November 27, 2010 - Spent some more time driving today.
The loud exhaust drone at 1500 rpm seems to be gone, that's probably due to the exhaust tips. Excellent. It's still not a quiet car, I'm going to work a bit more with the sound insulation and see what I can do there. A lot of the noise seems to be coming through the firewall. There's still some carpet to install, maybe it'll help some.
The ride is also better with the slightly raised height. I'll spend some time tweaking the shock settings, but I suspect it's going to want a bit less rear spring. It has some 250 lb ones now, and I think the lightest I have in the garage is 225. I'll give those a try.
The heater works well. Good.
Janel was driving this time as I monitored the car through an OBD-II scanner. Can't do that with most MGs! Anyhow, she seemed a bit taken aback at the sheer number of creaks, squeaks and bangs from the car as it first started moving down the road. But once she got into the gas, she started laughing. Especially when I reported she hadn't even hit 50% throttle. She likes the car a lot.
Not over-fond of the brakes, as they don't bite too aggressively. The power booster isn't over-boosted and I'm not completely sure the R4S pads are fully bedded. They're also going to be a bit slippery in the near-freezing temperatures we used on the test drive. I am tempted to replace them with a set of Performance Friction PFC 97 pads, which is what I use on the Targa Miata race car. I'll give the R4S a bit more time, as they're usually a good setup.
tags: brakes, test, suspension, exhaust |
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