build diary

February 27, 2005: Not one of my more successful weekends.
I decided to start off by taking the Seven for a quick blast down the road to see how the fuel was set up. The fuel curves are obviously drastically different, so I pulled over and fiddled a bit. The car then absolutely refused to restart. A helpful Man With Truck took me back to the shop to grab the trailer and I brought it home. It has since repeated the trick - this time right in front of our shop doors - so I'll try it tomorrow morning to see if it's heat-related. I thought I'd found the problem but apparently not.

A mistake on my part meant a small hole in one of the radiator tubes, which stopped any chance of dyno testing this weekend. Well, it didn't have to. I managed to fix the leak but by that point I didn't feel like strapping the car to the dyno. A longer drive helped me dial in the fuel better so now it should be in the ballpark. Is it making more power with the new throttle bodies? I'll find out this week. I certainly hope so, otherwise I've wasted a lot of time.

Some bump steer testing proved to be inconclusive - an inch of rack height change brought about little change in the bump steer. Then, as I reassembled everything, I realised I'd forgotten to adjust the ride height for the boards under the front wheels. So all my testing was done incorrectly as I was at the limits of the lower suspension travel. It was that kind of weekend.

I did get some things accomplished, though. The trailer has now been fixed up with properly adjusted hubs, some frame reinforcements, a new place to hang my ramps and general fettling. It should be a nice little setup for the Seven as the car fits perfectly. Now all I have to do is register it! I also spent some time working on my girlfriend Janel's "new" Miata. It was modified with suspension and pretty much the entire Jackson Racing catalog. The 4" exhaust tip and drone at 3000 rpm was not to her liking, so we put on a stock unit and installed the rear springs properly. Much better!

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