Project Scope Creep

[moca2cv]

Well the bracket didn't really fit 😂 I think I need to get a 3D scanner on it so as to get the model spot on. Nothing a dremel couldn't fix though!

Once the bracket was fettled, the rest of it was fairly plain sailing. We started by threading the lines through the bulkhead and connecting them to the hydro, then removed the MC to ABS line for the rear brakes (it's the forward one). To minimise the amount of air going through the ABS unit, we only connected the 'in' line to the MC, then bled the lines only, with the 'out' line going to a bottle. Once that was full, we connected the 'out' line to the ABS block and continued bleeding.

With that done, we did a little test to make sure it was locking. The brakes could definitely be firmer, and I'll need to take the car out and cycle the ABS a few times to work some air out, then bleed again. But it works!

[moca2cv]

Well I'm sure everyone's gagging to find out how the first event using a hydro went!

My first time going gymkhana was going to be the Learn to Gymkhana! day. It's a super simple course with lots of space, perfect for beginners. They also put the stop box at the other end to the start box so there's less risk of taking out the timing gear 😂

The day before I loaded up the car and did some last minute prep, including an extra bleed of the rears. It's not motorsport if it's not last minute!

I drove up that day to help with setting up and get a good nights sleep, they'd opened a Popeyes at Rushden Lakes so very happy

Brakes still weren't great, but they worked so it'll have to do. In case I needed to remove the hydro, I brought the old pipe just in case... Glad I did! But more on that later...

The morning started with the usual briefing and track walk to learn the route. I decided I'd start by going out solo to get a feel for the car and the course, thinking I'd clutch kick the first couple of runs, but quickly decided that was not the best idea and just got cracking on learning to use a hydro. My good friend and expert drifter/gymkhana driver Max sat in with me all morning to help me get the hang of things and give me pointers - invaluable! I also received some tuition from Pro drivers Mantas and Ryan, each helping me to level up every run. I was getting confident and comfortable, but I was exhausted by lunchtime! I had underestimated how much food and drink I'd need and was running on sugar for the afternoon! Not the best idea.

Fellow MR2 driver Stuart had been struggling with his new hydro install (stealth using stock handbrake lever) and couldn't get it to work more than a couple of times before jamming - so as I had to old pipe with me, it was very easy to disable it. Phew!

[A quick note on that - we both used a pre-ABS setup, with the hydro sitting between master and ABS. This is to allow us to retain the ABS in normal driving, as teeing post ABS like most systems means losing independent rear ABS - not ideal. However, we can't brake and hydro at the same time due to the master cylinder, so there's some driving around it needed. I also struggled with the hydro jamming, so will be looking at a twin caliper setup for the future.]

After lunch it was a little bit of solo practice, then quali and battles. I managed to (somehow) qualify third! But was still struggling to piece it all together, especially back to back runs, which would become all too apparent in the battles!

I drew Drift Smurf's (a Pro driver) mum in the battles (!) and she obliterated me after I spun out on one of the 360s, needed to reverse out to avoid a penalty, but pulled the hydro instead. Lol. Out I go!

After the battles, we had some time left over so did some free practice before packing up to go back to the hotel - it was the Championship practice day on the Sunday, and I was marshalling, plus it was the awards dinner that evening! Quick shower, chuck a shirt on, and out I went

All in all, I felt like I had progressed loads - from never having done a donut in the 2 before, or ever using a hydro, to pulling 180s, drifting, and donutting fairly respectably in one day! The car was working well aside from the hydro issues, and the diff really needs upgrading too... but all in all great to drive. My friends got engaged too! Yay!

Very happy. Which is good, because I'd also entered Rounds 1 & 2 a couple of weeks later 😂 Write up on that coming later, if you'd like to see any video head over to my IG @moca2cv.


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[moca2cv]

I need to do better at keeping this up to date. Wow.

Ok, so the relative success of Learn 2 Gymkhana inspired me to sign up for some competitive rounds to get some more seat time. The random 16s I had used for L2G had 10+ year old ditch finders on them, so I had to find a solution that didn't involve swapping tyres all the time. I had a set of wheels for track, a set for road, now I needed a set for gymkhana! The solution presented itself to me in the form of a friend at the Awards Dinner, who was moving house (or rather, boat) and no longer had space for a couple of wheels he'd hung on to and no longer wanted. A deal was struck - I bought him dinner, he gave me wheels - 15x8 ET0 3SDMs that had seen better days and were mostly round! Perfect for sliding through potholes.

Round 1

As always, morning is spent practicing. For me, as well as learning the track, I also had to learn how to drive. A competition track layout is a lot more complex than the Learn to Gymkhana course, so for me, the day was very much a battle against myself more than anything! I was feeling pretty comfortable with the route on both sides by lunchtime though, so that was good!

After lunch was qualifying - 4 runs total, 2 on each side, with the fastest time of the 4 determining your qualifying position. I qualified 6th! Out of 9, before you all ask... I was really happy to have set a good time, so was buzzing going in to the battles.

Matt "Drift Smurf" Holder, back for 2025 but now in Street Class in his NC rather than his turbo 1UZ Compact, qualified 3rd so we were to battle each other for a place in the Top 4. Unfortunately my first run ended in a DNF, as I got muddled and did a 360 when I should have done a 180. My only hope of progressing was if Matt DNF'd on the second run, and I could set a faster time in my second run than Matt did on his first. Matt put in a clean run, taking the win and going through; for me the day was over.

I'm disappointed I DNF'd, but overall I'm really happy how much I improved over the day, and was looking forward to more of the same the next day!

Round 2

After the disappointment of DNFing my first run in my first battle the day before, my target for Round 2 was to put in two clean runs and give myself a fighting chance.

I'll be honest... this was a difficult track for me! The top end was extremely tight and I really struggled to attack it as much as I needed to in order to maintain momentum and get the car rotating how I wanted it to. One little mistake and the whole segment went out of whack - there was no room for error.

Practice was spent mostly getting frustrated with myself - I knew I could do better, but it just wasn't clicking. Qualification went well however - the first three runs felt good, felt quick even! I'd improved my times by a good chunk, and qualified a respectable 9th out of 12. That put me up against Reece Young in a borrowed E36.

In battles, Reece drove like a man possessed and was significantly faster, so no doubt about who would progress, but I came away (surprisingly) disappointed - I'd put in two complete runs, but picked up penalties on both and I found that a little frustrating! I'm not sure whether that is a positive or not... but hopefully with more practice and a few tweaks to the car I would be able to give myself half a chance to win a battle. Keep pushing!

[moca2cv]

Fast forward to May, when I'd booked myself and a friend  to share the drive on a Frank's Charity Track Day at Blyton. First time attending one of these but I'd heard good things about the vibe, and I like Blyton, so why not!

Blyton is a little bit of a drive from SE London, so we set off at 4:30am for a nice 190 mile drive 😅 After a spot of breakfast and brimming the tank, we arrived just after 8am, giving us plenty of time to squeeze into a spot in the paddock, unload, set the tyre pressures, check fluids and wheel nuts, and chill before briefing.



The first thing that strikes you at an FCTDC event is just how varied the vehicles are! We had everything from a Triumph TR2 to a mkIV Supra! Best of all, no egos, just a bunch of people raring to go have a great time on track and raise huge amounts of money for worthy causes while doing so.

The day's charity, being VE Day, was very appropriately Scotty's Little Soldiers - an incredible charity supporting the children of people who have made the ultimate sacrifice. At each event there is raffle to win a grand prize of stuff that's been donated - a £20L jerrycan, some Lego, lifetime membership to AWD Driver Training... and a free entry to a round of Formula G, too! Sadly I didn't win but the total raised was over £6k, amazing work by Frank and the team. We also got to catch up with Clare from pitstop.social which was a nice bonus!

Anyway, what we were all there for - driving! The MR2 drove brilliantly all day, clocking up nearly 150 miles on track, and driven hard for every one of them. Shout out to Falken for making my favourite tyre, the ZE310, a total cheat code of a tyre if there ever was one.









A pitstop at Caffeine and Machine on the way home, where they put the car up front (!), and a catch up with our good friend Mantas, rounded up the day nicely.



I now had a bit of a break before my next event, Llandow in July, so I planned on doing some basic maintenance and looking into a slightly odd hesitation issue the car has developed. I was not looking forward to troubleshooting that!

[moca2cv]

Every July, I organise our annual pilgrimage to Llandow Circuit in South Wales. We come every year because it's always a good vibe - run by a superb team, great cafe on site, and a cracking little circuit to boot.

In true motorsport fashion, I left my prep too late. I wasn't feeling much enthusiasm for working on the car, and was sorely tempted to just get in and drive. I'm glad I didn't... In order to muster up the energy to go and give the car a checkover after the Blyton track day, I decided to book myself in to Kent Motorsport for a corner weighting and alignment a couple of days before the event. I had this done on my old MX5 and wow did it make a big difference. I'd been collecting a few spicy parts so in order to really make the most of corner weighting, I had to go and fit them. But first, a quick inspection found this:




Amongst other things... These are the rear pads, I definitely got full value out of these! Another brake pad was bent... No idea how that happened. I also found that the seals on all four calipers were trashed. Time for a brake refresh.

I replaced all four calipers, including an upgrade to Prius calipers on the front (super easy to do, I swapped the phenolic piston for steel to be on the safe side, too), and Stahlbus bleed nipples (revolutionary, highly recommend), and ordered a set of AX6 from Carbotech (thanks Ian for the speedy delivery!).





Bleeding the brakes left me wondering if I'd done something wrong... I was due at Kent Motorsport the next day, but had no brakes. I know fresh calipers take some bleeding, but after running about 3L of brake fluid through to no avail I called  it a night and started making arrangements for a tow. After a couple of hours of sleep I had a eureka moment, rushed outside and swapped the MC with a spare I had. Instant improvement. By now it was 5:30am, and I was too knackered to continue. RAC to the rescue, thank goodness for home recovery!





Without a doubt Yaser at Kent Motorsport saved my weekend. As well as getting the alignment and corner weighting sorted, he also methodically went around the braking system, top to bottom, to make sure nothing was missed and give me the best chance of good brakes. We stayed late on Friday afternoon to finish bleeding the system and, although it wasn't perfect (ABS, new calipers and replacement MC meant a bleed the next day was needed after everything had settled) it was good enough to get me to Wales.







The drive over was fairly uneventful - I travelled with my brother in law, who was joining the track day in his Cayman, so I wasn't too worried should anything happen on the car. We arrived at our super cute Airbnb quite late, so I took a couple of pics in the morning







On the way over to the track after stopping for fuel, I activated the ABS a few times, and bled the system again when I arrived at the track. The Stahlbus bleed nipples made it a breeze for one person. I then swapped on the track wheels, saddled up, and... skrrreeeee. The new calipers didn't fit behind my track wheels. The road wheels were fine though, so after a failed attempt to find spacers, and giving up filing down the calipers, I put them back on. By this point I'd missed both morning sessions, and was just about to get some OPL in before lunch, when the track was red flagged. Hopefully things would look up later...



The amazing team at Llandow managed to clear the red flag (poor Hugo's Suzuki Swift put a rod through the block 😭) and clean up the oil so we could get out on track before the lunch break. When John the circuit manager announced it, I did a full on Le Mans start to get to the track entrance 😂

This session was purely to get a feel for the new brakes, bed in the pads, and explore how the car felt after being corner weighted. Being 15 minutes before lunch, I had the perfect window of opportunity to get some heat in to the brakes and give them a good hour to cool down without feeling like I was missing anything. Just take it easy, give the brakes some welly, build up speed.



That went right out the window after the outlap. I don't know what witchcraft Yaser did to the car but OH MY GOD! It felt so comfortable, I was happy to push it to 90% straight away (remembering that the pads were brand new!) and get everything nice and hot.



A note about the difference I felt after corner weighting... it's hard to describe, but the car felt more planted, more easily controlled... and considering I was on my (admittedly cheat code) road tyres (Falken Ziex ZE310 Ecorun) it felt just as grippy as having semi slicks on. Whereas before the car turned in one way better than the other, and was always faster with a passenger, it now did whatever you wanted it to, and I couldn't discern any difference with or without a passenger. If you want to unlock even more from your car, give Yaser a shout. Best value upgrade yet in my opinion!

Oh but maybe that's just a placebo you say! Data doesn't lie: max cornering force was recorded at 1.22G, and I was getting 1.25G from AR1s at Llandow last year in very similar conditions (albeit a bit cooler). I'm really looking forward to getting out on track with semi slicks! I also let my friend Alexey take the car out for a session to get his feedback as he'd driven it recently at Blyton: "Just WOW!"



So after all that kerfuffle in the morning, I had the best day. We went for a nice dinner at a pub in the evening with a good group of people, and on the Sunday went for a lovely drive through Wales to take in the sights, before visiting the Welsh Rarebit Centre (yes really, go: https://bannaubrycheiniog.org/businesses/international-welsh-rarebit-centre/) and then heading home.

It was my birthday a few days later, and my daughter surprised me with a trip to Italy for just the two of us, including a stop at Maranello, where I got to see my all time favourite mid-engined car.



One day, one day...

[moca2cv]

Back to Formula G. I'd missed Rounds 3 and 4 earlier in the year - valuable seat time - and wasn't going to be able to make 7 and 8, so Rounds 5 and 6 were going to be my last chance of the year to get my practice in. My goal for this weekend was to come away having won a battle.

Round 5

It was a HOT day, but a lot of fun. Great track, which I got pinned down fairly quickly, and it felt pretty well suited to the car.

I qualified well - 5th would you believe!!! (Out of 12!) I don't know where that run came from 😂 That pitched me against a V12 Mercedes SLK in the Top 16, and I (also unbelievably) managed to put in two clean and reasonably quick runs to win my first ever battle!

I was flying pretty high at that point, but then had to battle Devon in his purple R33 GTST in the Top 8... and, well, I never really stood a chance 😂 That man drives that car like it's a Cappuccino - it's physics defying how he can thread such a big car through such tight obstacles.

My goal for the weekend had been achieved, and incredibly managed to pick up a fastest novice prize too, along with some goodies from @dodojuiceofficial! What a day ☺️









Round 6

This was probably the toughest track I've faced yet - it was super tight and technical, and one minor mistake could throw you off for the next few obstacles. There was absolutely no margin for error, and I made many errors!

I qualified second last and had to fight it out in the Top 16 with Graham in his 1 Series BMW. It was a close one - he really stepped up whereas I continued to struggle - but I managed to sneak through, only to face Ilya RuskiWeldFab (funnily in my original MR2 from post #1, now painted yellow) in the Top 8, who proceeded to wipe the floor of me 😂

No podium, but a good performance for me and lots learned.









One of the best things about Formula G is that you get to go up against some pretty wild machinery, even in Street class! Danny Grundy, a semi-pro drifter, is running big power in his S14, but that on its own doesn't give him much of an advantage - most cars are pretty well matched off the line, and with no long straights to speak of a lot of it's all down to driver ability. I have a long way to go to match Danny's skills but I'm going to get there!



Just a final note to say - if you are thinking about giving gymkhana a go, do. It's great fun, it's a super accessible form of motorsport, and it's a wonderful community too. Highly recommend!

[moca2cv]

In 2024, I attended Retrorides Gathering (RRG) for the first time as part of the Quick60 competition, and really enjoyed the vibe. For 2025, Quick60 was on a break but RRG was back and this time at Prescott. I'd really enjoyed my day out at Prescott with Pistonheads, it's an amazing little venue with real old world charm, a challenging little track, and a beautiful setting. A few of us booked on to take our cars up the hill - a V8 MX5, a BP-swapped Volga, me - and we bumped in to lots of people we knew as well. Beautiful weather just made it the perfect event.





I even made a pink friend



The runs up the hill were great fun - I jumped in with some people too, always good to experience stuff from the passenger seat. I didn't push too hard - I was just on my road tyres and had a long drive back, so no risks were taken. The runs weren't timed, so we weren't going to achieve anything by pushing hard. It was just such a chilled day.

Then off to Popeyes for dinner to celebrate my friend's birthday, too. So good

[moca2cv]

So that was that for 2025. The car sat doing nothing for most of winter bar the occasional run. Fast forward to January and it was time for the annual MOT.

I did my usual checks - polished the headlamps, treated the car to fresh wiper blades (nice), checked the lights, nipped up the handbrake adjuster. Found a nut missing from the RH engine mount, replaced that. I was happy. All was in order and I was feeling fairly confident. On my way to the MOT centre I pulled in for some petrol, and as the revs dropped the oil light flashed briefly... not a good sign at all.

I checked the dipstick, nothing. So I bought a 1L from the petrol station (for once not a total ripoff) and poured it in. Still nothing, so I bought another and used all of that too. By now it was showing minimum on the dipstick, but I could see a run of oil on the damp tarmac coming from under my car... uh oh.

I decided I'd continue to the MOT place, as they have a ramp and I could get underneath it - infinitely preferable to crawling around in the wet at home.



Turns out that my oil cooler hose had decided to become a sprinkler. No way I was getting an MOT with a leak like that, and no way I was going to be able to get a replacement hose either. But I was determined to get an MOT, so we pushed the car to a garage a hundred yards away who had kindly agreed to help.



While these legends popped off the filter and sandwich plate, I popped to GSF to pick up a fresh filter and a 5L bottle of 5w30. Got back, screwed the filter on, ziptied the sandwich plate out the way, filled her up, quick wipe down, and back to the MOT centre for a pass

Phew.

[moca2cv]

Getting practice in for gymkhana is surprisingly difficult to do legally... there just aren't any places you can go and do handbrake turns. Except, that is, Drift What Ya Brung at Santa Pod. In the off season, they run a DWYB most weeks, and have a number of playpens as well as a kidney track and a big track. I booked on for 4th February along with a friend, and a couple of others agreed to pop along for moral support, including my friend Matt who offered to give me some tuition for the morning.

I had literally no time to prepare due to a big event I was running the day before, so after I got home at 9pm, had some dinner and a tea, I packed the car, removed the disconnected oil cooler, pumped up the tyres, and went to bed.





It was an early start the next morning to get to Pod in time to setup and be briefed. My friend and I convoyed up after a quick breakfast at McDonalds, and made it in good time. When we arrived it was already super busy, so many keenos! I was a little worried I wouldn't get much seat time, but turned out to be the complete opposite!





I started out by getting a feel for the car slipping by doing some basic donuts in the playpens, before moving on to figure eights. I was struggling with transitions, so let Matt have a go to help him figure out how a mid engined car behaves (he drives a rotary swapped MX5 usually so very different beasts). A quick spin and he had what he needed to explain what I needed to do with the throttle, clutch and handbrake to get the car to go where I want it to - I'll be honest, I took very little of it in! It was so much to process, but I had a lot of fun. I had a couple of goes at the kidney track, and then had an early lunch break to watch the other drivers.







At lunch time, they let the marshals have a little play, and it just so happened that my good friend Ryan was marshalling. He is a Drift League GB driver, so I threw him the keys, jumped in the passenger seat, and let him take me around the big track for some 2nd gear drifts. This guy can drive... after a couple of spins figuring out how to drift a mid engined car, he told me that it was actually quite excellent, and just needs more lock. That made me happy but also a little envious as I'd love to be that good, but he does have about a million laps under his belt so he should be

The rest of the day was a blur. We had our traditional Popeyes at Rushden Lakes afterwards, and I headed home via Drift Smurf's to check out his new pad and to collect my tow hooks that he'd turned down, drilled and tapped so I can fit tow straps. Car looked good parked up outside



Next up, Formula G rounds 1 and 2 on 21/22 March. Let's put all my practice in to practice!

[moca2cv]

Bought some goodies to help with gymkhana:

- Longer wheel studs (splashed out on ARP) so I can fit spacers and track wheels
- Tow straps (as my tow hooks are now just bars)
- Open wheel nuts (longer studs!)
- Accelera GD351 x 2 (to run some more grip on the rear)

Will no doubt be fitting that lot on the day before 🤣