My 2001 Silver MR2 - Mr Stev3's track day now sprint roadster

[dkirkwood89]

CTP became Genuine Service Part, and has since closed down all together I'm afraid.

Pity   s:( s:(

[MrStev3]

So with the next round looming



Hotel is booked but next week I hope to have some free time from work to put a further diet into the car too make up for my short coming in power

Since I changed the "o" ring I have been able to see if it's burning oil or just losing it as to the leak.
Well I drove from swansea to croft circuit, did the sprint and drove it home and didn't have to put a drop of oil in it lets hope I'm not tempting fate.

[Anonymous]

what else are you going to remove from the car?

[MrStev3]

Well it's at that stage where it's hard to lose weight but I still have the steering wheel and air bag to be changed and well the rest of the weight will come from myself but also a few cheeky places in the car

I have literally just seconds ago sorted out cadwell and so cadwell is final now and I shall be there, hotel is yet to be sorted but will stay with the rest of the tss guys as normal.

I won't do much else between now and the end of the month but enjoy the car.

Looking at a track day on my birthday at brands too.

Coilovers really do look likely though and I'll be going to sort that as soon as the money comes

[Jrichards20]

Well it's at that stage where it's hard to lose weight but I still have the steering wheel and air bag to be changed and well the rest of the weight will come from myself but also a few cheeky places in the car

I have literally just seconds ago sorted out cadwell and so cadwell is final now and I shall be there, hotel is yet to be sorted but will stay with the rest of the tss guys as normal.

I won't do much else between now and the end of the month but enjoy the car.

Looking at a track day on my birthday at brands too.

Coilovers really do look likely though and I'll be going to sort that as soon as the money comes

Do you think a changing of steering wheel will improve the feel of the car? I know I enjoyed the smaller feel of my previous car, but wonder whether changing the steering wheel in an MR2 will have much effect?

[MrStev3]

All the grams add up and the airbag is heavy I imagine.
I've not bothered up until now as having a standard wheel hasn't bothered me but every little helps.   s:mrgreen: :mrgreen: s:mrgreen:

[Jrichards20]

Every little helps  s:) s:)  What about the pax air bag, will you be removing that? I guess that will be an awful lot harder than the steering wheel.

[Anonymous]

The steering wheel does give a heavier feel, the standard one is massive!

Passenger airbag is really easy to remove, I'm going to do mine soon  s:) s:)

[Swan_Connery]

Great thread mate. Love your desire and dedication. I too love being the underdog, I've given a few people a shock already with my little sleeper  s:D s:D  If I ever come down south we'll need to catch up for a cheeky track day.   s8) s8)  

Have you always used the staggered setup tyre wise and wheel wise? Most of the tracks I'll be doing are really short and I prefer to steer from the rear so was thinking of sticking 15s on with the same size tyres all round. (Don't want to cause another war here btw!) I've got a friend who gives us a good discount on MaxxSport tyres for the racing, and supplies most of the mx5 guys up here, so was thinking about using his tyre range of 15s.

[MrStev3]

Great thread mate. Love your desire and dedication. I too love being the underdog, I've given a few people a shock already with my little sleeper  s:D s:D  If I ever come down south we'll need to catch up for a cheeky track day.   s8) s8)  

Have you always used the staggered setup tyre wise and wheel wise? Most of the tracks I'll be doing are really short and I prefer to steer from the rear so was thinking of sticking 15s on with the same size tyres all round. (Don't want to cause another war here btw!) I've got a friend who gives us a good discount on MaxxSport tyres for the racing, and supplies most of the mx5 guys up here, so was thinking about using his tyre range of 15s.

thanks man I appreciate the kind words.
I've had so much fun building and driving it and now with the sprinting.
I've decided that I'll stick wit the 1zz and try to make up the difference in weight loss and balls haha
At my last sprint I ran 205 all round and it was pants as I couldn't get heat into the front tyres to make them work over such a short distance but usually I keep it staggered.
I'm hoping to do a test day next week to see the results more clearly but I'll be going back to 195 front for blyton sprint.

I'm thinking next year of trying to eek some more horses out of the 1zz even though I know it's expensive for little gain.

Have some parts not fitted right now but work comes first

[Swan_Connery]

Nice. Thanks for the input. That's something I hadn't thought about in regards to trying to get heat into 205s in such a short distance.

I'm kind of stuck though and would appreciate your input. Would the following tyres sizes be ok to run as staggered? Keep 15s all round or go staggered, and is the 185 too narrow for the front?

185/55R15
205/55R15

195/45R16
205/50R16

Also, any idea on the weight of yours as is?

[MrStev3]

I run 195/50/15 and 205/50/15 and it handles excellent but heat was an issue as I said when using a bigger tyre upfront.

I don't know how much she weighs as there's no interior but cage was added which brings the weight up a bit, heat shields , nappy, under plastics, doors cut out etc so I've lost the weight where ever I could but it's mich quicker than the standard model as I have one as a daily and the difference in acceleration and corner grip and days apart

[Swan_Connery]

Cheers mate. Think I'm gonna steal a set of 185/55/15 from my step mum's mx-5 and try them out on the next test day.

[MrStev3]

Give them back to her bald haha

Well just over a week to go to the next round and I'm swamped in work so really haven't done much but I think next week I shall be trying hard to rectify this.

I'm looking to book a test day next week also so I can figure out what is best for me over the short run tyres wise in different combos.

I have just got whiteline camber bolts form gt4-play so will hopefully get them on along with my braided lines I got from him.

Will bleed the system then with nice new fluid .

[Anonymous]

Good luck bud I'll be checking the results  s:D s:D

[MrStev3]

Well next week I shall be testing at Llandow on a testing day with Motorsport teams should be epic.
As before the last round of tss I hadn't been in the car at a circuit for 4 months so this time I will have a feel for the car again
I'll take some pictures and there should be some tasty machinery there.
I'll be doing short 2 lap stints to get a sprint feel as lap after lap isn't realistic as the grip levels are higher then

[Anonymous]

Sounds good how did you get on that, is it via a track day organiser?

[MrStev3]

My competition license I have from TSS is accepted there for me to test

[Anonymous]

Oh cool. Is it direct with the circuit then? Open pit lane full day?

[MrStev3]

Afternoon test session open pit.
Nice atmosphere to test without being stuck behind some Porsche Boxster that won't move over lol
plus the Welsh sprint series has rounds there too and i did my first track day there so all good

[Anonymous]

I'll have to keep an eye out for some of those.
Looking forward to giving it a go next year

[MrStev3]

I had the whole circuit to myself I mean I was the only car there for testing today at Llandow it was excellent gave me a chance to iron out my flaws with no traffic.

Learnt a lot today about why the car under steered So badly at Croft Circuit for the sprint race.
I removed the spare wheel from under the bonnet which I've not done before on my track days and always had great grip so when at croft I had an understeery mess I was confused and irritated. anyway at Llandow today I tried laps with and without the spare wheel up front over the wheels and the difference is crazy.
205 tyres up front with no weight over the front axle was even worse than the 195 pushing the front wide.
205 all round 28psi front and 32psi rear was the golden combo with the spare over the front wheels the grip was back and I could point and squirt it any direction

May seem obvious to some but I never thought the small weight the spare gives over the front wheels could make such an impact but it actually does
Car felt beastly

[MrStev3]

I had the whole circuit to myself I mean I was the only car there  for testing today at Llandow it was excellent gave me a chance to iron out my flaws with no traffic.

Learnt a lot today about why the car under steered So badly at Croft Circuit for the sprint race.
I removed the spare wheel from under the bonnet which I've not done before on my track days and always had great grip so when at croft I had an understeery mess I was confused and irritated.  anyway at Llandow today I tried laps with and without the spare wheel up front over the wheels and the difference is crazy.
205 tyres up front with no weight over the front axle was even worse than the 195 pushing the front wide.
205 all round 28psi front and 32psi rear was the golden combo with the spare over the front wheels the grip was back and I could point and squirt it any direction

May seem obvious to some but I never thought the small weigt the spare gives over the front wheels could make such an impact but it actually does
Car felt beastly

[Anonymous]

I've never had understeer with the 205s and no spare in the front, funny how these cars seem to behave differently.

Sounds like a very useful day, mad that you had the place to yourself!

When is the next sprint, is it Blyton?

[MrStev3]

I never thought it either mark but the difference was scarey and I did stints so the car was starting on cold tyres each time I tested but the front was washing wide wothout that tyre on the there so I may go ballast tank in place of the frunk.

Yup I had the whole circuit to myself so I could test it under sprint rules per say

Short two lap sessions and then later when I had the perfect setting I did some longer stints

Llandow runs 2 rounds of the Welsh sprint championship so was also good practice for that next year.

I was irritated at croft cos the car was not what I was used too, it was like that dream common to many , where you are trying to run but you can't and feel helpless. That's what it was like but today put some confidence back in my saddle when I realised there was reasoning.

Blyton is Sunday so let's hope today translates

 m https://instagram.com/p/7-QqiIGKiB/ m  Link to show me alone lol