So it was back to Thruxton to shake down the car after the installation of chassis bracing and new anti roll bar. This post reviews the day.
Introduction
In my last posts (here), I’d installed some IL Motorsport chassis bracing, Super Pro anti roll bar and Cobalt drop links; and was keen to see whether they’d improve the handling of the car. I have to say I was not disappointed.
Before the mods the car felt pretty good (it’s an MX5 after all), but now on track it is superb.
The drive in
Thruxton’s about an hour from my house weather permitting. There were two of us, so we had the luxury of a support car to take along the larger tool box, extra gear and a cool box for coffee, soft drinks and food – bloody luxury. We’d also hired a garage for the day.
Traffic on the drive in was pretty light and after a quick stop for the higher octane petrol at a supermarket.
Shortly after stopping for petrol I noticed a ticking sound. Some provisional touching and pushing on various panels within reach lead me to conclude that the noise was from the engine bay.
I immediately noticed that the noise was pretty stable in speed, seemed to occur more on the over-run and low revs than when accelerating and seemed to be more frequent as the journey unfolded.
I provisionally concluded that it could be air-con compressor related (given that there is a clutch mechanism on that item and the air con is showing signs if packing up and was happy to push on as a result.
The traffic gods smiled on us as we drove onwards and we made good time getting there.
Registration and Set Up
This time we drove straight over to registration to save time and it passed without issue. The noise test was on our way over to the garage and we passed at 81 dB (84 last time). I was told that the reduction was probably due to the variation in the air pressure from last time.
We found our garage and popped the car in. The support car was parked so the boot faced the garage and we had space to keep hoodies and valuables. The tools gear and cooler were laid out in the garage read for use.
The garages at Thruxton are doubles we shared our garage with another MX5 a mark 1 by YouTuber Aaron from the channel @CarObsession: we said our hellos, had a chat about out cars and got on the day. As ever at a track day pits and non-pits are quite social with people popping in for car chat all through the day.
Prior to the sighting laps and briefing we popped the boot and bonnet, dialled the shockers up to full hardness -1 front – 4 rear and set the tyre pressures to 1.9 bar. Even when left for half an hour oil level is pretty hard to check as the dip stick gets all smeared but it was straw coloured and seemed to be at about right level (just under full).
The driver briefing was held in the pit lane and we were asked to stay off any green paint as the track was being prepared for super bikes the following weekend.
People were keen to get underway so we waited for the first sighting laps to go off without us before joining the queue for the second run. We also went around for the third set as well. Once things were underway I completely forgot about the ticking noise.
The morning session
The morning sessions went well, we got used to the handling of the car again and laps got quicker as a result.
The garage next door was also running an older MX5 and the coach/engineer spotted that our coolant line which should be bolted to the right side of the cylinder head was loose (one bolt missing) and the other very loose. So I tightened the remaining bolt and added note on the cars Trello planner to replace the missing bolts and use some thread lock to prevent accidental loosening in the future.
I’m hoping the loose pipe was the source of the ticking noise I mentioned above but to be honest we were having too much fun to notice any improvement.
As the session progressed the other MX5 in our garage developed a misfire which resisted all attempts to repair it.
We went out did our sets of laps and came in let the car cool-down whilst we had a brew then swapped drivers and went back out again.
Lunch came early with a red flag and we ate our sandwiches, had a drink and chatted to people popping in to the garage.
The afternoon session
We stayed until around 15.00 and got a new sessions in. We both managed to get faster and it is often saidnthat in the afternoon the numbers of participants tails off so more complete runs are often possible.
Here’s a video of the quickest run of the day for us.
Another fun Track Day
Well that’s it. Again we had some fun. We felt we were getting better with more track time and experience. Hiring a garage for the day was a welcome bonus and where possible we’ll do it again. I was surprised by the number of people who pop in to chat and found opportunities for learning from others experiences. Some benevolent stranger spotted a developing problem on my car and I was able to sort out a temporary fix as a result – Thank you.
A shout out to the pit Marshals (and all the Marshals without whom we couldn’t come out to play), they were very good all day and kept things going with good humour. In the past they’ve reminded me about switching on running lights, spotted loose bonnet latches and averted disaster. They always seem friendly and approachable.
As the season begins to draw to a close I hope be back out again in September and October and after that we’ll mess what’s possible.
