19th August 2007
Thankfully not a twist like last time! My dad and I took his 2007 MX-5 along with the Hondas-On-Track guys and girls for a sessioned day at Combe. I had a lot of fun with the car at North Weald and it didn't disappoint on track.
On a nice open circuit like Combe it comes alive - it really does handle beautifully! You have to switch the traction control system off or it will get upset very quickly, and the ABS cuts in far too early, but after a few laps it was clear that the chassis is very nicely balanced and the limited slip diff makes getting on the power early a very safe thing indeed! In fact, I had to flick it into a chicane off the power and jump on it again in 2nd to get even a hint of oversteer.
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6th July 2007
Today I dodged the showers and delivered my shell to TGM for them to turn it into a race car!
Everything I've done over the last few months has been leading up to this. I've given them a lot of work to do but the end result will deffinitely be worth it. I don't want to give too much away yet but, the car will come back looking completely different, certainly like no other racing CRX that I know of.
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4th July 2007
Part of my grand plan for the car involves a complete base colour change, and one of the things I want to have done is the wheel arches. Trouble is, they are covered in black underseal stuff much like the sound deadening tar that was all over the floor inside the car. It was bad enough removing that from inside, but the wheel arches are 10 times worse.
I used a wire brush attachment on a grinder as well as a smaller one on a drill. I've managed to get 90% of it off leaving only the hard-to-get-at places for someone else to do. Not much fun though sat pretty much inside the arch, getting showered in hot bits of underseal and wire from the brush and the noise... arg! So I've decided to get the bodyshop to do the rear arches, mainly because I really really don't mind paying someone to do the job, but also just incase the rust has come back and they fall to bits!
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24th June 2007
Car wise anyway. It's been a difficult month+ without much progress. However, I have now finally got the shell sitting on a trolley and I've removed all of the suspension and sub frames so there is literally not a single nut or bolt left attached. Hopefully I can get it to the bodyshop next weekend for the paint work and various other cosmetic tweaks - all shall be revealed shortly!
I finally got around to uploading the second video from Brands Hatch in December which shows a bit of the 'mini race' I had with Chris and Neil and their ex-CRX Challenge race car. It's a split screen view from both of our on-board cameras so it's quite good for comparisons. I've also been testing a high-def online video provider so soon I will be able to offer much better quality videos.
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5th May 2007
I won't say too much, I'll let the pictures do the talking. All I will say is that this is a huge step towards getting the car ready to race and Custom Cages have done a great job, and I'm really really chuffed at the moment. There's a lot of work to do and a long way to go, but this was a big milestone!
The cage is made from CDS and is fully welded in (no going back now!) so offers the absolute maximum protection for the best weight and cost. The guys at Custom turned the car around in 5 working days which is really impressive, and I was very pleased with the way they dealt with the project. Highly recommended!
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13th April 2007
First off, a little update on the CRX. I've decided to finish the car and do a full season with it and see how I get on. I'm aiming to get the car finished and ready to test for August, with the intention of doing a full race in September.
There is a huge amount of work to do to get to that point though. Task 1 is the roll cage so the car has been stripped down to a bare shell, leaving only the steering column, pedal box and suspension. I'm taking it up to Custom Cages shortly for a multi-point weld in cage which although expensive, is going to offer the best crash protection and shell strength.
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4th March 2007
Ok stick with me here because I've got nearly 3 months of stuff to cover! It does culminate in Saturdays track day at Castle Combe though, which didn't exactly go as planned.
I can't remember if it was late in December or early in January, but somewhere along the line I bought a new engine. It was a known good engine that had already had head work so I bought it thinking it would be a good engine to start modifying for more power, while also being lower mileage so hopefully more reliable. Not that I'd had any problems with the old engine, but it was starting to smoke a little.
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