mx5cartalk.com

Hi Forum!

Driver
Name: Jacky
Occupation: Uni Student
Location: Northern Beaches, NSW
Previous Cars: 98 Mitsubishi Mirage CE
Current Cars: 05 Honda Civic Type R EP3, 98 Mazda MX5 NB8A

Photos
EP3R
http://i.imgur.com/0eCbbLH.jpg

NB8A
http://i.imgur.com/0ns3d31.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bB1njwf.jpg

Car History
Mirage was dríven between mid 2012 until mid 2014. Nothing exciting. Great economy and great for delivering pizzas!

EP3R is still with me since mid 2015. Was considering something more... practical. I was keen for a Jazz. Figured I would have a heap more fun in a EP3R and and got this thanks to my father. All is well with the Honda. First Australian owner. It was lowered a tiny bit on RSR springs and was scraping the midpipe upon driveway entry. Bought some stock suspension and all is happy. Exhaust was changed too. Now rocking a Fujitsubo RM01A, quiet and classy. Wish I went for something louder. Injen cold air intake wakes the car up like no tomorrow. Butt dyno definitely reads that gains were made in the top end. Whiteline front and rear sway bars, Hardrace endlinks front and back, aluminium shifter/cable bushings, Mishimoto shift knob. Tried my hand at wrapping the interior, not the best. Dunlop Direzza Z2 street semis were taken off and a more sensible Kumho KU22 were slapped on. Clutch needs replacing soon though.

Overall, loving the car but it doesn't FEEL all that special after a year of ownership. It did EVERYTHING so well. Power is good, plenty for the street. For a FF, handling is superb. Practicality.... SO GOOD. I picked up my exhaust, still in the box. ~165cm in length. Slide the passenger Recaro forward and we were good to go.

MX5 is a car that I needed to own before death. I've dríven my buddy's NB8A, which I actually convinced him to purchase. Extreme satisfaction. So my brother wanted something 'cooler' than the Mirage to drive. I sold it and ended up purchasing simon_mx5's silver NB8A. It had the modest modifications that matched my taste and a low ~124,XXXkm. As far I can tell, it's got the Billies from the SE and a custom muffler. Still looks relatively stock. Loving the roadster life in this puppy. Only thing to change is perhaps the tires. It gets a bit skiddy with the 1.8L power plant.

As of now, it's the daily for my brother and my weekender. I won't be changing too much too soon as the Civic is still my "first". But if there is a change, updates will be posted.

20150830
Photos @ McCarrs Creek Reserve.
http://imgur.com/a/ygcFK

What's changed?

• HIDs have been removed
• Standard halogens have been installed
• Mishimoto shift knob fitted
• Mishimoto shift knob removed and put in Civic
• New number plates

Excuse the p plates. As mentioned previously, brother is dailying it. We zip tied the front one on to the tow hook.
I'm not going to cut it and zip another so I've left it on. Got to risk it for the biscuit. Only that there's no biscuit.
I shouldn't be so lazy...

yangtastic wrote:Hi Forum!
Photos
EP3R


NB8A

Looks good Don't forget that you can use the [ img] [ /img] tags (no spaces) to make the images display in the thread itself

I was going to do that. That's how I normally do it. Tapatalk displays them perfectly but on PC, the images are too big. It just looks clumsy.
Thanks though.

I thought that only old people drove honda's, and a jazz, god dammit!
Should have saved for the Honda hardstyle ;)

I'm only kidding of course.
Welcome to the forum

Welcome!

Sorry in advance for hi-jacking your thread; continuing on the images theme for a moment.

yangtastic wrote:I was going to do that. That's how I normally do it. Tapatalk displays them perfectly but on PC, the images are too big. It just looks clumsy.
Thanks though.

You can make imgur resize the images for you; put a lowercase h on the end of the file name for a 'huge thumbnail'

So: http://i.imgur.com/0ns3d31.jpg
would become: http://i.imgur.com/0ns3d31h.jpg
and it looks like this: (fits on my little laptop screen)


'm' and 'l' will give you medium and large thumbnails as well, a 'large' is about half the size of the 'huge'

Nice cars by the way, I'll get out of your thread now!

That's awesome! Didn't know imgur did that. Thanks Cus.

@speed - I wanted a Honda to feel VTEC. Never dríven nor passengered in one. VTEC is fun. And still is fun. And forever will be.
Hitting 8.4k is something that will be missed in the future.

Was just trying to be funny re the Honda hardstyle. IMO it's a better name then Jazz and kids can relate to hardstyle more than jazz music.
Saying that, every jazz owner I've come across has been an older lady, so maybe the name jazz is more fitting.

No shame in higher revs.
Has been plenty of times when I've launched my 1984 rx7 by side stepping the clutch at 8,000 RPM.
:BEER:

A recent picture of the rice.



And what is this? Is is some sort of brace? Because I don't have one...

It's a brace. The NB has extra underbody bracing so I wouldn't worry about it, although it is pretty handy to hold on to whilst reverse parking and would make a great camera mount.
It was part of the extra crash protection the NA8 received along with the weird seatbelt stalks that for some reason attach to the seat AND the tranny tunnel via a slider that makes zero sense to me.

I have that brace in NB and it took a bit of the 'diagonal' response to bumps out of it, in that you'd get some bumps that would present at the front left and then at the back right with flex across the cabin. It's pretty marginal, to be honest. As Smy correctly observes, it's a handy place to mount a GoPro. Does interfere with the windblocker though. I have found it easier to leave it off, although you can mount it backwards.

MX5 Mania Intake
Salvaged the Mania intake from an NA8 and had it installed at MX5 Mania.
NA8 bracket didn't fit. MX5 Mania supplied the correct one.
Hole needed to be drilled in the carbon fibre for the sensor.
Firewall hole drilled.
Washer bottle relocated.
Strut brace didn't fit. Removed.
Here's a video. I really should have a driving one considering that's when you'll actually notice it.

Final Thoughts

• loud, super noticeable for driver
• no power increase according to butt dyno
• first gear pretty quiet, induction noise really strengthens in 2nd and beyond

EDC Ultimax 2
Fluid was not optimally topped up. Brake pedal felt really crap. Brakes only worked in the last 5% of pedal travel. Car would roll even when slightly relieving pressure.
Two days later, went back to MX5 to pick up some brake pads for the front.
https://www.instagram.com/p/-JF0bYo7XY/ ... yangtastic
Sorry for IG link, but if you want to see the difference... there it is.
Introduced Motul RBF600 to the system and bled out the old. Was meant to save this for Civic but I learnt that brake fluid doesn't keep very well.
Bedded them in really quickly. Superb stopping. Really wanted stickier tires.
Final Thoughts

• always check brakes
• easy job that improves the car by a lot (if brakes are super crappy)
• Ultimax 2 great street pad, no noise, low dust

Detach Axleback
To further strengthen the car's image of "rice", I decided to detach the axleback.
I've never touched exhaust bolts/hangers before so this is a new experience.
Incredible ease of access!
Sound is definitely down to personal preference.

Final Thoughts

• way louder
• way more aggressive
• raw as a living cow
• intake still dominates the driver's ears
• exhaust dominates pedestrian ears
• I think I'll get a axleback with no mufflers made up so I can swap axlebacks at will

Clearly, my braking performance has dramatically increased.
And to match the level of function, the brakes must be painted to match the performance.
Good time to get the brother involved. After all he's the one DDing this pup.
Rather than the traditional red for +25kw on previous cars and friends cars, I spotted some gold to be get a bit indy.