My British Racing Green '99 NB

Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Sat May 21, 2016 5:16 pm

Bought Jon's hardtop. Looks good. Just gotta get rid of some trim pieces that raise the rollbar a few millimetres, just enough to make it a challenge to put the hardtop on. Also need to remove the soft top.

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Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Tue May 24, 2016 7:33 pm

Ripped into it after work yesterday to remove the last trim pieces under the rollbar. They were lifting the bar about 5mm, just enough to stop the hardtop from fitting without forcing it down over the bar. Ended up needing to remove the rollbar entirely to get the trim out. Also removed the soft top at the same time, so it's all fitting properly and as light as it's going to get. I also weighed the soft top, mount rails and nuts/bolts that make up the total weight of the soft top, except for the front latches since they're still in the car for the hardtop. Weighed in at dead on 20kg for the soft top, or 44lb. Will have to weigh the hard top next time I take it off to compare.

Also finished the garage floor a few days ago. Came up very patchy, roller streaks visible, and some bits of what look like string embedded in the sealant, but still a hell of a lot better than it was before. Can drive on it again tomorrow, so then I can start filling it up with workbench, tools and all the other junk again.

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This Sunday I'm taking my wife's 86 up to the driver training centre at Lakeside for some fun at the lotus club timed laps event. Single vehicle, ~50sec laps, bit of a cruisey day with 40+ entries. Should be fun, prius tyres are good for throwing it around.

jeffreyg · Postby **jeffreyg** » Tue May 24, 2016 7:55 pm

A little off topic but what did you use on the garage floor-it looks good

Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Tue May 24, 2016 7:59 pm

Rustoleum Rocksolid Garage Floor Coating. $280 from Bunnings for the 2.5 car garage kit, claims up to 46sqm but we damn near ran out doing our 36sqm. Two lessons learned; first, etch the concrete well, then etch it well again. And then once or twice more. 9 years worth of Redlands dirt in the old unsealed concrete doesn't come out easily, and it needs to be gone and the concrete to be properly porous for the sealant to bond properly. Second, when you get to the garage opening, don't move the the sealant bag out of the garage and into the sun. It dries in about 5 minutes if you do, when the normal timeframe from mixed to dry is an hour if it's under 24 degrees celsius. Fortunately we didn't do that until the last 3sqm, and got it all done, just barely.

speed · Postby **speed** » Tue May 24, 2016 8:32 pm

Looks to be a nice size garage.
Would like to do my floors but the reality is that there is never going to be a day or 2 that I can get everything out of them

Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Tue May 24, 2016 9:14 pm

Yeah, it was a bit of work to clear it out, took a little over a week to do everything. Had to remove some shelving that the previous owners had bolted into the concrete and screwed into the wall, took chunks out of the floor and wall. Had to disassemble the shelving, empty the garage, patch the floor and walls, paint the walls and ceiling, before etching the concrete and finally putting the sealant down. Still need to move everything back into the garage, but without the shelves we ditched it'll need some sorting to make it fit. Need to leave room for a trailer yet too, that should be happening in the next 6 weeks.

Magpie · Postby **Magpie** » Wed May 25, 2016 8:20 am

Did you make 4 level pads on the garage floor to park the MX5 on

Trailer, going to de-register the car and go track only or trailer to make moving the car easier?

http://www.redbackstoragesystems.com.au/

Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Wed May 25, 2016 10:45 am

Leaving the car registered for as long as I can, get away with some mountain runs before being defected

once it gets defected I'll deregister it and go track only. Keeping the trailer in the garage will make anything requiring wheels off a pain, need to get the car off the trailer, trailer out of the garage, car back in etc. It'll be worth it though.

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Magpie · Postby **Magpie** » Wed May 25, 2016 11:08 am

That is my thoughts as well, not been defected yet

Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:34 pm

Garage is looking better now that it's filling up with stuff again.

Club day on Monday, Lakeside. Forecast is clear skies and 17c high temp, PB conditions. Hillclimb at the end of the month too, wing and splitter will slow me down if anything, but CBF pulling them off. Just have to be careful not to destroy the splitter on the kerb at the hairpin at Mt Cotton.

zero00 · Postby **zero00** » Thu Jun 02, 2016 7:14 am

Can it swim?

Forecast late Saturday into Sunday is now around 150mm

http://www.yr.no/place/Australia/Queens ... /long.html

Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Thu Jun 02, 2016 11:25 am

Forecast for Kurwongbah is slightly better than out on the water. Either way, only forecast to rain until Sunday morning. Leaves a full 24 hours for the forecast to be 'early' and still get a dry track.

Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Wed Jun 08, 2016 5:51 pm

Club day on Monday went well. A smaller field and a new PB meant I came out with the quickest time of the day, so happy with that. Low air temperature all day kept the power up, unfortunately a strong headwind down the straight undid it a little bit. The tailwind heading toward Hungry evened it out a bit at least.

New PB, 62.8:

And also a quick clip from the first session, when a skyline got loose through Hungry and didn't quite catch it:

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mx5002 · Postby **mx5002** » Wed Jun 08, 2016 6:41 pm

Nice driving. Car looks very planted.

Flames out of the boat were cool too!

Trackphotos · Postby **Trackphotos** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 3:50 pm

Went back to lakeside. Not the best day out. 5 laps in, found some dumped coolant crossing over the crest out of Karussel. Fortunately got away with it, but in retrospect I had no more RPM left to use to power through it, had the car stepped out any further. Then the splitter mounts tore through 2 laps later, so had to run without the splitter for the next couple of sessions. Car was really pushy, felt terrible. Cold air and no wind meant a bit more straight line speed than last time, but the understeer coming onto the straight was costing me a lot. Ended up matching my PB of 62.8 sans splitter, and doing a string of low 63s before cooking the front left tyre and losing pace. Decided not to bother wearing the tyres out by running sprints in the afternoon as well. Now I will need to get my hands on some monopan and build a proper splitter, and get it done by the end of July when I have another full day at Lakeside, then a club day at QR 2 days later.