Another Clubman

[stb]

Hi Guys,

Thought I'd introduce myself and my clubman to you all.

I bought my first mx5 around 6 years ago, but sold it to buy a family car, as I also had an Austin Healey Sprite. Fast forward a few years later, and I got sick of fixing rust and general maintenance of the sprite, and realised I should have never sold the mx5.

So I went hunting. The car I found may be familiar to some of you, being a regular in the SA MX5 club scene. Its in great physical condition, with excellent body and interior. Mechanically it could do with a freshen of the suspension, but that's about it. I don't enjoy squeaky bushes!

I've put in my race seat and a new harness in preparation for sprinting, but other than that I have no timetable on modifications, but I'm sure they'll come eventually.

Anyway, here's some pics.
Old MX5:


New MX5:





See you around!

[Hammer]

Welcome back to the 5 family and the forum. Looks like a great Clubman example.

I too have a red Clubman. I love your wheels on the car. They look wider than what they are with those lips. What size and offset are they?

PS. Keep an eye on the radiator, the top is looking brown. I've been told when it starts to discolour like that, that its a symptom of a radiator past its used by date.

[Jeo]

Looks nice and welcome back.

[stb]

Wheels are panasport 15x7, haven't looked at the offset exactly.
Yep, I'm expecting to replace the radiator soon - got to do timing belt and water pump, so will do that at the same time.

[Adam_NAclubman]

Cooling Pro time...

Interesting that your Clubman sticker is on the nose and not on the rear, though I guess it would have been a previous owner that moved it?

[93_Clubman]

Congrats & welcome back.

Interesting that your Clubman sticker is on the nose and not on the rear, though I guess it would have been a previous owner that moved it?

May be it's covering the small holes from the Mazda emblem if not filled after de-badging?

Btw, if you've not already seen it here's a link to some Clubman info:
viewtopic.php?f=76&t=30041

[Steampunk]

Geez that is one CLEAN valve cover and inlet manifold.
Did it come that way or did you clean it? If the latter, what did you use?

[stb]

The other side is a bit oily from a gasket past its prime... I suspect its the camera auto-adjust making it look good.

[Hi 5]

If you use Carburettor Cleaner in the spray can and an old tooth brush...

makes alloy manifolds come up a treat

[stb]

Didn't realise its been so long since an update. A few things have happened in the meantime.

Made it to 2 MSCA supersprints last year, had a ball at both. Got down to a best of 1:32.3, and I'm sure there's still some left. I was pretty happy given the standardness of the car and the road tyres. Mine is in the foreground:



Then I felt like doing some learning about programable EFI, so went and bought a DIYPNP. It went together pretty well, and all was seeming good.



It looked like it was working well on the bench, but I couldn't get it running well. Seemed to only run on 2 cylinders, and I thought it was 2 cylinders not sparking. More bench testing later, and it was actually the 2 cylinders on the sequential add-on PCB that were 100% on - even at idle. Short story is that I lost compression on 1 cylinder. So out came the engine (with 2 helpers!).



While it was out I took the opportunity to put in a new clutch, and machine a bunch of weight off the flywheel. I didn't bother measuring, I just took off as much as I was comfortable with given the ordinary cast iron material.



Got the car started again last weekend, and have been putting the finishing touches on the install. One more thing to take care of - trainspotters will see it straight away...



Conversion was straightforward except for the following (minor) complications:
Coil wiring (note to others: coils are from bottom to top power/ground/signal)
Fuel rail adaption - add return line
Add remote fuel pressure regulator
Throttle cable mount

Anyway, hope to get to a few more sprints this year - but now in modified class of course!

[stb]

Some more updates:

Added braided brake lines for improved track feel, and had the chance to try them out. Made a noticeable difference - although my times didn't drop! But I put that down to overall driver improvement required. I"m still building confidence in the car. Best so far is 1:30.26 at Mallala. Which I'm not unhappy about.

Photo from sprint:


I've also made the move to E85. Did the duty cycle calculations and found the standard injectors would be running at 98% peak, so found some 2JZ n/a injectors to upgrade to.
Apparently the NB8B injectors are~265cc/min at 3 bar (~310cc/min at 4 bar), the 2JZ were meant to be ~325 cc/min at 3 bar according to the internet sources, so around 20-25% more flow. But I did a flow measurement anyway, and measured the mx5 injectors as 310cc/min at 4 bar, and the 2JZ ones as 345cc/min at 4 bar. So not as big an improvement as expected, but still enough to be useful. So they've gone in and we're running well on E85. At the moment I'm running an extra 4° advance at peak, I may get adventurous and bump that up another couple and see how it goes. Easy fit - no mods required.

Purple=standard, brown=2JZ


Also decided to make the move to dedicated road and track tyres, so found a set of NB8A wheels to use as road wheels, but unfortunately one was bent. Subsequently sourced a set of Eunos 30X wheels that will do the road duties just fine. Should be nice and robust, if not especially fashionable. I like the fact they are not attention grabbing.


So I've now got a set of tyres ready to go on to the old wheels ready for next sprint. I'm trying out the Federal FZ-201 in 205/50/15. I have nothing to compare them to other than RE001, but hopefully I can drop a couple of seconds off my lap times. Main problem with the RE001s was they were overheating and shredding - averaging 1mm wear per sprint meet. If I'm wearing tyres that fast I might as well have sticky ones!



Next sprint is in a couple of weeks, I hope to get my act together before then!

[stb]

Update time.

Had another 3 track days since last update.

October last year I tried out the semi slicks, but couldn't better the time I set on RE001s. A bit disappointing. I couldn't get enough heat into the tyres, and I was suffering oversteer problems.

I had a wheel alignment done and they corrected some rear toe out.

Next event was the MSCASA 6 hour, in a team of 5. Completed 57 laps over 2 sessions, which was awesome. Nothing beats time on the track for improving. I matched my previous best without any real trouble.

And finally a few weeks ago another sprint round. This time I dialed in another 0.5° of rear negative camber (1.5° total), and tried to add some more negative camber to the front but couldn't (1.8° total), and reduced the tyre pressure to try to generate some more heat.

It was still really hard to get enough heat into the tyres, but got there eventually and bettered my time to 1:28.47 - nearly 2 seconds under my previous best. And I'm sure there's a 27 there somewhere.

Mechanically the car is still great, I'm getting good power out of the NB8B/e85 combination, although I'm still struggling with removing oscillation in closed loop idle, even with glsender's firmware. But I haven't run out of ideas yet.

Anyway, here's some pics. Car scrubs up OK I reckon.
Sprint:


6 hour:


Sprint:

[Guran]

Nice update. You might like to try more negative camber on the rear. My NA6 is stock and I use -1.2deg front -2.3deg rear with zero toe F&R and caster maxed out (4.3deg). It's a nice setup that avoids understeer and is settled in high speed corners.

[stb]

Interesting suggestion on the alignment, and its something I'll think about. I did notice a little understeer on turn-in, but my plan was to spend some more time getting to know the car before I adjust anything more. I wouldn't mind if the car turned in a little sharper, but I also feel the need to better understand how I'm driving - for example if I brake later and have some more load on the front when turning in, does that adjust the understeer out.