Tag Archives: Marcos Mantis

Roasty toasty

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Sitting in heavy traffic on the M56 into Manchester today, no worse than on the M25 but today the weather was truly HOT. This seems to have made the difference as the coolant temperature went up to ~120 degrees which is a bit on the warm side. It cooled down towards 110 when the traffic started moving but clearly the new radiator & original Spal fan (385mm) are struggling to cope in standing traffic on a hot day.

Options under consideration are changing the fan (from a single to two [smaller] ones). removing the blanking plates on the rear ‘kidney’ shape bonnet vents and/or… drilling some holes on the rear face of the bonnet where the engine bulge drops down towards the bulkhead. The latter is a bit drastic but a possibility if the other options don’t do the trick.

How was it for you?…

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So things have been building up to my triumphant collection of the car. What’s happened in the intervening few weeks? Well… quite a lot! Generation III of my Mantis has had an eventful birth, & best described after the dust has settled.

  1. Drive to Lewes in the Pug, stopping off in Bedford overnight to drop my daughter off. I will, Shhhh… miss it! (The car that is)
  2. Get to Chariots on the Tuesday, see Jay, see Mantis gleaming on the ramp, see about 20 Wedding cars, several Bentleys, a Model T, lots of vintage & not-so-vintage bikes and… a 50s Electric Milk float (with 1/3 pint glas bottles in wire baskets). Am hopeful my car is the quickest out of this lot.
  3. Car sounds lovely when started on the ramp & pleased with Start button. Connolised leather looks amazing in real life, & I am told the chap who did it spent an entire day masking off the piping before bringing the straw leather back to its original glory. Cool! The Dark Green Samco hoses are a remarkable match for the paint & look great.
  4. Go for a spin. Sounds & drives like I imagined 6.2 litres would! Very fast with bottomless torque & silly acceleration. Also unfeasibly pleased with the OSRAM Daytime Running Lights (combined DRLs & Fogs), which really update the front of the car. And gosh… it’s loud!
  5. Back to Chariots to catch up on the snag list. Frustrating after a five month wait but nothing terminal: Rev Counter only reading half actual value, Speedo not working at all, original LS3 A/C won’t fit around the steering column so retro-fit electric motor fitted, a few Samco hoses missing off expansion bottle.
  6. Spent Wednesday driving around Brighton & Eastbourne in blazing sunshine. Visit Beachy Head – holiday mode fully engaged! Stuff gets tightened/loosened etc as car shakes down over the day. Jay’s hospitality is faultless with beer & meal each night.
  7. Thursday is all about waiting for the new Speedo gauge to arrive from Smiths. I kill time taking the car out, but UPS have mis-sorted the Package & it has black-holed. The prominent fuel smell from the Generation II engine is still there, prompting some furtling with the fuel tank breather pipes & the replacement of a faulty one-way valve. At this stage in the day, I need to head back to Bedford as part of the paternal taxi service.
  8. Pay bill. The old alarm didn’t survive removal so a new one has been fitted. In the best traditions of Grand Designs, it has gone over budget… but, heigh ho!
  9. Off to Bedford – the M25 is a bitch & I discover how hard it is to drive an unfamiliar 500BHP engine in stop/start traffic for 50 minutes, knowing that the fast road cam isn’t helping. The car is also guzzling fuel so I bail off the M25 to find a petrol station, only to overshoot it & break down at rush hour in the centre lane of the A408 as it feeds onto the M25 & M4. Yikes! The car won’t start & has all the symptoms of having run out of fuel. I am not impressed!!! Under telephone guidance from Jay, I press the bleed nipple on the offside fuel rail & get air not fuel, which seems to support an empty tank & the fact that I am a pillock. Friendly copper pushes car to roadside & I await The AA, who arrive & thoroughly nice chap emerges from the van to announce he has worked on the LS3 engine before. Hallelujah! He does exactly the same trick with the bleed nipple but leaves it open a few seconds before fuel emerges. The car restarts & I am left a bit bemused until AA man explains this is a ‘vapour lock’ which is a new one on me… Journey to Bedford resumed.
  10. Taxi service from Bedford to Suffolk to Manchester and finally home.
  11. A couple of short local drives including one into work (bad standing traffic experiences again) where I take an ex-Marcos owner colleague for a spin, with very complimentary feedback.
  12. Home. Battery is dead when I go to take the car out for the weekend. Charge it up & it happens again. Then several hairy moments as I lose clutch pressure while reversing out of the garage. This is enough for me & The AA are summoned once again.
  13. The AA flatbed the car back down to Lewes to be worked on & it’s back to work with no car again!
  14. Several weeks later, I’m off back down to Lewes, collecting the car from Jay. Although the Rev Counter is still misreading, I have a smart new programmable electronic Speedo from Smiths. The centre console has also been rejigged with a much improved fit. The big improvement though, the ECU has been remapped with several significant changes to the factory settings (Fuel Trim from 39 to -1) which results in a much improved, smoother driving experience and a predicted 33 MPG(!). More M25 angst on the way back to Manchester but no hattrick with The AA & I only have to fill up twice before I ‘m home, achieving about 200 miles with 40 litres.

    Pete comes up trumps with this top notch LS3 badge to replace the original ‘Quad Cam’ one.

And now, so far so good except the oh-so-predictable rain every day. The plan is to get some more experience driving the car (albeit in grindingly sloooow commuting traffic) then wind up to the Tatton Park Classic Car Show in three weeks time, then the big one… Le Mans 24 hour & CBW!

Wish me luck!

Getafix

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I’m looking forward to seeing the car while it is up ‘visiting’ JP Exhausts in Macc for the manifold & exhaust system. In the meantime I am getting my Mantis fix any way I can & this has ticked the box this evening.

One month to go

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Staying in touch with Jay, who has uploaded a couple more photos. Here we can see the engine being dropped in to confirm engine mount placement.

The Nissan Engine Start/Stop button is HUGE at about 80mm across (!) so I am going with the Audi one, which will look even nicer with a small black surround.

It looks like the car won’t be ready until mid-February now as JP have decided they need the actual vehicle to fabricate the manifold & exhaust, so it will need to be trailered all the way up to Macclesfield (about 15 miles from me) then back down to Clayhill (about one million miles from me) to be finished off. My cunning plan is to sneak over to Macc when it’s there though, & have a look at the car. Sadly excited at this prospect!

All I want for Christmas

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It’s been just over two months without the Mantis, & with Christmas Day tomorrow I have to face up to the fact that Santa is going to struggle to fit it into my stocking! On the other hand Jay has been uploading a few photos of the engine & also the chassis (which will have to be tip top if it’s going to cope with all that power). I was relieved to hear it’s generally OK with only superficial rust in a few places – nothing some rust cure, Hammerite & Waxoyl won’t sort out.

Another New vs Old shot!

 

I’ve also been trawling the automotive world for a decent Engine Start button. Given it’s going to take up one of the holes from the Racelogic Traction Control on the dash, it will be highly visible & therefore needs to look right. I like the idea of something red, but also backlit so it can be seen at night. The aftermarket Engine Start buttons are either barnded, cheesy or both, so I’ve narrowed it down to the Audi S1 (below left) or the 370z Nissan OEM GT-R Push Start Switch combined with the 2015 Nismo Model Red Trim Cover Finisher (below right). I’m leaning towards the Nissan currently as I can’t get the surround for the Audi button plus there’s not much aluminium on the dash (other than the gear knob).

 

Then I’ve got to get the socket & loom which fits the button of course, and then there’s the small matter of how you wire up to achieve the ‘Stop’ function on the engine.

Oulton Park Gold Cup

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Bertie & I went to The Gold Cup at  Oulton Park today, having been invited to bring the Marcos Mantis along & show it on the SP Automotive stand.

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We enjoyed watching the races & were delighted to find a battle worn Marcos GT competing in one of the races. It didn’t finish particularly highly (lots of faster TVR Vixens) but that might have been because the owner had come straight from the airport having just flown in from South Africa! Nice lifestyle!

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The car got a good amount of attention on the SP Automotive stand, & we got free entrance tickets… so everyone was happy. Huzzah!

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Summer must be here… off to Tatton Park

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Another 10+ turnout for the first of this year’s car shows at Tatton Park in Cheshire, my local show & one I’m always happy to support. It didn’t rain but no-one needed the Factor 50 either. The stand was next to the Triumph Stags, and away from the treeline in a more central spot this year which was welcome as more people come past. The Mantis scrubbed up well but as in previous years it was very hard to compete with some of the older cars that have been restored & polished to a lovely sheen. With the Mantis in regular use it’s never going to be a concours winner but it still draws the eye. In my entirely objective opinion. Oh yes. Er… right let’s move on to some pictures.

 

Tatton Park

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It’s… time for Tatton! Yes yes, August is here & that means getting the band back together to create a Marcos Stand at The 24th Classic, Vintage & Sports Car Show at the ever lovely (but let’s be honest, sometimes rather moist) Tatton Park. As it was, the weather was pretty decent, as was the turnout with a nice range of different models (that is, the cars not owners). The usual suspects were present & the reward for having given the car a quick wipe down was plenty of footfall past the stand. Chris Message’s purple Mantis always gets a lot of attention as does Howard Plant’s lovely Mini-Marcos (conveniently parked next to each other, no less!).

The trees provided some welcome shade in the end.

Chris & Angie discuss how much better the green car is than the purple one. Probably.

Our next door neighbours were an excellent rock ‘n roll band!

All weather vehicle?

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Heavy snow in Cheshire, even this close to Manchester. So… the gritters are out, & away the Marcos goes. After the debacle with the chassis a couple of years ago, & despite being determined to keep on enjoying the Mantis in the wet, it seems prudent to keep it away from heavily salted roads. Lee has done far too good a job of fixing the chassis for me to ruin it now! However, now I actually have a house with its own garage, I can sneak out every now & then check it’s still there & still mine. Might even turn the engine over… OK no I won’t because someone recently told me it’s bad for it unless you go for a decent drive & get rid of all the condensation. But, it’s a nice thought. Snow never stays long where I live so I may get out again soon – maybe squeeze in a few more nursery runs before Crimbo?