niknak.org

Bit of a gap since the last post but I'm still here, just busy working on other projects and not making time for website updates. Spending a lot of time upgrading and using the car, so here's a recent pic:

It had a full strip down and rebuild in the summer last year and over the winter I fitted the cage and some more carbon fibre. Off to Silverstone GP on April 26th and Brands Hatch GP on May 18th!

Blimey, it's October 2009. Where did that spring from?? It's rapidly getting colder, wetter, windier, darker and altogether gloomier outside. Summer is officially over and Autumn is in full swing, with Winter just about in earshot, waiting to interject. Which makes it a great time to kick off my 2009 track day season. In fact, here's a picture of me having fun, enjoying the great British weather.

That was taken just a few days ago on the GP circuit at Silverstone. It was wet, there were many slides, but all was good. Read more here. Only a month and a half earlier I was on the Southern circuit at Silverstone, which was brilliant fun. Read more about that one here. I might have a slight Silverstone addiction but I'm working on it. I'd like to visit some new places in 2010, perhaps in a different country. Anyway there's video from both days in the gallery so have a look.

In the meantime I've got the traditional end of year get together at Brands Hatch in December to look forward to. Although I won't be using the Caterham much before then. I discovered that I can save £130 by waiting until I'm 25 before renewing my insurance. Unfortunately that means the car will be tucked up in the garage for November, but that's not a great loss.

Anyway, I marked the end of Summer with a few fellow Caterham owners with the first official End Of Summer Blat To The Beach. It started off as a small group going for a drive on that looked like the last decent day of warm sunny weather. It turned into something much bigger though which hopefully we can repeat next year.

A few other things have happened since the last post. I've had a new bonnet on the Caterham (very long story) and feel like I've replaced my starter motor about 15 times. The iQ is going well with over 2,000 miles on the clock now. I've even had the pleasure of working on some exciting new projects at work.

So that will do for now. The next entry will be soon because I already know what I'm going to write!

It's been a long wait since I placed the order back in May but I got the call early last week to say my Toyota iQ had arrived, and I picked it up on Thursday evening. So far it's been brilliant and even better than I had hoped for.

The 998cc three pot is really impressive, managing to be pokey around town as well as good enough to cruise at 80+ on the motorway. The interior is well put together but some of the plastics are a bit of a let down and can get marked quite easily, and the lack of hidden storage space is a bit of an issue if you need to leave anything in the car. But for my needs it's going to be perfect and I'm really enjoying driving it.

That's a 32" telly, in the back of an iQ. Can't argue with that for versatility from a city car! I'm hoping to get some better shots of both cars together soon since I think they make quite a good pair, so check back in a few weeks...

Less than four days to go until the delivery date for my iQ and I'm getting a little paranoid, thinking any moment the dealer will call to let me know it's going to be delayed. It won't be the end of the world if that happens but I'm quite keen to have a car that I can just jump to any time and use. The Caterham's been great but it's a useless only car.

I've had to use it quite a bit over the last couple of weeks which to be honest has been quite fun, but what hasn't been fun is constantly running out of electricity. One day last week I parked up at work and came to start it at the end of the day to go home, and it barely turned over at all. Not amused. So I bought an Odyssey Extreme battery from Grand Prix Racewear yesterday which so far has completely solved my problems getting the car started.

Fitting it was a bit of a fiddle. I'd checked the dimmensions and believed it to be an easy fit, but typical of me I'd got confused while measuring up and in fact it didn't quite fit. I removed the old battery tray and a small amount of material from the side skin and outer chassis rail. It was a tight fit but it went in, but to be on the safe side I fabricated a tie-down strap as well.

The old battery had lasted for just over seven years so I can't complain too much, and an afternoon spent shaping and bending bits of metal was quite cool.

Now I'm going to enjoy a Toffee Crisp and watch Top Gear :)

That's a posh way of saying I have a dodgy right shoulder. I was invited to a karting evening with some colleagues last Thursday and when the time came to get ready, I began putting my race suit on and somehow managed to pop my shoulder out of the joint, as the following before and after x-rays show (look away now if you're squeamish).

This is the third occurrence and I'm sure it wont be the last. Once it's been dislocated, the joint is much more supple and susceptible to further problems. It's been four and a half years since the last incident though, which funnily enough was also car related, but I can at least be grateful it doesn't happen too often. Aside from the obvious pain involved, it's hugely irritating. I'm not able to work, can't drive, can't cycle, just have to wait for it to heal enough to start doing something useful. It's also quite embarrassing since most people are able to put on overalls without a trip to A&E.

The other gripe I have now is my track day booking at Castle Combe on June 26th - next Friday, 15 days after 'the incident'. I'm 100% committed to being fit again and the current rate of healing is encouraging, but it's a tall order. Nothing like a challenge though.

In other news, I've added the ability to leave comments on all blog entries, track day write-ups, videos and pictures. The feature is kindly provided by the nice people at DISQUS and even lets you use your existing Facebook or Twitter accounts to leave messages. If you don't have either of those, kudos for avoiding them. You can also register with DISQUS very easily and quickly without leaving the page you're commenting on. Have a look at the bottom of this article to see what I mean.

I'm still waiting for the iQ of course but the delivery date has been bumped forward so I've now got just four weeks to go. Hopefully. I can't wait anyway; I thought I'd enjoy having the Caterham as my only car over the summer, but it's not until there's no other option that it becomes such an incredible hassle to use.

Check back next weekend to see if I was fit/daft enough to drive at Combe!

UPDATE: June 25th

Looks like I won't be taking part tomorrow. I've just been for a short drive in the Caterham and although I can drive, after 20 minutes it was getting uncomfortable and I don't believe I could properly control the car in an emergency. It's senseless to risk my safety or anyone else's tomorrow, so for that reason I won't be driving. However, hopefully my Dad can enjoy some laps in the MX-5 instead.

It's that time of year again where my Volvo needs MOT and tax, and thanks to a battery that doesn't hold a charge and brakes and suspension that are both kaput, it's going to cost a significant amount of money to keep it on the road for another year. Combined with the poor fuel consumption and the fact I don't really need a car that big anymore, I made the decision to get something else. The short of the long is I've just ordered one of these!

It's a Toyota iQ which is a total departure from the Volvo in most ways, but importantly for me not the build quality or front passenger space. The iQ is the worlds smallest 4 seat car although in reality, it's really a 3+1. However, the space in the front is just about the same as the Volvo and in fact it feels much more airy. It's powered by a little baby 1.0 litre three cylinder engine producing a modest 67hp, but because the car weighs only a little over 800kg it's got enough poke for getting around town, which is the kind of driving I will normally be doing with it. That said, it also cruises along the motorway at 80mph very comfortably and quietly like a much larger car would.

The biggest selling points for me were the three year warranty, cheap yearly servicing, dirt cheap insurance, no MOTs to worry about and no tax to pay for whatsoever! The emissions are 99 somethings which means it's one of the first (if not the first) petrol car to be clean enough to pay no tax. And did I mention the fuel economy? 65mpg or over 450 miles from £30 of fuel. In the real world it's likely to be nearer 50mpg but even so, that's nearly three times better than what the Volvo has been delivering recently. I may end up buying petrol once every two months - fantastic! All this leaves me with more time and money to enjoy the Caterham. The iQ will practically look after itself.

Also worth a mention is Octagon Toyota in Reading. The sales process has been very smooth so far and it was a refreshing surprise when the sales guy handed me the keys to the demonstrator and said "take as long as you need, have fun!". Definitely the way to sell cars.

I was looking forward to a fond farewell to the Volvo but it decided to fight me every step of the way. I had to jump start it to maneuver it onto the drive to remove some of the sell-able items, then jump start it again when it was time to leave it with the dealer. I've taken advantage of the scrappage scheme so the Volvo has netted me £2000 off the iQ which is great considering I wouldn't expect to get £400 selling it privately without MOT or tax. It's been a great 3 years with the car, putting up with towing various cars and a general lack of servicing. I'd definitely buy another Volvo in the future.

So now I have a very long 10 week wait while my iQ is put together and shipped from Japan. I know it's a bit of a Marmite car but personally I love the distinctive looks and it's everything I need from a daily driver at the moment. In the meantime while I wait, I'll just have to use the Caterham a bit more. What a shame...

It's been a long time since I've had the opportunity to build a new PC for myself. I've been a fan of Shuttle PCs for the last six years or so but I've thrown in the towel after my outgoing model threw a hissy fit on Friday when I tried to enable the on-board graphics adapter. I'd returned home with a pair of new 19" monitors to supplement my main 20.1" monitor, with the plan being to drive them via the built in ATI Xpress graphics adapter.

However, as soon as I enabled the feature in the BIOS the system wouldn't start at all. Clearing the CMOS was the only solution and no matter what hardware I pulled out I could not get it to work. I very nearly took the monitors straight back to reconsider the whole thing, but then it occurred to me that the main CPU fan header on the motherboard had already fried, and my previous Shuttle mysteriously died a death, cause unknown. After four years of faithful (ish) service I thought it would be about time to just build a new system and move away from the cramped confines of a small form factor enclosure.

The good people at Novatech in Reading leapt to the rescue as soon as I wandered into the store and together we discussed what I wanted and what would work for my budget. I knew that the new PC needed more punch for software development and video editing so with that in mind I instructed that I wanted a 4 core CPU, 4Gb of memory and the ability to drive 4 monitors. Although Intel currently have the performance crown with the i7 chip, to build a system based around it would be staggeringly expensive. The equivalent AMD system doesn't really exist, but their top offering is very competitively priced and compares favourably with the top end Core 2 Duo quad core chips.

After a bit of fiddling with the spec to get the price and performance right, I placed the order and the parts were to arrive in Reading on Saturday. Unfortunately when I got home and had a closer look at everything I realised the monkey nice chap in the store had paired my CPU with an incompatible motherboard, and consequently this meant the memory was also wrong. I quickly found suitable alternatives and changed the order, and thankfully everything arrived ok.

I have to say, I was quite excited when I got home. I haven't built a PC for so long, it was like a trip down memory lane. I was pleased to see things have moved on a bit since back in the day; instructions are clearer (yes, I do read them), materials are nicer, the quality of finish on components has improved, and everything just seems to fit together and work. It wasn't long before Windows was installing and I was preparing to shutdown the Shuttle and move my data across.

It was pretty much at this point that I discovered that running two graphics cards wasn't going to be quite as smooth as I thought. Although the drivers are fine and Windows doesn't have a problem, the ATI Catalyst Control Center (silly American spelling) gets very confused and in the end wouldn't let me adjust any settings for either the new Radeon 4850 or my old 3850. I've since found a solution in the form of a third party tool, but hopefully ATI will fix this minor problem sometime soon.

Now I'm all up and running again I have to say, the machine is very, very fast. I remember the huge jump I noticed moving from a single core to a dual core CPU; going to four cores is another level up again. I tried out GTA IV on a whim since it ran so abismally on my old PC, curious to see how it would do. I left task manager running on one of the other screens (I forget which, there are just so many now) and despite the full-on graphical and AI onslaught, the CPU sat at around 60% total usage, barely breaking a sweat.

Now that's impressive.

And then there's the multi-monitor setup. I've used dual screens at work for years now and it's a huge benefit for development, but having three to play with is even better. Far less Alt-Tab'ing and much more neck exercise.

So although I'm a bit poorer it makes a nice change to have a super fast PC that's ready for the next few years of service. Here's the final spec including some existing parts:

- AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition CPU (currently at 3.0GHz, not brave enough to overclock it just yet)
- ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe motherboard
- 8Gb GSkill DDR2
- ATI Radeon 4850 master graphics card
- ATI Radeon 3840 secondary graphics card
- ASUS Xonar D2 sound card
- Zalman 9500 flower cooler
- 2.9Tb storage over 5 drives (soon to be surpassed by an 8Tb server)
- Four monitors including 32" HDTV
- Big black 'Osiris' case
- Windows Server 2008 x64

The only thing I could do with now is a fan controller. I can't seem to get SpeedFan to work and the level of noise from the four fans is a little loud for watching films/TV (or trying to sleep). Could go for another 4Gb of ram too since it's not that expensive. Oh and a matching Radeon 4850 for CrossFire perhaps...

UPDATE: 1 week on

During the week that was, I installed a Scythe Kaze Master fan controller which has got quite a fancy Vacuum Flourescent Display (VFD) to show the RPM of the four connected fans and also four temperature readouts from the connected probes. So far it's doing just the trick, although it did leave the noisy new graphics card to deal with. The solution was to fit an Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 which is basically just an enormous heat sink, bigger than the graphics card in fact. It's done an amazing job; both idle and full load temperatures are lower than with the standard Sapphire cooler.

Now it's settled down and quieter than the old Shuttle, I'm very happy with everything. I had a worrying moment while the memory wasn't seated correctly after fitting the temperature probes but bar that, it's all going smoothly.

When I bought my Volvo in 2006 (almost 3 years ago now, blimey) it was already on something like 160,000 miles. I knew this was quite high in general terms but for a Volvo, only just run in. Well I've averaged 10,000 a year since then and yesterday the clock rolled over to 190,000 miles. If the car was air tight I'd be just over 85% of the way to the moon by now.

Unfortunately it's beginning to feel like it's barely able to keep water out let alone the vacuum of space, with an increasing number of knocks, rattles and squeaks. The brakes feel odd, the steering is iffy and the dampers are noticeably less crisp than they were. Nonetheless, the engine is strong and it's not that bad on fuel despite the short trips it's limited to these days. I think 200,000 miles is on the cards, at which point hopefully the government will be happy to give me £2,000 for it and I can walk away laughing.

As well as nursing my lovable gigantic Swedish barge to another milestone, I also repaired the Caterham. The parts arrived very quickly from the factory on Wednesday in the biggest box I have ever seen; it only just went inside the Volvo. I spent my day yesterday fitting the new rear wing which turned out to be a relatively painless process, albeit a long one (that's what she said). The fit is pretty decent, not quite as good as the original factory effort but then again they do have a few years more experience with such things. In any case, you'd have to look pretty closely to notice that the rubber piping is a little lose over the top of the wing and the washers I used are about twice the size of the original items.

A short 'shake down' run in the fading afternoon sunshine revealed an interesting handling problem which I can only attribute to the cone incident. Driving in a straight line, the steering becomes very light. The car is nervous and requires constant correction to keep in a straight line at speed and is much more sensitive to weight transfer. However, it's much sharper on corner entry, so as far as I can tell it's just a geometry issue (a little toe out I suspect). Everything seems to be buttoned down correctly still so perhaps after a year and a half of ownership it's time to get the setup checked and adjusted.

In the interest of further testing I went out again this afternoon and neither the rear wing or the steering fell off, which is handy. If it wasn't for the terrible bump steer I could happily live with the revised geometry. Still, not a bad weekend really, hopefully Easter will bring some more sunshine and dry roads...

I'm such a child, and I love it. Ever since I fitted an LSD to the Caterham all I've really wanted to do was mess about and do some donuts, and on Friday I finally had my chance. I joined the rest of the Hondas-On-Track boys and girls for another North Weald activity day full, complete with a brand new pair of rear tyres. It was hugely entertaining although there was a slight incident involving a cone that means the car's out of action again for a while.

In my opinion it's the biggest downside to airfield days. An inch off the right line and you clip a cone, and the resulting damage can vary from a scratch to a new side skin. Luckily as part of my spring cleaning adventure I replaced all of the metal wing retaining nuts and bolts with plastic versions, which are designed to snap off and save the side skin from being ripped to pieces with the wing. This is exactly what happened so all I need replace is the bolts, wing and light cluster.

But my point remains; if I'd have been an inch out at Brands or Silverstone I'd have just taken a bit too much kerb, or caught a bit of grass. At worse I might have seen some kitty litter. But to actually hit a solid object and do real damage would have taken a big error of judgement or some exceptional circumstances.

Aside from the damage it was very entertaining to slide the car around, mostly in circles, with lots of smoke and noise. I'm looking forward to fixing the damage and booking a proper track day and getting back to some serious driving.

Please check out the picture gallery for the event and the short video I put together, which includes a few donuts and generally misbehaving. It was also a good excuse to fiddle with Adobe After Effects and come up with a new intro to match the new site design. There's also a full write-up of the days action over in the motorsport section.

As much as I enjoy messing about with the Caterham, I can well do without repeating the previous three weekends for a year. At least in theory that's how long it should be from now. I've just had the gearbox and differential serviced by Road & Race Transmissions. It's not normally a big deal; take it all out (two days work at a casual pace), leave the important bits with R&R for a week, and put it all back together again the following weekend.

Unfortunately the diff was missing its breather outlet, to which I would normally have connected a catch can (or suitable tight-git substitute, pictured below), so it breathed oil all over the back of the car. I wish I'd taken a picture, it was such a mess; every single component had a messy, dirty oily gunk attached to it. So I took the opportunity to completely strip the rear of the car and clean, fix/replace and re-paint anything that needed it.

On the one hand I did quite enjoy doing this. I learned quite a bit about how it all fits together and the best sequence in which to put everything back. It was rewarding to see all the clean shiny parts go back onto the car and see it all come together. I even discovered the Caterham build manual is actually pretty good when it's used for its intended purpose, rather than trying to work backwards to decipher how something works.

No, the only downside to doing all of this is how exhausting the process is, both physically and mentally. The good news is as the sun beamed down today I finished the last few bits off and gave it a quick wash, and headed out to see if it was worth the trouble (and to see if everything still worked). As part of the gearbox service which includes replacing a number of 'wear and tear' items (most of which I can only assume are made of chocolate, such is the durability of the damn thing), R&R also replaced the 3rd gear syncro. I wasn't at all surprised by this since my ham-fisted approach to changing gear does occasionally end up in a crunch between 2nd and 3rd. But it's much better now, and so is the diff. It was a bit noisy before and felt a little rough and when they showed me the state of the main bearings that came out, I wasn't surprised!

So it's a happy little yellow shouty car again, which is good since the whole process set me back a grand, give or take a few pennies. These big boys toys are all well and good, but...

Actually, to hell with the cost. I spent the afternoon carefully 'running it in' (and by afternoon, I mean the first half hour of the trip) and had an absolute blast. I can't imagine a better car to blow away the cobwebs and generate such a buzz. Fifty years old and essentially unchanged, it's brilliant and if it cost a grand every month, I'd still love it.

Over the last seven years of driving I've been pretty lucky with punctures, only having had one that I can remember, until last weekend when I found a nail buried in the rear left on the Caterham. Luckily it was repaired and has been fine since. To add insult to injury, I went out to the garage again this weekend and find another (different) nail in the rear left! The tyre was repaired and all is well again, but I am seriously wondering, when did I drive over all of these nails?!

Anyway, the purpose of my first visit to the garage was to try and pluck up enough courage to take a Dremel to the passenger side skin on the Caterham, to fit a new exhaust I picked up. I have a rule about not doing bodywork simply because it's really obvious when it's done poorly (i.e. by me). But we are officially in a recession, so needs must.

The new exhaust is a 4-1 race/competition system comprising of 4 primaries, a collector and a silencer. Simple stuff. However, the standard exhaust requires a relatively small circular hole in the side skin, where as the 4-1 requires a much larger square-ish hole. Thankfully Blatchat provided enough descriptions of people doing the work to spur me on, so with the whole area masked off I carefully cut away the aluminum with my specially purchased Dremel.

In all honesty, it wasn't anywhere near as difficult as I thought it would be. Using cutting discs to remove sections rather than grinding the material away, I was done in three hours or so. A little smoothing with the flap wheels and the exhaust went in a treat. But as most hobby mechanics will testify, nothing is ever quite that simple.

While doing my research on Blatchat I hadn't come across the much documented problems with fitting a 4-1 exhaust in conjunction with the Brise starter motor (or Caterham copy). Sure enough, primary three fouled on the terminal housing block on the end of the starter motor. Undeterred, I 're-shaped' the pipe ever so slightly and used the Dremel to sand off some of the plastic. Although both of these helped, the exhaust was still fouling and not sitting completely flush with the exhaust ports on the head. I went back to Blatchat to do more research, feeling quite frustrated. It seems everyone who has had the problem either changed to a 4-2-1 exhaust system or a different starter motor. That's ok if you've got the cash, but frankly I don't

Taking things apart is a long drawn out childhood passion of mine, so without a moments hesitation I removed the back plate of the starter motor and had a nose around. The terminal in the way of the exhaust came in through the plastic terminal housing and was crimped into a thin wire (it's only the switch feed after all, nothing with much current). I saw no reason why this terminal couldn't be 'moved' to some other part of the starter motor housing that was clear of the exhaust. So that's exactly what I did.

I soldered (poorly) and crimped a new lead onto the connection and drilled a hole in the back plate for it to feed through. After re-fitting into the car and making sure it still worked and cranked the engine, I cut the old terminal and removed the whole connection from the terminal housing block. The wire was carefully routed inside the starter motor to ensure it wouldn't interfere with the solenoid, the back plate replaced, and high-temp liquid gasket used to seal the hole for the new terminal lead. I came back the following evening and fitted everything back onto the car.

Not only did the starter motor still work (!), but the exhaust cleared perfectly. Sure, it's not as much clearance as I'd like, but it's not a great deal worse than with the standard manifold. The real acid test will be in the heat of the summer. It's a bit too tight to use a heat jacket on the starter motor, but with a significant amount of effort it would be possible to make an aluminum heat shield. So far everything has been fine during and after a couple of test runs, but it's still very cold outside which will no doubt help keep the heat down.

All in all I'm really happy to have successfully cut the hole, fitted the exhaust and overcome the hurdles presented, without spending a penny extra than planned. To top it off, the exhaust sounds fantastic and has made a huge improvement to the torque.

Now if we could just have some nice warm sunny weather...

I've been playing around with Windows 7 over the past couple of weeks. It's really impressive that Microsoft have seemingly managed to get all of the nice frilly bits of Vista into an OS that is as fast and usable in day-to-day life as XP. One of features that's new is Libraries which present a customised view of their content, which means a Library of documents can look quite different to a Library of music. Ars Technica have a nice article which cover the basics and gives an overview of how Libraries work.

What particularly caught my eye was how smartly a Library of photos is presented. The initial thumbnail preview of each library contains three photos arranged in a 3D 'stack' with a nice border and some shadows.

I began to think about how I could mimic this kind of functionality with my own picture gallery. The system currently uses GDI+ to resize and manipulate images on-the-fly which are then cached to disk. The whole process is surprisingly decent in terms of performance and resource usage, but GDI+ has a lot of limitations when you want to do more than just the basics. Adobe Flash could be suitable, but then again I think I'd rather stick pins in my eyes.

Windows Presentation Foundation is for all intents and purposes, Microsofts replacement for GDI and GDI+. It's powering Silverlight and a whole host of applications in Windows 7, and gives .NET developers a nice easy way to do some very cool things without having to grow a beard and learn Direct3D. Through Silverlight, WPF is becoming more commonplace on the web but for me that's one of the biggest drawbacks - the need for a browser plug-in and all of the problems that come along for the ride (platform compatibility and client resource usage for example). For things like video playback and animation it's unavoidable, at least until HTML5. But for something as simple as a picture album preview...?

So I did a bit of digging and I was pleased to discover that everything you can do in Silverlight, you can do in regular .NET code, without writing a single line of XAML or needing to use the Silverlight browser plug-in. After a few hours I had some code doing roughly what I wanted to achieve, and this is the end result:

It's the Windows 7 Libraries look on the web! I made heavy use of two excellent articles on the subject of using WPF on the web, which you can read here and here. The following is a brief overview of the important bits and a few issues I ran into, although most of it is covered in the two articles linked to.

As described in the latter of those two articles, calling WPF in a non-conventional way (i.e. outside of a WinForms app or Silverlight) creates a minor headache in terms of threads and memory usage. You have to be quite explicit about terminating threads that some of the WPF classes create. I ended up adopting an old-school 'belt and braces' approach to tidying up objects since I didn't want to rely on garbage collection and run the risk of a server meltdown.

Once you have the relevant WPF assemblies referenced by your project (PesentationCore, PresentationFramework and WindowsCore) you can start working with some WPF controls. The process to generate a static image like the one above should be something like:

1. Create a root control which you can place other controls into
2. Build up the image by adding controls with effects, transformations, etc
3. Render a 'screenshot' of the root control with all of its children and save to a suitable stream

When I started working on this I was completely new to WPF and XAML. It's worth reading up on the various WPF controls and how best to use them if you're in the same boat, and being able to work back from some functional XAML is quite useful since 99% of the samples on the web are written in XAML. The following is a very cut-down overview of the code.

//setup the drawing area
Canvas myCanvas = new Canvas();
myCanvas.Background = Brushes.Transparent;

//load up the specified image
System.Windows.Controls.Image baseImage = 
    new System.Windows.Controls.Image();
byte[] imageBytes;
BitmapSource imageSource = CreateImage(imageBytes, loadWidth, 0);
imageBytes = null;

//configure image control
baseImage.Width = MaxDimension;
baseImage.Height = newHeight;

/* ... */

//explicitly set the canvas dimensions since it
//can't be trusted to calculate its own
myCanvas.Width = calculatedWidth;
myCanvas.Height = calculatedHeight;

//ensure child controls layout
myCanvas.Measure(new Size(myCanvas.Width, myCanvas.Height));
myCanvas.Arrange(new Rect(new Size(myCanvas.Width, myCanvas.Height)));

byte[] output;
JpegBitmapEncoder jpgEncoder = null;
RenderTargetBitmap renderedCanvas = null;

//render the canvas as a bitmap
renderedCanvas = new RenderTargetBitmap(Width, Height, 96, 96,
    PixelFormats.Default);
renderedCanvas.Render(rootCanvas);

jpgEncoder = new JpegBitmapEncoder();
jpgEncoder.Frames.Add(BitmapFrame.Create(renderedCanvas));

//save the output from the encoder to something useful
using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
{
    jpgEncoder.Save(ms);
    output = ms.ToArray();
}

//be very specific about clean up
if (jpgEncoder != null && jpgEncoder.Dispatcher.Thread.IsAlive)
    jpgEncoder.Dispatcher.InvokeShutdown();
if (renderedCanvas != null && renderedCanvas.Dispatcher.Thread.IsAlive)
    renderedCanvas.Dispatcher.InvokeShutdown();

jpgEncoder = null;
renderedCanvas = null;

The next step is to actually call the WPF code from the web. This isn't as quite as easy as I'd have hoped since you need to create a separate single-threaded apartment thread to use WPF controls. I did this in a very similar way to Shawn Rosewarne in his article.

[STAThread]
private byte[] GetImageStack()
{
    try
    {
        Thread imageStackworker = new Thread(
            new ThreadStart(BuildImageStack));
        imageStackworker.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
        imageStackworker.Name = "GetImageStack";
        imageStackworker.Start();
        imageStackworker.Join();
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        return NiknakV2.Business.Gallery.Drawing.ImageError.
            RenderAsByteArray(ex.Message);
    }

    return _ImageStack;
}

private void BuildImageStack()
{
    try
    {
        NiknakV2.Business.Gallery.Drawing.ImageStack myStack = 
            new NiknakV2.Business.Gallery.Drawing.ImageStack(this.FullName);

        /* ... */

        //work some magic
        _ImageStack = myStack.Render();
        _ImageStackInError = myStack.InError;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        _ImageStackInError = true;
        _ImageStack = NiknakV2.Business.Gallery.Drawing.ImageError.
            RenderAsByteArray(ex.Message);
    }
}

That's all there is to it really. The most irritating 'feature' of using WPF in this way is that the Canvas control won't set its ActualWidth and ActualHeight properties based on the space that its child controls occupy. In my case I ended up having to use trigonometry to calculate how much extra space my skew transformations were taking up and explicitly set the Canvas dimensions. It's slightly more convoluted than writing XAML but as a pure code alternative, I like it. The performance is strong once the WPF assemblies have loaded, with a few hundred high-res photos being parsed in just a few seconds, even on basic hardware. In a server environment all of the rendering is done in software on the CPU so caching is quite important, but no more important than caching anything done with GDI.

In terms of replicating the Windows 7 Libraries look, I found that supporting portrait images was the only real issue. It's not a problem technically, I just didn't like the look of the mixed orientation images. I also found that getting the images, borders, skews and shadows in the right place, the right size and at the right angle to be quite fiddly. Although it looks right at 100px or so, when it scales up things start to get slightly out of position despite calculating all of the positions and sizes from the overall maximum size specified.

The code is running in full swing in the picture gallery so be sure to have a look. You can also download a slightly more comprehensive code sample but be aware it's not intended to be functioning code, just an example.

I'm quite excited about future uses for WPF on the web. What I've done so far has really only just scratched the surface of what's possible...

Hello! After a 16 month break I've given myself a kick up the behind and come back to the website. A re-design, re-structure and lots more content are just some of the new things to look out for.

>> Motorsport section for cars and track days
>> Video gallery with high definition videos
>> Picture gallery - completely re-designed to make it easier to use

The big news from the last 16 months is that I have moved on from the CRX and have a new toy - a Caterham 7. It was a tough decision to make but the new car is fantastic and I'm really enjoying it. You can read more about the old Honda here and the new Caterham here.

More news to follow!

What better way to round out a great season of Top Gear than by naming the Caterham R500 as Car Of The Year 2008. I'd love to say it's the same as mine but there's the slight issue of 120hp that I don't have. Nonetheless, it's a small vistory for "geeky" cars all over.

The Stigs power lap is a joy to watch and if you haven't already seen it, click here to watch it. If YouTube have pulled the plug on this particular version, click here to search for others.

The question for me is, should I buy an R500 in kit form or upgrade my Superlight? For now though, I should stop dreaming and get back to work!

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.

This does highlight its only problem - the engine. It desperately needs another 20-30hp, maybe a touch more. I like to trim the attitude of a car using the throttle and if you push deep through Quarry you just get understeer. Fair enough, it's a road car and it needs to be safe, but that's about its only downside.

View the complete photo album in the gallery

The brakes did very well considering I wasn't exactly being shy with the braking points. Pedal travel increased during each session but I didn't get any fade and that helped with confidence. Trail braking is an absolute must though to keep the car stable when turning into the corner, and once you realise that the initial uncertainty the car has when you turn in is nothing to worry about, it's just such a joy to drive!

As usual, everyone on circuit behaved themselves and there were no stoppages through the day, and the weather held out too with just a few spots of rain around midday. I've edited together a few laps of video which is available in the gallery here.

The next outing is in December at Brands Hatch, but I'm not sure what I'll be driving yet - it might be a Volvo 850 estate...!

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.

I will be taking lots of pictures as things progress so stay tuned for a few minor updates as well as the big one once everything is complete...

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!

I'm now wondering if it would be worth getting a few seams stich welded seeing as much of the seam sealer has had to come off. I don't think I want to suffer the cost of doing the whole car but then again I'm not sure what effect just doing a few seams will have. Food for thought.

I should be moving the car to TGM at the end of the week so I'll get some better pictures then. Incidently, my friends' brother knocked up the chassis trolley for me and it's made life so much easier - being able to move the car around inside the garage and work on it even when it's lashing it down with rain outside!

More updates soon...

Also, a big thanks to everyone that's downloaded IIS Traffic Monitor so far, and thank you for all of the positive feedback :)

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.

Away from cars, I have moved the site onto my own server. I'm also starting to offer hosting packages so get in touch if you want somewhere to host your website.

Last but not least, I've added a new software section for applications that I've written. Currently there's just the one but hopefully I can expand on that.

That's all for now... I should have some photos of the car in its present form by next weekend.

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!

View the complete photo album in the gallery

Now I just need to get the dashboard fitted again, have the dash tube welded into position and throw some paint on it. Easy...

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 one 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.

View the complete photo album in the gallery

Taking the wings, doors and sill covers off revealed a little rust that needs taking care of, but all in all I was relieved to see that the shell is in fantastic condition considering the 170k miles it's seen. Once the cage is in I will have the rust sorted, the inside and engine bay sprayed and some new body work fitted, and commit to my colour scheme (you'll have to wait and see how that's going to look). By then my new engine will hopefully be ready but there are some issues to work out first with that.

In the meantime, I've been helping my dad to run in his new toy - a shiney new MX-5 Roadster Coupe.

My dad and I took the car to North Weald today for another Hondas-On-Track activity day which was great fun. Similar to last Novembers' event, we were faced with a high speed bend, slalom course and two handling circuits. I wasn't sure how well the Mazda would do but after a couple of times round the high speed bend, I was 100% impressed by the chassis. This was my first taste of rear wheel drive and what a great way to start. The car is so easy to control on the limit, it's very similar to the CRX in that you just need to be delicate with the steering input and throttle and you can correct a slide with ease.

We moved over to the slalom and this was where I became a little nervous. Last time (with the CRX), I managed to hit pretty much every cone. This time around I knew I had to take a step back and drive with caution seeing as it was a) a brand new car and b) not even mine. Anyway, the car was once again a joy to drive, flicking left to right very happily and the rear end behaving well. I found it so easy to drive fast, the steering was weighty but super responsive and was telling me exactly what the car was doing.

Finally, the handling courses. The high speed course was very enjoyable and I was able to stretch the legs of the car a little, even having a bit of a power slide around one of the turns! The shorter course was quite tricky but just as fun, particularly with a hair pin turn which was best taken with a large helping of throttle in first gear.

The weather was fantastic and it was a really fun day. Huge thanks to my dad for letting me play with the car, and the other guys that let me drive their cars which I also really enjoyed. I've edited the video my Dad took which includes most peoples cars. The camera had a funny moment early in the afternoon so sorry if we missed you. You can see the video here. There are also some fairly static pictures which can be found here (I'll add some better ones as they become available).

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.

The engine came with a gearbox and everything ready to bolt it in, add some fluids and carry on making me competitive. Daz at Rare Import Parts did a great job fitting it for me and it fired up first time and ran beautifully.

The next thing that happened, was Tom at TGM swapped my super short 4.4 final drive into my old (and now spare) gearbox. This has reduced my top speed down to something like 125mph, but it gets there a lot quicker. Unfortunately Tom put the 5th gear synchro selector ring in upside down, so I ended up taking it apart and fixing that before getting the car running again.

Then I decided to really give the new engine a kick up the arse with some Crespo stage 4 cams that were going cheap. "Crespo? Who are they?" I hear you asking. Well they are a small American company which apparently (only now I realise this) don't have a great reputation for quality. That aside, they were cheap and should suit the head work on the engine perfectly. They are quite lairy though...

In my haste I hadn't researched exactly what was involved when fitting these particular cams. After Tom installed them, we struggled to get the car to idle at all. Fair enough I thought, they probably need dialing in. How hard can it be... Turns out, it's quite a technical process of measuring the lobes and valve lift and duration and a whole lot of stuff I neither know anything about, nor particularly want to get involved with (i.e. make worse). Even more worrying was the compression test after fitting the new cams - down about 120psi on what it should be.

Oh dear...

So, now we are about two weeks away from yesterdays track day and I have an engine that runs terribly and not a lot of money left to patch it up. I was fortunate enough to have Andy at Storm Developments in Aldermaston dial the cams in for me which made the car idle and run very nicely. The compression was still just 150psi though, not even close to the figures of a stock engine let alone one with 1mm skimmed from the head. In the end I decided to use some dyno time with Andy and make sure the fueling was ok, and do the track day and hope for the best. We barely managed to make 100hp at the wheels, which I've been told is actually pretty good for such low compression!

So with that done, I could relax a little. I now knew the bottom end was probably on its last legs, and wasn't 100% sure the cams were in the sweet spot, but at least the fueling was ok so it shouldn't blow up or do anything silly. I figured I'd find another block after the track day and have myself a completely fresh engine built to spec.

Finally I arrived at Combe yesterday morning and got the car ready. I stuck with the 'wet' tyres (Toyo T1Rs) for the first session while the track was still damp. I followed the course car for three laps while I learned where the road went, then pushed on and found some pace. Initially I was quite surprised; the car felt just as quick as with the old engine, and the gearbox was working a treat, the car just picked up speed so agressively, ripping through the gears. With the cams, power came in strong at about 6k and carried on to the 8k limiter which I forgot about a few times, simply because there was no let up in the power like normal. I have to say the tyres were useless (compared to my normal R888 cut slicks), the car moved around a lot and I was constantly locking the rears. It felt fast and apparently it looked fast, so it was probably better than can be expected. Nobody was keeping up, put it that way. However, all this high revving was beginning to take its strain and on the last lap I noticed a big drop in power. On the way into the pits, I could hear the engine making a loud knocking noise...

Some inspection and testing revealed no obvious problems, so I cautiously went out for the second session. I swapped on the R888s though to have a little more grip. I did a lap and a half of short shifting to about 5k and although there was less power, it seemed happy enough. So I opened it up a little more and all of a sudden...

BANG!

"Shit", I thought. I dipped the clutch and the oil light came on, and the engine was barely ticking over. I coasted into the pits where it promptly cut out and that, was most deffinitely that. Thank you Sara and Simon for the push all the way back into the paddock.

There were no holes in the block and there was no cloud of smoke, but a compression test revealed 0psi in cylinder four so something has deffinitely broken. It almost ruined the day, but I had some great passenger laps in other cars which made a nice change. I also managed to sell the fuel I brought which was a bonus.

View the complete photo album in the gallery

I feel that I'm at a bit of a cross roads with the car. I'm in two minds as to whether or not to keep going or change direction. I've been thinking a lot about building a Westfield over the next 12 months, but finishing the CRX would be a lot cheaper and probably just as much fun. Plans for a new engine are being drawn up, so it will probably be rejuvenated and return very soon.... well, maybe ;)

I'd have put money on rain, snow and/or ice playing a major part in the final Hondas-On-Track track day of the year at Brands Hatch, but to everyones amazement the weather gods were on our side and the 15th of December played host to a fantastic day on the Indy circuit.

The day was shared with Lotus and MG and ran as 20 minute sessions, limited to around 15 cars on track in each session. After the usual briefing everyone scrambled to their cars for last minute checks. I was so convinced of the impending rain I brought the car with a set of 'wets' on, so I had to change back to my dry weather R888s. I've now done three track days on these Toyo cut slicks and they all still have a fair bit of life left, which is really impressive considering the abuse I've given them, and their relatively low cost.

My first session was supposed to be a normal 'warm-up and get into the flow of things' routine, but instead I found myself having so much confidence with the car and the setup, I was able to push quite hard towards the end of the session. I came back to the pits with a big grin on my face.

For the first time this year I was not the only CRX on track - Neil and Chris had come along with their recently purchased, 2006 TinTops class winning CRX (pictured below). The car is an original CRX Challenge racer and it's clearly had a hard life, but I decided it should be my benchmark for the day due to its obvious capabilities. We got chatting and spent a lot of time sharing setup info and car stories, which was great fun.

Out on track though, well that's where the real excitement was. Firstly, I want to get something straight. Track days are just for fun and are totally non-competitive. There is never any racing, or passing without consent. With that said, Neil and I went out for a little race...

To begin with we were both following Sara in her Civic, but after a few laps she let us go and Neil and I drove flat out for about 15 minutes. To start with I was desperately trying to keep ahead, and after I let him past I was desperately trying to keep up. Those watching commented it was like watching a mini CRX Challenge race, even though we were just pushing hard, not really racing - there were never any sneaky moves into a corner. Just good clean fun.

Much to my disappointment I didn't get any video of that session. However, the next session was a very similar affair with Chris driving the yellow CRX. This was just as much fun and I recorded my fastest unofficial times of the day (competitive, to say the least). I hope to have some good races with Neil and Chris during the season next year.

One thing that intrigued the three of us during the day was how differently the cars were setup and driven, yet the uncanny similarity of the performance. For example, Neil told me he was holding 4th gear in a corner - in the same corner, I'd be using 2nd. I think a lot of it is in my head; without the engine revving it's nuts off I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. Neil drove my car in the last session and commented how stable and predictable the chassis was, particularly under braking. For something I've cobbled together at home I'm really pleased with that kind of feedback.

It was by far and away the best track day I've done so far. The car was brilliant, the setup just worked perfectly and clearly the package is competitive. I can't wait for 2007 and to do some real races.

Video: 10 lap in car video of the session with Chris
Pictures: A large selection of pictures

The December issue of JTuner magazine has a 4 page feature on my car! I met with Matt and Craig at Brands in July and now the article has finally made it to print.

It's a little out of date (spec wise) and there are a couple of minor errors (the engine is a D16, not a B16) but it's all spot on otherwise, and Matt has really captured the spirit of what I've done with the car and what I've got planned for the future.

So rush down to your local newsagents and buy a copy now!! Alternatively, if you can't get JTuner in your area, low quality scans are available below (approx. 500kb each). Thanks again to JTuner and everyone involved!

View the article in the gallery...

HUGE thanks to Hondas-On-Track for a superbly run activity day at North Weald airfield on Wednesday. Some 30 cars gathered for a damp and greasy day blasting around cones and doing everything you can't do on the roads.

We started out with a high speed bend which I struggled to get the hang of. My first attempt resulted in me drifting across the concrete, full opposite lock and full power (I'm sure it looked fantastic). The idea was not to cross a line of drains in the ground, which I did manage eventually, but the concept of turning in and not getting back on the throttle to steady the car really confused me. I had a some trouble with the front dampers hitting the stops on the rough surface, and damaged a wing as a tyre caught it (excuses excuses).

Then we had a play on a slalom course. The cones are probably wondering if they had wronged me in some way, as on most of my runs I hit at least 2 and usually several more. They left quite a few scuff marks on the car but it was great fun flicking the car through the course.

Finally there were two handling courses. The longer of the two caused me problems again, with the rough surface bottoming out the front dampers and not enough rebound on the rear ones. However, I managed to set some quite good times and really enjoyed sliding the car into the corners. The second course was shorter but included a strip of tarmac which appeared to have been surfaced with ice. Everyone struggled, Russ even managed to lock up and have a long trip across the grass.

The day proved to be great fun and excellent value for money. The car wasn't setup ideally for the surface, and I much prefer circuits, but I am really looking forward to the next time we visit North Weald.

Thanks again to Hondas-On-Track and thanks for the inspiring comments left by those that drove my car!

32 video clips of myself, Russ, Tony and James

The minor damage I managed to do to the car

Exactly 2 years ago today I collected the Honda from my friend Alex. It's been a great 2 years, the car has changed a lot over that time and I've enjoyed every minute. This year in particular has been fantastic and hopefully the next will be even better, if I can keep it out of the barriers!!

Here's a small selection of images that show a brief history of the car while I've owned it...

October 17th 2004 - The first time I cleaned it
November 12th 2004 - A slight mishap at a t-junction (and what some friends and I did later)
December 18th 2004 - Major structural work is done to restore the car
January 23rd 2005 - Fresh paint and fresh polish
November 12th 2005 - Rebuilt with new suspension, bushes and wheels
July 12th 2006 - Semi race prepared at Brands Hatch

There are of course many many more points along the journey, but they are some of my most memorable and favourite. Check out the gallery for loads more photos and some videos.

My buddy Tony and I went up to Pumabuild in Birmingham today to get my brake discs skimmed. They have a very cool machine which will do the skimming while the discs are still in place on the car, thus making them perfect for my specific (dodgy) hubs.

I was a bit worried that the vibration I was getting was being caused by something else, but with the DTI attached it was pretty clear the discs really were about as straight as a £9 note.

View the complete photo album in the gallery

Cost was about the same as a new set of discs for me, but the discs would have taken 4 weeks from America and with North Weald just a few days away I didn't have much choice.

Anyway, good service from Pumabuild even if the Brummy accents sometimes needed a translator...

I'm in quite a bit of pain at the moment; my back is a mess and my knees are bruised, but it was worth it all. Tony, Dave and myself went off to Lakeside Karting on Saturday to compete in a team based endurance karting event.

The last one we did was at a different circuit and we finished 3rd. We were all confident of a win this time around so we gave it our all. It was a standing start and we'd qualified 3rd, so as the lights went out I tried desperately to keep 4th place behind me, but into turn one I had to yield and let him past.

Three corners later and I understeered into the tyres and we dropped from 4th to 15th - dead last! By the time the marshal had sorted me out we were half a lap down on the back of the pack. I was so angry with myself, but I got down to business and drove the wheels off the kart. 23 laps later I pitted only to be told we were in the lead - I couldn't believe it!

On the back of my success we decided that instead of the normal sequence of driver changes, we would fiddle it so I ran in the last session. Dave and Tony did a fantastic job and we hovered around 4th place. Fully recharged I went out and gave it my all. I had some great battles fighting my way up to 2nd place, and was chasing down the leader when disaster struck - I exited the corner onto the pit straight and I had almost no power! One of the engines had stalled (don't tell anyone, but it was a Honda engine). I had a good lead over 3rd place so I did another lap, praying that the chequred flag would come out. Unfortunately it didn't and I had to pit, and we emerged from the pits in 5th place and completed just 2 more laps before the end of the race.

What can I say. We were all absolutely gutted. But such is the nature of motorsport, and these things happen. We have a lot to take away from the race and we are 100% confident we can win the next one.

The weekend before all of this was of course Trax 2006, held at Silverstone. Unfortunately this was basically a big static show with lots of rice'd up cars from around the country - no real motorsport content. However there was some track time available and although it was supposed to only be for road legal cars, I thought I'd go and have some fun...

Lap one was quite tedious, stuck behind the field and the pace car. I got the brakes and tyres warmed up so on lap two I turned the lights on and went on a mission. The car felt great and I knew exactly what it could do seeing as I was there just a few weeks earlier. I dispensed with six or seven cars on that lap and was rapidly catching another group on lap three, when the red flags came out. An Elise had spun into the gravel and that was that - end of session, game over.

The rest of the day went quite well and our Hondas-On-Track stand had lots of interest. I don't think I'll go back next year though.

I've got some new bits to fit to the car (roll bars and springs mainly) so I'll update again soonish...

On the 3rd of August I returned to the Northamptonshire GP circuit to find out exactly how the car had improved during the year since my first track day at Silverstone in February (which you can read about here). Bizarrely the weather was worse this time around, but nonetheless it was a fantastic day and I was able to really enjoy the car.

The event, organised by Lotus-On-Track, was only a few weeks after the Brands Hatch evening so I was fairly happy with the car. However, although the handling was good at Brands I felt it was time to change to a more race orientated setup so I changed the springs around from 730lb/in front and 620lb/in rear, to 390lb/in front and 730lb/in rear. As odd as it sounds, it's very close to the setup the CRX Challenge cars used to run. It does take some getting used to though...

The setup completely transformed the car. At Brands when I found understeer I simply had to get out of the throttle and be patient, but this time the rear of the car was much more responsive to throttle adjustments, so I could tippy-toe around a corner on the throttle. The conditions at Silverstone in the morning were cold and damp which meant getting used to this 'tail happy' setup was a lot of fun, with several lairy slides on the sighting laps while I worked out what I could and couldn't get away with.

While the circuit was still slippery I was running rings around the Lotus drivers who had to be so careful not to spin; very satisfying. As the day progressed the sun came out and the circuit dried up, and with some tyre pressure adjustments I was able to get the setup perfect, just in time for the last session. I was feeling confident with the car again and the kerbs had dried out, so I gave it my all and really pushed hard, and found myself going flat out through Bridge (what an awesome feeling!) and carring well over 100mph into Maggots. I even clipped the marker bollards with the mirror coming out of Woodcote.

All good things must come to an end though. The front brake rotors are about as straight as £9 notes now and although the car had amazing balance, it lacked poise and suffered from quite a bit of body roll (see pictures below). Some tweaking will be required before the next outing...

A big thanks to Lotus-On-Track for organising another memorable day at Silverstone. Lots of pictures and decent in car video from this one. Click here for the videos and here for the pictures.

Well I think I am nearly there with the car. The last couple of weeks were pretty crazy with getting things finished in time for Brands Hatch on Wednesday, but it all came together in the end and it was a fantastic day.

First of all my new Toyo R888s were fitted, then the brake fluid was changed and some fresh engine oil put in. I was going to leave it at that, but Daz at Rare Import Parts called me...

We'd been discussing making a tubular front cross member with rose jointed tie rods for a few weeks. It was looking like it would be ready for Brands, but then some delays at the fab company meant it wouldn't be ready. But then Daz came through and got it all sorted out in the nick of time.

It's really transformed the handling; stiffening the front end like this has meant there's no understeer unless you get silly with the loud pedal, but even that's more difficult because there's now so much more feedback through the steering it's much easier to feel when the tyres can't transmit any more power.

With the addition of my heavier springs and further weight reduction, the car was almost perfect. No understeer, no oversteer, just a beautiful balance. I was really able to start enjoying the circuit and was unofficially lapping just a couple of seconds shy of race pace (and that was with a passenger in the car!).

A huge thanks to everyone that helped, my dad especially for driving home after such a long day! Everyone was very excited after their passenger rides which is always good as well. The event was the first one organised by Hondas-On-Track and was seen as a huge success by the 40+ Hondas that made it.

The only thing I have to worry about now is whether or not my engine will last a full day at Silverstone on August 3rd...

As well as the pictures here there are lots more in the gallery here, and there's some video that my dad took here.

For the last 2 months or so I've slowly been building up a collection of shiney new parts to fit on the car, to improve on the handling and get it ready for Brands next month. I kicked off last weekend by changing the springs around. I bought a new pair of 13kg (730lb) springs for the front, and I've moved the old 11kg (620lb) front springs to the rear for a much stiffer setup all round. Hopefully this will cure the remaining body roll problems I had at Silverstone and Llandow, as well as making the back end a little more lively.

Then for the past 2 days I've changed all the wheel bearings and studs, replaced the rear trailing arm bushes, replaced the rear calipers for ones that work properly, and finished it off with 15mm Eibach wheel spacers. Huge thanks to Tom and Neil at TGM for helping me out on Thursday with the bearings and bushes, deffinitely something I didn't have the expertise to do.

All that remains now is to get the geometry setup again and corner balance it, and change the brake fluid, and fit some decent tyres...

Here's a couple of pictures I took last night as I was finishing up:

There's a few more pictures in the gallery here.

Pro: Had another great night out in Reading last night with the boys. I wasn't driving this week so it made a nice change to have a few beers.

Con: Had a little too much to drink. Slept ok until about 4am when my stomach decided it wanted to teach my kidneys a lesson. Stumbled into work (on time I might add) still not feeling quite right, and spent most of the day being quite grumpy!

Pro: Halfords finally deliver on their promise and tell me my paint is ready to collect - it's only been a month!

Con: The weather is looking pretty damp for the next week so it could be a while before the car sees the fresh paint it so badly needs.

Pro: HSBC are going to reimburse me for the money stolen from my account by the card skimming b******s who cloned my card and decided my bank balance didn't look bad enough already.

Con: My card was skimmed by some card skimming b******s.

Pro: I collected my manual window mechs from a Slovenian trucker on Sunday night. Please, no more jokes. He was a very nice chap, even if he did look alarmingly like Lister from Red Dwarf.

Con: It cost more in petrol traveling to London to meet him than it would have in postage for the mechs from Solvenia.

Somehow I feel as if I've spent the last few days taking 2 steps forward but one step back...

What have I done. Honest to God, I am shocked at myself. I keep asking myself if this is the right thing to be doing, or if I've gone too far. But it doesn't matter now, I've officially crossed the line - I've bought a Volvo.

I was so fed up with driving the CRX home from Rockingham last weekend that I decided enough was enough, and I had to stop using it on the road. So the CRX is now declared as off the road, it has no tax, no insurance and now no number plates. The Volvo... it's a bit of a beast; a '97 P reg 850, with a 2.5 litre 5 cylinder engine, so it's quite pokey. It's a top spec model with leather, electric everything including drivers seat, climate control, "Premium Sound System" (written in gold, so it must be good) and even a factory fitted CD changer. And it was cheap too. Wonderfully comfortable to drive, very smooth engine and it should be perfect for towing the CRX to track days and race meetings.

Needless to say I've been the butt of all the jokes since I got it, but I'm not too fussed because it does the job perfectly. I'm a little apprehensive now though because this really is it. I need to get a trailer organised for next month (so I can get to Brands in July apart from anything else) and decide which championship to enter into for next year, and look at getting the car finished. Lots to think about and plan, as ever!

I'm so excited I took a picture of the CRX after removing the plates. I think it looks a lot more like the racing car it deserves to be...

You can see a couple of pictures of the Volvo here.

Weekends, that is. I feel pretty exhausted now but it's been worth it.

On Saturday I went to support Sara Church, Tom Gannon and Richard Gane who were all racing at Silverstone with TGM. Sara and Tom were doing a 40 minute race, sharing Saras' Civic Type R. Neither the car nor Sara had seen a circuit race before so nobody really knew how it would go. Tom got the car into 5th on the grid and was upto 3rd by the 1st corner. Then a thrilling battle between Tom and two MGs finally resulted in Tom coming into the pits for the driver change over, leading the field.

Sara steadily increased her pace and managed to hold off 5th place man long enough to finish 4th over all and 2nd in class. Quite an astonishing result.

Richard also did very well in his races, finishing 1st in class for both of this races. Everyone went away with trophies which really was a fantastic result. Congratulations everyone!

While I was there I spotted an ex-CRX Challenge car which I was amazed to see being very competitive! The car looked relatively simple, which has inspired me to push ahead to get mine ready for circuit racing by next year.

Yesterday (Sunday) I went to the Trackdays.com Show with Hondas-On-Track. This is the first year the event has run and unfortunately this was obvious from the relatively small number of people that turned up. However those that did were all friendly, enthusiastic and interested in the HOT stand, and the club has deffinitely begun to make its mark. I even met one of the previous owners of my car - such a small world!

I was lucky enough to be given a passenger ride in a Lotus 340. While the car is very impressive in the speed and handling, I somehow expected more. It really wasn't a million miles away from the CRX, but it was very cool to hear that K20 buzzing away in VTEC, right behind my head!

I was completely shattered by the time we got home last night. I think it's time to sort out a decent road car and a trailer, so that's what I'll be looking into this week...

Ok so perhaps it wasn't the best idea to order the paint for my interior from Halfords, but I've always had good results using the spray cans. So I ordered 15 cans at the beginning of last week and was told they should be in last Friday. Friday turned to Tuesday, which was a bit of a problem because I was trying to get it finished for the show this coming Sunday.

So today (Tuesday) comes and my buddy Dave calls me and gives me the bad news. Basically a cock-up somewhere along the lines means it wasn't on the order! ARGGG!!! The earliest it will be here is Friday or next week sometime. So if you see my car at Rockingham and think "wow that interior looks shocking", you can blame Halfords!

Update: January 12th 2009
At the time of writing, Google ranks this page as #1 for the search "halfords suck". God bless the Internet.

Where to begin! The last 3 months have been pretty crazy so I'll try and summarise what I've been upto in this post. I will be making an effort to post more regularly from now on!

Well we managed to get the car ready for Silverstone. The brakes turned into a bit of a nightmare due to the supplied hoses being completely wrong, but we got there in the end. Silverstone made a fantastic circuit to test the car for the first time and I really enjoyed myself. Learned so much about the car and how all the bits I've done work so well together, turning it into something capable of keeping up with (and in some cases out-pacing) Elises and Civic Type-Rs! I did manage to spin at about 70mph into turn 1 (Copse) on my first lap, but I soon learned to be a little less enthusiastic! Plenty of pictures here and a video of a few laps here.

After managing not to hit anything and after nursing the car home with a failed alternator, I set about planning the next track day. I was pretty happy with the setup of the car; the chassis felt balanced and the tyres worked well. And the brakes... wow! With the knowledge that the setup was pretty good, I decided to focus once again on sorting the bodywork out. Cash flow delayed this quite a bit, and in the meantime I met up with a few other CRX owners over at Millway for a dyno session (see my post from last year's meet here). I was to say the least, chuffed to bits with my result of 142bhp at 8000rpm! We all had a get together afterwards for lunch too and it was another great meet all in all.

Soon after the dyno meet I dropped the car into TGM to have a few little bits of rust sorted out and to get the tailgate smoothed over. Unfortunately this turned into a mad panic to get it finished the day before I needed to use the car at another track day! I was at TGM from 8:30am until just gone 8pm with everyone there pitching in to get it finished. Top job lads!

And then... myself and about 20 other CRX owners met up at the tiny circuit of Llandow in Wales for a trackday. It's a great little circuit but suffers from a bit of a dodgy surface in places and bugger all run-off, meaning I wasn't able to push as hard as I would have liked. That said, it was still enormous fun and I really put the knowledge I gained from Silverstone to good use. I captured two lots of video, the first being a bit of a test run. The second was with another owners camera, but although the sound is a little iffy it displays my most consistent and mistake free laps of the day!

So with all of that going on in during the past 3 months, I'm taking a few moments to decide what to do next. I'll be at Silverstone on the 29th supporting Tom and Sara from TGM in their first joint race of the season, and then at Rockingham on the 30th displaying my car as part of the Trackdays.com show. I've pretty much decided on a couple of stiffer springs for the car before the next event (Brands Indy, July 12th), so I can run 13/11kg front/rear. The only complaint I had from Llandow was the rear end wasn't lively enough (!), so hopefully making it a little stiffer should move things along. Oh and I've started spraying up the inside of the car so it matches the outside. I'll post details once that's finished.

What else has happened, aside from car stuff? Um..... I'll get back to you on that :)

Of we go into 2006 then, and what a fantastic year it looks set to be...

That is, until I started fitting my new Wilwood brakes at the beginning of the month. Honda decided that it would be a good idea to leave the connectors on the ends of the brake pipes exposed to the elements, so that 16 years down the line when someone needed to fit new hoses, it was going to turn into a complete mare of a job. So much so that I gave up and called Tom at TGM, who came and collected the car on Saturday.

I'll have to wait until next weekend to play with it, but fingers crossed everything will come good. It will be 3 weeks since I drove it. In fact I've only used it for 3 days so far this year!

In other news, I fitted a blue (!) Airmass exhaust manifold which has freed some torque, and I spent a week replacing all of the suspension bushes, springs, dampers, control arms and the road wheels with new parts back in November. All I can say is that driving the CRX now, is just sensational!

All of this is in preperation for an action packed year, kicking off at Silverstone on February 10th. I'm joining the team from TGM and some fellow Honda owners, along with the Lotus on Track club, for an open pit lane day using the full GP layout. I can't wait! In-car video will be posted shortly afterwards.

After that there's events at Millway in Andover, Llandow near Cardiff, an Autosolo event in Guildford, various CRX meets and whatever else comes up.

More updates to come...

First off some big news - I haven't written a car off for over a year!!! Get in!

It was this time last year that I collected the CRX and took it to the Jap Performance day at Santa Pod (it was the 10th last year). Which is exactly where I was today, although not running the car this time. It made a nice change to wander around and take pictures instead of running the car. The pictures can be found here.

The CRX has changed a little over the last 6 months. The exterior is the same and aside from the usual oil changes and other mundane work it's mechanically the same too (though I changed the clutch for one that could actually handle the moderate power increase over a stock setup). However... time has been spent on a custom ECU with data logging and reprogrammable chip, the rusty metal sunroof has been replaced with a carbon fibre one, and the interior has been stripped. Yes boys and girls, I'm going racing!

My lovely red and black seats and door cards went off to their new home yesterday, and leave in their place a pair of 5.5kg carbon fibre fixed position seats (although only one is fitted) and some Genuine Fake Carbon Fibre (TM) door cards, which are actually made of PVC plastic. The carpet, roof, a-panel trim, and entire rear trim is now out of the car. Weight-saving-orama.

This is only the beginning though; my D2 fully adjustable suspension package will be arriving this week. The whole handling of the car is going to be transformed. New Energy suspension bushes and adjustable front and rear camber arms, with adjustable rear toe links too. All of this will mean I can setup the car exactly as I need. Oh, and I've got an ex CRX Challenge rear strut brace now too.

I'm about to place an order for a new set of light weight (4.9kg) wheels too and finally some tyres that will get the job done. Then all I need are some better brakes and it will be ready for some track action.

Further down the line (i.e. next year) it's going to have a B18C[6] dropped in (that's the one from the DC2 ITR) complete with the ITR gearbox and LSD, and then finally a roll cage. I may also get it stripped back to the chassis and seam welded.

So basically my life is revolving around the car at the moment!

Why is it that whenever I go to the Ferrari garage in Egham I always buy something I didn't intend to. You'll be glad to know my wallet was spared the £176,000 asking price for an immaculate F40, however it was mighty tempting!

Instead I settled for this fantastic Lego model of a Ferrari F1 car. Shocked at my now poor Lego skills, it took me most of the afternoon to build it. Ah to be 12 again...

View the complete photo album in the gallery

It's not a series many people are familiar with, but the 2005 Britcar season is about to get under way and I was fortunate enough to be invited to the 'Press Test Day' at Silverstone on the 11th of March. Tom Gannon, who runs the garage where I take my CRX for all the seriously oily bits that need doing, has been racing for many years now with his brother Will and is currently entering a DC5 Integra Type R into the Britcar series. Unfortunately the car wasn't ready for Friday's test day but he did bring along 2 customer cars, an ex-works Honda Civic and a DC5 similar in spec to Tom's race car.

A very cold and windy Silverstone welcomed a huge variety of cars all hoping for success in the 2005 season, ranging from Ford Focus', BMWs of all ages and models, many different Hondas, Porsches, Marcos' and even a few Ferraris. For any petrolhead this was an eye-candy overdose, but it was the acompanying sounds that were the real thrill; in particular, a fire-breathing corner-munching red Ferrari 360 on a trailing throttle into turn 1, sounding more like a Band of Brothers episode as each lap passed.

View the complete photo album in the gallery

Although there were no official times for the day it was clear who the quick boys were. The silver Seat Cupra impressed me in particular, seemingly keeping up with the red 360 for several laps. The Civic Tom brought along seemed to be doing well and the Integra chewed its way through the first set of tyres within about half an hour!

This was my first time at a Britcar event and now I've deffinitely caught the bug! The first race meeting is on Easter Saturday, March 26th at Silverstone with testing on Easter Friday. For more information including a full season calender, see www.eerc.co.uk.

The 26th of February 2005 saw the CRX-UK owners club head down to Millway in Andover for a rolling road meet. For those that don't know, a rolling road is like a tread mill for a car only the car is working the tread mill and not the other way around. The rollers are used to measure the power and torque developed by the engine and estimate the loss incurred through the transmission. We had a very positive turn out with around 15 cars at Millway, of which I think 12 were CRXs (no Del Slo's either!). All of the runners were VTEC Mk2 cars apart from my 16v, and I think everyone had a pleasing result all with at least the original quota of ponies. At least that means I had the best 16v result of the day! I made 137hp at the fly wheel and 112 at the wheels, which is spot on for a standard-ish engine.

The one exception to the fairly standard selection of CRXs was Marks SiR turbo. This car is something of a legend; currently producing around 300hp at the wheels, the engine has been designed with figures in the region of 500+ horse power! All of this, from a 1.6 litre twin cam VTEC engine. Madness.

View the complete photo album in the gallery

One of the CRX owners that was there, Andy (aka CH1EF), took a selection of excellent pictures which he has kindly allowed me to use here.