TICO the SE

[tomli123001]

The MX5 additon however, never left me.
After huge argument with my wife on this, she finally approved me another 5 after 4 months time.

So the hunt is now on.
Checked out a couple of NB series 1.

Feeling was very very slow and not reving anywhere near my built NA. So I gave them a miss.
I really wanted another NA8, as I could continue on and finish what I started. I also wanted to try out the Bullet Rotrex suparcharge kits tuned by Chiptorque, as it is was designed only for NA8.

However, was very unlucky. And NO good NA8 at all for almost 2 months. The only good one was a silver one local in Brisbane, but the owner wanted $12000 for it. It was advertised here in forum, if you still remembered.

Finally, a 2004 NB came into my view on gumtree
SE was not listed any where in the listing, but racing hart wheels gave away a hint. I quickly rang up the owner, who was an old lady. She did not even know if it was a turbo car or not.

A quick photo of the engine bay confirmed, this is the SE.
At just $14000, with 65,000km on the clock, and absolutely immaculate condition. This got to be a bargin for 2013.

[tomli123001]

Thanks for posting your crash story, it's a sobering one that EVERYONE should read.

I still can't believe you managed to walk away from it. Looking forward to your modz (you've definitely got the bug).

You are very right Simon.

[meanmx]

Wow, great build thread. You were very lucky in that crash and very lucky with the price you picked up the SE for. Look forward to the story continuing.

[tomli123001]

Wow, great build thread. You were very lucky in that crash and very lucky with the price you picked up the SE for. Look forward to the story continuing.

Thanks. I hope some people read it and will drive more carefully. Car have limits and it constantly change due to other external factors such as road and weather conditions.
I thought I knew the roads well and I thought I knew my car well and I had a lot of confidence in the car and I was not speeding.

So people, always safety first. I am just happy I did not end up any worse.

Happened to find a few more photos of my old NA before modifications.

[Jeo]

Whoa!

That's a really well put perspective on an interesting event. Thanks for posting!

[tomli123001]

Ok, so now back to TICO, the SE.
The 1st thing I did was roll bar.

I was tossing around between brown davis, MX5-plus' tall boy and standard and twin hoops.
After seeing all of them in flesh. Here is what I think.

Brown Davis is nice, but it had the cross bar which will abstract some of the rear view.
To my awareness, only Mania is offering them and installs them. But they can NOT engineer mod plate them on site for QLD. I know probably can find somebody afterwards, but I want a complete package, so I did not go down this parth.

MX5 plus is local to me and seems much more reasonable. I have seen the classical twin hoop on Lockiel's car here in person. It is nice. But I felt I need more protection after my incident. So I am tossing between the standard and tall toy in the end.

Jason and David recommended the standard height bar. It had a few advantages over tall boy.
- More backwards when installed, so the seat retain its original recline angle and movement.
- More clearance from the top.

I changed my mind though after seeing John's car (OMG Pham). I am not huge or overly tall at 178cm. So I can actually live with limited movement adjustment. Also when the tall boy is installed, it WILL touch the hardtop roof. However, it can be solved by inserting a foam.

The rally good thing about tall toy also is that the roll bar is pushing the top upwards, whereas the 2 latches are clamping it downwards at the side. The hardtop is in nice tension and more integrated into the car. I believe it will improve the stiffness slightly and reduce the noise of moving around.

[tomli123001]

I know a lot of people will strongly disagree, but I actually had quite got over the open roof sensations after a year, mainly because my wife's huge complaint about the sun (being Chinese, that is. They love white skin, rather than Tan like most of Aussies here)

To be honest, the QLD sun can be hot and I am quite lazy to remove/replace the hard top ever so often. So the car ended up with hard top most of its time. I hence decided to sell the softtop to Clint here, reduce some weight and started having a coupe only car.

In the softtop's place, now has a Mania supplied shelf bag.

[monty007]

Wow, great build thread. You were very lucky in that crash and very lucky with the price you picked up the SE for. Look forward to the story continuing.

Thanks. I hope some people read it and will drive more carefully. Car have limits and it constantly change due to other external factors such as road and weather conditions.
I thought I knew the roads well and I thought I knew my car well and I had a lot of confidence in the car and I was not speeding.

So people, always safety first. I am just happy I did not end up any worse.

Great post tomli123001, this puts everything into perspective.

[tomli123001]

Got to hang out with Lockiel for some car talk.
Ended up buying his old plates, so now on the car.

I think it looks really good.

[sunlightsilver]

Thanks for posting the story of your crash Tom, I know you spoke about it when we met but the one pic you showed me on your phone didn't really tell the story. It really was quite bad.. got me scared of Mt Nebo now! Haha.

Nice plates btw

[tomli123001]

I always thought the stock MX5 looked too big of wheel gap, especially in the rear.
So shopping for some coilovers.

I had yellowspeed in my NA before, which was very crushing feeling from my experience and just seems bottoming out a lot.
This time I want to try BC, recommended by MX5 plus and a few here.

Here are after the install. I think it must be the larger than usual 17" Racing Hart wheels, I can no longer higher the BC by much any further, but it still looks very very low to me in photo, which I do not want that aftermarket look. Oh, well, have to live with it for now.

I think if I put in smaller 15" wheels, it will look nicer with a reasonable wheel gap there, so it does not look too aftermarket. In saying that, I am very happy with my camber, almost stock like, not too much negative or tilting like a lot of COOL NAs I have seen.

Front


Rear


I met with Marc in China from carbonmiata and brought these home.
Just keep in mind, not to claim any car parts to customs. They will charge you 15% (10% GST and 5% export duty on behalf of China. WTF!!!!) duties on arrival, even if for personal use and you do not sell them on. This applies to all body parts and any other car things. Good to keep in mind. I could just tell customs they were some random carbon samples. I think when bringing them in mail, we just got lucky most of times from not paying tax.

Rain rails. Remember to tilt it a bit more from the front to the rear, so water will actually flow along off you. Otherwise, they will still drip down to you from the front area at the tip of the window.


I dressed up the interior a little bit, so TICO can represent the youger side of me and I can be a little bit creative. My wife on the other hand, hates them. haha...


Finally some softer touches over the otherwise boring 10 year old hard plastic.

leather covers with new red stitches. I have got a spare set also. Can sell if somebody wants to offer.



Dash cover


Seat belt cover


Vent chrome centre from I L motorsport

[tomli123001]

Thanks for posting the story of your crash Tom, I know you spoke about it when we met but the one pic you showed me on your phone didn't really tell the story. It really was quite bad.. got me scared of Mt Nebo now! Haha.

Nice plates btw

No worries. Clint. Just be careful when up there. I think Track is much safer for spirited driving. But Mt Nebo is still great fun for casual run around.
In saying that, the amount of bikes especially crashed every month is quite a few.

I just hope it had road fences or curbs like what Great Ocean road or even Mt Cootha have.

[sunlightsilver]

Yeah after the small accident I had I've not been so spirited with my driving anymore..

I had to learn the hard way, I hope no one has to go too far to learn some sense

[tomli123001]

Just a report on the BC.
They are very very nice quality in both build/finish and ride comfort.

Nowhere near as harsh as yellow speed and do NOT bottom out or feel crushing. Highly recommended for the price.

In regards to suspension tuning, I settled at 10 front and 8 rear. It gives a slight understeer at limit and gives a smooth transition into oversteer after with some power.
Everybody will be different, due to wheel/tyre combo, PSI run, and fron/rear sway bar combo and even chasis reinforcement.

The best thing to do is keep a setting record book on hand. I started with factory default setting by manufacturer. I think 8/6 in most cases.
Then record chasis mods and tyre pressure.

After driving a while, make BIG changes. i.e. you need to feel and understand the changes made.
Then make BIG chagnes again to the other extreme. You will now know exactly what the shocks limits are.
I then went back to a mid point, before finally making fine adjustments to my final liking.

I used a round about at an industrial area during the weekend to do this, so I can push the car at corning and the over/understeer feeling is quite easy to feel and tell.
Correcting an oversteer can be nervous, but fun.

Just do NOT hang around for too long. COPs are getting good at this type of thing. In saying that I did not exceed the speed limit there either.

[MrRevhead]

I have your old (well, not that old when you sold them to me ~1000kms) Yellow Speeds.

Great handling, but I do find them harsh (16F 12R settings). I do run them quite low as well, with 11.75-12 inch hub centre to fender.

Good to know the comparison vs the BC,

Love the stance/look and also the handling, but Sydney roads are sh*t and at times, I wish they were more cushy whilst also providing the aesthetic look I want.