Well I’m not sure that we will be winning any prizes but at the moment there are only four people entered into our class, so one of us is guaranteed 3rd place at least!
I’ve just looked on the entry list and I’m the only girl 
However we know that our friends (a couple with a Mk1 MR2!) are entering into some races so I hopefully wont be the only girl on the track 
i was hoping there was going to be some kind of ladies championship going on, but not really much point
12th Feb
Just over a month to go. Although I’m confident we’ll get the work done on the car, I’m getting a little nervous about the track.
Just found this video of a Noble doing the same track:
http://www.pistonheads.tv/clip447
There are trees to hit!! However there is lots of track to sail about on too, although it looks in terrible condition!
After the first Sprint, I’m going on a novice trackday at Snetterton, so hopefully will be a bit more confident by the second one.
Or I might just be a natural
You never know, you could sail past them. First and foremost though, enjoy the day. It will take time to get to know the track and when to turn in, when to brake and all that, so have fun and if you get a podium position that’s a bonus!!
16th Feb
The plan for this weekend was to change the gearbox. As already discovered, Humphrey popped out of 5th gear, which wouldn’t be so bad for the actual sprints but might get rather annoying on the long drives to and from the tracks.
As you can see, we had plenty to choose from:
The two in the picture were the most easily accessible, although if the worst came to it, we also had one in Mister-Two. One of the ones in the picture were out of The Red One, and the other was an absolute bargain. Phil got it on eBay for 99p, although ended up paying a fiver for it in the end as the guy he bought it off gave him loads of other MR2 bits too. Obviously it’s a bit of a risk as it’s a complete unknown. Watch this space…
The plan to get the gearboxes changed was to raise and lower one side of the engine, using a rather lovely engine hoist.
This plan worked rather well, although it was difficult to get the bolt back in to the engine mount at the end of the day. It took ages! Phil tried all kinds of methods including getting into the engine bay himself:
However, in the end, perseverance and hammers did the trick.
I caught a sly pic of Phil working under the car:
Whilst Phil was doing the gearbox, I was stripping the interior. I’ve got a bad back again today for a change so took quite a long break, but I’ve got to the point where there is just carpets left in there:
It is just a case of unscrewing every screw you can see, and then finding a few you can’t!! Tomorrow, the carpets will come out and then the seats and centre console will go back in. We aren’t sure which seats yet as we think we have someone interested in Humphrey’s, but we do have two other sets to choose from! There is also the option to put in a proper race seat, although we are currently trying to think of a way to make one adjustable as my legs are slightly shorter than Phil’s!!!
The exhaust will be going on tomorrow so I thought I’d attack those tailpipes with Autosol.
It’s a bit battered anyway but much shinier now!
We need to pay the final part of our entry fees this week and have also been told that we can buy spectator tickets at £3.50 rather than the £7 they will be on the day. Does anyone want to come? The first sprint is at Waterbeach (Cambs) on the 16th March. It would be great to have some support!
Good TK 
Sun 17th Feb…
Phil started fitting the exhaust manifold and I carried on stripping the interior. Once the carpets were out, I also removed the glovebox and radio! It all adds to the weight saving! Once this was done, Phil gave me the bad news.
Where there is a funny red bit on the side of the fuel tank, the floors and also the back wall, is covered in a soundproofing material that needs to be removed in order to save weight. This is horrible stuff, like glued foam, which chips off in small amounts. I protested loudly as I wasn’t getting anywhere, and eventually with Phil’s help, we discovered I was using the wrong tools. If anyone is thinking of doing this, you need a small sharp screwdriver and a small hammer, unlike the blunt screwdriver and large hammer I was originally using! Once I had the correct tools, I was well away, and it’s a rather therapeutic activity.
Here is the result of todays chippings, and next week I have just the floors to do!
Whilst I was doing this, Phil had finished fitting the exhaust. The cat can do the next one for us as she expressed great interest in the whole thing.
Phil also managed to sort out the rats nest of wires discovered upon removal of the carpets. The car had two alarms fitted, both of which were coming out. It was a slight worry that they may immobilise the car, but we managed to sort that, despite a worrying moment when the engine turned over but then died. We realised that we had no fuel, as we’d been running him about on the fuel light more or less since we got him, and coupled with the fact that he was on ramps at the back when we tried to start him, no fuel was getting through. Once he was wheeled off the ramps, he started, although fuel is now needed!
Total costs so far amount as follows:
Getting Humphrey through MOT £500 approx – includes welding and windscreen.
Uprated suspension £160
Entry fees £200 (£100 each driver)
We have also gained about £3 from what we have found in Humphrey when stripping the interior! I found another 56 pence today.!
Plans for next week are: suspension, stripping floor of soundproofing, and hopefully a bit of time for polishing and fitting nice race parts like steering wheels!
[QUOTE=TechnoKitty;411351]16th Feb
We need to pay the final part of our entry fees this week and have also been told that we can buy spectator tickets at £3.50 rather than the £7 they will be on the day. Does anyone want to come? The first sprint is at Waterbeach (Cambs) on the 16th March. It would be great to have some support![/QUOTE]
<glances at calendar>
As things stand hell yeah why not?
Cool! Floor/airbed space is available for people coming long distances
As the Sprint is on MoD property, we need to buy tickets in advance, and we also need to send in the names of who is going to be there. Martin, I can’t for the life of me remember your surname! Could you let me know it this week please?
Don’t worry if you’re not a complete definite, we can change names at last minutes and it’s only £3.50 anyway
I’ll check the calendar in the morning, it’s all the way downstairs :D.
It’s Orson TK, as in Welles, cart, heard 'em all 
I’m in for the 16th if you’re still able to get a ticket? Going to have a look around and see what I can do for the weekend, little too far to do the journey in a day :).
Cool, can you PM me your full name please, and Phil is buying the tickets tomorrow
Thanks Martin - Orson cart hehehehehe!!!
Floor/ airbed space is available here, we are about an hour from Cambs, just south of Norwich.
We currently have 4 or 5 groupies, which is ace!!! Probs going out for tea after the event to a Cambs pub.
Don’t drink tea, beer is my poison
I meant dinner, but I eat dinner at lunchtime 
Evening foods… 
Dinner at dinnertime, tea at teatime, yup same where I was dragged up.
24th Feb
I returned home from work on Friday to find that Phil had managed to do three corners of suspension already! Cue some quick pics before he gets done:
The new suspension waiting to go on, currently sat in the front boot!
Suspension on the car:
Undoing the droplinks to get the old suspension off:
And Phil finally putting the last wheel back on. All done!
Well, that’s now the end of all the really technical stuff, and we now have a car that is road and trackworthy. We’re well ahead of schedule so we can now do all the niggly bits such as polishing, and trying to save as much weight as possible. However, first I had to clean my own car as she looked like this:
She’s been neglected lately so I gave her a quick wipe.
OK, now on with Humphrey! I carried on shipping away at the soundproofing whilst Phil got started on the dash and heater. We had originally decided to keep these items in, but as we had time to kill, we may as well remove them.
One big pile of stuff later:
And we have a much more stripped out car:
We had to be in Chelmsford on Saturday night for a friend’s surprise party, so work was finished early. More stripping (!) will ensure next weekend. On the way back from seeing our friends on Sunday, we picked up some Sparco race seats and harnesses, which are a lot lighter than the standard MR2 seats. Have you ever seen an MR2 with four seats before? Now you have:
Unfortunately it rained on the way home so they are now drying off in the living room!
Got insurance sorted today, just 3rd party to get us to/from events plus it’ll mean we can use the car as a backup should one of the road cars be out of action for any reason.
Bit more than I wanted to pay. Cost a whole £172.
1st March
No pictures today as nothing was really done worth documenting! I continued chipping the soundproofing, and have finally finished this awful task. The whole bag of chippings I created weighed 10kg, so that’s some weight saved!
Phil had other things to be getting on with today due to his car failing the MOT on Friday and also Sakura’s being due at the start of March. We know she is going to fail and is already booked in for bodywork, however her brakes also need attention. So once I had finished the soundproofing, I helped Phil change the brake fluid, and we also found some other problems which would explain why her brakes had been so pants lately. Good!
There have been some interesting announcements in the Sprint Series this week. They have managed to get a sponsorship from Toyo tyres which means cheap tyres for us!! The best thing about this is they are doing the deal on the tyres Phil decided would be the best for us. We got a very good deal, although we aren’t allowed to disclose the price.
The other announcement was that Toyota are entering 5 diesel Auris’s (Aurisses?) in the series. The are going to be driven by a different driver at each event and we have been told to look out for celebrities and racing drivers as well as general customers, employees and press.
We have paid our entry fees for the first round, and currently there are only 3 drivers in our class. It is official that I’m the only girl driving too. However we beat the Aygo class as that only has one entrant! I will be soooo gutted if that beats me though.
We still have a few things to do, the seats need fitting which is going to take some bodging. We also plan to do an oil change. I still haven’t cleaned Humphrey but obviously this can be done last. We will soon get our entry pack with sponsor stickers and numbers to plaster all over him too. He looks like a racecar on the inside now, with the stripped out interior, but the logos and number will make him look like one on the outside. Hurrah!
Are there any bits under the bonnet that can be removed ?
Things like :-
mounting brackets for airconditioner pumps or power steering pumps?
Lifting points for hoisting the engine out ?
Speakers ? (looks like the radio has gone and you probably wont hear it with the sound proofing gone)
Radio ariel ?
A quick look round for fibre-glass bonnets has them priced at £350 to save 6.5Kg so removing your 10Kg of sound deadening has saved a fortune
Besides, Phil tends to break fibre-glass when he sits on it!
Edit: Dont forget to confirm your insurance is still valid with numbers on the doors for road usage, some are finicky about it