Truenotch

Is it possible to make split flanges for the headers and install each runner individually? These guys did it with a Volvo, but the stud arrangement on the 4GR will probably dictate whether it'd work for you.

No drama. Thanks for looking!

I'd be very keen for spare carbs if you find them

Well it obviously found a good home, because WOW, you've done an outstanding job with the resto! If I'd bought it, it would still be in barn find condition in my garage. I'm moving to the South Island, so the Wolf will go to my Dad's garage soon. He's pretty excited to start on restoring it.

On to the final round of the series at Hampton Downs. I was one point behind Dean in the series and knew we'd have a solid fight on our hands! In Friday's testing, Dean was faster in our wet practice and I was faster in the dry afternoon session. Oli and I were representing "Team Meatlocker Motorsport", the best low-budget race team around. The meatlocker name stemmed from me sleeping in a converted meat locker at our Airbnb at the Taupo round You can see Oli's expensive car cover in this pic: We went out for quali and had a good dry session on Saturday morning. I put car #105 on pole by 0.4sec. Not a bad start. Race 1: I was absolutely asleep when the lights went out at the start of this race! That dropped me back to third. Luckily Dean had an issue in the last corner (he hit the kill switch and lost all power), so I caught back up, but the car felt really loose and unsettled. Then I got hit in the rear wheel around turn 2/3, which felt like it might have bent something. This is an excuse, but that stuff put me off my game and later in the race while I was having a battle for the lead, I left the door open and didn't expect the car behind to have enough pace to make a move... I thought wrong and he took a dive up the inside at the hairpin and pulled off a clean pass. Nice work Dom, poor job Markku. I finished in 4th after pushing too hard at the downhill hairpin, taking too much ripple strip and running wide through the gravel and grass. I guess it could have been worse During the day there was a bit of action in other races too. We saw a MASSIVE crash in the Central Muscle Car race. I didn't expect to see Tony walk away from this one - he was spun by the car behind him and missed the tyre wall completely. Concrete takes no prisoners. Thankfully Tony walked away. This car has been rebuild plenty of times, but the poor Charger might not come back from this one. I had a good starting position for Race 2 since it's reverse grid. My start was OK, but Oli had a blinder on the inside line! He pushed ahead and I followed him into the RX7/8 traffic, which slowed us up a bunch. The cars ahead slowed us down through the last corner, which gave Dean a chance to have a go around the outside of turn 1. He gave it a crack and made it work! I followed Oli for another lap or so, trying to use his draft to get both of us within striking distance of Dean, but ultimately had to get past him if I wanted to fight for the lead. I got ahead of Oli and was chasing Dean down. The chance of catching him looked good! Until Ferg in the RX7 had a moment around the hairpin and I had nowhere to go... Thankfully it looks like a bigger crash in this photo than it was! I got moving again and finished 4th. The car felt fine and my last lap was within .2 of my best lap for that race, so it can't have bent too much in the front end... Race 2 vid: Race 3: What a race! This is what MX5 Racing is all about. I started from 5th place after my average results so far, but made up for it with a good start and a strong first lap. I made my way through the pack to second place and started to chip away at Dean. My first attack was an attempt at going around the outside at turn 1 (which feels wild). It didn't stick there, but I was able to stay on the back of him and a gap opened up later in the lap that car #105 fitted into perfectly! From here, the battle was on. Dean and I traded blows, with him passing me back around the outside of 1... I really wanted to get him the same way, cause it's such a crazy place to make a move. A lap or so later, a chance appeared and I went for it. The move came together perfectly and I found myself back in the lead with a couple of laps to go! Dean was trying hard to find an opening, so I made sure to keep the door closed. Heading into the last corner for the last time I remember telling myself "just get this corner right and the race is yours"... I took slightly too much of a defensive line, which gave Dean the run and he was able to draft me up the straight and beat me by 0.05sec. It wasn't a win, but it was a buzz! We got some great TV time in that race too, which will be awesome for growing the class. Race 3 footage: So that left me in second place for the series. After the way the first two races went, I'm glad to have still brought it home on the podium (3rd for the weekend and 2nd for the series). It was a really fun season of MX5 racing this year and I'm glad the likes of Dean and Nick have joined the class and upped the level of competition. For me, racing is about fair fights with strong competition, and this summer season ticked those boxes. Now we're heading into winter series, which will be even more intense. 4 rounds at Manfeild and we should have 20 cars at round 1, with the possibility of having ~30 MX5s on the grid from round 2 onwards... And there's some really fast drivers in the ranks. I can't wait! Here's a few more pics from the Hampton Downs final:

Between rounds, I was thinking about ways to make the car more stable. It's always been fairly balanced, but I'd noticed more understeer and unsettled characteristics since we changed to the lower grip tyres, especially in the wet. My initial thoughts were that my chosen spring rates are too high. I've roughly based my rates off some USA based advice and it handled great on the old Toyo R888Rs (if not a little bit understeery at the limit). Everyone else in the class runs ~500lb front at ~300lb rear. I run ~700lb front and ~400lb rear (high spring rates in the front to keep the inside rear wheel on the ground, cause these cars love to jack up). The springs in this car are only 6" long, so getting replacements in NZ is a pain in the ass, otherwise I would have bought a pair 550s or 600s to test in the front already, but I got thinking about what else had changed. Then I remembered the bump stops. Remember these guys? (You probably don't). They're MX5 specific race bump stops and are designed to give a rising spring rate instead of harshly hitting a piece of rubber. They're 36mm long and ramp up from ~300lb/in to infinity over the space of ~25mm compression. I'd based my shock lengths off the ~10mm compressed length of the bump stop, but hadn't actually measured how much travel was left before they came into play. So I jumped under the car a few weeks ago and stuck my finger between the springs... Yep, as I suspected, there wasn't much shock travel before the bump stop made contact (1 fingertip, to be precise). Another change with the new tyres is the lower rolling diameter, since they're a 195/50/15 road tyre instead of a 205/50/15 race semi slick. This means I now have more compression travel available before the tyre hits the inner wheel well (common in MX5s). So I whipped the springs and bump stops out and jacked the wheel up as far as it would go, took some measurements and figured out roughly how much I could take off. ... I'd love to be able to run this car with no springs... I gave the bumps a careful 10mm trim, making sure to leave at least one "bellow" complete so it would still have nice compression characteristics. 10mm doesn't seem like much, but on an MX5, the motion ratio for wheel travel to shock travel is around .66/.73 Front/Rear, so that 10mm trim gets me ~15mm of extra wheel travel before the bump touches. It should make a difference! I also worked out that the front pinch welds will end up at around 45mm off the deck at full compression. I wonder what might scrape if it ever gets there?

That was some great wet driving! The car looked like it was hooked up and you weren't afraid to use the grip. Nice work. I'm hoping to have my car in South Island later this year. Hopefully we can meet up at a track somewhere.

Onwards to the next couple of rounds. Round 3 of the summer series was at Pukekohe Park for the final ever race meeting before it closed down at the end of March. I have to say, I'm sad we won't be back at Pukekohe. I've only raced there a few times, but man, it's such an exciting racetrack, even in an underpowered MX5. I'll never forget the feeling of going sideways over bumps at 160k+ around turn 1! As is the way with these things, I started to feel like I was learning the track just as the weekend came to a close and it's unlikely I'll ever get to attack those corners again. Thanks Pukekohe, you were a fun circuit. We joined the Mazda Racing Series again at this round and only had space for 9 MX5s because there were 29 RX8s and an RX7 on the grid! We had a couple of MX5 racers drive up from Christchurch for the farewell... one of them even drove their racecar all the way from Chch! Top marks to that crew We had perfect weather all weekend! It's hard to not be stoked with skies like this: I qualified in P2 behind Dean Evans, who is a brave man, so I knew he'd be fast at Puke! We were only separated by .2 of a second, so I was right there with him. Matt wasn't so fortunate - he had a moment in turn 1 and ended up in the wall down past turn 2. Luckily he owned a Landcruiser, so could just strop the MX5 to it for a quick repair Race one kicked off well. I got the jump from the outside row and had a small lead going into turn 1. Dean was right behind me and we were right on the tail of a slower RX8. I went for a gap around the outside of the RX8 through turn 3 and 4. Dean had a good exit from the inside line too, so we headed into the kink on either side of the RX8, both braking as hard as we could to make it through! We were side by side all the way to the hairpin, where he got just far enough ahead to squeeze me out. The rest of the race was spent chasing Dean. I'd reel him in down the back, he'd get away through Turns 1 -4. We battled away for the rest of the race and I had a few attempts at getting past, but couldn't make it stick. Great race! Tim Wilde wasn't so lucky. He'd chosen to run #13 as his usual #5 wasn't available on this grid... I'm not supersticious, but man, he had an unlucky weekend! He blew a diff in Race 1. Nobody had a spare with them, so Benny from Garage5 found one on marketplace which they removed and a bunch of the MX5 crew banded together to get Tim back out for the next morning's action. I also found the 180kph speed limiter for the first time ever! So the next morning I whipped the dash out to remove the contact that triggers the speed cut. For anyone curious, there's a screw in the back of the cluster that says 180 キロ (KiRo = KILOmeter). Race two, reverse grid. Dean and I started WAY down the back of the grid - almost over the hill! It's pretty hard to see the start lights from back there . This time I chose the inside around turn 3/4 and the gamble worked out well. I had a great jump out of the esses and the seas parted, allowing me to jump up to 3rd place on the back straight. Meanwhile, Dean was boxed in and got stuck back in the pack. At the end of Lap 1, an RX8 lost control over the hill and backed itself into a concrete wall causing a safety car. The poor thing looked like a hatchback afterwards! (there were jokes about it being a modern rota bug, Mazda 3 Rotang etc). I kept my eyes forward and made a few moves (WOOHOO, BUMP DRAFTING!) and eventually found my way to the front. Dean finished back in 4th - great news for my championship hopes! Here's the footage from Race 2. Skip to 7 mins for the safety car restart: Race 3: the final race of the weekend. I got a great start again and pushed pretty hard to stay ahead of Dean. We were amongst the slow RX8 and S1 RX7 again. The RX8 was hell bent on battling with us, and eventually made a move on me into turn 1. Dean took the opportunity to follow him through, sneaking around the outside and grabbing the lead! I fought back and we were battling right up until lap 6 (of 8 ) when another RX8 had a big crash around turn 1 and wrote itself off! This brought the safety car back out and we finished under yellow... Me in 2nd place behind Dean. It was another good race, but both Dean and I felt ripped off that we couldn't finish the battle. It felt like I had the pace to pass him, but it wasn't to be. I only had one win (Dean had two), but his poor finish in race 2 gave the me the round win! Stoked to get a #1 Hankook hat for a second time. We finished the weekend with ONE POINT between us in the championship (Dean ahead), with one round to go. It was all on! A few of us went out for the flying farewell race at the very end with the full length back straight and that was a buzz! Oliver and I battled for a lot of it and the track just felt "right" without the kink. It's a real buzz having a braking zone from 180kph+ in 5th gear and needing to row through the gears right down to 2nd for the hairpin. We did a ridiculous amount of bump drafting in that race (long back straight, lots of drafting)... But I lost the footage, so that race will need to live on int my memory instead What a weekend though! Great place, amazing crew to race with and the unbeatable atmosphere that Pukekohe provided at big events. Here's a few snaps:

The D on the end of that code suggests 1983 (and Blue Wing Honda should have told you that). https://www.motorcyclespareparts.eu/en/honda-parts/honda-year-code-identification

He's Roman VI

That bike has 97cc of face-scrambling torque. Catch me if you can. 300+ km per day will be a challenge for sure! I'm up for it and agree that we need to avoid dawdling or stopping too often (I'll try not to break a clutch lever or cable next year...) Any thoughts on the start point? I'll be living in Queenstown, so might be able to offer a spot for mechanical repairs along the way if we're going past.

Haha, I think he was encouraging me to pass him on the left, but I decided to give him a wee bump instead. It was all friendly though

Round two came around quickly and we headed off to Taupo International Motorsport Park for another round with Super Sprint NZ and the Toyota Racing Series. This time we were back to our traditional summer series format where we run off the back of the Mazda Racing Series. The RX8 class has grown hugely over the last few years, so we ended up with 11 MX5s and 28 RX8s running together. It was busy out on track! I ran the car in testing on Friday and it seemed to be going fine, but after the first hot run I started it up again and the mystery electrical fault had returned. It only seems to be a problem when the car has been running (or left with the key in the on position) for a while and then re-started while hot. The fault wouldn't show up if the car was left to cool off for a couple of hours and re-started. Once it was running it would stay fine as long as it wasn't turned off again, so the solution for this round was to leave the car alone between races and only start it pre-race without turning it off again! Nick Cummings showed his pace early by qualifying on pole. The combination of his driving style and car setup was obviously working well! His time was 1.4 seconds quicker than my 2nd place effort and it was his first time racing an MX5 at this track. Impressive! We had a good camp of MX5 racers and were the only drivers with no pit crew at the event, so we all had to pitch in to help each other if anything went wrong. Race one was busy off the start! We ended up tussling with the back of the RX8 pack in the first lap and I dropped back a few places. I put my eyes forward and picked a few back off. Once the dust settled I was the 2nd MX5 on track behind Nick in the grey #3. Race two, reverse top 10. It was busy off the start again I started from P9 and the first couple of corners were intense! Managed to keep my nose clean and progressed through the pack up to 2nd place again. Nick made some good moves through traffic and ended up with a decent lead! Race 3 is where the action happened. Nick started from pole, I was in 2nd and we were having a close race for the first couple of laps. Then a few RX8s had a crash up ahead and Nick chose the wrong side of the track through turn 5. He was on a huge patch of oil and ended up drilling an injured RX8 in the rear bumper. Here's a quick clip from the TV coverage: That opened the door for me to take the lead of the MX5 class and bank 75 points for the final race. It's not how I wanted to get a win, but I'll take it. In the winners circle: Nick's car had bent the horns on the front of the chassis and was looking pretty sad after the race: Race 3 in car:

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

Hope you're installing an AG100 engine?

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

@Pee Dubs needs this.

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!

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.

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=