Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Front discs are 276mm and I'm running 15x8j et28 at the moment which I'm hoping to keep.

I was thinking that if I were to design a bracket to mount another stock caliper on each of the fronts it would be a far cheaper alternative to a Wilwood upgrade kit (which apparently does fit) or having to change my wheels...

What I don't know about is whether I would need to change the brake cylinder for a beefier one or if the stock one would work fine with the extra calipers?

You’ll definitely need a different MC to deal with twice the OEM piston area on the front, I’d wager that you’ll never find a replacement MC to suit using two single piston sliding calipers on the same axle, sliding calipers tend to use one large piston and doubling that area will need a massive MC and you’d probably need a one of pedal box to be able to find an MC to suit

I would think that step one would be four piston calipers from someone like AP, then see what the performance is like.

To an extent yeah, although we have been into modified polos for about 17yrs and this mk1 was cheap and mostly rotten and just donored the outer shell from the sills up. Also you never see them

In that case:
https://www.donedeal.ie/carparts-for-sale/mr2-mk1-aw11/26654748

Alas not Irish registered although otherwise perfect! I must look into whether or not I could get it "imported" without an inspection!

I think you're probably on the money with that suggestion.

@mcmyk thats more or less the information I needed to know it's a bad idea 😅

Not me. Though I am flattered by being mistaken for someone infinitely more interesting than me.

Happy New Year car appreciators. Last ride of the year today, toes frozen solid by the end, but did see a nice old Bentley to finish the year in style. Roll on 2021 and may none of your miles be on the back of a recovery truck.

Cheers! Saw in the search results that someone on here had one.
Worn sus parts is a given round here, anything with air bags gives me the fear (£££) but looks like there are loads of pattern parts available and then from bmw they are not mad money and easy enough to change.
Will go find some and see what turns up

No worries, aside from that it was a pretty decent car for the 3 years I had it. I'm sure it would have been much cheaper to fix if I hadn't got it done by BMW.

I think most big estate cars run air on the rear for self levelling, pretty sure my e class did and my new g31 5 series does too.

The car would never be there for more than 2 consecutive days. It's more if something goes wrong and I can't drive it home/leave it in the street overnight when it's in bits.

Best broken bolt extraction kit?

Need to remove a couple of sheared off m12 bolts (thanks to the knob heads that nicked the cat off my wife’s car). Left and right of the big hole, lol.

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Has anyone on here used https://www.onlineautomotive.co.uk/ ?

They look like they've got the bits we need for a reasonable price, but would like some reassurance it's not a scam!

Does anyone have some 4x100 15" wheels for sale? Would like to pick up some motorsport inspired wheels and throw some chunky tyres on.

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That’s a lot of car to wash (and then hoover ).

If you have access to a 'Die Grinder' grind the back of the studs off then replace them with nuts and bolts or drill them out and do the same.

Need to know the offset 'ET??'
https://www.performancealloys.com/alloy-wheels-offset

A good series of books that were a bible for motor vehicle apprentices back in the day is 'The Fundamentals of Motor Vehicle Technology'
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fundamentals-Motor-Vehicle-Technology-Hillier/dp/0748705317

Also have you considered VW Beetle or other early air cooled models that were often used as a base for kit cars as the chassis/engine, gear box and running gear is all a rolling chassis that other bodies can be built on, hence so many beach buggies and dune buggies were built around them.

I bought some Japan Racing wheels for my R53. They're not expensive and the quality seems decent. They've got a lot of styles to choose from too.

I bought mine from JDMDistro who I would absolutely recommend. Really good service and extremely helpful!

I have to admit I would LOVE a Meyers Manx Buggy but whatever I choose for a donor for this project will really just be donating a registration plate and chassis number as I otherwise want it to be a scratchbuild, I'll probably poach some suspension components from different cars but the chassis itself will be a new entity.

Thanks I'll take a look!

I'll most likely end up with Speedline 2118s, or Enkei rpf1... if I can pick up a decent second hand set.

Speedline 2118s look great on Clios. They're my favourite wheels on my rally car.

How much money am I going to have to plough into this to run it?

https://www.martleshamcarcentre.co.uk/used-bmw-x3-ipswich-suffolk-3103759