Chapter 3...The Rolling Shell...
When I first thought about this build I wanted to put all the SE bits in to a NA shell...there was a NA available at the same time...Robo made me realise that it would be much more sensible to build a SE replica, so that's the way we went...I will build a NA/SE one day...
The call went out to Chris at MX5 racing and he had this red NB8A it had been imported by Chris because it had a lot of good bits on it, and had low ks... the wing that is on the Green car actually came off this one...the interior had been stripped out, all the running gear was gone, luckily it already had ABS so this was going to save us quite a bit of work...pretty much perfect for what we wanted...I was hoping the paint was a bit dodgy because I wanted to paint it yellow but after a good polish the paint was in very good condition.
The bonnet that came on the car was Crystal blue and a bit bent so that went straight to Hume Smash Repairs...the instructions to Denis were make it straight and paint it gloss black.
Everything was coming out of the SE and going in to this shell, so we set about stripping it back basically to a bare rolling shell...we were using none of the NB8A wiring loom or braking system apart from the ABS wheel sensors which plugged straight in to the SE loom.
While Robo was chipping away at the sound deadening stuff I had the fun job of removing the complete wiring loom...it actually comes in 5 sections...
1.Engine loom...this basically unplugs from the computer and dash harness stays with the engine when you pull the engine out.
2.The main front part which includes all the front lighting and A/C runs to the back of the car and connects to the rear light loom.
3.Rear light loom....
4.Dash loom...this stays with the dash.
5.The main power loom which comes from the battery and goes to the main fuse box, alternator and starter motor.
This is parts 2 and 3 of the loom out of the SE...it's pretty big when it's spread out, weighs in at about 9kg.
Now the red car was off to Street Neat Welding in West Gosford for the full roll cage, much easier and less messy when the car is completely pulled apart.