Have been lurking for some time, posted a few things, but decided it's time to actually create a thread to cover our little Mighty Boy.
He's an '85 model, factory stock, in reasonable condition, and we picked him up with 137,000kms on the clock. My brother Tom and I got him with the intention of doing motorkhana and khanacross events as a Mighty Boy just squeezes into class A in the national series. FDW, nice and small, light weight; we figured it would be a decent amount of fun for not a whole lot of money. Current plan is to flog hell out of the F5A until it dies or we get bored, then go chasing power. Personally I'm leaning towards the F8 or G10 swap, but many others are encouraging the turbo route. Beyond that, stupid wheels and tyres, some suspension work, and as much weight saving as is practical/within the rules is the overall theory. On with what's actually happened though!
We drove down to the south coast of NSW one Saturday morning in early August to meet Colin and came back with this little beast.
The trip home was somewhat of an eye opener. It was slow. And by that, I mean it was impressively slow. We came back via Nerriga/Tarago and there were multiple hills where I couldn't maintain 60km/h... It's really not *that* bad around town, you just have to think about what you're doing that little bit more, but it's not my favourite car on the highway.
First step was to remove the canopy. A few days later we picked up a set of Ford Laser wheels with Formula Ford tyres from Brayden.
And then had our first crack at a motorkhana with the MG club of Canberra.
We dual entered for what was our first ever khana in something that wasn't an MX5 and it was a little different. FWD and no power will take some getting used to, but even just my lines were way off. End result was 12th for me and 13th for Tom, a touch under two second between us, 24 seconds behind outright 1st, and 18 seconds behind our only other in class competitor that day, a Cappuccino.
Nothing much changed for a while. I want overseas on a holiday and Tom managed to be interstate for the next khanacross. Then just last weekend I tagged along with the Clubman Owners Group for a day and managed to have a play on a set of corner scales.
Fuel tank was roughly 3/4 full. Spare wheel was under the tray.
559kg
65/35 front/rear balance
52/48 left/right balance
LF RF
LR RR
196 170
94 99
The next day I had another motorkhana to attend, although Tom was again interstate so I was on my own.
This time went a little better. I'm starting to get the hang of driving it but still really need to learn that the car isn't as wide as I think it is. Every time I made a left hand turn I was at least a foot from the flag. More practice required!
Results this time had me 7th outright and 1st in class. I was 15 seconds off 1st outright, but only 4 seconds off 3rd. A significant improvement from the first event.
And that's where we're at so far. It still needs more power but I'm really enjoying learning to drive something so different to my old MX5. Maybe power can wait until we get better at driving, or maybe the right donor vehicle turns up tomorrow and we swap in another engine over Christmas. I'm really not fussed at this stage.
