April 2002
No expenses for the first 3 months of the year. Even the MOT was passed first time.
The final piece of the brake upgrade fitted into place. The front flexi hoses for the Porsche calipers. The part
number for these is 8A0 611 769. I had a fair bit of trouble getting hold of these. My local Audi dealer was unable
to even provide the required part number never mind supply the parts. Audi UK technical help were also next to
useless. After I gave them the part number, they found a dealer in Leeds who had them in stock. I bought them direct
and received them within 3 days.
These are expensive (~£35 delivered) for what they are. Take the standard hose
893 611 707
and add a 2 inch right angled brake pipe to the end and you have the necessary part. Remember that the standard
hose only costs £4.67.
With Porsche 968 Club Sport pads (part number
993 351 939 01) I was ready to fit the kit.
You can see details of this here.
The actual description of fitting the parts will happen at a later date in a separate article.
After almost 2 years, the GoodYear F1 Eagle tyres had worn down to the legal limit of 1.6mm of tread. With a trip to
the Nurburgring due to take place within 2 months, I was forced to shell out £180 for two front tyres. The rears still
had plenty of life and were left as they were. My personal opinion is that the GoodYear F1 is the best
performance tyre for the S2. This takes all factors into account of wear rate, dry grip, wet grip, noise,
predicatability, aquaplaning resistance. This last factor is probably decisive. Scotland gets a lot of rain and I am
frequently travelling at high speed in poor conditions.
May 2002
Before going away, I took the opportunity to replace the brake fluid with
ATE Super Blue brake fluid . While this
is certified to DOT 4 specification, it has higher wet and dry boiling points than many DOT5.1 fluids.
The other advantage is that being blue, it makes bleeding the brakes easy. It is not the cheapest fluid on
the market at £20 per litre but it does make a major improvement when braking.
June 2002
I spent a 4 day weekend at the Nurburgring from Friday June 6th right through until the Monday. Myself and a friend
used the new ferry service from Rosyth to Zeebrugge. It only takes me about 15 minutes to get to the ferry
from the house so it's much easier.
We were extremely lucky with weather with only a few showers on the Sunday interrupting track use. Unfortunately,
I also had an interruption with brake problems. The basic problem was caused by the discs having insufficient
clearance for the brake pads. It was ok with new pads but as the pads wore down, the backing plates fouled
the centre mounting bell of the discs. This resulted in a loud grating sound and also overheating wheel bearings.
I was lucky as most of the track action had been enjoyed prior to this. I had fitted new pads before leaving
so they had lasted a full 18 laps before wearing down enough to cause problems.
Monday morning was spent in Koblenz attempting to buy new pads. The Porsche dealer was unable to help but a small
auto parts store round the corner had the necessary parts in stock. These were Jurid pads. After fitting these,
I was able to use the car again but I would need to find alternative discs after returning home.
With this being the only exception, the weekend was the best yet. We met several members of the
quattro Owners Club and they were a great bunch of guys. The
on track experience was superb with huge levels of grip compared to 2001. The other problem is that the Nurburgring
is becoming a victim of its own success. At times on the Friday and Saturday it was difficult to move in the car park
and the track could get quite hairy at times with the high number of bikes.
It won't stop me returning but I'll be choosing my track times carefully. Quality is better than quantity
so I'd rather have 6 laps of uninterrupted fun than 12 laps of frustration being stuck behind other
users or being passed every second corner.
July 2002
After returning I had to replace an
alloy centre cap which had been lost. I suspect I had not refitted it
correctly after changing the brake pads.
I also needed a new auxiliary radiator. It had survived the Germany trip but only just. It had actually
started to leak where the fins were falling out. The fins were so weak that high speeds were causing
the fins to disintegrate. I had already accumulated the necessary parts for the work. New mounting
bushes
443 121 273 E x3 plus the required nuts and washers. I was fortunate that a member of the
Audi Owners Club works for a radiator manufacturer. He is also local
to me and was able to recore my original at cost. This came to approximately 15% of the cost of a new radiator
from Audi. The way the recore was done, I also did not require the mounting bushes as the frame
incorporated its own mounts.
August 2002
Having done some research, I concluded that a 2 piece disc was never going to work with the Porsche calipers
I was using. The pads had too much depth (71mm) for any 304mm disc to work unless it was one piece.
A 304mm disc is not available off the shelf in the required dimensions so I would have to improvise. The
nearest disc is that from an Audi A8. This is 314mm in diameter and 30mm thick. The air gap between the vented
planes is slightly less than the Porsche items. This means that pads will require to be replaced earlier as
wearing them down to minimum levels will overextend the piston seals of the calipers.
The discs also had to be reduced in size from 314mm to 304mm. This is necessary as otherwise they foul on
the caliper. A local engineering shop was able to do this for me for a nominal sum. How these will fare
long term wil be interesting.
October 2002
My experience in Germany in June had caught up with me. The wheel bearings which had been make slight
murmering sounds on the way home in June had gradually been getting louder over the past 4 months. They were
now urgently needing replaced and a local specialist was able to do the work. The garage used
was Dougans Garage in Newmains.. They do not have a website but I can highly recommend them. They only took 3
hours to replace both front wheel bearings and only charged £160 total for the work.
