Eunos Chump

Early morning, and it was cold and damp... I was on different wheels and brand-new Toyo T1Rs... It was another excellent MoT event, especially in the afternoon when the track dried out.  The morning was mostly frightening, especially Druids which not only was very slippery, but I kept getting wrong (often arriving too fast and on the wrong side of the track).  Mi5 from the MX5Nutz forum unfortunately put his Mk2 into the barrier, there was a lot of panel damage but the car is still straight, apparently.   Car was great, the torsen differential gave phenomenal grip around tight bends (in fact my neck is still aching), and the bigger wheels/tyres have gone a long way to curb it's skittish feel. I've got a camera mount in the car now, which is very handy for catching those magical moments such as the grass-mowing incident at the end of this clip... The turbo was very hot following this, and had worked loose of course.  Other casualties are the brakes (suspect boiled

I had this roll bar fitted by Tim Lane yesterday, and I'm very pleased with it.  It's a very substantial bit of kit but it hardly impedes on the seat travel, and it's away from your head, something that can't be said of it's expensive American alternative.  It took the best part of 3 hours to fit (though I just hung about drinking tea and holding the occasional spanner, as is becoming the norm), and most of that was dismantling then reassembling the trim.  It looked pretty easy to fit DIY, 10 holes to drill and cutting some squares out of the thin removable steel panel  under the parcel shelf. I've decided to do Brands Hatch on the 4th December now, if the car is broken I'll just take the Beemer and smoke everybody out.  Tyres are shot so I've got some more T1Rs coming - this time to go on the 15" wheels I bought back in May and have done nothing with.  They're white... respray in pink perhaps?  Mmmmm...

I've been enjoying Forza 3, but not with the poxy gamepad.  I've got the Microsoft wheel/pedals now and it's hugely ACE and transforms the game.  It sat so high on the desk I needed to make up a kind-of drop shelf though... But not only does it improve your in-game lap times, it doubles up as a wing for real-world performance gains! This is going to be worth seconds around Brands Hatch:

...and I'm done with expensive upgrades, with updating drivers/Java/.Net/DirectX, with trying to kill processes, it's OVER.  I've bought a Xbox 360 instead, with Modern Warfare 2, Forza 3 and GTA4 'Episodes from Liberty City', all for less than the price of an upgrade.  The best bit is sticking the disk in and having it just WORK; no tinkering with graphical settings, no optimising memory.  Forza is my current favourite, it's very similar to Gran Turismo and features some of the best and most exotic cars in the world, such as this: Check out that mean machine clashing with the powah of the Yaris! The real MX5 is back on the road, after my brother fitted the new differential, prop and driveshafts.  I assisted, mostly by reminding him he hadn't drunk his tea.  I wasn't hands-on enough to post a guide, but probably the most difficult bit was detaching the diff from the PPF.  One of the driveshafts needed plenty of persuasion from a large hammer before i