mx5cartalk.com

Better late than never, I've decided to start a Garage thread for my NA6 which goes by the name of "Little Reddy" (more on that later). First a bit about my driving history:

Jan 1988 - my first car was a yellow 1974 Leyland Mini 1100 that my dad and I restored after I finished the HSC.
Dec 1988 - was nearly killed in a head-on crash. An old Falcon crossed two lanes to hit my Mini. Spent the next two months in hospital and another two months with my right leg in plaster.
Apr 1988 - replaced my written-off Mini with a 1976 Leyland Mini 1000. Yellow again!
Jul 1989 - replaced the "too slow" Mini 1000 with a gold 1978 Leyland Mini 1275 LS. Strangled with pollution gear but still a bunch of fun especially after fitting a Webber carby!
Dec 1992 - bought my first NEW car, a white Suzuki Swift GTi. Great engine, ordinary handling.
I still had the Mini after this to use on weekends but it wasn't getting much use. In late 1994, I traded the Mini on a mid-1980s Suzuki Sierra LWB which my girlfriend Fiona and I used for our bushwalking excursions. Sold the Sierra in ~1997 to raise some funds for our first home purchase.
Feb 1998 - replaced Fiona's 1989 Ford Telstar Ghia with a new Suzuki Swift Cino (green). It was slow as a wet week but was like a Tardis inside. A great cheapo car that served us well for several years.
Dec 2002 - sold the Swift GTi and replaced it with a new MINI Cooper S. Yellow with a white roof and white bonnet stripes. God I loved that car! It introduced me to the wonderful world of car forums, car clubs and track days.

Mar 2005 - replaced our Cino with a 2001 Subaru Outback Limited (white). Our son Alex was born 3 months earlier and the Cino had to go. The Outback seemed like a good idea at the time but was a horrible thing to drive on any surface other than dirt.
Jun 2007 - replaced the Outback with a new Volvo V50 T5 AWD (red). This is our current "family car" and we love it!
Oct 2008 - replaced the MINI with a new BMW 135i in sparkling graphite. My first ever rear-wheel drive car! What a beast!


But the 135i is a bit exxy to risk on the track (at the moment), so ...

One weekend while driving to my sister's place in Gosford, I had a brainwave: why not buy myself an old MX-5 to use as a track car? I would have to park it on the road in our cul-de-sac, but the concept was very appealing. I'd get to regularly live out my track day fantasies without it costing a bomb. I discovered that the MX-5 Club ran their own track days at Wakefield Park several times a year, and the class system looked like a great idea for competing against other drivers in similar spec cars. So I began watching carsales for something suitable. I set my sites at the bottom end of the market (<$8,000 target) and started hoping for a stock NA6 that I could run in Class 1. But I had to find a buyer for my MINI before I did anything else. I missed out on the MX-5 Club track day held on 7th December, but surely I'd sell the MINI soon, right?

Finally, after three LONG months I sold the MINI, on Australia Day 2009 in fact! Needless to say, the cash was burning holes in my pockets! On 31 January, I test drove two NA6s and ended up buying the second one from a young South African bloke in Berowra. My MX-5 is a 1992 Aussie-delivered Classic Red NA6, completely stock (except for an Autotechnica steering wheel), and had a respectable 162,000km on it. Mechanically, the car felt really good which is exactly what I wanted, and I paid only $6900 reduced from the original asking price of $8600. At the time, most were asking for at least $8000. The bad bits (that I could see): the paintwork was pretty ordinary, crapola Indonesian tyres, new brake pads required, the exhaust was patched, and only one month rego was left. I drove it home on a stinking hot day and stopped at a mate's place in Camden for a BBQ. On the way I discovered the irritating body shake at around 100km/hr which seems to be common on NA6s. My wife Fiona drove the MX-5 home from Camden later that night while I followed in our Volvo V50. She fell in love with the MX-5 after that evening drive with the top down.

My 4 year old son Alex immediately dubbed my MX-5 "Little Reddy" and the name has stuck ever since.



Here begins the diary of Little Reddy!

1st February 2009
The day after picking up Little Reddy, I drove the Volvo to Wakefield Park with Alex to watch the MX-5 Challenge and the Minis. Alex and I had a great day sitting on the hill near turn 9. I took heaps of photos and would be happy to send them to any of the competitors. Just before I left, I dropped by the pits to meet Chris Tonna (CT) who works for BlueScope Steel, like me, and who had recently sold his BA XR8 to my mate Garry at work. Chris was having a bit of a rough day with melted fuses, broken intercooler pipes, etc. I also got to meet Jean Cook, who I later learnt was a former president of the MX-5 Club NSW. Both were great contacts to start my MX-5 experience!

3rd February 2009
Sent off my membership form for MX-5 Club NSW, and with it my entry form for the next track day on 23 February. Only 3 weeks to wait before I'd get on the track and really discover what Little Reddy could do. But first there's work to be done.

Based on some helpful advice from CT, I bought a set of Bendix Ultimate brake pads ($300) and Castrol Response Super DOT 4 brake fluid from Autobahn. I also picked up a Sparco race seat and an old Sabelt harness on permanent loan from Garry. I aim to fit the brakes on the weekend. Never done it before so this'll be interesting, especially since I don't even have a workshop manual yet! It's been almost 20 years since I did any real work on my own cars, and I'm both excited and daunted by the prospect of doing as much of the maintenance as possible.

I like the story telling mode. Kudos.

Thanks Joe. My inspiration is Coffeeboss ... so prepare for a wordy and personal journey!

6th February 2009
Renewed the rego and got my first shock. These old cars are bloody expensive to register! I shopped around and everyone wanted to charge at least $480 for CTP insurance. Eventually I went with NRMA who came to the party with $356 for CTP plus $178 for Third Party insurance. That'll do nicely thanks.

7th February 2009
My first weekend to work on the car. Put it up on jack stands and started on the front pads. Stripped the old ones off no problem, compressed the piston with the aid of a G-clamp, and slotted in the new pads, all good so far. I then moved to the rear pads, got the left-rear caliper off but bugger me if I could figure out how to compress the piston! Eventually I thought to try a google search and quickly had a set of instructions. Ah! So I have to wind a hidden grub screw to compress the piston . The rest was easy. Job done . Drove out to the quiet country roads at Calderwood for a bit of bedding in and everything worked fine. But after today's experience I put an MX-5 workshop manual at the top of my wish list for my 39th birthday in April.

9th February 2009
Bought a set of Bridgestone Adrenalin RE001s (185/60R14) and had them fitted at the Beaurepaires nearest my work. Paid $594 for them and yes I could have gotten a better deal if I shopped around. But man, I was in a hurry!

14th February 2009
Bought a Brown Davis rollbar from MX-5 Mania ($755 with CAMS paperwork) and stopped in at Garry's place on the way home. He has an awesome workshop and is very handy with the tools - a mechanical engineer by trade and a motorbike addict too. Together, we fitted the rollbar, drained the brake and clutch fluid, and bled both with Castrol Response Super. The fluid was reasonably clean in all the lines, which was a good sign. The harness eyebolts went in today too, and for now I'm using it with the stock seat. The rollbar made a big difference to the body flex and also helped to reduce the body shake at freeway speeds.

15th February 2009
Joined the mx5cartalk forum today. Strangely, I never thought to check it out sooner . I'm glad I found it! It's fascinating to see that plenty of people from the MX-5 Club organising committee are active participants on the forum and I'm yet to read any serious negative comments about the club on this forum. My experience with clubMINI NSW, which I joined from the start in 2005 (still a member actually), was the complete opposite! For some bizarre reason, the clubMINI NSW committee seemed to be threatened by the MINI forum communities and this caused (and continues to cause) plenty of ridiculous friction. The MX-5 community is a very pleasant change!

16th February 2009
Tried to take Little Reddy to work today but discovered that I'd left the parkers on the other day. Zero charge in the battery! I don't have any jumper leads, and push starting didn't work either. Bugger. Parked at the bottom of our street and drove the 135i to work instead. Bought a set of jumper leads and a battery charger on the way home. All fixed. And I now leave the jumper leads in Little Reddy's boot, just to be sure.

18th February 2009
Bought a race suit package from Revolution Racegear ($830, single-layer suit, race shoes, gloves, long underwear, balaclava, socks) and a full-face helmet with graphics from City Coast Motorcycles ($180). Fitted a fire extinguisher onto the rollbar using some hose clips. Now I'm all set for my first MX-5 track day on Monday. Woo hoo!

23rd February 2009
MX-5 Club NSW Track Day at Wakefield Park
Wow, what an unforgettable day! I was up very early for the drive to Wakefield Park. The drive up Macquarie Pass was a great heart-starter. I arrived at the track as the gates opened and went through the rigmarole of removing all the loose or removable bits. Scrutineering was a new experience for me, but everyone was really helpful and friendly. I picked up my magnetised numbers (#20) and stuck them on the doors. Next the driver briefing in the cafe. Mike Hicks covered everything that needed to be said and then I was allocated an instructor for the newbies session. OK, so I had already done three track days at Wakefield in my MINI, but the MX-5 was brand new to me. I was assigned El Presidente Phil Ashton, although I didn't know who he was at the time. Everyone was new to me! I was in Group 6 with Hammer, gobsmax and a few other newbies. Phil drove the first few laps, then we swapped and I drove a few laps. He gave some great advice about driving lines, braking points and gear changes, and I tried to remember as much of it as I could. The first thing was to put the soft-top back up - Phil reckoned that was worth a few tenths per lap! The day was heating up considerably so record times were unlikely. By the end of the day I had a best time of 1:19.93 recorded using the traditional MX-5 Club start/finish in the fish-hook. That was good enough for 4th in Class 1 behind William Mewett in a NB8A and Scott Waples & Glenn Thomas in their NB8Bs. If I'd entered in Class 3 (modified NA6), my time would have been good enough for 3rd, which says more about who showed up on the day rather than my driving skills! But I was pretty bloody happy about the result for a debut run!







I was on a high all evening and Fiona said I looked happier than she'd seen me in years. Not only did I have a ball, I was astounded by how well organised everything was. All aspects of mail-out, scrutineering, driver briefing, lunch orders, first-timer training, marshalling, timing and reporting were very professionally done. So much work by so many people just so that others could have fun out on the track! I also very much appreciated the friendly and welcoming environment. It's a credit to all those volunteers involved in organising the event. I'm so glad I decided to give these things a try and will definitely be going to every club track day that I can get to in future.

Spent the next few nights mucking around with the data from my PerformanceBox. I figured out that the official lap timing was within the +/- 0.1s precision of the box, so there's no complaints about the accuracy of their stopwatch timing system.

25th February 2009
I read via the forum about the Marulan track day that MX-5 Mania were organising and sent off my booking form. Didn't even know there was a new track at Marulan. This'll be worth a look.

27th February 2009
Bought some more brake fluid and tubing then bled the brakes on my own for the first time. Well, Fiona gave me a hand to pump the pedal. How easy is this!

13th March 2009
Had a full wheel alignment done by Pedders in Wollongong ($132). When I bought the car, it had only just had an alignment done some days before, but the settings were a bit mild: 1.7mm front toe, 0.6mm rear toe, 3 degrees castor, -0.2 degrees front camber, -1.0 degrees rear camber. Pedders had a play and ended up with: zero toe front & rear, 4 degrees castor, -1.5 degrees front camber, -2.2 degrees rear camber. About the best they could do with stock suspension.

14th March 2009
Bought myself a hardtop today via eBay. It's a real dunger but I only paid $900 for it. The guy I bought it from had done a backyard respray with white acrylic and then been caught out in a heavy downpour before the paint dried fully. The end result was craters all over the roof. It looks despicable, but nothing that a respray can't fix. All the clips were included although it doesn't have the demister. I might have eventually found a better one, but everything I'd seen to date had been way more expensive and in ordinary condition too. The guy also sold me a set of stock 14" wheels with old Bridgestone Grid III tyres on them for an extra $100. Could be handy for when I eventually get a set of semi-slicks.

Changed the engine oil and filter today too. Not sure what oil to go with since there's so many differences on opinion, so I'm trying it out Mobil 1 5W50 full synthetic. The old oil wasn't too dirty but it's good to make a fresh start. Checked the air filter too and it looks almost brand new. Good to go for the Marulan track day tomorrow.

15th March 2009
MX-5 Mania Track Day at Marulan Driver Training Centre
A good day out at this new track which only opened a month ago. The circuit is very small (only 930m) but has about 12 corners (depending on which ones you count) so there's plenty of work out there. I was absolutely knackered by the end of the day having completed about 60 laps. My best time was 49.3s with speeds ranging from 40km/hr on the tight hairpin to 102km/hr at the end of the straight (with my new hardtop fitted). The facilities are pretty good down there with a great covered viewing area and a decent cafeteria adjacent to the main straight. The parking area is not very flat though, and there's only a small covered garage area. Maybe that'll change as the facility grows.

I experimented with mounting my DV camera onto the rollbar using my old faithful Ultrapod. It worked a treat, except for the rear vision mirror blocking a lot of the view. Some videos ...

My best lap (49.3s)

My best stuff-ups

I was mucking around with my Performance Box data and the video I shot. Split the track up into 6 segments and found the quickest split times I managed for each one. Then I matched them up with the video and spliced together a theoretical lap to show my optimal lines through the corners. As a result, my best time of 49.3s was shaved down to a theoretical best of 48.4s! The key message for this track ... if you sacrifice speed through the corners and take a very tight line, you'll actually be quicker overall! Less tyre squeal too!

My best theoretical lap (48.4s)