How are people dealing with insurance/engineering

Oni · Postby **Oni** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:10 pm

Heya

Quick but interesting question. I tried to get my NA6 turbo engineered and had no luck, ended up selling it for other reasons but thinking about going this route again. How are people managing it? just slapping the gear on and not letting insurance etc know?. Are people happy enough to drive still knowing that if there insurance looks at or inspects the car they have no coverage?.

I know this is what alot of people do and they never have any trouble but just wondering what the take is here. Im going to speak to an engineer again soon just to see if / how you can bend the rules etc ( differnt in some states but ADR is the same ).

Thanks
Scott

deviant · Postby **deviant** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:31 pm

Call Shannons and ask their policy on it. Not many people will be willing to expose themselves with regards to the legality of their cars.

zossy1 · Postby **zossy1** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:44 pm

deviant wrote:Call Shannons and ask their policy on it. Not many people will be willing to expose themselves with regards to the legality of their cars.

I disagree. Most FI mx5s are not engineered - certainly not in NSW.

I will be engineering mine though.

charlie_91 · Postby **charlie_91** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 10:07 pm

Same. I will be getting my setup engineered in Brisbane

Gives you a bit of piece of mind of you get pulled over. Even thought theres a lot of other things illegal lol

93_Clubman · Postby **93_Clubman** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 1:31 pm

Was looking at buying a supercharged MX5 late last year & spoke to Shannons about insurance. They advised that for public road use they only insure & payout on 'legal' vehicles. So, I asked them what their definition of 'legal' was & they advised me to ring Vicroads. In other words, for someone living in Victoria wanting to insure with Shannons & get paid out on a vehicle for road use, 'legal' was what Vicroads determined was 'legal'.

In Victoria this meant a turbo or supercharged vehicle needed an approval certificate from a VASS, i.e. it needed to be engineered. Apart from Shannons comprehensive insurance, in Victoria this also meant that because the vehicle wasn't 'legal' for Vicroads registration, there would be implications for TAC insurance, i.e. personal & other party injury insurance.

Additionally, in Victoria at least, there's also EPA emissions to consider if you're running anything other than the factory ECU, which can also effect the legality of the vehicle to be registered in Vicroads view, & therefore all the aforementioned insurance issues may apply.

funmx5 · Postby **funmx5** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 4:04 pm

just to added to this what are engineers are requesting when doing the the turbo mod etc brakes shockers required

93_Clubman · Postby **93_Clubman** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 12:31 pm

funmx5 wrote:just to added to this what are engineers are requesting when doing the the turbo mod etc brakes shockers required

Vicroads guidance on modifications & roadworthiness:

http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/NR/rdonl ... 0/VSI8.pdf

http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/NR/rdonl ... I26web.pdf

Mr Morlock · Postby **Mr Morlock** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 7:06 pm

a very interesting question and my guess is that many do not go thru the right process. The insurance co's , if they get wind of something not disclosed ,will not pay. If an assessor does check a car....Even getting insurance in the first place even minor mods may result in a refusal to insure.

ekavaz · Postby **ekavaz** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:21 pm

My brother and I starting the process at the moment as well. I have a set of 4 pot willwood brakes i bought off the forum and have spoken to a few engineers about the whole process. I'm in NSW btw and apparently the laws about where they can actually test the cars has changed.

This means that in order to test brakes "safely" they're not aloud to do it on a public or closed road. i.e. they have to hire a race track!! the cheapest quote i had to engineer my brakes was $1200. Engineers also have to engineer the entire car, they can't just engineer the turbo/brakes and look the other way for other mods like seats, change in track etc.

The conclusion i have come to with my brother is get everything ready and build both our cars at once, then hopefully get a discount by having both cars engineered at the same time, so we can split the cost of the hire of the track.

NB* All of the engineers i spoke to were quite upset with the RTA about these rule changes and have been having frequent meetings to discuss different matters, basically last time i spoke to someone they had told me they asked the RTA if certain cars could still be tested on closed roads (I think the conditions were age of car, which i believe all mx5's would fall under) and he was waiting for a reply.

I hope this helps...

93_Clubman · Postby **93_Clubman** » Mon Apr 04, 2011 11:04 am

ekavaz wrote:My brother and I starting the process at the moment as well. I have a set of 4 pot willwood brakes i bought off the forum and have spoken to a few engineers about the whole process. I'm in NSW btw and apparently the laws about where they can actually test the cars has changed.

This means that in order to test brakes "safely" they're not aloud to do it on a public or closed road. i.e. they have to hire a race track!! the cheapest quote i had to engineer my brakes was $1200. Engineers also have to engineer the entire car, they can't just engineer the turbo/brakes and look the other way for other mods like seats, change in track etc.

The conclusion i have come to with my brother is get everything ready and build both our cars at once, then hopefully get a discount by having both cars engineered at the same time, so we can split the cost of the hire of the track.

NB* All of the engineers i spoke to were quite upset with the RTA about these rule changes and have been having frequent meetings to discuss different matters, basically last time i spoke to someone they had told me they asked the RTA if certain cars could still be tested on closed roads (I think the conditions were age of car, which i believe all mx5's would fall under) and he was waiting for a reply.

Tks for sharing - ICV builders in NSW are also having major difficulties with RTA.

bark · Postby **bark** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 8:56 pm

I've had mine legally approved here in SA as well as my father in-laws too.

Broad process to follow:
Step 1. Submit an application to modify to your respective road transport authority listing all modifications you wish to make. Do include an upgrade to your brakes if an NA, for NA8's and NB's the existing brakes will be ok as these were used on the SE's (turbo models). This will more than likely save you a brake test unless you put on non-ADR approved brakes which need to be proven to meet ADR's.
Step 2. Find a tuner who has the IM240 comparable emissions test program and get them to tune your vehicle for emissions.
Step 3. Pending list of modifications required find an engineer to work with for approval, may not be required for turbo but if bigger wheels or coilovers then you'll need one.
Step 4. Once tune is done and approved engineers report (if required) then get emissions test done.
Step 5. Get RTA to approve based on engineers cert and IM240 pass cert.
Step 6. Enjoy (and get a power tune done).

Ben

ampz · Postby **ampz** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:14 pm

In NSW (well it was 2 years ago) the engineer could approve all except the IM240 emissions test.
That test needed to be carried out by an EPA approved RTA (Botany did it for me) and the car to meet the emissions requirements as per its compliance plate.

Brakes,wheels and seats were done by the engineer as part of the turbo assessment.

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 8:10 pm

bark wrote:I've had mine legally approved here in SA as well as my father in-laws too.

Step 1. ... for NA8's and NB's the existing brakes will be ok as these were used on the SE's (turbo models)...

Ben

Nope.

NA8 and NB8A brakes are different to NB8B brakes, at least for Australian market vehicles.

:mrgreen:

Sean · Postby **Sean** » Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:29 pm

ekavaz wrote: I have a set of 4 pot willwood brakes i bought off the forum and have spoken to a few engineers about the whole process.

I hate to be pedantic, but I'm pretty sure you wont be able to get them properly engineered. In NSW you need to maintain the proper factory style dust seals on brake upgrades for road going cars, last time I checked (admitedly a couple of years ago) none of the available Wilwoods met this criteria. That said, I've seen lots of cars that engineers have signed off on with Wilwoods. Remeber though, an engineering certificate doesn't mean the car is legal, it just shifts the blame to the engineer rather than you.

93_Clubman wrote:Tks for sharing - ICV builders in NSW are also having major difficulties with RTA.

ICVs generally have to meet current standards, it's much harder to build a complete ICV to meet new standards than to modify an existing car within the applicable standards.

ampz wrote:In NSW (well it was 2 years ago) the engineer could approve all except the IM240 emissions test.
That test needed to be carried out by an EPA approved RTA (Botany did it for me) and the car to meet the emissions requirements as per its compliance plate.

Brakes,wheels and seats were done by the engineer as part of the turbo assessment.

Kinda...

The IM240 is an in service test. It's no where near as difficult as people think it is to pass, and it's no where near the requirements placed on car manufacturers. Good clean oil, fair tuning, a solid ignition system and a working HOT cat and you should be able to pass pretty easily, it's a basic cycle test and the car wont even come on boost during the test if they do it properly. There are also a few non RTA organisations authorised to do the test.

I've been through the engineering process a few times, I wrote an article on it here some time ago, check it out here:

viewtopic.php?f=76&t=19618

Some may be out of date, and I haven't had a chance to read over it tonight, so feel free to ask questions here...

On insurance, I used Shannons and they were great, knew all the mods etc. Car was properly engineered, and engineers certificate was registered with the RTA.

ekavaz · Postby **ekavaz** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 9:24 pm

Hey Sean,

Cheers for the reply, unfortunately excitement got the better of me and i bought them without propperly checking with multiple engineers and i say multiple because i called a couple that never mentioned the whole dust seal thing :evil:

. at the time of my last post i was planning on bolting them on and hoping for the best, I think im going to just buy a complete set of NB8B brakes now. So for everyone else out ther if you plan on keeping your car on the street don't make the same mistake i did and get willwood's!! Even thouh they would look freakin mean behind my 6UL's!! And probably stop me faster than an oncoming truck!! but i guess ill never know