Well, I wish that I had seen this thread before I came to the meet tonight, maybe we could have had a bit more of a chat instead of a small debate as I was leaving.
Yes, unfortunatly Dads engine did let go last year due to an un-forseeable problem.After the pistons were inspected by two independent engineers, both with experience in building F1 and F3 engines.The pistons were tested and it appeared that the piston in cylinder 4 had a small manufacturing defect of a hairline crack inside the piston.Now im sure that Mitsubishi have a very good quality control process but things like this can slip through as each piston that is manufactured doest go through a stress scan prior to installation

After 4 years of driving, it eventually let go.Anybody querying this is more than welcome to view the piston of topic and I would be more than happy to explain how this happened
Yes, Mark did map the car. I myself have been learning to map Autronics since June this year, this is a skill which you dont gain over night unfortunatly

With the engine specification that had been built, I was not comfortable with tackleing this alone and wanted Mark to lend his helping hand.For those that don't know about the engine and are reading this thread, it was put onto a Jun bottom end comprising of 86mm Jun pistons,Jun Rods and a race ground lightened and balanced crankshaft with a high compression ratio taking it out to a 2.1ltr engine capacity.After run in, final mapping was due to commence, this was mid August.As mentioned, I felt that mapping this engine was out of my ability at that time and thats why I turned to Mark.I personally currently map lower specification vehicles i.e. up to stage 3 on Autronics, any higher speced vehicles I refer to Mark.Any of our Motec,Apexi,Gems or Ecutek mapping is outsourced to Sam Ellassar and our HKS F-Con to Gary Passingham.These are relationships that I have built up over time with these mappers over time and they have assisted and allowed me to offer services to customers which I was unable to personally provide myself, and continue to do so.This is something that we are proud of and make widely known to all of our customers that enquire about an ECU upgrade.I am progressing very well with my mapping and am more than happy with the experience that I have gained in such a short period of time

I do not feel that you are trying disrespect me and am more than happy to answer any questions or queries
As for Emeralds roller, well, thats that.It fantastic that they are now able to give compareable results to Dyno Dynamics rollers, howver, as we know, they were out in the past.I personally feel that this is good progress for Emerald but would test my customers vehicles on DD's,just a personal preference.Some people like Mac, others like Snap-On, I personally like Dyno Dynamics, no harm meant.
Yes, this thread has drifted a little, but as mentioned, each person is entitled to an opinion.Normally opinions are spoken from experience, I have spoken from mine, you have spoken from yours
Yes Liam, you were correct, I do not currently own an Evo myself, I drive a Mercedes A Class.The reason for this is that I am only 21 years of age and am trying to inject as much capital into JRD as possible, and have been since the company was founded in February 2005.This involves me having a second job at an industrial magazine as a project manager as well as JRD and this sees me regularly working over 90 hours per week, but I dont complain, I know what I have to do to succeed.I live my life with a work hard and play hard philosophy and am a firm believer that you get out of life what you put in.I would love to have an Evo as a run around but it would not be an intelligent investment for me or the company.The company is still young and we are engaged in two key areas of investment for the business that will be far more beneficial 1) a new E-Commerce site with a product content of 25,000 products which is due to go live 01/01/2007 and 2) a drag car for the 2007 season.I myself feel that this is better for the long run and far more beneficial than a spruced up run around.
Just a little bit of a brief background for those of you who don't know me.I carry 4 Engineering Diplomas covering both Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. I studied at Norwich City College School of Engineering and was due to go to University to undertake a degree in Aerodynamics at Coventry University which I later wanted to carry into F1.In my third year I managed to break my leg wakeboarding and fell behind on my work that much that I was unable to catch up.The plan from there was to restart my third year in the following September and carry on from there.However, in the meanwhile, JRD was formed and here we are today.
Sorry for taking this off topic Tara and I hope that some areas of this thread have helped you.
If anybody has any questions or queries, I am more than happy to answer them.
I look forward to seeing you all at the next meet and shall bring the piston along for anybody that may be interested
Lloyd
