Lachstock and Four Turbo Charged Cylinders ['04 NB SE]

[SKYHI]

I'm hearing you on finding the time mate. Good to hear you were able to make some improvements.

[ManiacLachy]

Over the past two weekends I finalised modifying (needed to extend some holes for my particular Elise seats), painting and installing the new Lotus seat brackets for both driver and passenger into my car. Extending the holes was a bit tedious going back and forth checking for clearance and then grinding out more. I guess the Lotus seats came with a few different seat configurations over the years, that's British engineering for you.


You can see the holes don't quite meet the rivnut mounts. I marked out in sharpie where the holes need to be and got to work with a cabide bit to grind them out


Finished product. I'm not great with a spray can, but this will do, they won't be very visible

The new brackets allow for full use of the seat rail travel and have 3 levels or recline that can be used. Middle gives a nice up-right position, top gives a little bit of layback. I would never use the bottom, you'd be leaning forward! I settled on the top setting, which actually robs some of the rail travel, but that's fine I actually come forward a few clicks for the legs. However, this raised my knees up slightly, and with my legs at the right distance to the pedals and my shoulders back my arms needed to be at a full stretch to reach the wheel

But a solution! A company in Italy makes steering wheel spacers, I believe it was initially designed for MX-5s, but since then he's branched out to all manner of cars, Porsche, BMW, Subaru, and more. It's a quality piece. Not cheap, but one came up on MT.net which saved me a few bucks.
http://www.girol.it/en/mazda/

I'ts extends the wheel about 2", and gives me a nice elbows bent grip on the wheel. It also moves the wheel up my thighs a bit, giving me plenty of room for my knees and legs. No longer any bumping my knees against the wheel, or jamming my hand into my leg while turning! Resulting in an excellent driving position, and should be much more comfortable on long trips being able to move my legs about a little more.

The only issue I came across while installing the wheel was this wire, which I think is the horn? On the SE wheel it's too short to reach the connector with the spacer on. Luckily years ago I bought a spare wheel from Lokiel, it's an older NB wheel and it has a nice long wire which reaches without issue. I'm not sold on the colour scheme, but for right now it'll work, and eventually I will likely pick up a Guardian Designs wheel.


SE vs NB horn(?) wire lengths

There's actually a few design differences between my SE wheel and the old NB wheel, which is surprising. But it works fine, and thanks to an inconsiderate driver on the highway, I know my horn still works


Spacer in place and silver grip wheel

[SKYHI]

I've been considering one of these spacers to improve the seating position in my car. Couldn't you just have extended the horn wiring on the SE wheel?

[ManiacLachy]

Yeah, I could have extended it, but because I had the spare wheel it wasn't necessary. My SE wheel is getting quite tired, this one is in better condition, even though I don't love the accents.

We'll have to catch up and you can test the fit out, seating position will be slightly different, but you'll get an idea if it'll work for you. The only downside for me is that I now have to take my hand off the wheel to hit the indicator stalks.

[Daffy]

Great work mate! (The paint work looks fine ) I’ll be looking at the seats in mine soon, may be a trip over to yours once I figure what I want in there.

[SKYHI]

Yeah, I could have extended it, but because I had the spare wheel it wasn't necessary. My SE wheel is getting quite tired, this one is in better condition, even though I don't love the accents.

We'll have to catch up and you can test the fit out, seating position will be slightly different, but you'll get an idea if it'll work for you. The only downside for me is that I now have to take my hand off the wheel to hit the indicator stalks.

Fair enough. I was hoping that I hadn't missed something, and that was a possibility if I went down this path. A catch up would be great. Being mainly a track car these days, the indicators aren't a huge issue for me

[ManiacLachy]

I took the 3 days leave to stretch a 10 day holiday between Easter and Anzac day, and took a few days to tackle a few small jobs on the car, before my girlfriend took up all my time with spring cleaning.

So first up, the other week I managed to bump something and my wideband wasn't working. I worked out that I had broken the butt crimp on the power signal, so easy to redo. I took the opportunity to re-calibrate the sensor as well, which is basically a process of removing the sensor from the exhaust and power cycling it a few times then reinstalling. All back together and working as it should. To finish it off, I wanted to configure MS to use the more accurate and more responsive digital signal from the wideband, rather than the analogue signal, with a piece of Lokiel tech, but I couldn't get it to work and while I meant to visit the mad mechanic and get it sorted, I didn't quite get to it. So we're still running analogue for now.

I had to re-align the steering wheel following the install of the extension the other week. During install I had to choose which spline to insert the wheel on to, one would be slightly right, one would be slightly left, I chose right, I chose wrong. The wheel was pointing too much to the right off centre. Pulling the steering wheel is very quick now that I've done it once, so easy done.

My softtop isn't folding nicely following the replacement install a few months back. I need to squeeze the third bow towards the second bow while lowering the roof, or the window jams the roof and it won't go all the way down. I read on miata.net that the instructions say to attach the bow straps to the incorrect rail studs, so I pulled the carpet and retainer rails to move the straps. I threw down a few extra CLD tiles (sound deadening stuff) while I had the access. All back together, but the problem persists. I noticed that one of the straps isn't tight when the roof is up, one strap is going around the bow then down to the attachment, the other doesn't. So, I guess I'll be re-doing that one soon and hope that works.

Sorry no pictures of all this stuff, it's not too photographic.

So, last but not least... Either my exhaust has been getting louder, or I'm getting older, but the drone and noise is getting to me. I took the car down to Rob Bliss exhausts to get it checked out, no leaks discovered, so I decided we should replace the muffler for something a touch quieter.


Please excuse the Imgur screen caps


Not too sure I'm loving the poke out the back... might need a trim

The new muffler is a little bigger than the old Nitro Dann supplied one, which has served me well for the past 100k km and 5 years. It is quieter now, it's lost a bit of it's balls not as tough sounding, but it's not silent, so far it seems a good compromise. Now I can go through the revs without sounding like a boy racer.

Oh, I bought a new battery for my tuning laptop, which would only last 20 minutes on the old battery, the new one is much better and lasts several hours. So, I've been doing a little tuning as well the past few weeks, car is running pretty well and I continue to learn more and more.

200k km service is coming up soon. My car is getting old.

[ManiacLachy]

Getting up there!

Milestone achieved, 200,000km. I've added 105,000km to the engine, and I'd say about 70,000 of them have been on higher boost with the Megasquirt, and about 35,000km on E85. All on the stock motor and turbo. I'd say she's doing well!

Into Automotive Plus next week for the service. I wanted to install a new aftermarket crank damper at the same time, but Fab9 gave me the epic run around and it won't be happening. Maybe at 300,000km or when the engine gets built?

The new exhaust is much nicer at cruise, the car is quieter in general, I can hear the radio at lower volumes, as good a practical test as any! Road noise is still pretty heavy, but it's an MX-5 after all, and all the poly bushes I've put into her can't help but increase NVH. I think this is as good as it'll get.

I'm loving the seating position on the new brackets and with the steering wheel spacer. I've quickly gotten used to the extra distance to the wiper and indicator stalks, I don't even think about it now. There is extra vibration in the steering wheel due to the extra length, but as mentioned above, NVH is just something I have to make peace with in this car with the current mods.

Next up on the interior will the be door cards, and I think I nearly have everything I need.

[Magpie]

And still happy

[bruce]

That is an achievement.
Bring on 250,000kms as you can then say 'a quarter of a million kilometres'.

[ManiacLachy]

That is an achievement.
Bring on 250,000kms as you can then say 'a quarter of a million kilometres'.

I hope she keeps going, I feel like I'm on borrowed time though. I know the engines can run for quite a while, but with the added boost it's got to add to the wear. Fingers crossed and we'll see what happens.

And still happy

It depends on the day, and what I've screwed up on her lately, but in the current state and the cooler weather I'm very happy.

[greenMachine]

Into Automotive Plus next week for the service. I wanted to install a new aftermarket crank damper at the same time, but Fab9 gave me the epic run around and it won't be happening. Maybe at 300,000km or when the engine gets built?

What sort of damper? There is a clocking issue with one brand, and IIRC Fab9 were dealers. If you haven't heard about it, search on MT.net.

[Daffy]

Daz is waiting to hear from you big buddy

[ManiacLachy]

What sort of damper? There is a clocking issue with one brand, and IIRC Fab9 were dealers. If you haven't heard about it, search on MT.net.

I know of the issues, with both ATI and Fluidampr, but from all reports they were sorted out a while ago and should be good. I wanted the Fluidampr, and I was hoping my mother could bring it back in luggage when she returned from visiting my sister in the US. After a week or so of it being "pending" I contacted Fab9 and they said "oh, that's not available, they're re-designing their damper". Great, then why have it available?! So I said I would switch to the ATI, how do we go about that? No reply. By this time my Mum has returned home and I'll have to have it shipped. I ask again several time in several channels, finally they say sure, no problem. Then a week later they mark my original order as refunded. The end. Now it's too late to order from a more reliable source and have it done with the timing belt change. ƒü¢k Fab9.

Daz is waiting to hear from you big buddy

I know, I know, and I want to chat with him. Can't he work weekends? That would make it much easier!

[ManiacLachy]

Had a good weekend. Saturday helped a friend switch out his 2-way diff, which just wasn't very street friendly, for a torsen.


Out with the new, in with the old

The job went smoothly, the only thing that gave us pause was the need to de-rubber the original retaining plates to work with the poly bushes fitted to the new torsen. When I installed my bushings last year some time, I bought new retaining plates from miataroadster.com. But this time we didn't have those, so we threw my old OEM retaining plates into BBQ to heat up and de-bond. We did this before pulling the old diff out, so we could be sure the plates would come clean before we did any unnecessary work. No dramas though, the BBQ worked well, but took quite a while to get hot enough, then some pliers to hold them and a rasp scrape off the rubber. Followed by a quick spray of black paint while we got to work.


I love the smell of burning rubber in the morning

Let me tell you, this was much easier to do with 2 people than when I did mine solo!


Hobbes was on hand to supervise and protect us from the pizza delivery man

Happy to report a successful test drive and no more 2-way clunk while taking corners. His girlfriend is going to be much happier on ridealongs now!

Then on Sunday there was an All Jap car meet at Banyo, this meet happens twice a year, though the one earlier in the year is meant to be "Classics" only. The guys on the local MX-5 Facebook group always arrange a pre-meet down the road, out front of a hairdressers


Artsy photo courtesy of SlugDub


My new phone's camera has a wide-angle!

I didn't make it to the real meet, but the pre-meet is the best part. Lots of cool MX-5s that cover the full ownership spectrum (though no NCs were present).

After that it was home for some quick chores before going to a Bronco's game with a mate, hosted by his steel supplier, so free tickets and beers. Not a bad way to wrap up a good weekend!