After a few of you got one and the Remark was overstaying it's welcome for my use case, on a bit of whim decided to buy it. I carry my dog, Mika the Shiba Inu so the seats are down to accommodate his box. but that means the drone was a nightmare. 50mph average zones in 6th. 3rd gear, 30mph on country lanes, off throttle coming down hill. Sounded fantastic when going, especially the pops on downshifts and with seats up but if the dog is with me, which is a lot now, it had to go.
Was in Anglesey for a holiday so logic seemed to make sense to go there on my way home. 3.5hrs from Anglesey to Rotherham seemed better than 5-6hrs one way then home. It's still a hateful journey once you get near the English border. Average cams everywhere. Impossible to navigate without Waze for directions and flagging of cameras and accidents, of which there were a lot. We got there by 10:40am. While I was there I asked Nigel to fit the MCA Traction kit I'd also bought on a whim. Apologies in advance for the bad phone pics. It's on it's last legs.
One word I'd sum it up with is meticulous. Everything was done meticulously. The system was fully explained and the attention to detail was stunning. Like the perfect alignment with the OEM faces and machined billet ends so the OEM springs still fit.
It's a lovely piece of engineering. Almost a shame you don't see much of it.
Out with the old. Yes this did get in the car with a Shiba and luggage.
Mika doing a supervise
Really didn't take long to fit since it's been designed properly. Now there's actually clearance around the tips, where I didn't have as much before. Took it for a quick send down the road to make sure it was fine and initially thought it was too quiet. But it's just that it's noticeable of the absence of drone. It's a good section of road too. Would've liked a few more goes.
Got back, loaded Mika and the old exhaust and headed for home. All 5hrs of it. As the journey went on, the first thing was absence of drone and being so used to avoiding RPM and gears to avoid the drone, I now didn't need to. It's civilised again on motorways and an odd thing I didn't expect from the MCA was a bit more composure on bumpier bits of the motorway. I still need to send it on my roads first minus dog to really know what they'll really do. It's a nice, clean note when revving from idle so no odd spots where some would rattle or sound coarse. No drone whatsoever, even if you say accel in 5th at 30mph. It picks up with a deeper note and revs through fine. Exits of corners as it passes 2.5k and revs out, it's again a nice note and sounds as it should have from factory. Not overbearing but purposeful. Think with a few more heat cycles it will improve further as towards the end of the journey coming over Penderyn a bit quicker, rev matched downshifts would give a pop and I'm sure on a few occasions it did it when accelerating through gears too. But by this point the rain had come and I really wanted to get home. Been on the road almost 10hrs and almost 400 miles. But the acid test was the Shiba test who slept the majority of the way home when cruising on the motorways back.
Everything so far is pointing to it being a fantastic system. Got some fun drives in a few weeks minus dog to really test it. The work was fantastic and was a good chat too. It's a shame he's so far away as it reminds me a lot of past mechanics who had the attention to detail. There's no one around by me who is like this anymore. May have to make a pilgrimage every so often to get more done in the future.
Was in Anglesey for a holiday so logic seemed to make sense to go there on my way home. 3.5hrs from Anglesey to Rotherham seemed better than 5-6hrs one way then home. It's still a hateful journey once you get near the English border. Average cams everywhere. Impossible to navigate without Waze for directions and flagging of cameras and accidents, of which there were a lot. We got there by 10:40am. While I was there I asked Nigel to fit the MCA Traction kit I'd also bought on a whim. Apologies in advance for the bad phone pics. It's on it's last legs.
One word I'd sum it up with is meticulous. Everything was done meticulously. The system was fully explained and the attention to detail was stunning. Like the perfect alignment with the OEM faces and machined billet ends so the OEM springs still fit.
It's a lovely piece of engineering. Almost a shame you don't see much of it.
Out with the old. Yes this did get in the car with a Shiba and luggage.
Mika doing a supervise
Really didn't take long to fit since it's been designed properly. Now there's actually clearance around the tips, where I didn't have as much before. Took it for a quick send down the road to make sure it was fine and initially thought it was too quiet. But it's just that it's noticeable of the absence of drone. It's a good section of road too. Would've liked a few more goes.
Got back, loaded Mika and the old exhaust and headed for home. All 5hrs of it. As the journey went on, the first thing was absence of drone and being so used to avoiding RPM and gears to avoid the drone, I now didn't need to. It's civilised again on motorways and an odd thing I didn't expect from the MCA was a bit more composure on bumpier bits of the motorway. I still need to send it on my roads first minus dog to really know what they'll really do. It's a nice, clean note when revving from idle so no odd spots where some would rattle or sound coarse. No drone whatsoever, even if you say accel in 5th at 30mph. It picks up with a deeper note and revs through fine. Exits of corners as it passes 2.5k and revs out, it's again a nice note and sounds as it should have from factory. Not overbearing but purposeful. Think with a few more heat cycles it will improve further as towards the end of the journey coming over Penderyn a bit quicker, rev matched downshifts would give a pop and I'm sure on a few occasions it did it when accelerating through gears too. But by this point the rain had come and I really wanted to get home. Been on the road almost 10hrs and almost 400 miles. But the acid test was the Shiba test who slept the majority of the way home when cruising on the motorways back.
Everything so far is pointing to it being a fantastic system. Got some fun drives in a few weeks minus dog to really test it. The work was fantastic and was a good chat too. It's a shame he's so far away as it reminds me a lot of past mechanics who had the attention to detail. There's no one around by me who is like this anymore. May have to make a pilgrimage every so often to get more done in the future.
