AdamR28

No probs! Seriously long drive out Mark, looks decent, defo need to hit up those roads sometime...

Standard England, keep kicking the ball away when we looked decent in possession, and gave away way too many points in the form of penalties in kickable areas. So frustrating.

Drag from gearbox oil will spin the wheels in that situation, don't worry about it. To test the clutch, put the car in 5th while driving and boot the throttle from 2000rpm. If the clutch is on the way out the revs will rise quicker than road speed as the clutch slips, then revs will drop back again as it heats up and bites. The other test: get it fully up to temp, clutch all the way down, in neutral, then increase the revs towards the limiter. If the car starts to creep that indicates an issue too.

Sweet, get it done! Feel free to swap wheels / tyres if you like...

Interesting, I guess that included the time to whittle the spoke key from a single piece of steel?

Exactly the same for Mike! Went to Maplin at lunch, started after work, now have a functioning auto downshift blipper Just needs fine tuning on the road... That switch I'm flicking with my finger will be triggered by the rocker when the down paddle is pulled. I can set how long the throttle is opened for by bending the tab which closes the switch, and how far it opens by shimming the solenoid closer or further away from the mount. Also has a switch on the dash to disable the whole lot for road driving, and when shifting from neutral to 1st!

Yerp Good tip, thanks, its sooo much better!

Still need to get to a track day together...! I find the car pretty interesting too, yeah, more so than I imagined I would I've found a solenoid for it (MX-5 starter), worked out how it'll all work, but not got round to getting it rigged up yet... Got a track day on Saturday, so for now just going to see how I get on with the 'softer' clutch pedal.

I'm a spaz Haha. I only read the first line, and read it as "Is it safe to be cautious of people wanting to pay you as a gift only on paypal?"

I seeeee, I misread it and thought you meant you were the seller... Do as above in this case, definitely.

Erm, I thought if you sent a gift payment it meant you had no comeback? Things may have changed though... seems weird to insist on doing it that way, as it gives the buyer less protection...

The lighter wheels and low fuel would take 20kg off, then there's probably about 15kg in bits and bobs (uprights - currently big heavy steel things, engine mountings, chassis tweaks, swapping to a Freelander diff from the Sierra one)... Some people claim to have the same chassis, engine and body down to around 420kg but I dont see how its possible...

Looking a bit more purposeful with the bodged air dam / splitter on. Can't believe the difference it's made to high speed cornering balance too! Above about 50mph it would understeer pretty badly before, now I'd say its slightly oversteery! Been chipping away at the weight too, this is with about half a tank of fuel, tonneau cover and the heavier wheels...

Should have just bought a whole MX-5...

I feel like some sort of religious preacher... I think that's 7 or 8 'conversions' now...

Great stuff - I need to get involved with one of these sometime!

Why, what else did you have with it? Half a chicken and 2 tins of beans?

Let me know which evening this week you're free for a Walton Summit donut / drift lesson...

Agreed with the above... Agreed with the above...

Good info - thanks. I shall have a look at some clutch levers then... The actuator arm could be tweaked I guess, but there is good access to the pedal box so I think that might be easier (plus it's pretty agricultural so I can hack / weld it as I wish). Ah true, I'm used to hydraulic clutches in other cars - best sort it properly as you said Cheers!

True enough about the clutch plates... Not sure about the gearbox though - stories online are of 'it's cheaper to bang a new engine in than recondition the box'... Good call on the clutch lever pivot, I didn't realise it was designed to operate with such a small amount of movement. The ratio is definitely wrong at the moment then. Maybe it needs a 'half stop' (half a tennis ball, or something) mid way through the travel, so you can just touch against this to open the clutch enough for a downshift, yet push past it to fully disengage for 1st/2nd/neutral work. Haha, that sounds stupid at first but when you think about it it makes a lot of sense! The controls were designed to be used like that originally, so why not...

Apologies - it was a bit of a random comment! I plan to make an auto blipper, with switches so that the clutch has to be down, the brakes on, and the downshift paddle pressed all at the same time (and another one on the dash so I can disable it all for road driving), which will fire a solenoid to blip on downshift... Yep, that's exactly what I felt like I had to do so I wasn't raping the clutch. There's very little feel with this setup in a car, mainly because it's meant to be operated by hand I guess, so the clutch is very on-off. I guess you *could* learn to feather it but it would be very very difficult and doesn't that just wear the clutch out? Engine braking in a car with a bike engine without a slipper clutch is a big no-no apparently, you can quickly ruin the transmission due to the extra grip at the rear wheels. I will always blip (and block shift) down in a car-engined car, but there just wasn't time here. Doing 4 downshifts in the distance / time it takes the car to slow down from ~110 to 40mph is impossible - in fact I had to brake earlier than normal to give enough time to get 3 in! Not so much an issue on a bike I guess, as the braking distances are quite a bit longer. I'll get it sorted anyway, and I like an engineering challenge Cheers for the info about the bike setup btw, appreciated!

Never...

It's a mechanical linkage with paddles behind the steering wheel - you can 'feel' the gearbox doing its thing through other changes so no doubt it'd work on downshifts too. I like your 'it'll wear the dogs until you get smooth', haha, that worries me slightly Slipper clutches are available for this engine but they are expensive - over 1/10th of what I paid for the car, so not justifiable! Dug out an old MX-5 starter motor this morning, the solenoid looks like it'll do the job - I'd have preferred a push type but pull will work. Just need to fit it and rig up the rest of the switches etc., then it can get tested...

So it is doable with a bike gearbox then... Hmm... Practicing time, cheers!