Kirk's '94 Clubman Mx5

kirkt · Postby **kirkt** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:05 am

Hi there,

This thread is not so much a build thread, but a journal to document any changes and improvements that happen in the future.

Introducing my basically stock '94 Clubman Mx5 the day I got it:

Minus the following the car is stock:
- 24mm Front and 16mm Rear whiteline sway bars
- welded on muffler
- headunit
- Fake steering wheel
- gauge cluster

The came also came with an oem hardtop and set of nb8a stock wheels.

I wasn't really a fan of the wheels, particularly the colour scheme so they had to go. I switched the tyres from the MS-03s to the oem nb8a stock wheels and bolted them on.

Later that week I went for a drive up through the mountains and noticed a couple things that needed attention. The steering wheel felt flimsy and was falling apart, on hard right hand corners there was a crazy suspension knock and also the gauge cluster at night wasn't very well lit due to the aftermarket faces.

Luckily for me, Jelzahar on the forums wasn't using his NA8 nardi and donated it to me (thanks heaps!). At this time I also replaced the gauge cluster.

Sometime after I bought some BC coilovers and began to take out the oem suspension... The first thing I noticed with the Bilsteins is the rubber around the metal sleeve was hitting the carrier. These things were bad... however the rear units were fine. Regardless I'm glad I replaced them early on.

Putting it all back together I saw that the car had an NB lower control arm at the front, which has a different endlink mount. because of this the swaybar was on the hard adjustment on the passenger side and on the medium adjustment on the driver. This was not ideal at all.
Passenger:

Driver:

During this time I got the hardtop painted. I'm really enjoying the stock look of the car now.

kirkt · Postby **kirkt** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:26 am

With more tinkering and with a cold late night drive up the mountains I found my heater control wasn't working. I inspected the unit and found the linkage on the driver side which controls the flaps was broken and missing pieces... This meant I couldn't use the heater in any direction. I decided that weekend to pull out the dash and replace it. At this time I saw the heater core was also leaking.

Thanks Paul for the help/ supervision ;). The next day a friend came over and we installed some Jass Performance Hardmounts on his car.

With the coils done the car was still knocking around corners. I decided to take the swaybars out and see if that frees up the suspension + diagnose any more issues...

Still knocking so I bought some second hand rear control arms (need to source fronts) to replace the bushes and still have a driving car. I had some spare time and decided to try the ole bolt and washer method to get the old bushes out

It was a major pain and I successfully pushed out one bush and decided nope, I'm going to use a press. That weekend I drove up to a friends house and pressed out all of the other bushes.

kirkt · Postby **kirkt** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:38 am

I forgot to mention but this car was in a magazine! lol

Future plans include:
- buying front control arms and pressing out bushes, get all arms powder coated and possibly tap in some grease nipples.
- replace radiator, fan shrouds, water hoses.
- aircon regas
- paint on the black strip on both guards as they have rubbed off
- replace cam cover with a freshly painted one, plus oem gasket

For the most part I'm really enjoying driving this car that said, I've owned some other mx5s which were interesting too... see below.

Postby **beavis** » Tue Jan 02, 2018 1:01 am

Cool, thanks for sharing

kirkt · Postby **kirkt** » Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:50 pm

Still waiting for parts over the Christmas break so I decided to visit cloobman and sus out his clubman. I also took the oppotunity to paint the black sills back on the guards.

Adam_NAclubman · Postby **Adam_NAclubman** » Thu Jan 04, 2018 1:42 am

Nice to see Mike's old car, haven't seen that for years. I've still got a newspaper clipping from when it was in the motoring section of the Adelaide Advertiser somewhere, unless it got binned during last year's spring clean

IanR · Postby **IanR** » Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:48 pm

Good to see you have moved forwards on another mx5 build.

kirkt · Postby **kirkt** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 10:57 am

IanR wrote:Good to see you have moved forwards on another mx5 build.

Thanks Ian. Admittedly the plan was to buy something normal ish as I was pretty burnt out from modifying mx5s - however this popped up stupidly cheap. The idea now is to keep it stock and replace anything that prevents me driving it every day.

kirkt · Postby **kirkt** » Fri Jan 19, 2018 5:45 pm

So some things have happened in the last couple weeks. Firstly I managed to find the remaining control arms. I've since pressed out the bushes ready to power coat, along with tow hooks and such. I Removed the soft top as i'm not really a fan and also installed a new alloy radiator and fan shroud. I was also going to do the hoses but under closer inspection they were fine. Unfortunately a friend is selling his NA and needed stock wheels so we decided to swap! (plus cash his way). Funnily enough I bought this set of Enkei RPF1s brand new for one of my other mx5s a couple years ago and impulse sold them for a house deposit. Now they're mine again... wrapped in ad08rs.

Bonus pic of my families dog.

Postby **beavis** » Fri Jan 19, 2018 7:36 pm

Moar dog picz. :NETPOINTZ:

IanR · Postby **IanR** » Fri Jan 19, 2018 8:34 pm

You do love to rip out the soft tops huh... :roll:

good progress. ( needs some forced air feed device thing tho :lol:

)

kirkt · Postby **kirkt** » Sat Jan 20, 2018 8:23 pm

beavis wrote:Moar dog picz.

Soon. I need to take a car related photo with penny in it to qualify posting

IanR wrote:You do love to rip out the soft tops huh... good progress. ( needs some forced air feed device thing tho )

I do miss top down drives at night but during the day I just get too burnt lol. Hmmm turbo... I don't think I will settle for anything less than than timks turbo setup unfortunately... maybe one day.

kirkt · Postby **kirkt** » Sat Jan 20, 2018 8:29 pm

After a quick drive around town, I soon realized I had to roll the guards, So I did lol.

My soft dampening on the coilovers probably don't help but hell I don't need to set it up for grip as I don't drive like a lunatic through the mountains now days... HOWEVER, given these new wheels are wrapped in AD08Rs I might have to test them. Here's a pic from this afternoon.

IanR · Postby **IanR** » Sat Jan 20, 2018 8:37 pm

I wish you could drive it (timk’s car) now at 23psi...

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kirkt · Postby **kirkt** » Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:34 am

Haven't really done much to the car in the last couple weeks as I've been busy with my kitchen renovation which is now done!

I had an afternoon free so I decided to clean up and grind away any corrosion and grime where the battery sits.

It's not the prettiest job but it works fine for now.