Topic

It could be worse...In my mis-spent youth one New Year's Eve I got home absolutely pissed and proceeded to fill a hot water bottle with boiling water. I went to bed and fell asleep with my leg on the bottle and still have the scar.

Attached a camera to the boot lid, a few Tufts of wool around the boot air vent and drove it, with roof up and roof down.

Will try and sort of images/videos to share, but initial findings show limited airflow out or possibly into the engine bay with the roof up. With Roof down (windows up, no tonneau and deflector down) there appeared to be air flowing in to the forward vent, with airflow out of the other two.

Really could do with putting a smoke bomb in the engine bay and filming from a chase car to really see how the air escapes, perhaps not something to attempt on public roads though.

YouTube playlist of wool tufts.

Should anyone want to see. Could probably do with a new thread to discuss it, but I'm too tired so I'll just put this here for now if anyone's interested.

I've now tested the splitter over several hundred miles. We've had some very windy weather and after crossing the Kessock Bridge with 40 mph gusts across the carriageway, it occurred to me that I'd felt no buffering at all where as previously the wind would have been felt pushing the car off line - so perhaps this splitter is more than cosmetic!?

Richard

Today I gave the MGF a wash and wax getting ready for a trip to the Western Washington All British Field Meet in Kenmore Washington tomorrow.
They are expecting around 400cars, and there are always some interesting ones as the show is just down the road from Microsoft HQ, Ariel Atoms with big wings and matching helmets for one.
This year the featured marque is MG so I am going to give our Mercan friends a thrill as they won't be able to legally own an MGF for another 3 years.
(25 year import rule on non-compliant cars)
I also swapped in a dash cam out of my daily driver, programmed the addresses into the sat nav, and gave the suspension a pump-up so we are ready to roll.
We're staying at a casino hotel tomorrow night so Mrs. RiV is thrilled.

The event in Washington went well. The MGF ran like a top and the weather improved from a light drizzle at home
to blazing sunshine in Seattle. The Americans loved the MGF, which still isn't eligible for import there. Many had never seen one before.
I did meet a Brit expat MGA owner who had bought an F new in the UK but couldn't import it into the US when he immigrated. He enjoyed seeing one again.
The car was such a hit I got 3rd place in the V8 and Modified class even though my car is neither!
To top it off the Casino/Hotel was very nice and Mrs. RiV didn't lose our collective shirts in the casino.

The MGF on the show field


Apparently this Mini is road legal! (No MOT test here!)



And, just for fun here is a sign that was in our hotel
(And this is in a Democrat state!)

Hi Rich.
Well done for 3rd place prize . Can you see people in the States importing 'F's when allowed to do so ? If so , do they know what they are letting themselves in for ?

John

Rich in Vancouver wrote: wrote:

The glass shop cautioned not to drive
with the glass fitted which is a shame but I will put it in place for all day shows.

A few people over here have fitted 10mm acrylic, and drive with it in place.

One of the most popular questions was, `Where do you get your parts?`
My answer, from experience was, `The first thing you have to consider is that, short of spark plugs and fluids, `NO` MGF parts are available in
North America.` The rest of my answer generally turns into an ad for Rimmer Brothers. I know a lot of you UK types give them a bad time for charging more than some of their competition, but when you take the cost of airfreight into account Rimmers` efficient system makes you more confident that you will get exactly what you need. They are also very quick to ship, and the one error that was made on one of my many orders was fixed very quickly with no argument at their expense.

I`m sure that when MGFs start arriving in the USA in even modest quantities US suppliers will step in to fill the void. (Moss comes to mind as they already sell F parts in the UK) A couple of small suppliers over here are already starting to prepare the ground, and one that I know of has even tried doing a LHD conversion on an early MGF.
The drive handing is the biggest factor in selling MGFs to North Americans. Early adopters like me are willing to put up with RHD but the general buyer sees it as a big negative. When I had my first MGF up for sale (A UK market car) I could have sold it a dozen times if it was LHD. In the end I sold it to a friend at a loss.
If I had a lot of money laying around I would be heading to the continent looking for early LHD MGFs to invest in. I know of two fellows in Canada stocking up on MGFs, one buying from the UK, the other from Japan, but I believe the best bet would be Holland or Germany. Unfortunately cars from Europe are more expensive up front and shipping is much more expensive than from Japan (At least to the west coast) but the potential profit is greater.

talkingcars wrote: wrote:

Rich in Vancouver wrote: wrote:

The glass shop cautioned not to drive
with the glass fitted which is a shame but I will put it in place for all day shows.

A few people over here have fitted 10mm acrylic, and drive with it in place.

I don`t like the idea of acrylic as much as it would be challenging to keep it clear after cleanings.
I may just pick up an oven temp guage with a probe on a wire and see just how hot it gets in there.
From what I could find the glass companies rate laminated glass at up to 82C although the failure point may be higher than that.
If the temp isn`t horrendously over that (say 100C or so) I may just give it a go.

Fire rated glass is available but at over $200./sf I won`t be buying that!

I don't think it is the temp that is the problem as much as the flexing of the car unless you bonded the glass in place.