Vi's NB8A "Glen"

yellow4 · Postby **yellow4** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 7:25 pm

After spending half the year lurking here I think it's time I join in and introduce my NB:

Here he is in Sydney in April after driving back from Melbourne - a near-stock 2000 NB1 with 100k and good service history. My criteria were NB, stock-ish and black, which apparently ruled out everything local... well that and I was impatient.

This'll be my first ever project car. I bought it mainly to get more mechanical experience and get away from my soul sucking programming day job. At the start of this year I owned an old bone stock Yaris and had no clue about cars in general. I guess you could say this is my quarter life crisis purchase.

Here he is now, with a new AGI bar and 15x7 S1s + RE003s fitted last month. Light wheels + good tyres + extra rigidity from the rollbar = an entirely different NB.

Other small stuff I've done:
- NB2 seats
- NB2 gauge cluster
- I.L. grille
- Red LED internal lighting/backlighting
- Replaced broken soft top tension cables (not fun/10 would not recommend)
- New PCV valve and grommet as of yesterday (was burning a little oil and I figured it couldn't hurt - verdict on success will have to wait a few weeks)

Plans
Rough short term plans are to find a bucket seat I fit into (they really don't make them for women... Velo Milano XL seems like a good bet but will it fit in an NB?), new rotors and pads and get a bit of track experience.

Long (very long) term… studying up and saving for a turbo conversion, because I like to get in waaay over my head.

This will be a painfully slow build as besides being a total newb I'm an inner city apartment dweller with no space for serious work (... yet). So my project for now is restricted to "things I can do in the local Bunnings carpark". But I'll find a way to make it work.

Looking forward to the MX5 journey. :mrgreen:

Bonus badly cropped pic feat. a 747:

Snowmotion · Postby **Snowmotion** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 8:19 pm

Welcome to the obsession.
Your MX5 is almost my twin but a few years younger with those wheels and roll bar.

IanR · Postby **IanR** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 9:06 pm

Love the colour, really matches the wheels.

Good luck with the seats, I think the monarco pro is a non skinny fit (dont shoot me) http://www.autosport.com.au/cobra-monaco-pro-fia-seat

yellow4 · Postby **yellow4** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 11:07 pm

Snowmotion wrote:Welcome to the obsession.
Your MX5 is almost my twin but a few years younger with those wheels and roll bar.

And here I was thinking I was being original. You have good taste

. I've been trying to figure out some sort of a windblocker setup like yours too. Thinking mesh might be a better choice than acrylic for the AGI bar though given how much area there is to cover.

IanR wrote:Good luck with the seats, I think the monarco pro is a non skinny fit (dont shoot me) http://www.autosport.com.au/cobra-monaco-pro-fia-seat

If I'm reading those measurements correctly it might just work! Cheers for the suggestion, will have to take a look at one soon.

Snowmotion · Postby **Snowmotion** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 8:11 pm

And here I was thinking I was being original. You have good taste . I've been trying to figure out some sort of a windblocker setup like yours too. Thinking mesh might be a better choice than acrylic for the AGI bar though given how much area there is to cover.

I think you might be right about mesh for the wind blocker. That is a large area in the AGI bar.
If you are looking at a race seat have a good look at the Sparco Sprint V seat as it is a good solution. For me it is comfortable but others say it is not.

yellow4 · Postby **yellow4** » Wed Oct 12, 2016 5:41 pm

Snowmotion wrote:If you are looking at a race seat have a good look at the Sparco Sprint V seat as it is a good solution. For me it is comfortable but others say it is not.

Ah if only it were that easy. The Sprint V was the first one I checked out, really nice seat but totally the wrong shape for me. Fingers crossed on the Monacos for now, would be good to find something around the same price point.

speed · Postby **speed** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 8:09 am

Welcome to the obsession. I really like the black and am jelous of your cage.

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yellow4 · Postby **yellow4** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 9:49 pm

Small update, finally bit the bullet and bought some clear repeaters/reflectors on my last visit to Mania. Spent some time this afternoon installing them and wiring up the front ones to the indicators. Looks much better than the orange!

(look closely and you can see my pride and joy... an intact dipstick handle :shock:

)

The wiring was a pretty straightforward job. Almost took off the whole bumper before realising I only needed to remove the wheel well liners to get access. Spliced into the headlight indicator connector wires and routed to the reflectors through a conveniently globe-sized hole underneath.

(solder splice because I know my eleccie friends would kill me for using vampire clips)

And done!

I'll get to the rears eventually. Or not.