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

[ManiacLachy]

Well it's not being used right now, so if you, or any other local wants to come by we could do a quick install for a test drive and see how it feels. It is a very simple install.

It's a bit of money to spend, so having a try to see if it suits might be tempting.

[ManiacLachy]

I've been a little lost without an MX-5 to drive. I'm collecting parts for the SE, but the USPS is all sorts of messed up right now and things aren't arriving in a timely manner. And then there's the matter of getting the engine built and the goodies installed. I've almost missed out on the best driving weather of the year!

So I did something rash...


The only way in or out of Melbourne

A little while ago I started wondering if I could pick up a cheap NA to run about in for a little while. I did some searches and most of what I found was WTB, and what little that was for sale was asking $10k+, and they weren't in much good nick. Then this one popped up on Facebook the other week. I love Montego Blue, and at $9k, it was about as cheap as I could find that would drive.


I have pop-ups!

The plan is to give it a light resto-mod. Heavier on the resto than on the mod. Get it back to near stock, drive it and enjoy it for 6-12 months, then hopefully sell it for what I bought it for once the SE is ready. The market is going up, so I might get a little more for it once it's cleaned up, but I expect that I'll still be in the red for the work I put in.

First step, get it registered. It came up from Corona-ville (Melbourne) on the back of a truck, unregistered.

It'll need a little more TLC than I first thought, but it shouldn't be anything I can't handle. And, I'm going to do a mod I've always wanted, I'm going to install a Momo Proptipo steering wheel!

And clearly, this wheel needs to go! Does anyone know how to remove these NA8 steering wheels? I removed the horn plate, but that doesn't seem to be the answer, and there are no screws on the backside.


Ratty, tatty - it's gotsta go!

On the list of things to take care of: Radio; steering wheel; wheels; Door Cards (their tan for some reason); general maintenance drains etc; replace the door window strip; PDR; a good polish job on the paint; and someone painted the bonnet emblem, exterior door handles and hardtop strikers gold, so I want to polish them back to chrome.

And try not to spend too much on it, or fall in love.

I'll leave you now with a few photos. I'll probably spin this off into it's own build thread in a little while.


Are these keys extra week or something?


Needs a new HVAC panel, and someone kindly cut off all the stereo wiring


Brothers!

[The American]

You’ve crossed the line now :-)

And (IMO) the NA8 is the best of the bunch! Congratulations

[Nevyn72]

So how long until the SE's interior and drive train end up in the NA8?

[lucmor444]

Could the HVAC controls still have the original plastic protective sheet on it???

[ManiacLachy]

You’ve crossed the line now :-)

And (IMO) the NA8 is the best of the bunch! Congratulations

Yep, I'm one of those "crazy MX-5 nuts" now.

So how long until the SE's interior and drive train end up in the NA8?

I'm not a fan of the NB interior in an NA actually, I really like the NA interior as it is. Though the thought of porting other stuff over has crossed my mind. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Just drive and enjoy it for now and see how it suits me.

Could the HVAC controls still have the original plastic protective sheet on it???

I didn't know that was a thing. I'll check, thanks!

There's more dents and scratches and just generally worn trim than I expected, but it's an old car that's done some work so I guess I shouldn't be shocked. Might take a little more to get it to a state of reasonable OEM style restoration. I really need to resist going full Sharka on it!

[Lokiel]

Been down this thought process myself, I'd love an NA6 that I could restore to OEM condition but my head won over in this instance because I doubt that I could stop myself from going "Full Sharka!" and I just don't have the room for 3x cars

[ManiacLachy]

I haven't posted an update in a while, but with 2 MX-5s in the garage I have been busy!

Let's kick it off with the new boy first.

The car is in rougher condition than I thought, but that's what you get buying sight-unseen over FaceBook. It's mostly cosmetic, nothing terminal, but still it took the shine of the initial impression of the car. There are quite a few dings around the bod that I still need to get tended to, but I think a good detail will really bring the lustre back.

So first, the roof wasn't in the good condition I was lead to believe. There were no big rips, but the seams were beginning to delaminate, it simply wasn't weather tight. So I pulled the soft top and installed my long-term loaner hard top (curtesy of Lokiel). There was a lot debris under the roof, but no rus on the parcel shelf.


The current unfinished state of The Blue car

The fenders had several kilograms of dirt and sand in them, so they got a good clean out


I felt physically sick doing cleaning these out. If you haven't checked yours recently, get to it!

The window mouldings had passed their best by date, I replaced them with some I.L Motorsports options


Rusty and ugly


Smooth and soft

The door sills were a bit scuffed up from 25 years of being brushed by the heels of shoes, so again I.L Motorsports to the rescue.


Not well protected, and lacking a little something


Bling!

The OEM steering wheel that came on the car was well worn, the leather was cracking and peeling in a few spots. I found a good condition replacement wheel on FaceBook available locally for $50, which went on temporarily. I had already placed an order for a Momo Prototipo wheel, a hub and a quick release. The Prototipo is one of my favourite steering wheels, I've always wanted one! Fitting it up with the Momo hub and the NRG quick release was a little tricky, but it all came together. The wheel is spaced out perfectly, I can still reach the stalks without taking my hands off the wheel, but I have plenty of room for my knees. The Momo is a 350mm wheel, so it's not much smaller than stock, but combined with the spacer it's great, and it feels good in hand too.


This makes it look further than it is, but I really can reach the indicator with my grip still on the wheel


That's a classic wheel

The car came on some aftermarket wheels that weren't in the best condition. I didn't really like the look of them either. I found on FaceBook marketplace some OEM 14" wheels with tyres for $400, sold! The wheels really suit the car better IMO.


OEM NA8 14"

I knew the car didn't have a stereo when I bought it, but I didn't know that the harness had been clipped off, so it was just exposed wires tucked into the hole in the dash. When I saw this I decided I would just take the car into a stereo shop and they could fit the new headunit. While I was at it I had the speakers replaced, they weren't looking too hot under the grilles. The Kenwood headunit is quite underwhelming and disappointing to be honest, it feels cheap and the UI is not intuitive. But it does the job.

For a little while I put the Lotus seat from the SE into the car, but it didn't suit the softer nature of the car and put the seats that it came with back in.

The stock shifter was in need of an overhaul. The transmission tunnel got quite hot on a drive, and the tell tale scent of oil would fill the cabin. Sure enough the boots were toast! I got a rebuild kit from MX-5 Mania, and put my old SE shift and hand brake boots on to finish it off. The shift doesn't quite feel right, I might need to go back in and remove a shim, maybe I put too much fluid in the turret?


Yup, that's seen some good use


I had to go fishing with a magnet to make sure I got all the pieces

A few other odds and ends, the headlight covers were sitting a little low, so I adjusted them back up flush with the bonnet. The car didn't come with floor mats, I used the SE's temporarily but also bought some new ones from Mania and they're in now. I put the Garage Star delrin door bushes on, but the doors aren't closing very nicely with them, so I'll put the OEM rubber back in soon.

I'm pretty sure the shocks' and brakes' best days are behind them, but I'm going to leave them as is.

So, still to do is PDR to remove the dings, a cut and polish detail, a new soft-top. The chrome trim has been painted gold and I want to restore that, hopefully the dremel polish head can handle that. The door cards need to be replaced as well, for some reason it has tan door cards.

But here's the shocker... this car hasn't sparked joy in me. It's OK, it's fine. It's soft and comfortable, it's cute. But it just hasn't resonated with me. Maybe with new shocks, brakes and I/H/E mods it would be different, but I don't want to invest all that. I don't think I'll keep it long or invest much more into it that isn't required, I'll finish of the basic restore and tidy up and then sell it on while the market is strong. I might loose a little money on the journey but that's OK, I've scratched the itch and experienced the pop-up headlight NA.

What it has done is spur me to getting the SE up and running again.

[ManiacLachy]

No engagement on that last post? That's OK, it was picture heavy, touched on a bunch of things and didn't go too deep into detail. Well, if you didn't like that last post, you'll hate this one!

But seriously, I took ages between updates because nothing seemed significant, but when I put them all together it's a bit overwhelming. I'll try to write more frequent updates in future.

So, back to The Silver car. The layer of dust is growing thick!

It still has a chronic oil leak. I'm trying to decide on a path forward with regard to fixing the leak, upgrading the turbo, and building the engine. So, we'll see what happens there, but in the meantime there are still jobs to tend to.

For a long time now, I've been working on my door card project, and while I'm at it upgrading the speakers.

So much earlier in the year I started on the speakers, thanks to advice from muzzy66 in the speaker thread, I decided on some Focal 165AS component speakers. Pretty good quality, but nothing out of this world, could use an amp but don't need one. I don't think there's much point going overboard on MX-5 speakers, it's always going to be a noisy environment.
https://www.mx5cartalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=73130&start=30#p897008)
I've had these parts for well over a year, and I've been actively working on putting them together for > 6 months

The biggest issue was finding a home for the crossovers. At first I thought under the quarter panel and above the speaker, mounted to the inner door skin. I wired them up and everything was working. Then I shut the door and it fell apart. You see, right where I placed the crossover is where the hinge is when the door is shut! Lol.

I considered mounting them inside the cabin, near the kick panel, but I didn't want to pull and push wires through the door grommet if I didn't have to. I ended up fabricating a bracket and mounting them in the big hole in the bottom back portion of the inner door skin. Then wiring them up. This was my first time attempting "fabrication", a few CAD templates and we were in business. I used some aluminium sheet from Bunnings, it's a little bit thin, but it looks like it'll work well.


The first CAD template


Test fit with the template


I think this was revision 3 that I was finally happy with


Test fit with the metal bracket


Completed, wired and working

With that done, it was time to complete the door cards, which have been an off and on project for ages. I've long hated the OEM NB door panels because they intrude into the cabin quite a bit, and limit the room for my knee between the door and the steering wheel. I bought the Primal 3D Forever flat door panels. They're fantastic, they have punch holes for all the various options, you just need to ensure you punch our the right ones for your configuration. I opted to run NA door uppers, rather than cut up the NB ones. Primal 3D also sell foam and vinyl coverings to make a complete kit, and I chose to go with their black "basket weave" vinyl.

The Focal woofers are 6.5", the OEM hole is 8". So I needed to cut my own speaker hole out. I used a dremel router bit to do this. It was messy and time consuming, I had to keep cutting out additional material, and I ruined the Ozitso rotary tool's collet while doing this. Luckily they provide spare replacements in the kit. Unfortunately I didn't realise this until after I bought a replacement cordless Dremel, but the cordless version is excellent.

I used the speaker ring centred in the card's speaker cut out to trace a starting point


Then dremel out the hole, and massage away any excess plastic. Make lots of mess.

I also cut holes in the NA door uppers for the tweeters. This was a similar process to the woofer holes. I really should have just bought the correct size hole saw and made this much easier though. I had a hole saw kit, but they were too small, so I made the initial hole, then enlarged it to fit the tweeter with the dremel. More mess.

Then I fit the naked door cards to the door to work on the door pulls. I bought a simple loop pull from Jass Performance, and an two point pull from Carbon Miata (I think). I was planning to run the two point pull as I thought the extra anchor point would give it extra hold. I found a point that the lower hole could go and installed a rivnut. I ultimately decided not to use the two point pull though, the strap sticks out a little and I found it annoying. It might be good for the passenger side in time as a grab handle though.

Now it was time to try my hand at upholstery. This could go very badly. I bought some contact glue and spray adhesive. The spray adhesive is great for the large sections, sticking the foam to the plastic, and the vinyl to the foam. The contact glue is great for the backside sticking down the wrap around tabs of the vinyl. A friend of mine suggested using bull clips to hold the tabs in place while the glue set, and it worked well. I learned a few tricks from doing the first card, so the second was easier, but both turned out pretty well I think.

My glues for this project - I used that entire tube of contact glue


Spray adhesive to stick the pieces together


A squiggle of glue for the tabs


I hope I don't mess this up! Corners are hard!


Bullclips made this much easier


So flat, much weave, very basket

My Guardian Designs Corsa 330 steering wheel and shift & brake boots arrived around this time, so I fit them up as well. I figured with the smaller wheel and the flat door cards combined with my low slung Lotus seats I wouldn't need to use the steering wheel spacer any more. When I removed the wheel and spacer my clock spring exploded!

That's not supposed to happen!

I bought a replacement on eBay for about $50 shipped and I was back in action. I also wanted to get an NB1 airbag, they have the Nardi logo in the centre of the wheel instead of the Mazda wing logo. I enquired on the Queensland Roadster Nakama group and another user was happy to swap his NB1 for my NB2 airbag! I've never liked the current Mazda logo and I'm on a mission to rid my car of them, only the boot emblem remains!

The GD wheel is excellent. The brake boot is OK. The shift boot is badly designed. The shift boot does not align with the retainer base tabs very well, some areas are too small and tight, some are too big, and others are simply out of place. I contacted GD about this and apparently no one else has ever raised the issue with them, but after I posted about my issue on MT.net, a user contacted me saying the same thing, and someone also contacted them about it (maybe the same person). GD acquired another retainer and re-designed the boot to fit and will send me out the replacement shortly. Another issue with it is the opening where the shifter shaft pops through isn't finished, it's just some loose tabs. I mentioned this and they said you're supposed to remove a plastic ring from the stock boot and glue it into there to finish it off. Personally I would have preferred they just sew it in a ring slightly wider than the shifter shaft. I don't have this plastic ring, I don't think my stock boot did, but I got rid of it years ago when I bought some after market boots shortly after acquiring the SE. As for my slight issue with the handbrake boot, the opening where the handle meets the boot is far too wide. I suggest if you want a wheel from them, get the wheel, it's awesome, but skip the shifter and brake boots and get them from another vendor.

So with the door cards and speakers complete, and the GD goodies in place, along with the Lotus seats and the shorty console, my interior is about as roomy as it's possible to get in an NA/NB MX-5! If only I could drive the car and experience it!

The office is coming together

Though I don't think my orange RevLimiter tachometer really fits with the interior anymore, the blue stitching I opted for on the GD leather kind of clashes. So I'll probably put in a new order this Sharksgiving (RevLimiter's Thanksgiving Sale).

I've got a couple more things I want to sort before I pay a man to work the tools, but I hope to have the car up and running again soon!

[Lokiel]

Nice job on the door cards. I did some for an NA and, like you, made heavy use of every dog clip I could scrounge from work.

You didn't give your impression on the additional room they provide - please do (I'm hoping it's very noticeable since I'd like to do this one day (spent the last long weekend painting 2x room ceilings and the 3x weekends before that gardening, landscaping the side of the house and cutting my rear hedge back since it had grown way too big - looks crap at the moment but will no doubt grow like a weed again over the next few weeks if we get ANY rain).

[Nevyn72]

When I installed the leather handbrake cover in my car I actually removed the plastic cover on the shaft.

This leaves the leather somewhat baggy and I actually think it works really well.
In all honesty I never even realised the plastic cover was meant to stay and believed the leather was a replacement, not an 'over-cover'.

20201008_164124.jpg

PS> Keep posting the update storyboards, makes for a great read even if there's no heckling from the cheap seats..... At least you're doing things with your car(s) at the moment.

EDIT: Ohhhh, my 2000th post!

[Lokiel]

Leather boots are supposed to look soft, not taught. I removed my plastic thing too but then added some thin foam to pad it out a little since it was too saggy.

[Lokiel]

Leather boots are supposed to look soft, not taught. I removed my plastic thing too but then added some thin foam to pad it out a little since it was too saggy.

[The American]

I’m here! Reading along!

I’ve been in the shed dremelling my eyeballs, counting imaginary fuel line fittings, trying to fit a round seat in a square floor pan and coating stuff near things I meant to paint in overspray. Reading other people’s efforts is inspiration to keep going.

[PaulF]

But here's the shocker... this car hasn't sparked joy in me. It's OK, it's fine. It's soft and comfortable, it's cute. But it just hasn't resonated with me. Maybe with new shocks, brakes and I/H/E mods it would be different, but I don't want to invest all that.

I've heard of this a few times. Once you've lived with a modified MX5 for a while, any stock one is a bit... meh.