We have one at my office /workshop thanks to Mark. Makes a lot of jobs a lot easier. Even ones you might generally be happy to sit on the ground for like; taking door skins off, installing seats or generally mucking around at floor level are easier.

Going to 1200mm is somewhat of a limitation but when removing / installing all my suspension, exhaust, brake lines etc I was fine sitting or laying. We can move it around which is helpful to.

Installed new bumpers on the Porsche in the days leading up to Targa. Couldn't have done it in time without the lift.

In saying that we had to put the muffler on in the middle of the street in Picton on our way down

Jack Olsen has a great setup in his "12 Gauge Garage".

 

Yep and there are always plenty of those - I'll start crossing my fingers now!

Matt - you're not getting away with just throwing that out there.....! Any hints?

 

Fair point. I didn't buy the race seat that Dave had fitted and have resisted changing the seats from standard despite lots of encouragement to do so. They're pretty comfortable although lack lumbar support which I had to work around with my inflatable back support thingy.

I also changed the suspension settings, softening them for the road and hardening up for the few days of track work. And that sure makes a difference. I've got the change down to about 10 minutes to adjust them top and bottom. The slowest part is getting down and dirty on the bottom adjustments under the car... Requiring jacking to reach and get your head under to see. Missing the seat time real bad now.

 

Jees you guys are hard. Better not start picking on the boxster drivers aye?
My mum has had 2 x VI golfs and now a new VII. Not the fast ones but impressive cars nonetheless. The VI's both had dodgy boxes. It's hard to get the truth out of anyone on a car yard but the word is that the 7 speeds were the dodgy ones. The grunty golfs stick with the 6 speeds and have been ok. As far as I know, but the truth is hard to get it seems.

Now if I turned up at HD in a golf Mk7 R with 221kw and blasted out an '18 would you fulla's call me a girl?

 

Since you asked, Dave: http://www.roadandtrack.com/voices/c...idgets-and-men

Your mum sounds cool too. Mine had a twin turbo Supra. Got pulled over by a cop after showing me how well it could leave the lights on Great South road. Smiled and explained she was very sorry and just showing her son what it could do. Got let go. Hope I got those particular genes...

 

Great article! I must admit that I felt a little disdain for the Miata, until I drove one this year. What a great car. Have been contemplating buying a Boxster or a Miata for my partner (yeah right) for a while now.

The only maternal motoring related event I can remember in detail from my childhood is my mother getting ticketed for driving too slow (no joke) in our bright orange Mini. I hope I don't have any of those particular genes!

 

I do remember you under the car softening her all up the evening before we left CHCH and I regret not having done the same myself. To date the 993 bucket seats (1"squab) have been quite OK for drives up to 4 hrs in a stretch. That drive pretty much knackered us though. It was over 7 hours (CHCH to Levin) punctuated by a long ferry ride on more hard seats. I think the cumulative effects of 12 days of driving finally got my sciatic nerve. Jo was already into the oxynorm by then. One thing I find frustrating with the RHD aircooled cars is the offset pedal position on long journeys. This is not an issue David will have to deal with in his new steed!

 

That is a great article and amen to that. Really I'd say most of the best sports cars ever made are convertibles yet somehow it has become uncool to drive them. Ridiculous if you ask me, how can driving a lightweight rwd car with great handling and less metal between you and the engine noise be a bad thing?

 

LOL. Yes, think you might have got your dad's ones there. Got a few childhood driving memories too but that Supra launch was only a couple of years ago.

Miata/MX5s are great little cars but even better with more power. The factory put out a run of just 50 or 60 turbocharged ones in the UK just after Mazda won Le Mans in '91. Collector's items now.

Plenty of aftermarket kits of course.

 

Agreed. Dont hear many people complaining about the Honda S2000 with its 8800 rpm limiter. For that matter the 356 Roaster and Speedster are sought after too. It helps if it was never made in coupe form. Then it stands a chance of become a classic.

 

Xmas arrived early this year. Aim Solo DL with OBDII & SmartyCam HD 2.0 with external mic. They threw in some free RAM mounts but I dislike them so had KW Machine Works fabricate some custom extension tubes to go with their roll bar mounts.

Now I need someone to show me how to read the data. John?

 

Drove a mate's S2000 and he kept yelling 'don't change' as the revs climbed and climbed. Great feeling with the roof down and the revs up. Then we got to the end of the road and I tried to pull across a lane of traffic from a stop. Scarier than anything I've experienced on track - there's just no-one home in the engine room until the revs are well up in the multiple thousands. The feeling of that car on the open road though got me looking at something similar with better low down torque, and that led to test driving a 996 C2 cabrio before grabbing the Turbo instead.

 

Walt, have that T shirt somewhere (or maybe its soiled pants). Closest Ive been to killing myself in a car was an overtaking manoeuvre in a new Prelude 2.0 Vtec I bought new in 1997. I was on the open road Hauraki Planes and failed to change down low enough before pulling out. Car approaching was going fast and the Vtec was like a 2 stroke rev band but didnt kick in till almost 5000. Felt like an eternity before it hooked up (below that hopeless torque). It was gone within 6 months replaced by a new 1998 WRX wagon. Outside of the 911 the best car I ever bought....and a turbo to boot!

 

Macca - this page has the software downloads http://aimsports.com/software/index.html

 

Will be very interested to hear your opinion on this combo. I investigated it a while back and was only put off by the camera then not being HD, and the comparatively high price to source it locally (had it quoted by a go-kart supplies outfit). The idea of not having to manually edit in the data overlays really appealed - just race, record, watch.

FWIW, I have noticed that AIM's Race Studio software likes a grunty machine, especially if you get silly with displaying say 20 laps at once (good to check the consistency of your lines from a birds eye view). No problem on my proper laptop but on my convertible hybrid it freezes once more than about 6 or so laps are shown.

What I'd most like to see AIM do with Race Studio is add a track location axis to the data graphs ie a standardised track distance on the bottom axis. As it is, you must choose between using elapsed time from the start of the lap, or elapsed distance travelled from the start of the lap. When experimenting with lines, the elapsed distance run will differ for the same point on the track, making it hard to properly compare superimposed traces. They already have all the GPS data recorded so it wouldn't be hard for them to do.