Truenotch

Pic dump. Our bathroom/sauna/fabric biltong chamber after day 1: Waiting for food in Gisborne was serious business: MX100 with a smashed headlight. @johnnyfive's XL pitched the perfect rock on SH35 and got me square in the lens The mob. Motu sharns from this proud African woman. And feeding the Russian: Motu roadblock #1: Motu roadblock #2: Just send it?? ... maybe not... @WankBankA100 making his way across the bridge: @BLIZZO draining his boots: And smoko on the Motu after @TimShadboltfan27 ran out of Ricky Carmichael skills on the downhill: Take me back already!

Friday and Sunday will be the drier ones by the looks. Fingers crossed for a water splash this year!

Quick systems check last night. - Rattles? Tick - Vibrations? Tick - Nang ready? Tick

There's still a good number of FT40 and FT50 chassis being raced in the north island's Formula Open series, so there's potential to get the right second hand tyres from those teams. They'll have more race KMs on them and might not be as cheap as they were in TRS days, but it'll still be an option for club racers if you talk to the right people.

Haha, you and me both... I haven't checked the MX100 since the Marlborough Moped Melee. Mine only seized a couple of times on the last day, so suuuurely it can't be too bad?

@Pee Dubs get in here.

Churr. It would be much appreciated if you could save a Markku sized spot in the back seat / boot

@sentra @peteretep @Tumeke @slacker.cam - any chance I could bum a ride from Auckland with one of you jokers? I have a work trip in Auckland that finishes at 10am Thursday morning. It'll just be me and a carry on bag.

Yeah bol, we're booked at Waikanae Beach Motel in Gizzy and Te Araroa holiday park. Old Bill isn't 100% sure how we're all going to fit in, but he still took my booking - hopefully the road workers are out of the Cinema by then, otherwise one or two of us will be on mattresses.

It probably has a smaller carbon footprint than a Tesla.

That's quite a bit of black smoo on the number plate! Does the smoke smell like 2 stroke or burning trans oil?

I made it to Manfeild for the Manawatu Car Club's 75th Anniversary Meeting. It felt great to have the car amongst the GT Cup grid again. I had an overheating issue on Friday in testing. It would run at 100 or so and slowly build up to 110°+ which meant it pushed out quite a bit of coolant. I gutted the thermostat, replaced the coolant and repaired another small issue that might have been contributing and it ran bang on 80° water temp for the rest of the weekend. I was double classing in the MX5 too. Busy weekend! The car turned a few heads and received loads of positive comments from people all weekend. Over all, the consensus is that all red looks awesome . I also met an old owner of the car at the meeting! He's the one featured in most of the old photos in this thread. He owned the car in the early 2000s and raced it in SS2000 and Manfeild Winter Series events. We had a good old chinwag. It's so good to hear old stories about the car's life. He mentioned he might have the original logbook in his stash of old race memorabilia... which he found on Monday and is sending it up to me! It's the original logbook that dates back to August 1994, so I'll have a complete list of every event the car has ever competed in. Here's a few more pics. I didn't achieve the same times as the 2020/21 summer season, but had a great weekend doing battle with much more powerful cars.

I'm in no huge rush, but it would be nice to have one of them running by the end of the year.

Thanks, I'm flattered . And I agree on the NA screamer front - it's so hard to resist the power of a turbo, but the doorts make it all worth it!

Daaamn! I've only ever seen your car in tiny avatar pics, so it's cool to see bigger photos. I reckon the colour is pretty similar to what I've gone with. Love the interior pics too. There's something magic about a zenki GT Apex interior. I got mine almost exactly 14 years ago. It's crazy to think it's been that long eh?

Threw some fresh tyres on my other wheels and have been getting it ready to race next weekend. Few more jobs to do tomorrow and then it's pretty much ready to roll!

Haha, my MX100 is pretty medium sized eh?

@Beaver day one will be a cake walk (mostly tar seal), day 2 is medium gravel and day 3 is the Motu. It's easier than Te Urewera, so bring something shit .

Nice work! Can we hear it now?

Accom booked in Gizzy for @WankBankA100 @Beaver @iwanttobeamole and myself. Just waiting for ol' Bill to come back from his holiday so we can book into Te Araroa.

Gutted about the clutch! @Rhyscar had an Exedy HD clutch plate blow to bits behind his standard blacktop 4AGE and there's plenty of stories from others about breaking the plates etc. Hopefully you'll have no problems once you chuck a decent one in there. Looks like the handling on this car has come a long way too. I can see the extra confidence in your vids. Everything should come together once you've got the everything dialled enough to do constant laps. Keep it up.

Cheers @~Slideways~ It looks like a similar colour to yours if your profile pic is accurate. Do you have any pics of the old AE kicking around?

I think that photo is from the 03/04 season of SS2000. Would be nice to see that car hit the track again! It might even comply with the Historic Touring Car rules?

Snuck home at lunchtime to roll it into the sunlight:

I've bought an ex Lynn Rogers NZ Touring Car engine that was for Barrie Thomlinson's Altezza back in 2001/2002. It was built to a strict set of rules, so has limited lift on the cams, no VVTi and standard compression. The cams are fairly long duration and it has double valve springs, H beam rods and a few other good bits. I'm going to get the VVTi working again and install my high comp pistons, throw some new seals and bearings at it and see what it does. The cars went to Bathurst back in the early 00's, so it's possible that this engine went there as a spare. It came in a shipping cradle and has BT4 stamped on the block and head (Barrie Thomlinson's #4 engine). The other 86 is @Mitch.W's notchback. It's come a fair way since his last project update.