Richard Grove

I have both Emerald and DTA ECU's. My Firefox which has 1800 K series with motorbike throttle bodies uses the Emerald ECU and the Robin Hood has the DTA S40 ECU. To be honest they are both pretty much the same to use but other than the odd little tweak to cold start maps etc. I have not really touched them since they were mapped on on a rolling road. I just copied a base map from the web as a starting point that was good enough to get the engine running then took the car to BTEC racing near Oxford to be set up properly on the rolling road. Richard

I sold my Robin Hood to Mike about 5 years ago and am so excited to be getting it back.

Mike, I am very interested in buying it back. You can contact me on 01386 854774 or 07906 826735. Richard

Hi. just thought I would let you know that Easytrack.co.uk are running a special offer for Cadwell Park and Bedford Autodrome at the moment. Book Cadwell Park for £99 on July 6th and you get a multi buy option for Bedford Autodrome on May 18th also for £99. A very nice saving on both events which would normally cost £160-£180 each. I don't expect the offer will last long so if you are interested I would get your booking done quickly. When you start booking for Cadwell there are various options for Helmets, second driver etc. One of the options is the multi buy - it is easy to miss. Richard

John, yes please with my Dad as a second driver. Thanks Richard Your both on the list

I have a similar issue with the rear of the Firefox - - can't tell its happening when I am driving but the photos show it up.

Sorry we never made it but I spent the day on Saturday clearing out my sister in laws house after the flash flood that swept down Broadway hill. My wife left Evesham at lunchtime on Friday heading to Brecon to pick up my son who had been on an adventure week. It took her 3 hours to get to Tewksbury (about 10 miles) where she got stuck and spent the night in a pub and eventually made it back home on Saturday morning. Oh well the slicks don't work that well in the wet anyway Richard

I know what you mean. our back garden is like a swimming pool.

Looks like we won't make it to Barkston tomorrow. Will be the first one we missed ! Flooding in our area is pretty bad. Several of our neighbours are flooded. My sister in law is stuck upstairs in her house with 2 feet of water flowing thru downstairs. !! What a nightmare ! Richard

We have just finished buiding a Funbuggy Freestyle. Total cost so far £3075. Add SVA, insurance etc and it should be on the road for less than £3500 http://www.richfreestyle.blogspot.com/ Richard

I am already booked in (and Dad) but we might be bringing the Freestyle for a pre SVA shakedown instead of the Firefox. That should slow us down a bit - Freestyle has 998cc Mini engine pushing out at least 38BHP

My latest project is a "Freestyle". Details of the build on my blog : http://richfreestyle.blogspot.com/ For anyone interested in getting their chasis and/or other components powder coated I can recommend a local engineering/fabrication company that have just done our freestyle chasis. Phoenix Engineering (Nick Clarke) Unit 25 Honeybourne Ind estate Weston Road Honeybourne Worcs WR11 7QF tel 01386 833630 Nick is very freindly and helpful and is a bit of a petrol head himself and has just finished building a bike powered single seater off road buggy that looks great fun. They have facilities for full range of tube bending and fabrication work and can offer normal selection of powder coating colours etc. Quality of powder coating looks good and price was VERY competitive !! Richard

Dad and I will be there in the Firefox as usual. A few minor tweaks over the winter have seen an increase of 15BHP upto 156BHP so hoping to beat my best time from last year which from memory was 52 sec on the old track layout. Richard

Hi, did the mag / application forms come out yet ? Hope I didn't miss them Richard

I went to this show last year or the year before ? Yes it is a good show, lots of trade stands and auto jumble as well as the historic cars and bikes to see. I bought a brand new Rover PG1 gearbox with Torsen LSD for £200 from one of the auto jumble stands. Absolute bargain that made my day ! Richard

John, I plan to to make it to both with the Firefox and my Dad. Can't wait !! If our Freestyle is ready in time we might even bring that along for a run instead of the Firefox. Where do we send the money ?

I retro fitted an XE lump in my 2B, but sold the car earlier this year. It ended up costing me close to £2k but I used mostly new parts (£600+ for the carbs, ram pipes & throttle linkage). If I was doing it again (and I probably will) I would definitely go for throttle bodies, fuel injection and Megasquirt.

Bob, We will be with Onyx in pit garage 22. Richard

Yes free camping on Friday night and there is a bar/club house on site that was open last year.

I am going down with my Dad on Friday afternoon, hope to get there early enough to watch some of the track day action and then a couple of beers in the club house . We are taking the Firefox as guests of Onyx Sportcars so hope to get plenty of track time on Saturday. If you fancy a couple of laps round the track as passenger in the Firefox come and say hello. Richard

Many thanks to Tim & John for organising the event, it was a great day, just a shame there were not more Robin Hoods on the track. Letting my brother Darren loose in the Firefox (140 bhp cost £5k) for the first time made me very nervous watching from the pit lane. He had several "battles" with the Mitsubishi Evo (340 bhp and cost £32k) and always came out on top. The Evo driver, who works with my Dad, was not happy having to concede . Firefox went really well and we managed to finish the day with no damage other than a cracked mud guard which was caused by younger brother swiping one of the cones in the bus stop with the rear wheel. Rob, the TR7 driver was gutted when his rear wheel got ripped off but cheered up a bit when we managed to get a pair of my spare Metro wheels on the back of his Triumph. It looked pretty silly but he got home OK. Richard

Still for sale at £4750 ono, MOT to July 2007, Will be putting 6 months tax on at the end of the month when the current disc runs out.

Dad and I should be going to Snetterton - Onyx have invited us to take our Firefox as a demonstrator. Just need to sort out a few repairs to the rear suspension after a great day at Cadwell Park last week !!

OK any takers at £4750

Thanks Sue Megablade - I could understand you wanting to ban the slick tyres (nice sticky set ready for Saturday ) but banning FWD ?? . See you Saturday