Juicy HiC wrote:
... and the first of its kind, a Nitrodann clutch, I'll let Dann explain it.
Also added Frame rails and an Automotive plus twin diagonal rollbar.
We did discuss going to flex fuel but it just didn't quite fit in with my budget at the moment. I may still do it later down the track but for now it will be 98.
Final result... 280+RWHP
This was done on an unknown dyno and Dann feels that it's quite a conservative number. But also a conservative tune as he was concerned about the after sales care given that I'm 1049km from him.
... What he's done with the clutch is fantastic.
So once we'd finished our drive through the hills I dropped Dann off, grabbed my old parts and got on the road at 1130 and pulled into my driveway in Melbourne at 1030. It was very comfortable the whole way, not once did I feel that the exhaust was drony or annoying. The best thing was I averaged 7.8lt per 100kmh. This is the best I've ever gotten out of this car.
Obviously if your reading this you've seen the other various comments about the Elite and other available ECU's. The short answer is, it's brilliant. The long answer is, be prepared to wait for Haltech, as Dann has pointed out to me, they are a small company even though they seem quite large. Things take time and they may not be perfect when you get them. However the other side of that is, give it to the right person and the thing is amazing.
Only 3 of these have been installed on MX5's, 2 of which have been done by Dann. The other was by Haltech. All I can say to this is that if your considering it I would only use one person at the moment to install it. He has the setup down and a couple of great tunes to go of.
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I'm interested to hear more on the clutch, mine is slipping at the moment (can feel it when accelerating, even mildly), the OS Giken clutch has always been "chatty" but it's worse than ever now (maybe it's just bitching about "lack of use"). I've got a few things I want done, including the new TSE EFR6258 cast manifold and water inlet modification, so am waiting for the manifold to arrive before I get the work done.
We have another rollbar believer too - mine felt a huge difference as soon I pulled out of the MX5Plus car park and I can't believe the naysayers.
I have FM frame rails too but can't say if they made a difference (probably because I already had the roll bar).
Hopefully 280rwhp is enough and you wont want "MOAR POWA". I'm aiming for 270rwhp since I figure even that's around the level of usable traction; this will be easy with the EFR6258, MX5Plus had it at 280+rwhp with little effort and immediately recognised the massive boost creep. On the track, our gearboxes seem to die at ~300rwhp so that's one reason to keep the power under 300rwhp - you'll also start discovering other things that break too at those power levels.
Glad to hear you're happy with the result. As you've said, sometimes these things can take longer than expected but Dann's a great "one-stop shop" so he HAS to ensure that everything works together and understands what integrates well "off the shelf" and what has to be modified (plus he has the skills to do it). It's definitely worth it to let the job take longer to walk away with a great result (as opposed to rushing the job and having to go back several times to address problems).
Hearing the up-front cost of this work will scare some people off, some may prefer upgrading slowly (potentially leaving the car un-driveable for extended periods) or shopping the work around (WORST thing you can do, specialists only care/know about their domain and either aren't interested enough, innovative enough or don't have the skills to integrate other components), but to be able to do it all in one hit and knowing you'll end up with a great result is worth it, even if you have to save a few years for it.
