TICO the SE

[tomli123001]

Ok, I confess I have been deeply addicted to the MX5 thing. And I want to start my first ever garage chat thread today.
I want the car to have a name and I will name her after my parrot, TICO.

So this is TICO, my companion pet bird


And this is "TICO" the car, when I got her - a 2004 Velocity Red SE.

[Nevyn72]

Hello, welcome and your images aren't showing.......

EDIT: Ahhhhh..... there they are!

[tomli123001]

Hello, welcome and your images aren't showing.......

EDIT: Ahhhhh..... there they are!

Hi Nevyn72, you got the first reply in the thread. Quick!!!!
Yeh, took a few trials to get the images to work finally.

[sunlightsilver]

Show us the updated pics with the fixed hard top and roll bar Tom

Seen the car in person, it's very clean.

Cheers, Clint.

[tomli123001]

Ok, i actually had been MX5ing for a while and had quite a lot of stories to tell here, but never got a chance before. So I will flood this thread with a quite few more photos and hopefully it will be interesting.

Well, I learnt driving in NSW on an automatic, but the license becomes open to both manual and auto when it is P2. So I bought my first ever manual MX5, a super clean NA6 at 200,000km at end of last year. It was quite hilarious to self learn how to drive a manual on the streets alone. Stalled like countless time and had some of the worst hill start, and probably freaked out one old woman in a BMW once.

I now look back and know just how slow a stock NA6 might have been, but I was totally amazed by it at the time and never looked back.

I moved from this


to this


and happily onto this. Excuse me being silly with my giant company magnet logo

[tomli123001]

Show us the updated pics with the fixed hard top and roll bar Tom

Seen the car in person, it's very clean.

Cheers, Clint.

Hi Clint. Thanks. How is your repair doing? Now it is Xmas and happy to come around help if needed. We still need to go for a drive.

[tomli123001]

I had always been an engineer and loved to work on things. Although my motoring mechanic skills are still limited at the moment.
I learnt a lot form this forum and met with Jason from the local MX5 Plus shop, so the mods began.

It is kinda sad that I did not have much photos of what I did to my NA, but I will list of the major ones.
- Excedy HD cluth
- complete paint repair and fixed a dents. The NA6 looked new both in and out.
- a Black hard top
- Full NA8 convertion, inc wiring, ecu and engine and sub frames and brakes
- 6 speed gear box
- 4.1 Torsen diff
- Full engine rebuild by mx5 plus with forged bits to Charlie's spec for the future turbo add on

I probably could have sold my NA6 and bought something nicer. But the idea of keep an original 89 car and have it look completely stock from outside and super strong inside had been my goal.

In the meantime, I met with lots of interesting people also, include Larsen brothers - richard and Keith. They are both on this forum and do mx5 import business. I eve at one stage were planning building their race car trailer with them from my Chinese company.

[sunlightsilver]

Hi Clint. Thanks. How is your repair doing? Now it is Xmas and happy to come around help if needed. We still need to go for a drive.

Changed the oil in the diff and after driving it a bit the noise has become less severe, I'm probably going to ignore it for now. I'll be swapping the whole front right assembly of the suspension over xmas hopefully and getting a new set of alignment bolts, will probably pick up the parts before the end of this week. I'll let you know if I need a hand

Hopefully we can go for a drive in the next few weeks.

[tomli123001]

In comparison to my SE now, the NA6/8 was raw and shakes like an angry beast with every gear change (hopefully not my poor manual shifting skills at the time)
I then learnt about the wonderful Mt Nebo roads and became a regular there.

Just after my 1000km new engine wear in period, on the 15th June 12pm, disaster came.

I did probably the worst you could in ever in a convertible.
I rolled 30 meters off the Mt Nebo road.

Here are some photos at the scene.









I was actually fully conscious through out. It was quite of a scary moment. Just reminds me how much I actually wanted to live.
It was on my way back to city. One corner had a sharp drop and turning to the left. I felt the front tyres suddenly lost all traction and just went the opposite.

It was totally totally white on my eyes for a moment. I could clearly hear the radio music however. A lot of pictures of lift flashed through my brain and the last thing I said to myself was "sh*t, how could this be me?"

Next moment, I heard a big BANG sound. I came back from the big "white" and the glass shattered all in front of me.
Next moment I remember smelling trees and dirt. I opened my eyes again and all had stopped.

I thought I might die. But I lived. I was upside down in the car. The seat belt worked, I must say. It really strapped me in the car till the end.
I touch my head, all I saw was very dark red blood. It was all over my hair. Not to worry too, I actually relieved for a sec

"ƒü¢k, I am alive". I actually said. Next thing I closed my eyes resting for 2 seconds and started panic. What if nobody saw me, I must look for my phone.
Surprisingly, the HTC surved this. It was just within the reach of my hands. I released the seat belt. I fell like a brick to my head and neck (there is no room in a CRUSHED MX5 to lay body flat)

When all seemed good. Next thing really freaked me out.
I saw liquid flowing in the carbin and I saw smoke. The very next thing came to my mind was, you guessed it "farking fire"

I was so so scared and i did not want to be burnt like guys in most car crash film. It was so real. I must get out.
The driver side door was totally squashed to nothing. Not opening after a few trials.

The only chance left was the passenger side. I could not care less and unlocked the door with my toe and all i did was kick, kick and kick. Don't know how many times. It was open, just a tiny gap and I got all my strength and got out of there and kinda of crawled to a place I perceive as safe from any fire or explosion.

Finally safe and I laid down to the ground, resting.

[Nevyn72]

YIKES! Glad to hear you came out ok!

This is one of the reasons why a roll-bar is high on my list of purchases.....

[tomli123001]

I bet I would not be here, if not because there was this random foot trail half way through. Otherwise, I would just keep going down and there is plenty more distance downhill after this.

It turned out it was my lucky day. I literally walked away from a rolled convertible without a roll bar.
I had a hard top at the time, but it was not designed to without any force and shattered instantly. So guys, anybody, the first mod is a roll bar.

The car was flattened totally from the trunk upwards. The A pillar was useless during a roll.

Luckily, there was a bush running event there on the day. And some medics in 4WD ambulance were stationed nearby.
2 witness saw me and rushed down the slope. They talked to me and took the photos with my mobile. From what they said I looked very GOOD. I was asked to smile and this photo was taken.



Kinda sucks for everybody else on Mt Nebo that day. Not sure if any of you guys affected. The road was closed for the full afternoon and caused huge traffic. 2 police cars, 3 ambulance 2 fire trucks came shortly after.

I got strapped up and taken to Brisbane Royal. After all the CT scan, x-ray and some other mad testing, I am proved to be ok and was discharged second day with just 7 stitches on my head. It later turned into a "V" shaped scar. Probably might get away from it, if had safety air bag. Well, could be worse, let's just say. Luckily not on face or any higher (no hair grow after that maybe)

[tomli123001]

Well, since the car was just a weekend toy, I did not comprehensive insure it. I now bite the bullet hard.
Got into the 3rd tow company, towing invoice was a hefty $1000, due to how deep the car fell into and they had to use 2 tow trucks to get it up.

Here are some photos of the car in afterwards form. As you can see, the seats were the highest point during the crash for a MX5 during a roll. Not safe.
Hardtop became just a surf board afterwards. The top is actually very light without the big glass. I could lift it now with just one hand.

It looks quite impressive and outstanding in this wrecking yard at the time.

[tomli123001]

Car was then towed to MX5 plus for dismantle.
Bad news just kept coming.

The engine block had a direct hit and pushed back into the firewall.
The CAM housing broke and all aftermarket parts went out of balance and cracked, so the engine became useless.

The 6 sp gear box housing cracked also and so was my diff.

All my big ticket items now worth nothing

I took what i can out of the car and donated the rest to Jason.
If you ever get to go to Jason's and see their newly built loan car, quite a few parts came from this.

[tomli123001]

YIKES! Glad to hear you came out ok!

This is one of the reasons why a roll-bar is high on my list of purchases.....

Yes yes, roll bar is #1

[Lokiel]

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).