Mitchell Race Xtreme

MRXtreme

Well its been a while since i gave the site an update, apologizes for that the lack of updates.  We've been busy with work, then we were busy with no work, its been a real up and down time over the last 6 months for the team here at MRX. 

Firstly, we have moved the shop.  We are now located at; 34 Law Cres, Horotiu, which is about 6 minutes north of the old shop in Te Rapa.  Work had gotten a bit quiet, so we decided that we didn't need the big nice shop any longer.  Onwards and upwards!

As most of you would know, we have built 5 new gen V8 Touring Cars, 'code name TLX' and as of last week we sold the #006X chassis.  2 VE2 Holden's, 2 Toyota Camry's and a single FG Falcon.  The NZV8's wrapped up their championship last month at the ITM400 at Pukekohe, and what a way to finish up.  With 5 TLX and 23 older TL's, the NZV8's put on a fantastic show, with 2 out of the 3 races being broad casted in Australia which was huge for the class, and great for the MRX designed and built TLX cars. 

The future of the TLX and NZ V8 Touring Cars is looking bright, with protentially 2 new maunfacturers being introduced along side the Toyota and more Holden and Fords being built by some very well known names.  So I look forward to sharing the news as it comes to hand.

Cheers

Nick Mitchell

Workshop News 26/06/2012

Hello all. I have finally found some time to write bit of a news piece.  Its been completely balls out here at MRX, with our main focus being on the New Gen NZV8 chassis's and getting as many built before the season opener this December.  As some may know, NZV8 has opened the series up to any and all vehicle manufacturers to come and join the series.  As long as the car is a medium-large 4 door sedan and have their own V8 engine, all are welcome.  Toyota has been the first to join the existing Holden and Ford's that have already been built, and we are expecting more as the months go on.

With Tony Richards Toyota from Paeroa behind the push to get Toyota on the gird, things have been progressing well since the announcement 2 months ago.  The first of the Camry chassis's is almost ready for paint, componentry is being pieced together now, while we wait for the TRD developed 5.0L quad cam V8 to arrive from America.  Tulloch Motorsport have taken delivery of their VE2 chassis and plan on unveiling that car at the upcoming Speedshow in Auckland.  Nick Ross's Concept Motorsport have also brought a Holden VE2 and that car is currently at the painters.

Check out the new photo albums for more images.

The NZV8's haven't been our only job on of late, we are still keeping up with our usual work, like the full floating rear end we have just completed on Murry's Holden VK Commodore.  A MRX fabricated 9" housing has been built, fitted with Endevour Engineering floating hubs, Winters LSD diff head and Winters solid axles.  Rose jointed 4-link arms have also been fabricated.

Workshop News 03.02.2012

Greetings everyone, sorry for the lack of news updates on the web page, we've been pretty busy with all things NZV8. Since the last news's piece the NZV8 FG01 has undergone plenty of testing at the hands of Supercar veteran, Jason Bargwanna and has been tripping around with the NZV8's at all the South Island rounds. Jason has given plenty of great feed back on our chassis and suspension package and by all accounts, loves it. Jason has been impressed at how well balanced the new car is and how it handles and preforms. Currently FG01 still has the 400hp 302 Ford V8 and Jerico 4 speed that the current NZV8 cars run, and Jason has manged to get a 1min 27sec lap at Ruapuna, which is 3 seconds faster than the current NZV8 car. FG01 will be at Manfield next weekend (11th 12th of Feb 2012) then after that the car will return to the MRX shop for the NZ designed and built TTI 6 speed sequential gearbox to be fitted and hopefully the new Ford Coyote V8 as well. Once these are fitted, FG01 will be a fully spec'd new car and we'll be able to find out what see can really do...

Over the last few weeks we have been busy building the #002X and #003X chassis for the NZV8's, getting our jigs and systems in place for when production starts on the new cars. Chassis #003X was completed a week or so ago and over the time of the build we did bit of a video diary at the end of each day covering what we had done on the chassis. Here is the link for the first day video on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHZcOLWACRs

This will get you started, there are 7 videos in total. You can subscribe to the MRXtremeNZ channel on YouTube and be notified when ever a new video goes up, or alternatively visit Facebook and 'Like' the Mitchell Race Xtreme page and you'll be the first to know whats going on in the land of MRX.

It hasn't all been NZV8 work in the shop. We had quite a bit of work come and go. Paul from BodyMods brought round a '34 Plymouth for us to narrow the new Jag front end that was in there. We took out 100mm from the centre of the cross member, fitted a new power rack and fabricated new spring buckets in the lower arms.

A tig welded 6 point roll cage, seat mounts and steering wheel quick release went into Tom's Audi A4, which will be a club track car.

John's CMC Torana was back in the shop for a bit of fruit. A new adjustable front sway bar was fitted with MRX cockpit controls going in as well.

Workshop News 16/11/2011

The new NZV8 CoTF, #001X made its first on track appearance at Pukekohe back on the 5th of November and by all accounts it drove beautifully. FG01 spent both Saturday and Sunday on display on the in field and was used to lead out the NZV8s on their formation and warm up laps for Saturdays qualifying and Sunday's races. Kevin Williams was the lucky man to drive the car first, completing 4 laps prior to the NZV8s leaving pit lane for qualifying. Inky Tulloch drove FG01 on Sunday morning leading out the field for Race 1, then it was Clarke Proctors turn to lead out the field for Race 2. As we all know the weather closed in and we decided to leave the car on the infield for Race 3 as the rain came pouring down.

Our own Derek Mitchell had the pleasure of turning some quicker laps during the Sunday lunch break, but as there was also safety car rides and the Cure Kids car also on track, Derek was instructed to limit his front straight speed, but once through turn one.... go for it. Derek completed about 6-7 laps, and once we managed to convince him lunch was over and he had to return to the pits, got him out of the car we could tell by the huge smile on his face that we had built a great car. Derek compared the FG01 to his own Super GT Monaro from 2002 saying that 'this new car out handles the old Monaro, she feels great'.

Last thursday FG01 was delivered to the Mackenzie team at Albany Toyota in Auckland. The car will reside in the show room until a testing program is put in place, then we can put FG01 through it paces and see what she can really do.

I have edited down the time lapse footage from the #001X build, it is still 15mins long, but its pretty cool to see it come together, here's the YouTube link.

http://youtu.be/EkjS07TRkZk

Workshop News 30.10.2011

Its been a very busy few weeks at the shop with 95% of focus been on #001X or FG01.  With the car having its first on track showing at the opening round of the NZV8 Championship at Pukekohe, we have been pushing hard to get the car completed and looking like a rolling sales brochure.  We started the car for the first time on Wednesday and it brought a huge smile to all the faces around the MRX shop.  Fast forward to Friday afternoon and FG01 had been plumb bobbed, squared, air jack tested, on the ground, back up on the hoist, corner weighted and wheel aligned, this was the easiest chassis we have ever squared and set up. 

So come Saturday morning the car will be ready to turn some laps around Pukekohe and display what the future of V8 racing in New Zealand will look like.  See you all there.

Here are a couple of links to YouTube for videos of the start up and video brochure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb4kor-4gpc&feature=share

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpiNqB7HZfUg%26feature%3Dshare&h=eAQES3ZM_AQFWm-uIO8ohqnMd52onRqpG1Y3NNmQyR9vSUQ

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DllgKzh7_cgI%26feature%3Dshare&h=-AQGbY3vkAQG9r1CJMT15xmOLF9H17NDvV7bZaQLyRDowJQ

Workshop News 22.09.2011

Since getting FG01 or chassis #001X back from the CRC Speedshow, this have been all go in the MRX shop in Hamilton.  We have been mainly concentrating on getting #001X completed and ready for its first shake down which will be about mid October at this stage.  The dry sumped 302 Ford V8 is now in the hole and we have been mounting componentry throughout the car.  90% of the cars plumbing is done and the car is due for its test pilot's fit up.

While all this has been going on, we also manged to build a second chassis, #002X which will the first of the VEII commodores as well as building a 30x8m one piece hydraulic door for the new air craft spray booth going up at Hamilton Air Port.

 
 

MRX NZV8 Chassis first public outing

 

Firstly I want to thank everyone that Derek and myself managed to catch up with over the Speedshow weekend, it was great to hear all the positive feed back, despite what is going on behind the scenes and of course there will always be the hater's, and to be honest we have got bigger and better things to worry about than Joe Blogs sticking his/hers two cents worth in, just cause thay can.

We had a pretty big push over the last two weeks to get the #001X chassis looking like it did just to make it to the Speedshow, so i want to thank the MRX team, Curtis, Blair, Verdene and Stew, Kendyl at Xtreme RPM, Allen at Endevour Engineering, Tom's Auto Body Shop and Andrew at AWS graphics for their help and support. So time for some info on the new car.

One MRX chassis design for Holden and Ford

MRX designed and built space frame chassis

Fabricated front uprights with chromoly arms

3 link, fabricated 9" diff housing with alloy drive head, cambered floating hubs and spindles

Performance Friction brake package (carried over from existing car)

Penske adjustable shocks

Adjustable sway bars front and rear, cockpit adjustable

Adjustable watts link for rear roll centre adjustment

Air jacks (as standard)

Engine TBA

Gearbox TBC (looking at Quaife 6 speed)

And the best bit, entirely Kiwi designed, built and supplied.

If anyone has question regarding our part of the new NZV8 car don't hesitate to ask. (i'll do my best to answer). Check out the NZV8 photo album for a few build shots.

Cheers

Nick, MRX shop Manager.

New Zealand V8's to run MRX Chassis.

Apologies for the lack of shop news lately, but we have a pretty good reason.  Our lastest job has been built under cover and behind closed doors since we started back in May.  MRX has designed and are currently building the prototype chassis for the NZV8s, New Zealands premier touring car class.  At the moment we are building Chassis #001X to be unveiled at the CRC Speedshow on the 22nd July.  #001X is actually the 2nd chassis to come of the MRX jig, we built chassis #000PR as a mock up chassis to get a feel for things and it gave us something to present to the NZV8 board and their teams.  After a couple of small changes to the roll cage we had our final design that we would put into production.

#001X will be on track for testing well before the 2011/2012 NZV8 series kick off, and will be on display, and available for test drives around the country, including the South Island.

NEW'S FLASH

It's official, somebody likes what we do... We (MRX) have been nominated for a Industry Award courtesy of Performance Car and NZV8 Magazines. 'NZV8 Shop of the Year' is the award and there is some stiff competition.  It comes to a vote with 50% of the voting coming from the public and the other 50% from a panel of expert judges.  To vote, follow the link below, it looks like you might need to be a Facebook user, so if you don't have a Facebook account find someone who does and cast your vote.  Any and all support will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers to everyone who we've had the pleasure of working with over the years.

Derek and Nick

http://www.performancecar.co.nz/industry-awards/#nzv8

Workshop News 05.04.2011

The work load seems to be picking up around here at the moment, which is bloody excellent. 

We have a new project on the go, a 1965 Mustang (notchback) being built for circuit racing duties.  The bare shell was dropped off last week.Nick and Derek have wasted no time in getting stuck into the build as the customer wants to have it completed for the upcoming season.  Full Chrome Moly roll cage, extra chassis bracing, seat and pedal box mounts, Aluminium doors, tanks mounts.....the list goes on, so this should keep us busy for the next 4 weeks.  Here's a couple photos of progress so far, check out the photo album for more.

  
 

Workshop News 09.03.2011

 
2011 is here, March is here, thought it must be time to let everyone know what MRX have been up to.

The biggest job on the go at the moment is a full build on a new Pre'65 racer for 'Al'.  1960 Skoda Octavia ST40 is Al's weapon of choice for the up coming season.  To this point the body and chassis have been blasted, rust has been repaired and a 8 point Chrome Moly roll cage has been tig welded in place, extra floor bracing has also gone in.  Next on the list for the Skoda is the suspension mods.

Check out the Photo album for the full build shots.

 

A few tidy up job have been done on Tony's RX3, as well as the new front splitter buck is now ready for the mould to taken from it.

 

Brents FC RX7 has been moving forward.  A few jobs, like mounting coolers, fuel plumbing, steering quick release have been completed.  Now that the 1UZ-VVT1 is know in the car, a few set of 4 into 1 headers can be fabricated.

Aaron's 'UNIT' 69 Camaro rumbled its way into the MRX shop last Thursday.  The Big Block Camaro has come in for a Wilwood pedal box, front suspension upgrade and a completely new 3-link diff set up out back.  We are well into the mods as the car needs to be done for the Beach Hop, so Derek and myself (Nick) are pretty busy making sure we get it done in time.