build diary

February 20, 2005: Every moment of my time has been spent working on the book.
I'm trying to make it entertaining to read as well as technically useful. All this writing has meant that I'm not working on the Seven. Well, sort of. I spent today with the car strapped to the dyno, trying to get back my "missing" power. The second dyno run was 134 hp at the rear wheels, right where this engine should be. However, I had problems with a lot of variation between runs. Odd. The fuel filter was changed and a feed line rerouted as the car was starting to show signs of low fuel pressure again and that helped, but I still never hit that 134 again. It was a bit frustrating - but I gave up and started work on installing the individual throttle bodies that we have sitting on the shelf at Flyin' Miata. It took a bit of creativity to get them to work with the stock throttle cable but I have that sorted now. Eventually I managed to get them installed and the injectors proceeded to leak quite enthusiastically. It turns out that the special fuel rail also includes special little clips to hold the injectors in place. Very cool. Now, before I fire it up, I'll have to install new injector connectors (easy) and plug up a coolant line (easy). Then the hard part starts - can I get it to idle?

I've also been doing some shopping. The snowmobile trailer I used to tow the Seven to the track last time worked fine but it was quite an adventure getting the car on it. I've decided to buy a real trailer for the car. I'd build my own but I'm frankly just too short on time. I found a used one that has a 6x12' deck on it for not much more than it would cost me to build. It needs a bit of love but nothing major. I'm building my own little race team! Now, where can I park it?

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