Be interested to see how that comes out! Let us know please?

I might have to pop to Colchester

 

ill post pics in my thread....

 

Will be interested to see how this turns out as well... if you need the zorst fixing Cerbs, I know a man who can... he made the manifold and pipes for my kit car (the shadow, not the sprint) and they came out nice!

Russell.

 

I have posted pics

 

Well I'm getting back to grips with things! Mozza's replacement exhaust served well for a few days before I purchased a used stainless cat back from Simon. I managed to forget to take a picture of it before I put it on. But it looks a lot like this one :

It sounds pretty good. Im happy

Whilst fitting it I spotted a screw in a tyre. So that was repaired by Nick at the meet. How lucky are we! Tyre services at our monthly. That's pretty damn cool.

MOT is due in 11 days so I have removed the tint from my old sidelights and will wallop them on for MOT day. I never did wire up the pop ups to pop on sidights so rather than cause confusion. Its only four screws.

Easy job with a bit of cellulose thinners.

I noticed last rain fall that the wax job Nathan had done was rather worn out. Water was no longer beading nicely on the panels. So I picked up some wax malarkey.

The much beloved and I set about removing a considerable amount of dirt and dust and grime.

And I popped the proper wheels back on after a quick clean.

She's looking pretty again

Let's hope she responds to a good polish by behaving herself for a bit!!!

 

One trip up a certain driveway and the showroom shine is now protected by a coating of dust. ROFL. One more rain shower will shift it

But the rain stayed off today so more MOT prep work got underway. Unfortunately I have been laid low by a tummy bug for the last few days so wasn't really feeling up to it. One quick call to senior P5 service network apprentice, Nathan and things were on track.

Last year I got an advisory for front drop links. Since my MOT man has a good memory he will be looking to make sure I changed them since he saw them last. Even though there is nothing wrong with them! Dammit! Whilst there I was pretty sure my track rod end boots were splitting so we changed those at the same time.

Up she goes!

I was really lucky to be able to call on Nathan. Leaving the house was a bit of a no no. I'm feeling a bit better but some crouching and twisting and heaving on spanner type movements did have me hurling again

I was quite right. The booties were very buggered. An instant MOT fail nowadays. Good that I had spotted the cracking earlier this year.

Shiny replacements!

Lovely job!

Next up the droplinks then!

Nothing wrong with the old ones! Grrrr!

Drivers side all fine. Nothing gave us any trouble at all.

Passengers side was also buggered!

Then came the problem. The bolts holding the drop link were severely shot. The shank of the lower one missing a good 2mm from it's diameter due to rust and movement. So we had to make a quick dash to B&Q (There#s a theme occurring there!) For some M10 bolts and nylocs. They only had 50mm bolts so they had to be cut down by 10mm. No problem to a man like me who owns an angle grinder and a bench grinder!

Job done. Car back on the floor. Only the catalyst and sidelights to refit and she is ready to be tested

 

Good stuff... so when is the MOT then? I'm hoping mine isn't too far away...

Russell.

 

End of this month

I hate MOT's. I think it's because most of the cars I have owned have been sheds so I always get a bit stressed.

 

No castle nut with the replacement track rod links?

 

There wasn't one with mine so I reused the old one and got a new pin

Russell.

 

Quite the transformation this has made, looks like a great car / project. Looks very racer like.

Cheeky initial D slogans on the bumper!

 

Cheers!

 

*Connect 4*

 

I always treat the MOT as a good thing, I'm always looking for ways to improve the car and if the MOT points out something I hadn't spotted then its made my car better / safer... but then I am the eternal optimist!!

Russell.

 

What's the best thing to do just before the MOT is due? A hill climb of course!

OC Summer Nationals. Somewhat unexpectedly, a really really good event!

 

After all the exhaust shenanigans I ended up with a lovely stainless cat back system and a silenced stainless de-cat. That's lovely but I knew my MOT man would be picky about it. The new rules say if it was fitted with a cat then it has to have a cat.

Easy, I hear you say, four bolts and the cat is back on for the day. Except when the cat was taken off all four of the studs were mangled by the process. So my helper (who mangled the studs) volunteered to take it to his machine shop at work and
sort the problem out. I requested that he cut the remains of the studs off, drill out the remains, re-tap the holes, put bolts or threaded rod thru from behind, Tack welding the new studs in place where needed.

It would be fine. The MOT was two weeks away and I had everything else in hand. Oh how wrong I was. The re-drilling took two weeks. I got the cat back the day before I went on holiday and the MOT target had long since slipped past. To add to the
problem the re-drilling had proved so difficult that the drill had slipped and the four holes were now in the wrong places. The holes had however served to remove the remaining studs. So now I had four 'figure 8' shaped holes.

Sod it, I locked it in the boot and went on holiday. Two week cruise around the Med. It was utterly horrible and I couldn't wait to get home! I did get to see the leaning tower of Pisa tho

That was nice.

Halfway thru the holiday came the end of the month. The MOT ran out a few days before we sailed and the tax ran out at the end of the month. I had the presence of mind to take the reminder letter with me. I found some free Wi-Fi in a Burger King in
Gibraltar and SORN'd the car on-line. Don't you just love technology!

Once I was back home the inability to use the car became very boring very quickly. Something had to be done, and fast!

I finished up the last few bits of MOT prep. I hadn't gotten round to sorting the sidelights not popping up because they are in the headlights now and it's a JDM car and I have TSI's with no sidelights issue. So I had to pop the OEM sidelights on.
Except I had smoked those.

A problem that was soon solved by the magic of cellulose thinners.

Next up the dashboard. My custom dash lights up quite literally like Darth Vaders Bathroom. It's not a fail but it would lead to all sorts of painful having to explain it to the MOT man. It's only a handful of screws to swap it over.
So bring on 'Stunt Dash'. I happen to have a complete replacement unit that just happens to have the same mileage as my main dashboard on the odometer (If you don't ask me how that's possible then I won't have to lie to
you).

That's all the easy stuff. The exhaust problem still loomed. A few measurements were taken from another cat and a plan was formed. I drilled out the figure 8 holes into something oversized but circular.
Then I added M10 bolts from behind and got a mate to tack weld them in place.

Top bloke! I bunged him some beers for saving my cat

With that done the heat shield was crimped back into place.

I put my back out on the holiday so my helper popped under the car and fitted the repaired cat for me. Job done, Ready for MOT.

Passed with flying colours

I swapped the dash and the TSI's that evening. My back isn't quite up to changing the cat for the de-cat just yet so that will have to wait.

To celebrate another passing of the MOT I decided to treat her to some shiny bits.

Oh and while on holiday my Much Beloved brought me something very JDM to repair my Air Conditioning.....

Wasn't that nice of her!

 

Nice updates, glad you passed... mine should be through in a few days as well! Anyway enough chat, get those shocks on.. or are you waiting for a visit to Tamworth for that?

Russell.

 

Cheers mate

Might have to wait for Tamworth. I just lent all my axle stands to a mate who's building a disco/90/off road monster something. She takes some supporting!

Anyone know the right length to set the HSD's for level wishbones? Guessing might be a bit time consuming.

 

I've got 4 stands if you need to borrow them.

 

Bloody good thread that mate. Love the "jdm" look and the dash pushes you over into legendary status!

 

Love this car and your thread. Loads of innovative and perfectly executed mods.

Cracking job!

 

Cheers guys

The dashboard seems to be quit a lot more Marmite than I imagined it would be. The majority of people who see it don't seem to get it? Possibly they don't remember the show or just weren't fans of it.
People who do like it seem to really like it a lot . At Prescott some people were going off to find their mates then dragging them to my car and asking me to show them the dash. I'm glad I'm no the only one in the world
that is a little bit odd.

The weather was cheerful enough the other weekend that I could get the suspension swapped. The much beloved went off to of her Steampunk Markets so I had some quality time alone with my spanners. I'd read
plenty of horror stories about the lower shock mount bolt on the rear arms. Captive nuts escaping, cutting holes to get to them, odd shaped spanners, swearing, pleading and crying.

So I broke out the windy gun, sprayed some penetrating fluid on anything that looked like it could do with a squib, and attacked the lower shock mount bolts.....

Straight off the bolts came. No mess, no trouble, no tears. What is all the fuss about?

Potenza On Street! How frikkin JDM is that! Y0! But unfortunately they are made of granite. I sent them off to have the Kanji Translated and it says "Silly Englishman, these shocks will break your spine"

For curiosities sake I stripped the bits off the first HSD

It wasn't that interesting to be fair. A spring and some washer things and some locking collars. Big whoop. So I gave it all a good spray with copper grease. Then I made a bit of a guess at the ride height setting and
slapped them on the car.

The only tricky part was the two nuts on the top mounts on the nearside. Access is very limited due to the two pipes to the fuel tank. I struggled for a while but then gave in and removed both pipes. Then it was easy.

A slight downside is that I can no longer fit my spare tyre. The extended top hat mounts of the HSD's get in the way

I seem to recall there is an offset bracket for the spare tyre for just such a problem? Or did I
make that up in my own head?

Getting the fronts changed was also spectacularly easy.

What wasn't so easy was guessing the front ride height. The first attempt was ridiculous. Far far too low. Looked cool but would have been totally unusable. I aimed for 310mm axle to arch and after three attempts I
got 290mm. I was knackered by this point and couldn't be bothered jacking up the car agaiiiiin and having another go.

Instead I spent a week grazing the bottom of the GV lip on the slightest bump.

It annoyed me a little bit. I know It's totally unreasonable to expect.... but why can't Driftworks include some measurements in the instructions that set you to 320mm rear and 310mm front?
They had a car with a set of HSD's on. I know they did, I've seen the videos. I guess when I get the settings right I will take some measurements and send them to Driftworks.

Thankfully I got an hour to myself this weekend so I took the C spanner to the fronts and got myself back up to 310mm at the front. The rears have settled to about 300mm so that will be a job for another weekend.

It only took a few days to run up the 100 mile run in period on fully soft. So I have set the rear to 8 clicks from soft and the front at 6 clicks from soft. Seems like a good place to start. The improvement over the
Potenza set up is obviously night and day. I'm really happy with the way the car rides and handles. I wouldn't mind some dry weather so I can push it to ten tenths on my usual test drive circuit!

Speaking of dry weather. It's hardtop season. I've never had a hardtop. In fact I have always been very proud of my total lack of hardtop fitting hardware on the car. Hardtops are, of course, used by flaming
great pansies and an MX5 should be driven with the roof down at all times.

Um... Oooops?

Yep I am officially getting old. The thought of another winter combined with my now somewhat less than hole-free soft top obviously weakened my senses whilst reading a hardtop forsale post.

Dammit.... Why did it have to look good too?

It cuts down road noise, it's warm and dry, the rear screen is huge and heated and useful... Brilliant! Maybe hardtops aren't for sissies after all.....

 

Car-PC is due a little upgrade. From a K8055 to a K8055N

(Just nod and smile....)

Obviously it will need a new box!

To the prototyping machine Batman!

That's a win then. I'll check everything lines up on the PCB and if it does I can cut this again from some nice acrylic

 

Home from work and straight into the workshop. A couple of hours of soldering later and the K8055N is ready to be test fitted in the case.

Lovely!

Connect to a USB port on the LAPTOP and......

Nuffink... Diddly squat... Light comes on but no-one home. PC unable to connect. Changed the USB Lead, nope. Change the jumper settings, Nope. Tried a cardigan (no I didn't).

Then realised maybe the new faster chip uses a new faster DLL? Onto the web and grabbed the newest DLL. Replaced the DLL in my control app wot I did write.

Badabing!

I can turn LED's on from the software. Not that exciting until you consider that each relay represents the feed to a relay and relays can turn shizzle on and off in the car. Which is of course what this does in the car.

I need to tweak one hole (matron!) on the case design, print the finished design in acrylic. Then I can take the old K8055 out of the car and replace it with this new whizzy faster K8055N

 

Still, the coolest part is the dash. Wish I had access to a laser cutter.

 

Cheers! Having access to a laser cutter at work is really bloody handy

still hate my job tho

Today I made a quick lunchtime trip to the lazzorr!

I'm very pleased with that. Just got to find time to get it swapped over in the car now!

 

Well what a read through that was from start to finish, that was awesome, I was sitting giggling away to myself with some of it, I think the car looks awesome, the HK stickers are brilliant, the tech is amazing, you got some skills I'll tell you that, and KITT..... AMAZING!! Me and my sister went to see The Hoff at Edinburgh Fringe this year we were mega disappointed at there being no KITT there and to add insult to injury he insisted on singing Broadway Musical hits and his German No.1's haha! I'm still to buy my Mx5/Eunos, going to see 2 on Friday (already been round most of Scotland and North of England searching for a nice un' 6 down so far and still nothing decent) and 1 of the first things I'm buying for it is those shiny HSD's, never dealt with Coilovers before so will be interesting fitting those and guessing ride height etc!! When I seen the part about the onboard computer i was blown away, thats some awesome stuff!! Tip of the hat to you squire, I will keep my eyes on this its blooming amazing

 

Cheers! Give me a shout when you get sorted and get some HSD's on your imminent purchase. I should have figured out the ride height settings by then!

 

Cheers! Give me a shout when you get sorted and get some HSD's on your imminent purchase. I should have figured out the ride height settings by then!

[/quote]

Aye ope' I eventually got my wee Eunos about a 6 weeks ago and got the HSD's whacked on about a week ago, still playing about with ride height and the like, I've got it set a little too low, as much as it looks good, I'm scraping over speed bumps and its getting highly irritating having to come to an absolute crawl to stagger them, and even then with some of them it grounds out going over the top of them, always sounds rather painful, especially since I've got a lovely shiny new Cobalt cat back exhaust on it which is the first thing to catch on the sleeping policemen and the speed bumps

but yeah I'm starting to ramble now so yeah, have you got your height, pre load and damping sorted out yet? Another wee question, where are you measuring you're ride height from.... like when the car is in the air, I originally was doing it just between the spring seat adjuster collar thingy and the height adjustment collar but then thought would be more accurate taking it from the top mount down to height adjustment collar, but still I seem to be out from side to side, so I got it close then once it was pretty close just done it by eye, think I've got it level now, just a tad too low.... I really am rambling now so I shall stop now and leave it at that

Cheers,

Robert

 

A few on here will know that our annual holiday this year wasn't the pinnacle of relaxation. Some highlights include three days in a wheelchair. So we had a little time during the after holiday debrief for the much beloved and I to discuss what we would like to try next year. We've decided to book three weeks off work and drive the MX5 across Europe :thumb:

We have a few months before the next alleged summer so there will be lots of planning done. One of the limiting factors will be "How far can you drive a MK1 MX5 in a day without it hurting so much the next day that you don't want to get out of bed?"

As luck would have it we got a chance to conduct some research this weekend.

The problem : A wedding in Glasgow
The solution : Share the driving/petrol cost with a friend who has a brand-spank-me-lovely-new Nissan Note

A Nissan Note

Not the worlds most exciting vehicle but very frugal on the go go juice and with plenty of leg room in zee rear.

Sorted!

No.... oh no.... not sorted at all....

Lovely friend with a Nissan Note develops bird-flu on the Friday night and cries off on the Saturday morning. Le Socks De Cock! Sacré blue!

This leaves up with three options. 1- Cry off the wedding. Not an option. We've already been given the maximum guilt trip allowed by law by the Groom. Failure is not an option. 2- Take BV's car, share the driving. Not a great plan. BV's car is a 2.7L V6 and if we drive it like Miss Daisy it will give 27ish mpg. Neither of us fancy driving like Miss Daisy. 3- Take my car. Cheaper on fuel but BV isn't on the insurance so I get to do all the driving.

You know the punchline already.....

The furthest I have ever driven in a single sitting/day is from Milton Keynes to Dover. That's 150 ish miles. Takes 2.5 to 3 hours depending on traffic. Birmingham to Glasgow is 300ish miles 5 to 6 hours depending on traffic. (I know someone who did it in 3 hours but he's very silly)

Neither of us are up for this. We'd much rather go back to bed. But the guilt has been applied, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Can I drive to Glasgow, get very drunk, sleep in a hotel, and then drive home.

Game on!

I have never before heard my sat-nav say "In one hundred and fifty miles, leave the motorway". It's really easy to get to Glasgow. Get on the M6 and keep going till there is no more M6. Shame it's such a boring motorway!

Cheers up a bit when you get to Cumbria though!

We even had a few breaks in the weather. Which was nice.

The journey was much less painful than I would have imagined. We came to a definite consensus that attempting it without the hardtop would have been much noisier, colder and generally much more miserable. The addition of suspension that hasn't declared that it's main aim in life is to snap your spine was also a major improvement to the journey.

We stopped at 50 miles for a wee wee break. I actually didn't want to stop as I had just gotten into the groove, so to speak. Unfortunately when a girls got to go then a girl has got to go. With that done I settled down for a longer stint. Keeping a fairly steady 4k revs for an indicated 80MPH (ish) meant that we didn't get into all the fast lane lunacy and made good progress without feeling too stressed. Very middle of the road

By the time we reached the really pretty countryside another stop was called for.

By this time I had all but run out of screen-spit and the car was bloody filthy! They didn't have blue screen-spit. Only PINK! ffs! and only in 5 litre containers that dictated a total removal of all the luggage to try and squeeze the bloody container in the boot. Mixing it with the last bit of blue in the bottle did provide me with a pleasing purple hue of screen-spit. So it wasn't all bad! According to BV pink screen-spit is just right for my car anyway :shock:

(not your usual petrol station scenery)

A few more hours later and we arrived in Glasgow. That's when the sat-nav had some sort of fit. In the end it turned out not to be the sat-nav's fault rather the dark, rain, misery, pain that is called a Saturday night in Glasgow. The junction we wanted had been completely hidden by parked cars. So the sat nav gave us a second option.

Belhaven Terrace Lane.... Ladies and Gentlemen, if you are ever given the opportunity to drive a vehicle other than a tractor or a Sherman tank down this lovely little cobbled backstreet of Glasgow, turn it the F**K down!

Notice from that Google Maps picture that there is no arrow to click to see the journey down the lane. That's because the Google Streetmaps car bottled out.

After 2 minutes I was very much grounded out and playing at being a little Japanese see-saw. BV had to jump out and using her phone for light and some expert puddle to ankle depth measurement techniques guide me thru the hell that was this lane. It worked even better after I impatiently explained to her that "That way" and "Over there" was about as much use as a chocolate tea pot and that if she didn't help herself to some sentences that involved "left" or "right" or some sort of distance measurements that could be related to by a very tired three headed hell hound, then a "falling out" may ensue. (Yes I DID pay for that when we got to the hotel room. The stitches should come out on Thursday) Having lost a few bits of P5 frame rail and exhaust, we arrived at the hotel. Checked in, showered and then went and had many beverages with men in skirts.

*** ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED - Birmingham to Glasgow in an MX-5 ***

(The GPS Log from the car computer on Saturday)

I wouldn't want to do it every weekend. Doing it in nicer weather would be easier. Doing it in bad weather makes you love a hardtop so much that you may get funny looks from passing Glaswegians as you shower your love and affection on it late at night.

It took 6 hours each way. The home leg on Sunday being more painful than the outward journey. Perhaps due in part to the very slight hangover. For the Europe trip I'll be trying to keep daily distances to 4 hours. It was at the 5th hour on each day that I really hit the point of "I don't want to play any more".

I used 80L of fuel. Roughly two full tanks. We did 600 Miles in total. That's roughly 34MPG. Pretty good.

With apologies for length but not for girth :wavey:

 

This is a cool build, I love that cup holder you should sell stuff like that !! The lip looks sick and that car PC is cool

keep it up