Eunos Chump

The car wasn't ready until 8pm the night beforehand, but I made it and it was another excellent day. It's certainly the most scenic track I've driven, with lots of elevation changes and sharp turns. This meant my horsepower advantage was less useful, and I had to let those on semi-slicks through! The indignity! I had a good go though, scuffing up the tyres very nicely and getting held up by RX7/8s. The day before I'd had to replace ALL of the brake calipers. When I went to fit the new pads, one of the rears was leaking, and the other had a torn dust seal with a heavily rusted piston nestling inside... and the auto-adjuster was nothing more than metal swarf. I got them from a nearby factor and quite a bit cheaper than MX5Parts, but one of them was lost en-route from another branch and I had to go to Portsmouth to get the replacement. That poxy Halfords caliper paint is RUBBISH too, check out the photo above; that was after 4 laps. Every track day has a victim. There w...

Some professional photos from the Bovington event. Look how big and clever I am! Currently the car is still outside on axle stands, so it's not looking good for Cadwell on Friday. I've rebuilt the front calipers using new seals and pistons, but one of them still has a slight weep!!! I've wasted 3 bloody days on them, so I'm doing what I should have done at the start - buy new ones. This means a trip to MX5 Parts in Portsmouth tomorrow; there is no leeway for further problems!

I noticed evidence of a fluid leak on the offside front caliper when fitting new pads, so I ordered a couple of seal kits from MX5Parts.co.uk. On taking them apart (I blew them out using the air line at the petrol station), the NSF piston is pitted badly, though it hadn't leaked. I've ordered a pair of replacements so it should be back in action by Wednesday - Friday is Cadwell Park. While the calipers have been off, I've painted them chav yellow! They've taken 4 coats so far and they still look a bit rubbish, wish I hadn't started to be honest. Fitted the other 2 silicon coolant hoses, and applied some more heat shield tape around the turbo.

After doing a bit more research, I discovered it is possible to run the Megasquirt EBC without a TPS after all. In the boost target table (not duty table), you simply enter the same target in every cell. What to actually set is a mystery; after some experiments, I'm running 52 in each cell which give a maximum 10psi. And 10psi is rapid . But not as rapid as 14psi, which is what it hit when the boost controller hose blew off - the overboost cut in, which resulted in some kangaroo action, then an intercooler hose blew off. It was all very exciting... There has also been exhaust manifold aggravation too. I found the turbo nuts loose following Bovington, attempted to tighten them and one of the studs sheared (yes, again). Whipped it off, also found a crack in the fancy expensive ETD manifold!!! I'm sure this is because the Greddy front pipe doesn't feature a flexi-pipe, I'm going to have to get one made up. Mrs B took the broken goods on a grand tour of all the loc...

Had to leave the house at 6am for this... on a Sunday! Outrageous. Anyway, it was pretty good and I did enjoy it, but there were some problems that spoilt it to a degree. First, bloody great lumps of concrete all around the track, some of them even on it (though those areas where coned off). There was very little space to make mistakes. Second, it rained late morning and didn't let up all day, and although there was a surprising amount of grip for a concrete surface it didn't do my confidence any good. And finally, there were a few muppets on the track, possibly frustrated by having to queue to get on track and then being slowed by regular yellow flags. I had 4 big incidents (I wished for an ejector seat when I started to lose it at 70mph on a wet bend), but car and driver survived unscathed. This wasn't the case for others, with another M3 wrecked along with this MX5, which rolled. There were a few lesser incidents too, nobody hurt but I'm not sure I'll be up f...

Had to trip to Norfolk this weekend, and drove this big dinosaur. Like Star Trek, I thought it would be rubbish but again it was FREAKING AWESOME! Look at it shifting some wood, how very manly! I loved it, it made me feel like a little kid and I would dearly like it, but the fuel costs would just be ruinous. MonkeyBoy loved it too, and normally he has no interest in motors. The Berlingo felt like a cereal box in comparison. Norfolk was en-route to Scunthorpe, where I bought a set of 15" Enkei wheels for the Mazda. One of them is a little more battered than advertised, but appears straight. They're white so I'll need to paint 'em and get some R888 or R1R rubber on 'em, hopefully in time for Cadwell Park. I've removed the AFM from the Mazda, and fitted the IAT sensor (using JB Weld bodging paste). Had some trouble with the fuel pump. You need to tap the purple wire from the Megasquirt to the green wire on the fuel pump relay, I used a scotchlock which didn't...