Got the car back from the garage, where I had it rewired to bypass the Traction Control completely (well actually I said “Take the thing out”! But I guess he thought I was joking…). The world’s most expensive red LED now no longer even lights up when the TC is turned to ‘Off’. The Mantis subsequently drove eight miles each way OK in heavy traffic, but then again it has failed on the last two occasions after a couple of hours of driving so that doesn’t prove anything. I have grown to hate my TC of late & just want to see the back of it. Racelogic have been excellent I should add, it’s their North West dealer RC Developments who haven’t returned phone calls & have generally washed their hands of the whole thing as soon as I drove away from their premises Suffice to say that I won’t be touching them with a barge pole. I guess all I can do is try & drive it as much as possible to see if the problem re-occurs. Fingers crossed…

Well the car has been back into the garage for more investigation around the TC switch etc. Eddie has been talking to Racelogic & Guru Chivers about the problem; sadly RC Developments continue to fail to return phone calls from either myself or the garage, which isn’t very helpful. I took the Mantis into Manchester this morning & once again it was fine for a couple of hours but then stalled at some lights feeding onto the Mancunian Way Oops! All rather public; I received a mixture of ‘helpful’ advice by the motorists who pulled past me! LOL Nevertheless this is getting a bit disheartening.

Initially good news, as the garage have found a plug into the ECU with a bent pin. Drove the car round the M60 (quite quickly!) & around town for two hours without a problem, then it stalled a few hundred yards from home – just as I was about to phone the garage to congratulate them on having found the fault. Bummer. I have had to contact Warren at Topcats Racing to cancel my Monday booking – he sounds almost as unimpressed as I am!

Get Mantis trailered to the garage from its home – do not want to think about cost. Desperate to get it sorted so I can get down to Topcats Racing on Monday for the suspension checkup. They are busy for weeks if I miss this slot & I don’t have weeks before the car is due to ship to the US (mid March).

Today I took the Mantis to RC Developments in Warrington who are the nearest Racelogic dealers. They had the car for three hours & confirmed that the TC kicked in regardless of external factors at anything over 2000rpm, that the mapping was crap & that the signal from the sensors was intermittent. So… it’s shagged then. They will need it for a whole day to confirm that the hardware is OK & to remap the Racelogic box & check sensor wiring etc etc. However! About a mile from their place on the way back into work the engine started misfiring heavily, got worse then eventually cut out. Wouldn’t restart. restarted then wouldn’t idle. Normally I would point the finger at the TC but it was turned off! Called RC Developments anyway but they were (predictably) confident it was nothing that they had done. Now worried as engine was totally reliable before . Car died in several exciting places (across a T-junction, in front of some Traffic Police, etc etc) but nursed it back home to the garage. Que phone call to Eddie at Cross St garage!