Home
Background
Build Diary
Links
Specification
Hints & Tips
Driving
Gallery

RPi Project Page

RPi have used a picture of Jadzia as a link to their two-wheel drive projects. Our trip there gets a page of its own.

DJ Sportscars Open Day

We'll be at the DJ Sportscars Open Day on Good Friday 21st April 2000 at the DJ Sportscars premises in Harlow, Essex. Last year's was an excellent turnout, with many Rushes, Tojeiros and Kamalas basking in the Spring sunshine.

Trestles leave home

Phil Lawrence, a Sevens Lister, came to collect my build trestles for his bike-engined Locost(esque) project. He kindly donated a few quid to Nuke the Leuk (Leukaemia Research) for them. Good luck Phil!

Phil had been planning to build a Rush and got as far as leaving a deposit with DJ, but finances forced a change of plan. I gave him a blast in Jadzia just to remind him of the goal ... he left with a big grin :-)

Unfortunately, Jadzia started misfiring on the way back. Probably caused by me messing with the points the day before, but I must have a look at it :-(

Moving, Tweaking and Jumping

The week after Phil's visit, I gave the ignition system a good going-over. I found the timing had slipped from the 6 degrees BTDC set by RPi to 10 degrees. The distributor clamp was a bit loose so I surmise that RPi hadn't done it up tightly enough and it had gradually slipped. One of the point gaps was also a bit wide. When corrected, the misfiring went away and hasn't been seen since.

4th-5th March 2000. I haven't made an entry here for a while, partly because it's been foul-weather season in England and partly because I've just moved house. All of 200 yards, but I now have a double garage where Jadzia and Mr.2 can safely slumber together.

Sunday 12th March 2000. A glorious day out, driving in convoy in the Spring sunshine to the South of Cambridge. We met four other sevens from the Cam7s group (Aideen, Tim, Ambrose, Sandy & Angie) plus Jeremy in his Integra Type R. Jadzia went through 2222.2 miles on this trip! Have a look at Tim's pictures. Thanks to my passenger, Jim Noble, for some of the pictures here.

I managed to go low flying in Jadzia by chasing Ambrose over a hidden bump at - ahem - slightly elevated speed ;-) We landed with a hell of a bang which later inspection showed had slightly flattened one corner of the sump (no oil leaks though :-) and produced a clonking from the rear suspension, subsequently tracked down to a failed shock absorber. Shockers shouldn't just fail like this, even if you do your best 'Dukes of Hazzard' impression. I'll see what Dax have to say about this.

17th March 2000. I took the failed shocker back to Dax on my day off. In the absence of Simon Johns, who had been quite negative on the phone about the failure ("We'll have to send it back to SPAX for an inspection and see if they'll do us a refund"), the helpful James swapped it for a new one with no quibbles. That's what customer service should be like, especially as Dax advertise "All parts guaranteed". Thank you James! He said they'd had tremendous quality control problems with SPAX. In a fit of gratitude or enthusiasm or something, I bought a Stewart Warner voltmeter to match my other dash instruments. Fitting it will be a tricky dashboard-surgery job.

I saw the completed (and very bright red) Rush De Dion which is the subject of Dax's ongoing build report on their website. Its new, sculpted dashboard looks very nice indeed, even if it means you can't fit the 100mm speedo and tacho, but only the 80mm versions. Had a sit in it and a chat with Peter Walker, their chief designer.

Back home, I quickly reassembled the rear end and went for a test drive. No clonks. Back to normal. Problem solved! I connected the new voltmeter across the battery to test its accuracy. Result? Nothing! The needle is stuck at 11 volts and doesn't move at all :-( It'll have to go back.

Oh yeah, weather permitting (usual refrain!), I'll be at the European Kitcar Show at Detling, near Maidstone in Kent, on Sunday April 2nd. The latest forecast isn't hopeful though :-(

Detling Kitcar Show

Well, I went to the show but Jadzia didn't. The weather forecast got the better of us.

I saw the most powerful Rush there that I've ever seen - 380bhp and four-wheel drive! To quote from one of my favourite films, "Gods! What a monster!"

Dax Open Day 21/4/00

We went to the DJ Sportscars Open Day on Good Friday. To say I've never seen another silver & green Rush before, there were no less than three there! Jadzia was well received and I chatted to several people who recognised us from these pages.

See the Dax Rush Owners Club website for a complete report and more pictures.

The weather forecast was a bit uncertain, but we got away with one brief shower while we were there, for which the tonneau cover provided complete protection.

I exchanged the faulty voltmeter for one which actually reads 0 volts when disconnected. This is a more hopeful sign and means that I can't really delay fitting it any more.

On the way back, I noticed the temperature climbing to 100 degrees. The radiator cooling fan wasn't coming on and I traced this to a blown fuse on the fan relay. I replaced the 16A fuse with a 25A one and now it works OK again. My calculations had shown that 16A was a bit marginal (less than 200W), and so it eventually proved.

Stoneleigh Kitcar Show, 30/4/00 & 1/5/00

We visited the Stoneleigh show on both Sunday and Monday, staying overnight in Yorkshire. Many miles covered this weekend!.

See the Dax Rush Owners Club site for a description of the show and more pictures.

On the Monday afternoon, I met up with the usual suspects from the Cam7s gang and we convoyed back to Cambridge, taking the scenic route. Jadzia was running beautifully all weekend and covered the miles, both motorway and twisty lanes, without missing a beat :-)

Rolling Road session, 22/5/00

With three other Cam7s cars (William and Chris's Tiger Cat E1s and Tim's Westfield), we visited the rolling road of Peter Baldwin at Wimpole, near Cambridge. We had plenty of time to fit some fat yellow HT leads purchased at the Stoneleigh show whilst awaiting our turn. These leads have angled connectors to the distributor cap and don't touch the underneath of the bonnet like the old ones did.

Last on the rollers, Jadzia immediately recorded 286bhp which was  raised to 292bhp by advancing the idle timing to 8deg BTDC. Very happy with this. Oh yes!

All of us found extra power while there, from 3% for Jadzia to 28% for Chris's 1600 Pinto-powered Tiger.

However, calculations of BMEP (Brake Mean Effective Pressure) afterwards showed an implausibly high figure (192psi) for the Dax, based on the rolling road numbers. A more reasonable estimate of 165psi gives a rather more believable power of 250bhp. The other cars were likewise a bit up on what was expected. However, the percentage gain in power is probably correct and the whole experience was certainly fascinating and well worth the cost.

Look at Tim's website for more pictures and details.

Newark Kitcar Show, 18/6/00

Another kitcar show, another convoy. Tim (with Tom), William (with Richard), myself (with Jim) convoyed up to Newark in the blazing sunshine of a 30deg.C day. Jadzia behaved herself well, with the coolant temperature hovering around the 95deg.C mark, but never higher. The heat seemed to have its effect on the tachometer though, which jittered about a bit when it got really hot in full sunshine. When it cooled down, thankfully normality returned.

MOT-time, 1/8/00

Jadzia successfully passed her first MOT test with only a blown sidelight bulb needing replacement. This was the second attempt at an MOT, as the first place booked finally refused to do the MOT as they couldn't get the sump to clear the jacks over their inspection pit. For £32 they weren't going to risk damaging the Dax. Their recommended alternative had a hydraulic hoist that did the job very well.

Birthday Run, 3/9/00

On 28th August 2000 Jadzia was officially one year and 4500 miles old!

A couple of Sundays later, the annual Cam7ers trip to the seaside took place. Twelve people in seven cars (one Dax, two Westfields, three Caterhams and an Elise) took the scenic route to Southwold in Suffolk for a pub lunch, cream tea and a walk on the beach. The weather wasn't as searingly hot as last year's trip and there was a definite nip in the air as we got home at 8:00pm. On the way back, Tim Hoverd's son Tom snapped some pictures of the Dax on the hoof.

On this run, my AC-22 performance meter showed a maximum lateral G of only 1.10. On previous enthusiastic cornerings it had registered a maximum of 1.26 with no oil surge present. The new baffled sump appears to be doing its job :-) The new Greenstuff brake pads are feeling better as they bed in more. Certainly the bite of the brakes feels quite fierce at times, with passengers commenting on how the braking is the most impressive part of the handling.

Go on to 2001's happenings ...