B10 V8, No. 388

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alpina46
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by alpina46 » Sat Jul 16, 2022 4:35 pm

Great looking car 8) lovely colour
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:46 pm

Cheers Chap!

She does seem to be one of those cars that has never wanted for money spent and servicing. I have just done another oil change this afternoon (Motul 8100 5/30w & Mahle filter) and realised that over the last 3 years/5 K miles there have been 3 oil changes ( and a myriad of other things including plugs/coils etc etc).

The cheapie tin of a/c sealer and gas continue to work with everything nice and cold still :D

Wee road trip planned later this week up to Aviemore, tempted to do the old military road passing the Lecht and Tomintoul etc as it has been a while but time may be against us on that one.

Cheers

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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Thu Jul 21, 2022 10:33 pm

Stopped on the 'old military road' that turns off just opposite Balmoral Castle (flag up, Liz in etc) and heads over the hills towards Tomintoul. Tarmac very un-tarmackie (technical term....) in places with lots of compressions waiting to munch on Alpina's finest glass fibre spoilers, rippled and crumbling sections, lots of 2nd/3rd gear hairpin bends with the odd lepton -allowing straight usually ending in blind crests with 'which way does it turn now momments' :wink:

B10 lapped it up over 220 miles of A, B and unmarked road and returned a best ever of 25mpg! :mrgreen: I think we are finally seeing the fruits of all the tweaking with strong braking, crisp throttle response and just a bloody good drive. :lol:

The brown squiggly bit into the distance on the phot is the road and you can see it around one o'clock in the pic climbing out of the tree line then disappearing into the glen.

Cheers All,
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by Bob » Thu Jul 21, 2022 10:55 pm

Beautiful part of the world, you’re very fortunate to have that so close at hand. :mrgreen:
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Mon Jul 25, 2022 4:51 pm

Cheers Bob! I like to think I paid my penance with 17 years 'down south' around Cambridge, Bath, both South and North London and then Oxfordshire...!! To be fair, most of those were rather lovely areas to live :lol: The roads? well... :hand

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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Sun Sep 04, 2022 7:28 pm

388 hasn't seen much action of late, just couple of local trips to keep things ticking over. I did notice the spare wasn't keeping pressure, the tyre is a very old brand new (oxymoron time...) Michelin. Now it could be the rim leaking/porous etc but I thought I'd start with changing the valve insert first so £6 quid of amazons finest fitted a few hour ago and I'll check during the week.

The sunroof lining had started to look somewhat 2nd hand as it started to droop and then come away from the nearside leading edge. Didn't want a bodge job so I have removed the sunroof this afternoon to get a better look. Not sure whether to try and remove and carefully wash the original or source a new one to be honest. I may even try a local trimmer and let them do it as I want it to look as good as possible. I shall need to source at least 1x sunroof bellow. If anyone has one please get in touch :D

If anyone has attempted before any tips appreciated! It does also give me a chance to get into all the fluff and grease channels on the car and clean them all up too.

Cheers
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Sat Sep 10, 2022 2:41 pm

Well, eleven quids worth of upholstery spray adhesive (of which there is approximately £10.95 pence worth still in the tin... :lol: ) and all nicely stuck back on. Bit more faff adjusting everything correctly to reinstall but its back in and working. I'll leave it a day or two to properly stick and then remove the dirty marks left by yours truly with some AG shampoo but so far so good and far better than it looked a couple of week back.
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:29 pm

Well approaching that time of year when the road tax is due to run out and the car to disappear into the garage under a cover before the salt goes down.......but the weather this weekend was nice and dry so a couple of wee trips out for some hydrocarbon action :lol:

Lots of others clearly had the same idea with more Porsche than you could count, a 3 door Sierra RS500 Cosworth, lots of big bikes and the usual MG type stuff. Only 1 other Alpina though, a locally owned B4S in silver.

So far all the little tweaks are standing up and the headlining is still sticking up where its supposed to be :D Little pick from the very pretty Crail village.
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by Bob » Mon Sep 26, 2022 1:08 am

Very nice Kenny!

Was the B4S a Coupe or Cabrio, only one of each in Silver ... presuming it would've been the Coupe with an X prefix cherished plate?
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Mon Sep 26, 2022 12:31 pm

Hi Bob, yes its the silver coupe on the X. I know who he is but don't know him personally. He has had at least 4 Alpina consecutively that I can think of. Didn't realise B4's in silver were THAT rare!

Cheers

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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by Bob » Mon Sep 26, 2022 1:14 pm

Thanks Kenny.

In some ways silver was a popular colour for the B4S but then there's only 8 Coupes and 4 Cabrios, in 5 different colours, in the UK that's not so surprising. :lol:
- ALPINA Green: 3 x Coupe & 1 x Cabrio
- Snapper Rocks: 2 x Coupes & 1 x Cabrio
- Glacier Silver: 1 x Coupe & 1 x Cabrio
- Tanzanite Blue: 1 x Coupe & 1 x Cabrio
- ALPINA Blue: 1 x Coupe
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Thu Sep 29, 2022 7:32 pm

Winter coat on, sorn'd (boo etc) and the guard dog primed :D
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Wed Jan 04, 2023 8:55 pm

Happy New Year Peeps!

I have been a bit naughty.....some of you will frown, others will watch from afar! After looking at (ahem) other cars I decided that 388 wasn't going anywhere, but I also came to the conclusion that it really needed a little further titivation. To that end, various new suspension arms and bushes are being priced up from around the globe. I had considered replacing (genuine) dampers but the springs are only a few years old and the damping feels fine. It's the rubbery bits I sense that are needing some attention and after reading what others have done on here it seems a more sensible route.

That of course brings us onto the subject of power. It is well known that the 540/B10V8/M5 all share the same poor design of exhaust manifold(s). Quite why Alpina & M did all the other fancy stuff and compromised those is anyone's guess. So! After much research involving Russ Fellows (who I could never reach), Evolve & Supersprint I chanced upon decent deal for complete Supersprint extractor equal length set of headers (calm down at the back...). This will be mated up to all the original factory cats and full Alpina exhaust system. These exhausts (and cats) are known to be very good and I had no interest in altering noise levels or compromising originality. It is only the BMW manifolds being removed (these will of course be kept) so the car could be returned to stock at any point.

These are not cheap but they do give a dyno proven 25bhp ( and healthy increase in torque) on M5's before any other mods or mapping. If the B10 got say 10-15 bhp and similar torques from these then that would be a result, only time will tell. The extractor manifold is all equal length single tubes (nothing is siamesed) that build into the 4 pipe collector. A short adapter will be fabricated in order to join to the original system.


No other mods planned but the car deserves some gentle and considered improving after 24 years and if some of the no doubt missing ponies can be re-instated then that can only be good thing.

Cheers,

KennyP
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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by ScooBeeFive » Thu Jan 05, 2023 11:58 am

Fantastic - that sounds like a great upgrade. I definitely get your points regarding originality but I think manifolds are a subtle change - certainly no visual impact and only a slight change to the sound. The benefits will be well worth it.

I must admit, when I purchased my B5, I did consider a new exhaust to enhance the V8 soundtrack. There weren't many options so I'd decided if I was going to do it, it would be a Supersprint from Evolve. However, I had a last minute change of heart - it just didn't feel right to change the character of the car. I'm glad I kept it as Alpina intended now - the car has a unique character and it would have been a shame to have altered that. Especially as they are so rare. Also, as the car is a daily and we do family trips to France, I think a louder system could have proved tedious.

I look forward to seeing the results of this when your car comes out of hibernation - good luck!
Paul

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Re: B10 V8, No. 388

Post by KennyP » Tue Jan 17, 2023 6:50 pm

Hi Paul,

Same thoughts here, don't want to change the character of the car as such, simply a bit of gentle titivation. With that in mind, 'some' bits have now arrived!
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