Hmm. Time for some attention to the brakes me thinks

[monkeymax]

Fair point. I took mine to Wheels in motion, spent almost two hours there (on non-seized up suspension bits) discussing it and getting what I wanted bang on. Granted, probably not a racing-spec setup, but still pretty good for my £100 quid.

[jnoiles]

No offense, but if spending another £150 and 1/2 to a full day sorting them for the sake of paying the mortgage and to put food on the table, perhaps racing isn't right for you at the moment.

I didn't mean that literally An exaggeration to illustrate a point

[jnoiles]

Don't forget that a proper alignment done for you could cost up to £100 anyway.

a "proper" alignment will cost you £200-250 minimum. a half ar$ed laser job by the local alignment place costs £100. its fine for road cars, its worth spending the extra on race cars though. a few percent here and there can be the difference between 1st and 10th in a spec series.

Indeed. I know someone who can do this for me at a reasonable price. And yes, a proper one, not an alignment in the driveway with a couple of plates and a laser. And when the time comes that I've done all the suspension stuff (that's apparently more essential than a cage, harness and fire extinguisher ) I'll bring it round to his and have it done.

[Jim-SR]

Fair point. I took mine to Wheels in motion, spent almost two hours there (on non-seized up suspension bits) discussing it and getting what I wanted bang on. Granted, probably not a racing-spec setup, but still pretty good for my £100 quid.

for road cars its more than adequate. the main difference between road car places and race car places is the attention to detail. on a road car having the toe correct to the nearest mm is acceptable, having cambers to within 0.3 degs (or worse) side to side is acceptable. your average alignment mechanic isnt going to spend an extra hour (or more!) tweaking the setup so that its identical side to side. they dont roll the car back and forth and bounce it between adjustments either. you can pretty much bet that if you drive it down the road to settle it then come back the settings will have changed substantially.

[monkeymax]

Yeah, as I said earlier, I'm aware the requirements for race are much tighter than road. I do think it's worth getting it well set up for the road though - you can notice the difference. WiM did roll the car back and forth and bounced it between adjustments, before suggesting I could drive it around a bit before double checking the readings and giving me my printout (this is one of the reasons I was so impressed with them really). So not sure I could 'go backwards' by going to an average alignment mechanic again after that.

Sorry for taking your topic so off topic jnoiles!! You're right though - cage, harnesses and extinguisher definitely come first!

[jnoiles]

Sorry for taking your topic so off topic jnoiles!! You're right though - cage, harnesses and extinguisher definitely come first!

No worries. It's kind of meandering all over. Interesting stuff comes out of threads that do that.