Tag Archives: Marcos Mantis

Back from Chariots

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This morning I am excited to be getting the train down to Lewes to pick up the Mantis from Chariots. The train journey passes quickly & it is not long before we are back at the ranch. Jay is taking me through the work he has done:

Cam change from fast road to standard, retune, refurbished pedal box including completely new fuse boxes, extended flanges on the hood, rewired cooling fans with a trigger temp lowered about 5 degrees.

More efficient aluminium cowling replaces the original Marcos design, improving airflow to the radiator.
Deeper flanges on the hood mean there is now a remote possibility I may not get standing water in the seats when the hood is up!

As ever, the car looks great, a thorough job done by Jay, & I am raring to drive the circa 260 miles home. I completely ignore Jay’s recommended route (he drives people for a living, what would he know?) & spend about 7 hours getting home. But I really don’t mind because… Car drives really smoothly after the cam change & retune. The cooling is better with the M25 coming & going without an anxiety attack. Yay!

Off to Chariots for a bunch of fixes

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Today I headed down to Chariots, 250 miles away to get various things sorted out. Top of the list was the cooling fans & anything else related to keeping the engine temperature down. Also I have bitten the bullet & the fast road cam originally added when the LS3 was fitted and pushed the car past 500BHP is going, to be replaced by the standard cam. That will come along with an ECU retune of course. Whilst it was fun to have the 500BHP bragging rights, I never really had the chance to drive it in a way which really utilised the extra power. The fast road cam doesn’t even get out of bed below 2500 RPM & realistically the majority of my driving in our wonderful UK traffic meant I rarely hit that threshold. I am putting it all down to experience – it was fun but I’m looking forward to a more drivable (& less thirsty!) car. Definitely pleased I gave it a go though. I think that just leaves Jay’s converted Challenge car as the only road legal Marcos Mantis with over 500BHP.

Also on the hit list is a somewhat overdue refurbishment of the pedal box. This has been slowly suffering from moisture ingress over the last 24 years plus some organic growth & get-me-back-on-the-road fixes to the electrics & fuses.

Other stuff… the chassis protection from a couple of years ago is flagging in a couple of spots so that will be refreshed. I had asked for the hood seal rubbers to be replaced as part of my futile battle to make the car vaguely waterproof with the hood up (don’t know why I bother, much more fun with the hood down!). However, Jay had some great ideas about replacing the flange on the hood that should form a seal with the window. It’s about 0.75″ at the moment & will be replaced with a much deeper version. I’ll be delighted if this works as I’d assumed any changes to the hood meant a complete new hood. Fingers crossed…

As ever it was great to catch up with Jay. His place is like an Aladdin’s cave of interesting cars & I was particularly impressed with the bright red London double decker bus. Cool! I also got to see the vent covers that he has fitted onto his ex-Challenge Mantis, courtesy of Eurotech. These are the ones used on the race cars & they look mighty mean!

The drive down was OK & no issues with the car overheating (Hurrah). Coming back on the train was a bit weird with Covid, but even the Tube wasn’t that crowded so I felt pretty safe all the way. I will be counting the days until I pick the Mantis up…

Fans… AGAIN

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Well the Mantis managed two local journeys before something went wrong. Coolant temperature went above 120 degrees C. No fans. Fortunately this was not far from home & got back. Ran the car today on the drive & it did the same thing. Fan fuse is fine so f**k knows.

The emotional rollercoaster that is Marcos ownership continues.

On the road again…

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… as Canned Heat once sang. And all for the princely sum of £1.17.

CR 2016 battery

A couple of nice drives out into Cheshire. I must have been spotted by ‘The Man’ because it’s been absolutely belting down for the last 6 days, & even when there’s a lull in the downpour the roads are pretty slippy so am resisting temptation. However, sunny days are round the corner…

Welcome to 2021

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Sooooo… We are into February & the Marcos Mantis is still, alas, dead. I confess to being at somewhat of a loss as to who to give the car to in order to get it fixed. Bring back Eddie from Cross Street Motors! (Actually, shame I don’t have his number as he won’t have been able to play golf for most of last year due to Lockdown so should have had a lot of time on his hands). Oh well! So long as the car is working for September. Why September I hear you ask? Because I will be taking the car down to display in the hoi polloi section of the Concours of Elegance in the gardens at Hampton Court Palace. One of only 10 Marcos cars invited no less! It would, therefore, be jolly nice if the car could actually move by then.

Farewell 2020

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Well goodbye 2020. A year that, to borrow a phrase from our ex-colonial cousins… truly sucked 😠. Or in Britspeak, the year has been a tad underwhelming. Like many Marcos owners, 2020 will have seen my lowest annual mileage ever 😭. The silver lining? Lowest fuel costs ever. 😂

As we enter Lockdown 3 (in England) 😷😷😷 there have been some lovely crisp driving days over the last few months but unfortunately the Mantis hasn’t moved since it was dead in August 😔. The new Optima Yellow Top battery continues to show as fine & hold charge. Unfortunate I cannot find anyone local to entrust the car to to get fixed.

So… what else? After a very quiet 2020 in terms of car events, I have formally handed over the baton as Club Marcos International area organiser for the North West to Debbie & Darren Morrison. They are already on the case with emails going out & plans afoot for the Carfest North, which is great! A pleasure to see & just reinforces my conclusion that things were getting a bit stale under my stewardship & some new blood was required. The Morrisons are also much nicer people than me, know a lot more about Marcos, are experts on their own car & absolutely brimming with enthusiasm for all things Marcos. Basically it’s an upgrade all round!

Like a lot of Planet Earth currently, I am wondering what 2021 will bring. IBM have finally decided to ‘spin off’ Global Technical Services to concentrate on Cloud and AI, so that will be the end of an era this year. I may just about make my quarter century with IBM (May 2021) after which it’s a voyage into the unknown & that includes my company car allowance that keeps the Marcos Mantis on the road. (OK, well, technically incorrect but… you know what I mean).

Too late for Santa now but in hindsight I should have sent a letter up the chimney asking for;

  1. Standard cam to replace the thirsty/hot/bumpy Fast Road cam, plus a retune of the ECU
  2. Better engine cooling with a whole year of going without dramatic overheating & blasting coolant into the atmosphere
  3. New rubbers for the hood frame
  4. A new gasket to seal the rear brake LED light strip
  5. A new interior
  6. A new hood which actually keeps the rain out
  7. No more mice…
  8. A smooth run up to Scotland to revisit the fantastic scenery around Callendar

Tally-ho for 2021!

So what’s new, kids?

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Gosh, where to begin! Nah… just messin’ with you. 😉 Nothing new. Went to go for a spin to get some fresh air in the Mantis last week & car wouldn’t start. Alarm LED still flahing, DRL illuminate, clock still working, stereo fine (mighty fine! Oh yeah!) but f**k all from the starter. The new(ish) NOCO starter did… nothing. Bit of a bummer seeing as this is a new deep-cycle Optima yellow top. So, lots of stuff that should work that didn’t. No drive that day then, eh? Any road up, put the CTEK charger on & fully charged a day later & the car started fine but didn’t have time to actually drive it. Jumped in the car today due to unexpected sunshine (on a Bank Holiday, what’s going on?) and nothing from the starter again. However, battery is at 12.65V so that’s not the problem. Some electrical issue… I guess I am just not destined to drive the car at the moment. C’est la vie. Texted an auto-electrician so let’s see if they respond & can help (although they are in N Wales! Not had much luck with the local ones).

So, shiny stuff. The filler cap is getting stiff. Wondering if I should get a replacement Aero 400 from Newton Equipment.

Out & about

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Some nice trips out in the car recently as the weather has been decent & the cooling issues seem to have gone away. One of these was a little trip up the M6 to Wigan to see the legendary Morrisons, Debbie & Darren. Their LM500 is still on the ramp as they await the refurbished wheels but they have made good use of the time & the car is… immaculate. Everything is either colour coded to match the striking purple on the LM, polished to a shine or carbon dipped. It looks stunning (must be the neatest car in the north… or at least equal with Dave Barlow’s Marcos). Shame this horrible Covd-19 lockdown is preventing car shows to allow everyone to appreciate it.

Darren also spotted that my bonnet catches are very corroded & one of them is moving around enough that is is wearing a hole in the bonnet. Yikes. New ones ordered from Marcos Heritage but not sure how I will fit yet. The nuts & bolts are so heavily corroded there is a risk they will snap in situ. I did think about replacing the bonnet catch cup & latch in the car body. At least, until Rory from MHS explained that this required the front mudguards to be cut out from the body to get access, then re-attached with industrial quantities of poly-urethane mastic. Probably reasonably straightforward given plenty of time, space & tools. But…

A request on Facebook for Marcos photos from Nick Marsh, one of Jem’s sons & a painter, has thrown this image up which I suspect is the Marcos Mantis launch. Great picture & lovely looking car which Phil Cunningham still runs (& occasionally washes).