Mk2.5 Hillclimb/Sprinter

6 Speed? I think that shares oil with the box.

Think only 5speed needs the turret oil

I think the 5 speed's turret could be given something thicker, greasier.. and less likely to leak out. doesn't have to be the gearbox oil spec, there's almost no chance the turrent can leak fluid into the gearbox itself.

I'm still annoyed I've had to cancel my entry for Lydden on Saturday. It was pretty much the first event I booked for the season (and would have been my first with CM), and it has been on the calendar for months, but my wife managed to book our daughter's 8th birthday party on the same day. At least I'll get to muck about at Ninja Warrior with the kids though!

I'm booked to do a sprint at Rushmoor (near Aldershot) on Sunday instead, which won't be as good as Lydden. It's in our Speed League and I've never done it before so will still be interesting and good to get some more points on the board.

Hmmm, the jury’s out on the clutch still- it feels a bit soft when I launch off the start line. The brakes though are flipping amazing, really really good.

However, all was not well at Lydden. It felt like the car was really misfiring on full throttle upchanges & if I stamped on the accelerator, had to carry a lot of speed through the corners to make up for it. The journey home was a PITA as the misfire got worse. Only had to touch the throttle & was getting overboost leading to ECU triggered boost cut.
Back in the garage, I spotted a slight crack in the downpipe. Jacked the car up & took it off- luckily a friend just up the road has a TIG & he fixed it for me. Whilst the DP was off & out of the way, I swapped from a hybrid arrangement of the near side engine mount being an IL Motorsport rubber one to a Skidnation Performance one. It made a huge difference having these on both sides & the NVH is nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I got the DP back from my friend & as it was off + I had some in stock, I lava wrapped it to try to prevent some of the underbonnet heat build up.

I took the car for a drive after this & the flipping overboost was still there- balls!

I popped in on my MOT guy, who is also a Subaru nut, & he lent me a pressure tester to play with. Immediately it was bloody obvious; the wastegate actuator was split & the wastegate wasn’t opening. After a quick call to Leigh at BOFI to make sure they had stock, I wizzed over there & collected a very shiny(!) Forge one. It was fitted that afternoon along with a new Turbosmart waste gate valve. Massive difference. After a bit of fiddling about to get the boost correct, the MX5 is back! 😁

So, have been having a few issues with the turbo recently. It’s been running really hot, in fact hot enough to split the coolant hoses where they attach to the core via banjos.
Thought I’d get the turbo refreshed by a local guy who is very knowledgeable about Subaru turbos. It turns out my turbo isn’t a TD04- it’s something smaller called a TF 035. So it’s taken a little bit of jiggery pokery to get turbines & compressors to fit. Whilst I was at it, I asked the Subaru bloke if he had any old water pipes lying about, he had & they are significantly different to the little banjos supplied in the kits. They are significantly longer & take the rubber pipe to metal pipe about 100mm away from the turbo, therefore hopefully making the joint more robust.
I’ve also done a lot of testing on the EBC circuitry to try & get it to work, redone the soldering on the ECU & tested all the wiring- IT STILL DOESNT BLOODY WORK🤬

Looking at the map, the mixture looks a bit lean now so I’ve emailed Alex at Digitune for a full remap.

Yes, the little turbo is instantly reactive to throttle input. The only downside is that the torque produced is a little lower at about 210ft/lbs than a TD04 but produces a broadly similar output of 235-242hp on the 5 rolling road sessions I’ve done.