Neil's Galaxy Grey Roadster NC

[neilhr]

I've been really enjoying reading about all of the MX5's in the Garage forum lately. I've learnt a lot by reading about your cars. Especially Charlie's Turbo NA BOSS, that car is quite amazing! Anyway I'd thought I'd give it a try...

I've been using my blog ggroadster.net as a car diary since I first got my Galaxy Grey NC. So I will give a quick summary of my NC up until now.

This is what I used to drive:
A 2010 Metropolitan Grey Mazda 2. This car made me realise how much fun modifying cars can be. I modded this car a bit before I decided if I was going to continue, I should really get a better car as my canvas.



I looked at many different cars. Some that come to mind were the Mini Cooper S, Golf GTi, Honda S2000, Golf R32, Nissan G35. I almost bought the S2000 but finding a decent example proved hard.

This my NC right now:


Modifications to Date
Engine
Flyin' Miata Supercharger
TDR Tuning Done Right
SOLD: AEM Cold Air Intake

Drivetrain
4.1 Final Gear Ratio

Chassis
Yellowspeed street adjustable coilovers
SOLD: Enkei RPF-01 17×7.5 +48
O.Z. Racing Ultraleggera 17×8 +48
Goodyear Eagle F1 Directional 5 215/45/17
Federal 595 235/40/17
EBC Ultimax Brake Pads

Exhaust
Goodwin Racing Roadstersport Header
Goodwin Racing Roadstersport Midpipe
Goodwin Racing Q Muffler

Other
Mazdaspeed Front Bumper
DashDAQ OBDII Data Logger
SmartTOP automatic powered hard top
CG-Lock Seat Belt Enhancement
Clear side indicators
Bosch Aerotwin Wiper Blades
Arkon GPS Dash Mount
Voodoo Pearl Gear Knob
SOLD: Front Billet Grille
GoPro Hero 2 camera

If you would like some more details on the mods above have a look at ggroadster.net. If you have any questions for me then what are you waiting for?!
I also take video on my GoPro every now and then. These include on the track and club runs. You can find my YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/user/shivstar

I'll will make sure to update this thread with all my future mods. Next mod will be in the coming weeks

Stay tuned,
Neil

Gallery


Caught in a flash hail storm only 2 weeks after I got my NC I was sweating bullets. But thankfully no damage. After the hail stopped I drove 400 metres up an icy hill and when I got to the top I saw there was no hail at all on the other side of the hill! Bah!


My car was originally on Enkei RPF's 17x7.5 +48


Circuit Club - Australia Day Feb 2012 - My second time ever on a race track. My Wakefield PB before supercharger is 1:16:03


My first time as MX5 Club Run Leader


Bit 'n' Bling Event - ggroadster awarded trophy for NC with Best Bits!


When I first had supercharger installed. Little did I know my car was running lean at the time. I monitor and log my car with the DashDAQ now. All fixed now with a better tune from TDR.


Emissions Test passed for NSW Engineering Certificate. Brake test in the coming weeks.

[ksharp]

Neil aka 'the heart breaker' is here. Good to have you on board, I have high expectations for this thread

[Gmi]

Awesome car

Loving the new front bumper!!

[neilhr]

Neil aka 'the heart breaker' is here. Good to have you on board, I have high expectations for this thread

Mate you will get there! Your NC is already very tasty and i cant wait to see the BBS wheels on woohoo

Awesome car

Loving the new front bumper!!

Thanks Gmi! it was such a coincidence for galaxy grey version to popup in the classifieds. i was all over so fast like a fat kid on cake ive always wanted this bumper right from the start but thought it wouldn't happen because it is a discontinued part

[Regie]

Ahh so you were the one that grabbed the ms bumper....looks absolutely sensational!

[Kev05]

Nice...you should include the link to your web page as well.

[ksharp]

have you ran a dyno with the supercharger yet? I wonna see what kind of power you're putting out!

[neilhr]

have you ran a dyno with the supercharger yet? I wonna see what kind of power you're putting out!

Will definitely be doing this... eventually . My car still has the stock exhaust system and now the stock 4WD suspension so embarassing! Just waiting on the engineering pass.
My tuning is also a work in progress. Atm it is a safe tune that helped pass emissions. Will be working on the 'race car' tune starting tomorrow

I also have a smaller pulley sitting on my desk, a carbon clutch and lightweight flywheel and i must get grippier tyres

[neilhr]

Hi all,
Just an update on my TDR tuning progress...

As some of you may recall my supercharged NC was running dangerously lean on the Dynotronics tune. With no quick update in sight, I switch over to Jay at TDR. He was very quick to make my car safe to drive once again.

However ever since I had switched to TDR there has been one slight problem. The car was now experiencing a hesistation or lag whenever I wanted to accelerate. So for example when I pushed the throttle, the car would go into a sort of limp mode (feeling power less than stock) for 1-2 seconds before deciding, 'ohhh you want to go fast now?'. This predominately happened within the 2500 to 4500rpm range and with my pedal position at around 20% - 50%. So as you can see it was affecting daily driving performance. It was a pain the back side. Going WOT was all fine though.

Jay had told me he had seen this before on Sandor's car. The reason for this error was my car had parts of the Dynotronics tune still inside. Jay was trying to undo the Dynotronics adjustments but finding it all proved difficult and time consuming. So my car was running my custom TDR tune but there were still Dynotronics values in the my file that were conflicting and creating my 'limp' problem.

What needed to be done was move away from using the Sniper Interface and continue with the ECUTek interface. Using ECUTek we were able to get my original factory Mazda tune (2007 EU) back. Jay could now work from a blank slate! He transferred our tuning progress over onto the factory tune.

We reflashed the car only once and the limp mode has vanished. The car is now silky smooth and I am experiencing power that I hadn't before! Feels very good and I need to get grippier tyres because they are loosing grip a bit too much!

My car is still on the stock exhaust system because of the engineering. But I can't wait to put my full Goodwin exhaust back and uncork this beast!

[neilhr]

I spent last Sunday installing my 2 new gauges - boost and oil temperature.





It was great fun and while time consuming it was quite easy. I used a multimeter & soldering iron for the first time so that was a valuable skill learnt.







I ended up installing the oil temperature in the air vent and the boost gauge in a cup. I am getting 8psi of boost on my stock pulley. I'll be looking to get a smaller pulley to push it to around 11psi. The oil temp sensor still needs to be welded to the oil pan so I might get help with that.


Very happy with my setup, with my DashDAQ on the left and 2 gauges on the right. I've got lots more bits coming soon and then I'm heading to the track!

Still waiting on my brake test for engineering certificate. Unfortunately it's been over a month and really dragging on now ... I really miss my coilovers and full Goodwin exhaust!

The TDR tune is running very well.

More photos on the blog

[kris]

very nice... nice match with colour too... wish i needed a boost gauge

[neilhr]

Thanks! Pleasantly surprised with the colour match. Looking at the photos I can see I need to adjust my DashDAQ theme. It's way too orange in the pics...

[Gmi]

Looks fantastic!!

"Why so many gauges?"
"Because race car"

I like!

[neilhr]

Went out with Regie and Guy today for a NC-exclusive photoshoot! I concentrated more on their cars because mine looks like a 4WD at the moment (stock suspension). See all the photos here: http://ggroadster.net/2012/11/nc-photoshoot/. Guy Coles has more shots on his camera too.

Here are a few:

[Crapweasel]

Loving the look of your car, this is how an NC should look!