PranK

Oh, ha, the ol 'on ramp tune'! I did give it a bit though, lots of hills where I am.

Not following. Its worth noting that the N54 has no oil pressure sensor from factory, only a switch. I have retro fit a sensor so I can monitor the pressure. The car will now alert me if it drops.

My BC's are great! I wasn't going to spend big money, its a long way from a "well-funded" car. They are really comfy on the street and they feel good enough for me on the track. I think they were about $1400 AUD delivered with front camber tops. Hard to go wrong with that. They replaced my Bilstein B8's with Eibach springs which were good also but just a touch soft and I wanted the height adjustment. It didn't help that a Sydney mega pothole bent one of the front strut tubes just enough to make lowering with the jack tricky as it didn't compress unless you drove back and forth a bit. I'm also a little less willing to go hard into fast corners. Maybe I'll get better over time, but for now I'm happy to lose a few seconds and not keep feeling like I'm about to die. Nice point on the left foot braking. This is definitely an area I want to get better at. Like you I should be doing it when pottering around town just to get more used to it and stop it feeling odd.

I just had a little drive and monitored oil pressure with my MHD sensor and plugin. Its perfectly within range. ~40psi at idle, ~75-80psi just cruising and ~90-95psi at WOT.

Thanks, I'll check that out. I've never heard of Blackline.

Yeah, its good to see at least I have OK pressure. Theres also zero other symptoms so if the next analysis comes back similar, I'll get the bearings done I think. Just sucks because turbos and oil pan gasket were just done and he's going to need to pull all that out again. At this stage I'm just hoping I see no lead in the next analysis and I can chalk it up to the additive in the oil to soften my valve stem seals.

I know.

I'm trying to find more info about the composition of the bearings. I found these ones; "The Upper and Lower bearing shells are comprised of a lead-free, Silver-based tri-metal material designed for extreme load applications." https://www.turnermotorsport.com/p-3929159-king-n55n54-rod-bearing-set-size-050-oversized/ And ChatGPT said; "The overlay material is often a soft metal alloy such as aluminum or a lead-based material." I'm just going to send myself mad. I'll just drain and analyse in a few thousand k's.

Just after I started to feel better about it all.

Damn, some awesomeness in there. What is the car with the Mk2 golf front, is it a Polo? I'm in love with the C110. 😍 Some cool grafts, like the Lancia Jimny (?).

Japanese circuits have always looked tight to me on Youtube vids. They seem to be able to fit tracks into the smallest of spots. I've never experimented with camber in the rear. I'm running similar front camber to you (albeit in the E90) but I've been looking into what options I have in the rear. -3 rear seems like a lot. Yeah, mine is the N54. I had an N52 330i for about 7 years, it was awesome but I just needed a little more poke. The N54 is also DI. I'm running BC coilovers with the M3 front arms and a Whiteline front sway bar and the turn in and ride quality is brilliant. But I do still suffer from a bit of roll so I've been looking into that lately.

Omg Rezz! Yep we're still here and actually seeing a trickle of oldies coming back. How's things?

Yeah true. 👍

What did you get changed in the rear of the R34 for the understeer? Talk to me about E90's! You're probably the only other SAU'er with one! As is the consistent, and widely shared, sentiment with your updates, I'm just so jealous. Being able to country hop like that and have access to so many amazing roads and tracks, its just so awesome.

Ok, so I just had a chat with my mechanic. He said there is no real source of lead in the engine, the bearings and pistons are aluminium and the rings I think he said are steel. He doesn't recall what additive he used but that along with the thicker 20w50 he used could be a source of lead. It's put me at ease a little bit and I guess I'll just have to wait 5000 k's to do another change and see if anything is different. I appreciate you guys chiming in. I have a habit of immediately thinking worst case with things like this.