Hi Andy....I can highly recommend the cherry bomb mod I made on my car, it has done the two things I wanted from mine :- that is mellowed out the exhaust note and increased rpm responce above 3500rpm

I may try that, or talk you into making me a system... :D

I have been playing with my turbo past few days. I got a boost solenoid of a golf TDI for £10 and wired it up to my megasquirt as I found out the beta firmware now allows me to chose new outputs for boost control on my microsquirt. Its a fairly mature RC beta so I'm happy with that.

What a jolly it is at 10PSI and being electric boost control you get no creep or fade through the rev range. The noise from the exhaust as it boosts is insane, love it!

Cheers
Stot

I'm building up a ATB Diff into an old 1.8 open diff at the moment. Its been sitting rusty as hell for a couple of months now but as my wife is away the smell of rotten eggs on my hands and paint in the air goes un-noticed so its perfect time to have a crack at it.





I ruined one of the side bearings removing it from the open diff and all the oil seals went too.

Have you seen the price of these things if you buy MX5 specific stuff?! £50 for the bearings each. £15+ for oil seals each.

The side bearings are a standard part, 32008X, and the oil seals are standard sizes, 40x65x12 for the nose and 35x56x8 for the sides so I'm going to try using off the shelf stuff and see how I get on. £24.20 for one Timken side bearing, 2 side oil seals and one nose seal.

The bearing I think will be spot on but the seals are slightly different in that they don't have the funnel flange on them but I don't think it will cause any issues. Its not like my car is designed for the kinds of duty the MX5 was.

Cheers
Stot

Looks familiar! ;) I've not fitted mine yet, think I'll fit it when the 1.8 goes in. :D

Btw, why do your hands smell of sulphur? :confused:

Yeah you bought yours around the same time I bought mine. I need to send the prop shaft off to be shortened still too. Haven't even got it out of the packaging it arrived in.

I think the turbo is taking its toll on the poor 1.6 stuff now. Recon there's about 200hp at the wheels at the moment at 10psi and the bigger exhaust on there.

Old diff oil, has that lovely smell to it.

Cheers
Stot

I like that smell, Mmmm! Must be mental with that extra power! :cool:

Well my seals and bearing turned up.



Bearing was fine, nice quality and went on no problem.



The side seals again went in no problem and will do the job perfectly.



The nose seal however fitted the shaft just fine, but the casing must not quite be 65mm so it deformed and peeled as it was pressed in.



Booo. Ordered a genuine one for this in the end. Only cost £2 for the one that didn't work so no biggie.

Cheers
Stot

Have you got yourself a new crush tube for the pinion shaft? You can still get them from the dealers for around £10+vat.

Right, finally on top of my engine cooling. I got myself a 55mm 3 row aluminium radiator.



Its polo based however I thought I would mount it vertically for space reasons. 55mm rad and 75mm inter-cooler is pretty tight already in the nose and leaving space for hoses to pass the chassis was impossible.



I actually find this a much better solution all round, even if I didn't have an inter-cooler.

Coupled this up to a 10" Revotec high power fan. I haven't even ducted the nose yet and can hammer it along the motorway without going above 93* in the hot weather today. Previously I would need to slow down to 55mph to allow the engine to get down to 100* :eek:

In traffic the fan kicks in at 97* and only takes 60 seconds to get the engine back down to 92*. Well happy.

Now If I can relocate my air filter to somewhere less warm...

Cheers
Stot

Nice, where did you get that from?

Ebay. He does 2, 3 and 4 row versions. Was at Stoneleigh this year too apparently.

Cheers
Stot

I'll have to save up! Is this the intercooler you used? They look very neat together! :)

Looks the same but this is the exact one I bought.

The width of the core is the same as the height of the polo core so it fits well..

Its actually an exact match for the Mercedes core but an aluminum Merc radiator would have to be custom made and been about £500 so this was a good alternative.

Cheers
Stot

Just ordered my all ali rad, shhh don't tell the missus! :D

Dont worry its well worth it. Just tell her to think of the amount of time this is going to save you trying to track down an overheating problem. Ive been through 3 radiators before this, a coolant reroute and god knows how many hoses. :rolleyes:

Another 20 miles at 70-ish(cough) to work this morning and it didnt even get to 90* :cool:

Cheers
Stot

Hi Sot, Just in the process of mounting my rad like yours, I was concerned about trapped air at the top of the radiator and noticed you seem to have added a bleed valve/s of some kind to the top of rad. How did you do it without leaks or aluminium welding.

I just carefully tapped for M6 and used a rubber washer to seal against a socket cap screw. Just nipped up the socket screws not too tight. I have some 4mm Ali and I'll rivet a piece on with some closed rivets and RTV if they strip and tap that instead.

Saying that I'm not convinced now I really need them, As the water flows down and then up in that orientation, as long as you have a header above the radiator it should naturally fill up.

Cheers
Stot

Ahh I see, smart. I was looking at using some rubber rivet (well) nuts, I thought that's how you had done it. I'll try it without and see how I get on. Cheers

Hi After driving to & from the IVA test i completely agree about the amount of throttle pedal movement, did you ever re-make the adaptor on the throttle body or did you do something else in the end or do you just live with it?
Cheer's
Neil

I just live with it, its not that bad when you get used to it.

Cheers
Stot

Thanks, I am in the process of making a smaller wheel for the engine side, I have the disc made with the groove just need to put some holes in it & slot the centre hole, I will see how it goes.
Cheer's
Neil

Here's a shot of my new throttle pulley, seems pretty good, time will fell when I get it out on the road.
https://flic.kr/p/Jf68An

Nice job :cool:

Very cool would be interested how you find it. Remember to change the throttle pedal stop bolt so you don't snap the cable. Been there done that. :o

Cheers
Stot

Yes, that's the next job! It feels better anyway hopefully it will be on the road, just waiting on my registration now.
Cheer's. Neil

Definitely worth the time & effort, had a couple of short runs out today & it definitely felt better:)

Long time update. I have moved to Sunny Wolverhampton and had to build a garage for my car at the new house but now the sun is out I thought I would tackle some of the little things I have been thinking of doing.

I wanted to dam the the nosecone to get as much air going through the intercooler and radiator as possible. I thought about piddling around with templates and tape and glue then thought bugger it, expanding foam. I covered the insides with a bin bag and squirted expanding foam around the inside of the nosecone.



Trimmed it round the nosecone openings.



I did that a few times to fill as many voids as I could then removed the bin bag



And covered it with black neoprene.

With the grilles back on its looking pretty good and is helping keep intake and engine temps down.

Cheers
Stot

hmm like many things on your car I might steel that too
john

Copy anything mate. Mind is.actually quite 'raw' inperson. I like the fact it appears more 'original' used finish.. Not a perfect finish. I really think that's what these things are about but thats just me.

My best advise would be make it unique but you as much as possible. I went KAR 120 but made it my version I hope.

Cheers
Stot

cheers Stot, my haynes to an unexpected twist when I built something else, a NZ chevron 7. now it is suffering from refinements to keep me in the shed.

http://www.lotus7.co.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3465

john

Stot - sorry to jump you back in time - but can you provide any info about how you went about trimming and securing your Equinox bodywork? I'm having similar fitting problems to Voucht - so am going to pinch trimming solutions from him - but wondered what fixings you used/what spacings between them for side panels, scuttle and nosecone?

Sorry to jump in here but I assume the side panels are what you are having an issue with - on mine they were ground a little to fit (very tight indeed) and then I used one of those polywotsit glues like Tiger seal or Sikaflex to glue them into place. In order to hold them in place I use a few pop rivets but none where they would show after the car was on the road. Impossible to get off and they haven't moved after over a year on the road :)

Instead of Tiger Seal I used this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Bond-...XAWAP1TTGYR06X which (having used this and Tiger Seal) works just as effectively and sticks like s**t to a blanket and, is cheaper, 4 for £15.

No need to apologise - it's what the forum is for! Bascially yes - I don't know how many rivets to use or where to place them -or even if I can just use Sikaflex, clamp it all in place for a week and then it won't go anywhere. So i'm looking for as many example of what others have done.

Trouble is - one mans 'oh, not many rivets' is another mans "I 'only' put a rivet every 75mm"!!!!!

Ok - I used no rivets in the cockpit area at all just clamps, under the scuttle to the very front of the car I spaced pop rivets about every 6" but these are hidden by draught excluder (from Lidl) which stops the bonnet chattering. The underside of the car has rivets at about 8" spacing and is not visible unless you can get underneath. HTH :)
I should add that all the metal surfaces were given a coat of polywotsit even the triangulation pieces + no vibration noises

Jesus Stot you are immensely creative and you've given me some more ideas of my own. Does anyone manufacture clam shell wings still as I want some now :D

Hi!
Equinox still manufactures clam shell front wings. Last item of this page:
http://equinoxproducts.co.uk/product...ynes/roadster/

I have a full bodywork from them on my Roadster, and the quality of their work is excellent.

Now, as it looks like you are aiming for a powerful Roadster, I guess you are looking for high performance, so be aware that clam shell wings are awful when it comes to aerodynamics. They are just acting like 2 big parachutes, and will add to the already bad aerodynamics of the car (like all "seven-like" cars, aerodynamics is not the best feature of our Roadsters).

And I'm not even talking about fuel consumption...

But they do look good and no problem on low/mid performance road cars in my humble opinion.

Hope that will help :)

I have a pair of unused BRG clamshell wings made by Tiger if you want them. Scruffy from being stored but cheap :-)