the Rotas I bought from Rare Rims, they will definitely be able to supply some in the same size.
 
So that was it as far as trackdays were concerned for 2016, the car needed maintenance over the winter and some upgrades.

I got in touch with Maxsport on the off chance i may get something with the tyre delaminating, after a few pics back and forth I eventually sent the pair of fronts as the other one had started too! Sure enough they said it wasn't right and credited me 2 tyres, result! I sold them on lol.

I'm gonna bite the bullet and buy Dunlop DZ03G for this year, expensive but the best I feel.
 
I noticed towards the end of the day at Donington I was getting a misfire at high rpm, only very slight but I could feel/hear it in the higher gears when it was loaded up.

I fitted new plugs, cap and rotor arm and took the car for a run, it seemed fine so hopefully that was the issue.
 
During the winter a set of drag tyres on wheels popped up, the wheels are team dynamics pro race 1 15" (these clear the ATR 300mm setup) and tyres are M&H with hardly any use so I bought them for a bit of drag action later this year!
 
Next up the front discs were shot after 4 trackdays and some hard road miles so I opted for mtec (again) but the c-hook design, so they were fitted a few weeks ago. New rear pads were also fitted, I went for project mu ns400 here to replace the Dixcel units. New brake fluid was also used, Motul RBF 600.
 
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