Ello ste, just been looking though all your bits you have done and your 5 looks very nice indeed. I don't know how i haven't spotted you around, where about's in west sussex do you live then, looking at the pics i'm guessing henfield/bolney way. I live in handcross and i never knew you could go up to the weight bridge and get weighed, manly as its normally all empty apart from the occasional lorries and never knew there where people in the little office, how did you pull that one off? Also never knew you went down to ollie at owen's to do some bits and bobs, my best mate works down there. It's a small world.
And also that little brekkie meet up that we had at the chalet cafe on the Christmas eve, we are probably going to make it a regular thing, probably one sunday a month, and it would be open to all marques.

James

 

Cheers Wheelynutz. I drove through the carpark while you were all having breakfast at the Cafe as I'm only a mile away from there. I needed to get to the Butchers to collect my Christmas goose though! With the weighbridge, you just turn up if the VOSA people aren't there. There's a button you press on a box similar to a pedestrian crossing. There are also instructions written on there. Basically a traffic light lights up red until the weighbridge is ready, at which point it turns green. You then idle (or push if you don't want a weight with you in the car!) your front and then rear axles over the plate. There's a readout you can just make out in my pics that flashes up each axle weight and then a total. Who's your mate at Oli's? I'm there quite often.

Today I had a bit of time so I cracked on with a few small jobs. Before I could start, I had the familiar task of getting it jacked up in the air and securely on the stands.

First job was to fit the IL Motorsport silenced decat I bought from Hooligan. I've become obsessive with weighing every part that goes on or come off...

The decat was 1790g. I then took the cat off - or rather, fought with the rusty bolts for 20 mins before cutting them off. The cat weighed in at 3750g so almost 2kg saving.

Next up, I removed my IL Motorsport centre section and backbox to replace it with the Pitcrew I've just bought from DimeBRG.

Obviously I weighed them first... I was a bit gutted actually, the IL Motorsport wasn't as heavy as it looks - 9.2kg with the Pitcrew coming in at 7.3kg. Anyway, another 1.9kg saved. I also binned the exhaust heatshields and with a few bolts etc I removed while under there another 1,060g came off.

The bumper had to come off to drill the holes for the rear mount for the Pitcrew, but it was a nice easy exhaust to fit and was on in hardly any time.

While the bumper was off, I couldn't help myself add some more lightness. The whole bumper assembly weighed in at 7.8kg. I split the mountbar and internal structure from the skin, removed all of the internal structure and cut down the main mounts. Here's all I was left with to mount the skin:

I then trial fitted everything back on the car to see how well the anorexic mount could hold the skin. The answer, reassuringly, was very well. I then carefully measured and marked up the skin.

..and cut the bottom section off.

Incidentally the entire rear bumper assembly now weighs 2.7kg - so 5.1kg lost from that alone. The hole cutter hasn't come out to play yet and there's lots of metal to be lost from the rear chassis underneath.

Weightloss since I started counting is now up to 65.1kg. Unfortunately by the time the rear bumper was mounted back on properly it was a bit dark for good pics - but I'll get more after I've finished taking the front end apart...

 

Cheers Wheelynutz. I drove through the carpark while you were all having breakfast at the Cafe as I'm only a mile away from there. I needed to get to the Butchers to collect my Christmas goose though! With the weighbridge, you just turn up if the VOSA people aren't there. There's a button you press on a box similar to a pedestrian crossing. There are also instructions written on there. Basically a traffic light lights up red until the weighbridge is ready, at which point it turns green. You then idle (or push if you don't want a weight with you in the car!) your front and then rear axles over the plate. There's a readout you can just make out in my pics that flashes up each axle weight and then a total. Who's your mate at Oli's? I'm there quite often.

I might have to have a go with the weighbridge sometime then, my mate is peter, he has worked there for a while on saturdays but now oli has given him an apprenticeship and he now works there full time, he is about 18ft tall and wears glasses.

Also yes i saw that silenced de-cat up for sale, i was about to to say i'd take it off hooligans hands but then you bought it. There plenty more fish in the sea.

 

Good to see the Pitcrew fitted to a car again seeing as I never actually fitted this in my ownership. I bought it in August 2010 and it either sat in my room or garage

 

Centre exit is the way forward.
Also, I want this bitch back. It's awesome now. haha

 

Have spoken to Peter, he's a nice lad. He'll know me by my X5 and definitely by my slammed 740i (I tried to persuade him to buy it

).

 

Yep I just spoke to him and he said he remembers your 740. He said try and get a pic up as it is the dogs and also did you have a mk2 golf gti? If you did, did he try and sell you some spax suspention, I was the person he tried to sell spax suspention for. But you insisted in getting collies.
He said that you where the type of person that he wouldn't expect to drive/own all the slammed cars as you normally wear a suit.
It's a small world.
Also do you go up to bridges, the scrap yard in pease pottage any time.

 

Just had a brief flick through this, really like the project..... Similar to how i would like mine to turn out.

 

Cheers gents.

wheelynutz, there are other pics of them on here, but here's a pic of my 740 and my Mk2

:

Managed to get a few hours to play with the car again today. First I took the front bumper off.

Then I removed the heavy plastic reinforcement bar.

I then took off the mounts that you can see left on in the pic, but forgot to take a picture. I painted the front panel with satin black hammerite to give it a uniform colour if viewed through the radiator intake 'mouth'.

While I was there I stripped the air-con radiator and pipework out. I then re-fitted the bumper saving a further 8.1kg in the process.

The rest of the aircon is accessible with the bumper on so removing that will be the next job. Having said that, now there's less to the bumper I reckon I could remove it in under 10 mins if necessary.

Having finished for the day I took it for a drive to get fish and chips for the family. There's definitely a noticable amount more shove up the rev range with the decat and new exhaust and the noise is just amazing. It howls like a '60s GT Racer. It also pops fireballs on full throttle upshifts at 7k.

 

Coor they are very nice indeed
Loving the weight saving and our 5 pops a little bit but way not enough, needing a de-cat.
Are you going to get non-power steering? our brg compared to the eunos is sooo different, the brg is like a go kart and you feel the road a lot more. Have you still got leccie windows?

 

I have a de-powered power rack to go on (the manual rack is a slower ratio) and will be 'sorting' the windows when the doors get gutted.

 

Yeh just read your jobs to do and stuff to buy and fit, bit

 

First off here's a slightly better pic of the bumper chop. I'll try to get a better one though as you still can't really make out the exhaust etc.

First job today was painting my stainless steel Jaas front towhook. I wanted to replace my Rennenmetal one as the powdercoat peels off them in no time - they're also fairly heavy. Interestingly the heaviest is the factory 'baby tooth', then the Rennenmetal and then the Jaas stainless steel one. Despite the stainless one being really well polished I wanted a red one, so I painted it with Plasticote.

Next up I removed the split-fold sunvisors and rear view mirror. The mirror had already been on a diet, having the outer casing for the mount removed, but the pile on the right below added up to 965g. The lightweight suction mirror I put back in was 86g. Result and only £7.

To keep the sun out of my eyes, a subtle black vinyl sunstrip went on. This also hides the suction mount for the mirror nicely.

Inside view of new mirror:

While there I thought I'd get a snap of the mess my interior is in. Lots of tidying required - for which I have some cunning plans.

I've been running about without a front plate for a few weeks. Although this is the lightest solution (and looks the best) - I had a vehicle rectification notice and a slap on the wrist for having no front plate on my last MX5. I thought I'd best put one back on, but didn't want to re-use the side mount bracket or the heavy 'babytooth' tie down bracket that the side mounts attach to. Instead I made a small bracket to hold the plate centrally in the same place that the JDM plate mounts.

It works and will keep me legal, but I've had a thought on how to improve the design. Plan is it should be removable in a few seconds for track use. Unfortunately I forgot to get a pic of it on the car.

 

Love the no sidelight look !!!, i'd do it to mine if it wern't so messy behind there...

 

I'm so with you on that, it makes them look really purposeful. Unfortunately had to put them back in until I can think up a solution to sidelights / indicators. May have to get some TSIs as a compromise

 

i like TSI's but i'd only buy them if the induction area was bigger if you get me, i think it looks too small, just so it would look neater but still look like the sidelights had been removed..... just being picky

 

Shaving the surround of the rear view mirror?
Dude, has anyone ever told you that you may be a little pedantic? Haha

 

I should imagine the answer will be
Every little helps

 

All of the above it is then!
Have you taken it on track as it is/was? I know wes did but can't remember you doing so.

 

Yep, pics earlier in the thread dude.

 

ah that was too long ago now, no wonder i didnt remember ^;

not to tempt you or anything, but im putting the supercharger kit up for sale shortly. ;]

 

Sold it the week after my last trackday in it and haven't had it back long!

Send me details of the M45 kit dude.

 

for sale thread's just been created, awaiting approval.

removal thread is here - http://www.mx5nutz.c...1&#entry1056719

thought i'd detail the removal as best I can, as the jackson racing instructions are shit (im pretty sure the instructions are for the american market).

full details will be seen in the advert. as you're running a megasquirt (i think?), you wont need to bother with the shitty JR timing/ign module thing or probably even the fuel pump, so the rest would just bolt on, leaving you only having to play with your megasquirt. the engines are pretty much identical, so all brackets etc would be the same.

i've been trying to think about any differences, and there's literally not much else that would be any different at all. the air filter is just on the end of some flexi hose so can be made to go wherever (the mk1 is a slightly different shape back there) and everything else is essentially the same. you've even removed the A/C, so it is now identical to the spec of the car it was removed from - you wouldnt need another belt, as the one supplied would suit your setup (i.e it would loop round the crank, PAS and supercharger pulleys only).

there might be subtle differences (pas pipework maybe??), but I cant really see it being anything critical or contentious, or anything that a little bit of fettling wouldn't sort.

i doubt this helps much with the mod habit, but hey, it would be truly ironic if it made it's way onto my old car

 

Really like the way to your doing this mate, liked your old black mk1 but think I now prefer this one

Look forward to seeing what else you do.

 

Cheers James.

 

Got to agree with James - going back to basics with good components and striving for relentless weight reduction has gotta be the way forward. Really interested to see the results if you do go FI....

 

Cheers James. Was it you I sold the driver's seat from this?