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I installed the new intake today with the help of a reducer tube that I brought from http://siliconhoses.co.uk they managed to deliver it next day (even if I ordered it on the friday). I needed a conversion from the 80mm original air intake size to the 70mm diameter of the 318is maf intake tube. They had the 70-80 reducer on the shelf, and it was the correct length so I have not had to make more joins, or cut anything down. The new air intake had a hole for the temperature sensor also, so I pulled out the original sensor from the old air box (when I took the old paper filter out I noticed that there was glass in my air box, this must of been sucked in at croft when my intake tube came loose from the bumper and was rubbing against the floor.

Here is another picture with the new intake fitted. It sits behind the headlight so it can get the cooler air from here and not use the warm air thats in the engine bay (or so I have been told)

I have been running for most of last year and so far this year something thats known as a fogged air box, this is where the air box internals are removed, and the air intake pipe is repositioned so it gets cool air from the front of the car, I have been looking around for other options to try, and noticed something called a 'gruppe m' which is supposed to give you 5-7bhp gain in power, but these are a lot of money, so I dropped on a second hand replica the other day, and will try to get this to fit, its not exactly the correct model for my car, but I am sure it can be made to work.

BMW racing drivers club rounds seven and eight from the Snetterton circuit, close to Norfolk, this was my first visit to the circuit and unfortunately the car broke on the out lap of qualifying, so I was given the chance to do 3 laps of the track just before the first race of the meeting on the saturday, so I had no reference point to see how well I was doing as going around the circuit alone you never know if you are following the racing line.

I managed to pick up the van that I would be using for Croft at about 8 in the morning, so all was going well, I knew I had to change the oil in the engine and gearbox before I headed off for croft, so was hoping to leave the house by 1pm, this as normal did not go to plan, and I eventually left at 3pm, and then had the journey from hell (only to be bettered by Piers and Stephan from Bmsport, as there journey took 16 hours, 4 more than mine)

I got onto the M4 and hit traffic, due to an accident at J5 (I get on at J6) then again M25 was crawling, it took me 3 times the time to do the distance to the M1, and then the M1 was closed at J20-J21 due to accident, and after I got through this, it felt like there was continual roadworks on the way to the circuit, then when I got close, I turned left instead of right, and that delayed me more.

But once at the circuit I thought I would get the 2 races in (unlike last year) but this was not to be, when I woke up the saturday morning, I got the car off the trailer (pushed it off, as there are noise regulations at croft that are closely enforced) but when it was time to go to scrutineering the car would not start, looked like a flat battery (it was ok the night before), so I pushed it to the scrutineering and got the car thought, there was enough battery power to get the car lights to show.

I then started to search for some jump leads, or a charger, and luckily there was a few options open to me, so got the car charging, and prepared for the qualifying session.

At croft there were 8 class D cars out, and I qualified in 6th (not last) and the car seamed to be ok on the track, but one of the corners I was loosing power, so I put this down to fuel surge, but it was not this as I was to discover in the race 1.

At the call to go to the assembly area for race 1, the car again would not start, so I got push started, and made the assembly area, but it stopped again, and I needed to be pushed to the track (thanks to all that pushed) for the out lap to get to the grid the car was consistently stopping, and I was having to bump start the car all the time, so I decided that I would not make the lap, so pulled off to the side and informed the officials I was not going to make the race. So the croft curse struck again, and I did not do the race, but watched it with others, it looked good, and I wished I was on track with the others.

The next day I looked over the car, and borrowed an alternator from another competitor, as I had a suspicion that the alternator was not working properly, this was tested using a multimeter, so I started to swap the alternator, but I discovered that the alternator had got a loose connection, and when it was reconnected the battery would charge with the car running (problem fixed I hoped)

When race 2 was about to start, again the car had no power so I needed to get pushed to start the assembly lap, I was just hoping that I would get round the circuit to start the race (I was also terrified that the car would stall and I would not be able to restart it) but I managed to start, but the ABS system was then off, so I had to learn quickly to drive the car with no ABS, this also meant I lost touch with the other cars in the race, but a red flag stopped the race, and it meant that I could get back the gap, and for some strange reason the marshals pulled me to be alongside Paul Bellamy on the restart (I could not understand why this was, so I let the other cars that were behind me through first, as did not want arguments after)

On the race 2 restart, I noticed that the ABS was functioning again, so I attacked Ralph and Neil, who were in front of me, Paul B had an off on the first lap so he was also behind me, but attacking, we had contact on one corner, I could not move over anymore, and hit the tyre wall with the drivers mirror on my car, but we touched my front wing/bumper with the rear drivers side on his car, it was an enjoyable race, and I finished 7th out of the 8 class D cars that were out this weekend.

Lets just see if I get more than one race at snetterton, a circuit that I have not previously raced at, but from last years race (with 2 or 3 red flagged races) it could be an interesting weekend.

There is a video available on Facebook for the race 2 restart

This video was originally posted on Facebook and filmed by Kalie at the Croft Race for the bmwrdc in 2010

With the significant other being out of the country for the weekend, I took the opportunity to fit the new clutch and flywheel that I had since January.

Note: The old flywheel was about 17kg, the new single mass one is 6.5kg so a weight saving of just over 10kg.

As I had a spare engine, I swapped the entire engine, gearbox as one from the car, this seamed the easier solution, as I could put the new flywheel and clutch on the spare engine, in my own time, then rent a engine crane to lift out the whole engine, and I would not have to play with lots of extension bars to get to the bolts that are on the top of the engine (and a pain to get to)

I started the transplant at 10:00 in the morning, and proceeded to remove the front end of the car (makes access very easy) with the front of the car removed, I proceeded to undo the propshaft, and gear linkage, then it was time to remove all the cable connectors, water supply, and the fuel hoses (I noticed that I could not reuse the fuel clips due to there design, so I would need new ones), at 13:30 I had the old engine and gearbox removed from the car, all that was left to do now was put the new one back in.

Before I could put in the spare engine, I needed to transfer some parts from the old engine to the new one, items that were cut when the spare engine was removed like the water pipes, and fuel pipes.

I had also got a spare rocker cover painted in white, but took the decision to put back on the standard one, the intake manifold is painted gloss white though.

Once I had the new clips that I was missing (these were purchased on sunday morning) I proceeded to get the engine ready to start by turning over the crank with a 22mm socket with the plugs removed (to ensure the engine would turn over) then I proceeded to connect up the battery, but it did not start (flat battery) so I got the charger out, and charged the battery, then it was turned over with the plugs disconnected (just to ensure we have oil pressure and no leaks that I could see). Once I was happy, I connected the coil pack and the car started first time, all was well and a little trial (about 10 foot drive forward, and then reverse, to test it would move) and then to start the clean up (that could take just as long as it took to swap engines, as I got very messy changing the engine)

One of the BMW Kumho championship followers has created a set of files, overlays for a existing computer game GTR2, that has a following in the online gaming communities

To see a sample of the game in action check out this

To get the modifications yourself you have to download a set of files that are available on this link

The person thats put all this hard work in can be contacted on his own web pages on My Motive

As this was the first race of 2010, and over the winter I had done a few items mainly on the suspension setup, by replacing the bushes, I thought it would be a good time to test the car, as there was a test day on the friday before the race.

I booked myself on the afternoon session (I would get 3 20-30 minute sessions on track), I got to the circuit on time, I signed on all ok, but when I removed the car it sounded louder than normal, but with a noise test first, I did not think too much about it.

The first session was good, and the car felt a lot more planted than what I remember from last year, but bad news struck when I was about to head out for the second session, the car was blowing from the exhaust middle joint, it looked like the exhaust was broke (it was a cheap ebay item), so I jacked up the car, and confirmed that my exhaust had split completely in half around the joint, I decided that it was better to try and fix the car, and loose my track time (if i took the track time I may not be able to race tomorrow)

I searched all the paddock for anybody with a welder, I found people with welders, but missing gas, welders that needed special people to operate (and they were not there), so eventually I brought 2 legend teams together and got the exhaust welded up.

I qualified in a good spot, and made up over 8 seconds compared to last year, but still was just outside of a sub minute lap of the brands circuit.

The first race I had the camera mounted on the front bumper, so you can see the whole race there, I managed to get ahead of John Brabbin and kept him behind me for over half of the race, but he eventually passed me at druids.

The second race, I was following Sean and John when John had a big moment coming down from the paddock hill bend, and I nearly got past him, but he recovered, I felt that I kept with them better than last year.

With the season starting next weekend (17th April) at brands hatch, and there was a couple of jobs still outstanding on the car that needed to be sorted.

• Replace brake pads all round
• Remove the weight thats in the front and rear bumper carriers
• Refit the front wheel arch liners (to stop stones and debris going into the area behind the front wings.)
• Simple service items like changing filters, and checking oil levels
• Replace the brake fluid
• Put on the new doors (they still can be lightened in the future)
• Apply the stickers to the new doors and remove ones that are not this years sponsors.

The weight loss from the bumper carriers, was about 3-4kg when I removed the ends of the carriers, and got a new drill to cut out a lot of the material from them. I got told I can get them lighter if I use some of the alloy carriers that were used on early cars, but these are difficult to get hold of.

Next was to put on the new doors, that have been sprayed by Gary at 'the vehicle repair center' (http://www.vehiclerepaircenter.co.uk) and his company has joined as a sponsor of the bodywork this year, the photo does not look good as the rest of the car was so dirty, so that means a cleaning session is on the way, so out with the snow foam.

Still have the stickers to put onto the new doors, and as the championship has some new sponsors, a couple of existing ones needed to be removed, also we have a new regulation on the stickers, in that our surnames are to be on the front windscreen by the kumho windscreen sticker.

With only 2 weeks left till the first race of 2010, and there still being jobs that are needed on the car like

• Alignment
• Finish off the rear trailing arm bush (the one with the snapped bolt in)
• Lighten the car as much as I can
• Fit new clutch
• Tidy up the electrics and attempt to put on a coil on plug kit
• Locate a new supplier for the tow van, as last years supplier has none this year

As the above list keeps growing, some items are going to have to be delayed, like the clutch, as it should last for the first race at Brands Hatch.

Other items are not in my power to do like the alignment and removing the snapped bolt, so the car is going to get transported to BM Sport where Jags is used to snapped bolts, as he does it himself on a regular bases.

From what I could lighten I started this weekend on the bumper supports, there are fibreglass mounting structures behind the front and rear bumpers that can be reduced in weight, by drilling circular holes in them (had to buy a hole cutter drill bit) and you can also remove the ends of the bars, all aids to save about 2.5kg's per end of the car. The only problem that I encountered was after drilling about 7 holes, my drill ran out of charge, no problem you may think, but when I put the battery back on charge, it would not charge, so I can not finish the holes in the bumpers, although I did get the grinder out with a cutting wheel on and chopped off the outermost parts of the bumper support, and so far (not finished) have removed about 2kg of weight from the front bumper.

The electrics are waiting on a connector block to be sent from the suppliers.

The tow van has been sorted and I should be renting the same van for the coming season, so at least one thing has been done.