Ben's second-car thread - MR2s and Westfields inside...

[Ben]

Today's contemplations....

From this:




To this?

[ashley]

Looks great...so you're thinking of giving up on the digi-dash then? The new proposed layout looks really clean, me likey

[craig]

Mock dash looks great Ben. Would look even better in reality. How much would it cost to make it so?

[Ben]

Cheers guys. Yeah I don't really get on with the dash in its current layout...

The digidash has a habit of restarting itself when I'm on a bumpy road. The temperature sender is living in cloud cuckoo land as the temp reading varies depending on how many electrical things I have switched on, the speedo is off a bike (as in, push-bike) and it's all wired into a kill-switch with no traditional 'key' ignition. I don't mind this too much, but I wouldn't mind something a little more secure if I'm driving it to work and stuff.

On top of that none of the toggle switches aren't back-lit, which makes driving in the dark a PITA. I can never remember which way round the indicator switch goes, and I can't find the high-beam switch in the dark without usually either switching the lights off altogether or hitting the fog-light instead (terrifying!). And when I do find the full beams, the blue LED on the dash that tells me they're on is blindingly bright.

Oh, and the oil pressure is apparently 144 PSI.

I knew all of this before I bought the car of course, but in reality I'm just a bit too old-fashioned for the digidash, I prefer good old gauges. If I'm going to need to put money/effort into getting it working I'd rather end up with something I 'm happy with

I can get a set of gauges second-hand for under £150, a replacement dash panel for £40 (although I'll probably do an MDF one first to make sure I'm happy with the layout) and an indicator stalk/ignition barrel for about a tenner each. I'll also need the sensors/senders and should be able to reuse some of the existing toggle switches.

Probably a project for winter so I'll be collecting bits over the next few weeks

[Ben]

Well, had a very constructive trip up to Northampton Motorsport on Saturday. As I sort of expected, it wasn't going to be as simple as just setting up the existing dampers and doing the geo from there – there are a couple of issues with the existing set-up. First of all, while the fronts have the full 20-odd clicks of adjustment, the adjusters on the rears are FUBAR. On one side I have 5 clicks, and on the other none. Hmm.

Being a Saturday we weren't able to get any replacements there and then, so given that the geo was so far out I opted to continue with the corner-weight and geo set-up. First off, to stop the rear tyre rubbing and the sump-guard dragging itself along the road quite so often, the ride-height was raised an inch at the rear and half an inch at the front. Following this a full alignment done based on track/fast road settings. These changes highlighted another issue with the shocks: they’re too short. They need to be about an inch longer all round to give me the suppleness and travel I need. This, coupled with the stiff springs and my sub-10st weight means that the back end can still feel quite skittish over bumps, as effectively it will easily lift the inside rear on bumpy corners. There’s barely any sag. Not ideal, but still the difference now that all the wheels are pointing in the right direction is still night-and-day – it’s far more driveable and controllable as long as the road is pretty smooth. The A43 roundabouts were a lot of fun on the way home :d

I was also met there by a chap from the Westfield club who had a lovely box of goodies for me – a complete set of analogue gauges which will eventually make up my new dash layout. Barny will be having my digidash for his new build, which I’m very much looking forward to seeing!

I also spent Sunday at the Javelin/TSS Sprint day at Croft, playing pit-crew for Pete Mason. Had lots of fun watching a certain Duratec-powered SEIW blitzing almost everything else there – think I could be tempted to join in with this next year as it’s a good mix of cars, people and talent.

So, jobs for winter:
- New dash set-up (argh, electrics!)
- New longer and softer shocks and springs all round, plus another set-up at NMS
- Purchase tow-hook (and possibly new tow-car)
- Get noise-tested somewhere…

Up she goes!


Geo before:


And after:


And the ride-height now (yes, this is raised an inch!)

[gavsdavs]

Looks better, is it actually level across the axles now??

[Ben]

Yep, all corner-weighted and level

[JD]

Cool What's up with your right front caster?

[Ben]

Inherent design flaw with the early Westfield chassis, there basically isn't enough adjustment to do anything about it without dismantling the suspension. Will hopefully get it sorted when it comes to bits for the new shocks and springs

[JD]

Good-o

[Ben]

I was hoping Abingdon would be a good final hurrah before pulling the car off the road for winter to start working on her, so when I woke up to pouring rain on Friday morning I was more than a little gutted. The morning continued in a similar vein - the ten miles to Abingdon took over an hour thanks to the Oxford ring road - loads of fun sat there in traffic, in the rain, in a car which doesn't really idle very well

Finally, after getting lost and employing the help of a friendly local, we arrived. And I promptly failed the noise test

I had a chat with the guys doing the test and they said I was only just over the 100db limit, mostly because the engine was popping and banging a lot with no load on it - and perhaps I should have a word with the organisers and see if they could test me with their own equipment. A quiet chat later and a reading of 99.9db and I was through! Thanks to the chap in the Caterham who offered me a muffler, that was plan B. Plan C being 'drive home and get the Subaru.'

Out onto a wet track we went. I know it was wet, but going sideways in third gear on the first corner of the sighting lap was a bit of a wake-up call! I quickly learnt the differences on surface type and their associated grip levels (or lack of) - one particular corner onto the main runway had a surface change at the apex which lead from wild understeer to hilarious oversteer. The sun came out and as the track started drying I had a lot of fun with this section - a couple of 'hero' moments at full opposite lock in third gear finally lead to my only spin of the day although there were a couple of other hairy moments (apologies to the respective passengers at the time!). Abingdon's great for exploring the limits

Brilliant day overall though, the track was bone dry by early afternoon and I was really finding some speed with the little car. The earlier geo setup really came into its own and I was very pleased overall with how it handled. It felt astonishingly quick through the coned chicane sections, I'm sure I could have gone faster with some more brave pills!

No vid from me sadly (my knock-off Go Pro was left at home) but I did find this video from another trackdayer. I feature from about 30 seconds in, and you get an idea of the noise from the little Fiat engine going through the chicanes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzTG3m_KMWE

And a couple of pics:









The day after, true to my original plans, work begun!

Before:





Out comes the dash...





And, for good measure, off comes the nose!



The wiring in there is mostly OK, but does appear to have been attacked bu a five-year-old in places. Plans are to mock up the new dash layout with MDF and tidy up the wiring loom as much as possible (hopefully I won't have to start again). I'll need to get hold of some back-lit switches along with a directional indicator switch - the ones in there at present are next to useless as I can't see which is which in the dark. Not ideal.

Once the dash is in and working I'll then start looking at the Megajolt system - ideally both of these will be complete early 2015, but given that earlier this evening I was proud of myself for wiring a household plug (yes, really) I obviously have a lot to learn! The good news from Abingdon was the suspension - it's horrendously hard and too short for the road, but it works very well on track. The idea is to sort out a trailer and compete in the Javelin Sprint Series next year (the one that runs alongside the TSS). Fingers crossed

[Magic Beans]

I can't wait to go for a spin in it once all the work's done. Really interested to see the difference it's all made

[Ben]

Geo made a massive difference - almost as much difference as me knowing the car and how far I can push it now

[Ben]

Predictably, not much progress. More to follow soon, hopefully...

In the meantime, meet the new (ish) towcar:

[Ben]

Pulled out of hibernation, and off to Northampton Motorsport for some shiny new things....



Will hopefully be road- and track-ready in the next 2-3 weeks

[Ben]

....huh. Been a while, eh.

Finally back today after an extended stay at NMS - victims of their own success in terms of workload I think, but still - I'm really happy with the new dash setup and they also very kindly balanced the R1 carbs for me so it runs beautifully now!

Quick run out this evening:









And a full house again!

[wilki]

Liking the new dash, looks a lot slicker

Oh, and I hate you haha:

And a full house again!

[Ben]

Liking the new dash, looks a lot slicker

Oh, and I hate you haha:

Haha, thanks mate. In fairness I can only claim ownership to two of those cars

[ashley]

Muchly improved- I like!

[synXero]

I would very much like one of these one day with the shiny side pipes!