Simon's NA8 daily/fun car :)

tooch · Postby **tooch** » Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:04 pm

Hey all!

I'd been thinking about buying an MX5 for a while, as I had a hunger for a small, fun RWD car, ever since I sold my AW11 4AGZE MR2 a few years back. MX5 fitted the bill perfectly, as they are cheap, reliable, and simple, with plenty of aftermarket bits available. After asking for some advice on here, I decided an NA8 would be the best way to go with my limited budget. A member on here, Bauer (Stu) offered me a great deal on his 1994 NA8, which required a quick plane ride over to Tassie, and a boat ride home with my new toy

After driving it for 5 minutes, I was hooked. The light feeling, perfect balance, and very direct steering were all things I loved. Even the standard exhaust on this car has a lovely burble, plus with the roof down on a nice day, it's just pure driving pleasure.

The car has some nice goodies fitted, a Mazdaspeed 'rollbar' (more accurately a Style bar), Mazdaspeed strut tower brace, aluminium radiator, Alpine head unit. I picked up a set of Black Racing 'Watanabe style' wheels from another member on here, which personally I think look a treat! The ride height is perfect in my opinion, but I will need to replace the shocks fairly soon as the ride is pretty crashy :lol:

. Even so, it handles great as is.

Some pics on the way home from our adventure. We stopped off at the beach on the way to the boat:

With the BR's on:

Goodies:

Plans for the car:
I don't want to go too crazy with it, as it will remain a daily for now.

*Fix items for RWC (back brake discs and pads are knackered, small oil leak from rocker cover gasket and CAS O-ring)
*New shocks/springs (coilovers maybe)
*Repaint wheels (maybe gold again)
*New door speakers
*Any other nice bits and pieces I come across on here/ebay

I'll update here from time to time.

tooch · Postby **tooch** » Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:13 pm

First things first, just a couple of minor fixes. Replaced a perished t-piece for the washer nozzles, which meant that only one jet was working. Replaced it and cleaned both jets, success.

Next was a big wash and 'quick and dirty' detail. 'Quick' still took approximately 4 hours

. The car is far from immaculate, several deep scratches, small dents, and rough paint bits. Overall though, it's straight enough, and I'm happy with its condition as I won't be too worried leaving it parked near work

. I just wanted to restore all the panels to the same colour, as some of them looked pink. Also wanted to reduce the severity of some of the scratches.

Unfortunately I didn't take many pics, as I wanted to get stuck into it. Firstly, I used a razor blade to very carefully scrape back some of the blobs of touch up paint which were in many places on the car.

Then, a foam spray, and an all over wash, and clay bar to remove contaminants.

After this, I went right over the car with my DA polishing machine, and Menzerna polishes. The single stage paint is so easy to work with, this was after a single pass on the bonnet. Left is before, right is after one pass with the least aggressive combination of pad/polish. The Menzerna works well with single stage oxidised paint, as it is oil based, and once you get some oil back into the paint, it really deepens the colour.

I was very happy with this level of correction. I didn't want to go too far, as I wanted some paint left for future polishing. It's already noticeably thin in some areas, and has struck through on some edges. I managed to get the bumpers slightly better, front is still noticeably more pink than the rest of the car though. And the rear garnish needs a re-paint, as I was getting strike through even with a DA polisher and very light polish and pad!

The pics in the above post (with BR's on) show the overall 'after' product. Quite an improvement in person, and me=very happy :NA8:

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:58 pm

Looks good Simon. Plus an adventure to get it

Those gold BR's suit it well.

Enjoy the experience and welcome. Anything like the rest of us, it's only just begun :lol:

.......

Bauer · Postby **Bauer** » Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:51 pm

Glad you are happy Simon and I look forward to seeing your interpretation of what makes a nice NA

you forgot to mention that part of your adventure included a free ride in a shiny black Toyota 86 with no rear leg room

Was a pleasure meeting you too.

tooch · Postby **tooch** » Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:56 pm

Thanks Kev, yep, I get the feeling it's only just begun!

Thanks Stu! Oh yes that was a highlight too! Had been wanting a ride in an 86 to see what it was like! Cheers for the airport pickup and the honest sale! Great meeting you too!

PaulF · Postby **PaulF** » Wed Nov 21, 2012 3:24 am

Those wheels look the goods. Any idea how heavy they are?

tooch · Postby **tooch** » Wed Nov 21, 2012 5:13 am

PaulF wrote:Those wheels look the goods. Any idea how heavy they are?

Not sure on the exact weight, but they are pretty light when I pick them up! They seem a bit lighter than the stock wheels.

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Wed Nov 21, 2012 10:10 pm

tooch wrote:
PaulF wrote:Those wheels look the goods. Any idea how heavy they are?

Not sure on the exact weight, but they are pretty light when I pick them up! They seem a bit lighter than the stock wheels.

According to post here http://www.mx5nutz.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=47295 they are 12kg each ....

Found on another site that 48KG is stamped in the back, means 12kg each (x4) apparently.

PaulF · Postby **PaulF** » Wed Nov 21, 2012 10:29 pm

They couldn't be, could they? Surely either 12lb or 4.8kg per wheel. Or maybe 12kg with tyres?

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Wed Nov 21, 2012 11:35 pm

Considering I also read the BR Phantom 14" is only around 6.5kg and their N1 17" is 9.6kg, that does appear heavy.

Sent from my GT-I9100T using Tapatalk 2

tooch · Postby **tooch** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 5:23 am

Interesting!
Next time I've got one of them off, I'll see if I can verify

tooch · Postby **tooch** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 9:11 pm

Small update time:

Have ordered new rear discs and pads. Hint: If anybody wants very cheap replacement brakes, NA8 generic discs are DAMN cheap on the Supercheap Auto online parts ordering system, and Bendix pads are also extremely cheap from Amazon US, even including shipping.

Sourced a cheap genuine valve cover gasket and CAS o-ring, will order in the next day.

I was bored on the weekend so decided to go and buy some new door speakers. I had been looking at some nice sets of 6.5" splits, but I didn't want to cut up my immaculate door trims to fit tweeters, and didn't *really* want to spend $150 if possible.

Solution: I decided to try out a pair of Jaycar 'Response Precision Kevlar' coaxials. They've won numerous awards over the years, and have always stacked up extremely well for their price against the name brand stuff. For $89, I figured there was little to lose. One confusing thing, they are listed online and in the catalog as 6.5" speakers. The box and paperwork however says 6". I don't know what size they *actually* are, but they are a perfect fit in the NA doors. They have plenty of holes for OEM mountings, I found that 2 out of 3 of the MX5's screw mounts lined up with holes on the speakers. I simply drilled a hole for the 3rd one, so I could mount them using the factory holes and plastic mounts.

Running off my Alpine head unit, they sound great! The first few hours they didn't sound fantastic to be honest, but they seemed to loosen up and now they really pump out some great sound. In my younger days I would have added an amp and a subwoofer, but I don't like adding unnecessary wiring and weight to a car like this, and I'm happy as-is.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pics, as I wanted to get them in and go for a nice drive (up towards Yarra Glen for the Victorians amongst us

).

In other news, it looks like I sold my bike, so I have some cash to spend on nice suspension and a few other toys

tooch · Postby **tooch** » Sat Dec 08, 2012 6:13 pm

Spent a good few hours this morning working on the car, typical of me to choose the hottest Melbourne day in a while :shock:

Firstly, these lovely new weather strips to replace the totally ruined original ones. $115 posted for a set of 2 on ebay, bargain! They instantly improve the look of the car by a lot I think.

Old vs new:

Then I swapped out the CAS O-Ring, as it was leaking a fair bit of oil. No wonder, the old one was rock hard and fell apart when I pulled it out. Very easy job, 10 mins all up. Hopefully this has stemmed the oil leak that's been manifesting itself on my carport floor :roll:

. Unfortunately though, I think there may be a worse leak somewhere else. I also noticed evidence of a small coolant leak from somewhere, so I have to investigate all of the hoses soon.

Then it was time to attack the rear brakes. The old ones were ready for the bin, big lip on the discs (you can see it in the pics), the pads appeared to be mismatched sets, and on one side they were crumbling away!

Brand new discs and pads, VERY cheap:

Yuk vs shiny

:

I also replaced the wiper blades during the week, the old metal frames were all rusty and worn looking, so I bought a set of these cheap 'Aero upgrade' blades from ebay. Looks much more modern and they work a treat. I need to respray the arms at some stage too.

So there, I'm almost where I want to be maintenance wise

. I'm still searching for what I want to do suspension wise, and a few other minor cosmetic mods/repairs.

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Sat Dec 08, 2012 10:44 pm

The new window/door seals make a big difference don't they?! Got mine from same place as you and it stopped my driver's window rattling over all the bumps as well.

I was too lazy with my wiper arms and just gave them a quick spray, didn't do much preperation, but they are bugging me now & I really need to take them off and rub them back properly so that the final finish looks better. Might be worth spraying the black plastic strip under the windscreen while you are at it if its anywhere near as faded as mine was.