Done the following recently:
- Removed soft top and stored it away.
The frame and soft top are actually heavier than the hard top.
- Cleaned up inside and removed the fuel tank access panels for restoration
- Fitted rear strut brace across the towers.
It was a cheapo
£10 one from ebay but it's actually very good quality and a good fit.
I did have to get the heat gun on it and straighten it out slightly so it fit under the parcel shelf but that's 30 seconds work and I'm very pleased with it.
I managed to lose a nut down the side of the n/s rear top mount but fortunately I have spares
- Got rid of naff mx5 parts exhaust and fitted new, light, fully stainless, beautifully welded custom catback I got from Yahoo Japan
- It doesn't have a JASMA number or any markings and doesn't match anything I can see in Hyper Rev, but it's awesome, beautifully made, and sounds great.
I also lucked out in finding a bung from M2 on ebay that fits for track days
- it's a discontinued part and the only ready-made one that fits.
I just need to get the nut welded on inside to fit it as it has to go in backwards to line up with the hole for the bolt, if ya see what I'm saying, but it's nice and snug.
Sound test today
(without actually recording dB, should be quiet enough for Snetterton evening.
I love my local motor factor
- trying to find gaskets that would fit they just let me round back to rifle through the boxes with a vernier gauge until I find what I want.
- The afforementioned panels I took off where a bit scabby with surface rust so I've been grinding them back, priming and painting this weekend ready to put back next week.
I want them to look fairly decent as I'm not putting the carpets and sound deadening back in
- I like the bare-bones interior look.
- I took out the badly fitted roll bar and harness bar and sold them
- they hadn't been fitted with spreader plates or correct bolts so would have just gone right through the floor if I'd rolled it anyway.
Future plans are to start afresh with a 4 or 5 point bolt-in fitted properly.
- Got a Japspeed
"copy" cabin brace for
£10 only to find it didn't fit properly.
I sent it back and bought one direct from Japspeed for over three times the price and immediately was sent an invoice from the same supplier.
When it arrived it was the same poor quality with the same shitty welds and the same problem with fitting so I wrote a disgruntled email to Japspeed and now I think I'll just wait until I've got a proper roll bar with a harness bar in there.
If I can pick up a standard cabin brace in the mean time that would be nice.
- I had the common rattle from the heat shield on the down pipe that Mazda put there to stop the cabin getting too warm so today I took an angle grinder to it to cut it off.
When I did I found there was a layer of fibrous material packed in between the pipe and the shielding that crumbled into dust when I prized the shield apart.
Since the car is from 1992 and I have no idea what Japanese regs or industrial practices were I immediately thought
"F***!
ASBESTOS!" and downed tools, cleared up, and went inside, but on further investigation it turns out it's just very old, very brittle glass fibre matting.
Believe it or not there wasn't any kind of ban on using asbestos in these kinds of applications until 1999 but by the early 90s fortunately it was very rare.
- I picked up a second hand exhaust manifold heat shield, ground back the rust and painted it VHT silver
- probably much better than having nothing isolating the intake from a hot exhaust and it looks better, too.
- I've got a spare rocker cover and I've also ordered a spare intake plenum so I can get these cleaned and powder coated.
It's a bit of an indulgence but it will smarten up the engine bay.
- I've got a feeling the rear shocks are set too soft so I'll be in touch with Tein to figure out how many clicks are what on the old HRs.
I doubt they've got much life left in them seeing as they were almost definitely on it when it came over from Japan but they seem to be holding up okay.
I saw someone had taken an almost new set of Street Flex off a recent import a few weeks ago and was flogging the set for
£250.
I should have jumped at that seeing as they are worth about
£600 new.
- Plans are to aggressively colour sand the xxxx paint and I'm still trying to source some wings for it.
There's a Bulgarian man that sells fibreglass wings out of a unit in Essex somewhere but he's on holiday.
I'd rather have the steel ones, really, but we'll see.
I sourced a boot lid, finally, that I'm going to strip, prep and paint PZ black to match the flaking hard top and the bonnet.
- Also, I need some better tyres.
I'm currently running Nankang NS2 at the rear
and some dutch bargain brand called
"Tyfoon" up front
which all came on the BBS when I picked them up.
I'm gonna go for Rainsport 3s.
£30 a corner isn't bad really.
It grips very well in the dry so far.
I won't say the tyres are xxxx because they've handled everything I've thrown at them
(seven tenths max) on private roads
but with track time looming I'd much rather have something tested and proven.
So there, no pictures and too many words.
That's not even everything, just the stuff that popped into my head while I was sat here
