mx5cartalk.com

Hi all!

Here is a quick story on how this came about.

December 2009

I’ve been a Starlet GT owner for 5 years now however, after years of driving daily driving the starlet as well as doing numerous track days in it, I felt it was time to retire the GT as a daily and turn her into the more dedicated track car.

With that in mind I set out to buy a rear wheel drive daily and back up track car. ;)

I initially started out looking for a Suzuki Cappuccino, the car I had lusted after for many years. There was 1 for sale but I couldn’t justify the ($15000!!) price tag.

2nd car in line was an mx5.

I confess, I’ve never been a long time or die hard mx5 fan like the bf had been. I'd always thought they were too girly to be honest! However (due to a dead engine in the GT) I was presented with the opportunity to drive his mx5 around for a week and I suddenly knew why everyone raved about them. The car was a bit on the slow side but DAYUM was it fun to drive!

So with that, I set about looking for my own mx5. The car had to have the following daily features:

- Power steering
- Air conditioning
- Hard top
- Good condition (low kms, well looked after)
- DEFINITELY NOT RED IN COLOUR

Without further adieu, I present you with the reddest mofo you’ve ever seen.





Whilst I'm not a fan of the colour of the car, it was the best condition one on the market (during my extensive 1 week carsales search ) so I figured it’d be silly to pass it up based on its colour. Just in case you were wondering, I wanted a white one. ;)

I've dubbed these two clowns Team RoadSTARlet.



As this is the daily, plans are very modest and will include the usual: rims, coilovers and trackdays.

Why is this car called M&M? Because here it is next to the other one. How embarrassing!




Ps: I've since come to like the red haha.

Ooo, nice Starlet, and 5! Welcome to the obsession.

One of those cars is very beautiful, and the other one is red

Jules

nice and welcome!

Lots of current and previous owners of starlets come to the mx5 bandwagon

na6 or 8?

Very fitting the blokey one is the big yellow M&M and the petite red one is the girl

Welcome to the club
Cheers
Dale

Sounds like a solid purchase. Best of luck and welcome.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! It's a 1990 na6.

February 2010

06.02.10 Mazda track prep brake day!

Purchased from Yahoo Japan (thanks to Jesse Streeter) I have used these pads previously on the tart. They were great on the track, minimal dust and squeal.



The front rotors that were on the car when I purchased it just passed rwc. The tester recommended I get replacement rotors asap.
New vs Old. They were rusted on something fierce. Happy Gilmore style hammer attacks may or may not have been involved.



MPS 3 front rotor vs MX5 front rotor. Yes, his rears were also larger than my fronts!



Woohoo! I haven't changed many brake pads in my time, but the rear mx5 ones were especially annoying!



13.02.10 The weight of the world.

The scales round up to the nearest 20. The red one (hardtop) came in at 1000kg, the yellow one (softop) was 980kg.



19.02.10. There is some gum stuck to your shoes...

Got my 'track' alignment done @ Traction and Tyres. I used alignment settings I found on this forum by Charlie Brown (I think). Thanks, it was a very useful article!

While I was there, got them to swap my rims over too. Lucikly starlets and mx5's share the same pcd. On go the starlet track rims!

It's not as easy as the starlet. You can't just throw 12 tyres into the back.

The solution is 3 in the passenger seat + 1 semi deflated tyre in the boot.

20.02.10 Sneeze Inc. Track day.

My first track day in the 5!I wasn't really sure what to expect going from turbo FWD to na RWD. I estimated between 1:55 and 1:52. For reference the starlet did a 1:44.







I managed a PB of 1:52.4.

Heres the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzTwRcdn_sU

Excuse the messy lines. I’m still working it out.

I really felt the difference from a car that is built out of the factory to handle vs a hatch with bolt on goodies to make it handle. It's alot easier than the starlet to drive this thing fast through corners.

Whats next:

I initially thought the body roll on this car would be an issue that was exposed on track day, but the car felt great and planted through all the corners. Suspension has been put lower down on my priority list now. I don’t need it yet, I feel I can still improve and do better times as it is now.

What has moved up higher into the priority list is the need for a good bucket seat. I was fighting to stay in the driver’s seat through the sweeper. The bruise on the outside of my left knee is testimony to that!

Thanks to Laura, Drew, Dan, Kam and Seamew for the pics.

Thanks for reading

To avoid partly deflating one of your tyres, i remember seeing this post discussing a method for carrying 4 wheels to the track as perfected by manga_blue:

http://mx5cartalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=35076&hilit=track+wheels

Thanks for the link GS! That will be quite useful in the future .

And the last catch up post to bring me up to date.

07.03.2010 There I fixed it.

Between Friday and Saturday this weekend. I somehow managed to purchase 2 sparco seats. Long story short, the old style sparco sprint seat found it's way into my car. I can barely see over the dash now but I love it!

08.03.2010 OTR Track day

This was the weekend of hail! Unfortunately the cars suffered minor hail damage. Damn you freak Melbourne weather!

The violent weather continued on our death defying drive up to Benalla. The hume was flooded in some areas and we passed cars that had ended up in ditches, trees and rivers. Needless to say, we expected track day to be a wash out but the PB gods smiled down on us instead!

New PB 1:50.0880



D-Mag has since told me that the record is 1:50 in a stock NA6 with street tyres. I'm now more motivated than ever to break into the high 1:40's. Unfortunately next track day is a while away in May.

New wheels due to arrive in April though!

Thanks for reading!

Good job Wokstar, you sound like your really enjoying that new car of yours
Cheers
Dale

Hi everyone,

Apologies for the late posts!

05.05.10 Well equipped.

After a 6 month wait (thanks customs!), my wheels finally arrived!




And to Christen them, I went for a drive.



23.05.10 Exe Track day.

Red doesn't always go faster.

Due to sloppy driving by myself, I failed to get a PB. Race chrono tells me that every single sector and corner I was slower than I had been at the last track day. The only explanation for this is that I've become complacent and/or worse at driving!

So that was a bit of a wake up call for me. After eating some fail cake and talking to a friend he reminded me: "You're forgetting that it's meant to be fun!"

And he's right! Next time Gadget!

Best time on the day was a 1:51.0580

Thanks to Mugsee for the pic!

LOVE equips. whats the spec?

hey the mx5 club has a track day up at winton on the 8th of august, would be great to see you there!

Oh snap. Very nice man.