Guran's NA6 "Little Reddy"

[Guran]

16th March 2009
OK that's my second track day in Little Reddy done. Time to book the next one! Sent off my booking form today for the next MX-5 Club track day at Wakefield Park on 4th May.

21st March 2009
I went for a drive today in my 135i with my old mates from the mini-mods forum. After we got back to my place, Floody and JohnG were having a look over Little Reddy so I threw them the key and they went for a blast up Macquarie Pass. When they got back, both had huge grins. Not sure if they just enjoyed the drive or maybe they stopped somewhere quiet for a bit of boy-love. Nice matching white t-shirts boys!



27th March 2009
JohnG and Lee (another mate from the mini-mods forum) dropped by to go for a bit of a drive. We hooked up the video on Little Reddy and JohnG and I drove up Macquarie Pass with Lee following in his MINI JCW. After shooting some video, I dropped JohnG off so that he could take some drive-by photos. Damn I love this road and Little Reddy loves it too!

[Guran]

4th April 2009
With profuse thanks to Lou (Boyracer) I acquired a used stock exhaust to replace my patched old one. After removing the tape and wire from the old exhaust, I discovered it was riddled with several large holes. The replacement sounds much better!

[Guran]

8th April 2009
My 39th birthday today and Fiona gave me "Rod's Mazda MX-5 Miata 1.6 Enthusiast's Workshop Manual". Over 350 pages of excellent step-by-step guidance. Brilliant stuff! And a great companion to my copy of the "Mazda Miata Performance Handbook".



I also received a brand new Fujifilm S100FS digital camera in the mail today. It was a prize that I won for "letter of the month" in WHEELS magazine (March 2009). Stoked! I usually never win anything.

[Guran]

21st April 2009
I had a great time fiddling with Little Reddy today. I started with a tyre rotation, having flat-spotted the fronts at Marulan. I'm still getting used to not having any ABS!

Next I removed the dodgy central locking system which was driving me nuts. You'd click the button to lock the doors and it'd lock one but not the other. Click unlock and it'd reverse the door locking still with one door unlocked. Sometimes it wouldn't work at all. So out it came.

Next was fitting the race seat on the stock seat runners. All it required was drilling a couple of extra holes in the runners and then it fitted beautifully. I also fitted an old Sabelt 4-point harness that an old mate from mini-mods gave me. He was moving to the USA and wanted to see it get some use. Nice!



After reading on the forum about problems with grime collecting behind the front fenders I decided to remove them and have a look. I scooped out a couple handfuls of mud and sand from each side, in addition to an ant-nest! What a mess. There was thankfully no rust, but just to make sure I applied a bit of grease in there to help waterproof the steel.

Bought myself a timing light so that I could check and set the timing properly. But then I was shocked to discover that the bolt locking the crank angle sensor was missing, which meant that the sensor was free to rotate wherever it wanted too. I found a temporary replacement bolt and set the timing to 14 degrees for maximum power output. Only problem is that I don't have a multimeter so I couldn't set the idle speed accurately.



There were also a couple of bolts missing from the air filter box and I found some that fitted.

All up, a very productive day!

[Guran]

23rd April 2009
Bought a multimeter and crank angle sensor bolt and O-ring (it was leaking a bit of oil). Bloody Mazda parts are thieves! $9.20 for an O-ring?! I then used the multimeter to help set the idle speed to 850rpm and re-adjusted the timing to 14 degrees. Now I'm good to go for the club track day on 4th May.

[Guran]

26th April 2009
Today I got to drive a friend's brand new Nissan R35 GT-R! Not just a gentle putt around the back streets either; a serious blast from Peats Ridge to Spencer on Wiseman's Ferry Road. Holy $#!% that thing is mind-blowing! Even with two passengers onboard, one of whom was the owner whose only request was "try to keep the revs under 5000" (OK I tried, but occasionally nudged 6000) and "keep in mind that the insurance is only in my name" (right, so if I bin it, I'm paying for it!). The acceleration was breathtaking, grip was astounding (easily handling 1G without any tyre squeal), the gear shift was lightening fast, and it felt alive and agile despite the weight. What an incredible machine! Truly a dream fulfilled.

[Guran]

4th May 2009
MX-5 Club NSW Track Day at Wakefield Park
Perfect weather for a track day today, with a chilly start and clear blue skies to follow. Little Reddy was set up with my dodgy white hardtop, race seat and harness and I was entered in Class 1 again (stock NAs and NBs combined). I improved my PB by a massive 1.67s to 1:18.26 and finished 5th in class behind pairs of NB8As and NB8Bs. Stoked! I had the DV camera fitted on the rollbar for the entire day and recorded some great video. It has proven to be extremely informative comparing the PerformanceBox data with the video capture. Dividing the track into seven sectors and then selecting my best times in each produced an "optimal" lap of 1:17.5. So there's plenty of potential to improve my PB if I can only get it all right in one complete lap.

[Guran]

12th May 2009
I'm now on long service leave for six weeks and what better way to start it off than to join the MX-5 Club mid-week run. This was my first MX-5 club event other than a track day, and it was a lot of fun! We met at Pheasant’s Nest and then took the Old Hume Highway through Bargo and Yerrinbool, veered onto the Old South Road to bypass Mittagong and took the Tourist Road to Macquarie Pass. We descended to Albion Park and zipped over to Jamberoo for a toilet stop at the park. Then we took Jamberoo Mountain Rd up to Robertson and returned to Mittagong via Kangaloon and Bowral, for lunch at the RSL. An excellent day out and it was great to chat with other club members over a roast lunch. I'd like to get to more of these club drives if possible. A bit tricky in a family of three though!

[Guran]

21st May 2009
Replaced the heater and radiator hoses today. A scrutineer at the last club track day had tipped me that the old ones were a bit hard and in need of replacement. Thanks for the advice! I also replaced the parcel shelf covers that were rusted due to a leaky soft-top. Rotated the tyres again while I was at it - you never know, those flat spots might even out eventually!

[Guran]

25th May 2009
Speed Off the Streets at Wakefield Park
Joined Regie, Hammer and David Raddatz for an informal track day. "Speed off the streets days" ... you pay your money and take your chances. I've had better ones at Wakefield. There were two street car sessions and both were very busy with a lot of inexperienced drivers. Combine that with individual sessions for open-wheelers, tin-top racecars, and superkarts, and you can imagine that we didn't get a huge amount of track time. With all the traffic I only got in a handful of clear laps and my best time was 1:18.6 recorded with the PerformanceBox.

I was keen to see what sort of times David could do in Little Reddy since I heard that he used to hold the club record for a stock NA6. Being the friendly bloke he is, David was only too keen to oblige. He went out and did half a dozen laps with a best of 1:18.3. That was only a few tenths quicker than my best on the day, and a match for my time on 4th May. I'm sure David could go quicker with some more laps to get used to my car, but it's a relief to see that I'm not too far off the limits of Little Reddy. There's probably still a second or so for me to find (my "optimal" lap is now 1:17.2).

[Guran]

2nd June 2009
Today Phil Ashton (Charlie Brown) posted a list of MX-5 Club Records for Wakefield Park. I was shocked to discover that my time of 1:18.26 on 5th May was the new record for a stock NA6. Woo-hoo ! I had beaten David Raddatz's previous stock NA6 record of 1:18.44 on 3rd December 2006. That was on the old surface which is supposedly about a second slower than it is since the re-surfacing. So I reckon I should be able to get to the mid 17s with a bit more practice. There's a target!

[Guran]

3rd June 2009
I had noticed that the bonnet was wobbling a fair bit at high speed during track days. Plus I'm considering doing Supersprints, which requires a secondary method of securing the bonnet. So today I installed a set of alloy bonnet pins. I was careful to measure and check several times before drilling and cutting, but still managed to slip once with the file and made a small scratch in the bonnet . Nothing too noticeable thankfully!

[Guran]

17th June 2009
Having experienced removing the hardtop a few times on my own (adding the odd scrape to the boot lid in the process), I decided to make myself a hardtop hoist in our garage today. I picked up some pullies and ropes from Bunnings and shamelessly copied the design of the hoist that MX-5 Mania sell. Very happy with the end result! It takes one hand to raise and lower the roof, with the other hand free to guide the roof into place. Some precise parking underneath the hoist is required. I didn't feel comfortable leaving the hardtop hanging on the hoist since it can swing around and isn't as close to the ceiling as I'd like. My solution to this was to add some eyehooks on the joists and use a couple of compression straps to raise the hardtop right up. It's very stable and I can park our Volvo V50 underneath without a problem. Even my wife Fiona has no problem removing the hardtop with this gadget. Total cost was $120. Nice!

[Guran]

21st June 2009
MX-5 Club NSW Track Day at Wakefield Park
Man I was looking forward to this. With all the discussion on the forum about club records, and my analysis of "optimal" laps using my PerformanceBox data, I was dieing to get back out there and try to post a new PB and hopefully improve the stock NA6 record too. I even left the hardtop at home, figuring that I'd go with the soft-top up and save some weight. Shame that the rain gods decided to play tricks. Light drizzle to start the day with a very wet surface. I had my first spin on turn 2 after exiting the pits, and by the time I got back in my car looked like I'd been on a rallycross! The best anyone could manage in the first sessions was 1:25 (in the V8 M3), and most cars were 1:30+. A shower came through a bit later in the morning before it started to clear around lunchtime, the track dried out a bit and then the times dropped rapidly. The times were still a few seconds off their best because there were still a few streams running across the track, notably on exit of the fish-hook. Then it bucketed down again for the final session/s of the day. All in all, an "interesting" day but certainly not record-setting conditions.

The best I could manage on a partially dry track, just before the rain set in again, was 1:20.81. Had a lot of fun practicing my drifting too!

[Guran]

30th June 2009
Sent in my entry in for the Wakefield Park track day being organised by OzMazda. I'm now aiming to do one track day per month on average, and there's a long gap before the next club track day in October. This will be my August track day and hopefully dry cool weather will mean fast times. Yay!

I'm also going to have a try at Oran Park GP with the NSW Supersprints in September . This will probably be my only chance to drive Oran Park before it is turned into housing estate .