Guran's NA6 "Little Reddy"

gobsmax · Postby **gobsmax** » Thu Nov 04, 2010 5:37 pm

LOL, great vid Guran! Congrats on the trophy and new appointment

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Fri Nov 05, 2010 2:44 pm

I've been putting up with a slow leak of coolant over recent months, and it's gradually been getting faster (now ~70mL/hr while driving or as engine cools). The scrutineer at the last club trackday noticed it and advised I should fix it ASAP. So this morning I had time to have a close look for the source. After taking off the undertray the photos show that it's mainly coming from behind the crank pulley. So it seems that the water pump is shot. Bugger!

The timing belt was changed before I took ownership of the car, and I suspect it was a backyard job and they probably skipped the water pump. After checking my workshop manual, it looks like changing the water pump requires removing the timing belt. Big job! And I'm not brave enough to try it myself. So I now have Little Reddy booked at MX5 Mania to get a complete 200,000km service which includes the water pump and timing belt, plus a few gaskets and seals which will hopefully fix a slight oil leak on the back of the engine.

While I had the car up on jack stands, I also took the opportunity to rotate the tyres and bleed the brakes. Once the service is done, I'll be good to go for the club trackday on 5th December and then Phillip Island on 12th December. :mrgreen:

View from the underneath

IMG_0329 by Guran5, on Flickr

View from the top

IMG_0332 by Guran5, on Flickr

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Sat Nov 20, 2010 11:14 am

Little Reddy was treated to a 200,000km major service pampering at MX5 Mania yesterday. This was done "early" (she's only got 178,000km on the clock), because there was little point in only replacing the failed water pump when everything else forward of the engine had to come out. Steve at MX5 Mania did a great job and didn't mind me clicking away with the camera. It was great to watch him work - he was very methodical, precise, and quick. I guess you learn that after doing several hundreds of these things!

I bought most of the parts needed from mazdatenfive ($400 for this lot), and the guys didn't mind fitting what I supplied. The only extra things needed were a crankshaft seal, water inlet gasket, sump plug washer, woodruff key, and thermostat O-ring ($32 in total).

20101119_parts by Guran5, on Flickr

Oh, and I also had a new radiator fitted ($280). The old one wasn't leaking (yet), but it was either brown or white (!!!) where it was meant to be black. It was a ticking timebomb.

20101119_IMG_0621 by Guran5, on Flickr

Here she is with her private parts exposed for all to see. Radiator and cambox cover are out, showing the old timing belt and pulleys.
There was plenty of leaked coolant around the crank pulley.

20101119_IMG_0622 by Guran5, on Flickr

Cam pulleys and thermostat removed, with the failed waterpump exposed to view.

20101119_IMG_0625 by Guran5, on Flickr

Outer crankshaft pulley is off and the timing belt removed, showing the crankshaft inner pulley
and woodruff key in place.

20101119_IMG_0626 by Guran5, on Flickr

Inner crankshaft pulley removed. It came out quite easily. The guide plate, which came out before it, required a bit more convincing and a special tool.

20101119_IMG_0627 by Guran5, on Flickr

The old waterpump out and in it's new home ... the bin!

20101119_IMG_0629 by Guran5, on Flickr

Waterpump gasket surface was pretty badly pitted.

20101119_IMG_0628 by Guran5, on Flickr

Steve tidied up the gasket seats with a polishing wheel. A nice trick that I would no doubt have missed if I'd done this job myself.

20101119_IMG_0630 by Guran5, on Flickr

New bits fitted: crankshaft pulley seals, waterpump, crankshaft seal, and woodruff key to lock the crankshaft pulley.

20101119_IMG_0631 by Guran5, on Flickr

More new bits fitted: timing belt, tensioner wheel, tensioner spring, and idler wheel.

20101119_IMG_0636 by Guran5, on Flickr

Fitting a new O-ring on the camshaft angle sensor was a damn sight easier with the cam cover removed!

20101119_IMG_0639 by Guran5, on Flickr

And here she is with everything else back in: cam cover (and gasket), new radiator, air trunking, etc.

20101119_IMG_0640 by Guran5, on Flickr

The service also included fitting a new fuel filter, new oil filter and oil, and checking/tightening lots of bolts under the car. Five and half hours of labour ($440) was worth every cent for a job that would have taken me 2-3 days and the stress of getting things wrong would have shortened my life by years! On the other hand, now that I've seen it done, I'd be inclined to give it a try myself next time. However, I don't think I'll need to do it again for more many many years!

I also picked up a set of Hawk HP+ front brake pads ($150), which I'll hopefully fit before the club trackday on 4th December. I'm interested to see how these go compared with the Bendix Ultimates.

gobsmax · Postby **gobsmax** » Sun Nov 21, 2010 11:02 pm

Nice, I had my major service done by Mania too, was happy with the work completed.

Charlie Brown · Postby **Charlie Brown** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 2:37 pm

Good one Bryan, Little Reddy's preened for an assault on Phillip Island.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 2:05 pm

I had a fiddle with the tie rods this morning. I knew it was out, but was shocked to discover that I had 15mm total of front toe out!!! :shock:

I've reset it back to zero toe on both sides with the steering wheel straight. That should improve things for the club trackday on Sunday

. And all it cost me was a bit of skin off my elbow and knuckles. :lol:

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:01 am

5th December 2010

MX-5 Club of NSW track day - Wakefield Park

The final club trackday at Wakefield Park for 2010 and I got off lightly since my regular sparing partner was at a wedding in Fiji. The forecast was for afternoon showers, but thankfully they never arrived. The track had suffered heavy rain in the weeks leading up to this trackday, just like the rest of NSW. So there wasn't much grip out there, and for the first couple runs there was a trickle of water sitting on the apex of turns 2 and 10. Still, with the low numbers, everyone had the opportunity for eight runs, and I had 36 laps all up (plus warm-up & cool-down). Luckily, the rain held off until the drive home. No complaints here!

Numbers were down with many saving their cars/finances for the Interstate Challenge at Phillip Island, or doing a hillclimb at Bathurst. So we had only 47 entrants, which is the smallest turnout for at least a few years. The conditions meant that most regulars were about a second slower than their PBs, myself included. A handful of drivers managed to improve their PBs. Well done fellas! :beer:

The quickest MX-5 on the day was Mark Hellmund (Class 6) with a 1:10.80, which was pretty amazing considering that he'd just finished muzzling his car with a quiet exhaust, ready for Phillip Island. Behind him was Chris Ballard (Class 8 ) with a 1:12.80, and Steve Green (Class 6) with a 1:13.39. Val Stewart was the fastest car on the day with a 1:08.36 in her RX7 (Class 9 / Group 2B).

My best lap was a 1:18.28 in the third run, which saw me finish at the top of Class 1. I also scored 1.59s in the 6-lap regularity with a nominated time of 1:18.90. Three of those laps were within 0.06s so I was thrilled with my consistency. I was following Ian Miller's NC for the whole run and he scored 1:93s. Those scores were good enough for first (me) and second (Ian). Yay! :mrgreen:

Other class winners were:
Class 2 (Std NB): Glenn Thomas 1:17.04
Class 3 (Std NC): Ian Miller 1:16.89
Class 4 (Std NA/NB on R-specs): Lindsay Burke 1:18.03 - he also won the "old & bold" award
Class 5 (Mod NA6): Geoff Hempsall 1:17.14
Class 7 (Turbo Road Reg): Luke Kovacic 1:14.11
Class 8 (Group 2F): Chris Ballard 1:12.80
Class 10 (non-MX5s): Keith Bridgement (WRX) 1:11.09
Class 11 (visitors): Wayne Wilson (WRX STI) 1:13.00

I shot heaps of video as usual, but haven't had time to edit it down to something watchable yet. Unfortunately I was pretty boring and didn't have any spectacular spins. I did run wide onto the dirt a couple times, but it wasn't all that dramatic.

Special thanks to Mike, Zan, Cobie, Jenny, Pam, Kevin, Jean, Robert and everyone else who helped (sorry I can't remember all the names), not only today but all year. You guys do a fantastic job and we all appreciate your dedication.

Sprite001 was also kind enough to snap some photos of my car. He was stunned by the attitudes it got in the corners, and hopefully I haven't scared him off the idea of joining Class 1 in 2011. :lol:

The dive under brakes into turn 2 is pretty impressive! :shock:

DSC_9981 by Guran5, on Flickr

Still a little bit of track that I could be using :lol:

DSC_9978 by Guran5, on Flickr

Hurtling through turn 2

DSC_9979 by Guran5, on Flickr

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:10 am

On Monday night, I finally found the time to fit my new brake pads. I'm going with Hawk HP+ on the front and Bendix General CT on the rear. I've read that many Spec Miata guys use a similar combination (although stock pads on the rear), so it'll be interesting to see how this works out. I was honestly stunned that the Hawks ($150 from MX5 Mania) cost me less than what I've been paying for the Bendix Ultimates ($165 from Autobahn). So I don't think I'll be using Ultimates any more! The rotors were still good apart from a few very fine cracks, so I didn't bother with having them skimmed. It bucketed down rain just as I was cleaning up, so I had to wait for Tuesday evening to bed them in. I think these things are going to be good.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:42 am

And then on Wednesday night, I attended my first MX-5 Club committee meeting in my new role as Publicity Officer. The two hour drive to West Ryde was a pain in the bum (heavy traffic from two separate crashes), but it was a constructive meeting and I enjoyed chatting with the other committee members. 2011 is promising to be another great year for club members. :mrgreen:

I've been spending a fair bit of time talking with alternative printers and editors of the other MX-5 Clubs. Club members should look forward to some nice surprises when my first issue of Club Torque arrives in January. I'll say no more!

Tomorrow, I'll be meeting up with Mark Hellmund for the long drive to Phillip Island for the Interstate Challenge. We'll be bunking in with Phil Munnings at a motel in Cowes. The bloody weather isn't playing ball sadly. It looks like we'll have rain and wind, just like my first visit to the track in April. :cry:

I only hope it holds off for at least one run so that we can sample a dry track.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Sun Dec 19, 2010 6:00 pm

12th December 2010

MX-5 Club NSW/VIC Interstate Challenge - Phillip Island

Click here to view my full set of photos

When I drove down to Phillip Island in April for my first ever run at the GP circuit, I considered it one of those "once in a blue moon" events. Afterall, it was my 40th birthday present to myself! But when it was announced that the 2010 Interstate Challenge would be held there on 12th December, and that the day would be run by AROCA rather than the WRX Club, I had no hesitation in signing up. Incredibly, 25 other NSW club members also entered, which was a huge commitment from the club! So often these interstate challenges are a one-sided affair in favour of the home team, due to the combination of track familiarity and differences between classes from state to state. However, with such a strong turn-out from NSW, it was destined to be a very close battle.

For the drive down, I opted to take the coastal route as I did last time, although with some company for a change. I met up with Mark Hellmund at the Albion Park McDonalds carpark at 7am on Saturday 11th December, and we did the whole drive in convoy. Mark was pulling a trailer filled with his wheels and tools, and was also afflicted by diff-ratio-induced dodginess in his speedo and a very difficult new button clutch. So I was on point! With Mark in mind, I took it easy through the twistier sections, and we stopped only for fuel and lunch. Mark had some fuel dramas since he had trouble finding 98RON and was forced to buy some 95RON at Eden. Immediately thereafter, his car was plagued with a throttle hesitation which seemed to come and go, even after finding 98RON at Cann River. We bypassed Lakes Entrance via Bruthen, and Sale via Maffra. After a final re-fuel at Traralgon,we trudged on and finally arrived at Cowes at 6:30pm. We were just in time to unhitch the trailer, drop our gear, and head off for dinner with the whole crew at the RSL. It was great fun catching up with all the Victorians I met back in April, and swapping yarns.

I had a great sleep overnight ... for six hours anyway. A massive thunderstorm hit Phillip Island at around 11pm, which kept me awake for a while. Then the morning birdcalls woke me at 5am and that was it for me until the alarm went off at 6am. I was sharing a motel room with Phil Munnings and Mark, so we all got up, had a quick bite of breakfast, packed the cars and were at the track by 6:45am. God it was cold and windy waiting outside the gate! Once inside, there were MX-5s everywhere! We even outnumbered the Alfa Romeo hosts.

The weather forecast looked really horrible during the lead-up. My goal for the day was to hopefully improve my PB from 2:15.16 to something below 2:10. But if it was wet, there'd be no chance of that. We had several rain showers pass through during the morning, but miraculously the track was completely dry every time I went out! I started with a sighting run in the passenger seat of Randy Stagno-Navarra's NC - a great experience! Then on my practice run, I did a 2:09.1 on my third lap despite having a brief lock-up at Honda and overtaking a couple of cars. Mission accomplished already. Rob Downes' Standard NA record of 2:08.833 was within touching distance.

On my first timed run, I got on the tail of Colin Denman-Jones' NC and on the 4th lap I was close enough for a perfect slipstream down the main straight to clock a new PB of 2:08.2761. The slipstream added ~5km/hr to my top speed and shaved about a second off the lap. It was the best I could manage all day, and subsequent runs produced 2:09.3511, 2:10.6006, 2:09.7200, and 2:09.9079. But who cares?! I was having an absolute ball out there! :mrgreen:

I even had to drive into Cowes after lunch to get more fuel!

Video of my 2:08.2761 lap. I was obviously pretty happy when I saw the time come up on the PBox at the end of the lap!

PerformanceBox data for my PB lap. After completing this lap, I reached 181.1km/hr before turn 1!

So there it was - I'd beaten the old Standard NA record by 0.55s! Unfortunately, Rob Downes had already smashed his old record only 20min earlier with a truly amazing time of 2:06.6179. He later improved it further with a 2:06.4908, and finally 2:06.1522 on his last lap of the day! He was 2.1s quicker than me, which shows the benefit of much greater experience with Phillip Island, and better utilisation of the class rules.

Still, I was firmly in second place in Standard NA and it stayed that way ... until Noel Heritage did a 2:08.1979 on his third-last lap, to push me back to third. Noel and Rob share the same dual-entered NA8. Brendan Beavis was a close fourth with 2:08.7032. I suspect that if Brendan had stuck it out for one last run, he might also have beaten me.

AROCA did a superb job of managing 125 drivers split across five groups, giving nearly everyone the opportunity for at least five runs. I had one run as a passenger, plus six runs as a driver (34 laps!). I was absolutely chuffed with the whole day. And so was every other MX-5 Club member!

The Interstate Challenge pointscore was a very close run thing, but the home team prevailed. The official result was 4.88 for VIC versus 4.33 for NSW. Everyone who drove an MX-5 was eligible to score points, which was a nice fair way to do it. The VICs vowed to put on an equally impressive challenge when they visit Wakefield Park in 2011.

Lots of smiling MX-5 drivers after a fun day at the office!

That evening, Phil, Mark and I were invited back to Peter Phillips place for a BBQ with several other VICs. It was wonderful to get to know everyone a bit better and share experiences.

On Monday morning, Mark and I said our goodbyes to Phil and hit the road at 7am. Mark's throttle problems had mostly fixed themselves, but he needed to carry an extra set of wheels as a favour for another club member. So with his button clutch making starts difficult, we were keen for a quick run home via the Hume Highway. After refuelling at Koo Wee Rup, a horrible noise started in Mark's diff and we were forced to stop so he could top it up with oil. Thanks to Greg & Lesa Bunn and Ray & Pam Estreich who stopped to offer assistance! The fresh oil (eventually) fixed the diff, but it was still a worrying drive for Mark. The GPS led us astray near Healesville (we were briefly sent down a dirt lane!), but we were soon on the Hume Highway. We took a detour to my home-town of Corowa for fuel and lunch and encountered swarms of locusts around and in town. And again, we couldn't find any 98RON for Mark! Thankfully he had enough in reserve to make it to Holbrook, where we again bumped into Greg & Lesa! The rest of the drive home was boring but trouble free, and I pulled in at 6:30pm. Not bad considering all the delays along the way. I slept VERY well that night!

The whole weekend cost me about 170L of fuel to cover ~1930km, at an average of 8.8L/100km, including ~150km of WOT at the track. Bloody impressive! Little Reddy performed faultlessly the entire time, and the odometer ticked over 180,000km during the return journey. I love this car!

evil_weevil · Postby **evil_weevil** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 3:21 pm

Awesome!!
top work Bryan! and great write up.
I wish I could have made that event - next year!!

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 4:29 pm

The continuing adventures of the bunny killer ...

Parental guidance is recommended.

Twiggy · Postby **Twiggy** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 5:37 pm

Guran wrote:The continuing adventures of the bunny killer ...

Parental guidance is recommended.

Bryan! Another bunny?! Are you hiding carrots in your car or something?

R.I.P. Bunny. Let's hope he didn't mess up your times too much along the way.

tbro · Postby **tbro** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 7:28 pm

Poor Bunny,

Bloody hell, Bryan it is obvious you didn't grow up on a farm., the only good bunny is in the POT with the carrots.

Still gotta hit em in the mx with the tyres not the spoiler :lol:

When Nicole was a little whipper snipper in Kindy, her teacher at a private Christian college ask what we do with bunnies.
Quick as, her hand shot up and she answered " you shoot em miss", That cost us a visit to the office where they couldn't understand why you would to hurt bunnies :roll:

Bloody Wankers!!!
Terry