Our 6.6mx9.3m (~22'x31') attached garage/workshop in Australia

[metalhead140]

Andrew, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

That it B&E for breakfast today..

Thanks i am reading this at 10:30pm and will be thinking of that all night. And i have an early start so won't get a chance to try it. But thanks for sharing

Haha, thanks guys. Hard to beat a good brekkie.

Sorry to hear about the meeting with dead roo. I have always liked the Pace car spoiler on that year.
Videos were great.

Dwight

Yeh, I like the pace car spoiler too, just can't decide if I'm happy with further decreasing ground clearance...

--------

Another hillclimb at Ringwood on Sunday, should be fun!

 

[metalhead140]

So, did some work on the car yesterday. Re-set the timing, new plugs, new manifold gasket (replaced the passenger side gasket with the Remflex gasket to match the drivers side, and fix my exhaust leak, thanks Sean!), did some final wiring for the lights etc.

But then I slept in this morning, and was running late for the hillclimb! Had some dramas too, car wouldn't start so I had to jump it (has a lightweight battery that doesn't like the cold), and then dropped a couple of leads just after leaving home. Got there just in time to have the car scrutineered, attend the drivers briefing, and head straight around for my first run! Had a great first and second run, ran a 61.99 on my second run, and the previous lap record for my class was a 67.73, so I was very happy with that!



My brother and his wife were competing in their MGF (yes, the one I was welding on a couple of months back), which was great, it's always good to have some family company and competition! Unfortunately though, on his second run, Michael overcooked the finish a little - when he lifted as he crossed the line, the car came around on him, he touched the wet grass and was a passenger from there.





Amazingly, the car is completely fine apart from a broken light and the mashed front bumper, we pulled the bumper off and everything was fine behind it, we straightened it out and put it back on and they drove the car home. They could have kept competing if it hadn't damaged a tyre and left them running on their space saver spare. A bit of a shock, but a pretty good outcome all things considered! If he had been a metre to either side of where he ended up then it would certainly have been a lot worse. Incidentally, he did still win his class, and was the quickest MG around the track, against several more modified cars with experienced and capable drivers.



Understandably (I think anyway!) that put me off my pace a little, and I didn't run as fast on my next 3 runs. An eventful day to say the least... I still finished 19th outright out of 60 competitors, and top of my class (though admittedly the only entrant...), so I was very happy with how I went overall.

Oh, and I did get an award presented for my class lap record at the last Ringwood event. I'll have another to look forward to next time! I know it's a beer stein, but it served well holding my JD and coke this evening...



A mixed day... Hope everyone else had a great weekend.

 

[hewey]

Congrats on the times in the Vette. Good to hear the MG faired okay in the off, could have been much worse.

 

[Bob Heine]

Andrew, looks like you had a great weekend! When I was autocrossing my 72 Corvette I never spun out on the course but several times went sideways in the shutdown area. Just when you think you're done, things get real exciting. My street tires became real slippery once they got hot.

 

[1/2 Cup]

Andrew, now that was a lucky excursion..

 

[Terrick down Under]

The gods were watching over you lot, that is for sure!!
Turned out to be a good day, records, spin outs and no major damage.

 

[metalhead140]

Congrats on the times in the Vette. Good to hear the MG faired okay in the off, could have been much worse.

Andrew, now that was a luck excursion..

The gods were watching over you lot, that is for sure!!
Turned out to be a good day, records, spin outs and no major damage.

Thanks guys, yeh very lucky on the lack of damage, that's true. I was very happy with how the Vette went too, just wish I had kept my nerve so I could see if I could run any quicker once the track warmed up.

This event also allowed me to get a better perspective of the improvement with these tyres; last event at Ringwood (on a different track layout) I was 1.2s quicker than the class lap record (78.55 vs 79.94 that was held by an experienced driver in a 240z) and about 3s slower than a very quick driver in his race MGB. This event I beat my class record by 5.7s (61.99 vs 67.73) that was held by the same driver and 240z as the last event, and was also 1.5s quicker than the class lap record held by that same race MGB (though he wasn't competing yesterday). Part of that difference is certainly down to practice and experience in the car, but still, it's an astonishing improvement!

No in car footage (must buy my own camera!), but Jenna did video my quickest run, I'll try to post it up tonight.

Andrew, looks like you had a great weekend! When I was autocrossing my 72 Corvette I never spun out on the course but several times went sideways in the shutdown area. Just when you think you're done, things get real exciting. My street tires became real slippery once they got hot.

Yep... My brother, like me, is still being a bit cheap and running on street tyres. As a family, Dad, myself, and my three brothers have always driven our cars to and from the events we've competed in, and despite the occasional spin or mechanical breakage, have managed never to damage them in an accident until now. Helps put it in perspective I suppose.

 

[HOTFR8]

Did I just read new record ? Well done.

 

[dchance]

Great work on the record.

Glad no one was hurt.

Dwight

 

[metalhead140]

Did I just read new record ? Well done.

Great work on the record.

Glad no one was hurt.

Dwight

Thanks guys!

Yes, while the impact was not at a high speed, no one being hurt is the important thing. Spoke to my brother this morning and he's feeling a little sore, but not as bad as he had expected, so all told a pretty good outcome really.

Here's a video of my quickest run yesterday, over 5 seconds quicker than the previous class record.:

_

 

[rmalkow2]

Well done on the class record and fast lap time. I envy your racing exploits as it looks like great fun. Glad to see that accident turned out minor.

 

[metalhead140]

Well done on the class record and fast lap time. I envy your racing exploits as it looks like great fun. Glad to see that accident turned out minor.

Thanks, definitely great fun! This pic showed up on Facebook, taken by Jason Gregory: https://www.facebook.com/jason.greg...536782209:1498562960&source_ref=pb_friends_tl The car has some lean on it!

 

[hewey]

You might like this street & track Camaro

 

[metalhead140]

It is cool, thanks! A bit more modernised than my personal taste (I like to try to keep the look/feel fairly period), but looks like a very nice, well built, and fun to drive bit of gear.

Not sure what I'm going to do about this photobucket stuff. No way I'm paying $400US a year to restore my pictures, but it's kinda destroyed my thread.

Spent today trying to get my new JW Speaker LED headlights installed on the Vette. Turns out 'universal retrofit' doesn't apply to C3 Corvettes! The shallow headlight buckets meant a lot of modification was involved, but I've more or less got one side sorted anyway.

 

[dchance]

Hate that PB changed things. Looking forward to see what the LED headlights look like. Also would be nice if you show some of what it took to convert them.

Dwight

 

[cros13]

heads up bro, after the photobucket f**k up, i re uploaded everything to Imgur.

When i re fixed everything, worked fine.... woke up the next morning... all links were broken. I remember having this issue a few years ago, but i had forgot exactly what the issue was, why i didnt use Imgur....

Trying Flickr now.... just re did everything... AGAIN!..... see how this one goes..... If this craps out again tomorrow i think im going to slit my wrists... well... probably not be that dramatic... just forget about this for a few weeks until my rage subsides...

Rudi.

 

[metalhead140]

Hate that PB changed things. Looking forward to see what the LED headlights look like. Also would be nice if you show some of what it took to convert them.

Dwight

Thanks Dwight. Only got one done so far, will take some good pics of the second side, maybe some video showing the lights and how they work with the mx5 (miata) headlight motors. Much better than the old vacuum!

heads up bro, after the photobucket f**k up, i re uploaded everything to Imgur.

When i re fixed everything, worked fine.... woke up the next morning... all links were broken. I remember having this issue a few years ago, but i had forgot exactly what the issue was, why i didnt use Imgur....

Trying Flickr now.... just re did everything... AGAIN!..... see how this one goes..... If this craps out again tomorrow i think im going to slit my wrists... well... probably not be that dramatic... just forget about this for a few weeks until my rage subsides...

Rudi.

Thanks for that. My friend runs an IT business and hosts a number of his clients websites, I might hit him up for some hosting space to avoid it happening again. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be going back through the thread to fix all the pics, that'd take forever... Not sure whether I'm better just to start a new thread?

 

[cros13]

I had 8 pages worth of photo's to fix... and i had to do it twice.. so 16 pages... i get it, you have 43......

But hey... keep the thread.... fix the links of 2 pages per day, and slowly fix it over time... don't abandon it!

I know it might be hard to remember where every photo goes... what i did, was when i started my "build", i created a album on my computer, called it garage journal build, and stored all the photos in there in chronological order in regard to when i uploaded them.

so it was a pretty simple matter for me to fix, just time consuming.

But i get your frustration... i DIDN'T do that on the Aussiezed forums and its going to be a nightmare trying to repair that build thread....

Rudi.

 

[metalhead140]

Well, I took some time away due to frustration over the photobucket situation. But now my pics are back (mostly), thanks to some imagehosting from a mate, who also registered photosucket.com so that the pictures could be fixed by changing a single letter... Might be able to also help out others if they're interested?

A quick update anyway. I have another hillclimb on this Sunday which I'm looking forward to! Over the past few weeks have got a few jobs done, brake booster in the truck, made up some hard lines to replace some fuel hoses in the Vette, fitted the Ridetech Borgeson steering brace I've had in the garage for ages, serviced it, fitted the updated headlights and a couple of other small jobs. My brother came up last weekend and we replaced all the bushes in his mx5 with poly.

I also had two breakdowns in the Vette over the past few weeks. The first was the new MSD coil I'd fitted five weeks earlier failing without warning. The second was the MSD rotor coming loose and destroying itself and the cap... Fortunately I'd replaced all those parts recently so had working spares!

Will post some pics soon. It's good to be back! I'll catch up on everyone else's threads shortly.

 

[sean Buick 76]

Great to here things are good! Sorry to hear about the photobucket issues I'm going through that frustration now... I will look into photosucket!

 

[1/2 Cup]

Andrew, all the best for the hill climb.

I can relate to your niggling issues with the Vette.

Regards

 

[rmalkow2]

Wow, it's not good to hear about the MSD parts issues. I would have expected better quality from them. Good luck on the hill climb event.

 

[metalhead140]

Great to here things are good! Sorry to hear about the photobucket issues I'm going through that frustration now... I will look into photosucket!

I've been talking to my mate about making it available to others, not sure if it'll happen yet, but I'll let you know.

Andrew, all the best for the hill climb.

I can relate to your niggling issues with the Vette.

Regards

Thanks 1/2 Cup, see below...

Wow, it's not good to hear about the MSD parts issues. I would have expected better quality from them. Good luck on the hill climb event.

Yeh, me too. Though maybe I can't blame them for the rotor and cap, maybe I should have tightened the screws more? Of course, the packaging/instructions have a big note about not overtightening them... My old MSD stuff seems great. The newer stuff (much of which says "Made in China" on the label...) not so much.

-------------------------

All, sorry for the delay in updating! I still haven't resolved the best way to upload new pictures at the moment, but I'm working on it. Anyway, the hillclimb on Sunday went very well. Came in 19th outright, first in class, and a new class record for this layout by over 4 seconds. And again the quickest car present on pure street tyres.

More interestingly, I think it's safe to say I'm getting a better handle on the car - instead of continually improving every run, 5 of my 6 runs (the first was on a cold track and was significantly slower) were covered by a total difference of just 0.14s... Kinda frustrating when you're trying to improve actually, but definitely a good sign!

Unfortunately I didn't get many pics, but I did get sent a few pictures of the Vette competing that were taken by the daughter of another competitor which is nice.

Oh, and yes, my brother and his wife were back out competing in their MGF after their little incident last time out. They did well too!

Here's my quickest run of the day:

And other runs can be found here:

Some pictures of the competitors paddock:

View media item 73109
View media item 73110
View media item 73112
And some pictures of the Vette.

Waiting at the start line:

View media item 73114
Some lean in turn 1...:

View media item 73113
Heading up to turn 2:

View media item 73120
Coming down out of the top loop:

View media item 73119
Braking downhill into the final turns. Checkout the front camber here (under braking) compared to the below pictures accelerating out of the turn!:

View media item 73118
Final turn:

View media item 73115
Again, on a different run: View media item 73117
I'll be running again this Sunday, over the same track layout. This one is a state round, I'll try to get some more pictures, and post them up sooner!

This vid was one of the other competitors this past weekend, in a Legends car:

 

[madoc1]

cool stuff! congrats.

jim

 

[jinjaninja]

Re: Our 6.6mx9.3m (~22'x31') attached garage/workshop build (renovation?) in Australi

Just came.over for a look-see

Awesome property man. Love the vette. Will have a proper sit down and gander again sometime soon.





Sent from my HTC 2PS6200 using Tapatalk

 

[dchance]

Enjoyed the video. Sounds like a great day.

Dwight

 

[hewey]

That's some nice consistency! Congrats on the class win too.

 

[rmalkow2]

Good run and I enjoyed the video.

 

[metalhead140]

Wow, thanks for all the replies guys!

cool stuff! congrats.

jim

Thanks!

Just came.over for a look-see

Awesome property man. Love the vette. Will have a proper sit down and gander again sometime soon.

Thanks mate! We love it here, and the Vette is definitely a fun toy.

Enjoyed the video. Sounds like a great day.

Dwight

Thanks Dwight!

That's some nice consistency! Congrats on the class win too.

Thanks Hewey. Have to see if I can repeat it or improve tomorrow.

Good run and I enjoyed the video.

Thanks! It's a good fun little track.

----------------

So I think I posted it earlier, but tomorrow I'm running the same track as last week, but this event is a round of the NSW Hillclimb Championship. I'm not competing in the championship, but I might consider it next year. I ducked over there this afternoon to get my entry and scrutineering sorted, they had a practise day today, but we had some other stuff on (and I did run there last week!) so I opted out of practise. Should be fun!

Gave the car a bath this afternoon and got it all numbered up ready to go.:

View media item 73181
View media item 73180
I have the camera charging for some more video too. I'll update tomorrow!

 

[Terrick down Under]

"should be fun", if its not, then your not going fast enough!!!

 

[metalhead140]

"should be fun", if its not, then your not going fast enough!!!

You got it!

Ok, well I elected to compete in the state class that I'd be running in if I were competing in the state championship. That class is over 2.5L, road registered, (but not AWD/4WD, and forced induction is a 1.8x multiplier)... quite a wide range of competitors! There was a VW Polo GTI, a Nissan S15 Silvia, a Renault Megane RS275, myself, and a whole bunch of HSV and FPV Commodores and Falcons. I finished 7th in class (out of 15 cars), and could have been 4th if I hadn't stuffed up my last run - at the timing split roughly half way around the track I was quicker by ~0.7s, but I ploughed wide running into the top loop and badly messed up my run, resulting in recording the exact same time as my previous best for the day. However, given that I am still running on street tyres and basically everyone else in the class is on semis (premium AD08Rs or soft R888s in almost all cases), and if I'd pulled off the last run then I would have been less than 0.5s off the fastest in the class, I think I'm doing ok.

I tried a slightly different mounting arrangement for the camera too, putting it a bit closer to the roof in the hopes of catching more of what my feet were doing. I succeeded in that, but unfortunately when I got home and pulled the footage off the camera I've discovered that it has washed out the view through the windscreen badly. ******!

Anyway, it was a good day, and has made me seriously consider running the state series next year - I'm a set of semislicks away from potentially being quite competitive in my class, and they run some cool events, including racing up Bathurst...

The other neat thing was that on my final run, I finally got a cleanish launch, and cleared the first split (up the hill just before turn 1) in under 4 seconds, which was one of the fastest first splits for a 2wd car all day.

All of my times this week were quicker than last week, and I took the opportunity to try a few different tyre pressures - looks like these tyres, being a softish sidewalled road tyre actually like quite high pressures, and I've been running them too low up until now - I have been running them at ~31psi hot. I ran my first two runs today with 37psi hot, and ran a 43.94 followed by a 43.90. Keep in mind that last week I ran 5 runs between 44.57 and 44.71... I then tried dropping the pressure to 35psi hot, ran a 43.85, but felt like there was still more in it. Figuring this was still working well, and not sure how much of time improvement compared to last week was due to a warmer track, I lowered the pressures again to 33psi, and immediately went slower, with a 44.28. Bumped the pressures back up to 35psi and was immediately faster again, with what should have been comfortably my fastest run of the day, but instead was equally as fast as my previous 35psi run, at 43.85. 35psi would be very high if these were track tyres, but they're not.

I really intended to take more pictures, truly I did... But I didn't, just these two of the paddock, sorry!:

View media item 73221
View media item 73220
And here's the video of my two (equally) quickest runs:

Run 3:

Run 5:

Cheers guys...

 

[rmalkow2]

Well done! It's amazing what small changes in tire pressure can do.

 

[metalhead140]

Sure is! Tyre pressures make a surprisingly huge difference, as do tyres in general.

Some great photos from the NSW Hillclimb Championship facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/nswhillclimb/):

Start line:

View media item 73380
Turn 1:

View media item 73376
Between turns 2 and 3:

View media item 73377
Between turn 3 and 4:

View media item 73378
From turn 5 into turn 6:

View media item 73381
Exiting turn 6:

View media item 73379
Just across the finish:

View media item 73382

 

[metalhead140]

So, I've been AWOL for a month, sorry guys. As usual, that means something happened... The week after the hillclimb in my above photos, I lost some wheel studs.:

View media item 74691
*****, but not the end of the world. Insurance is covering it, and it's booked in for repair in a couple of weeks. With hindsight, perhaps wheel studs should have been replaced when I replaced everything else and almost every fastener in the suspension/steering/brakes... I'll be putting some larger uprated studs on all 4 corners now, that's for sure.

But missing some of the events I was planning to compete in, along with the warming weather, has enabled me to make some progress on the Midget, and I was able to get it in high fill today, though I did have a couple of little dramas with some adhesion on the rear, and with striping of the final coat as the gun (an old and cheap one I only use for primer) was getting a bit clogged. The striping shouldn't matter, given most of it will be sanded off anyway. It's good to see it all one colour anyway.

This morning:

View media item 74690
View media item 74689
View media item 74688
This afternoon:

View media item 74687
View media item 74686
Now to go and catch up on everyone else’s threads!

 

[dchance]

Ouch, Hate to hear that the wheel studs broke. Good to hear that you are making progress on the MG.

Dwight

 

[HOTFR8]

Not a good look. Glad insurance has come to your aid.

 

[metalhead140]

Thanks guys. Got a bit more done on the Midget yesterday. Unfortunately I've had quite bad adhesion issues with the primer around all the 'valleys' on the rear of the car. Not sure whether the primer pooled there too thick, or if I didn't get those areas clean enough before spraying. But they're all cut back now, ready for some more primer. I also found quite a few low spots from chips/scratches/pinholes that I've filled with putty. Ran out of time this weekend, but hopefully will get the final primer coats on next weekend, ready to guide coat, sand, and apply colour.

Also spent a couple of hours and got the front gates hung. Still need to fit openers, and casters to help support the weight, but getting there slowly, we hadn't managed to touch them for a couple of months.

View media item 74752

Ouch, Hate to hear that the wheel studs broke. Good to hear that you are making progress on the MG.

Dwight

Thanks Dwight! Might end up not being a bad thing for the Vette..

Not a good look. Glad insurance has come to your aid.

Thanks!

 

[HOTFR8]

The gates look much better than the car at present. I meant to ask what company do you insure with?

 

[metalhead140]

Thanks Hotfr8. Insurance is with Ryno, they're an enthusiast insurer, and having been unfortunate enough to have to claim through them twice now, I would very highly recommend them. Cheaper and easier to deal with than Shannons.

 

[Lyndon]

So, I've been AWOL for a month, sorry guys. As usual, that means something happened... The week after the hillclimb in my above photos, I lost some wheel studs.:

View media item 74691
*****, but not the end of the world. Insurance is covering it, and it's booked in for repair in a couple of weeks. With hindsight, perhaps wheel studs should have been replaced when I replaced everything else and almost every fastener in the suspension/steering/brakes... I'll be putting some larger uprated studs on all 4 corners now, that's for sure.

But missing some of the events I was planning to compete in, along with the warming weather, has enabled me to make some progress on the Midget, and I was able to get it in high fill today, though I did have a couple of little dramas with some adhesion on the rear, and with striping of the final coat as the gun (an old and cheap one I only use for primer) was getting a bit clogged. The striping shouldn't matter, given most of it will be sanded off anyway. It's good to see it all one colour anyway.

This morning:

View media item 74690
View media item 74689
View media item 74688
This afternoon:

View media item 74687
View media item 74686
Now to go and catch up on everyone else’s threads!

Andrew

It's got me busted, but your pictures aren't coming up for me in this post of yours....... I tried at home, and now at work.

And I'm interested in your insurer - never heard of them. Ive got 3 cars with Shannons, and in the 2 claims I've had through them, they were brilliant, and their assessor was magic.

Lyndon
Frustrated!