Set of supersprint v2 stepped headers, for the CSL engine that we have to go into the car.
Landrover, AA and enterprise
Well it all started on a cold Saturday morning with the discovery dropping out of cruise control and letting me know it was overheating due to no more coolant in the radiator.
Phoned the extended warentee recovery line and they sent a low loader to pick me up, and drop me at the next junction (why not direct to the Landrover garage that was just another 2 miles further on who knows)
About 1 and a half hour later a nice man in another discovery turned up (the emergency assist person) who was also confused that I was not left at the Landrover garage, he came quickly to the same conclusion as me that there was a leak. So he filled up the car, looked for obvious leeks a as there were non we set off to the nearest Landrover garage.
So car left there for them to look at, the kind emergency assist person took me to the enterprise rental place where I was told it was 48h hire then extendable to 9 days, this was the happy stage as I could continue my journey, that I had embarked on at 5am that morning (it now being 11ish)
Now the fun and games start, get a phone call from the garage that as a fuel cooler has come loose that in turn led to the coolant hoses resting on the driveshaft, and hence burst was ware and tear. How a std motorist is supposed to get to this part to check and why had it been ok for 7 years of the cars life, explanation is that part is removed when a gearbox is replaced (which my vehicle had had done not 4 months earlier)
So call to the dealer that carried out the work, they said you don’t remove those bits, then call Landrover customer service who said you do unless you are really trying to create extra work, so warentee company saying not them, dealer that fixed gearbox not them, Landrover customer service basically as car was not new enough they will not assist with the repairs. So I instructed the dealership that has the vehicle at present to fix at a cost of £300+ and arranged to pick up next Tuesday.
Couple of days later (today) I get the hire car company enterprise calling to ask if I still have one of there cars, why would I not it was given to me till I collect my car, and that’s next Tuesday, they then tell me I would be paying for the extra days as it was hired to me only for the weekend, I did ask why it tool them 5 days to call!!! Couple of calls now to dealer with car who inform me enterprise are correct and I need to pay for a car I ain’t used.
So call back to enterprise and very kindly they have agreed to wave the days over and I take that car back on Monday morning as they are not open when I am around this weekend.
So morel of the story is if your car goes into a Landrover main dealer check all their work after as they may if left out a bolt that they will not admit to and not do anything about unless you pay them for repairing their mistake.
Slow moving
Well since getting the car back from Butler Motorsports (they fitted the cage/painted the interior) its been going slowly.
The reasons for the go slow are mainly the weather, as the car is worked on outside its not good working on it when it’s raining and for the time being the weather hear is lets just say moist. So how is it actually progressing. The original plan was to run the m52 engine from the old race car, but we did say if that got sold then we would go up to class A and use either a s54 or a s65 engine.
Research has been done into the s65 option and although it will fit they have reported issues with main bearings under extreme use, so as we don’t really feel like changing the engine often, and the way to prevent this issue is to dry sump the engine (not allowed by a lot of club motorsport rules) the other option of the s54 has to be considered.
The s54 engine in the second hand market starts at around £1500 for a eBay special, with most hovering around £2500 on eBay, the higher end, and rarer engine is the s54 from the csl, that has modifications to the cams, valves, intake manifold and probably a couple of other mods. Now you will see these listed for nearly double the standard engine, are the worth the premium, that’s a question we need to answer. With any of these engines the sensible thing to do is replace the main bearings and use arp rod bolts, not that there is an issue, but for piece of mind.
As for the shell, the dashboard is in, as well as the wiper motor, we have a collection of under trays that we need to note what we have, what’s broken, and what’s missing, this will enable us to get a smoother floor (aerodynamics etc).
The rear race suspension is on, we have also a pair of csl front king pins (different to std m3) and will probably use these when we put the front suspension on. There are a couple of metal brackets etc that we will be looking at getting blasted/powder coated so it all looks nice underneath.
Been a bit lax on here recently
Well this site has not been updated recently, mainly due to updates happening on facebook at present, but we hope to come back to updating this site when we have more news on the new car.
The story so far is
The old e36 race car shell was sold
A new e46 M3 shell was brought.
This was then going to cost too much to fix the boot floor issue (no welding equipment so have to outsource that)
Brought another e46 M3 shell
Sent this away to Butler Motorsports to get a cage welded in, after custom cages let us down on more than one occasion.
Got the inside painted in Alpine white and got the car back.
Now the interesting part starts, its got to be put back together…