Truenotch

@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.

18 minutes ago, Beaver said:

@Truenotch /dad I'm pretty sure you've got my back for accom both nights yeh?

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. 

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

2 hours ago, Roman said:

What's the plan with the new motor(s) @Truenotch? Planning to get one in the hole before the coming season? Or just whenever they're ready. 

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

It looks like a Gen 3 engine to me, but the custom cam cover makes it hard to say. If it's Gen 3 it'll have shim under bucket, which should be fairly obvious with the cam cover removed. 

4 minutes ago, ~Slideways~ said:

Anyway, that's enough of my old car haha. Yours is really what I wanted mine to look like, especially the front bumper. N/A power is really what these car's should have, the supercharger was fun but a screaming NA is just better.

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?

3 hours ago, Beaver said:

Beauty. Adv50 will be on duty again. Won't be able to keep up with all the medium bike sooks but so be it.

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? 

2 hours ago, Vintage Grumble said:

Also, good to see crazy Neil's car in the retro pics. That thing hasn't moved in 7+ years now, RIP.

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?

1 hour ago, xsspeed said:

Whats the deets on new engine?

Also whats the go with the other 86

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. 

On 14/08/2022 at 00:32, Roman said:

Man this car is alresdy crazy fast, cant wait to see how it goes with the grunty engine in it.

Hopefully it makes OK power! Should do decent times if I can get it to the ground. 

12 hours ago, Toucan said:

Phoooooaaaarr

New paint who dis

Looks bangin

Cheers! It's a pretty bright red, so is taking a bit to get my head around. Need to get it all assembled for some daytime pics.

I think it might stand out on the track.

Next up was the first round of the 2022 winter series. We'd stripped all the stickers off the car between seasons with the intention of getting it painted. It didn't quite happen for a couple of reasons, so the car went to round 1 with makeshift stickers instead. 

We had 20 cars at the first round which was awesome! It's a whole different game in the reverse grid races with up to 19 cars ahead of you and only 6 laps to get to the front!

Here's some footage from the shortened race 3. This was shortened to 5 laps as we were running out of daylight. I was able to make it from near the back through to 8th.

The golden hour made for some nice photos like the thumbnail above. The tight competition made it super close at the front! I ended the weekend 3rd in the points. 

We got the car home and stripped it back to head to the paint shop. 

Ooh, shiny!!

Round 2 came up pretty quick, so we threw some impromptu numbers on again along with a new windscreen banner to promote our new series sponsor: Hankook Tyres. 

I qualified 1st at round 2, but unfortunately the meeting was cancelled after one of our drivers had a medical event during a race. This was a bit of a traumatic experience for the marshals and drivers. Thankfully the driver survived and will make a full recovery! 

The car looked weird without stripes, so I got @Chunky_t to draw up some #1s and produce a few stickers and stripes.

The next event was our mini enduro event "24 Minutes of Le Manfeild". The longer format races are quite different to our usual 6 lap sprints. We had to transit the pit lane twice in the race, which added a bunch of strategy to the race. 

Jack and I battled hard that day! In race two we were inseparable.

Jack edited footage together from our two cars to show the battle: 

This past weekend was round 3 of the series and we had 20 cars again! We expected around 23 as we had a few new drivers, but we lost a couple to sickness. They'll be back for round 4 along with a few others, so we might see a grid of 25+ this season!

Added a couple more sponsor stickers this time too. 

Yet again, big grids made for great racing! And the reverse grids were challenging again. Race two was my best - I started 17th and finished 3rd.

 There's one round to go and it's going to be a big one! We're running a two day festival with extra classes and special cars on display. 

If anyone's keen, we'll be running classic car displays on Saturday September 3rd and every car in the show will get a free cruise session around the track.