The current steed

so I've traded in the Z and bought something silly and fun but a car I've always wanted to own, well a type of car I've always wanted to own. Something very different but all will be revealed in due time once I have a bit more time to do it justice. For now, just a little teaser

The 350Z episode -

so I bought the car above a 350Z HR GT s a replacement for the now rusted to beyond economical repair MR2 and yeah it didn't work out so well. Basically it was never far away from having yet another fault that required some garage work or latterly some serious garage time.

For me the biggest annoyance of the Z was the throttle response in city traffic, roundabout exit or general low speed low rev driving. The drive lash was huge and it was like stamping off and on the throttle and made pulling away from standstill messy or noisy if I used plenty of revs to keep it from bucking. really poor experience but apparently all part of the HR experience. Now I had done a fair amount of research before buying the car and i thought I had all the issues noted and knew what to look for but sometimes you only find out things by researching a specific known fault. Problem of course was I already owned the car so it was too late to find out about this issue.

The oil pressure sensor broke and then due to a silly design of is being on a raised boss in the sump (mid sump plate), this of course broke during removal which is a common issue. usually it breaks by over tightening the replacement but no mine split the sump on removing the old one. Bad enough but to the replace the sump you need to remove or at least raise the engine enough to get enough clearance underneath. That's a full days labour and of course wasn't cheap. It was the final straw for me and aftera mere 7 months of ownership I traded it in against something slightly different. 😀

Holy Moses it's been awhile since I updated!

well, what can I say other than it has been a fair few years since I updated this space. Whats happened, well a couple of car changes for start so lets start at the beginning or rather finish off where this was left before.

Many many miles have passed under the bridge and as many smiles during the motoring experience. Can't remember adding any more modifications to the car, it was where it needed to be and it was just maintenance that got carried out with occasion repair for rust or seized bolts / worn out parts.

Late 2018 the MR2 succumbed to the dreaded rot that blights our shores- rust. Rear arches were rotten all the way through from the inners to the point where you could look from the boot straight through the floor into the wheel well and see the tyre underneath. It was a shocking discovery and one that signalled the end of the ownership. 15 years, 172k miles (org turbo) 112k miles under my ownership and the end was nigh. No more money was going to be spent as the rust had one and nothing I could do was going to prevent it coming back, well a spaceframe chassis would have done it as most of the bodywork was good if faded but realistically not an option.

So onwards and upwards I moved to stripping the car  down and getting the bulky bits sold off. The engine and gearbox etc went to Germany for an engine swap but not before a power run to see the health of the engine. Now, bear in mind this engine was original turbo unit, ceramic turbocharger (exhaust side / intake side I can't remember which) and at 12psi it did 220hp at the hubs! Sadly it was heat soaking on the hi boost runs but still managed 232hp at the hubs. Not bad eh? Sounded good doing that lot too heh heh. So with those pictures and videos of the dyno run the engine was sold as a healthy working unit. It will live on chasing Porsches down the autobahns, I like to think so anyway.

So with that bombshell we shall move onwards to the next stage. The replacement, another 2 seater as it turned out and another Japanese model. In black, with a meaty V6. Stay tuned :)