Gorgan the NB

[The Green Goblin]

thanks dude.. although slow, its coming along.

mate has also suggested the MCA's.. alot of the silvia guys are starting to run these - though 'apparently' they are only assembled by MCA (not sure where materials are from). it wont hurt to look into these though!

[angusis2fast4u]

thanks dude.. although slow, its coming along.

mate has also suggested the MCA's.. alot of the silvia guys are starting to run these - though 'apparently' they are only assembled by MCA (not sure where materials are from). it wont hurt to look into these though!

Yeah i'm not sure about the in's and out's of them but they have been killing it at WTAC the last few years so that in itself has got me pretty sold on them. I had a set of BC's in my NA and while I was thoroughly happy with them I bought them more for stance then track purposes, I have an NB8B now and want to go for a more aggressive street/track orientation and I am thinking the MCA's should be better due to quality and longevity of the product. (BC's can go "off" - there a few cases around where the coils just stiffen up a heap usually happens when they are 2-5 years old but it happened to my mates FC after only 2 years)

anyways good luck with it all and ill be keen to keep reading, i've subbed

[sailaholic]

- though 'apparently' they are only assembled by MCA (not sure where materials are from). it wont hurt to look into these though!

mca golds are all machined in house in Qld, essentially by hand if you like and your looking at a start price of 1200 per corner.

Reds/blues an attempt to reach a bigger market so they make one in house, do the testing etc then send the design away to have the production work done at a workshop designed for producing batch lots at reasonable costs.

I'm not sure if they come back the machine shop fully assembled but I suspect not as the bodies are essentially the same between red and blue it's just the add in bits like valve stack, top plate (not in mx5s) oil etc that make the difference. all reds are put on a shock dyno to check performance against spec. Suspect only a random sample of blues are dyno' for quality assurance.

[The Green Goblin]

*ooops..

J.

[The Green Goblin]

bit of an update.. installed the sparco sprint V:







initial impressions are.. wow, totally transformed the driving feel - very race orientated, i dont slip out of the seat when taking hard corners so im quite happy with it. i sit much lower than the stock seat & it's comfy also - ive retained the factory rails. it makes you feel as if you can take corners harder than you actually should (realized this on the way home!).

in other news i have finally downloaded a race app on my phone so that i can start timing myself at track days, the next day out at wakefield is Jan 10th.. should be good with the new seat in.

Also have purchased the following:
- Tein mono sport coil over susp
- gen 4, 949 racing 6UL in nickel.. 15x8+36

i was swaying between the MCA reds & tein's, but after looking into the MCA's i couldnt justify the extra 1k+ difference in cost, the teins have a very close spring rate as compared the reds - the other main difference between the 2 was the valving on the MCA's is 'far more superior'. having owned tein's previously on my s15 & for the price i got them for was quite good, so i stuck with them. The above items should be here in late Jan early Feb. I aim to have a roll bar installed before the coil overs + rims are mounted. im thinking of some sort of semi slick tyre size as 225/45 or 50 (?)/15, from what i have seen on here i might be close to rubbing with a 50 profile using an 225/8' rim so leaning towards a 45 profile - either way should be interesting.

slowly but surely & after much dollars, Gorg's is coming along..

Orroo for now,
J

[ManiacLachy]

Nice. I want a good seat, but don't tally for the Sprint V, I can imagine it's nice in the corners. Coils should help Gorgs hold to tarmac, to match the seat. And I'm quite jealous of your wheels, though I'll take mine in tungsten

[The Green Goblin]

Nice. I want a good seat, but don't tally for the Sprint V, I can imagine it's nice in the corners. Coils should help Gorgs hold to tarmac, to match the seat. And I'm quite jealous of your wheels, though I'll take mine in tungsten

the sprint V is very good around corners.. & that's without a harness, i think with a harness it would be perfect, though i don't think i will be running one any time soon.

i chose nickel as they will make good contrast against the darkish blue paint.. i did consider them though. ultimately i just want a nice clean look.

[The Green Goblin]

as mentioned, headed to wakefield on 10/1 - overall it was great fun as usual, i got my little endorphin hit i was after. I completed 5 sessions in total, could've had more but the fun was cut short due to a nail found in my rear left tyre which caused total deflation.. i must of picked it up as i was driving to the track..even though i didnt hear or notice anything along the way. the first couple of sessions were fine - again nothing really noticed in terms of deflation..even though it was probably happening quite rapidly, i popped off to lunch & came back to find that the tyre was completely flat! so day was cut short & i went about replacing it with the spare in the boot - pretty annoying but sh!t happens i guess.

regarding the performance of the car, i must admit that it felt a little 'slow' in acceleration, reaching red line took longer than usual, maybe i was just expecting a bit more from it.. in saying that temperatures reached a good 30 degree's so perhaps that had a bit of contribution to me feeling that way. the track was dry in all my sessions, it rained later on in the day. my lines were good & improved from the last time i ran there..braking points in turn 2, 8 & 10 had improved towards the later sessions i had more guts stomping on the brakes.. which i must say performed very well.. the carbotech's are awesome, no fade at all & they maintain the initial bite. most of the corners (but mainly the hill section) magnified the body roll the stock suspension set up has..it was leaning quite a bit into turn 3.. transitioning into 4 i could definately feel the weight transfer & if not done right, the entry into the corner would be hampered. not that i was competing but i was keeping pace with an 86 on track which was a good sign.. had some sort of new bmw hatch also hesitate to pass me.. i would leave him around the hill section..then came the straights & he'd catch up, same applied to an xr6..in saying that i guess it comes down to driver skill also. my time was a little disappointing.. a best of 1:23.07, though i wasn't caring too much about that, as long as i had fun & improved some of my weak points.. also i think the deflating tyre & heat soak may have had a hand in it - time will tell the next time i visit.

i took some in car footage which i wanted to share, but the program i use to edit etc is playing up. so will leave it for now, i did however take a screen shot off my phone around the speeds reached in corners. as i have no real reference, hoping some of you who are experienced can tell me how slow i really am & what the bench mark is in a stock NB8b



here is how it looked leaving the track.. 80km's the whole way home with dopy people sitting on my ass not getting the point!


i was suprised how much the boot actually took.. 16' rim, tool box, shirts, towels & bag


i would like another 1 or 2 days with the stock suspension in there & see how much i can get out of it..

cheers,
Jas.

[The Green Goblin]

some randoms after a good clean, wonder what it will look like once lowered & 6ul's mounted..im over the stock look already!







over'n'out.

[The Green Goblin]

it's been quiet & boring lately, purely because of a planned trip to europe in July - cant wait, so ive been a tight ass..sort of. i have had to do some small annoying jobs, ive always had these on the to do list, so i thought i would get them out of the way sooner rather than later, those being:

1. remove old problematic alarm system & replace with new (purchased a basic mongoose type)
2. fix central locking issue on passenger side door (still in progress)
3. off the back of the above, whilst my door cards were off, i decided to upgrade my speakers for that extra quality in sound
4. have new alarm installed, for those rare times i do park it in public places.

old location of the alarm, left with an awesome hole from some moron who decided to do a half ass install. so i want to get this fixed now because i have OCD & want to avoid rust attacks.


new location of new alarm, the beeps sound slightly gay but such is life.


replacement speakers installed, these have built in tweeters, so the factory items have been deleted


so regarding the central locking unit, i have been told the unit itself on the passenger side has sh!t itself & needs replacement. i recently picked one up off a forum member & will look to install shortly. for those who stumble across this thread, have the same issue & don't know why or what the issue is - read all about it here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=66955.

so another annoying thing that's not really happening is delivery on my 6ul rims i ordered back in Dec 14.. long story short there is an issue with the port in the united states of poo.. & ETA on delivery is end of March. the Tein mono sports should also be delivered end of march, it's a waiting game. i have also ended up purchasing a brown davis roll bar, i looked into the mx5+ bar also, but decided the BD suited me better as it sits slightly higher than the automotive plus single hoop torque box, another advantage is the BD comes with relevant CAMS related paperwork in case i ever get pulled over.

the plan is to get the roll bar in, fix the central locking issue & then hit an April track day at wakie.. following that, will have the suspension installed & then go tyre shopping so that i can mount the 6ul's. but i dont think this will happen until i return from europe (2nd half of the year). i aim to hit 2x track days before the trip.. but will see how things go.

lastly the car needs a full exhaust.. theres other things on the cards but i have to calm myself down & do it patiently/one by one.

orroooo.

[Snowmotion]

Sorry to hear about your wheels being stuck in LA. I was told the LA port would be closed about 3 months in total before the dispute is resolved.

[The Green Goblin]

yeh apparently its a pretty crap situation which has unions involved.. the port isnt closed, apprently its not operating as it should.

i have been told my wheels are in the container & on the ship.. God knows if thats true. i should of just gone for the rpf1's damn it.

[Suspense]

another advantage is the BD comes with relevant CAMS related paperwork in case i ever get pulled over.

That's not going to help you for road worthiness, only to get through scrutineering at track events.

[Carnage]

Just as an I idea of what a stock nb can do I have a stock nb8a on ado8rs and do 1:16.5 with room to move and I know others that do the similar and better. Anything quicker then a 1:17.0 is getting up there. More track time is all you need. Good luck!

[Jeo]

Club record for a stock NB on OEM equivalent tyres is in the 16's; Guran used to punt his stock NA6 around in 1:14.9 I think? Don't get disheartened by that though. There's no magic bullet to getting faster, just practice and ideally, get out with a trainer if you can. You're certainly not approaching the limits of the car yet, just get out there and drive more.