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Hello all! I don't see enough NC's on here, so I thought I'd write up a thread on my Stormy Blue 2007 NC1 PRHT - 'Ella 3'. This is it as it looks today, a few months after buying it;



This is my third MX-5, my first was a 1990 NA6, that I owned when I was in the air force in NZ about 13 years ago now. It was basically unmodified, but I did respray it in a blue pearl, cost me $500 for the paint at trade prices, and a carton of beer to an aircraft painter friend of mine. The spray booth where we painted our helicopters was free to use. The job was superb. Here's a pic;



My second MX-5 I owned for nearly nine years, and only sold it a few months ago, to KIMO from the forums - hopefully he's loving it as much as I did! This was a 1989 NA6, made in only the second month of manufacture (July '89), and was MX-5 #225. I did a fair bit to this car, changing the engine out for a BPT from a 1990 Mazda 323 GT, running a turbo off a R33 S2 GTS-t (which is large, cheap to replace, but with ultra-light internals so had basically no lag). It also had a lot of stereo work done, and ran on King/Koni's and 17" Rays G-Games. A pic of Ella 2;



I was really happy with this car, but I decided it was time for a change, and something a bit newer, which led me to the NC! Here it is just after it arrived, with Ella 2 leaving for the last time;

So, time to talk about my direction for the NC. My overall vision for the car is subtlety - I want something that you wouldn't look too closely at to begin with, that doesn't stand out particularly on the street, but when you focus on it is a dark and beautiful car.

For now I am working on wheels, suspension, interior, stereo. I am not too focused an engine mods at the moment, although in the future I would like to redo the exhaust including headers, and change the intake. I may consider a turbo in a couple of years as well, depending on what's available at the time.

Firstly wheels - I spent quite a while agonising over wheel choices and colours, and in the end went with a set of gunmetal 17x8 +44 Rota Grids. In my opinion, grids are the best looking wheel you can put on an MX-5, they are just such a clean and subtle look. I do realise that wheels are an entirely subjective subject, and not many people will agree with me, but this is what I feel best fits the style of the car. Rotas are also a little maligned, but for me they are the perfect choice. They are very well made, despite what some say, and have the added bonus of being super easy and cheap to replace if I damage one. Most of all though, they look amazing. The first pic in this thread shows them on the car. I ended up keeping the same size tyre, which is the stock Michelins in 205/45/17 (I plan to get Michelin PS3's in the same size when it comes time to replace this set). This means I don't need to roll the guards, as the wheels are a bit over 20mm further out than stock, but the tyres come in off the rim far enough to never touch, even with lowered suspension.

As for suspension, I have recently fitted a set of Ohlins DFV's. They obviously come highly recommended on these forums, and I have to admit to absolutely loving them. They are so compliant in normal driving, every bit as comfortable as stock, but the grip and steadiness of the car when cornering is a significant improvement. I have lowered the car from the stock SUV height as well, it is currently sitting at 335 front, 338 rear from the centre of the wheels to the guard lips. I did the whole suspension change and setup myself, it probably took about five hours all up. Bear in mind I am an aircraft maintainer, so am pretty comfortable with spanner swinging (I also did the engine change, computer and turbo setup on my old car myself). The current ride height can be seen in the first pic of the thread as well, although bear in mind the car isn't sitting on perfectly level ground. Here's another pic of the wheels and how they sit under the guards post suspension fit;



Next I'll discuss the interior a bit. I find there is a bit of overuse of plastic in the NC cockpit, and I really think that needs to be toned down with a few leather touches. So far I've had new shift and handbrake boots made up and fitted, and I've replaced the awful stock gear knob with a polished ally Voodoo (my favourite shift knob). I've also replaced the little panels on the forward part of the door armrests with piano black pieces to match the dash trim. I found these subtle changes have really lifted the whole interior (haven't got a pic atm sorry), but I do have plans to get more trim made. I was looking at this site, http://www.redlinegoods.com/MiataNCshiftboot.php, and really like some of the items they have. I intend to get door panels (diamond stitched), a gauge hood cover, padded armrest covers, door pull covers (a big improvement over the horrible plastic on the stock door pulls), and possibly roll hoop covers and yet another shift/handbrake boot combo. I'm thinking black leather with dark blue stitching, although I'll probably make the door pull covers dark blue leather. These leather touches will really bring the interior up a level in my opinion, but keep the subtle look I'm going for. I still haven't made a final decision on this as yet though.

The grid's look great against the colour of the car. Nice little story on your back ground too. What aircraft do you work on? I too am an engineer, but only work on little bug smashers at the moment and finishing off my apprenticeship.

another Aircraft Engineer here also I work on A380's down to 737's

Nice NC btw, excellent choice of model not that i'm biased at all

Ha ha, seems like there are a few of us around!

I currently work on MRH90's, the helicopter that's replacing the Blackhawk, my company assembles them and then the section I work in does the flight testing. Before that I've worked on F-111's, Seahawks, Hueys and P-3 Orions. Pretty much all operational stuff, not much deeper level, since I've always preferred that side of the job. I started in the kiwi air force, moved from there to the aussie air force, but I've been out in the real world for five years now.

Thanks for the kind words on the car as well!

Ella is currently in the stereo shop getting almost the whole Bose system ripped out and replaced. New head unit, amp, 8" woofers and 3" splits for the doors. I'm particularly excited about the head unit, which is a Pioneer 7" touchscreen with inbuilt navigation, that mirrors your phone apps. http://www.pioneer.com.au/au/products/25/111/241/AVIC-F50BT/page.html

I get her back tomorrow, and I'll be sure to write up a bit of a spiel and post some photos.

Beautiful car but i'm probably more biased than Regie given this one is also stormy blue!
Ohlins as you know are brilliant- mine are still perfect after 50k. (Have been meticulously maintained though)
If you are keen on Michelin consider the Pilot Super Sport
Thanks for the link to redline - ive wanted to find a solution to my ragged door pulls for a long time! - Actually just noticed the pulls are secured with velcro.... hmm... any other options?
And that looks like an insanely good headunit!

Man, you guys work on all the cool stuff haha. The company I work at has a fleet of roughly 45 aircraft. Biggest is a DA42L diamond and we also have 4 Schwizer 269's. We do training for airlines and mostly search and rescue on the heli's. All piston, nothing turbine which kind of sucks haha. But like I said, just finishing of my apprenticeship. Going to get my licence, more experience and move onto something bigger and better.

Do you deal with more line maintenance or more base/heavy stuff? Have you got your licences converted over yet? I've got a mate in Sydney on the blackhawks. He's got some good stories haha.

I've got Ohlins that I used in my NA and will use on my next car (SE). Love them. Well worth the money! Sounds like its going to be a nice complete package once you're done.

So Ella is back with the new stereo in. The sound is incredibly crisp, night and day versus the dullness of the stock Bose system - I'm very happy with it. It also looks incredibly clean now, the Bose head unit was pretty messy with all the unnecessary buttons and switches.

It's now running a Pioneer AVIC-F50BT nav head unit, Hertz ESF20.5 8" woofers and Hertz HL70 3" mids in the door, with Hertz HT25 tweeters mounted at the base of the A-pillars, all running through a Clarion XC6410 4 channel amp. The centre dash speaker has been removed (and the GPS antenna installed in it's place), and the Bose 3" mids mounted between the seats are running straight off the head unit, with a switch next to the usb port to turn them on to provide back fill with the top down.

I've had a reverse camera fitted, very helpful considering how poor the PRHT rear visibility is, top up or down. The head unit can also mirror your phone, meaning you get your phone's screen up on the head unit, and can swipe through and select anything you could if you were just operating your phone normally. I still haven't set this up though, it takes a bit to get it sorted. Combine that with the in-built nav system, and I'm very happy with the result, it really brings a six year old car up to date.

Here's a couple of pics - in the first one you can see the tweeter mounting in the top right, mounting them there means no cutting the door trim, and the sound reflects off the windshield to provide much better acoustics than if they were coming out of the doors. In the second pic you can see the USB port and the switch for the rear fill speakers.

Liking this

Awesome!! Id love to get rid of all the BOSE out of my NC and go for something a bit better.

Where did you get your shift boots from? I like!

Ah, this is cool - similar to what I have in mind for my next MX5. Any thoughts about new headers and/or the ECU reflash?

Another stormy blue but in Sydney. I have a few mods and thinking of headers and ecu too. I am worried about the extra noise when changing headers though.

Love your setup on the sound system. I would be happy just to cheap a cheap system that will integrate with the iphone but not willing to fork out the money at this stage !

sydneyrace wrote:Another stormy blue but in Sydney. I have a few mods and thinking of headers and ecu too. I am worried about the extra noise when changing headers though.

Love your setup on the sound system. I would be happy just to cheap a cheap system that will integrate with the iphone but not willing to fork out the money at this stage !

yours doesn't have similar wheels to this one does it? Saw a P Plater yesterday with a car very similar to this in Mortdale

No, mine has the Volks CE28.

WOW! Super impressed by the HU. Looks like a custom face plate? What kind of money was involved?