I know the forums aren't that active anymore but I'm a sucker for a proper build thread and it's nice to have everything in one spot so here we go!
I've been around MX5's for awhile now, purchasing my first MX5 back in 2013 or so when I was in my early 20's. I ended up selling it a few years later because I was, and still am a little stupid. I maintain this was the nicest mx5 I've ever owned. It was a tastefully modified NA8 that I just enjoyed with regular maintenance.
A few years later in 2018 I acquired a suitable replacement, another na8, but this time a little rougher but still in presentable condition.
I had a mazda 3 MPS at the time, and it blew its motor. Whilst I was busy replacing it this na8 was my daily driver. A few weeks into daily driving duties it also blew up
I maintain I'm not hard on vehicles, the mps's are known to spontaneously combust and the mx5 was just getting a little old and wasn't up to daily driving duties. I was driving up a hill in 3rd gear at 70km/h when the engine just let go. I've never opened the motor to see what went wrong but it sounded like a spun bearing in the bottom end. I still have the engine if anybody is looking for a 1.8 block!
I ended up swapping in a VVT motor from an NB8B, a long with a custom intake and full exhaust system. I also installed a custom engine loom for the new link monsoon g4x ecu, did a complete egr delete and had the car tuned. It made 95rwkw on the dyno and was simply fantastic to drive. I did a few fantastic road trips in this car including two weeks camping around Tasmania in an MX5!
A trip to Sydney and Bathurst (from Melbourne, the fun way)!
And a trip around the Victorian high country.
Sadly, 6 years into my ownership of this car, I came around a sweeping bend only to find a large log that had ended up on the road. The car hit the log, went up on two wheels, came down and bent the front control arms, destroyed one of the wheels and I was unable to steer the car becoming a passenger at 70kmh. The car eventually came to a stop, after hitting a tree.
I was devastated, as I was just getting ready to complete the car by turbocharging it, it was meant to be my forever car but fate had other plans. I bought the car back from the insurance company and completely stripped it bare.
I could have taken the money and run and moved onto another chassis, but I already made the mistake of moving away from mx5's once before, so the hunt was on for a suitable replacement. Shortly after receiving the wreck back from insurance, I embarked on another road trip. One that started off in a plane! I flew interstate to pick up a tired old na6 with 400,000km on the dash. Not just any na6 though, a mythical Malibu gold edition. It was pretty rough, pretty tired, I paid way too much for it, but I had to have it. I jumped into it and drove it all the way home without too many issues.
It's good from far, but far from good. I think every panel has at least one dent, it's about 4 different shades of malibu gold/sunburst yellow and has small amounts of surface rust in a few locations, but I think it's worth saving.
It will also be a fantastic place for my na8's VVT drivetrain, engine computer, brakes, and other such assorted things (like a turbocharger).
I don't feel bad about not keeping it original, even though they're rare, there isn't that much special about them other than the colour, and this particular example has done 400,000km so it won't ever be valued by a collector. It's better if I just look after it as best as I can, fix the things that need fixing, give it a second lease on life and ultimately enjoy the car for a long time to come. Purists be damned!
The first step in this journey will be to get it registered in my home state of Victoria. To do that it needs to pass a roadworthy, which it absolutely will not do without some elbow grease as there a few things that need to be addressed.
- The horn doesn't work at all.
The pedals covers need to be replaced.
the windscreen has a deep scratch on it and is slightly pitted.
the rear brakes don't seem to work at all and appear to be seized.
there's rust underneath the brake master cylinder as it appears to be leaking.
all of the bushes under the car need to be replaced, along with the shock absorbers.
it's slow to start and will run on 2-3 cylinders for 15-20 seconds after it starts. (This problem doesn't exist if you let the fuel pump prime for 30 seconds or so prior to kicking it over, so it's hopefully just an aging fuel pump or a blocked fuel filter.)
That's all of the immediately obvious things I'll need to address, but I'm still looking over the car and learning it's secrets, so who knows what I'll discover over the next few weeks. Hopefully not too much more rust! If you happen to read this nonsense please say hi! It'll be nice to know it's not just web crawlers and google robots keeping up with my poor decisions.
Thanks for stopping by!
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