mx5cartalk.com

Hi guys,

This is my garage thread but its being started 9 years after i got my car and 8 years after i started to modify it. Sadly i havent taken enough photo's over the many years ive spent modifying my buzz box so you might have to use your imagination at times when you read my mixed up thread. Here is a few photo's to kick it off.

it took me about 12 months before the urge to tinker with things bit me. It started out with a strut brace, a mania cold air intake and extractors a few months after the first two.


check out the extension job on the o2 sensor wiring

Nice car! Just curiois as to the plates do they mean anything to you or is a nickname?

Thanks narita :-) the plates ccome with the car (to my delight). I have always said they stood for Mazda MX 5. unless some one has a better suggestion???

When i got the car it was dead stock, but it come with leather, mx5 sill plates and hard top. It had 60105km on it. One day a bunch of mates and some strangers went on a cruise from the coast to bathurst, did a few laps then threw our cars on the dyno. I was pretty happy with my results for a stocker on a very hot day.



After that day, the urge to modify got to me and ive been hooked ever since. One thing i decided early on was whatever i did to my car, i had to live with it on a daily basis, i would like to have a go at doing stuff myself and if possible try and do things a little different to the mainstream.

As previously mentioned the intake, strut brace and extractors were done. extractors were a pain to fit my self,but i figured i may as well learn about my car and save the cost of some one else fitting them. 8hrs later This was all good, but i wanted more. So i saved my some coin and got a 2.25in exhaust, hi flo cat and xforce muffler put on. Didnt my car sound and go good now :-) drove from hornsby back to the coast with no roof or music and the 2nd biggest grin a 20 year old could have in a sports car. Went to a dyno day the next day didnt i. I was really happy with what i saw, felt and heard from my little buzz box 1 day after the exhaust was done.



Then one day i had an accident in the buzz box, trail bike pulled out in front of me at 30km/h. No one was seriously hurt, but my then girlfriend, myself and the other person were pretty shaken.








The accident and other things in life put me back a bit, so i turned away from the engine bay and did little things like installing clear reflectors, indicators, tail lights, head unit, side mount number plate, driving lights,short shifter, new sports tuff clutch and a tow bar for my tinny. Thats right a tow bar for my 12ft tinny on an mx5

While being silly one night i blew 2nd gear. Turns out my box didnt like my flat shift at 7k mid corner. Limped the car home 30km with lots of crunchy sounds and 4 out of 5 gears. Then had to explain to my parents why i needed to use the pit in the garage and dads brains for the next week or so.
A second hand 6 speed from a jap rs went in. Lesson learnt. Now i had a 6 speed box and 5 speed diff. Now it was like driving a car with a close ratio box, great fun Except for the commute down the freeway every day. 120 @ 4 k was wearing thin and i was wondering how i would cope with this on my philosophy of "liveable on a daily basis". A month after the gearbox was done, i had to do the diff. The big 4 pointed cross/ ring where the driveshaft from the box bolts to the diff had come loose and was making a horribal grinding noise on take off and slow down as it was spinning at a different rate to everything else. No way i could live with this, so a torsen limo slip diff and housing went in. Come from the same car as the box. MUCH BETTER.

Then after a while i thought its time i had the intake finished. So I had the plastic cross pipe replaced in 3in satainless to complete my intake. What do you know, i got dragged (kicking and screaming of course) to a dyno day.

waiting for 132kw chart

Some awesome mods there. 5 kw just from a cross over pipe!

Plohl, its coming soonish, or have a look on the mx5 AUS facebook page some time in the last 2 weeks.

trust me Sail, the mods get better :-P I'm not sure if the cross pipe alone gave me all that extra power. I guess Stranger things have happened but I put most of the gain down to the exhaust bedding in, a recent 100k service changing all consumables and inaccuracies between the dynos.

I'm happy to be wrong tho :-)

I looked. The pictures were shared on the page - i think you have them private or something. I even joined the page to make sure. Still couldn't see them

30% HP gain with intake and exhaust?

Your tuner is not an honest man.

Waiting for 132kw dyno on girly cams and few other mods.

Different dynos on different days...

different dyno's, different days, different places. None of them my tuner.

first one was done in bathurst on a 35+deg day after driving from gosford, 2nd and 3rd runs were done on the coast at gosford and tuggerah in the colder months of july and august. Last time i checked, colder air is more dense and contains more O2. cool/cold O2 dense air makes more power but too cold is bad. this is assuming all things being equal of course. which they never are, are they???
I have seen dry ice used around air boxes/ engines on some NA cars being dynoed, assumed it was to reduce heat soak etc, or could it have been used to cool the surrounding air to stupid temps???

Dont worry im not claiming that the colder gave me all that extra power. Might have helped a teeny bit tho.

How much extra power should i have made, 5%, 10%,19.99%, 25%???

Now i had what i felt was a good little buzz box, full exhaust with hi-flo cat, full intake set up and all the other mods i had done. I was having a great time doing skid pan days, motorkanah days, random cruises and proper road trips

I did a few more things, oil filter relocation kit making oil changes SOOOOOOO much easier, clear center brake light, clear reflectors which light up with parkers and then blink alternately to my blinkers, pioneer head unit with bluetooh and ipod. Also aquired some bose speakers which were an option for our cars somewhere. Fire extinguisher mout infront of the passenger seat. On one of my many commutes down the f3 to work i managed to split the radiator top tank right accross perfect excuse to get a 40mm alloy cooling pro replacement radiator.












The tow bar adds great protection/ payback when you get rear ended, it is heavy tho


While i was having a great time with the way the it was, i wanted to do more. The whole turbo/ supercharge/ NA thing entered my mind i started to think what if..........??? So i looked here, spoke to people and read many stories about the pros and cons of all of them. There was one thing i knew for sure, no matter what choice i made i was going to need an ecu, so i had an adaptronic 420 put in and tuned. Here's the before and after, notice the before figures compared to the other dyno sheets earlier in this post. There is a 6-8kw difference, more dyno inaccuracies/ differnt dyno's/ worn engine (i was getting ever closer to 200,000km on the clock)??

One night while doing my 200k service and discussing my options over a few burnbons with mates, i made the decision, Im going N/A. Turbo was common and cost effective but i wanted something a little different, i didnt want to compete with the 2L turbo boys.

I knew my engine was starting to blow blue smoke, i also knew that if i boosted my dieing motor it would meet a very quick death. So my thoughts turned to engine parts. I would have loved a stroker kit , but it wasnt even near the realm of affordable on my apprentice wages so i kept looking for parts and reading. I was offered a set of pistons at an irristable price so i jumped at them. The pistons i got would increase my compression to 11:1 and my total capacity to around 1920cc ish. While the pistons and other parts were put on an exchange block, i had an exchange nb8a head ported, polished etc etc.

Unfortunately these are the only photo's i have of my engine before it was completed and they were taken with a very average phone cam







After the engine was completed and tuned, this was the before and after rebuild result

I found some photos of my car at the drags running 92rwkw before my engine rebuild, these bring back a few memories.

got lucky with this one

Sorry for the slow updates, been busy with work and other stuff.

After my rebuild i was pretty happy with my car, it was feeling more like the N/A rocket i wanted throwing out 105 kilowatts at the rears i was a happy boy :-D



After spending the money and time to have my engine re-done i thought it would be a good idea keep an eye on my temps and peressures under the bonnet. Out come the jay car catalogue, soldering iron, multimeter and i got some guages. Vac, oil temp, water temp, air temp and oil pressure. To prevent electrical issues and gremlins creeping in, i made my own wiring loom straight from the battery. Simply, i have a seperate loom just for my guages from the battery to the dash. It has a relay triggered from the ignition to prevent a flat battery, an override switch to turn them off when the plod are around having a close look and a dimmer for night driving as i couldnt work out to get the guages to work properly with the oem dimmer switch I.E dim dash, bright guages and the other way round so i did my own dimmer. I made the loom plug' n 'play for reasonably easy removal of various parts and for future additions etc etc.
My wiring is description is probably a bit hard to picture, but if you are interested im happy to explain further if you can be patient with me.

Here's some more pic's :-)









And this was my engine bay :-)