mx5cartalk.com

I'd just rebuilt the FJ20ET in my Skyline and gotten it back on the road after spending mot of the year in my shed when a mates younger brother messaged me out of the blue asking if I'd like to swap it for his MX5. I wasn't toooo keen on the idea because I'd spent a year searching for a decent DR30, and had wanted one for a looong time.




I'd just moved into the city centre though and was getting a bit paranoid about driving a really loud Skyline on semislicks through town every day, so I started entertining the idea and reading up on MX5's. Dad has always had Triumph TR's and I was even on the TSOA committee for a coupe of years, so I was no stranger to convertibles and sports cars, and the MX5 seemed to have most of the qualities I like about old sports cars (very little safety crap, more about te overall experience than going fast in a straight line and quite modifiable) though it doesnt have the \"will it start\" lucky dip that adds so much to each drive lol.

So I took him up on the swap and discovered I'd picked up a 110,000km '93/94 (built in '93, complied in '94) Clubman. Score!





It was very nice, completely stock, perfect apart from a couple of shopping trolley dents in the passenger door. Within a week or two I'd ordered a set of EBC Greenstuff pads front and rear after discovering the stock pads really didnt like to be pushed much at all (and in the first week I had it there was a LOT of late night stupidly balls to the wall hills drives) and a set of lower Kings springs because we thought it would look better if it was a bit lower. Fitted them and had it wheel aligned, didnt hugely like the result, though I cant quite remember why, I think it felt crisper beforehand and that the alignment made it feel like the back was turning in differently or something.

Went to a R31Club dyno day and Michael Coppola brought his Clubman aswell and his made well more power than mine, and felt much stronger when he took me for a ride, so we adjusted my timing then the next day I went and bought one of those covered cone pods (his car was \"stock\" apart from a Loch Stewart intake, though I later discovered he had a NB engine in it, no wonder it made 8kw more than mine). I used the bottom half of the stock airbox to mount the pod on.



I found an exhaust for sale on here that was off a crashed NA6 race car, so went down to buy that and ended up also buying a set of BuddyClub P1 wheels aswell, but didnt have any cash for tyres so just stored them, same with the exhaust.



I'd liked Mike's sidemounted plate so I made one aswell.





From a tuna can lid... It worked much better than the rivetted and measured one my cousin made for my car a week later.

A few months later I let my cousin have a drive late one night, he was doing well when he was going fast, I just had to keep reminding him that it had nowhere near the grip that his car does and to drive it by feel. The roof was up because he is a sissy, but that turned out to be quite lucky. He'd backed right off and was just cruising slowly on what has to be the best surfaced road in the hills, with lots of corners, but a bit of a drop into fields on one side. He'd been in the car when I'd had a lock-up coming into hairpins quie a few times, but a simple dab off then on with the brakes always cured that. He came into a left-hander, there was a bit of gravel on the entry to the corner, he locked up then left his brake foot flat against the firewall as his little ABS brain made him do the wrong thing, we went across the road, up a gentle embankment.... and into a farmers 5 strand wire fence, at an angle. Took out a couple of the fence posts, got tangled in the wire, smashed the drivers mirror off (which ended up 20 metres away from the car hahaha) into the drivers window before it rebounded, the wire strands sratched pretty much every panel, scraped paint off the corners of the front bar, took the aerial off and looking at the angle from the top of the windscreen to where the scraped the back guard, if the roof had been down he would have copped a strand in the head and done a Jayne Mansfield. It also cracked the top of the radiator, and the lower wires got stuck on my sidemounted number plate so much so that the ripped into the front bar below it. We got it back onto the road, decided it hadn't lost much water, got contact details for the bloke whose fence he'd just destroyed, then limped the car back to his house, and amazingly basically didn't lose any water from the radiator in doing so.

He was quite appologetic and lent me his BMW to get home, then I came back the next day and we went hunting for a new window, radiator and mirrors. We'd been planning on putting bike mirrors on it anyway, so got a set of repro Hayabusa mirrors (same as he'd fitted to his Hayabusa actually) and made plates to fit them. We got the window and radiator from a wreckers and fitted them that day/night, so after I got back from work that night it was ready to just fill with coolant and drive home. Except the coolant all leaked out... Crack in the bottom of that radiator. So I took the BMW home again. Next day we went back to the wreckers to swap the radiator over and out the back I found a set of Black Racing 14 inch rims which were going cheap because they were bright red.

We fitted the radiator, took the exhaust off and went to put the NA6 race car one on but discovered that it was bent, so I drove down to the exhaust shop with nothing behind the cat. Car didnt run too well like that lol. They straightened the offending bend and fitted the system, then we took the car and the red wheels to the Bridgestone dealer, bought two new tyres and had the two old fronts swapped onto the red rims.



The red was a bit strong for my liking, so I took the wheels off one at a time, cleaned them then hit them with $2 spray cans. And bought a new camera the next day whih necessitated going looking for places to take photos

Next thing was a fire extinguisher which we made a slick carpeted mounting bracket for





Then I got the BuddyClub P1's shod with some Yoko A539's. 15x7 +17. Guards needed a bit of an impromptu rolling on the rear on the side of the road in the hills with a green tree branh, that worked really well with no paint cracking. Until we got home and decided to go over it with a pipe... bad idea





Bought some more wheels, Weds Sport 14x6 +20



Found a strut brace at a wreckers



Some time around here I ordered new plates, kind of wish I hadn't now as they make it stand out a bit. Also we'd sanded the top layers of paint back on every panel, filled most of the shopping trolley dents and stripped as much paint as possible off the front bar because we were planning on respraying the car to get rid of the deep scratches. But that didnt happen so one cold winter morning I decided to hit the pink bogged dents an the front bar with a can of white spray paint to make it look a bit less ghetto. Didnt quite work... A warm day and some masking would have been a better idea lol.

Bought some Volks 15x6.5 +19 and a front lip, and the group buy on the clear indicators and reflectors





The famous Voodoo group buy was next.



After umming and ahhing over whether I should get a rollbar due to the close proximity of my head to where the bar would sit I bought Alfadog's spare NB Bond Davis. Also swapped some 15 inch Watanabes I had left over from my Skyline for some 14x6 +14.5 ones for the MX5.





Recently ordered a set of Stance GR+ coilovers from the US, can't wait to get these in.





Next.... Hardtop, maybe some more power, maybe some more adjustable suspension bits. Probably more wheels.

gosh you writing a book?

so is the Clubman the best car you've owned? interesting that Mike C has a NB engine in his... wasn't his car somewhat critisized by Wheels (or was it Motor) magazine for not quite having the same response & power as the NB in the NA/NB/NC comparison article?



is that light tube going to be intstalled undercarriage with the coilovers??

It was criticised for being over-sprung with the Bilstein/Eibach combination. I dont know how they ould have criticised his powerwise, it felt like it was on the verge of wheelspin through the low gears and in corners

i lost count with how many wheels you've bought/been thru haha good read though!

Stance are now in, just need to set the heights up now

Volks are back because I managed to get TWO flats on the watanabes in about 15km of driving since I put them on

Bike mirrors are off, finally found another drivers side electric window.

Love the mirrors esp the white one...

volks look tuff!

I reckon I was following your Stagea the other day on Pulteney St

Shhhhh! dont say it too loud,people shouldnt know I drive a jap volvo
Indeed could have been me tho!

Have you still got the P1's? and that fabled room full of jap wheels...

oh and did you lil bro mention I sent him a msg telling him the woes of Aristos...

P1's are gone As are the Weds

My brother is weird, he won't even tell me how much he's paying for it. How on earth do you know him though?

New bits this week

So far I've had a friend pick up ES86's old SSR Mk2's, and I picked up a hardtop tonight. But its electric blue, so that will have to change at some point.

But OMG driving with a hardtop is soooo much nicer than the soft-top!!

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