Joe's NB8B

Jeo · Postby **Jeo** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 9:51 pm

Well that escalated quickly.

After a few years with no MX5 in my garage, I picked up a green NB8A just before Christmas last year. Fast forward to early February and I'm at MX5 Solutions looking for some wheels for said green NB and Dave shows me a white NB8B up on a hoist, complete with a decent number of dents from the hail storm that rolled through Canberra the previous week. We talk, I mull it over for a few days, and then post my green NB for sale that weekend. A few days later on the Tuesday; it's leaving my driveway with a young bloke from the south coast, and I head back to MX5 solutions and hand over a deposit. Roadworthy is sorted on Thursday, and I pick up the car on Friday.

That Sunday we had our first motorkhana

First in class, third outright, and second driver since the top two spots outright were the same guy (national champion many years running) in two different cars. I learned that day that the car also has some kind of aftermarket LSD fitted as well, so that was a pleasant surprise.

First khanacross is at the end of the month, so this weekend saw oil, coolant, plugs changed, and the Recaro from my old NA fitted. Also picked up a set of early 90's factory Integra wheels (which I forgot to take a photo of but you can kinda see in the background on the right).

This week I'm having a sump guard made up by a mates exhaust shop, then new tyres are going on the Honda wheels.
Plan for next weekend is to fit the roll bar I picked up a few weeks back, change the gearbox oil, fit an extinguisher and harness.

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:02 pm

Well done Joe!

That is Malcolm's old car, it is good to see it staying in town, even better that it is going to be used properly too! Malcolm should be able to tell you what diff is in it too, if Dave can't.

:mrgreen:

Jeo · Postby **Jeo** » Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:32 am

Thanks Ed. Dave didn't know what diff was in it so I got in touch with Mal, he knew it came from Greg/Pat and believes it's some variety of clutch type but also wasn't sure exactly which one. I then went back to Dave but unfortunately he didn't have any records of it.

Our best plan currently is to take it back to Dave and let him drain it and then inspect with a camera. Hopefully we can figure it out from there without having to pull the whole diff.

PaulF · Postby **PaulF** » Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:59 am

Pretty good result for your first outing in a new car! Any thoughts of doing state or national champs?

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:41 am

Unless you have a concern about the health of the diff, the only reason to know what sort it is would be what oil to use, maybe clutch packs use different oils to Torsens? Though Pat and Greg are still in Indonesia, they are contactable - let me know if you want more details.

:mrgreen:

Jeo · Postby **Jeo** » Mon Mar 16, 2020 9:19 pm

Thanks Paul. Have been to nationals once in my black NA around 2014? Whenever they were in Sydney. Came 4th from memory. I would like to do the state series but was always put off by travel involved for the Armidale/Central Coast rounds.

Knowing which oil to use is really my main reason for wanting to know. I'm sure Dave and Mal both looked after it before me, but cheap consumables like fluids always seem like good insurance to me in a car where I don't know the history.

Jeo · Postby **Jeo** » Wed Apr 01, 2020 11:14 pm

Progress! The khanacross got covid'ed understandably so without the deadline to do things I was way less motivated. However, since we last spoke the roll bar is in, new tyres, painted wheels, and a bash plate was added.

Roll bar went in exactly as you'd expect. Mild contortion required but this was per-social distancing so I had a mate there to help.

Bash plate is a 3mm aluminum plate, bent and bolted to the subframe mounts. Next job there will to be to cut a hole for the oil drain.

I couldn't decide on which red would look best from the outside of the can, so decided to give both a crack. Two were painted with Dulux Duramax Metalic and two with Duplicolor Metalcast Annodised Effect. Prep was the same of clean, light scuff, mask; painting process was slightly different between the two brands but I just followed the directions on each.

Drivers side got Duplicolor, passenger side got Dulux. Definitely prefer the anodised effect of the duplicolor (right in the above photo) but will see how they both hold up to actual use.

These are intended to be the khanacross wheels so tyres are a set of 195/55/15 BF Goodrich T/A for those playing at home. Class I want to run in requires street tyres and these seemed like the best mix of tread pattern and hardness, while actually existing in a useful size.

cjbarnes2012 · Postby **cjbarnes2012** » Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:44 am

The car is looking awesome Joe !!

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

Jeo · Postby **Jeo** » Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:51 pm

Covids are over! Or not, but club motorsport is at least back on!

MG Club motorkhana weekend before last saw the rego renewed and a couple of cotter runs to make sure all was still in working order. The BF Goodridge tyres on the red wheels aren't great on tarmac, but they are good fun. Swapped back to the stock wheels with ye olde 595 RSR's the night before, set tyre pressures and all appeared well. Got up the morning of the event and one of the tyres is dead flat. Damn. Figured as crap as the BF's are, they're probably better than rock hard RSR's, so put the red wheels back on the front and kept the stock wheels on the rear.

Cue one mess of a driving day. Easily the worst I've ever done at this event. Massive imbalance front to rear, spun many times, couldn't stop and careered right through the end of finishing garages, hit many cones. Tried messing with the shocks and trye pressures throughout the day to try and balance out the tyres but I was just all over the shop. Think I ended up 12th overall and 4th in class. Multiple tests where I was seconds off what I know the car should be capable of.

What should be the car's first dirt event is this coming weekend, but my wife is away and I'm not sure it would be the best place to take a 2yr old...
I'll grab some new tryes for the stock wheels before the next tarmac event though so hopefully that is actually the problem and not just that I forgot how to drive.

Lokiel · Postby **Lokiel** » Fri Sep 18, 2020 1:45 pm

I'd like to see red side stripes on the side of the car to match the wheels (similar to Sharka's):

- they're like "The rug that really ties the room together."

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Fri Sep 18, 2020 4:25 pm

Lokiel wrote:I'd like to see red side stripes on the side of the car to match the wheels (similar to Sharka's):

- they're like "The rug that really ties the room together."

Here you go! :mrgreen:

More images here......
viewtopic.php?f=57&t=46454&hilit=billy+bunter&start=1860#p925710

Jeo · Postby **Jeo** » Sun Nov 15, 2020 9:33 pm

And in keeping with the previous trend of this thread, today involved another MG Club of Canberra motorkhana. Don't have the results yet but this time around I did way better. Pretty sure I took outright in one of the tests, and was somewhere between 2nd and 4th overall. The car is such a big difference compared with my black NA in that it actually slides. The NB doesn't have as much straight up grip, but it's close, and also the diff and handbrake work really well. Vast majority of things I can take a slightly wider line and just drive around the cone, but if required it's not hard to get the back out and pivot around the cone instead. I could never do that in the NA.

Why such a stark difference between the last event and this one? Tyres. I was talked into trying a set of the new Zestino Gredge RS by a mate and had them fitted to the stock wheels on Friday. Put them on the car last night and left home this morning for the first time with them on. Seemed fine on the drive out to Sutton Road this morning with ample grip on the Parkes Way roundabouts, but was very happy with them throughout the event itself. Next problem is an alignment as I could definitely do with some more camber at a minimum.

Edit: Yes, stripe. had been considering since before I got the car but could never bring myself to pull the trigger.

Jeo · Postby **Jeo** » Thu Nov 26, 2020 9:26 pm

And we have results!
1st in class, 3rd outright, outright fastest on one test.

Alignment also happened earlier this week. Now rocking front -2.2 camber, +4.4 caster, 0 toe; rear -1.5 camber, +1mm toe.

The American · Postby **The American** » Fri Nov 27, 2020 6:11 am

Jeo wrote:And we have results!
1st in class, 3rd outright, outright fastest on one test.

It’s a good feeling, congratulations! Theses are such excellent little machines to compete.

Jeo · Postby **Jeo** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 9:50 pm

Khanacross with the Light Car Club of Canberra on Saturday! First dirt event in the MX5, first dirt event in a RWD car, 4th dirt event total.

Day consisted of 12 tests over the course of a stupid hot and dusty day, and the car didn't miss a beat. I however managed to collect many flags and even two wrong directions... End result for the day was 17/40, but on the plus side all of my clean runs were well within the top 10. Feels like I'm vaguely in the right direction though, now mostly need to not make so many mistakes.

God it felt good when I got something right though. In particular there were two tests where they had added a 360 around a flag in the middle of a decent straight, presumably to slow everyone down. Both times I feel like I absolutely nailed that turn. Super quick tug of handbrake on entry, mild power down, and nicely pivot around the flag ~300mm from the front right headlight, and finish it off with a gentle peel out along the straight. So much fun when it worked. Will definitely be doing more of these in the new year.