Not much to report. Another MX5 added to the stable... '89 Eunos Roadster in silver. Drives good since the timing belt was changed!
We're at the point of needing to draw straws to sort out whats going to get done on any of these cars.
I missed the last trackday at Lakeside but the NA6 and silver car went. NA6 managed to go offroading and crunched the rear quarter a little bit on the cement... oops!
Two months after I bought them, Eibach finally sent me some springs! I've now got a KYG+AGX+Fatcat assembly ready to put on my car... will install these along with a full suspension bush replacement.
The American wrote:hella sic stance flushing pard harker yolo something something.
Did some work on the car for the first time in ages!
Suspension still not worked out, am back on the YSR's for the moment.
With tax time been and gone I have embarked upon some purchases and plans towards vehicular improvements, a particular focus this year is noise reduction. So many noises this car is making that can be fixed! Firstly though, we've been trying to diagnose a driveline noise we haven't been able to identify.
Its a noise when the engine is under heavy load and generally specific to the 2-3.5k rpm range... sounds like a rotating tin bucket with metal sand or something like it. We swapped diffs, removed heat shields, replaced all oils... no joy. This weekend we swapped in a new clutch which it needed anyway since it has been slipping. Flywheel was remachined. Had a new slave cylinder with a braided line to put in too. Box was removed with the exhaust manifold still attached which was tight... really we should have just taken it off. A hoist to rest it on really helped though!
The braided line for the slave had a really long fitting which wouldn't fit in between the bracket and the transmission tunnel... the stock metal line has a sharper bend at the top and takes up less space, so I had to ditch the braided line unfortunately, but went with the new slave.
With the car back together, all the regular clutch noises of a crappy clutch and slave were fixed, but the driveline load noise is still there, and some other noise from the tailshaft too... we suspect the tailshaft u-joints are stuffed, and I need to sort out a new tailshaft. I like the idea of changing the u-joints to serviceable types but I imagine that will be expensive. Will changing the tailshaft make the noise go away? I'm hopeful but who knows
Towards the noise reduction, I have hardtop mounts from omgpham, and I'm ditching the latches. I don't have a softop anyway! Also for the hardtop a rubber kit for the rear mount points that sit over the frankenstein bolts. I need to pull the gauges and resilicone the glass and gauge rings, some are a bit loose and vibrate. The main thing that will help with the noises... decent bloody suspension!
This weekend we also had to change the cam cover gasket in the NA6, oil had gotten into the plug wells and made for some misfiring. Damage has been repaired on it from the Lakeside cement episode, and a home paint job on it is happening. It has new sticky tyres too.
Turbonator is back from Newcastle... I can't wait to drive it!
The American wrote:hella sic stance flushing pard harker yolo something something.
Had a good dodgy day at Magpie's late last year! Decided it was time to get on a front lip acquired earlier on in the year.
One of the jobs I've left for ages was securing the intake better to the tract. It had only one mounting point and was prone to separating from the AFM So a bit of bracket work to sort it out. Its no longer moving at all.
Got a couple of things from Rupewrecht...
This will become perhaps more useful later if I get to megasquirting the car, as I think in that case I'll redesign the intake into a box behind that passenger light.
Today I have spent the day at MCA suspension getting some Blues put on the car. I was happy to let Josh loose on the car to do the install and set up the car to what he had recommended, as I really wanted the car to be more road friendly. So as well as the Blues I've gone back to stock sways. I think the car feels quite a bit better on the road, so objective achieved! Really good day all round.
The American wrote:hella sic stance flushing pard harker yolo something something.
It's 9kg front and 5 kg rear. Some may consider that to be all weird n crap, but it's definitely good for the ride comfort and I can still drive it through corners as hard as I could before with my level of ability. At any rate, it will not be much to change the springs in the future if the need arises.
The American wrote:hella sic stance flushing pard harker yolo something something.
Okibi wrote:Make sure you find time to fit the EDFC, mine sat on the shelf for years until I pulled my finger out and installed it, once it was in I kicked myself for not putting it in earlier.
Rereading the thread and your post from Sept 2011 Okibi... no, EDFC is not in that car yet.
In fact, this whole thread mentions things to do on the NA6 that never seem to get done...
The American wrote:hella sic stance flushing pard harker yolo something something.
A bit of concerted upkeep going on with the car in preparation for a drive down to Sydney in a few weeks time. Coolant hoses are starting to give up the ghost so will do a full replace of them next weekend. Aircon was regassed today... didn't make the thing blow freezing, but you can drive with the windows up now Will see if I can get the windscreen replaced next and some window tinting.
Very happy with the car on MCA Blues. I've had a chance to push the car a bit, and there's just as much performance in the turns as before, but so much better road comfort. Brisbane roads are very bad to begin with, and being coilovers certain kinds of harsh surfaces you are still feeling every bit of it, but the composure is very much better, there's no more jacking down, and it very rarely hits the bumpstops.
So apart form maintenance I've really got to start thinking about getting the MS3 going. Just need to wire up a short loom to plug it into the car, and do a new intake to remove AMF and add IAT.
That will be needed so that the second half of the year I can rebuild this:
I don't want to get crazy with it, just a stock rebuild reusing as much as I can, and perhaps just a little extra on the head to push compression a bit and improve flow. I'd like to do the building myself since I can take my time with it. When it goes in the car I'll change the radiator for an aluminum one, do a reroute and ducting forward of the radiator.
A couple of other random photos...
After the day at QR last September
This morning... ah you filthy faded mobile
The American wrote:hella sic stance flushing pard harker yolo something something.
I've been hanging to go on another trip since the last one in 2010, finally I was able to coordinate leave with my partner and go for the two weeks following Easter.
We started out planning to hit the Oxley Hwy, Bathurst to visit my sister there and drive Mt Panorama, Putty Road, visit pals in Sydney, some form of the Alpine Way, Melbourne to visit more family and a new nephew, and do some Great Ocean Road. We were hoping to take the MX5 all the way to the GOR, and looking back on the breakdown of the trip it probably would have been possible in the two week timeframe even with the other activities in the itinerary, but we ended up chopping out the Alpine Way and Victoria drive, and flew between Sydney and Melbourne. This was somewhat influenced by my worry that doing too much freeway to eat up the kilometres would really suck like it did last time in the NA6, but the NA8 turned out to be far more pleasant for that, having aircon and now much more road friendly suspension... anyway.
In servicing the car for the trip I did the timing belt/water pump swap, since the age of the motor is a little bit of an unknown. It didn't look like it really needed new stuff once we pulled it apart, but was worth doing to be sure. For shits and giggles I decided to do an exhintake swap as well (I just wanted to play cams since some big cams that I bought I can't really use!). Putting it back together I discovered a day later an oil leak which turned out to be a poorly installed camshaft seal by me, whups! Fixed that, and in combination with the new coolant hoses, everything was totally sorted with the motor, no leaking of any kind.
As usual took a bunch of photos and videos. Click on the map images to go to the actual Google map for details. I also borrowed a friends GoPro and was able to record some chunks of the fun roads. It is an older GoPro so it didn't deal with low light too well, and my windscreen didn't help as its badly pitted and awful when going into the sun (didn't get to replace it before going!) Apologies in advance for the crappy sound on the videos!
Day 1: Brisbane to Coffs Harbour
Nerang-Murwillumbah Road to start, very pleasant and the day was nice and sunny.
Not one hour into the journey I realised that using Turn-by-turn navigation with Google Maps on my phone was going to be a frustrating affair. On the computer I used Google Maps to plan out the routes, saved them as bookmarks, opened the bookmarks via Chrome on the phone, then switched to the Maps App at the prompt and started navigation. The real pain is that if you leave the Maps App for any reason (I jumped to another app to record a fuel stop), there's no guarantee that you'll be able to re-enable the turn-by-turn when you go back to Maps. Also, if you deviate from your route at all, its almost sure to never give you the option to do turn-by-turn on your planned route, and instead will want to route itself a new one. This problem occurred again several times on the trip, so I won't be using it again.
Kyogle Road from Murwillumbah, then Blue Knob Road through Nimbin, and stopped for lunch in Lismore. All really nice driving! Can highly recommend The Bank Cafe on Molesworth Street. Wyrallah Road down to Woodburn and jumped onto the Pacific Hwy. Got off the Pac at Grafton and took the Orara Way down to Coffs about 4:30 pm. The Orara was going to be the road we took going home from Dorrigo last trip, but there's the dirt section between them, so last trip we went the Armidale Road which ended up being awesome. The Orara Way was nice but not as interesting as the Armidale Road.
Coffs accoms were average but it had a nice stretch of beach.
Day2: Coffs to Bathurst
The day started with the Pac down to Port Macquarie, which unfortunately isn't much fun at the moment as that is they stretch they are upgrading. The Google Maps app problem reared its ugly head again and I'd dríven quite a way past Port Macquarie before realising our intended route had meant to be the Oxley Hwy, so we just continued down to Newcastle on the Pac, and ultimately this helped us to not get to Bathurst too late. Took the Wootton Way diversion of course, nice to drive this road the other way this time!
Was quite pleasant belting along the Pac even at 4000 RPM (4.3 diff!). I was able to perceive more about the exhintake swap by this point. It hasn't made much noticeable difference (if at all) in outright power, but I feel that it now has a bit more torque from 3-5000 RPM than before, and has lost a little torque above 5000 RPM. It seems to pull harder in 4th and 5th from cruising, which was useful on the freeways.
Stopped in Newcastle for lunch at Saluna on king Street... excellent. Out via the Hunter Expressway, turning off at the Golden Highway, then off into C roads at Jerrys Plains, across to the Bylong Way all the way through to Ilford.
This was a really very cool drive. The road is reasonably well kept, and has fast open straight bits, flowy curves, and some twisty switchbacks, all through very pleasant scenery. Very little other traffic though big trucks do use it. There was a section on the Yarrawa Road that was dirt that I hadn't noticed in the map, but it was only a couple of kilometres. My windscreen proved problematic on some of the climbs as we were still heading West and the sun was low enough that it was quite difficult to see
Arrived at Rylstone by about 5pm, and continuing on encountered a few kangaroos about... some just lazing about on the road! Had to be a bit careful, they really blend into the background and the road in that light with their colouring, and on low beam the Raybrigs have quite a severe cutoff so don't project as far out in front as would be nice for roo spotting. I think I just need some big rally driving lights on the bonnet! Another nice drive on Peel Road through Sofia heading South, and arrived in Bathurst about 7pm.
Spent a couple of days in Bathurst visiting my sister, they have good cafes, good antique shops and a good geology/paleontology museum. Of course we drove several laps around Mount Panorama... really cool to experience this track in person! It felt really weird to park along it and get out of the car... you feel like a Supertaxi is going to fly around the corner at any moment and clean you up.
Day 4 we drove to Sydney via Katoomba. Maybe the way through Kurrajong would have been better? I did not find the way through Katoomba particularly pleasant. Flew to Melbourne.
Day 7: Melbourne to 12 (9?) Apostles
'Twas a Mitsubishi ASX that we had hired for driving the Great Ocean Road. A bit boatlike but comfortable. It was a pretty grey day driving out to Apollo Bay, and there was quite a bit of traffic, I was super impressed by the road but did not have a great drive on it. I love the little slow vehicle turnouts though they could get used more often
We checked in to our stay at Apollo Bay but it was early enough in the day that we thought we'd keep going to the Apostles. A few more cars again but this section of the GoR is really very nice. At the Apostles the clouds were clearing and it was getting close to dusk so it ended up being quite spectacular.
Returning to Melbourne the next day, we had a much clearer run during the middle of the day, and it was sunny and clear. We diverted up to Erskine Falls at Lorne. We would really like to do this road again with the MX5 sometime, not that much fun driving a practically silent barge around that stuff.
mmmmmm great ocean road.... ahem!
A flight back to Sydney the next day, and the day after that it was time to start the drive back to Brisbane.
Day 9: Sydney to Port Macquarie
It wasn't very many days into our holiday before my partner started getting hassled by work, and on this day there was a video skype conference she could not fob off, which did mess with our timeframes a little bit, as this was going to be one of the long days of driving. We were leaving by the Putty Road but we'd be in the middle of nowhere at the time of the conference. We headed up to Richmond to try at an internet cafe we googled, did the conference there, and was on the Putty Road by 11am.
The Putty road was nice but it was a long way up it before it got interesting, and we were held up by a horsefloat for much of that.
Stopped for lunch at Singleton, and rather than cut across through Dungog and Stroud as originally planned, had to hit the Hunter Expressway and Pac Hwy again to save a bit of time.
Day 10: Port Macquarie to Brisbane
The day started with the Oxley Highway. This was worth the wait, loved it! Nice and flowy for a while, then oodles of twisties for aaaaages, then fast and open on the Walcha side.
From the Oxley, up Thunderbolts to Uralla. Lunch at Armidale, Bistro on Cinders was great but they almost forgot about us. Then the New England all the way back to Brisbane. The New England was far nicer than I remember it... not sure why as I have dríven it several times.
We were home by 7pm.
I woke up the next morning wishing there was another road to drive that day, but really we were glad to be home!
Conclusions
Super happy with the car once again, which was flawless the entire trip. I probably should have fiddled with the suspension a bit as we had quite a full boot of stuff, and from a few photos it looks like it was a little tail heavy which was reflected a bit in the handling! Quite a bit more fuel consumption in this car than the NA6... no 600+ km one one tank action this time! I punched it a bit along the freeways at 4k rpm though, running the aircon, and the exhintake probably makes it drink a bit more.
Last trip Josh and I did huge amounts of driving and got to all the destinations quite late in the day, so I broke up the legs a bit which worked for getting to destinations only just on dark, but still didn't eave much time for random stops to explore stuff, only decent times to chill at lunch. So it would be nice to structure that differently next time.
Happy to have done some new roads; the Oxley Highway was excellent, as was Bylong Way. Not that fussed on Putty Road, I think it will be Wiseman's Ferry way next time.
I really wish I could have taken the MX5 all the way down to Victoria, and now that I know the car is comfortable on the freeways, I think next time it might be ok to do a sprint down to Melbourne in two days as I did with Josh, and take it easy all the way back, keeping the trip under two weeks. I'm dying to hit the Alpine Way again.
The American wrote:hella sic stance flushing pard harker yolo something something.
