GimmeShelter

Gorgeous car, great attention to detail! Love it.

Just caught up with this thread. Haith, what a fantastic car, well done!!

I've just had a similar conversation with a very nice lady at the Sporthotel Exclusive in San Vigilio. She said that Barbara is not there at the moment, but she has seen the emails coming through and will reply to them very soon. Incidentally, I stayed at a hotel in this region a few years ago. It too was run by a German-speaking family, and I learned that the whole region is German-speaking (because of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, apparently). We also drove through three valleys where they speak modern-day versions of Latin, known as Ladin. And to think that we all thought Latin was as dead as dead can be ... The whole area is stunningly beautiful.

I've just spoken with Anke at the hotel My Tirol, to check that she'd received my email. She said she has received quite a few Gruppe Bernau emails and will be replying to them all this afternoon.

This is what the car looks like. Stance seems OK, I think.

Oh, and clearance under the front undertray (ballasted, as it says in the photo above) is 105mm. Which maybe is a bit low. On the other hand, it didn't scrape on those dreadful square speed bumps on the local road that I have to use to get home.

Now the front camber is about -1 degree, whereas I was thinking more of half a degree. But given the ride height (quite low), that's the smallest camber setting I can get it to, without modifying the suspension top mounts, as the tops are now as close to the wings as you can get them. And as you'll see, the wheel arch heights are 622mm at the front and 605mm at the rear, ie almost identical to Mean in Green and MaxDiesel's above. Plus the wheels look good in the arches and there's no sign (yet, anyway) of any tyre-to-arch contact. So my current plan is to leave it as it is and see how I get on with it. From the 80-odd miles driven so far, I like it very much. The car rides very well, the Bilsteins make it feel planted but well damped and the steering is feelsome and precise. In other words, I feel very happy with the chassis. So we'll see.

Update on the geo: I spent a while sorting out the ride height, and then roughly setting the camber, caster and toe. According to the original specs, the front torsion bar caps (centres) should be 124mm lower than the rear torsion bar cap centres. So I got it to 125mm, drove it to Northway (not Center Gravity, long story ..) where they measured it at 123mm. So, happy with the rake and probably the ride height (but read on). The geo settings are now:

+1 (well, two, really) for the Baden Baden (or such) stopover on the way down. I've just sent the five emails and booked the Garni Chesa Mulin via the link and Relais du Ried on booking.com. Within minutes, I'd received a reply from Nathalie at Bergheimat - good service! Thank you, Richard, for the great organisation, it's really appreciated. We're really looking forward David & Tracey

GimmeShelter is plus 1 as well. Ta. BTW, we go away on holiday in just over a week, so I hope we can book the hotels before we go. Thanks.

Running in ... Thank you for all the positive comments, guys.

The car is at last coming together. There have been some real ups and downs: mostly, suppliers letting me down, and aftermarket components not fitting/working. But one that really threw me was a couple of weeks ago when a certifying engineer from Bureau Veritas arrived, saying he wanted to test the 2-poster lift where my car was 'parked' on the floor between the posts. "No need to move the car," he said, "Just position the lift arms and we can run it up on the lift, if that's alright." "Yeah, no problem, go ahead," I said, so he ran the lift up to the top of its travel, with my car on it - where it promptly jammed. And that was that. My car was up on the lift, stuck, for two days. Anyway, this is how it looks today: There's still work to do on the interior and the suspension geometry, but we're nearly there. It drives, and I've been going through the running-in procedure.

Yes, and there will indeed be two of us (hell, we'll even share a room!). Many thanks. By the way, I'm very happy with the way you're organising this. Having organised trips myself, the "it's not a democracy" (just limited to a few suggestions/inputs) approach works just fine. We're just grateful that someone is doing this.

Thanks for the reply. We've discussed it and still want to come anyway. Looking forward.

Incidentally, owners of modern Volvos, Mazdas (not MX-5s) and Fords can presumably defeat laser guns as they seem to emit the same waveband from their AEB systems.