New water pump, crank shaft oil seal, clutch and flywheel fitting on saturday!







































a bit closer to Japfest but then engine is still in the garage....

This is one job I couldnt do. All credit to you both

I think your camera lens needs a clean, looks a bit cloudy

great work guys... this thing will be a beast on the track

for information as well,
the Clutch and flywheel are for an early 1.8 MX5 the only thing that doesnt fit in the kit is the new thrust bearing

PLEASE NOTE that a MX5 clutch will only fit with an MX5 flywheel!!!

----------------------

yeah it probably is Daz, crappy phone camera!
As jobs go the clutch isn't that bad (the front anti roll bar bushes were worse!), its definately easier to take the engine out rather than leave the engine in to do it though!

Thats the plan Ayrton but the clutch needs 500 miles of city driving to bed in, hopefully i squeeze that in before japfest otherwise my track time will be up for sale!

how much did clutch and flywheel set you back?

very very very nice

The gearbox side crank seal looks suprisingly like mine did, I recently changed this while upgrading to an Exedy organic clutch, not a job i'd recommend in the rain lol

Looking good though mate

PM'd



i dont think it was put in properly in the first place!
tell me about it we helped AndyM do his gearbox swap in the rain!


Thanks guys

Sorry I didn't mean condition, I meant style of it which is weird for a different car, mine looked pretty intact before taking it out, but was stained with oil and you could see the dripping down from it Was yours causing the clutch to slip?

And yeah, my box was a right pain to get back on

well that really knackered oil seal was actually the front one (pulley end) the gearbox end one was bigger and weeping. It would eventually cause the clutch to slip i think

all fixed now though hopefully

yesterday we mangaged to get the engine back in and mostly piped up,






also fitted our oil thermo stat

looking great there
will it be ready for next week

fingers crossed it will be these are the jobs left to-do:

bits left to-do:

fit oil cooler
fit all charge air pipe work
fit battery
connect remaining wires
fit spark plugs
fill with engine oil
fit front bumper
fit strut brace
reconnect drive shafts
top up gearbox oil
reattach bottom ball joints
bleed the clutch
fit strut brace
fit bonnet
fit wheels
fill with coolant
run engine
bleed coolant
check & test some interior wiring
test drive
bed clutch in (500 miles)

i think thats everything

not much really........

still a few bits

500 miles bed in......... best get driving lol

yeah that will be done and all bedded in by next weekend if it were me lol

You nit go for the mocal Sandwich plate with stat ?
I was going to fit red couplers but though it would be too 'red' But seeing yours with the chunky clamps I wish I had

bits left to-do:

fit oil cooler - done
fit all charge air pipe work - done
fit battery - done
connect remaining wires - done
fit spark plugs - done
fill with engine oil - done
fit front bumper - done
fit strut brace - whoops forgot this...
reconnect drive shafts - done
top up gearbox oil - done
reattach bottom ball joints - done
bleed the clutch - done
fit bonnet - done
fit wheels - done
fill with coolant - done
run engine - done
bleed coolant - done
check & test some interior wiring - done
test drive - done
bed clutch in (500 miles) still to do

Had a good 12 hour day yesterday!!

glad to hear shes back on the road guys! congratz to both for the hard work

The remote oil filter take off plate was already installed so just kept that

i know what you mean about too red but we're happy with what we've got, nothing else red i dont think



Cheers Lee, drove to stratford and back yesterday for a shake down and to put miles on her
Driving her all week too hopefully the clutch will be nice and bedded in for Japfest!

this engine looks amazing
must be better than new

Thanks matey she does go very well!

Saturday 4th August
Blyton Park Track Day organised by Mazda on Track!

What a fantastic day! Great organisers and track.
There were mainly VW polos and BMW M3s there but there were a couple of mazdas

PLUS!!! - I have to say a MASSIVE MASSIVE Thank you to my Dad (Lee) as this was the first time I (Nathan) have driven the car other than at 5mph around some shows! Braver man than i am! All i can say is wow wow wow we've built a fantastic car, its so controlable (managed to find that out once or twice ) and the power is immense! As it was the first time i have driven the car properly i left her in Low boost, Dad had her on High boost though for his sessions and was lapping about 4 seconds quicker (timed on Racechrono App using phone GPS) than me as he was also carrying higher speeds through the corners.

2 hour drive from home to the track - 8 "sessions" (20ish mins each) in total - 2 hour drive home and she never missed a beat!! (despite us taking enough tools to do a complete strip down!)
It would have been possible to have more track time as it was open pit lane but Dad (Lee) wasn't feeling great and is suffering from the flu so we "took it easy...ish" (spent all day sunday in bed )

We had a couple wiggles on track due to driver error but driving by the seat of you pants means you could feel it have 5 mins to think about it then correct it with no major problems! Dad out braked himself on one chicane, so we went straight through. It was on the last session of the day we think tiredness was setting in by then as we were both shattered by the end of the day its very tiring!

Brakes were well and truley tested, (smoking at one point) and they held up well! The red paint on the calipers is now black though When these pads are done i think we will be looking at yellow stuff pads as a replacement just so they cope better with the heat!
The brake cooling ducts we added for Japfest 2 worked well as when one session came to an end due to red flag, the brakes were smoking but every other session we had a cooling down lap using little to no brakes and they were much cooler!

Theres a great right left sweeping section which you can take flat out, but i only managed half throttle feathering the pedal slightly! there are a few straights that you can open the throttle up think we managed a top speed of 86mph recorded on the Racechrono App so not sure how accurate it is, might look at a seperate GPS receiver.

During the lunch break the organisers changed the layout of the track, added a smaller, tighter, more technical section with a hair pin turn which just kept the day interesting! 2 different tracks is not something that every track day can offer you!

I managed to get a couple pictures which i'll get up soon!
One thing on the todo list is to get a camera mounted to the car so we can have some video!

Also the weather was great, dry all day apart from 5 mins where we had a few spots of rain while i was out on track but it soon stopped and then we had glorious sunshine!

All in all the best day out in the car we've had for pure driving fun!
I'd fully recommend a track day to anyone!

Cheers
Lee
&
Nathan



couple of pics here:
http://www.clubpolo.co.uk/forum/index.p ... 586&st=225
have to register though



The "greenstuff" pads are now black stuff and the red paint has burnt off to black as well




These were taken when dad was out with the instructor for a 20 min session

Excellent news!

Now it needs a rolling road session, let see some numbers

I could just look at the list... but will it be making an appearance at JAE again this year?

yep she will be at JAE again
She's already been on the rollers:


We're running 0.6 Bar boost as day to day driving and 1.2 Bar for track days etc.

Thats some graph

Cheers Daz,

Hmmmm, When i got in the car to drive on track the odo said 599 miles at the end of the day it said 660 and the track is about 1.4 miles and dad probably did 10 laps before i got in the drivers seat so we travelled 74 miles out on track, fair enough, the fuel guage was at 3/4's full when we arrived and was at 1/4 full when we left soooo very roughly 60 litre tank half of that is 30 litres (converted to UK Gallons = 6.599)
74miles / 6.599 gallons = 11.2 MPG

wish i hadn't have thought about it now!

My v6 isn't much better on fuel than your I get about 25 - 30 miles off £10, and I bet mines nowhere near as fun as yours to drive.
You got really good figures on that graph aswell, are you going to try to get more out of her or is she done?

Thanks Paul, the gearbox won't take any more power nor will our wallet!

But if we ever do the toyota gear box conversion, then we can turn the boost up to 1.8 bar, look at bigger turbos and a gas flowed MX5 head ( http://www.cncheads.co.uk/?p=766 )
The engine should be good for 500BHP but the rest of the car... well it started life as a 90BHP 1.5!

The fun you have with the car must out weigh the MPG figures though.



500bhp, is that all