Lachstock and Four Turbo Charged Cylinders ['04 NB SE]

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:10 pm

No, wasn't fitted on Sunday, however this was more of a weather concern than a secrecy concern :wink:

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:38 pm

ManiacLachy wrote:I have one more reveal for the car, but that'll need pictures. If the weather gods co-operate hopefully Sunday will be good for a few shots.

Well the weather cooperated on the weekend, and I took my new addition out to Mt Mee and Coffee

I actually bought this before I bought my car! When looking through build threads I saw the speed deck in Lokiel's and MINX's threads and knew I had to have one. I've loved the look of the Boxster Spyder's deck and this emulates it nicely.

Last year a little green 5 for written off up north. And this deck was still at home, the owner suggested it was for sale, next minute Nevyn and I were in a bidding war. However Nevyn realized he couldn't use this and his newly re-fabbed windblocker, so he withdrew. And it day under my desk at peek for about 7 months!

I had it painted to match the body because I didn't think going black would work well with the silver, and the Grace green original colour would be bizarre.

Thanks to Pezchops and Lilly for this awesome shot!

pezchops · Postby **pezchops** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 8:17 pm

the deck looks great...its the first time ive seen one in the flesh.
is that 'Doppler effect' on your wheels on the rolling pic?

Roadrunner · Postby **Roadrunner** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 8:53 pm

Now that would be a set of wheels that would trip people out!

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 10:05 pm

Yeah, I seem to have lost a few spokes on the mountain, those turns are pretty sharp!

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 7:24 am

Looks great colour matched to the sliver mate! :mrgreen:

Lokiel · Postby **Lokiel** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 10:02 am

I'm a BIG fan of these very rare decklids (only 5 were made) - I paid top $$$ for mine and it was in dire need of a re-paint when I bought it.

I think that decklid was originally owned and painted by Novice1 to match his car so are you saying that Novice1's NB was written off by the guy who bought it from him?

It does look good colour matched to your car - black would probably have been too much contrast on Sunlight Silver; you may have needed to "black out" other bits to get the balance right.

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 10:14 am

Lokiel wrote:I'm a BIG fan of these very rare decklids (only 5 were made) - I paid top $$$ for mine and it was in dire need of a re-paint when I bought it.

While I think I got the decklid for a good price, the respray was expensive and included some repairs to the fibreglass. And then I needed to get a little extra cut out from around the roll bar to make it fit properly. All up, it's quite expensive for something you can't use everyday, but whe I see it on the car it makes me happy! So all in all I'm OK with the cost.

I think that decklid was originally owned and painted by Novice1 to match his car so are you saying that Novice1's NB was written off by the guy who bought it from him?

I'm not sure if it was Novice1's or not, it's an NA though, so probably not. Here's the thread http://mx5cartalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=63445 Quite lucky the lady driving wasn't hurt. RangeRunner ended up buying a Ti SE afterwards.

It does look good colour matched to your car - black would probably have been too much contrast on Sunlight Silver; you may have needed to "black out" other bits to get the balance right.

I'm going for a Black highlights look in general, rather than the popular Chrome look. So it should balance out eventually. Though I think I'll stick with the chrome fuel lid, don't think black would work there!

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:39 am

Sunday morning saw any early run up and over Nebo and Glorious on the way to the Darling Downs Breakfast Meet at the Plainview Hotel. The plan was to mee with Pezchops at Jolly's look out at 6:30, then carry on, but I decided to get up there a bit earlier and take some photos :mrgreen:

Was a great run through the twists, only a few lycra clad road warriors to watch out for! Passed a white Corvette Z06 sitting pretty at the coffee shops, and I swear I heard it's V8 howl while I was taking my photos :twisted:

Had nice breakfast with Magpie, Tess and JJ, Pezhops and Lilly and Rossburns. Then headed back to Magpie's for a little wrenching

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:53 am

Magpie kindly let me come back to his place after coffee to finish the job we didn't get to at the Dodgey Day - The Intercooler install!

I've had this intercooler sitting in my garage for about 3 months, and it was high time it went on, but it wasn't a job I wanted to tackle on my own or at home without access to a few tools such as an angle grinder for cutting, or a vice for bending up some brackets. Luckly Magpie has a very well kitted out shed, and is very generous with his time - THANK YOU MARK!

The intercooler won't really see any more power getting to the wheels, but it's a recommended SE upgrade. The stock intercooler is known to heat soak after 1 or 2 power runs, and from there you just won't see peak power again until it's had time to cool. Not a problem on the streets, but on a track that'll be an issue. So the upgraded FMIC will just ensure you have peak power any time you want it, as often as you want it.

Plenty of write ups on this around the internet, so I won't go into great detail here, but I think the biggest pain in the neck is removing the bumper! So many of those annoying plastic screw-tabs!

We removed the intercooler along with the hardpipes in order to measure everything up. Measured again, and again to be sure, then we cut once! The driver's side was a close fit due to the width of this intercooler, the reducer fits on just before the hardpipe bend.

Then everything went back into place and we started looking at where to place the brackets. We redrilled the horn's position on it's bracket to clear the IC, then fabbed up a couple of "C" shapped brackets to hold the intercooler from the top. We need to reposition the A/C lines a little as well. It's a tight fit, but it all went in. Then everything went back on.

(Yeah - about that licence plate frame... I may have bumped into a tow ball in the work parking lot :oops:

)

She started up with no problems and I drove on home, happy with my new FMIC. I now have no more parts to install. Not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing :roll:

Now it's time to start learning how to drive her, to that end I'll be visiting QR for Track Day 1 in two weeks, then hopefully out to Morgan Park for some driver training.

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:58 am

Last one for today, and then we're all caught up :wink:

I decided to throw on a 14" wheel to see if Lokiel was telling the truth about the stock boat anchors.

Yeah, I had a flat tyre

Somewhere I drove over a screw.

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 8:29 am

Photos now fixed after Corners pointed out in the DD Meet thread that my links were broken. :oops:

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 8:53 am

Well, the track day did not go as planned

First session, 3rd lap, turn 1 ... I downshifted poorly, locked the rear, spun out towards the inside ripple strip, bounced over it hitting with the front passenger wheel. Went to drive back on to the track and steering felt quite bad. Game over. There were many curse words yelled into my helmet on the side of the track.

Suspected bent lower control arm. Had the car towed to Automotive Plus, and I'll find out the extent of the damage later today.

Stupid newbie mistake that unfortunately resulted in me going home early and being unable to have a chance to learn from my mistake and try again. I keep replaying the situation in my head. Minx gave me some great advice in the pits before the run that went straight out the window as soon as I started driving. I wish I'd held on to his words.

Not sure when I'll be able to go out again, to say my significant other is angry is an understatemnet, though it's the cost of it that gets to her (after my safety - and I'm without a scratch). I'm pretty upset about it too. I guess my next best hope is the SDT day on July 18 at Morgan Park - it's my birthday, and it's driver training. I might wait a while before I bring that up though :frown: