beavis wrote:Just wanted to update here for you Russell (and anyone else that is interested)... got the Brake Stoppers done and available for purchase:
I'm glad I stopped in and saw your brake stopper, it's fantastic! I got one from Garage Star and it doesn't line up with the master cylinder quite square. Any idea on fitment between models, will this play nice with NBs?
In case you hadn't noticed. It's been a suuuuper long time between updates - the longest I think I've ever let it go. Why? Well mostly just because of all the other MX-5 things that needed to be done. But the main item worth mentioning that I've been working on is another MX-5!
Now this sorry car was destined for the local car wrecker, so I snapped it up before they got their dirty mits on it! A 1990 NA6 with some 250,000kms on it, stolen and recovered. But sadly very badly damaged in the process. If I ever met the people who caused all this damage boy would I want to give them a 'stern talking to'. Honestly they damage they caused to someone elses property for ZERO benefit just boils my blood.
Anyhoo, after picking the thing up effectively sight unseen, I had to assess the damage and, well, the to do list was immediatly pretty extensive:
Every window was smashed
Roof was slashed beyond repair
All 4 quarter panels were kicked in
Ignition barrel was destroyed
The car was filthy inside and out
The shifter needed a complete rebuild
And the list goes on....
So I quickly got to work stripping the car down for a 'rebuild'. The door trims needed to come off to be repaired, the seats and rear carpets were removed for cleaning and the damaged roof removed.
One of the first things I wanted to get completed was the new soft top. I sourced a new roof online and swapped it over on the existing frame one night while in front of the telly. Not too hard to do but certainly time consuming. Here it was after first throwing it back on the car, its certainly nice and taught when latched down!
Then the interior needed to be reassembled, I repaired the door cards which were pretty sad, cleaned everything up as there was glass EVERYWHERE! And, gave as many things as possible a wipe/clean/paint as necessary to get the interior up to scratch. I had a spare ignition barrel and keys from my NB track car, so I replaced the damaged NA item which doesn't have quite the same dimensions but I was able to make it work.
While I was at it, I swapped in a nice new short shifter with new bushes as the shifter in the car was completely trash, it felt horrid and was as floppy as a........ well something really floppy? Took that as an opportunity to also video the install process. As seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EPRv7ZWHf0
Onto some of the exterior items, and firstly I had to remove the bumper and guards to try and clean them up and straighten them out. The fools who had stolen the car had kicked the crap out of the front guards, the drivers side was particularly bad. I was able to recover it to a respectable level with some careful massaging. Still damaged/wavy but not completly ugly.
Under the bonnet, things seems pretty good and in fairly good nick. There's the usual oil leaks that you get with an old NA, so first thing I did here was replace the valve cover gasket. While pretty much all the other seals need attention also, this will do for the moment.
While under the bonnet, I also took the opportunity to add a little bit of bling with this radiator cooling panel designed by yours truly. Makes for an awesome shelf to keep your tools in order while working on the car and really neatens things up! Want one? You can order them from http://www.beavismotorsport.com/store
Onto the rear body work. This was some of the more daunting work the car needed as this was much more extensive body work than I'd expected would be required before collecting the car. Anyway, it was just a matter of getting in there beating out the dents from inside the trunk area, then sanding back the exterior paint and smoothing it over with filler.
After a few nights/weekends here and there I was able to get it good enough for some primer and for the first time be able to visualise a mostly straight pair of rear quarter panels.
While they werent body shop perfect, I really did think they were 99% there. I had the odd few little spots that were a little off but again, given how the car was when I got it I really felt this was a complete transformation.
To finish off that job, of course I need to give it all a paint job - it actually turned out much better than I expected, however, it ended up being so nice that it didn't blend in well enough with the rest of the car. So I ended up trying to paint the whole car. With only 1.5ltrs of red paint on hand, I sadly ran out toward the end of the paint job so I'll re-do it someday in the future to get a better result. But, nonetheless it's already WAY better than when I first saw the thing!
Basically the ONLY modification this otherwise stock car got was a set of these hilariously cheap coilovers. WHY??? Well, for science mostly. Yeah, I was just genuinely interested in seeing how they might perform for sub $500 coilovers. You can't expect them to be very good at that price, and this seemed like as good an opportunity as any to find out how they would do.
If you're interested in finding out how they actully perfromed, well I've put a video together on that here with my take on things:
And so, the final result was a car saved from the wreckers and back on the road! An MX-5 still running and driving on the road makes me ever so happy. This car is club registered for occasional use only, hence the burgundy front registration plate. And now the plan for the car is to help my brother to set it up as a super cheap track day car. Something just to get out there and have a drive.
Lastly, if you are curiour around the question of costs.... in terms of actual money spent, it's probably well under $2000 to get to this point. HOWEVER, I spent MANY hours bring the car back from the dead. Would I have been better off just buying a half decent car for maybe $4-$5k? Sure, but then I wouldnt be able to say I saved and MX-5 from a certain death! Stay tuned for updates on how we make this car a track toy, and of course next time I promise there will be news on the BEAVIS Turbo NB.
^ That was a great read, a real "Feel Good" story.
I love seeing cars saved from the wreckers - if I had the time, money, space and body-work skills, I'd like to do the same at least once a year (maybe when I retire?).
beavis wrote:Would I have been better off just buying a half decent car for maybe $4-$5k? Sure, but then I wouldn't be able to say I saved and MX-5 from a certain death!
What it's all about
Brings back memories of Mexie, though she wasn't anywhere near as abused! Been thinking about that car a lot lately due to MXSE being pretty much where I'm happy with her. Would be nice to do something like that again, but not sure I'd get away with it quite so easily this time
Just watched the coilover video - it's almost a shame that you spent that much effort on producing it for these coilovers because your videos are some of the best on the net, you speak clearly (I hate mumblers and uhmmer-and-ahrrers and guys who are clearly "winging it"), video footage is clear, you "know your sh*t" and throw in some humor and personal opinions.
You should send this video to MCA and BC Racing and ask them to give you a set of coilovers to review, it would be incredibly cheap marketing for them (BC Racing more-so because they've got a bigger international market).
Some comments regarding the video: 1. You didn't mention "settling time" for the springs. After 2-3 days, the car usually drops a bit to its final "settled" height so there's little point in spending a lot of time during the initial install getting the height perfect ("close enough" is "good enough" initially). 2. Doing another "driving run" after a wheel balance should improve the ride. 3. I believe that NA/NBs were designed with the rear intended to be 0.5" higher in the rear for handling (949racng specifies 0.25" in their track configuration though)
I was hoping for comments on the install instructions. The BC Racing BR series coilovers I have were classic "Chinglish" instructions - the pictures were clear but the words made no sense, just a collection of English words that made no sense. BC Racing produce their coilovers in Taiwan so they're much better quality than Chinese-made coilovers; unfortunately their documentation is just as crap.
Also, are these the same as YellowSpeed coiiovers? (same colour and look similar) I helped Davex3 un-install his YellowSpeed coilovers which he'd only had for a few weeks and hated and I didn't think they looked as good quality-wise as the BCs.
Thanks for the boost of confidence Lokiel There were zero instructions included specific to MX-5's, and the paperwork that was included I showed in the video, which was mostly just some marketing material. And, Yellowspeeds may be budget spec, but in the 30mins I've dríven on a set of yellowspeeds I can tell you they are superior to the 'maxspeedingrods' coilovers.
The response I got from the coilovers was interesting, so many people had their own take on things. Some people said I was biased against them from the start, some said I was too lenient. Some people said I didn't give them a proper test. As far as I'm concerned, at the end of the day it was me doing the experiment for my own curiosity, taking the risk of buying the coilovers and putting them in my own car. Nobody paid me to do it and I did the best I felt I could to give them a chance. At the end of the day, it was pretty a interesting experience!
Lokiel wrote:You should send this video to MCA and BC Racing and ask them to give you a set of coilovers to review, it would be incredibly cheap marketing for them (BC Racing more-so because they've got a bigger international market).
Just an update for you on this Lokiel... I tried your suggestion of getting in touch with some 'real' coilover manufacturers and basically got laughed at. I guess I'm not famous enough
Thought it would be fitting to post up a lap of me in Dave Moores impressively fast 300+HP turbocharged daily/track car.
This is my first time at Winton Raceway with the new surface, and my first time driving a car with this level of power on track, but I apparently set the fastest lap the local MX-5 club have on their record list. That's mostly thanks to the capability of the car, and NOT me... as I am very rusty and certainly don't want to bend someone else's car.
Nonetheless, the thing is a hoot to drive and it's great to see it getting to the point of being fairly reliable on track.
