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Hi all,

I thought I'd start telling the story of how I found Liberty and then eventually turn this into a build thread.

I picked her up from an Audi dealership in Melbourne with 102k kms. Took her for a test drive and thought this is the best car I've ever dríven - the thud of the door, the riffle bolt shifter, the way the ignition fires up, the little baby boost, the darty steering...love! They told me services were up to date and if there was anything wrong with the car to let them know and they would help me out (will come back to this).

Here she is in her Melb roof top splendour...




I thought driving her back would be enjoyable so decided to do that...mistake. Nothing wrong with her, which was great, and not that it wasn't enjoyable at all, but when the realty of potential death by roo set in I was on edge. Luckily arrived back to Sydney unscathed.

Getting her registered was a pain in the arse too! Again she passed blue slip with flying colours but after some digging turns out neither the 80k nor the 100k service had been done. Hit the Audi dealership up for 1k - talking misleading and deceptive conduct. It took many emails and two promises of legal action before they caved -LAWYERED!

The first "mod" I wanted was to get a hard top - black preferably. Within a month done...no more worrying about whether or not I was going to find my roof slashed every time I go take her out. And imo looks slick in two tone!





I want to remove the spoiler though one day....I love the wave in the boot - very fluid.

Then there came the first wash and seriously close look at the details and top shelf brands!













The creases in the side of the car, which looking closely follow the final edge of the SE lip, aren't done justice in photos but I tried...



I've done the 100k service and about to do the 80k service once I can source all the Castrol items I want to use.

Then soon the performance mods...only to intake though. I found boost lacking after driving 10hrs from Melb so just want to upgrade that, and will also do a proper CAI setup. Will be seeing NitroDann in the near future for same and will update then.

Cheers,

Jk




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Nice to see another SE thread I bought mine in Melbourne too, a little over a year ago, but drove it all the way back to Brisbane. I actually enjoyed the drive though.

The roof does look good in gloss black on your Ti, another good cross colour is Silver and Ti.

If you do the intake, you'll want to do the exhaust too And Dann has a good setup for both. Oh, and probably do the throttle body inlet pipe and BOV at the same time. If you're not yet aware, the stock TBI rubber elbow pops off fairly easily under boost, and the stock BOV leaks. With those 3 weak stock points sorted out, you'll get all the good noises coming through! Intake will whistle, the BOV will whoosh, and the exhaust will crackle - and you'll grin!

How's your radiator looking? At 11 years, 100k km a lot of them are on their way out.

Glad you got some recompence from the Audi dealership, shame they missed the major services though!

Sex on a Friday morning, that is.

Looks just like mine and kind of makes me miss the Racing Harts

Looks very nice

Will be watching.

Thanks guys.

ManiacLachy - thanks. I think I followed your thread...someone smashed into it in a car park soon after you picked up your car didn't they? I had a small coronary imagining that happening to mine! Glad to see you got it sorted though. Yeah look I might get the TB/plenum pipe upgraded too, but I just can't justify the outlay on an exhaust in the near future.

The radiator is looking a little old but deciding on the best option. I want to upgrade to a thicker item but it's come to my attention that the original twin fans might make things a bit tight in the engine bay...

thegarts - thanks. The RacingHarts have grown on me...I never thought they suited the car but now I do! I do find they tramline a bit so in the future (when I get bold and get serious about the mods and want more of an every-now-and-then track day car) looking at downsizing to 16s... I really like these OZ Racing items https://www.jaxtyres.com.au/wheels/bran ... ?pid=79104 .

I know going down to a 15x8 is the norm, but I think I read somewhere (maybe on ManiacLachy's thread) that they change the way the car feels on turn in...my thinking is to use a 7.5inch tire, reduce the side wall may maintain the darty feel of the original 17s.

JustinK wrote:Thanks guys.

ManiacLachy - thanks. I think I followed your thread...someone smashed into it in a car park soon after you picked up your car didn't they? I had a small coronary imagining that happening to mine! Glad to see you got it sorted though. Yeah look I might get the TB/plenum pipe upgraded too, but I just can't justify the outlay on an exhaust in the near future.

thegarts - thanks. The RacingHarts have grown on me...I never thought they suited the car but now I do! I do find they tramline a bit so in the future (when I get bold and get serious about the mods and want more of an every-now-and-then track day car) looking at downsizing to 16s... I really like these OZ Racing items https://www.jaxtyres.com.au/wheels/bran ... ?pid=79104 .

I know going down to a 15x8 is the norm, but I think I read somewhere (maybe on ManiacLachy's thread) that they change the way the car feels on turn in...my thinking is to use a 7.5inch tire, reduce the side wall may maintain the darty feel of the original 17s.

I could definitely feel the difference when changing to smaller wheels/bigger sidewall - less 'darty' but more willing to change direction at the same time... Your plan sounds good.

JustinK wrote:thegarts - thanks. The RacingHarts have grown on me...I never thought they suited the car but now I do! I do find they tramline a bit so in the future (when I get bold and get serious about the mods and want more of an every-now-and-then track day car) looking at downsizing to 16s... I really like these OZ Racing items https://www.jaxtyres.com.au/wheels/bran ... ?pid=79104 .

I know going down to a 15x8 is the norm, but I think I read somewhere (maybe on ManiacLachy's thread) that they change the way the car feels on turn in...my thinking is to use a 7.5inch tire, reduce the side wall may maintain the darty feel of the original 17s.

In terms of offset, probably want to go somewhere between +25 and +35 on the 16x7's if you want it to look the part as well and not be sunk too far into the guards.

I decided to upgrade my stock 16" NB8B wheels to more 16's (16x7+32) to keep the same response and style. It depends how you go with power and stuff as to whether you need to go wider rims and tires to get it all down.

I know my last car came stock with 15" alloys, and I tried 16" and 17" and they all had very different feels.

I've got a dust-covered black hardtop in need of a re-paint hanging above my Ti SE - after seeing how good yours looks I think it's about time I got it refurbished (I only use it in heavy rain or when I have to leave the car in a car park at night).

If you still have the factory airbox installed, your first upgrade should be to replace it with a CAI, install a MBC and boost gauge and bump the boost to 9.5-10.5psi, you'll get ~25rwkw more which is noticeable and the best bang-for-buck upgrades you can do on an SE.

PS: I think you may have been referring to my car earlier - drove it all the way from Melbourne to Brisbane incident free, only to have some 4WD drongo several hours later reverse into it in a carpark while I was eating at a restaurant

JustinK wrote:Thanks guys.

ManiacLachy - thanks. I think I followed your thread...someone smashed into it in a car park soon after you picked up your car didn't they? I had a small coronary imagining that happening to mine! Glad to see you got it sorted though. Yeah look I might get the TB/plenum pipe upgraded too, but I just can't justify the outlay on an exhaust in the near future.

You're thinking of Lokiel there, and again with the wheels. He's a MASSIVE advocate of 15 inch wheels.

@ Lokiel - yep that's the one! Heartbreaking mate. Sorry ManiaLachy for the mix-up.

I love the hard top for the peace of mind it brings me, but can't wait for spring/summer when I can properly use the car for what it was built for!! My hard top is pretty scratched, although hard to see in the pics, but it does the job so going to leave it for the time being. Before I get it refurbed, I'm going to weigh up cost of wrapping vs re-spray. If not much/no more expensive to spray then gonna doing that.

Yeah I'm definitely looking at getting CAI and intercooler, and now maybe even TB/plenum pipe and BOV done, but have not been able to make up my mind on which are best to use. I've recently seen NitroDann's items for all of the above and love the look of his work so going to approach him when I'm ready.

Will want to get the parts shrink wrapped black so looks stealth and OEM...anyone know where/how that can be done?

Cheers

Nice ... agree with everyone else, the black and Ti is a great combination.

... and yeah, wildlife certainly takes on a whole new aspect from down in an MX-5! We've had a few near misses in our 5's. First off was a dear crossing in front of us in the Grampians. Then I nearly hit a roo as I exited a corner on a run through the Adelaide Hills early one morning, just after I'd bought my SE! He actually turned and hopped along next to the car only a few inches away!! I was worried he might hop across it!! More recently we had a close call with a couple of emus in the Snowy Mountains ...

Oh yeah ... and a cat ran in to the side of our NA while we were driving through the Barossa! It came bolting out of a driveway from the other side of the road straight in to the driver's door! Bounced off and was closely missed by a Falcon behind me and it ran back across the road to where it had come from!!! Used up most of it's lives in that crossing. Left a small dent & marks on my driver's door.

I'll warn you now about talking to Dann, your wallet will be thinner, but your smile will be bigger!

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Nice car. Mine used to look a lot like that until it became pretty much track focused.

Just a heads- up that SE boot spoilers are bolted on through holes in the boot. There will therefore be holes in the boot if you remove the spoiler. Maybe you could do a boot lid swap with someone who has a non SE in the same colour (if such a combo exists).

Other option is look around for a cheap NB boot and have it sprayed. I've had a spare boot in my shed for months with the same idea, but other items have sidetracked it for the time being.

KevGoat - geez if David Attenborough needed an animal magnet he'd know who to call! [SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH AND SMILING EYES]

Davekmoore - thanks. Bugger...I suspected that.

Juicy Hic - I'm looking forward to it!


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