I didn't really know when I would start this but today and today's events seemed like a good place to start.
This is my car...





At the track as often as I can with it, nothing competitive just sprints.




At Lakeside in Brisbane...


and Morgan Park in Warwick...


This one is actually my third red NA, but more on that later. (keen observers may note I warned that you'd need to keep up with all the red car's when I introduced myself!)

This one we've had since November '15. It was put together by a friend of mine (tbro on this forum) for Production Sports racing and I can't take any credit for the work on building this car or the motor. So generally I feel a bit lucky to have a car with so much work since I hadn't been able to swing building a motor myself yet. It is currently our only car so it gets driven everywhere every day, and I'm not too gung-ho with it at the track because of that.

In a nutshell the car is what is in the signature. I have a spec list that Terry wrote up I can lay on you, but I don't know what power the car makes. Details of whats in it will emerge as I document fiddling with it. It's nice and torquey over a stock car without being tuned to fragility which makes it good for both the road and the track.

Enough jibber jabber. What happened today...

 

wow! clean!

 

Today was a track day.. woo! yeah! I love that club days are always on a Monday because it means I have the added bonus of it being a day off from work.

Not thinking I'd be able to this weekend, I did a bit of a service last weekend, oil and filter, checking that the brake rotor and pad change was behaving itself etc. Noted that the diff was leaking a bit of oil from one of the side seals, not a shitload, but hey, something to fix on this car that otherwise just goes!

During the week procured new diff seals to fix this weekend, but I also had a new squeaky noise start from the left front. Couldn't place it... another thing to add to this weekend list.

Diff seal... I think with this style of half shaft you can't take it out without also taking apart the upright? Torsen 2 diff, 4.44. Anyway fearing messing with the alignment by making a big deal out of it, I decided to refresh its oil instead for the moment and deal with the seal post track day. Onto the squeak investigation...

Mother. ******.


We're not short of a few MX5's in the yard and the general rule is working or not, if its been parked there for half an hour its officially parts until it moves again, so I go to rip one out of another car. I didn't realise until I was most of the way removing it that they are spot welded to the chassis. It didn't seem too tricky to get in there and drill it out, but it means radiator removals to fit drills and we have another rule that any time estimation you have to multiply by 3 (because with us that is always true), and I just wasn't sure that it would get done without going late, and I can't stand emergency rushing to get to the track. I like **** to be not rushed.

So instead of driving, today I fixed it.

Drilled out the welds and removed part from donor car.


There looked to be enough room to drill with the stock radiator so I left it there but I did mess up some fins a bit, so took out the big radiator in my car. So much room in a car with no aircon or power steering faaark.. maybe I don't want to put those in this car!


Except for the odd shithouse bolt it went back together ok and all is well again.
However I'd like to change to the heavy duty box mounts. I had a google and it seems there's really just the AWR ones and everybody sells those unless I'm missing something. Not especially cheap.. might be worth attempting a group buy for us stuck in the **** end of the world.

 

AWR is nice stuff, but if you have the ability/access to proper tooling, I would just make a set.

 

I have the awr mounts and they work great. But it sucks when having to remove the front upper control arms as the long bolt is then blocked. You have to remove the radiator and mounts or drop the subframe to get to the arms out.

 

Future me doesn't like the sound of blocking off long bolt access. They don't come out often but I know they'll have to at some point, and it seems like the AWR's are a snug fit to put it mildly.

I've now also come across the Racing Beat kit with the blocks you put in between and a brace... its a bit cheaper. Maybe designing and tooling a set is a good option, perhaps its possible to make one that still allows for long bolt removal, so will ponder that.

 

+1 on the Racing Beat Sway Bar Brace Kit, cheap, easy to install and even handled multiple track days with a 1.25" OD Racing Beat sway bar on my NB (which I think has even dinkier mounts than the NA).

MINX has also used these on his car for years with a 1.125" Racing Beat sway bar so you know they work.

I bought the AWR mounts too, but like you, didn't like the idea of screwing up long bolt access so never fitted them.

 

Potted history of the red fleet...

First was a '91 bought in 2009.


Amongst other bolt on mods, tried the make the suspension work but it didn't really, too low, too much rake, too stiff and horrible.

Bit of a bingle so we gave painting a go. Acrylic and it turned out fair but a bit of orange peal. Decided I loathe painting, way too many fumes.


Still got to eat!


Loved the Artworks Dewa stuff so had to have ones that popped up


The most significant thing for me with this car was a fantastic road trip Brisbane to Melbourne and back. I diverted us through an extensive twisty path over a week and it was driving bliss. Cemented my love for the roadtrip and for driving MX5's allllllllll day.





Upon return my friend was finally convinced he should have one, so early 2011 he bought me an NA8 with aircon (roadtrip was the height of summer and the lack of aircon was front of mind) and the NA6 went to him.



Paint on the NA8 was not outstanding, and motor turned out to be not so great so swapped it and the interior which was a bit crap too.
By this time the business I worked for had sold the company and shut down the work here, and we ran away with an outstanding deal on the two post hoist we used to film underneath cars, so life in the garage became infinitely better.




Moar Dewa.


Sometime in there another friend moved back from the US and bought himself a turbo NA6 we know as the Turbonator.
I was able to do more trackdays at this point. Added Yellowspeed coilovers which were fine on track but horrible on the road.



The NA6 had become a trackday car with some better suspension, big brakes and a Kaaz diff, but wasn't getting driven very often.


Last year got to hit the road again for a week or so. MCA coilovers made the car a lot better on the road and still pretty good on track but not a stiff setup. Exhintake mod for funsies.


Set a cracking time of about 7m30s at Mount Panorama.


Things were going well with the car. It only failed me one time blowing a spark plug out on the freeway not too far from home.


Last year I prepared for some major activities... bought an LSD, cams for the VVT motor that had been laying around two years, an Adaptronic and Wideband and a second set of wheels for the sticky stuff... I was going to get **** done.

Instead I experienced the first proper binning at the track.


A bit disheartened but didn't dally about and bought into the considerable upgrade that is the current car. Hooray!

Convinced Josh that he's never going to drive the NA6 enough to keep it as a road car, and that we should merge the bits from the NA8 and the VVT motor into the big braked NA6, so I'll get to that as soon as I can stop having to fix the turbonator all the time.

 

Back at Morgan park this weekend.
Foggy start to the morning


Bunch of other cars that thought they'd try it on.


Here's some of the full track there, really like the long one

4 second improvement on the last time on this circuit aww yis, but I think I was less brave on the brakes.

I can hear and feel a bit of creaking when the car is really loaded up like going round the big left hander along the cement wall so the sway bar brackets aren't that happy... consequence of a really big bar but not that stiff on the spring.
So a more permanent solution to the sway bar brackets, and suspension in general.

 

I've just realised I linked the wrong video in that last post from Morgan Park, it was the same one from the first post. Fixed.

Recent activity include more track day at Lakeside and Morgan Park.

Always now preceeding the day and when I start at Lakeside I tell myself not to push it, as it has close barriers and is where I killed the last car, so it generally takes all day to go fast. On the last lap of the day I posted a 1:05.6, a 1.5 second improvement on the last time out.


At Morgan Park was able to practice a little wet weather, but took it very easy. I forgot crucial GoPro mounting components this time unfortunately :(


Attended a skidpan to learn how to skid. I'm very **** at skidding.
Have now ripped the other sway bar mount so thats the next thing to fix.

 

Well this should fix the sway bar problem.


Lokiel mentioned in the thread earlier he had AWR mounts he hadn't used, so I nabbed them from him... and an RB one as well because options! But went with these.

They fit quite easily with only a little massaging and didn't even need modification of the radiator support bracket, which I was expecting.

 

I like red Miatas. We installed the AWR swaybar mounts in our car because it's the easiest way to get NA8 sway bars into NA6 chassis when doing a BP motor swap but I hadn't thought about the conflict with removal of the upper control arm long bolt. That means my next shock/spring install is going to take a little more effort than usual.

 

I was worried about that too but PO reminded me that the bushes had been done before, and unless I break the car I don't think I'll have to take the arms out anytime soon (touch wood)

The box mounts did install with much less persuading than I was expecting... practically none, which may mean they aren't that difficult to take off either... one can hope!

 

The day before the car was due to be put on a truck for the interstate move, the penny must have dropped for it about what was happening because it promptly started to complain about it.



This took the whole day out... proceeded to get tyre fixed but in doing so the shop somehow broke the valve stem on the wheel and couldn't source another... it was a day of back and forth across the city moving wheels about. I had to leave my beautiful ugly wheels in Brisbane and the car copped the indignity of some stockies for the trip.



The complaining must have continued for the whole journey because when the car arrived in Adelaide the truckie reported that it wouldn't start. Sure enough, it absolutely wouldn't. Due to its fairly rudimentary tune, it seems no one was really able to keep the car going while cold, and excessive cranking had been the result.



New plugs and the car started right up.

Purchased daily... and they are a bit harsher on modified cars here, so haven't been driving the MX5 much.

I love this Subadoo, it has magic technologies and can carry things!



On the plus side, maybe I'll keep going with removal of unnecessaries towards full racecar status!

Finally got the behemoth of a laptop connected to the Microtech to try and extract the data to help transfer to something not of the stone age. Have to have the car running to access the ecu via laptop, and you can't download or upload tunes with this thing. I need to change!!



Have new race seat because the Sparco Sprint is awful, however will need to get rails welded to the brackets perhaps to fit it... new holes would be right on the edge of the bracket. I really need to keep rails to move the seat for the buddies, and really don't want to stick in naff universal rails.



4 months later and I finally got to the track. There isn't the weight in MX5 numbers for them to have their own days, so its a conglomeration of different car clubs, which is cool as there is a heap of different cars.

I wasn't particularly fast of course but there's some interesting different challenges to the track. This track has several 2nd gear corners meaning multiple downshifts, and so my complete lack of ever learning to heel-toe is showing On the upside, there's lots of launching out of corners in 2nd gear with the revs high and the car likes that.



The mechanical temp gauge shook itself dead on the third lap, hence my slowdown and coming in early on lap 4 when I noticed. I get very worried if temp things aren't working, but the car was fine.



In the afternoon I wasn't faster. The 888 tyres are done I think. New rubber next.

Harry's Laptimer is fun even though a phone isn't super accurate! I need to spend a bit more time trying to get the data to present properly in editing with the video... I could get the speedo consistently for example, but laptimes don't seem to be translating well.

 

Have moved back to Queensland. From the car point of view this is great as I can work on it again with a hoist and better tools!

Also because it spent 99% of its time in Adelaide like this;


Super high on the priority list is to get things sorted for the Adaptronic I have laying about and to dispense with the Microtech.

Replaced the dead mechanical temp sensor and gauge.


Replaced thermostat with one without an extra hole so that it comes up to temp better.


Replaced cam cover gasket to fix oil leak.

Added idle air control valve to afford tuning that better, still to be wired.

Installed WB02 wiring and gauge. Mostly straightforward but was wired in to accessory rather than switching power and on recommendation from a buddy it should be rewired to switching. Sensor is ready to go in but will hold off on that til its time for the ECU to go in, because all it will do til then is cop loads of exhaust crap from the stupid rich Microtech tune it has (doesn't use the O2 sensor currently its just in there to fill the bung).

It's a bit of a wiring nightmare behind the tombstone with the mechanical murphy system but its all good


Lots of crap got unplugged particularly to get the reroute spacer in and out, but put all back together and the car started. Two things became apparent now that everything is cleaned up.

Reroute hardline has a little leak from being old and corroded.


One of the temp sensors in the spacer started wigging out affecting AFR. We thought it was dodgy wiring at the sensor and connector so did some resoldering and cleaning things to try and fix it to no avail. Discovered much later:


Oh right. Fixed.

Got a day in at Morgan Park plagued with aforementioned grounding-woe-not-yet-discovered but still managed to go 3 seconds faster.
Lost my GoPro so the onboards are gooorrrrn but had a mate there filming with a real camera for funsies.



So almost there for Adaptronic . Rewire Wideband. Wire up idle air. Have a new reroute hardline made up. Have buddy moch up a map for the Adaptronic based on what info I could rip out of the Microtech. Plug in Adaptronic.

 

Pinion seal in the diff was noticed to be leaking after the last track day. Took the diff to a shop for the reco as it sounded complex and we didn't have the right measuring tools anyway.
Returned diff went in but didn't sound good (vid might be a bit loud)...


Drained new oil that had been in there for about 10kms of driving or running on the hoist.


Lots of flecks in the oil and a few little shards.
Back to the shop it has gone
I forgot about the m.net diff R+R page and reading it back I'd have rather spent the dosh on the tools needed to set it myself.

 

Diff fixed. Last trackday the car performed great so everything I've fixed seems to be staying fixed. (Still no video, GoPro got losted and I haven't replaced it yet)
I'm onto a new set of AR-1 tyres so we'll see how that goes.


Wideband got rewired.
A couple of things remain before swapping computer at laaaaaast...
wire in the IACV connector
I bought some 640CC FlowForce injectors from Beavis' store. It seems daft to go to this effort with a proper tune and remain on the old injectors.
So that'll be a large day swapping the injectors and attempting to basetune the Adaptronic in one go.

In other news,the Turbonator has undegone quite some transformation. The story of this thing is just... random and wacky. I can't adequately convey the ludicrousness and its not my car so it is limited by my outside perspective. Suffice to say, hopefully this car's day on track will come
I can try to answer questions about this car as best I can... its clearly way more interesting than mine haha.







In other other news, there are two other cars here that need to become one car. Exhibit A is an NB8A, mechanically very solid but the body is shitbeaten now in ways that are not easily remedied on body parts that are not bolt on. Exhibit B is a reasonably presentable NA but with an auto. We wish to put the heart of the NB8A into the NA body.

I've got 'most' of an understanding of the main things that would have to happen in order to do this from the VVT into NA megathread content, and threads on NB interior swaps and the like. My pals seem dubious when I suggest that it might be much easier to lift the NB body off and drop the NA body on rather than swap just the motor and box and fiddle with the rest. Both avenues are a bit of work, but it seems the main pinch points will be wiring rather than mechanical. Am I wrong to suggest this course of action?

 

Still here! **** do get crazy when you have offspring holy crap.

Anyway.
The car has been getting pretty weird for a while mostly due to age. CAS went off, battery went off, an injector got gammy, and I was missing track opportunities as a result. I was getting into the wiring and finding it more hacked up than anticipated. I'd dodgily connected the Adaptronic to make sure it worked but didn't get the car to start, and I really don't have the electrical skills to sort out wiring with the existing loom looking so bad.

What even is this now


I did manage to cut off the old car connector and get a new one on there... though I didn't get the wires soldered to the connector, they were just held on with the heatshrink See I really shouldn't be left to this electrical business.




In March last year I took the car to an MX5 dyno day and was happy to discover it made pretty much the same power it did when first tuned a bit before I purchased the car... which told me at least that I hadn't made the car worse driving it to work everyday for 4 years on a fairly basic WOT tune




It resolved me to sort out the elephant in this car which is that Mircotech ECU. Too old and no one would really want to work with it anyway.

So chatting to the shop who did the dyno day I bit the bullet and bought a Haltech Elite 750 and a Haltech loom to replace the engine loom in the car.
Then I bought Flowforce 640cc injectors, a new TPS, new IAT sensor, and new connectors for everything engine related.
Then... I had to wait a year as my 2020 tax return got consumed by daycare needs... the greater gooooood. Oh well, you get that.

So in August this year I dropped the car back with them to install the lot and tune the car, and a couple of weeks ago I got it back.




A flex fuel sensor as well cos I'd be an idiot not to do that now.


Didn't make any more power on 98 but the e85 bump is welcome.



It has an IACV too now so I have the magical ability to idle from cold on its own. I don't even know what it feels like on e85 yet because I'm an idiot and filled it with 98.



I never noticed this before but its actually an MT-8 not an LT-8, and I just found out that the MT is an older one that could only be tuned with the hand controller thingy and not a laptop. Well that explains a lot since I couldn't seem to discern any difference when I changed things in the laptop software.

I did book a day at Morgan Park track with a friend hoping that my car would be ready but it fell the week before, so we took the turbonator that has also gone through some further evolutions. They call it Remus now but whatever, you'll always be the turbonator to me pet.



~360hp, somewhat under 900kg, bimmer geabox. Way easier to drive than I thought it would be but the gearbox takes some getting used to. We were oh so slow with it but lots of fun and the car worked flawlessly all day up til we wore down a tyre to the cords, but they'd done a race day once before so that was a fair cop. No onboards because I am a forgetful ********.


Back to this track with my car November 2.

 

Got to fang my car at Morgan Park for the first time in two and a half years wooo.



A few brought a valid point to my attention about having a hans if I am goign to use a harness, and they are right. I need one and now. At least this track isn't a concrete trap.

It was a fairly perfect day with good wether conditions and the car feels really excellent again. Particularly tyres and brake pads were really fkn good being the first long circuit day I've been able to use these ones... AR1s and a Forza pad. I *definitely* bought these pads because it has the same name as a cool car game, and not because my brakes dealio no longer has the pad I used before.

The most valuable thing from the day was having a couple of better driving friends drive the car. Matt has a rather nicely sorted e85 drinking 2.0L ND and I thought he would find my car pretty shabby. I let him loose for a few laps and he came in quite tickled so I went out as a passenger with him. A great thing it is to see what your car is capable of and what more progression I have to go as a driver. Essentially car has more grip than I realise so I should just bring more *****, but also a little suspension fiddling was done and that has helped make some of my challenging corners better.

Only car issue exhibited was oil temperatures climbing a little higher than it used to, though coolant was rock solid. Oil temps ease off as soon as you get off it, but it needs investigating.





I didn't tell him to do his best Steve McQueen face, he's just like that.


Photos panning with car at speed work better when you are more perpendicular to the movement, but it was fun to try.

 

Oh this is great! I really like the sound of your car there. What is all done to it at this moment? I saw earlier pictures with the intake into the cowl. Is it still that way? Definitely a nice bump on e85, maybe I should look into that after all