Another MX5 - BecauseRaceCar

[Horney]

11695940_10155841127840322_5460043082400676129_n by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Yup, that's MX5 number 3 for me at the moment and the wife owns a MK3. I think we have a problem.

To be fair I only own half of this one. Myself and my good friend Roger have gone 50/50 on this little beauty to do a bit of racing in the Max5 championship. It was built in 2013 and I think only raced for one season before being stored away after a recommission. It's all kitted out with Gaz coilovers, Yellow stuff pads, cage etc etc.

We're picking it up on the 20th and then taking it to Bedford on the 22nd for a trackday to see if it's any good.

After a14 hour round trip with the trailer and the race car is back in Hampshire. 48 hours later we took it to Bedford to see if it actually works.

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Roger took it to task on Friday and removed most of the stickers, gave a it a once over and popped a passenger seat in it.

Stickers removed and in the paddock at Bedford.

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Hanging out with some of the racers who who'd brought theirs out to play as well.

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

The results were mixed. The car is well built and tidy but it's got a blowing exhaust, it gets too hot after a handful of laps and feels down a fair bit of power. It handles well though and hopefully won't need major spending to get it up to speed. We've already sorted a full stainless system for it for £50 to fix the blow. Head gasket needs looking at as the first reason for the heat and power issues.

There was talk of racing it at Brands over the bank holiday but it's not match fit and there isn't enough time so that's out of the window.

[Horney]

Took a while but eventually MSV put the photos from Bedford up on their site.

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Currently the car is under going some diagnosis and modification. There's a slim chance Roger will be taking it to task at the penultimate Max5 meeting at Snetterton, fingers crossed!

[Horney]

Some stuff to update on this.

1) It's rather rusty in the rear sill areas and appears to have some fibreglass in places it shouldn't.
2) We've bought an ali rad to replace the old knackered standard one which will hopefully resolve our over heating problem.
3) Still not got round to getting it RR'd to see why it's so damn slow.
4) We've roughly chosen a colour scheme.
5) We've bought a better steering wheel.

Hopefully after Race of Remembrance we can crack on and get this thing match fit for Max5 2016 Round 1 and 2.

[Horney]

Found out why it's slow. It has a 1.8 diff in it. Arse. 1.6 diff being sourced this week. It made good power on the Dyno yesterday so with the right diff it should be on pace.

Got a few bits that need doing to it but the big new is I'm going to punt it round Oulton Park on the 19th March for rounds 1 and 2 of the Max5 Championship.

[Horney]

Urrrrghhhh. So last week I picked up some bits to get this thing race ready. A 1.6 Viscous LSD and matching driveshafts as well as some brake pipe as the front to rear pipe looked a bit of a mess.

What followed was 9hrs of shouting, swearing and being grumpy. The diff and shafts fitted but the prop needed to be different. The fuel pipes turned out to also be rusted as hell. Ended up doing two runs between myself and Roger to collect parts from AutoLink to sort it all out. Got there int he end but some other jobs didn't get done due to running out of time.

At least we started stickering it up so it looks like a proper race car.

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

3 weekends until raceday!

[Horney]

Wheel alignment done yesterday.

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Transponder fitted.

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

More stickers and in it's new home.

Untitled by Nicholas Horne, on Flickr

Off to Oulton Park tomorrow for Rounds 1 and 2 of Max5.

[lemski]

Did the diff make a good improvement. Looks alright for a mx

[Horney]

Yup, now the slow bit is the wobbly fleshy bit behind the wheel.

Race report including video from rounds 1 and 2 here: https://teamhorneyracing.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/max5-race-report-rounds-1-and-2/