Slug Dub's NA

[sliq]

i love gauges. it morphs the driver's feel to the car.

[PaulF]

Are they AWD gauge faces? Where did you buy them?

[slug_dub]

AWD indeed PaulF... sourced through the same gentleman I had purchased the Nakamae door bits from.

[Bizi]

Hi slug_dub,
I found your car on the East Coast Miata gallery, so wanted to say g'day.

G'day!

I'm enjoying your Garage thread. Mirrors are a nice look on the red car.

Having had these for a while now, how are they holding up in terms of functionality and appearance?

I've had a Clubman for a day and one annoying glitch is the driver's site mirror, which is both loose and a bit wonky as a result, I think, of a bingle.

The East Coast Miata mirrors seem to be the only ones like this.

How easy was it to arrange this order?

Did you get your wheels from there, too?

Thanks!
Ben

The side mirrors on the car were pretty ratty. Passenger side was just floppy and would never stay set.. too much corrosion and stripping on the inside bolt.

Not really wanting to get more of the same I've been on the hunt for something a bit different. The Zoom mirrors are great but not exactly what I was looking for. Some of the Japanese ones I desire I may never own, though I'm always looking. Retro style mirrors can be an iffy choice for a 'modern' car, but I was keen to try something like that.

I found a set I thought I'd try at East Coast Miata. They arrived yesterday and on the car they went!







The mirrors are very well made, all metal, and came with bolts, gaskets, washers and good instructions. I did have to drill a hole in the passenger door to fit a mounting bolt for the arm underneath the base, drivers side already had this larger hole, otherwise fitting was a snap. Very chuffed overall.

I emailed Ken at E.C.M. about them a bit first, and he was helpful and extremely prompt in communication and sending them out to me, so got to be happy with that.

[slug_dub]

Ahoy Bizi

East Coast Miata were real easy to deal with. Postage was very prompt. I actually first asked Ken a question through an eBay US listing for the mirrors and he replied that I should buy through the ECM website as they were cheaper there, so that was cool of him ;)

After a year or so I'm still really like the mirrors, still like the look, and physically they are still as good as the day they were installed. There is one convex and one non-convex in the set, so I have the convex one on the drivers side. It does mean that there is a limited field of view from the passenger side as they overall diameter of the mirror is much smaller than stock, however with a bit of fiddling over the first week or so I got it into the right spot to be useful and have gotten used to it.
If you don't have power mirrors you may need to drill out a hole in the door big enough to fit the nut that holds the mirrors arm to the base on the underside.

Hope that helps.

[slug_dub]

What to do with this NA8's motor? I'm appealing for thoughts and opinions.

What we know; car has done 320,000 km+ on this motor. Engine did have cooling problems at some time previous to purchase... apparently fixed but what fixes were done we don't know, looks like a new radiator cap but radiator appears ot be the original. Car was not dríven for a long time (more than a year) before we picked it up.
Coolant was rust coloured when we got it. Fully flushed and new coolant added; it has stayed green. No excessive useage of coolant.
Plugs leads and fluids changed.
Other perks are slipping accessory belts on startup, so will re-tention or replace those.

After a ~2hr highway drive: temp gauge in the car does show a little bit of a rise but it doesn't go real high. It has another temp sensor on the front of the block with a readout in the car set to go off at 100 degrees. On the drive it sits in the 70's. When it was warmer it would go over 100 after slowing down to city speeds which is the heatsoak probably. One of the times after a drive I could hear the coolant popping and fizzing, block sensor over 100 degrees. Hasn't done that lately but its also much cooler weather here now.

I have a new radiator and thermostat to put in and we'll pull off the water pump and change it if necessary, to see if there's further sign of badness in the cooling channels.

Compression tests show its low on compression in 2 and 3 cylinders (numbers have been cyl 1 thru 4: ~185/~140/~140/~185). Attempted a leakdown test but I don't think we got that one to work yet (noobs!)
So this does suggest there is something a bit unhappy internally. Motor does appear to perform decently, pulls ok, no misfiring, no noises, no smoke, no real lack of power (lightened flywheel; do want!).

What else can we do to identify what might be wrong with this motor? Should I just fix the cooling system and drive it til it dies? Replace the motor now and prevent this one from worsening? Pull the head off this one to see? Unfortunately minimal downtime is a necessity, and thats a worry if we start pulling it apart now. I can stretch to a replacement motor but can't afford to rebuild one and it would be pointless to do that without putting it back together with stronger parts anyway...

[slug_dub]

Ripped the guts out of the NA8 this weekend and replaced with new/not as old bits

Replaced the motor with one from MX5 Plus, put in a new stock clutch and a 4kg chromoly flywheel (yeah that stock ones a real heavy bit of kit!), new stock radiator, changed the gearshift boots and redid all fluids (including power steering as I unplugged its hose when I didn't really need to.

I did get some photos but not very many, and only of pulling stuff out, and I managed to leave the camera in Brisbane so they'll come later.

Dropped the gearbox out separately on removal but put it back in attached to the engine. Either way, dealing with the bolts, or the wiring loom and the starter under there was a bit frustrating but not impossible. Except for an hour removing a stripped bolt we didn't happen to see still stuck in the new engine, we didn't have too many hiccups at all. Lots of photos on our phones as we were tearing it down made re-assembly a lot easier... best use for a phone camera ever!
Fixed an exhaust leak when putting that back together as well which made the stock system sound a little less crappy

It would have started first time but... fuel lines to the injector rail were reversed whups! Swapped them over and it started right up.

Went for a spin and all seems very good! I can definitely feel and like the difference with the flywheel change, there is a much more pronounced urgency to putting your foot down hehe. Recommended!

We'll drive it a bit over the next couple of weeks to make sure no problems with the work make themselves evident, but at this stage it looks like a successful swap and that should cover just about all of the mechanical issues with the NA8.

[NitroDann]

Fantastic, I dont read garage threads a lot and when I saw your second to last post Thats exactly what I would have suggested. Now you can tear down the original and decide if its worth building it.

Dann

[mxfive95]

I agree, i just bought a second hand engine and plan to swap it with my worn engine (its down comp in 2 and 3 aswell) I'll then rebuild the original one slowly in my time and still have the car on the road than sitting there.

What where the costs involved in doing your swap?

Craig

[slug_dub]

You're both exactly right... will now work on a full rebuild on the original motor, and I won't be too pressed to get it done urgently.

Craig I've spent around 2300 all up on this, purchases were 1800 longblock, flywheel, clutch kit, some fuel hose, gearshift boots, Mazda exhaust and inlet manifold gaskets, radiator, lots of fluids. Might have done it cheaper, might not have, not really too concerned about that.
It was a big chunk but there would have been at least half that spent just in the end to try and fix the headgasket, and it would have taken much more time, assuming that was the only thing we'd have to do, so against that fix becoming a much larger endeavour, it was worth it to get going quickly and I do have a motor now to build into something nice.

[slug_dub]

Upcoming work is replacing the NA8's dash which is cracked badly, and sorting out the stereo and gauges into it.
Replacement dash arrived today... thanks WhiteNA6!

[WhiteNA6]

all good mate,
now make use of it
your cars looking amazing, keep the good work coming.

[slug_dub]

A week or more on of driving with the new engine and its behaving fine. Only disaster was discovering the injectors not sealing properly in the rail and leaking quite a lot of fuel... luckily noticed that one before going on any long drive!
Replaced o-rings on the injectors and reseated with some lubing action into the rail and the problem was fixed.

Have also now swapped over the Wats and the exhaust. With the Khumo's the car handles... well... it actually handles now!
Unfortunately the exhaust rubs a little on the stock NA8 bracing so will have to see if I can get a bit of a change in the midpipe.

Very much liking the lightened flywheel. Feels almost as nice now as the NA6, but still not as nice on the acceleration... different diff ratio perhaps? (Is the NA6 4.3 and the NA8 4.1?)

Anyhoo, a couple of photos from engine swap bonanza.

Chromoly flywheel


New motor while putting the bits on it

[NitroDann]

Yeah 4.3 for na6 4.1 or lower for 1.8s.

Dann

[slug_dub]

Further to the interior cause I've nabbed a whole set of carpet in very good condition (thanks 1red5), so the next thing on the list is to do a full teardown of the interior, clean, and install all the stuff I've acquired.

I'd very much like suggestions for a really good spray adhesive for gluing material to plastic. Something heat resistant for if it had to cop a bit of sun exposure.