sprx3

although ive had this car for quite a while now up until now i'd never thought of putting it in the build section.

I got this car around April 07 after selling my series 3 rx7 that the wife (GF back then) hated. The rx7 was way too quick, way too loud & way too smelly for her liking so one day i asked her if i was to sell it what should i get.......

the answer was a convertable. The deal was i get to do what i like with the new car as long as it was still a fun car. Deal was done & the rx7 went up for sale.

With the amount of work that was done to it & how clean a car it was, it was quickly snapped up & i went out looking for for an mx5. Id always wanted an mx5 but could not afford one in my younger days, so had to wait, like they say good things come.......


I found this on a car sales website & after having a good look at it took it home. It was a high km car that had a lot of extra's on it. Im sure the high km's bothered a lot of people but with what i had in mind with it that didnt bother me one bit.







The goodies on it where
HOTBITS coil overs all round (this is a melbourne based co. that has rebuild prices at $80 a corner & replacement parts at hand)
RAYS G-GAMES 17" rims
REMUS exhaust (rear section)
WHITELINE strut brace
Slotted front discs
Tan Leather interior
& a few other little things

After i got it, i pulled out the standard stereo system & replaced it with an alpine cd player i had from a previous car, i also installed a cd stacker in the boot, an alpine v12 amp behind the pas side seat & mb qaurtz 3 way splits which consist of 8" woofers in the doors, 4" mids that i put in the windblocker, Tweeters that replaced the factory ones & 2 huge cross overs behind the drivers seat. This set up sounds amaizing in such a small cabin & theres no need for subs or any other fill.

The car was also sitting on the bumpstops when i bought it so i wound up the coil overs but was unhappy with the spring rates in the rear, i contacted hot bits & got them to rebuild my rear shocks (at $80 per corner) & bought new springs for the rear, the springs where also $80 per corner.

next up came a decent alarm & central locking with auto window wind function. one of the best things ever.


I drove the car around like this for a while & went to things like the mx5 club GOR cruise & things like that. the inlaws have a house in Anglesea about an hour away from Melbourne on the coast so we are regulars around the area.













also did a few fun days at winton, a track around 2 hours from Melbourne, these were great & i couldnt beleive how good the car was compaired to the rx7 which now felt like a bus around corners & was always a hand full as soon as you put your foot down in any gear.

One of the highlights was playing with a wrx & a production series ford falcon around the track & outcornering both cars only to have them pass me on the straight.

Around Oct 07 while driving to my kitchen makers place to check the progress of my newly ordered cabinets i ran over a bolt, at first i didnt think much of it & thought i got a flat, its when i took the wheel off on the side of the road i noticed this monster..







so after my great fortune i threw the damaged wheel & tyre into the boot..... more problems a full size tyre wont fit in the boot of an mx5 with a cd stacker in it..... so onto the front seat the wheel went just to remind me of my problems all the way home.

Not only was i pissed about the problems that i'd just had but i also had more coming, you see the mx5 was going to be in my wedding in less then 6 weeks..... now you would think ah just a wheel, walk into any tyre shop & order another one.... not so, yes i could get them but there were none is oz & i was told it could take up to 2 months to get it in unless i payed insane prices on getting one on a plane & even still they still had to make it.......

i found the australian distributer in melbourne & they were able to help me out & get the new wheel just in time for the wedding.....

oh & yes the stacker did come out of the boot.

The big day came on the 3rd of November & the car was back to its former glory....





[URL=http://img96.imageshack.us/i/zs0436small.jpg/][/URL



even though the car looked & felt great i was starting to miss the power of the rx7, 250rwkw's a best time of 11.5 down the 1/4 @ 127mph in laymans terms ment it was a blood quick street car.
So a few days before the wedding i went to see Lee at avo turbo world & put my money down for their stage 1 kit, this way when i got back from the honeymoon the kit would be waiting, i ordered the kit to come powercoated in black that way i had the stealth look under the bonnet. I also bought an Greddy emanage ultimate & put it in just before the wedding. Infact during the wedding we had to keep the aircon on all day to keep the radiator fans on.... yup it still needed fine tuning but it did run & worked well on the day

After the wedding i had a week off work mostly so i could fit the newly arrived avo turbo kit. The install was easy the 2nd time around :? why?? because the kit failed to come with decent instructions & after putting on most of the kit I found lots of little problems that i could not get right without lots of little mods, so i went on search for some kind of install instructions & came across some on one of the international avo sites, then all my questions where answered, little silly things like cutting 10mm off the exhaust manifold studs & how to put the cooler pipes on without breaking the aircon pipe (oops too late) so by the end of the week the car was running & it now had the addition of a turbo to give it that extra bit of kick. Also during the install i put in s5 rx7 550cc injectors to cope with the new added power & got a 2.5" exhaust made up by a mate who is a guru with exhausts, this made more power straight away & was still silent which was very important to me.

I drove it around on a feature called auto tune on the emanage & although it ran well it was always pig rich & never went HARD, it was quick but sp or se quick not ultra quick.... anyway i drove it around like that for ages mostly because i didnt have time to put it on a dyno due to work & other commitments.

Then one day i decided to take my wife on a weekend away, not too far but far enough that my car decided that she would break & cause me enough problems that it would need to be towed home..... great we thought first time we can get away & its all about the car again....... not to worry i thought, call our parents they will save us, so out came the inlaws with a trailer on the back of the 4x4 followed by my mum in her trusty echo, 4 hours after the break down we were back on holidays laughing about how good our parents are to us..... we had the echo & i knew reggy (my mx5) was in safe hands


So a couple of days latter we arrived home & first on the agenda was to work out why reggy broke down, for days some very knowledgeable mates & i scratched our heads trying to work out why she wouldn’t start, reggy had no ignition so we looked at coils, leads, plugs, hall sensor with no avail, then we thought may be she has jumped a tooth in the timing so off came the covers belts & & other bits & pieces needed to fully inspect the timing belt & thats where we found our problem, the timing belt was fine infact it had only been replaced a week or so before i bought the car, so what was the problem?? The harmonic balancer bolt had not been tightened correctly & had come loose making a mess of the balancer & crank, you may think hold on you have an nb this only happens on short nose na’s, not so infact when the bolt comes loose on an nb you wont get spark because the nb’s run a hall sensor not a crank angle sensor so when the balancer comes loose the trigger plate moves around & you loose ignition...

So then i had to work out what to do about the damage & how to correct it, i knew if i put it back together she would never be right & one day happen again but putting a new crank in it would be a huge job that i just didn’t want to do at the time so back together it went with lots of thread lock & she was back up & running.

Some more time passed & I decided it was time to finally put it on a dyno so I booked it in with a mate & we made 150rwkw on 12psi, she felt great & pulled like a cheap hooker on double time. Reggy was starting to feel like a real car, well until the clutch decided it was just too much trouble to hold that kind of power, so down went the boost again to try & save the clutch. By this time i got a b2600 dual cab ute & drove that around most of the time until i could be bothered with reggy again. Every time i drove reggy she felt worse & worse so i decided to have another look at the balancer again & just as i suspected the glue & bandaid fix had stopped working, i looked at 2nd hand engines & decided that it would be best to keep my motor & freshen it up, all i needed was a new crank & balancer & she would be back to normal again, but it was a tired motor so why not put some more goodies in it & chase more power..................

The Build had begun

The reason i decided to build the motor instead of replacing it sounded simple, hi-po parts in the states where as cheap as standard parts in oz so i worked out what i needed & started ordering, before i did this the motor came out & was pulled apart to make sure that it was still a virgin block & no other damage was done other then the crank. All looked good & measured up fine. I ordered 9.5:1 supertech pistons & belfab h beam conrods from Belfab racing in the states, this also included rings, total cost around $1k, i couldnt get h beam rods for that price in oz. Although this didnt come without problems as they had sent me 11:1 pistons which would have blown up my motor as soon as i got onto boost. I emailed them & told them the problem & after a lot of issues got the correct parts sent to me. If i had another chance i would use them again BUT would make sure they triple checked everything twice i think thats 6 times all up :twisted: i had heard lots of issues regarding their service & its all true BUT they are the cheapest by far in terms of hi po parts, catch 22 i guess.

here are some pics of the parts.





wrong pistons notice the large dome on the pistons





I also bought eibach valve springs from CI motorsports in the U.S also & even though their website asked for a stupid shipping price an email quickly fixed that, great bunch of guys & would not hesitate to deal with them again.



Eibach EVS Pro valve springs feature:
* Race-proven motorsport quality
* Maximum lift for maximum performance and durability
* Increased seat pressure for optimum performance
* Higher natural frequency for high-rpm capability
* Dual chamfering for less wear on seats and retainers
* In-house SpinTron and Bosch dynamic testing
* Automated production for consistent quality
* Easy installation with stock retainers--no machining required

Single Wound Valve Spring Specs:
- Type: Single Spring
- O.D.: 25.7mm
- I.D.: 18.1mm
- Seat Pressure: 66 lbs @ 39mm
- Open Pressure: 200 lbs @ 27mm
- Max Lift: 12.00mm
- Coil Bind: 24.2mm

the correct pistons more then a month after receiving the incorrect ones

see how there is very little dome on the top of the piston

sprx3

I also bought ARP mains studs & head studs through VPW in Melbourne, if only they held more mx5 parts that would be unreal, these where the only parts other then bearings & gaskets that i got from oz & were cheaper then the states & way cheaper then alot of the mx5 "onsellers" in oz.







this reminds me of going to the drags when i was a kid & watching the teams do 1 hour rebuilds on funny cars & dragsters & the studs hanging out of the blocks total TUFFNESS

After much searching & speaking to people both overseas & in oz decided to work with a place called highway brake & clutch in Melbourne regarding the extra power that i would be making & the current clutch not holding, in the end we went with an exedy 9" pressure plate out of a 626 fe engine, custom made 9" sprung 6 puck clutch plate & an exedy thrust bearing which just catches the diaphragm as the standard mx5 one wouldn't. this was only discovered after the motor & box went back in the car & the clutch would not engage, out came the box again & we found the problem, i also made a custom braided clutch line removing all the unneeded tubing.

the feel seems no different to a stock clutch in weight & has a little more grab then normal but nothing out of the ordinary, a fantastic effort by the guys to think outside the square & give me a clutch that was 1" bigger then standard, hold like buggery & still feel stock



as you can see in the pics theres also a bottle of redline lightweight shockproof gear oil for the box & the diff

I was also lucky enough to pick up a GURU Modena torsen, these things are rated at 600 hp & are fully adjustable

Bond

iTrader: (6)

Nice mate. What size turbo?

lol @ piston mix up.

dustinb

I don't see a turbo in that list of upgrades...

Turbo_4

iTrader: (6)

That color is sweet.

sprx3

Hey Bond, the avo turbo kit came with the option of a gt 25 & gt 28 I went for the gt 28, it spools real easy & does not suffer from too much lag at all, although lots of the guys on here are running bigger turbos & would call mine a baby, most tame people here still think its huge.....

oh & "not LOL" i didnt add that they made me pay for the correct pistons upfront after i had already paid for the first set, then didnt refund my money for 6 weeks even though they had the pistons sent back to them registered & they got them in under a week......


really? "ctrl F" & type in turbo on my thread, i think you will find the word turbo in it a few times but your right i havent "upgraded the turbo from the stock gt28 which im told will max out at 18psi :( after my brake upgrade i might look at a disco potato

its funny people either love it or hate it, no in between i personally love it

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Looks very promising

sprx3

Thanks 18psi, love your car, we didnt get any white nb's here otherwise it would have been hard to pass one up, love what you have done with your car too.... very cool & your thread helped out when i needed advice about my coolant reroute, so thanks again

18psi

iTrader: (76)

glad to be of help to others man
And thanx

Zaphod

Ah eventually a guy with the right color of the car...

Nice one - keep on going.

sprx3

After I had received all the parts i needed, i had the block sent out to be bored & line honed, the head ports cleaned up a little & the new (2nd hand crank) crack tested. I got the crank from a mazda 323 astina, & bought a short block for $100 which was way cheaper then trying to get ome out of an mx5, its funny because in Oz "mx5" is a dirty word which when mensioned to any auto industry person allows then to mark up the price of a part ten fold, but i had mine back by buying the exact same parts but under the cheap nasty name of astina....... so once i had the short block from the wreckers i pulled it appart to find it had spun a few main bearings, not great i thought but the damage on the crank was minor so i thought i would send it out....... well after ages of waiting the engine builder told me that that crank was cracked & i needed another one, if he tested it first i could have got it while he was doing all the other machining other then my gear oh & my gear (yes it was a long wait & what made it worse was it was around the christmas holiday period wher most trades close for two weeks) & he could have had it all done in no time BUT he didnt so out i went looking for another short block, this time I picked the car it was coming out of & i found a car that had low km's on the dash & had been hit in the front pretty hard but not hard enough to damage the engine, the prior short block came out of a car that had no damage & must have gone in because the owner was just sick of throwing money at it, hence the spun bearings.

I got this block home & pulled it appart, the crank was perfect & measured up spot on, so finally i had all the parts i needed & was ready to put my engine together.

The harmonic balancer was also used from the astina although i had to pull it appart & add the mx5 striker plate to it for the hall sensor to work.

The engine came together easily, everything was clearenced & machine work was better then spot on, finally i could see it all coming together....

























While i was waiting on parts I had a mate paint up my rocker cover, intake manifold & plenum, throttle body & front turbo cover in a high gloss black, these came up a little too good & made me wonder how i would keep it clean once it was back together

I also had the cast avo turbo manifold, dump pipe & gt28 exhaust housing sent out to be ceramic coated as i was not happy with the heat that was being generated under the bonnet





the specs on ceramic coating are unreal & between that & the coolant reroute the temps have dropped a fair bit in there & on the gauge.

After reading SO much about the coolant reroute i decided to take the plunge, I ended up ordering a moss adaptor & thought i would buy a few more goodies since i was having stuff shipped out,

so in the box with the adaptor came a black MSM style fuel lid



& MSM diff mounts

I also had the mate that did my exhaust bend up some pipe to do a hotside reroute, this went around the rocker cover & ended up at the front of the engine where the original outlet came out, The front of the head was blocked off & i had to stuff around with extra fittings & hoses to cool the turbo & throttle body as well as machine the adaptor to fit the thermostat & added a heater hose bung & temp sensor to it.


Once it was all right i welded some brackets onto it, painted it gloss black & mounted it on the exhaust manifold. Sounds a little crazy but the mounts are long & the manifold has a ceramic coating, although if i notice the paint bubble i will look at remounting it.

A few hoses later & it was all together & looked like it should have been there from the factory.

Bond

iTrader: (6)

Where are the pics?

sprx3

im not at a place where i have my laptop, when i get home from night shift i'll see what i can do

I did find this however.....

uploading this shortly

no really i found some more....

around mid 09 i was bored & given a set of headlights that had been taken off a car years ago that was involved in a front minor, the tabs had been broken off but the lenses where NEW, i decided i wanted to pull them appart & try my luck at painting the insides, when i realised how easy it was i pulled my headlights off swapped the newly painted insides & put the new lenses on...

this is what i ended up with





I hope im not boring you all with the stories that go along with the pics.....

sprx3

while i was waiting for parts i decided i wanted to get some fixed back seats to more enjoy the track work i had planned for the car, as nice as the leather seats are they just dont support you when your trying to go fast around corners, by fluke as i was buying all my oils at repco i asked them if they could get & how much a999 autotechnica seats where, the girl behind the counter replied with um, i have two out the back that have been floor stock for a couple of years, if you want them they are only $125 each, without even looking at them i said i'd take them SCORE !!! 2 seats for less then the price of one !!!




I also decided that the tan door trims & shifter cover did not match the new black & red seats so decided to do a little trim work to match it up a little better



after sitting in the seats i decided that i really wanted a roll bar as i was so locked into position & wouldnt feel safe until i had something protecting my head so i got in contact with browns davis & grabbed their cams approved cage with paperwork

ThatGuy85

iTrader: (4)

Wow, awesome quality on the rebuild.

sprx3

Thanks, i try...... on a side note i just got back from Japan & while i was there went to the Mazda factory & museum, the tour was rushed but i did get some pics which i will put up as soon as i have some time....

sprx3

time for an update....

ive so far put 1300kms on the new motor & other then a small oil leak its so far been great, im going to put it on the dyno at around 2000kms & see if i can hit the magic 300rwhp mark, after a bit of research on my turbo the now correct & world wide name for it is a gt2560, so a little smaller then a lot of you guys use, which is why im hoping for 300 & dont fully know if i will get it.... time will tell

After posting a thread up in the race prep section, i decided to go for the 4 wheel stage 4 goodwin brake upgrade, the kit came in the mail a few days ago so i will be pulling the car off the road after the easter break & installing the kit as well as the torsen



soon enough i should be getting it out on a track or two to see what she can do & will be expecting set up advice on how to make her handle even better im guessing the 5 speed will give way in due coarse so will need to start looking for a 6 speed, that should be interesting with my 4.1:1 diff centre..... for the track i also have some yokohama advans which are semi slicks which sould make traction a little less challenging... i hope.

will keep you all posted