Eunos Chump

I passed my final CCNP exam today!  This has nothing to do with cars but will remind me I need to renew it in 3 years.  I celebrated with tea and toast, a nap on the sofa, then Toy Story 3 in the evening.  It was very good, which is just as well as the novelty of 3D cinema has already worn off for me.

I haven't posted much recently because nothing has broken.  It's quite astonishing, although the MX has seen no track action it's covered thousands of miles in the past few weeks, much of it in juvenile idiot-mode.  It does chuck out quite a bit of blue smoke on the overrun sometimes, and the oil pressure isn't all it was... I've never rebuilt an engine before, could be a winter project. I went to the Goodwood Breakfast last weekend, with a few other MX5s and TVRs I met up with in Guildford (it was a gentle quiet drive and no laws were broken, OK?)  I've never seen it so busy, cars were arranged around the track as far as the eye could see.  Here are some photos - 2 of them are cars I am considering buying, can you spot them? I've carried out the foamectomy of the MX driver's seat, and so far it's excellent.  I sit a good couple of inches lower in the car, and suddenly everything is in the right place - the instruments, steering wheel, door mirro...

I had a run through a MRI scanner the other day, and it appears I'm not made of any of the above ingredients.  I am full of gross meat and bone though, enjoy!

I've been ill the past few days.  I thought it was hayfever initially but it grew into a fever and a splitting headache.  That was 4 days ago, I'm feeling slightly better now (I can use the PC! Look!), but I don't recall ever being that ill for that long before.  This has obviously meant no motoring-related shenanigans of late, but the Mazda continues to run without issue.  I don't much enjoy it's heavy on/off clutch in traffic queues, nor it's demand for Optimax (it runs poorly on plain unleaded), but we still get along fine.  I'd go out in it now, if it wasn't full of pollen.

It's fixed!  It didn't run very well at first, it may have been because it had sat idle for weeks but I retuned it with TunerStudio again and it seems better.  This is just as well, because I was just about at the end of my tether with it yesterday.  I'm getting very bored of chucking money at it with no result.  I've also had a bit of a mare with some fuel injectors I bought recently (which is too long and tedious to detail here, but it seems that problem isn't yet resolved).  All I want is to use the car, and not have it break or require large sums of money (or lots of small sums of money). Monkeyboy and I took it to the New Forest today.  It was like bloody winter with the wind and rain but we still had fun.  He's developing quite an eye for young ladies, I find it amusing and charming to watch him in action - he's pretty smooth, it's a trait he certainly didn't inherit from me!

I bit the bullet and ordered a new manifold from ETD Racing , it arrived within 5 days.  It's not fixed yet though as I'm on holiday* in Manchester at the mo'.  I've bought new gaskets and some socket cap bolts to cut down into studs (these being 12.9 tensile strength, better than the usual 8.8 found in automotive stuff).  Hopefully it'll be operational this weekend, then TRACKDAYZ!  I've not bothered renewing my Mazda-on-Track membership, they don't offer enough days and those they do tend to be inconvenient mid-week fixtures.  I think I'll be going with Focussed Events from now on, they have about 300 events a year and the prices are much the same. * easy IT training course with short hours and plush hotel .

The Mazda went into the garage today to have a flexible section put into the frontpipe.  I used a new place Mrs B discovered, they can actually weld stuff, which is an art little practiced in Basingstoke.  That's the good news, the bad new is the bloody exhaust manifold is BUGGERED.  It's misshappen at the turbo flange and it won't seal, a new one is the only solution.  It's $449 and only available from Canada, which means another 30% in shipping/duty.  I'm getting a bit tired of this now, I might as well get a Ferrari - at least it will look nice when it's sitting on stands outside the house!