Slug Dub's NA

[slug_dub]

If you'll indulge me just a little more gauge porn, I took a photo just on dusk to be able to see the gauge bling with lights on.

[davidau]

If you'll indulge me just a little more gauge porn, I took a photo just on dusk to be able to see the gauge bling with lights on.

WOW nice..looks really good!!

[Steampunk]

There are heaps of thos hex-drive bolts on fleabay, but tome want exorbitant $$.
I'm guessing your local nuts'n'bolts placw (Mitre10?) would have them readily.

Gauges look great.

[slug_dub]

The Doc had bought a set of Yellowspeed Dynamic Pro Sports for the NA6 but they hadn't been put on the car yet.
However after Friday night's drive where we got to have a play with an EDFC setup on a car with Teins (thanks Chris!) its pretty clear he wants that for the car now (he's a total freak for controls and buttons and knobs!)
So we threw the YSR's on the NA8.

Easy enough to figure out being our first play with adjustable stuff, and we just played a little bit with height before putting them on the car. Spring height will be left alone, as I don't want to go very low at all so the shock body will be plenty of adjustment in that area.
Drove a couple of hundred kilometres with them otherwise out of the box. Could already feel that its a lot better than the 320,000 stock stuff, but quite bouncy on the rears and just a tad bouncy on the front, which diminished just a little over the course of those km's.

The height is currently 13" on three corners and 12.5" on the other, so that'll need playing with, but couldn't be frigged with that today So put a 24mm front sway on instead.
Had a read through the YSR thread again and I thought I'd give Nanotech's settings a go and set them to 24 clicks front, 16 rear and went for a drive.
Counting out the clicks I have a feeling they were set on the softest settings, can't quite confirm for the fronts as I played a bit before thinking to keep count, but on the rears definitely they were at 0.
Very noice! Now its sharp like the NA6 but with much reduced harshness over some bumps like the Billies and Kings give that car, and its nice being able to play wit the height independently since the NA6 came out a bit weird.
Now to see if they've got as bit of longevity about them.

[slug_dub]

Its cold and blowing a gale outside dammit and all I wanted to do today was wash the car. Oh well continue work on door action and here's some work in progress.

I'm doing a recover of the door panels, last few days it has been work on the door crashpads.

Pulled the door apart easy enough and the fibreboard cards are really crappy so its worth making new ones anyway.

Stripping apart the crashpad for a new covering has been painful. the vinyl is attached to the plastic crashpad piece by really thick double sided tape which gives the pad that little bit of squishiness. Cleaning it off has been laborious and horrible, and combination of some acetone and heat gun and wearing down my fingers peeling it off.



The messy looking part in the wedge was a bit of a failure section where I used too much acetone but it didn't melt the plastic much and its cleaned and smoothed out.

I used some carpet underlay I found at Spotlight for the padding part. Its not too thick and just enough padding. Attached it to the plastic piece with a spray adhesive and trimmed down the edges.



Then have been using liquid nails to attach the material. I attached along the bottom first and let it dry conpletely before starting on the top edge so that i could stretch uit just a little without pulling away the glued bit.







Now have to let this fully dry before attempting to attach the material to the front wedge piece and thats one crashpad down. Not looking forward to cleaning up the other one

[slug_dub]

One finished suede door crashpad. Managed to get a small amount of glue on the visible side... bummer.



Also covered in suede the small dash crashpad on the drivers side today. Its not as nice a job as I would have liked, as it was pretty difficult to stretch cleanly over the complex shape of that piece. I might have another go on another crashpad piece later on. Hopefully the longe passenger side piece goes better.

Washed claybarred and polished the NA8 and surprisingly it came up pretty good. All the plastic parts are super faded and they'll never be shiny without a respray, but the rest is looking ok. Not a great photo to show shininess

[Bizi]

Did you have to completely strip the dash pad too or just stretch the suede over it?

I like the way this is heading and look forward to seeing the crashpads done and mounted.

[slug_dub]

On the dash crashpads its kind of more plastic all over with foamcore inside, so the surface of it is not really removeable like on the door pads, so I just covered over the top of it. Apart from being a bit unhappy with the finish on it, I'm also worried it may not fit well into the car now with the extra material increasing its thickness at the points is slots onto the dash, but we'll see.

The main doorcard part still needs more holes cut in it before I can cover it, and I need to get the speakers sorted as well to make sure the teardrop speaker grills I have will sit ok over the speakers, so finishing a whole door is a ways off yet

[slug_dub]

Participated today in a run with the MX5 club for the first time, coincidentally it also happened to be one I organised! A Toowoomba Chapter outing but we had two cars from Brisbane come along. 8 cars journeyed to Queen Mary Falls, from Toowoomba via Freestone and Yangan where we stopped for a coffee break (well I needed one anyway ) and Killarney on to Daggs and Queen Mary Falls. The return journey was back through Warwick and Allora. A perfect cloudless day although there was a great deal of haze, apparently from grassfires, which made for an interesting slightly eerie look to most of the landscape for much of the day. Not a great amount of twsty action to really let the cars stretch their legs on this route but a fun day nonetheless! A few photos...

[Lokiel]

:

Is it wrong to be aroused by this?

- just need to upgrade the steering wheel for the "happy ending".

[slug_dub]

Haha never fear Lokiel, as soon as I find some steering wheel screws I'll swap to the Mazdaspeed I had before on the NA6.

[Steampunk]

Did a bit of cleaning up last night and came across these:


Not 100% sure if they are for a Nardi wheel, but I can't think of what else they can be for.

[edit] oh woops... just re-read your last post, you're after bolts for a different wheel.
Are you gonna sell the Nardi?

[slug_dub]

No the Nardi will swap to the NA6, so swapping the hub as well... but I'm not sure the screws are different between the hubs... if we can give those a try and they fit I'll take em off your hands.

[emex]

[quote="slug_dub"]Participated today in a run with the MX5 club for the first time, coincidentally it also happened to be one I organised! A Toowoomba Chapter outing but we had two cars from Brisbane come along. 8 cars journeyed to Queen Mary Falls, from Toowoomba via Freestone and Yangan where we stopped for a coffee break (well I needed one anyway ) and Killarney on to Daggs and Queen Mary Falls. The return journey was back through Warwick and Allora. A perfect cloudless day although there was a great deal of haze, apparently from grassfires, which made for an interesting slightly eerie look to most of the landscape for much of the day. Not a great amount of twsty action to really let the cars stretch their legs on this route but a fun day nonetheless! [quote]

Thats my old stomping ground (Warwick, Allora, Yangan etc) Continue on past the falls and through Urbanville, Old Bonalbo (spelling) it spits you out near Amberley...THAT has a few curves...and a few bumpy sections too.

[slug_dub]

On one of my recce runs I did drive up the rest of Spring Creek Road via The Head and it is indeed awesome Two of the tightest twistiest descents I've dríven I think!