Hello again,
I haven’t posted here much recently... and as many of you know there is a good reason.
Following 3 years with my ’97 Celica ZR I was ready to step things up a notch. This was supposed to be in the form of an engine swap to the 147kW 2.0L red top BEAMS 3S-GE engine, but problems sourcing a suitable donor car in Japan in time, and my friend losing access to his garage space where we would do the work, this was no longer practical. I was in the process of going all out with parts from Japan (Tanabe Coilovers, TRD front strut, OEM rear strut, whiteline sway bar, TRD quickshift + all the visual stuff installed.... then bought C-One catback exhaust for Beams, ORC lightweight flywheel, C One cooling panel etc and was shopping for Evo 9 MR leather and alcantara bucket seat, C-One CF hood too). With the paint on the Celica fading fast, and the engine swap delayed for 6 months minimum, I decided to call it quits.
https://flic.kr/p/uhZ5zA
I wanted to get something fun but not too expensive until I worked out what direction I wanted to go in next. I would LOVE a 3rd gen MR2 Spyder with 2ZZ + 6spd from a 7th gen Celica, but signing up to a new engine swap wasn’t exactly solving any problems. I decided as a car enthusiast it was my responsibility to own a MX5 at some point in my life, and now was a good time.
I did a lot of research into all of the different models available and the NB8B came out a clear winner for me. Given the reasons I was upgrading cars, I wanted a clean, fairly low kms car with good paint. The car is going to spend most of its time commuting, so safety in the form of dual airbags and ABS were highly desirable. Considering the fact that I would upgrade a NB8A with the later bumper, projectors, rear lights, seats and centre console…. And still miss out on the VVT engine and safety stuff it just wasn’t worth it.
I actually wanted a NC originally – I was looking at ’05-’06 soft tops with ~130k kms for around $13k. However, I didn’t have that kind of money in the bank (I would have when I sold my other car, but that would have meant more time) and I did some reading and the handling characteristics of the NB seemed to suit my needs better.
My Midnight Blue NB8B
I came very close to making an offer on a Crystal Blue one (tinted silver, basically), but I am glad I held off because I managed to get an even less silver one! (Running joke – when I had my last car we had 4/4 silver cars… nice, but ready for a change )
Today marks 3 months since I flew to Sydney to pick up the car. A late ’00 midnight blue NB8B model with the 6 speed manual. It was a single owner car with 65,200 kms!!! (40k miles)
https://flic.kr/p/tCxDkGhttps://flic.kr/p/tCxDkG
https://flic.kr/p/tCxDz9https://flic.kr/p/tCxDz9
https://flic.kr/p/uhYrmChttps://flic.kr/p/uhYrmC
https://flic.kr/p/tCxDQ9https://flic.kr/p/tCxDQ9
https://flic.kr/p/tCHKfMhttps://flic.kr/p/tCHKfM
https://flic.kr/p/uz8CTWhttps://flic.kr/p/uz8CTW
https://flic.kr/p/uhYrNuhttps://flic.kr/p/uhYrNu
The only drawback was that the owner did not have the service log book and was obviously not a car guy at all…. Just ‘took it to the mechanic when it needed done’. I took a guess at the service centre he was using and they found a couple of hits on their system that helped confirm that the kms were legit and it had been getting serviced (albeit based on kms not time… a problem with such low km cars). I had a friend who is an apprentice Mazda mechanic in Sydney test drive for me and he was pretty happy with it, and I chose a random garage nearby and paid for the owner to get a compression test done which came back all good so I was happy to proceed with the purchase. Price of $8k was negotiated before I flew down.
Arrived in Sydney at 8pm on Friday night, went out for a Nasho run with some friends from a car club for my previous marque, met the seller Saturday morning, sorted out all the paperwork and transport permits, chatted with a friend until like 11am and then drove back to Brisbane in time for a mate’s 21st that night.
https://flic.kr/p/ui8ggF
Quick rest stop on the way home.
Getting it Registered
Since I didn’t have any service records, I didn’t know how much had been done beyond oil and filters in each of the services, so I wanted to start checking everything off. The last service was only in February, but I did a service with fresh fully synthetic oil, new filter, new spark plugs and a new air filter. The latter gave me about a 30% power boost, unlocking the high end performance. This may have something to do with it;
https://flic.kr/p/uzEqwx
A few days later I took it down to get a QLD roadworthy certificate and registration. I knew the motor in the driver’s mirror wasn’t working, but the seller and I were under the impression that everything else was all good.
The mechanic that I went to was really awesome, he remembered me from the last couple of times I had been in there with other cars and offered for me to come into the shop and watch him do the inspection so I could check out the car on the hoist. Most things looked pretty good, but there was a small rocker cover gasket leak (planning to do the timing belt soon anyway), a leaky clutch slave cylinder and the rear dif mounts were shot. Purely for my own interest, he also noted that the suspension was fine at the moment, but the rear would probably be gone in 6-12 months, and that the brake pads had plenty of meat on them but were a terrible pad. There was nothing really dangerous, so they let me register it on the proviso that I fix up the stuff as soon as possible. Nice guy mechanic (y).
The Breakdowns
https://flic.kr/p/uicySK
https://flic.kr/p/uzSBe6
On my way down the coast at Easter for some much-needed holidays the engine started cutting out on me at 110 in the right hand lane of the M1. Managed to get off to the left hand side, and waited for some tools to see if we could find anything wrong. By the time dad got there (30 min) the car started straight up and drove the rest of the way just fine. Weird.
I couldn’t replicate the issue in the driveway, so I kept driving the car thinking it may have just been a random electrical glitch. It wasn’t. Happened again, this time at low speed with AC off, so completely different scenario to the first time. Car started back up after about 10 min. Did lots of forum searching but with the search terms I was using I couldn’t find anything conclusive. Rinse and repeat until I posted a video of the engine cutting out onto the MX5 Aus Facebook group. Within minutes I had the answer! A new cam position sensor was ordered and the problem was solved.
I almost forgot too, during that weekend that Brisbane get a ridiculous amount of rain I had the car parked out the front and the foot-well filled up with water. Pulled the carpet up to make sure I dried everything up 100% and eventually tracked down the problem to be the plug that seals the wiring going to the door was out and all the water was splashing in.
https://flic.kr/p/ui5n25
Currently
I am having an absolute BLAST with the car. Unbelievable amount of fun; even stock it puts my modified Celica with expensive suspension and chassis work to shame. If it’s this good stock… imagine it with a bit of extra love! :twisted:
Since my dif cradle needed to come out to replace the mounts then it only makes sense to use the opportunity to replace the hideously long 3.63 open unit with a 4.1 FGR Torsen 2, doesn’t it? :lol: A unit was sourced locally for a very good price, but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to install it before uni got too busy. It will happen in the next few weeks. I also have Super Pro poly mounts to go with it.
At the same time as I started getting the break downs I got a nice big tear in the roof. In the past 3 years the car had only done 3000km, all weekend use and garaged with the roof up during the week. Suddenly here I was flipping the roof up and down 2-4 times per day and parking it out in the elements. I thought about repairing it, but it is obviously well past its use by date so I am going to order a replacement top from the states. Looking for a cloth replacement top, zipperless, glass with defrost. Looking at something like the Robbins Streamline or the Sierra top. Just trying to decide between black and a navy blue.
Finally, just a couple of weeks ago I ordered a set of Tein Flex Z coilovers from Japan. This is a new model (basically a sealed Street Flex, so lower maintenance and cheaper… and about the same cost to replace a damper instead of rebuilding anyway), and I’ve been waiting for them to come into production for the NB MX5. Good news is that June 12 was the lucky day and they should be with my agent shortly. I am probably going to save some money and get them shipped via sea mail though… we’ll see when the bill comes through.
I am an electrical engineering student, so I love little technical goodies, so I am also anxiously awaiting the arrival of my Tein EDFC Active Pro damper management system! Worth the cost? I doubt it. Awesome? Most definitely. The Active Pro system uses latitudinal and longitudinal G force sensors to adjust the damping of each corner of the car on the fly. It also uses a speed signal input to allow you to have a soft and cushy ride when crawling around town and firm up when you speed up again. I think this will work great for a daily driver that I also want to put to test on the weekends. http://www.tein.com/products/edfc_active_pro.html.
I have always loved the NB design, but there are a few things that bug me, like the US sidemarkers that they gave us too. Eventually I would like to fill them and repaint the bumpers, but clear replacements will do for now. I then went a little bit silly on IL Motorsport (combined shipping! ); Quickshifter, clear sidemarkers and indicators, LED centre brake light, hood struts, chrome vent rings and some frankenstein bolts for a bikini project (already bought a NA roof to demo on).
https://flic.kr/p/ui7Jrf
I also went wheel shopping around Easter.... and got a nice little delivery yesterday morning;
https://flic.kr/p/tCS88t
I wanted a set of wheels that would suit the car in white, that were light weight (lighter than stock anyway) and look good. I don't want to run wider than a 205 tire for now, so I didn't want to go wider than 7". A spec miata class +25 offset would have been nice, but it is fairly rare to find used wheels. I bid on a couple of sets of 16x7 +35 Volks TE37, and I was in the right ballpark with prices, just unlucky.
I then saw a set of these Enkei RP01 come up for sale; 16x7 +32. Much cheaper, looks good (was actually factory fitment in Japan... but in 15" with a weak offset) and fractionally lighter than stock.
https://flic.kr/p/uzVXvc
These will get a refurb with either a respray at home or powdercoating in white. Should look good;
https://flic.kr/p/uzNgZn
The Future
.... I have lots more to put here, but I significantly underestimated the time this would take to right... so you'll have to wait and see!
This post was originally written for a different forum, before I decided that I should start a thread here too, so apologies if it isn't 100% targeted to this audience. I still have the Celica for now, but I am just waiting for exams to be done for me to strip some more parts off it and list it up for sale.
I still wouldn't mind trying a NB Miata myself. The NA I was just kind of disappointed in, it flexed and creaked more than my '79 Firebird does and that's just sad. Actually the Firebird doesn't creak or flex at all, but it's sans T-tops. Anyway, nice purchase. You probably bought my favourite colour available, though I seem to recall a nice burgundy was available too. That and the shade of blue used on the 10AE was nice too. Personally I'd go with a black top since the interior is solid black.
Also what's the deal with both Australians giving up on the Celica?
Oh yeah, I forgot about Emerald Green which was another nice colour. I probably would've bought one but all the ones for sale near me were either red or automatic, so I bought a red automatic Firebird. It's old, so I'm more forgiving but it'd be a million times better with a manual and not red paint.
You can drift FWD, just need judicious handbrake use and wheelspin. I hear you though, that was my biggest issue with the Celica over time. I will say the ST Celica is probably the best commuter daily you can have though in terms of quality, looks, handling, and economy though. The Miata would be better as a hardtop coupe, I'd totally be over one of these:
Congratulations. I got mine September of last year. Great fun, these cars. If they have autocross in your part of the world then I would highly recommend that, I just came back from an event.
Yours looks like it is in really good nick, shame for the breakdowns. Good luck.
Yeah on the later cars it's advisable to keep a sealed cam sensor in the glovebox ready to go at a moment's notice. Some people never have an issue while others do, it's hit and miss really.
Sweet looking car bud, A mate of mine has one, The 1.8 Eunos RS Spec it is now as opposed to V Spec when he got it lol
He loves it although it is partial to tyres although that's likely his driving style lol
http://s285.photobucket.com/user/southernracer666/media/_CSC0403_zpsf8df7bf8.jpg.html
He has done a fair bit more to it but I've not got any recent pics
Congrats dude
Good choice on the MX-5
A few updates in one:
I had a couple of weeks where nature managed to attack my car every day, bird poo, bat poo etc, clean it off and it was back within 24 hours.
This was about 4 hours after I washed my car, whilst I was driving through the city.... glad I drove with the roof up that day!
Got some photos of the IL Motorsport third brake light. Thinking of tinting it red.
https://flic.kr/p/vBR3Co
https://flic.kr/p/uXrBRu
And then this.....
MX5 Life :'(
https://flic.kr/p/wu14PA
Just turned car on, headlights on, waiting to pull out of my park at the shopping centre. Car next to me pulls out first and commodore goes to reverse into the spot. Starts backing into the bay and then just went straight for my car. I was on the horn in plenty of time but he was oblivious. Should've had the air horn installed
Really pissed off because this corner of the car was mint - all original and perfect paint.
Couldn't drive it home so got a friend to bring my coilover spanners and we raised that corner up and pulled out the guard as much we could.
The guy that hit me was a nice bloke, stayed around for ages to make sure I wasn't stranded. But his brother was a mobile panel beater and he wanted him to fix it without insurance involved - felt very much like grab a panel off gumtree, give it a coat of paint and she'll be right mate.
I didn't feel comfortable with that, and I have full comp. insurance (a first for me) with lifetime guarantee on repairs so I put through a claim with them (AAMI). They are going to pick it up Monday. They deemed me to be not at fault since the reversing driver always has the greater duty of car, and also I was stationary.
Damage I can find: Quarter panel is completely shot, front bumper has paint damage and retaining clips are broken, under guard plastics damaged and broken mounting points and the wheel had paint transfer (chipped through the coating in a couple of places). Doesn't appear to have done any chassis / steering / suspension damage.
I am very happy that the powder coaters have taken so long with my wheels.... they were supposed to have gone on early this week which would have meant a damaged good wheel, and also more significant damage to everything else since it would've been 15mm further out (so greater chance of steering damage).
Jeez, how fast was he backing in? This is why I always park in the back away from everyone.
If he was backing in slowly you should've jumped out of the Miata and onto his trunk.
I'm thinking about buying a NB1 5-speed now, but it has to be Twilight Blue, Brilliant Black, or Emerald Green. I'm tired of red and white cars, I want paint that makes me go ooooh.
So I'm a couple of updates behind here, to steal directly from my post on another forum;
So the repairs are finally booked in..... first available booking was in December!!!! I was going to be heading overseas during that week so they managed to 'squeeze me in' the week before...
In the mean time I have been doing some photoshop mockups of what side stripes would look like on m car (I plan to get some net year). Don't forget that I have the white wheels now too, so it should tie in nicely I've been through a few iterations now but I will save you from the boring bits and just show you the most recent ones:
https://flic.kr/p/z56dgS
Background: because if the curves behind the door, if you put a straight line all the way to the rear arch it looks wonky in any photos. Also, I plan to get side skirts eventually that flick up at the end and would look funny on top of a side stripe, so I decided I needed to design one myself to finish on the door instead.
I had the idea of the flag type thing as another way to fade it out. It works well on some Porsches but I'm not feeling it on the MX5.... the door is a lot closer to the back wheel on our cars which is probably part of the difference. My top 3 of this lot would probably be 1,4,2. I think bringing the edge in allows me to not 'close' the top line and gives it a very clean look (when I had it going to the end of the door it looked very incomplete).
Thoughts welcome!
Went to a couple of car events in the last week, lots of MX5s... no Celicas though
I will be lowering the car this week (stuff waiting til December for the repairer ), and replacing the soft top next weekend.
#1 to the wheel arch would look best, just a nice solid rectangular stripe. None of that flippy whippy mamby pampy stuff going on.
I did read it but I know I'm right, so.
In that case some like #6 would be better, trying to match the curve of the door just looks wrong.
Im going to go with #2
just personal preference
I have been a bit quiet but have been getting stuff done….
So the weekend before last I did the soft top install. I knew that it was going to take a while, but 2.5 days was much longer than expected! My old top was perfect when I went and inspected the car in March, but having only done 3000km in the past 3 years, it was only a few weeks of daily use before it fell apart. The vinyl is just rotten, all the rubber seals are wrecked and the stitching was falling to bits inside…. Repairing definitely wasn’t an option.
https://flic.kr/p/zELoko
https://flic.kr/p/yJQnEo
https://flic.kr/p/zDyeXf
https://flic.kr/p/zpnNEP
https://flic.kr/p/yK1nAK
I bought a Robbins Streamline replacement top in the Stayfast Canvas. This should be quite a premium top; look good, be quieter inside and last well. I was tempted to play it safe and get black, but I don’t plan on having any other black accents on the car, so I went with a dark blue to complement the paint. I bought it from a seller in the USA and had it shipped here through the eBay Global Shipping program. It ended up costing just over $900 (when the dollar was at around 0.73).
The first day (afternoon) we got the frame out of the car and stripped the old vinyl off the frame. Spent a LONG time cleaning the drains… they were both completely blocked…. It took several goes of hot water and poking and prodding to just get a thin wire through the passenger one.
https://flic.kr/p/zDyaxJ
https://flic.kr/p/zGLChZ
The second morning we had a look at the frame and found a few rust spots on it. I don’t plan to ever have this soft top out of the car again, so we got out the grinder and cleaned them up, treated the rust, then primer and a quick coat of black spray-paint.
https://flic.kr/p/yK4XG4
Second afternoon was installing the Robbins soft top on the frame. We took everything inside to make it easier and followed the instructions step by step. This would have been easier if the instructions included all of the steps! Argh! Because of that, we wasted a lot of time trying to run tension cables through just after we had riveted the canvas over the mounting points. Also had to go out and find a suitable contact adhesive.
https://flic.kr/p/zFXbRM
On the third day (long weekend) we put the assembled top back into the car. It was a 33 degree day so we gave in and set up a gazebo It was quite fiddly getting it all back together. My driver’s side latch broke too when stretching the canvas shut (always very hard when they are new) which was quite annoying.
https://flic.kr/p/zpeP8Z
https://flic.kr/p/zDz1Gq
I didn’t put the interior trims back in (except for the seats ) because I wanted to make sure that everything stayed dry after a few days of normal use, and the material hadn’t quite stretched in the right places (more later). So I was roof-up for a week (drivers latch wired shut ) whilst the material stretched into shape.
https://flic.kr/p/zpmmPG
This weekend I almost made it to dodgy day out at Magpie’s place (a DIY mechanic day with a bunch of MX5 club people around an hour from me), but a friend ended up coming over instead and we just played MX5s in my driveway instead. It was time for my car to get some low back.
I hate raising/lowering my coilovers (have to unbolt and twist the whole bottom section on the Tein Flex), and I was lucky enough to have my good friend Richard ‘volunteer’ for the job
Whilst he was doing that I had a go at a quick headlight restoration on his car using baking powder made into a paste and then some fibreglass polish. Before and after (the driver’s side was worse originally);
https://flic.kr/p/zpmfTo
We had my wheels off anyway, and Richard wanted to see what white wheels would be like on his green (he has stock NB8B 16” wheels like mine had);
https://flic.kr/p/zFYCNK
As soon as Bathurst finished on Sunday I went out and spent a couple of hours playing with the tension on the roof before I reinstalled all the interior bits and gave my car a wash. Then I spent an hour pulling the dash cluster out of my sisters Barina SRi because of a flickering bulb (Opels are a pain to pull apart!) and then gave it a good wash too (The first wipe of her car put more dirt on my cloth than my whole car.... including the wheels).
By this stage it was about 11pm and I headed out to get a few quick pics to show of the low and new roof. I set myself a 5 min radius to find somewhere new to take some night shots and this is what I came up with;
https://flic.kr/p/zpgd6b
https://flic.kr/p/zGNJy2
White wheels on a dark car are really hard to photograph at night!!! It wasn’t long there before I got kicked out by security wanting to chain up the car park so commuters don’t use it in the morning (next to a bus station). It was already after midnight so I gave up on flashes and just pulled into somewhere with a big floodlight and took a couple of quick shots from the rear;
https://flic.kr/p/zGM8Dp
https://flic.kr/p/zpfVsG
https://flic.kr/p/zGvhC8
That last photos shows the biggest problem I am having with the top. I’m not sure why, but it doesn’t feel square. The passenger side is MUCH less tight on those rear corners near the straps (the whole way up)… this is also leading to a gap between the fabric and the edge the black edging. With this how it is, instead of the bulk of the water flowing off over the edge of the roof down into the door openings to drain off, it all flows down into the rain rails and has to go down the tiny drains. Also, it will only be a matter of days before my drains are clogged if all the leaves can go straight down when I’m parked.
I spent a couple of hours on Sunday redoing the tension on the bolts that hold on the base of the roof to try and distribute the tension better. I did it the Robbins way, and a few different custom methods which managed to reduce it (to what you see in the pic) but it is still an issue. Going to get in touch with the supplier to see if they have any suggestions before I try and rig up an extra support to hold the canvas out to the rim.
Another gripe I have with the Robbins top is the quality of the rear 'glass'. We did the roof install onto the frame indoors on some clean lino. I was generally pretty careful to have the tracing paper under it, but when you are flipping it back and forth you sometimes forget. I have a few decently noticable scratches in the middle of the 'glass' from it rubbing the lino under its own weight (no pressure). You will notice the quotes on glass because no proper glass product I have ever dealt with is that prone to damage.... it is supposed to be hard wearing.
In any case, after a week with the top stuck up I really enjoyed driving home topless the last 2 nights!!!
Meh, should've just bought a hardtop at that point.
That's just silly, hair will get terribly tangled.
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