Roadrunners SE

[ManiacLachy]

Nice work! This is one job I'm going to leave to the experts, but mostly because Automotive Plus are local.

[Nevyn72]

Well done mate, there's something really satisfying about doing it yourself.

Also a nice solution to the captive nut problem, very elegant!

So what are you going to do about a windblocker now?
Going to try copying my solution?

[Roadrunner]

My intention was to copy what you did with the wind blocker but I'll see how I go over the next few weeks without one at all.

[Roadrunner]

so went for a drive tonight to look at some Christmas lights and got not even 30metres down the road when Mrs Roadrunner turns to me and says "geez you can feel the wind come through from the back!"
looks like I'll be doing a wind blocker sooner than later

[Lokiel]

Some more ideas:

This was my first attempt at a windblocker:


Believe it or not, it's very effecttive - you only need something as high as the original windblocker so that you don't obscure vision via the rear mirror. The updated version, now that I've drilled two holes with nutserts in the rollbar to mount my rear decklid (for when the decklid is not installed due to rain) simply bolts to the rollbar.

MINX made a good looking one that covers the space between the hoops too so check his thread.

[Roadrunner]

Thanks for the tips. Iv been looking, umming and ahhing.
Leaning towards maybe a Perspex piece that runs the whole length of the rollbar with some hinges that snaps into place at 180degrees like the factory flip up down one.
I like being able to reach behind and lift the lid from the drivers seat

[Roadrunner]

At the last track day I noticed the coolant temps towards the end of the day rising a bit above normal.
I put this down to a combination of a warm day and sharing the car, with the wife going out for a run and then me in the group directly after so the car hasn't had any time to cool down. Plus we were both definitely pushing a lot harder than the last few times as our confidence grew.
Seeing that a large number of people use the 37mm Koyo in SE (including in the states) on track without issue I thought I'd have a look at the air path to the radiator.

I remember the standard radiator was dirtiest on the bottom corners from air going around the sides of the tall but narrow factory intercooler. The new intercooler covered the whole width of the bottom of the opening meaning air had to go through or over the top to reach the radiator and that my support for the intercooler might be blocking a lot of that air movement.
I had also noticed that the piece of angle that I used with the intercooler was starting to rust, so wanted to revisit this anyway.

Stuck my head in the front air dam and in hindsight I shouldn't have used such a big piece of angle. I looks like it would be blocking a huge amount of air from travelling through the condenser and radiator, likely pushing air up and out the top holes in the bumper near the latch etc.

Eww:


I used a piece of angle from end to end so I could bolt the supporting strapping to the middle of the angle and then straight up onto the bonnet latch bolts.



What I decided to do, is moving the strapping across to the horn bolts and mount directly to the intercooler mounting points, removing the large piece of angle all together.
I cut an off cut of angle down to utilise just one slot, sprayed it black and then bolted the strapping to that.



While the bumper was off I also masked up and sprayed the power steering pipe black.
Now there is heaps more direct flow of air through and over the intercooler to the radiator etc behind.





Bolted the horns down a bit on the strapping so that they are out of the way of the bumper and airflow.




What do you think? Not just looks better but do you think this will make a difference to cooling abilities on the track?

[IanR]

Great reading, good work mate!

[davekmoore]

I like being able to reach behind and lift the lid from the drivers seat

You can still do that even with a full width full height windblocker across your roll bar.
Unscrew the handle from the centre of the front rail of the roof. Get yourself a luggage strap the width of the handle. Fold the strap over 1/2 an inch or so at the end and staple it together. Trap that end in the front rail when you reinstall the handle. Feed the strap over the top of the roof and maybe fix the strap inside the car with some elastic. Now you don't even need to turn round to pull the roof up.

[NitroDann]

This product exists already. Ready to go right length easy install etc. I think 15 or 20 bucks.

[Roadrunner]

Deep breath:

Went away for the MX-5 Club a little while ago now up to Glenn Innes, beautiful area, albeit some shocking compressions and bumps in the road!
Got home noticing my horns aren't working any more, turns out the thin crappy strapping I used to hold the intercooler was thin and crappy and as such had snapped both sides.

Intercooler mount revision number three! Front bumper off again (getting quicker at this)
Purchased some 3mm straps and mounted them into the horn screw location, with the horns mounted to the strap.
Painted gold for effect (not that it can be seen now and gold was the only colour spray I had on hand)

Much more solid now



Purchased from America possibly the last genuine MX-5 badge as used on the Mazdaspeed in the US (now discontinued)
MX-5 on one side, Mazdaspeed on the other. The rear bumpers clear coat is starting to peel need the drivers side wheel arch, so I plan to get it resprayed and I'll debadge the original badges at the same time.


As I'm getting more into the track days, I was getting concerned about rapidly wearing out the rubber on the 17's, so decided to pick up some 15inch rims for track duties. Found some Dynamic Motorsports rims that were all good except a fair bit of gutter rash, even fit easily over the larger NB brakes
Sanded them all down, prepped, sprayed, looked like brand new when I was done!!


Got some rubber fitted to them, put them on the car and went for a drive, and found it had a bad wobble at 110kph
Took it back to the shop, they suggested that I needed hub rings but they don't have any. So took the car to another tyre shop I had regularly used before. They put the rims on their balancing machine to double check, turns out they are buckled, and one quite bad!
Soo pissed off at this point. Screwed twice! Lesson learnt: Buyer beware and don't trust Agry Tyres. How they didn't pick up on the buckles I don't know, and the shop said it would have been impossible for them to balance them correctly too! Gahh!!!
Got quotes on repairs but decided to cut my losses and splurged on a brand new set of Konig Wideopens from MX5Parts.com.au



15x8inch +25 These are wide!
Chris was excellent to deal with, quick to respond to emails and very helpful.



Got a wheel alignment from the 949Racing website for a 50/50 track day/daily dríven car.
The wheel alignment transformed the cars handling massively (and the original alignment was a fair way out of whack too) The steering is a lot lighter now, waaay less understeer and just feel much more stable and balanced through the bends.
Thankfully this alignment also meant there was enough camber on the rear that I didn't have to roll the guards front or rear! (Yay a win!!)


Next purchased a Beatrush cooling/cover panel.
Very easy to install, just a few screws. Came in a gold/bronze colour that wasn't as advertised but I don't mind it. Can easily respray if I change my mind.




NitroDann recently called out for someone local with an SE to do a comparison dyno run with.
Seeing as I live all but 2 minutes away and have never had the car dynoed I was more than happy to help out.
After a long chat with Dann (Could have stood there chatting with him for hours, so much knowledge!!) we hooked everything up:


Completely stock power except 2.5inch exhaust from the dump pipe pulled 160HP. Not bad, the dyno graph was though
Mine is the lower graph with the red circle highlighting the power typical power surge at 5500rpm

Dann then hooked up an aftermarket ECU to see what he could do to a standard SE. He was pretty confident that it wouldn't make any extra power, but be far smoother and more power earlier on in the revs.
Unfortunately there was a missfire under load and to do this properly we'd need to gap the plugs which was going to be a bit of effort so called it a day.
Great experience though and now eagerly saving for an ecu upgrade! (Dammit Dann!! )


Last weekend we had another club track day at Marulan.
The week leading up too, it was snowing there! Thankfully not snowing on the weekend but still forcast to be rather cool. So I decided at 11pm the night before we left to rig up a dodgy wind blocker.
Found some thin perspex lying around so drilled some holes in it and used some covered garden wire to keep it in place.
Nasty but effective


The track day went quite well. Getting faster and smoother. I had the brake pads changed over to Hawk HP+ and they are sooo much better than whatever it was I was running last time.
No brake fade, excellent feel, maximum confidence!
After getting the tyre pressures in order and with the wheel alignment it was turning in at a faster speed without any understeer. I was very happy with how it felt on track!
Really foggy in the morning so the track was very wet so practised a little bit of oversteer here and there
Later in the afternoon it was getting quite warm, so with the car doing two sessions per round the temps started rising above 100degs again. Max was 106degrees when really pushing it really hard which should be ok I think. Will see how it goes at Wakefeild next weekend but I think I might start looking at an oil cooler setup soon.

[Lokiel]

:
NitroDann recently called out for someone local with an SE to do a comparison dyno run with.
Seeing as I live all but 2 minutes away and have never had the car dynoed I was more than happy to help out.
After a long chat with Dann (Could have stood there chatting with him for hours, so much knowledge!!) we hooked everything up
:
Dann then hooked up an aftermarket ECU to see what he could do to a standard SE. He was pretty confident that it wouldn't make any extra power, but be far smoother and more power earlier on in the revs.
Unfortunately there was a missfire under load and to do this properly we'd need to gap the plugs which was going to be a bit of effort so called it a day.
Great experience though and now eagerly saving for an ecu upgrade! (Dammit Dann!! )
:

I can hear your mum now - "You stay away from that boy, he'll lead down the wrong path, mark my words!".

Also, with your bronze/gold rims, the bronze radiator panel fits the colour scheme well IMO - you need to bronze the Mazda logo though (I heard Okibi is thinking about bronzing his too ).

[ManiacLachy]

Big update! Shame you got screwed on those first wheels, but the Koings look better anyway and I agree with Lokiel, the bronze radiator panel looks good, but there comes a point you have to commit to the theme.

So, how long until you get an ecu and a tune from Dann?

[Nevyn72]

So, how long until you get an ecu and a tune from Dann?

.... and which ECU?
Adaptronic?
MS?
Haltech?

[Apu]

Hmm...have I seen your car around the North Rocks area?