Hillclimb 5 in the last issues..........

[wheelspinner]

I have been a regular reader of PPC since it first came out.

I was well happy to see the mag was building a hillclimb 5 as i am an owner and fettler of a very early Eunos.

However what i wasnt expecting was the shoddy info and generally crappy(IMHO) build.
Where do you want me to start, want to save weight on the bootlid put a crappy bent peice of ali and say that will do,NOOOO if you are looking for a lightweight boot get yourself over to mx5nutz and talk to Russell (vindi) he can knock you up a lid for a reasonable price and it wont flex when you put your BGW (big gay wing) on like your ali teatray will.
I suggest you read the lighweight thread on Nutz. http://www.mx5nutz.com/forum/index.php? ... eight&st=0 if you thought removing wire doesnt lose weight......wrong.it might also give you some proven ideas to lose some lard off the 5.
Apparently the 5 never came with wind up windows ......wrong
That kirby racing seat is very expensive and very heavy compared with some of the fibreglass ones you can get for half the price.
Please oh please get yourself over to one of the enthusiasts forums like nutz and get yourself some advice before you make a Horlicks of this project.

[owelly]

I wouldn't say the article is suggesting how everyone should prep an MX5 for competiton use, more show how Mark has done his. There are a few things I would have done differently, for example: I wouldn't have made a little metal plate that would punch out one of my vertibrae if the car had a rear end shunt. But I would rather spend a few minutes making my own ally bootlid, than give the cash to someone to make me something that did the same job.
The Kirkey seat also puzzled me. They are very good bits of kit and do a better job of holding you snug, but they do cost £££s compared to the fibreglass equivalent. FWIW, I had a pair of Kirkeys and they weighed the same as a pair of Triton high back f/g ones.
Email the mag and see what they say.

[OilyFingers]

TBF that bootlid is a first time effort and looks it. He could have, with a lot more practice and a fair amount more time, built a perfect replica but having none of either that is the result.

There seems to be people missing the point with PPC articles of late and like the Capri and the tuned length intakes the MX5 has a very specific brief: Go racing for as little as possible. If you start shelling out on fancy bodywork your low budget racer will get expensive very quickly.

[wheelspinner]

A thread has been running on Nutz about this,people on there genuinely want to lend a hand and maybe some parts if that helps as they have a great deal of affection for this little car.Most of us 5 owners also tend to do stuff "on a budget" but i dont think this is an excuse to do a half arsed job.

Toby(Unna) had the good sense to ask the experts on e30 zone when he did his E30 turbo but it seems Mark has ignored all the years of experience on offer and not really done a lot of research.
As for a tight budget i want to see how he is going to do an anti lag turbo install on a not a lot of money.
As for the seat I agree with Owelly the first sign of trouble and that little metal pad is going to be in the back of his neck ?Why not remove the cross brace that the seat normally sits on and bolt the seat to the floor,super cheap mod that lowers the centre of gravity and lowers your head below the roll cage.Elise seats are also a good compromise.

I will write to the mag but i think some of these articles are written a couple of months in advance it is probably well on its way to being built by now.

[OilyFingers]

I will write to the mag but i think some of these articles are written a couple of months in advance it is probably well on its way to being built by now.

Finished? I'll bet a cheese sandwich that the next PPC project to be finished has a brown plastic bonnet.

[Relentless Rob]

The thing that sets PPC apart from other magazines is the accessibility of features. The PPC team are enthusiasts first and journalists second. Nearly every guide PPC has done is in the spirit of "this is how we did it" instead of "this is how to do it". While this leaves things open to critic from more established engineers the driveway project builders out there are left with a sense of "I could do that (but I'd probably do this instead)". Rather than alienate their core audience with projects that are way outside our budgets and capabilities the PPC team do their best to do cover all bases. There is high end dare I say cheque book builds as well as cars held together with duct tape.

I personally like what they guys did with the MX5. Personally I would have done a few things differently.

[wheelspinner]

This is one of those cant let it lie threads.
I have in the past been one of the "bought not built" owner of some nice cars,i came to realise that i could do most of what the so called experts were doing at half the price and have a bit of fun in the process.
For example my 5 stands me at about £900 and looks,goes and stops well, short of a mail order Thai bride theres not much else that gives that much fun for that money,which i believe is in the spirit of PPC magazine.
I like a lot of MX5 owners bought the mag (including a number of first timers) in anticipation of seeing a 5 built "properly" and by properly i dont mean following the formulaic build of a number of well known marks and getting flamed if we didnt follow the trend that is in that week. I mean building a lighter, safer, faster car that still looks like a 5.
Most forum members realise this does not mean opening a cheque book and the Jackson Racing or Racing Beat catalogue and choosing go faster bits, it means doing some research, talking to the right people (most of the 5 forums give advice without flaming or have a "frequently asked" section ).
The 5 is a nice looking litle car so it look good in standard trim and doesnt need mega aero packages.I suspect if its going to be hill climbed it wont be nearing high enough speeds to warrant anything other than a small front splitter and a rear wing,combined with a bit of a diet,some decent shocks,brakes and some bracing and you will have a capable car.
I like a number of owners are all for doing your own thing but not at the expense of putting potential new PPC readers and 5 owners off.

Loose the teatray......

[Relentless Rob]

I would have done several things differently with the MX5 if it were my project (I would have bought a load of cheap stuff from eBay and not got it finished in time). I would have stripped away the weight but not replaced it with rollcage ballast unless I had to (or built the engine myself and am expecting some kind of explosion as a result).

The problem with the MX5 is it is already such a good platform and people have tried virtually everything with it. So as well as being a wealth of knowledge out there, there are also a load of people wearing the "been there done that" t-shirt who are more than happy to argue about what torque setting wheel nuts need to be rather than say "I like what you did there but...".

This is much the same way as Mini tuning was at the turn of the century, every grease monkey and his dog knew how to tune a Mini so when XE conversions and Z-Cars first came about people rejected the concepts as blasphemous. I recall someone actually wearing a t'shirt at a Mini show that had "If it's not an A-Series then it's not a Mini". Thankfully the MX5 guys aren't anywhere near as bad.

[wheelspinner]

I will write to the mag but i think some of these articles are written a couple of months in advance it is probably well on its way to being built by now.

Finished? I'll bet a cheese sandwich that the next PPC project to be finished has a brown plastic bonnet.

Ahem........http://aasilencers.co.uk/blog/projectca ... lclimb-car Make mine a cheddar on brown please.

[OilyFingers]

Ahh but you see that is not a PPC staffer project per se. The reason it got finished so quick is that someone else did it.

To be fair to your first comment it doesn't look like the most elegant solution.

[Renrut]

Whats the MOT rules on sharp edges? The corners of that wing look pretty dicey.

A couple of rattle cans should make it look a bit better.

I'd like to see how they did anti-lag and a turbo install for sub £500.

[wheelspinner]

I'd like to see how they did anti-lag and a turbo install for sub £500.

I thought this at first so i had a look to see how feasible it is.

Its possible, manifold and exhaust can be made if you are good with a welder or bought one of those cheap chinese kits off egay or you might get lucky and find second hand Greddy kit,then some1800 injectors,intercooler off an A3.You can get a megasquirt to run it think this give you the launch control and flatshift as well, it will run without it but the power delivery will be a bit 80's Saab (nothing till about 3000 revs and then BAM)I am guessing the anti lag consists of spraying fuel just before the turbo to keep it spinning probably wont help the turbo though.

[OilyFingers]

All anti lag does is wait until the exhaust valves are open until releasing a spark while on over-run and cooks the Cat from within. It basically keeps the turbo spinning at full tilt while you faff about with a hairpin. I'm not convinced its worth as much as its hyped. With the amount of hybrids out there lag is not as much of an issue anyway especially on a small capacity engine.