Charlie Brown's NC

[Sailor]

Outrageously quick....I thought red ones were fastest:)

[CoffeeBoss]

Representn'

[Charlie Brown]

Sweeeeet It even looks clean.

One of over 100 cars at the 20th anniversary lunch.

Thanks Matt.

[Charlie Brown]

It’s been a while since I’ve put anything onto this thread, so I thought I’d better do something and show my latest attempt at body cosmetics.

It’s a splitter, I made it from a piece of PVC sheeting and sadly it will have absolutely no aero dynamic effect on the car, mainly because it’s too small.

It sits about 35mm from the centre front of the car and to have any effect at speed would need to be out 150mm but even a 60mm extension looked way over the top, so I settled for style over function. Function would have also eliminated me from Class 2b at Supersprints, so that's another reason for it being cosmetic.






It’s fixed using the standard under tray fixing points in the centre plus a number of additional points the further towards the outside edge. The centre portion is sandwiched between the under tray and the front bar and extends inwards around 200mm and attached to the under tray to give the splitter support.

It does have one useful function though. It collects bugs really easily. So if anyone wants an easy fresh food source for their pet fish or frogs, I can recommend the splitter as a mobile Woollies or Coles.

[Sailor]

Was quite impressed with the grasscutting ability of the splitter.
I'd suggest a height adjustment then you could contract yourself out

[Charlie Brown]

Was quite impressed with the grasscutting ability of the splitter.
I'd suggest a height adjustment then you could contract yourself out

Yes well it only cuts well when you're going forward. It's not too efficient trailing the rear wheels.

Here's a shot from the Club's October 24th Track Day heading through Turn 10 onto the main straight.



When you brake you brake HARD
This is called "standing on the picks" at the end of the back straight before the photo above.

[/URL]

Here a few clips using the pin hole camera.
.
.

The first one is having fun with Patrick Bramson in his supercharged NA. You'll hear plenty of bouncing off the rev limiter, which isn't the quick way to get round the track.

.
.

This clip is from the number plate when I got fair dinkim.
Laps of 1:12.03, 1:10.95, 1:10.87 and 1:12.21.
.
.

[D4NM4C]

I have a crush on this car, so quick and sounds amazing!!

Pics I took from the track day on the 24th

[Charlie Brown]

There's some good shots there Daniel. Thanks for posting them.

Sadly the sound has gone back to its owner, PAU61L.

I had visions of taking the little “muffler” to Phillip Island for a one off run before I was nabbed by the sound monitoring officials.
After Mark took a reading of 98dBA next to the car and 80dBA at Turn 2, measured from the pits, it was obvious that it wouldn’t sneak through scrutineering that has a 75dBA limit at the Island.

[two40]

75? My mother's Camry would have a hard time passing that. :/

[Charlie Brown]

From speed to comfort. Here’s the latest edition to the growing number of extras onboard my car:

Benny’s Boots, (thanks George) lovely soft leather with stitching to match the seats.





After 5 years and 200,000 gear changes, the original vinyl boot around the gear stick started to crack, so I contacted Benny for a set of his famous boots (gear stick and handbrake) to find he hadn’t made any for the NC. "No problem" he said, "Bring in the standard ones and I’ll make a pattern and produce a set." A week or so later and here they are.

The Christmas rush is coming up for George’s business and boots aren’t a high priority, so NC owners should keep you eyes peeled in the new year for the release of these beauty's.

[Charlie Brown]

The Tour to Phillip Island Interstate Challenge, 12 December 2010

Boy did we have fun getting down to Phillip Island for the annual Interstate Challenge between the NSW and Victorian MX-5 Clubs. Our group of seven cars arranged to leave on Friday 10th and the day before the Hume Hwy was cut at Tarcutta and Yass by the worst floods in 30 years. Plenty of phone calls on Friday morning established that the Hume was open so we set off for Holbrook for our overnight stay.

We saw a lot of swollen creeks and rivers on the way and on reaching Tarcutta, 70 kilometres north of Holbrook, the flood waters were just beside the road.



We made it to Holbrook, where the black submarine HMAS Otway sits in the park and headed to the RSL for dinner and then back to the motel for a few tall tales.


Paul, Peter, Brendan & Glenn
.

Keith, Craig and Steve.
.



The following day we set off down the Hume, turning off just after Benalla and working our way south till we stumbled across Healesville-King Lake Road. Wow, what a magic piece of MX-5 road after the boring run down the Hume. We flew down this road, full of twists and turns with Keith leading, all the way into Healesville for lunch at Stepping Stone.

From here the run to the Island was uneventful. At the Seahorse Motel we joined up with a lot of other Club members, prepped the cars for the following day by swapping wheels etc and then sat down for a few quite ones, with Jacqui providing half a dozen bottles of wine from her Christie’s vineyard for us to sample together with Greg and Lesa’s providing some bread and Brown Bros. of Milawa olive oil and balsamic vinegar.



Dinner was arranged by the VIC MX-5 Club at the local RSL, where we got to meet the combatants for the next day, though overnight there was a huge thunder storm that raged for a few hours and I thought our cars would be washed away.

Sunday morning, race day, arrived and to everyone’s surprise we could see some blue sky and we headed off to a very cold track at around 7:00am.

The conditions on the day changed constantly from fine and cold, to showers, to fine and warm and then more showers and back to cool and dry.







For a lot of our members this was their first time on the track and all were raving about how great and fast it was. Sadly we were not able to retain the cup, though there were a lot of worried Victorians half way through the day who thought they may loose as a number of NSW cars were leading their classes. In the end, apart from Daniel Deckers who won first outright, the NSW cars fell into either second or third places.

We left the track late, around 6:00pm to head back for our overnight stay in Healesville. Five kilometres down the road Roger found his rear brake pads had worn through to the backing plate. This meant that there were a lot of gear changes to slow the car. Luckily most of the way home would be two lane highway.

For dinner in Healesville we again went to Stepping Stone for some great steak or spitchcock and still running on adrenalin, discussed the day’s events.

Monday saw us heading for home. Heading north out of Healesville we took the infamous twisting Black Spur road (B360), through some magnificent rain forest,
though singed from the fires two years ago and then on towards Marysville where the impact of the huge bushfires was quite sobering.

We worked our way through the secondary back roads till we turned off onto the Euroa-Mansfield Road where another surprise greeted us. Heading down the narrow road into a valley lines with tall trees we came across thousands of Monarch Butterflies swarming along the road for a few hundred metres. From here it was onto Euroa and the Hume Hwy to home to await the next adventure.



The touring members cars:


GLNN (Glenn Thomas)


PEAT (Peter Feutrill)


RODG (Roger Palfreyman)


FILL (Phil Ashton)


KEEF (Keith Monaghan)


KRAYG (Craig Hasler BMW M3)


PORL (Paul Byers)



Here's a clip of a Club NC lap record of 1:59.2929 done on the first lap og the day but only held for 6 hours until Randy took another 0.2 seconds off to finish with a 1:59.0828 on the last run of the day.





Cheers,

Phil Ashton

[Randy]

That's the closest finish we have had in that class for a very long time. You had me worried all day that I wouldn't be able to come anywhere next to your time. You were so fast straight out of the box and maintained it all day. Very impressive Phil

[CoffeeBoss]

Awesome write up, really hope I can make it along to one of these interstate meets one year.

Track Day + Road Trip = Good fun.

I see most drivers make do with the wheels on the car.

An adventure like this would have me considering one of those custom trailers, or even a Zoom Eng. removable boot rack.

[Charlie Brown]

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated my garage thread, mainly because not a lot has changed until this week.

The NC now has a set of Xtreme HID headlights bought from here: http://www.kbcarstuff.com/Xtreme-Digita ... s-s/21.htm
The kit contains two completely separate systems containing ballast / igniter, fuse, wiring, 4300k Phillips bulb, gloves, double sided tape and wiring ties. I decided to pay a little more and go for a quality Japanese kit over the cheaper Chinese versions.

Assembly of the kit was easy, getting to the NC’s H7 headlight bulbs was a nightmare, especially on the passenger side. I’d read on Miata.net where the US boys removed the front bumper to gain access to the headlight assembly but I decided I’d try to do it without removing the bar.

I started on the easy side, the drivers. I unbolted and swung the washer bottle out of the way and then used a mirror and torch to see where the bulb was and how to extract it. After I removed the bulb I realised that the original bulb had an extension coupler attached to it and that the HID bulb didn’t. This meant that the HID bulb wouldn’t sit in a sealed firm position in the headlight housing.

Back onto the web site and into the accessories section where I found a $17 adaptor for the H7 bulb. Delivery cost was horrendous being the same as the original HID kit so don’t make the same mistake when ordering for the NC.

Four days later the adaptor arrived and I test fitted it to the HID bulb. Next problem. The base of the adaptor didn’t really suit the sealed wiring on the bulb. The wiring slot was too narrow so out with the mini cutting tool and the slot was opened up to suit the bulb.

Installation on the driver’s side now went smoothly. Ballast fixed in place, wiring done, dust boot back on, then a check firing showed all was working before the washer bottle was replaced.

Onto the passenger side. Here I removed the three nuts holding the fuse box in place. This allowed me to move the fuse box back 15mm and be able to get my contorted left hand into the space behind the headlight and feel around for the bulb as there was no way to see it from the outside. Armed with the knowledge from the driver side I was able to release the retaining spring and get the original bulb out.

Installation and alignment of the HID bulb was another matter in such a confined space. Everything was done by feel using the gloves supplied with the kit. Trying to get the bulb aligned with the housing slot, then the adaptor likewise with the spring clip to hold it all in place took ages and required several attempts over a number of days. I quickly worked out that if the bulb was off centre then the light output dramatically reduced. By not being able to see what I was doing made it a long tedious job. In the end I resorted to turning the system on to ensure I had the bulb located correctly before turning it off then clipping the bulb and adaptor in place.

The end result is fantastic. It’s far easier to see the edges of the road at night with the output of pure white light. Cut off levels and spread of the beam remain the same as the original bulb so hopefully I won’t attract attention with the light getting in the eyes of oncoming traffic.

[Caffeine]

The Tour to Phillip Island Interstate Challenge, 12 December 2010

Boy did we have fun getting down to Phillip Island for the annual Interstate Challenge between the NSW and Victorian MX-5 Clubs. Our group of seven cars arranged to leave on Friday 10th and the day before the Hume Hwy was cut at Tarcutta and Yass by the worst floods in 30 years. Plenty of phone calls on Friday morning established that the Hume was open so we set off for Holbrook for our overnight stay.

We saw a lot of swollen creeks and rivers on the way and on reaching Tarcutta, 70 kilometres north of Holbrook, the flood waters were just beside the road.

Funnily enough we drove through there the day before (the 9th) and made it through about 2 minutes before they closed the road (they were putting out the cones and the Police were positioning their cars!)

Good thing we did because it was the first day of a 1 month, 8000km epic drive around Tassie