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Hey Charlie, question for you. Are you still liking your Falkens? I've been racing the Yoko A052 225/45/17 but they are finally down to the wire and sadly no longer made. I'm looking for a new tire for track days, and wondering if the Falkens will do. Appreciate any advice you can provide, thanks!
Hey Charlie, question for you. Are you still liking your Falkens? I've been racing the Yoko A052 225/45/17 but they are finally down to the wire and sadly no longer made. I'm looking for a new tire for track days, and wondering if the Falkens will do. Appreciate any advice you can provide, thanks!
The Falkens are a great track day tire. I have not run the Yokos, so can’t say how they compare. However, I have run the RE71Rs, I like the Falkens better overall. In comparison Falken to the ‘Stones: Grip level is at least as good if not better. Similar turn in. The Falkens are less prone to heat soak during a session and tolerate more heat cycles . To me, the ‘Stones felt edgy when getting up near the limits, the Falkens are less so and are confidence inspiring. Their down side is they are a bit less good in the wet. Not bad, just less.
Hope that helps.
As for the A052s no longer in production - they weren’t in production long... However I did read that the latest version of the Bridgestone RE71s is supposed to be coming to the States this year.
My my it seems it has been months since I touched this thread - either I have grown lazy, or Gollum and I have gotten boring....
So here's a few observations to at least extend this tale a wee bit.
The Falkens are awesome thanks Eddy. I grew a nail in one and so I've now bought five - and still have not raced them! However, it appears that my sedentary habits have one benefit - I expect to get another half year from them in '23! I used to use TWO sets per summer of the 200 TW ilk, so that's amusing...
I have been suffering a diabolical little rattle over the last year, one that sounded familiar as earlier in Gollum's life we replaced the boot hatch gasket to quiet the car at cold temperature. Not this time.
This rattle emanated from the boot, yes, but was NOT temperature sensitive. I appeared on small ripples, but never on a proper bump. It started to drive me nuts.
Jeremy (the chief wrench and 2nd Crew Chief to Gollum) actually got into the boot for a cruise around the MoP arking lot in his diligence to diagnose, bless his heart.
Jeremy told me on two occasions that he reckoned it was that NM rear sway bar, but I resisted this diagnosis for far too long. I even had booth of us go over it on the alignment rack, as opposed to a normal lift, so we could tip it a wee bit one side to the other while seeking that little rattle down below, my hands on the RSB end-link joints to detect play. No damn joy - the alignment rack rattled instead.
So I finally brought Jeremy the OEM RSB (which had come off at 5,000 miles years ago) and ponied up $500 to put it back in place....
STAP ME! Gollum is now as fecking quiet as a Mercedes again! No longer do my morning errands begin with a slight clenching of my jaw muscles at that old familiar audible insult. Thank you Jeremy!
So Gollum is back to perfect, at 106,000 miles or so, except for just one little worry.
Jeremy also, as he inspected the car carefully, found a little seep of coolant from the gasket that sits on the front edge of the block below in the intake, and seats the oil filter housing - just a little one.
So now my preflight routine includes lifting the bonnet and checking the coolant level. I've added only a few ounces in the last 10 days, so I am playing defense for now - if I play offense as I'd prefer the labor drives the butcher's bill 10 a touch over $1k to fix it - a bit steep at present time.
But I guess the headline is that I now OWN Gollum! After 60 months of payments and over 100k miles of grins we are still intact, and looking forward to carrying on for quite a while yet!
So that's all (I shall spare you the Gloucester Schooner Race stories).
So I finally brought Jeremy the OEM RSB (which had come off at 5,000 miles years ago) and ponied up $500 to put it back in place....
STAP ME! Gollum is now as fecking quiet as a Mercedes again! No longer do my morning errands begin with a slight clenching of my jaw muscles at that old familiar audible insult. Thank you Jeremy!
Charlie
Im confused as to why you spent $500 to put the stock bar back in place? Lubing the bushings would have solved your noise!!
I had what I thought was a rattle, once I lubed the NM 25mm bushings, noise went away!!
Oh we did not skip that step kind sir! As I mentioned we'd been nibbling on it for a year - bushings (with nice grease fitting thanks NM) and end links were our first suspects when we began to suspect the RSB.
But silence is good now, and one feature of my ride from Magnolia to Gloucester is the trip across the Blyman drawbridge. That cleverly shaped early 20th century bit of engineering produces a sharp steel sill of slightly more than 1" in height that is angled at about 65 degrees (not 90) so as to diabolically tweak any stiff suspension. As I cross that bridge four to six times a day, and no longer race Gollum, it seemed reasonable.
And now Eddy won't worry about me spinning in a high speed sweeper.... ;-)
A trick I learned a few years ago for noisy sway bar bushings: wrap the bar with a few rounds of Teflon plumbers tape where the bushing mounts to it. The tape will help “lubricate” the bar, and take up any slack that might be in the bushing. Nice and quiet!
And now Eddy won't worry about me spinning in a high speed sweeper.... ;-)
Cheers,
Charlie
I may have mentioned that issue a time or 2... But for a driver of your experience, never a worry.
Glad the Falkens are working out for you. I see the new ‘Stone RE71RS are in the States and the the price on TR has jumped ($225 for the 215-45x17). Makes the Falkens even more attractive.
I think (have not tested this theory) that the poly bushings on these larger sway bars compress out and degrade over time when they are heavily used. That is, when they are repeatedly compressed by high loads from the sway bar. I am currently running into what I think is this issue with my 25mm RSB and 27mm FSB on my R56. On the road, they are quiet. However after a session on the track, they start to make noise. Well, at least something starts to make noise. On the ride home after a day on the the track, they will actually return to being quiet. I have put the car up in the air and taken a crow bar to them to no avail. But I can find nothing else that will make noise. I am currently rebuildling the suspension on the R56 (new camberplates, shocks and springs) and will see if that makes a difference (found issues with those). If not, then it will be new swaybar bushings.
Glad to hear you have resolve the issue on Gollum. After you have had a chance to play with Gollum in its new configuration, let us know what you think of its handling ...
I shall spare you the Gloucester Schooner Race stories
And it is not fair to put out a teaser like this and not tell the story...
Well fall arriveth in Magnolia, and dear Gollum sprang a leak.
My sharp-eyed friend (now chief wrench after Joel's departure) spotted this leak on August 23rd. He showed me. The engine undertray showed evidence, and the front side of the block was seeping coolant.
The culprit was the gasket between the block and the "oil filter housing - heat exchanger". Duly noted, and thank you Jeremy. So I have coolant and oil passing outside the block through said gasket(s) and into a PLASTIC part! Oh mercy.
Perhaps that makes sense, I am not a materials engineer.
So I started checking the overflow tank every morning, with a gallon of coolant at the ready. Every 2-3 days I'd add a few ounces.
From then until now, I used almost all of a gallon, so if Jeremy had not been so keen eyed I'd have had trouble!
The offending part:
The corpus delecti:
In detail:
Zoom to gaskets:
'tis a small thing is it not? But potentially fatal.
During the process, the gent doing the work (Rob) noted that the oil filter housing showed some heat damage - although coolant had not been out of spec, nor any alarms triggered. MoP replaced that part out of caution and without charge to me, which is wonderful of them to do.
Also, the Continental DWS 6+ are going on, and a full detail, so Gollum shall be ready for the winter!
MoP claimed they wanted to buy Gollum, so I said what's the number. They lost enthusiasm when the sales staff realized the mileage - hard to make money flipping a used car with over 100k miles.
They had no hope anyway, as Gollum is perfect - years ahead!
A friend got out of my passenger seat after a nice chat, and closed the door.
It did not latch. No polite persuasion could convince it to latch. Some very clever spray on grease to ease the stiffness in that mechanism did not convince it to latch.
So I drove down to Peabody. On 128 the wind pressure was sufficient to secure the passenger door, but I did have to grab it for a few turns just to be safe. It is awkward to drive a standard while holding the opposite door shut.
Mini of Peabody greeted me in the person of Yegor, a trusted friend. After deliberation I got bad news and good news.
The bad news is that:
> the latch actuator is the first component on a new door - before the glass, window motors, stereo, etc.
> the F56 has had a few failures, so the symptoms are not new
> previously, my friend Joel DeCoff (now teaching at Essex Aggie, formally the crew chief for Gollum) tore one of these damned things apart to bare bones and still could not find the fault
> the replacement (mostly labor I suspect) comes to the tidy sum of $789............
The good news is this:
> When Yegor came out to the car to see the issue, the first time he closed the door it latched!!!!
So I will not be taking any passengers until at least spring time, which is no great sacrifice as I rarely have that need.
Maybe the door knew it was in trouble and decided to behave for the Yegor “monster”.
Years ago the passenger door on our R50 wouldn’t open for my sister-in-law. She started to panic because she couldn’t get out. We had a snap freeze after some rain and I thought that the mechanism might have frozen as a result. I took an infrared propane heater and warmed the door, which made it work. I never did figure out why the door handles, inside and out, didn’t work. But they have worked ever since. Hope the same for yours...
Today's challenge was simple, and predictable, and I'm the dummy.
The battery died.
If you had not previously appreciated the pervasive use of electrical juice in this car, a dead batter is eye-opening. Doors do not close, nor open, nor windows do their little party tricks, nor the boot, nor finally and tragically - the starter!
Do not allow a weak battery in the F56 - I was warned four months ago and feeling poor I jammed my fingers in my ears. Bad idea.
The F56 moves a LOT of electricity! When I was autocrossing, and using the electrohydralic steering system vigorously and flamboyantly, I read that the it was drawing north of 60 AMPS - that is welding current. But for Gollum that was a healthy alternator but no capable reservoir of said energy - NFG.
So I jumped the car, which did not work - Gina got Vanessa to bring the cables to Pratty's where I was marooned, but no joy.
Plan B was the "Jump Start Power Pack" hidden in the back room of the Crow's Nest, but despite Billy plugging that Puppy in it declined to take a charge.
Plan C was borrowing Greg's 1986 MR2 and fetching HIS jumpers from the garage in front of the Cayman, and they thankfully worked a treat!
Meanwhile poor Gollum doesn't know the day, the time, where his windows are or much else, but once the engine started we could go to the doctors, which we did.
$400 dollars later my old friend is healthy and hearty and ready for love.
Thought y'all might get a charge out of that anecdote..
I have a sneaking suspicion that the new battery will have also healed the door latch problem, but I have not yet dared the experiment.
Cheers,
Charlie
So my dear friend Salvi needed a ride home from the Nest this afternoon, and I volunteered. Honor & privilege, etc.
Then I remembered the passenger side door!
I told Salvi the whole sad story, including the $745 repair estimate if the door declined ever to close, and apologized, and told him the boot would be uncomfortable and undignified but it was up to him.
He said "No problem"!
So I turned the car around, and pulled up to the curb, and released my belt, and unlocked the boot, and started to get out....
Before I could say "boo!" Salvi smoothly opened the passenger side door, and sat down, and looked at me as though I was a mad man...
I bounced off the headliner for a minute trying to express to Salvi that he had just ignored my story, and leapt over a cliff that I feared. He just grinned, and reminded me the door latched.
I calmed down, took him home, whereupon he departed, after closing and opening said door three times - without issue.
So now I have a two-door again. Reckon it was the battery. Thanks Salvi you SOB!!! ;-)
During the 30's a pier was built, splitting the eastern inner harbor into what is now North Channel and South Channel. It extended to what was originally Five Pound Island, and supported extensive wharf space, refrigerated storage, and fish processing facilities. It came in handy during the 40's when Gloucester Fleet fed our troops in Europe, and ultimately also fed the impoverished and often starving victims of war in the late forties. As I recall the local fleet (20 times greater than now) often landed a million pounds of redfish a day from the North Atlantic grounds.
Here is the pier on the opening day.
Here is the pier this morning.
On a seperate note, Gollum is around 111.7k miles and pulls like a train while as smooth as a watch. Still flawless!
Life does throw fakes however - a couple of days ago Gollum threw the "DRIVETRAIN MALFUNCTION" message on the main console (no CEL) on my way home.
Yesterday the wonderful pit crew at Mini of Peabody informed me that (as was the case on 12/21/2022!) the Dinan Elite had offered an out of range suggestion regarding the fuel pressure and it caused the ECU to sneeze.
Since the car had run perfectly throughout these circumstances (as was the case a year ago) I took the same remedy - precisely nothing.
During the 30's a pier was built, splitting the eastern inner harbor into what is now North Channel and South Channel. It extended to what was originally Five Pound Island, and supported extensive wharf space, refrigerated storage, and fish processing facilities. It came in handy during the 40's when Gloucester Fleet fed our troops in Europe, and ultimately also fed the impoverished and often starving victims of war in the late forties. As I recall the local fleet (20 times greater than now) often landed a million pounds of redfish a day from the North Atlantic grounds.
Here is the pier on the opening day.
Here is the pier this morning.
On a seperate note, Gollum is around 111.7k miles and pulls like a train while as smooth as a watch. Still flawless!
Life does throw fakes however - a couple of days ago Gollum threw the "DRIVETRAIN MALFUNCTION" message on the main console (no CEL) on my way home.
Yesterday the wonderful pit crew at Mini of Peabody informed me that (as was the case on 12/21/2022!) the Dinan Elite had offered an out of range suggestion regarding the fuel pressure and it caused the ECU to sneeze.
Since the car had run perfectly throughout these circumstances (as was the case a year ago) I took the same remedy - precisely nothing.
Not a ripple or hiccup since.
Happy New Year all you Miniacs!
Cheers,
Charlie
Have you had to do any repair like cleaning the intake valve, replace a water pump, or replace motor mounts? And how often did you change your oil and filter?
Thanks
Charlie - Great story about the big fish story. That area is so rich in history.
Glad to hear Gollum is alive and well, and is still bring on the smiles. I share you enthusiasm for the car with Albert, although lately he has been under wraps given the amount of salt that has been dumped on the roads and has yet to be washed away.
Happy New Year - May the smiles continue for another year.
06-16-2022, 04:24 PM
However I did read that the latest version of the Bridgestone RE71s is supposed to be coming to the States this year.
But for a driver of your experience, never a worry. 
I have put the car up in the air and taken a crow bar to them to no avail. But I can find nothing else that will make noise. I am currently rebuildling the suspension on the R56 (new camberplates, shocks and springs) and will see if that makes a difference (found issues with those). If not, then it will be new swaybar bushings.
