Pete.M

Finally renting a house that actually has room for activities. It has been too long since I last messed about with cars.

I'd look at imported Toyota's with a 1JZ-GTE engine if you're interested in drifting and playing with turbo's, like the JZX-110 (Chaser).

I thought the mot on the 740 had gone pretty well all things considered, just failed on a patch needing welded. I thought they were talking about an awkwardly placed hole near the front offside jacking point which I've known about for ages, so the quote they gave me seemed excellent. Turns out they were talking about another little patch on the chassis rail that I hadn't noticed, so I got my mot but still have a hole to patch up...I think I'll leave that and concentrate on swapping the engine over summer. Looking forward to seeing the results Dan.

Swapped the Eunos for an Alfa 156 2.4jtd. Here's hoping it's not a terrible decision.

Good progress Dan, that thing is going to be nuts. Never do a soft top replacement, especially in your bedroom. Don't know if my replacement cover had shrunk after years in storage or if you're supposed to fit in whilst inside an oven. It was a hassle.

My weekend has started with this. No idea who did it. Fairly severe bodywork damage, rear light broken, and fuel flap broken clean off.

"Without any hassle" - you're a wizard!

It's been a while since I expressed my dislike of Solidworks.

I spoke too soon, the ECU didn't fix the mx-5. The new spark plugs are black again. So it has now had a replacement maf, o2 sensor, engine temp sensor, and a coil pack because I had one lying around. No codes showing on the diagnostic LED. Meanwhile I haven't had to replace or fix a single thing on the 740 in about 10 months. Probably cursed it now...

Multiple 10mm sockets. My engine swap mysteriously consumed a few sockets.

Can't see the second picture but it looks awesome. Jealous. I swapped out the mx5's ecu and removed the boost timing controller. It runs! Still has a slight kangaroo action at lower revs and dodgy idle when cold. There could be some other problems lurking. I'll check the new plugs soon, since the last ones were black.

I went to look at the mx5's ecu to see if I could diagnose a failure, only to find this boost controller thingy (no turbo sadly), fully wired in...this makes diagnosis a bit more difficult. Even the vacuum line is fully attached. Disconnected ecu, had a look at it, reconnected it, and now it doesn't run at all, it just turns over. Kinda suspecting ecu but I'd like to get rid of that boost controller. Not sure how the original wiring is supposed to look but hopefully I can figure it out.

Its not the maf, or at least the used replacement maf didn't fix it. There's forum threads on similar problems but the ones with solutions all have different fixes! I hate trouble shooting and having to use logic. The spark plugs are a nice colour...

Might be the AFM. The problem disappears when the afm flap is held a little further open, but I don't really understand how those simple flapper style afm's can go wrong. The electronics inside look fine. Guess I'll have to try a replacement.

The mx-5 engine now stutters periodically (every few seconds) and either stalls or nearly stalls unless I manage to keep it running long enough to get it warm, then it runs better. HT lead resistances seem reasonable, I know they're a typical culprit. Anything obvious spring to mind mx-5 people?

There's a fine line here - it's all good fun until you're behind a Kia that decides to slow down before a hill, and then speeds up on the incline whilst you hammer it in 3rd just to maintain your current speed.... I came across a hill in Halifax recently that I could only get up in 1st gear.

I only intended to have a bit of fun over winter with it. I'll be going back to doing pointless stuff with old Volvo's after this

Nice, seems pretty cheap. My insurance is weird, the mx5 is super cheap and the slowest volvo in the world is ridiculously expensive :-( I'm glad you're not planning the turbo conversion in the next few months, it would probably tempt me to do the same. As of now I'm still planning to get rid of the mazda in spring.

If the track day was on a weekday then I could only do April onwards. I think we concluded that curborough made the most sense?

@CurtisRider E39 525d can do 2000kg in auto form, but only 1800 in manual.

I remember looking into that - there's a diesel 5 series with pretty good towing capacity, possibly a Merc as well but can't remember the exact models. I couldn't find any other cars with greater capacities than those two.

I thought this was amusing

On the way to see Korn and limp bizkit cos I'm still 16.

Evo triangle was fun. Any suggestions for other roads in the area? Tempted to put rainsports on the front. It's slightly understeery in these conditions.

Took the crank pulley off the mx5 to track down the wobble. It looks like someone has been here before, though I can't tell exactly what they've used to bond/weld the gear to the crank. I couldn't get a puller behind the gear to confirm that the 'fix' was still solid, so I just put it all back together. (the cracked backing on the gear wasn't me) I'm kinda hoping that the slight wobble is due to the gear not being perfectly straight. I'll just run it, it may have been like this for years.