Truenotch

Onwards to summer! 

For the start of the 2023 summer series we had an opportunity we couldn't turn down: supporting the Toyota Racing Series with live coverage on Sky Sport and TV3! We assembled 16 MX5s and turned up to Manfeild to kick off the season. 

I reverted the car back to its original number and Dad gave the brakes a birthday. 

Qualifying was greasy and I wasn't on the pace in the wet. I ended up qualifying third, about .7 sec down on the leader. 

Race one I started 3rd and finished 3rd with some good battles along the way: 

Race two: reverse top 10. 

I started off P8 after finishing third in the previous race. It was busy throughout the race with lots of passing. At one stage the front 4 cars were 4 wide into turn 1! 

I chipped away and caught up to the back of the lead pack. Then Denis in #35 tried a bit too hard through the esses, made contact with Justin in the #84 and smashed his right front wheel to pieces! He almost collected me trying to take the hairpin with a flat tyre. I did what I could to chase down the frontrunners and made a lunge for second place on the last lap, but didn't quite make it stick. That final push gave me the fastest lap of the race (1.24.8) about .4 faster than the next fastest car. It was on for race 3!

Still got on the podium for that race and had a quick interview for Sky TV! (I know... famous) 

Race 3. Sunday afternoon. The scenes were set and our race was being broadcast live on TV3. We all had friends and family tuned in around the country and I was starting from P3 with the knowledge that I had the car pace to beat the two cars ahead of me. 

The car had been running faultlessly all weekend, so we lined up on the dummy grid ready to rumble: 

Aaaaand, my mystery ignition fault came back! So I didn't make it to the start 

So that was my round 1 over. I took home two third place finishes, so banked a few points, but was absolutely gutted to miss the chance to be on TV3! But hey, that's racing sometimes. 

I took the car home and jumped straight into diagnosis mode. When the fault kicked in I could only get up to a maximum of about 100kph and it got there super slowly... I knew it was a spark issue and felt like something was limiting the timing over about 25% throttle position. We threw a timing light across it to confirm this and went to work trying to find the culprit. 

Since the winter series we had replaced the spark plugs, leads, tested another set of coils and replaced the ignitor pack, so I was confident it wasn't any of those. 

After a bunch of poking and prodding, I had a look at the external ECU kill switch and found it was rusty as! So I bridged around the switch and the car came back to it's normal crisp self. Problem solved!!! 

.... Or so we thought... 

The September round of Winter Series was next up and we had a huge celebration for the Manawatu Car Club's 75th anniversary. We made a push to get as many entrants as possible - it ended up being the biggest winter series meeting we've ever run! I had the AE86 and the MX5 out, so was busy all weekend. We also produced some memorabilia for the event: a cartoon poster of Manfeild and a bunch of cartoon car stickers for the kids (and the big kids...)

The day started off reasonably good. I was still in the hunt for the championship and qualified in 4th with a few fast drivers in front of me. We were all set to go for race one and disaster struck! The mystery ignition fault from round 1 returned (it caused me to miss qualifying at round 1). I was a DNS for race 1 and had to start off the back for race two. Ouch! 

Starting off the back was great fun though. We had a 26 car field. The biggest field we've ever had! I manage to make my way up from 26th to 7th by the end of the 6 lap race. 

For the final handicap race of the series I started near the back with quite a big gap to the slower cars and made my way up to 11th. It was another busy race and was exciting as always! 

So that was the series over. I was absolutely stoked with the number of cars and drivers that raced with us during the 2022 winter series. We had 29 drivers enter at least one round of the series and the racing was close but clean. 

My electrical gremlin meant I was off the podium for the series, ending up in 5th place after missing qualifying and having one DNS. If not for those two mishaps, I would have been on the podium and in the fight for first place.... And I didn't get a single race win this season, so went hungry at each round without getting a chocolate fish  . That'll teach me for running a #1 on the door! 

All niggles aside, the fact the series came down to such a close finish is great for the class! The top 6 cars were separated by just over 100 points. A few different results and the whole order would have had a big shuffle. It's exciting to see the series coming to life and there's a constant flow of fresh enquiries about racing with us. I'm predicting a big field for the 2023 Winter Series 

17 minutes ago, Pee Dubs said:

Hope you're installing an AG100 engine?

On 03/11/2022 at 20:30, ThePog said:

Time to crank up the router so i can woodprint some 'Its motherfucking Dynafari time' tees...

Can we get Dynafari T shirts please!?!?! 

So it was you heading south on Monday night! I spotted you on the desert road that evening when we were on our way to pick up @Snoozin's motorbike from Tokoroa. 

It looked great on the road. 

It could also be the throttle position sensor. They sometimes hunt when the TPS is set wrong. 

Here's a guide on how to set the TPS with a multimeter:

http://www.matrixgarage.com/content/4age-tps-adjustment

6 hours ago, tortron said:

Does one of you punishers want this

@Pee Dubs needs this. 

I'm kicking myself for not buying and registering a couple of XR150s back when they could still be made road legal. They were always marketed as farm only bikes, but the XR150 and 190s could all be registered until November 2021 and are pretty capable for the money as @Mof and @governorsam proved on the last Moped Melee.

Still feels like a shame the XRM can't registered. They'd be a great bike at that price... But I guess it might have killed Supercub sales even more if they were legal? MR2Bing a "XRM50" is tempting though.

The new 5 speed Groms and Monkeys are wicked though, and proving to be way more popular than the 4 speed versions. 

Hopefully you get the bugs ironed out and make it to the final Pukekohe playday soon! Have you done 10 or more playdays to get into this event? 

I have space in my driveway and a spot to sleep in when you decide to come to Manfeild btw. There will be a bunch of opportunities coming up.

Wow, this last storm looks way more intense than when we went through. The low lying areas must have been completely swamped! 

Just now, rusty360 said:

Are so nz new had 1zz?

Yeah, most likely.

It's only comes in the FielderZ wagons and the Allex/RunX hatchback models. 

Up to ~6000rpm they feel the same as a shitty 1ZZ, then the lift kicks in and they keep revving past 8k.

11 minutes ago, rusty360 said:

Looks like I need to head to google and see what this engine is!

It's a great engine. All alloy, high RPM, variable valve timing with lift (like VTEC), quite tunable if you add ITBs and an ECU. All from your Mum's Corolla. 

Here's an instagram link to the test engine in Brendan from Niteparts' AE86:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CnAZ29SSoOA/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

On 09/01/2023 at 21:36, RUNAMUCK said:

Have you considered 2zz?

Honestly, this is a great idea. Niteparts now offer a J160 gearbox adaptor for the 2ZZ and will soon have bolt in AE86 engine mounts that could easily be modified to suit an Anglia.

The engines are still cheapish and available, but get in quick because they might disappear if people start RWD 2ZZ converting their old shitboxes.

Haha, I actually own an old valve radio and was planning to do this a long time ago.

Still pretty keen to do it one day, do you have a method in mind, or going to figure it out as you go?

50 minutes ago, RUNAMUCK said:

musselfest

Is this the female version of a sausage fest? 

Hey @Dolan - I know you're new here, but you're meant to post in the discussion thread, not the project thread . It's OK, I've fixed it.

Does burning drums with a gas plant make them work better? 

You'd better have something special planned for page 69... it's a meme car thread after all. 

5 hours ago, peteretep said:

Ordered a piston from 454.co.nz 7 weeks ago, still not received it. God damn I hate NZ suppliers, doesn't help their website made it look like the part was in stock

454 is a wholesaler too. They shouldn't be selling direct IMO, but they should at least have the technology to show the correct stock... 

Is it for the street magic?

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 

52 minutes ago, Hyperblade said:

Unfortunately with the latest TRS Chassis they changed rim and tyre sizes and moved the rears to the front and went bigger again on the rear.

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. 

9 hours ago, Metalhead96 said:

@Nominalpiazzas first rego was the 27th of June 1985 so I'm guessing gold sticker with 6 in the centre and M for class? 

Serial number I'm guessing was whatever so 4206969 could've been possible lol

I think the big number is the expiry month, so yours would most likely have been 12 originally. Most people just choose the number or month they like the most and make up a serial. 

The old rego stickers have little cuts in them so they tear apart when you try to remove them. I guess it could be possible to scan, strip, scan, strip as you go down through the layers? Worth a crack if you don't mind losing the originals