BEAVIS' White Track Car

[beavis]

I know what you were thinking.
This thread is getting boring, just another bloke with a slow MX5.

Well thankfully, Turbo bits are coming in the mail very soon.


More progress on things that are actually on the car...
Have made myself some duct work to direct radiator air out the bonnet.
Used good old painters tape to mark out the openings and give me something to work to.
Mocked up the shape with cardboard.


Then, cut out with aluminium sheet. Held together with rivets.
It bolts to the radiator with 8x M4 bolts, and is fixed to the radiator and the pair are installed into the car as a unit.
This now all needs to be installed before the intake hoses are installed.


The left side is shallower to accommodate the intake manifold. The right side doesn't have these sorts of limitations so i could curve it in a more 'open' shape.
Not immediatly obvious from the photos, but the central section actually tapers in a V shape.
You can see the holes for the intake hose and radiator hose on the left side of the duct.


Here it is installed with the coolant hose mocked up.
All the edges match up to the existing bonnet louvers so very little air will (should) bleed out.



Put the Cusco Diff together and bolted that in the car. Need to remember it still needs oil.....



I often found my heel would burn a hole in the paint below the accelerator/brake pedal. This would even result in the bare steel going rusty.
So, made myself this little foot panel. Scrap Aluminium plate cost me about $3. Marked and drilled some holes for style points and gave it a brushed look with some sand paper.



Oh and I drove an ND


Thanks to a fellow forum member and mx5er, I had the opportunity to take a demo car for a private, no obligation hoon around my local streets.
Even had the thing delivered to my door.


This particular model was the 2litre and certainly had more oomph than I expected. Although, it's smaller than I had anticipated, and with the roof up my head was hitting the soft top.

[Tim_cyc03]

The ducting looks excellent, and thanks for sharing how you mocked it up.

[IanR]

holy sh&$ your the fabrication king...cant wait to see it all together...with boost bits on

[beavis]

Thanks gents.

Ian, perhaps I will see your road monster if/when I end up heading your way for tuning.

[lightyear]

Very classy using painters tape. I have never been that baller.

[davekmoore]

Oh and I drove an ND

Thanks to a fellow forum member and mx5er, I had the opportunity to take a demo car for a private, no obligation hoon around my local streets.
Even had the thing delivered to my door.

This particular model was the 2litre and certainly had more oomph than I expected. Although, it's smaller than I had anticipated, and with the roof up my head was hitting the soft top.

My pleasure. Beguiling little things, aren't they?

[beavis]

Just like a factory MX-5 should be I suppose.....

[beavis]

Hello!
So update on, well, it's mostly just purchases. I've bought myself an OMP seat, now i need to try shoehorn it into the car. wish me luck as goddamn i hate the lack of space in an MX5. Being over 6ft makes fitting my stupid head under the roof far too difficult.
Also, I have purchased some LS2 coil packs. Once I get the car up and running I will sort out getting them wired up and plugged in. While I don't expect any immediate issues with the stock NB VVT coil on plugs, I am trying to do things properly and do them once. Plus the coils are really pretty cheap as every second Holden Commodore runs them.
And have spent some cash on some silicone stuff and aluminium things to make intake/intercooler pipework. It will take a little masterchef-ery to fit around the radiator ductwork when I get around to it.

Things that I have actually been doing.....

Diff Bushes
So to go with the diff update from my last post, here's some GarageStar diff bushes to stiffen things up.
Little did I know, I could get them from OMGpham, almost made the mistake or ordering direct from GarageStar instead of helping out a fellow aussie.
Pretty easy to swap in. The hardest part is certainly getting out the old ones. I lubed them up with some WD40 and then went at it with the drill to loosen up the rubber center, then taught them a lesson with a chisel and hammer to knock the things into submission (and knock them out of the diff).


Turbo Is Here
NitroDann has very graciously delivered some nice birthday goodies to me. A manifold and downpipe to go with my S14 turbo.
He helped me out and of course knows how to make a turbo MX-5 go fast without qualms of reliability so I am pleased to run his work on my car.
The downside is, now I have no excuses for not having the car running other than my lack of time.
I do like the subtlety of the low mounted turbo, and the efficiency in the downpipe design is a nice benefit also.



Wing
Lastly, a sneak peak of the new wing designed and CAD drawn by myself and lightyear. Water jet cut 12mm alloy is not cheap. If you know someone who can do it for a reasonable price, please let me know.
There is a foam core to go with this, that should hopefully appear next week. Then we will need to put it all together.

[beavis]

In case you missed it, I made this video...... my take on how to drive around Phillip Island (in an MX-5) quickly.
I do understand that there will be people out there who run with twice the weight, or 5 times the power, and YES they are going to have a different driving technique.
Anyway, I hope this might help some of you.

[pepejesus]

Fantastic vid, thanks Beavis. Great driving too

[beavis]

Went to a Sunday morning car meet a few weeks ago which was down the road from home.
Was impressed with how 'lamborghini-like' this Lotus was with the wild wing and the huge tyres.... the colour was pretty awesome also.


This thing was also very impressive, a mostly home built GT40 replica. Everything was very neat and meticulously built.


Bought a new (proper) seat for the track car. It's not easy finding a seat that will fit properly in an MX-5, particularly given I'm over 6ft.
This OMP showed promise with dimensions not too much larger than the old Sparco.


Making the seat fit, with half decent headroom, I decided to cut the floor.... sooo it doesn't look so neat, but trust me on this.


Seat goes in nice and snug. I haven't yet finished mounting it up, but its pleasing to finally have a seat thats actually got some comfort


I've now mocked up the pipe work to the intercooler. (please excuse the horrid photo)
I'm running 2" tubing from the turbo the the cooler. And 2.5" from the cooler to the throttle body.
For the hoses on the exhaust side of the motor, I've purposefully gone around the radiator duct as much as I could. The the hose to the throttle body however will run a directly through the duct.



We picked up a new car....


So, despite what I mentioned in a previous post about the no obligation test drive of the ND, here's our new White 2.0l ND for my number 1 lady to daily drive.
I promise it's for her and not me.


Oh and them feels when you come back to your car to find an SP parked next to it.



......so yeah, 3 white MX-5's in the garage now.

[beavis]

Decided to supercharge my street car....
Took a weekend to do the bulk of the work and a couple of days here and there afterward to clean up the details.

Please enjoy my attempt at a snazzy video.

[bruce]

Good work! You've made so many changes to your street NA since I last saw it.

[smy0003]

Great vid, I especially like the spongebob reference.

[MrsB]

Like the seat Beavis - money well spent - just make sure you've got some nice thick steel plates under the mounting bolt points if you're not using the OEM ones. Will be interesting to see how the thing goes now with some power - should be a good thing.