Sorry if some parts don't make sense, it's copied and pasted from Nutz.
So, as some may remember, I had this which I built up from scratch to a damn good spec:
But I had an itch for a Honda, it wouldn't go away, so I swapped it for this, B16, ITR cams, ITR box, Cusco diff etc:
But within weeks I had the hankering for another RWD, the FWD didn't feel the same on track, and I couldn't do drift days, I ummed and arred between another MX5 and an E36 328, and ended up breaking the Civic for parts (the shell was rotten and I didn't want to pour money into it before selling it on), and then I bought this from mk1sam:
Spec as I bought it was: '97 1.8 MX5 86k miles Garage Vary front lip OE rear lip RS Aizawa headlamp lid HKS replica air filter Nardi replica steering wheel Mk3 MX5 gear knob Sparco Rev seat Smoked sidelights & side repeaters And most importantly, completely rust free.
It from was going to be used by Sam as a track car, hence the missing interior, but my priorities for using it on track were a little different. Contrary to what many believe, the carpet weighs about 2kg, and you don't notice the extra weight of it being there on track.
First thing to do was swap to Wipac Crystal headlights, £30 and it makes a huge difference to both the looks and the light output;
Then went to see a BRGjay, I took his hardtop and Harddog M2 roll bar. Also called dibs on his carpet, and his coilovers (not fitted in these pics, obviously). They're only TA Technix, but I couldn't live with the ride height any longer.
I'm also in two minds about whether to pull the soft top out. I'll lose ~20kg, and it frees up the parcel shelf, however, if I take the hardtop off, and go for a roof off drive, I risk being caught out if it rains...
Coilovers went on. The offside front being lower than the rest, because it's seized, so I can't do much about it, which sucks, because I'd like to raise it just a little bit. Need to try and free it off at some point tbh.
I then got booked onto Blyton for a shakedown, to see how it felt. Car was awesome, although it highlighted a few weaknesses. Brake fluid needed changing, definitely, pedal goes long after 5/10 minutes, something which never happened in the old car, so I've got some ATE Super Blue on order. And it needed new pads. Trip to the local motorfactors, £16 handed over, and that was them sorted, interestingly, I never needed to run anything more on my old one, and never had any brake problems on track, so why pay through the nose for some branded stuff that won't do anything better? Obviously, being an MX5, it needs more power, definitely. And a diff, it would just light the inside tyre up coming out of Twickers (a tight left hander). It doesn't handle that much worse than the old one, which was on suspension that costs 3x as much as the stuff on this, and was fully aligned, so I'm dead chuffed.
Had an awesome bit of fun with a mate in another MX5, but annoyingly, the camera didn't record. Bit of a shame really, he'd backed off to come off track, but had seen me coming and went again, I almost ran out of brakes and got a little too close to the back of him, he ended up letting me past, then I got some monster shift lock into a corner leaving me with an armful of opposite lock before realising I needed to back off and cool down...
Curb hopping (inspiration for wanting to get the photographer to get this shot came from the shot of a guy on another forum's M5 doing it, lol):
And the obligatory video, if anyone can shed any light on that canoeing rattling, please, feel free, I'm pretty sure it's mount related, since it did it on my old camera too, but I've put some foam on it where it mounts to the roll bar, and that doesn't seem to have done canoe either...
After Blyton, and realising I needed new fluid, I bought some ATE Super Blue. Decided rather than messing about doing it myself, I'd take it to my good friend Ricky (www.rickyp-rpm.co.uk/), got him to run that through, and fit my braided lines too:
And then my Megasquirt turned up, need to buy a new battery for my old Windows laptop, then I can get it installed and start mapping. Not expecting to gain loads to start with, but I want to get it in, and get used to using Tunerstudio before I get boost.
And then, something of a marmite mod, I decided I wanted to start to head down the retro route, so, first up, roundels! Inspired quite considerably by Horney... Personally, I love them, and it seems most others do too, but I'm sure there will be some out there who hate them.
Got my carpet in, finally, looks much tidier:
Took a trip to see Clive (stigatronix) at Autotronix to get a baseline figure for what the car's running before the Megasquirt goes on. It'd previously had 'the timing advanced to 14 degrees', but my rear canoe dyno was telling me whoever did it might've accidentally gone the wrong way. Quick check before the first dyno run proved that, it was actually at 8 degrees (stock is 10), and down on power.
124bhp & 112ft/lb
Timing advanced to 14 degrees (would have liked to have gone further, but it's lean up top, so he wouldn't do it) and another run...
131bhp & 118ft/lb. Much healthier.
And of course, the obligatory dyno shot:
I then spent a lot of time with my friend that made the splitter mounts up (the guy's a legend, I can't thank him enough) making the first part of my aero package, it's bolted to the car using the mounts that I assume would be for the air con rad, and, for the time being, it's just screwed through the front lip at the front (which gives more support than you'd expect, 70mph on the motorway did it no harm), but I have some steel mounts to bolt it to the tow hook on the front. We'll be able to revise and refine at a later date as required. It is rather... low. Bumps and dips on the road/motorway and it catches, speed bumps are pretty much a no go. Plan is to try to free off the seized coilover to raise the ride height slightly in a bid to increase clearance (and get it to a more sensible height in terms of geometry etc)
It looks god damn awesome though....
Harness bar then arrived, and I managed to get that and my OMP harness fitted in time for Cadwell. I also made up some stays for the front of the splitter - did the 'can you stand on it test', and it passed. I keep meaning to paint them black, but keep forgetting. Note to self, paint them black and don't forget.
Then I did Cadwell.
And what has become my favourite shot of the car;
Videos, there's only 2. First one features me getting held up by an MX5 race car and a Saxo race car, second one features me chasing down the above DC2.
After the monumental scraping I was getting from the splitter on even sensible roads, I figured that was a sensible time to unseize my coilover and raise the front up - massive thanks to that same friend again for that, he had it unstuck in a matter of minutes once I'd got it off the car. Then I headed off to Japfest, it was a long drive, and I was in uber fuel save mode.
My passenger managed to snap this en route. It's not perfect, but apparently it's quite difficult to do a panoramic shot in a moving vehicle.
My shot of it on the MX5Nutz/CombustionPunks stand:
And since then, progress has been non-existent. Aside from changing the rear pads thanks to a sticky caliper. I did, however, snap this quick pic the other day at a mate's unit.
And got a few pics with a mate's Saab today.
On the way home, I noticed the sky looking pretty cool, so the race was on to get somewhere I could get some shots. Not the best, but I'm reasonably happy with them.
OSF wheel bearing, i'd had a nasty vibration that got worse under load on that corner, new bearing fixed that just nicely.
Old one off;
New one on;
New front drop links too;
Rears will be done in the not too distant future, too.
And a pair of rear calipers and pads, since my old calipers would stick if I used the handbrake (so badly i'd worn through a set of rear pads in a month), so i'd been avoiding using it for a fair old while;
Saturday, I headed up to a mate's unit to do some exhaust tuning. I'd been running a completely standard exhaust since I got it and was just craving some more noise. With the intention of boost in the future, I didn't want to spend on an aftermarket exhaust, so made do with what we had.
Chop the backbox from an OEM pipe, grab a silencer (it came off a DC2, was passed on for free to a mate who was going to use it on his turbo Civic, who passed it on free to my mate building a DC2, and subsequently on to me, for free. It's a bit of a whore), weld that on, take some 3" pipe, cut a few slits in it, and bend it inwards to match a part of the OE tailpipe - which was now exiting the bumper at JDM y0 angle - and tack. It's not the prettiest thing around where it joins, but that's hidden inside the bumper, so doesn't really matter. Et voila. (note having the hardtop off, since my drivers window cable has snapped and it was so hot on Saturday with the hardtop on)
Went to Fueled Society on Sunday, roof down again since no one was home Saturday night to help me refit the hardtop.
And then my new wheels turned up. I spotted a mate had posted them on FB on Friday, messaged him, he told me to ring the company he works for and speak to them. Anyone who knows me knows I hate speaking on the phone, so that shows how much I actually wanted these. They're the same as I got for my old one a month or so before I sold it (incidentally, i'd also had my mate do my exhaust on that about the same time, too), so hopefully that won't be repeated this time... They're BBS RZs from an E30 Tailgate McNoIndicate, 15x7 ET24, fit perfectly IMO, and kinda go with the retro style i'm going for. Somewhere down the line I might refurb them gold/bronze, but for now, they're OE silver. So another trip up to Rickys to get him to swap the tyres off my Impuls and balance them, and they were fitted.
First up, Niggle got these pics at the Super Peaks meet;
Headed down to a mate's to get the ECU in.
First job was to get the narrowband lambda out and the wideband fitted, check.
Fit the IAT sensor so we can delete the MAF sensor, check.
Nice tidy engine bay;
It wouldn't fire straight away, so we pulled a plug, confirmed it had spark, then sprayed some easy start into the inlet and it started to fire, so we knew it was fuel. Bridged the pump and it was fine, so left it like that for a few days while I messaged Rev, and he informed me there was a jumper in the ECU which might need changing, swapped that over and it works perfectly now. Have done a bit of autotuning and smoothed the map out a bit, it's been quite a steep learning curve, but I think i'm getting the hang of it, daren't touch the ignition timing though without any form of knock detection, though, need to get booked in with Clive, at Autotronix for that.
Jass Performance gear surround fitted, planning to get a TT style gaiter at some point;
And a stunning shot from a meet:
Went for a drive in the Peaks a while back and really liked this pic I managed to grab;
Finally mounted my fire extinguisher:
Japfest 2;
Then the splitter came off. I managed to bend some of the mounts, and obviously had to remove it to straighten them. It's staying off for the time being as I quite like the front end without it (I think the front stays are my main bugbear) but will go back on for trackdays etc.
This was one of the mounts...
Went to get a few vid of the exhaust, papped a few phone pics while I was at it;
Here's the brief vid.
It pops and burbles a little on the overrun now, since i've retarded the timing and leaned out the low load cells. It's nothing lairy, but it's just enough that I feel it's in keeping with the theme of a sort of old school racer.
Went up to my old friend, and regular mechanic Rickys to get my front calipers rebuilt...
Passenger side rebuilt and fitted with new discs and pads, plus a bit of a tart up;
Drivers side however (the one that had been sticking) didn't want to part with the piston, so a new caliper was bought, and again, fitted with new discs and pads;
Tape applied to the headlights to give it a bit more of an angry 'face';
And then I pulled the soft top out. An hour and a half to do, in fading light, and 16kg saved (vinyl roof w/ heated glass screen) and a bit of storage space reacquired. Plan is to remove the vinyl from the frame and make a kind of bikini top to take with me if I ever take the hardtop off, for protection against downpours etc.
Finally got around to doing my exhintake swap (for those who don't know, you basically use the exhaust cam from another 1.8 with the cam angle sensor tang chopped off on the intake side and gain a whole load of duration - see here: www.diymiata.com/exhintake.html), I knew when I bought the car that a spare exhaust cam had been supplied, but what I hadn't realised was that a spare pulley had been supplied already drilled for the new cam. So a couple of days after we got back from our holiday in Germany (unfortunately I didn't get to take my car this time), box of bits in tow, I headed down to a mate's to crack on.
One BP06 exhaust cam;
[/URL]
And although you can't actually tell, 2 BP06 exhaust cams;
When we timed it back up, we were certain the inlet cam must have been a tooth off previously, fired it up, idled nicely and took it for a drive. All good. Did a spot of auto-tuning on the way home in an effort to try and better the fuelling given the extra duration of the cam. And that was about it.
Today I headed over to see Clive (stigatronix) at Autotronix to see about getting another dyno run to get an idea of whether any power had been gained. Adjusted the fuelling and timing very slightly up top and the torque peak dropped by about 500rpm, so we left it at that (i'd only gone over for a power run, so wasn't expecting Clive to spend any time playing about, so i'm thankful that he even spent any time having a play about);
So, before the ECU and cam, the figures were; 131.8bhp @ 6644rpm 118lb/ft @ 5287rpm
And after; 133.7bhp @ 6463rpm 118lb/ft @ 5443rpm
So, looking at the dyno figures, the peak torque and power figures are actually closer together, however comparing the two plots, the later graph shows that it's over 130bhp about 500rpm sooner and it holds it, which is good. Torque seems to be a little more peaky though, which is bad. On the butt dyno, it does seem to pull much stronger at the top though. I'll definitely have to get it booked in at some point for it all optimising properly.
A few bits and pieces to report, the other night I spent some time out with a friend doing the driving while I had a play about with the tune.
First port of call was working on the accel enrichment. Ended up pulling a lot of fuel out on the enrichment to get rid of the super rich point on tip in. Throttle transition sorted.
After that we spent a bit of time working on the fuelling, first thing I did was turn the EGO correction to 0% authority, so it didn't keep playing about with my fuelling. Since adding the exhintake, it'd decided to run really rich at WOT, down to low 12 AFRs, so we did a few pulls pulling fuel out and trying again, once we'd got that looking much healthier, a bit of part throttle adjustment was needed, in an attempt to get it relatively lean at motorway cruise load cells, looking for decent economy at a cruise.
Fuelling adjusted nicely, we looked a little at timing. It's something i'd not really played with much, but upon reassurance from my friend that on an engine as low comp as this, it's unlikely we'd be going as far as doing damage, we had a play about. Using the same section of road, we did a pull between two points, before adding half a degree of timing in. After adding that in, we found we'd gained around 300rpm over the same distance. So we added another half a degree in, and this time, we'd hit the limiter before the second point. A noticeable gain, which was really nice to see.
By this point, it was getting a little late, so we called it a night. But we'd seen some really good gains not only in butt dyno power, but driveability, so we both went home happy. Obviously time spent on a dyno could yield more gains, but for an hour or two on the road, the car felt much better, even from the passenger seat.
This turned up today. A count of the gears confirms it is a 4.62:1 ratio. So I need to buy a Torsen (or some other form of LSD) to fit it to at some point, to hopefully get a nice bump in acceleration.
Continuing with the chassis bracing idea I mentioned earlier, I keep looking into a pair of door bars, although it'll be a case of finding some which work with the Hard Dog roll bar (I don't really want to pay the price of HD door bars + import etc), and when I'm capable of moving around freely again, I want to pull the front wings off and create some flitch braces too, since a lot of folk seem to claim they make a bit of a difference.
So, the 'to do' list has been getting longer. I've got my frame rails and final drive to fit (when I get an LSD), i've still got my ITBs to fit, my oil cooler has sat untouched, and I need to get some lines made up for that. And in more mundane areas, i've still got to fit my new window regulator so my drivers side window goes up and down, and it's long overdue a service.
But, despite all that, after the little bit of mapping done by me and a friend a couple of month back, I managed to get a power run done to get an idea of how it's changed. I was actually sorting the mapping for emissions for the MOT, and Clive threw the offer of a power run out there, so why not?
139.8bhp @ 6546rpm 123lb/ft @ 5658rpm
A nice little increase all round. Still got the noticeable lack of torque below 4500rpm, because i've not really focused on that area. And it's rare i'm in that zone if i'm trying to drive fast. There's still enough torque for it to be quick enough around town.
And today I managed to get my new wheels on, having bought them back in December. I must say, i'm really, really pleased with them. Not only do they look great, but they're also in good condition, a bit of a rarity for me when it comes to wheels. JDM whores may recognise them as Work Emotion CR Kai, non-JDM whores will also recognise them as such, since you've just read it. I love them. They're a slightly higher offset than the BBSs (ET27 now opposed to ET24 on the BBSs), but the difference isn't really noticeable, they still sit nicely.
And one taken by a mate:
Roundels are off. Thanks to Robfo for the use of his Tardis to get rid of the residue.
Car looks a lot tidier IMO. Gave it a quick wash and a wax today, so went to get some pics. Being the moron that I am, I forgot to take my polarising filter, so window reflections galore. I did, however, take my tripod and not use it.
Couple of pics of the interior, too. Just because.
This weekend saw my first trackday in almost a year, and what a day it was. Booked through MOT Motorsport (formerly Mazda On Track), it was primarily MX5s and Hondas, so there was a lot of stuff to play with. Took the chance to check the fuelling with the engine getting hot, so if anything were to melt etc, it was relatively close to home, rather than at Anglesey next month. As it happens, it did need some fuel adding in at the top end.
Pictures from the day:
Mate's first drive of the car:
One of my early sessions (the CRX we pass ends up running wide on one corner in a cloud of gravel, before sliding back on to the track, and snapping into a spin, which made for interesting viewing in the mirror):
And one of my sessions having a bit of fun with a mk2 MX5 (on Yokohama AD08Rs!), which was a LOT of fun:
Spent the day at an old mate's garage (http://www.rickyp-rpm.co.uk/ I know I keep plugging it, but he's a massive help) changing engine, box and diff oil, all very much overdue, and also fitting my P5 frame rails. Easy to fit, especially with the detailed instructions supplied by Phil. :thumb-up2:
First impressions (i've only had a steady drive home so far) are that the car rattles and shakes over bumps and pot holes much, much less, where before potholes used to shudder through the whole car, they feel less intrusive than on a car with standard suspension now. Yet to test the difference they make when pressing on, but they're proving extremely promising so far.
Bought a mate's Personal steering wheel since he changed to a dished one (horn button has since been straightened):
Then made the long slog to Anglesey, with a few mates. Awesome weekend, absolutely loved it. Only issue was with a drop link popping off the rubber, but nothing that took more than 5 minutes to fix. Car held up it's own as usual, although I did get passed by an MX5, although, in my defence, it was supercharged, and looked pretty bloody fast. Did the usual M3 baiting again too, trolololol.
This was the only video I got though, unfortunately. Feels a bit odd for me to watch back since my videos are usually just when i'm 'on it', but this has me playing about with my mate, which - partly due to him having a few issues, partly due to his lack of driving ability - means I do quite a few slow laps...
Bought an oil cooler a while back, but it was massive, something like 23 row, and it didn't have the pipes, so I bought this to fit instead. Not got round to it yet, but I will. Hopefully stop the 120c+ temps on track...
Went for a drive with some friends. They seemed to enjoy my choice of roads.
And finally pulled the plug on getting some 'proper' suspension, to replace the TA Technix, which, whilst they were fine on the road, they were too soft for track use imo (see Anglesey pics for proof...), so to replace them I looked between MeisterR and HSD, in the end, I went with the Meisters. The Zeta R in fact (there's a slight wait on the Zeta S, I believe, so I thought why the hell not). Spring rates are 10kg/6kg (560lb/336lb), which actually concerned me a bit, would they be too stiff for B roads etc?
Went to a mate's on Saturday to help with a few bits on his car, and get them on, a nice easy job, and no stuck bolts, thanks to the TAs having only been on for a little over a year.
Initial impressions were that, yes, it was far too stiff for B roads. It was horrendously stiff, although on quicker roads - A roads - it was fine. Anyhow, I decided to see how the dampers were set, all were as they came out the box, which turned out to be 'click' 23 of 32, so on the stiffer end of the scale. I've turned them all back to the softest setting, and my God, it's like a different car, I genuinely believe it doesn't ride much worse than OEM, which is great, it gives me that compliancy back for B roads, and means that I can turn them up somewhat considerably for track work. All in all, a bloody good buy, I must say.
Let's start this post with a rare picture. I took the roof off... Only for a few hours, mind, but it happened.
After that brief moment of insanity was overcome, I took a trip to see guitarjon who kindly detailed the car for me. By Christ does it look better for it, I'd taken to washing it at a jet wash, and using the brush to clean it, and it'd become a state. Now, it's like a different car, back to being almost as clean as when I first bought it.
That evening, I took a trip over to Warrington to pick up a new exhaust. The old one had a rattle from the backbox which was annoying, and was a bit loud on long journeys, which had also gotten to be a bit annoying, and so, when this popped up, I jumped at the chance. It looks similar to a Car Make Corns exhaust, but the backbox is much larger, so i'm not sure what it is. While trying to ID it on Facebook, someone mentioned it being a Corns 'silent' exhaust, however the closest thing I can see is on Rev9's site, and the backbox on that is separate to the tailpipe and the mid pipe, so i'm not sure - although, this has definitely had some welding done where the pipes join on both sides of the backbox, so perhaps someone chose to make it all one? I dunno... I've also read that they're not that silent, where this one actually is really quiet - from inside, at least. Unfortunately, mine being a late Mk1, it has a 475mm cat, which means the exhaust doesn't fit properly. I've got it on, but the rubbers are really stretched, and the tailpipe sticks out far too much beyond the bumper. It'll do, however, until I can afford/find a suitable manifold, when i'll also get a 370mm cat, and it should fit fine and dandy.
Hopefully the seller won't mind me stealing his photo, I couldn't believe the condition of it, which he was telling me was down to a brief soak in alloy wheel cleaner, and having seen a 'before' photo, I was even more amazed at the condition it's now in.
And on the car...
And on to something i've been meaning to do for a while. On track oil temps were regularly showing in excess of 120c, and knocking on the door of 150c, so i've been wanting to fit a cooler for some time. With an evening at Cadwell looming, now seemed as good a time as ever. The kit I have didn't come with a thermostatic sandwich plate, so I ummed and arred about fitting the cooler, or just using the filter relocation and running the lines across the grill opening, thinking the extra oil capacity and cooling effect of the air hitting the lines may have been enough, but in the end we chose to fit the cooler, it's actually relatively hidden away at the top of the rad, and unless you're about at ground level, you can't really see it.
This is about the best photo I have of it, unfortunately:
The journey home confirmed to me that i'll have to block it off on the road, however, since this was the best the temp got to, and through winter, I imagine it'll be considerably less, so some form of blanking will be made for it that i'll then remove for track use.
Cadwell went well. Little bit of clutch slip if I was aggressive with gear changes on long sessions, but other than that, faultless. Oil temps never went above 95c either, which is awesome. That's about what it sat at on the road before the cooler went on. Still doesn't get up to temp on the road, so I still need to create a block off, but i'm very happy that it doesn't get hot on track now. Had a couple of 'moments', using all of the exit kurb coming out of Charlies 2 on to Park straight, and again all of the kurb and some of the grass at the exit of Park, so I like to think I was definitely pushing.
Unfortunately I didn't get a single video, however, I did have one hell of a play with my mate Phil late in the day which was awesome, and the cars proved to be pretty bloody even - despite the fact he has better tyres and had an alignment (I have better suspension and a lot more track knowledge though).
And Phil's video chasing me:
And I took it to Rodders to get it aligned, except it was too low. The tools wouldn't even go on the wheels. So I had to raise it up considerably, better - in theory - for handling, but not so much for looks. Ah well, hopefully next time i'm out on track it'll want to understeer a LOT less on corner entry now...
Went to a local meet and a mate sent me this snap:
Then went to Blyton for the MX5OC event. Afternoon of open pit sounds promising, right? Yeah, not so much. Organisation wise, I don't have anything to complain about - it was the first time I recall seeing blue flags used for slower cars, it was all efficient etc etc.
The car, however, pissed me off something chronic. What was just a slight issue at Cadwell with spinning the nearside wheel out of slower corners manifested into a massive problem at Blyton, since the Eastern circuit which we were running had many slow corners. So I was constantly struggling to accelerate at anything over 1/4 throttle, obviously this impedes progress pretty drastically, and as such, it led to me being rather down. I don't know what it is exactly, but it was doing it before the alignment, and wasn't doing it previously, so although I think the lack of diff is playing a massive part in it since that single wheel can obviously spin up a lot easier than if it were being fed by an LSD, I think the main culprit is the stiffer suspension teamed with the Bridgestones almost being down to the wear markers. So this leaves me with the dilemma of paying slightly more for stickier tyres that will be a helluva lot less durable (the Bridgestones have done about 15k miles and 5 or 6 trackdays, and still aren't completely down to the limiters!), or go for the Bridgestones again, and hope they work better than the current almost dead ones, especially when teamed with an LSD.
And the circuit... I gelled with the Outer circuit last time I was there, back in March, however this Eastern circuit didn't seem to flow as well at all, and one section was so bumpy that even with my dampers backed right off, I was struggling for grip under braking. Perhaps it was the car not behaving as i'd like that was leaving this sour taste, but i'll not be in any rush to go back to do the Eastern circuit.
No track pics, unfortunately, however I did manage to get these;
Me, and a couple of mates looking like the odd ones out with our hardtops:
Mine at the end of the day:
I also managed to Canoe up the metering on my camera that morning whilst playing about with it, which means my videos are all but useless too, since you can't really see much outside of the cabin. If you want to have a look, feel free. You'll no doubt notice the monumental traction issue I speak of...
There's this 20 minute one with a bit of traffic:
And this short one which features my first spin since my first track day. Whilst being chased by PhilRS, I screw up the entry into the first corner, and lose the back end.
As I say, being chased by Phil. Who also had his camera on, and hadn't screwed up the settings (skip the first minute or so). It's worth noting the smoke you can see from the back of my car exiting certain cars is coming from the tyre. I wanted to make a point of just how bad it was. It's worth noting, he has Federal RSRs vs my Bridgestone RE002s, he has an LSD vs my open diff, he has standard Bilsteins with lowering springs (I think) vs my MeisterR Zeta Rs. (and for some reason the video won't embed, it just keeps becoming a URL, meh):
I'm not entirely sure what happened. I thought at first I'd trail braked in, but you can in Phil's video i'm off the brakes well before the back end breaks free, but then, watching my video, my revs are much lower than i'd usually let them drop, so i'm not sure whether that wheel had slowed a lot more under braking (as it can be seen to do a few times on that same corner in the previous video) and managed to unsettle the car. All I know is, I screwed up.
As I said originally, it wasn't the most pleasant time i've had at a track, it's actually the first time in a LONG time that i've not been ecstatic with how the car performed, so I guess it's overdue. I've decided no more track time till i've got a diff, and possibly some new tyres, too.
And finally, whilst out with a friend watching the Vulcan do a display as part of it's V Force tour, I papped a couple of quick shots of the car looking clean:
Went for a drive with a couple of mates, someone made a good point about the cars. 2 are convertibles, being used as coupes, the other is available as a coupe but is a convertible....
This one is courtesy of Ste;
Went to PainterDave's open day, PGD Phil got this awesome shot:
Anyway, on a more exciting note, ordered this little thing. Ordered the Wednesday lunchtime, and it arrived Thursday morning. Good work Ashcroft, good work indeed.
Got the old diff off, and a mate took it away to fit the LSD and Kia final drive:
He even gave it a quick lick of paint to tidy it up:
And so, I went to see how it felt...
Finally, no more inside wheel spin, the car definitely feels more pointy on throttle, much more reminiscent of my old car. Final drive is super short, too. 4000rpm = GPS confirmed 65mph. :mellow: Absolutely horrid on motorways, although it makes pulling out to pass cars easier, as you're well in to the power all the time. Can't really comment on whether there's improved acceleration overall, but in theory there definitely should be.
Set of Nankangs went on:
Standard front plate went back on, ever since having a picture next to a few friend's cars, I thought it looked too 'modified' with the square plate, now, with the rectangular plate on, i'm either not used to it, or don't think it looks quite right. Could perhaps do with being trimmed down. I dunno.
Did an evening at Cadwell at the end of August. It rained. Within minutes of the briefing finishing, to minutes after the track shut, it rained. It was fun though, and the Nankangs were great. I set them to 25psi cold, knowing I'd struggle to get much/any heat into them, and they were great.
Not a lot happened for a while, then. I just drove it. Then this past weekend I did a full day at Cadwell, it didn't rain. I did a session, then came in pretty hot and checked the tyre pressures. Dropped them down from the 31psi they'd reached, down to 26psi and noticed a massive improvement. The car felt great. Still managing to get a little inside wheelspin out of Mansfield though, which is disappointing, given the LSD. Had a great play with a guy on full slicks too, was expecting him to walk away, so was very, very happy to be able to keep up.
My only video of the day, and it was my first session. The metering's out of whack on the camera, and it started playing up after this. Brilliant.
Had a bit of a play with a mate, i'm in his video from about 14:30
We worked out from the timestamps on his Go Pro footage that it looked like I very possibly crept in under the 1:54 barrier too, which i'm ecstatic about. I only managed a 1:56 in the Honda, and that was a LOT faster in a straight line.
Oh, and later in the day (on my last session, as it happens) I managed to almost do Coppice flat. It's something i've been trying to do, and i'm at the point where i'm lifting the throttle just a few mm for a split second before I turn in now, which is more of a psychological barrier I need to overcome, since it's not really slowing the car at all.
Note how badly caked in brake dust the front wheels are? Yeah, my day was cut a little short when I came off track with the brakes screeching. I knew that was the end of my day.
Note there's actually a little pad left, it turned out it the indicators had broke, one on each side. The offside had actually snapped off and got wedged between the pad and the disc, the nearside had unclipped itself from the pad completely and was caught between the pad and the disc. Hence the screeching.
Had a mate take some cool ass shots of the car (I got sent them over FB messenger, saved them to my phone, then uploaded them to PB, so please, excuse the quality):
And that's about where my fun ended. A few days later, pulled on to the motorway in a 50 zone, moved to the middle lane behind a truck, to pass a car and heard a bang, then a flapping noise. First thoughts were that a belt had snapped, managed to get it into one of the construction entrances, so as not to block the motorway, and popped the bonnet to the sight of a spark plug sat on the rocker cover. It'd blown the plug out the head, stripping the threads with it. Got it recovered home and it's sat untouched for the last month.
I have, however, been collecting parts. Bought PhilRS's old head - a '99 JDM RS head. I can almost hear the heavy breathing you're doing reading that. Perfect.
Will be rebuilding that, giving it a hefty skim, and maybe a bit of port work too. I keep contemplating cams as well, but I don't want the hassle of having to measure what size shims would be needed etc.
All the stuff to rebuild it is here, I just need to get a mate who knows what he's doing to come and give me a hand with it:
To cheer myself up, I bought this sexy bit of metal from Vindi, too. Maruha VP manifold, anyone who knows these knows they're one of the best you can buy, and they retail at about £1500 new...
All being well, when it's all back together it should make some nice healthy figures, which should make it a bit more fun on track. It's also been retired from daily duties, which means I can get a bit more serious with it, which i'm pretty excited about...
So, eventually, with Phil's help, the head came off. Wasn't too bad to do really.
That left it looking like this (no idea why the photos are so potato spec and no idea why some are showing sideways either, they're the right way when I look at them on the Dropbox website.):
New head is with a mate who's going to rebuild it, do a little port work, and it'll get skimmed to up compression.
In the mean time, while it's off the road, I bought a new steering wheel to keep myself happy. Along with a snap off boss to bring it closer to me, since I was going from a dished wheel to a flat one. Have only sat in the car and made brum brum noises so far, but it feels awesome...
Since I have no radio now, I relocated my gauges to the air vents, meaning I could tidy it all up a bit, and to then plug the gap left by the radio/gauges, a mate said he could make me a plate up. Sent him some very rough dimensions and he brought around something to try. It very nearly fit first time, he took it away, refined it, brought it back. Fit wonderfully. So he took it and trimmed it in some alcantara and brought it back for me to fit. I'm over the moon with it tbh (it does fit much better than the photos make it out to).
Fitted new harness (By fitted, I mean all bar the crotch strap, so not really fitted);
Got head back from my mate who fettled the ports, and the machine shop, who built it back up after a 40 thou skim;
Cleaned the block face up a bit (well, Phil did);
Bolted some bits on;
The second start (obviously, I did the honours for the first start...) in 6 months, it never started this well on a standard inlet, lol. The map was completely untouched at this point, aside from recalibrating the TPS. Open downpipe, so loud as hell:
Aaaand, then it went away to Clive & Rick at Autotronix for a few days. Had a cat made up (big massive thing, almost looks like a sports cat), had the CV boots sorted so they didn't spit grease out, and was mapped to pass emissions. Passed with nothing more than an advisory for the NSR wheel bearing. Who said cars with ITBs won't pass emissions legitimately?
So then I went out and drove it for the first time in 6 months. Had to completely rebuild the fuel map after swapping from speed density (using the MAP sensor) to Alpha N (using the TPS), but a few hours out tuning with Phil, and it's extremely drivable, little bit of refinement needed on the fuelling, and i'll probably get it booked in with Clive for ignition and cam timing playing with, but i'm over the moon. The noise is ungodly.
Bought and fitted a Maruha speedo drive to try and correct my speedo a bit. It still over reads a bit, but nowhere near as much as it did.
Went for a drive out with Phil, since it'd been a while since both cars were on the road together.
Had a mate make me an oil catch can - which is pretty awesome...
Went to Cadwell. Got understeer. Got inside wheel spin. Went quicker than I have before (1:50). Killed my brake pads.
Yes, that last one shows how soft I run my suspension. Yes, that may play a part in my understeer. Yes, I will have a play about next time.
New brake pads should be here tomorrow, i've bought some new tyres (more on that soon), booked another trackday - well, two - and should be going for corner weighting and alignment between them.
Gatecrashed a Megane meet, someone took a cracking shot of the car...
Got some new tyres fitted (205/50/15 Kumho V70):
Turned the damping up on my coilovers, did Blyton, had much less understeer, smashed some kurbs:
canoeing destroyed one of the tyres, don't know how, was only the OSR that ended up butchered, NSR was more worn than the fronts, but nowhere near the OSR...
Fortunately Phil was willing to bring me his wheels to finish the afternoon/get home on. Top friend right there!
Sooooo got the Nankangs back on, fitted a sunstrip, and booked Blyton again for the following weekend, smashed more kurbs... Killed my brake pads by dinner time, swapped to my spares, did a couple of very steady sessions to bed them in a bit, think I killed them later in the afternoon though, so new ones needed again...
Went to see Clive for a dyno run to see what kind of power it's making now - bear in mind this has only really had the fuelling tuned, and playing with the ignition and cam timing would obviously net more... 152bhp @ 6950rpm, 120lb/ft @ 6200rpm... Slightly down on torque, considerably up on power, and the torque curve looks much smoother...
It is, completely out of the blue as well. Fortunately it's gone to a good home, and it freed up space for the replacement. I'll get a post up in the non-MX5 section at some point, although there'll not really be a lot of progress with it tbh, I just intend on driving it.
When you had the offset numberplate it looked quite small. Did you get motorbike size or something? Why did you change back to a normal one?
I'm not sure, it came with the small plate, it was cut down though, so could have started out as a normal import sized plate. I changed to a normal one after a picture next to a couple of mates cars and it just looked too modified, so to speak, and I wanted a more subtle look.
Simon: 600 quid to get through an MOT 2 weeks ago and now my crank pulley has decided it would like to be Bluetooth le sigh
Jul 15, 2023 20:03:52 GMT
atlex: at least you can get new crank pulleys!! :-)
Jul 18, 2023 10:29:14 GMT
Simon: Alas! turns out the keyway in the crank is knackered!
Jul 18, 2023 15:45:49 GMT
Zed.: there are other ways to repair, how bad is it?
Jul 25, 2023 15:55:37 GMT
atlex: And a murray murray crimbo to you all :-)
Dec 24, 2023 22:20:35 GMT
Zed.: condiments of the seasoning?
Dec 26, 2023 11:10:41 GMT
queenie: Hiya fellas and fellettes. My name is Gary, I am 72, live in rural Victoria (Australia), am an unashamed Anglophile and own a gold 1998 NB. I bought her in 2016, reflecting at the time that I had wanted a car like this since age 15. Yep, took me 50 years!
Dec 31, 2023 5:58:34 GMT
Deleted: Hey guys, I’m 49 & from the UK here! Currently restoring/upgrading a Mazda MX5 Eunos Roadster. Got a lot of work to do 🤯😩🫣🤣
Jun 30, 2024 16:21:03 GMT
Simon: Nice and quiet in here, but I'm back with vengance! Car with a knackered crank is now having a full rust and engine resto at Basset Down! Will be spenny, but excited to have a 'good' car again.
Jul 2, 2024 16:29:20 GMT
[/URL]
- means I do quite a few slow laps...
So I had to raise it up considerably, better - in theory - for handling, but not so much for looks. Ah well, hopefully next time i'm out on track it'll want to understeer a LOT less on corner entry now...
