A recently acquired car by a BMW enthusiast who by all accounts has a tendency to drive rapidly.
The car has 120000Kms and required a major sevice rocking seat repair and a big brake kit installation.
Regarding the big brake kit I have first hand experience with POWERBRAKE having fitted them to two of my cars.
I equally though explored the possibility of fitting VARI however after a thorough investigation of the VARI kit I felt that the benefit in cost saving was not worth the trouble and I equally did not want to get "married" to the car trying to sort out fitment issues.
I have visited both the VARI manufacturing facility as well as POWERBRAKE and the quality of machines employed by the companies are chalk and cheese.
POWERBRAKE use the latest HAAS 5 Axis CNC machines whilst VARI do not.
One can argue that the latest technology does not always translate into the best outcome however after meeting Clive one quickly gets to understand the reason that people in the Industry acknowledge him as "one of a handful of people"
POWERBRAKE is the benchmark in DAKAR cars and has recently made meaningful inroads with the specialist crowd in the USAs with some 80% of their production being exported.
I wish the guys had allowed me to photograph the facility so that I could show you.
I must equally add that for a budget kit there is nothing wrong with fitting VARI as there is always a difference of opinion in what constitutes "fit for purpose"
On with the pics
I had a few stripped threads on the head which is not uncommon with the s50B30 and B32
I use WURTH time serts to repair them and not helicoils.
Stripped the plenum as I needed to clean the oil catch can and replace the vent hoses as they were cracked and the car was cutting out with the suction of un metered air.
Whilst there cleaned things out a bit
The car has 120000Kms and required a major sevice rocking seat repair and a big brake kit installation.
Regarding the big brake kit I have first hand experience with POWERBRAKE having fitted them to two of my cars.
I equally though explored the possibility of fitting VARI however after a thorough investigation of the VARI kit I felt that the benefit in cost saving was not worth the trouble and I equally did not want to get "married" to the car trying to sort out fitment issues.
I have visited both the VARI manufacturing facility as well as POWERBRAKE and the quality of machines employed by the companies are chalk and cheese.
POWERBRAKE use the latest HAAS 5 Axis CNC machines whilst VARI do not.
One can argue that the latest technology does not always translate into the best outcome however after meeting Clive one quickly gets to understand the reason that people in the Industry acknowledge him as "one of a handful of people"
POWERBRAKE is the benchmark in DAKAR cars and has recently made meaningful inroads with the specialist crowd in the USAs with some 80% of their production being exported.
I wish the guys had allowed me to photograph the facility so that I could show you.
I must equally add that for a budget kit there is nothing wrong with fitting VARI as there is always a difference of opinion in what constitutes "fit for purpose"
On with the pics
I had a few stripped threads on the head which is not uncommon with the s50B30 and B32
I use WURTH time serts to repair them and not helicoils.
Stripped the plenum as I needed to clean the oil catch can and replace the vent hoses as they were cracked and the car was cutting out with the suction of un metered air.
Whilst there cleaned things out a bit
