@Z_WAAAAAZ This is all your fault. Kinda. At least partially...

The NB2 Shinsen is gone, it has served me very well but it has moved onto its new owner in Iowa. You will be missed.



After unrelenting peer pressuring from the NC Gang I have procured my own. Its a 2011 Touring with the handling package. I wanted to get into an NC2/3 since it really seemed like Mazda just fixed all the little issues from the NC1, plus you get a much nicer front bumper imo. The factory forged crank and rods, 7500rpm redline, revised 6 speed, no more coil pack connector issues, plus some nice interior updates. I got the car from a nice old gentleman who took good care of the car and kept it bone stock. The car was originally purchased in Ohio so its nice to have it back home, but it spend a lot of its life in Cali which explains the immaculate underside.

Obligatory Sheetz stop on the way home.


Red wasn't my first choice but the car was everything else I wanted and was a good deal so I couldn't pass it up. I really have been on the fence about PRHT vs Soft top for a dual duty car but I can say it took 5 minutes of being in 45* and raining on the way home to know this is the answer haha. Its so nice inside at 75 on the highway vs a soft top car. Both of my buddies with soft top/hardtop NCs kept ******* on the PRHT and all it took was one drive and they both were like "this is nothing like my hardtop, its so much nicer in here on the highway". I do have very limited roll bar options and the car is a little fatter than the soft top, but since I will drive this thing to work and back 35min each way a lot, I'm happy with the choice. For now the plan is to semi-replicate what I did with the NB just in NC form so it will just be faster and more comfortable at the same time haha. My only hope is that this thing doesn't end up so good that the NA seems pointless...



More to come... I have a track day Friday and a bone stock car to get ready lmao

 

Awesome car. Excited to see what you do with it, NCs are great.

 

It was at this moment that I knew I'd be seeing an NC. Congrats, for all the hate this platform has received in the past I've only ever heard good things about them from people who actually own them.

 

Thanks, I'm excited to learn a different chassis.
I never cared for them much until I drove one and I was basically instantly converted. Even with this car being stock on all-seasons I can tell how much more capable this chassis is over an NA/NB.

Going to get some quick basic maintenance done before the track day Friday and see how it does in full boat mode on stock suspension haha.

 

Alright some catch up. Someone on one of the NC Facebook pages was looking for someone local to trade their Greddy Ti-C axle-back for a stock muffler. We were only ~45min from each other and this seemed like an awesome deal for me! Unfortunately the exhaust was kinda crusty and the flange was warped, but still "free" is "free". I spent a few hours cleaning all the surface rust off the piping, extracting the silencer, and painting the piping. Of course the tiny allen bolts that hold the silencer in and tip on were corroded as hell so they all rounded or snapped. Next was getting the silencer out which was also corroded into the muffler. I cut down some allen bolts I had to the right length and cleaned and high temp painted anything that wasn't stainless or Ti. The best part of all of this is after putting it on I actually hated how it sounded haha. It was not that loud while also being very boomy and drony, two things I don't want an NC to sound like. I put the silencer back in and that got rid of most of the drone but it still just doesn't have the sound that I want... Oh well at least it looks pretty cool for now.

Corroded in silencer/baffle with the tip removed



Cleaned up and painted



Looks pretty cool at least



Next up was getting the car ready for a track day that I had signed up for months ago that was rapidly approaching. I found a deal locally on a set of ugly drag wheels but with almost new RE71rs for $500. For the price of two tires new I can deal with the awful looking wheels for one track day. Me being dumb I didn't actually check the bolt patterns on the wheel (multi-pattern rep wheels) and I just took the ad at face value (5x114). The lady selling them said they were her ex boyfriends and she just wanted them gone (hence the deal). I also of course didn't get to putting them on until the day before the track day when I realized the wheels were 4x100/4x108. **** me. Luckily my buddy has a tire machine and balancer at his place, downside is he is an hour away but that was my option.

8 sets of wheels and tires do fit in the back of a Mk7



Got the RE71s swapped over to the stock wheels and the all-seasons onto the Drags. The upside is I don't have to run those awful looking wheels lol. The day prior I had also done an oil/filter change, brake flush with RBF660, diff fluid change, and swapped to HP+ pads. With the time I had this was as prepped as the car was going to get.

Track day started off rainy and wet but the sun came out and dried up the track for two sessions in the middle of the day. Then it down poured, then it was sunny again... Ohio. Nelson Ledges is a super fun track and I had a good time out in the NC. The stock suspension is.... boaty. You can see in the video how much this thing nose dives under braking and how floaty it is on cornering. It was a bit sketchy in the kink on the back straight as that is +100mph with a dip right at the apex. Still I can feel how much more capable this chassis is vs the NA/NB already and I'm excited to get some suspension under it. I did have one weird thing happen all day, the brakes got a large vibration/shudder once hot that would go away once cooled down. I would say warped rotors but this only happened while they were hot. I would go out and they would be totally fine for the first ~3 laps then start getting the shuddering while braking. After the cool down lap it was gone and wouldn't happen again until a few laps into the next session. Because of time I just pad slapped on the rotors that were on the car so I ordered some new rotors and hopefully its just the rotors doing some weird **** while at temp.


Its crazy how much the car dives braking after the back straight haha. All in all it was a fun day out with the track homies. My buddy in the S2k lost his 2nd gear unfortunately but the car still drove on the trailer, and the two of us that drive to the track drove home so a successful day.



Soon

 

I've really been enjoying the car so far. I got my shiny, new MeisterR ZetaRace coils on and man what a difference compared to stock, worn out suspension. Who would have thought lol. I was a little worried I was going to be disappointed with these after driving an NC on Xidas but honestly I can't tell much difference. I'm obviously no pro driver by any means but so far I am very happy with the MeisterRs. Got the car aligned as close as I could to the 949 dual duty specs on all stock and worn to hell bushings. All new bushings are on the list to do, including offsets for more camber adjustment. I'm thinking SuperPro unless anyone else has good or bad experiences they want to share about NC bushing options.

Its nice having a buddy with a nice alignment rack...


Shiny...


I ordered new front and rear rotors to hopefully fix my hot brake shaking issue. Should be a quick and easy job... Yeah this turned into a huge pain metaphorically and physically. I broke two different bits trying to get the rotor screws out and also stabbed one of those little metal wires from a wire brush into my nail bed. That hurt a lot as did pulling it out with some vice grips. But the 3rd bit, lots of penetrate, and heat later and we had success.





I had also ordered the Jass seat lowering brackets after I kept hitting my head into the top at the last track day. Just the like rotors I assumed this would be a fun and easy mod haha. The installation itself really isn't bad at all, just pull out the seat and remove the seat rails. You have to make two cuts on each rail, one on the inner rail and one on the outer. All of this went fine, got everything reassembled, and got the seat back into the car. I put the rear bolts in and slide the seat back to get to the front bolts and it wouldn't go back as far as it normally would. I fight with it for a little and then just pull the seat back out to see what is going on. Basically the rails have bearings in them that let them move easily. Eight bearings per seat, four per rail, two front and two rear. The two rear on each rail had either completely come out, or got jammed into the lower brackets.


Its mentioned in the Jass instructions that this can happen but they say you have to reinstall the bearings from the front and you cant from the rear. Issue is my front bearings were still intact in the rails and I can't really install the rears from the front with the front bearings in the way. I fought with this for a while and ended up managing to get one rear bearing in from the back on each rail and called it good enough. The seat still slides fine and getting at least one rear bearing in the rear got rid of most of the play the rails had with no rear bearings in.


Got everything done Tuesday night just in time for a Track Night at Pitt on Wednesday (yestarday). Weather was looking iffy on my phone most of the day but was looking better as the day went on. The drive out to the track was 80* and sunny so we were feeling pretty good. Just before the first session it starts to rain. Then pour. I honestly assumed they would just put everything on hold but low and behold they sent us out there. This is easily the most rain I have ever driven in on track. We got an out lap under yellow and then they black flagged us to come in haha.



Eventually the sun did come out and the track got opened up and we ended up having one mostly dry session. The car felt great with the new suspension and a proper alignment. Here is me and my buddy Jake ripping around having some NC fun.

Excited to keep modifying the car and see how close I get to the performance of the M-Edition. I really want a different exhaust setup so I can actually hear my car over my buddies NC. Looking into the Track Dog Super Cool kit as well . My expansion tank is a little dark as well so I am going to replace that for some piece of mind. All in all really been enjoying being in an NC and regret not giving them the time of day sooner.

 

Hard 'no' to the Superpros. I had them seize up, and the poly bush was rotating in the housing.

If you are going to go poly, in chat with Ed from SM he recommended Whiteline, which they stock since their 863 poly-bronze is no longer available for me (NB, not NC). He says the grease lasts longer. I presume that would hold for NC, but check in with them for a better take than mine.

 

Cool I appreciate the heads up. I haven't done poly bushings on anything before. I knew SM had their 863 kit but I also saw it was gone unfortunately.

 

Awesome! Looks like a hoot ripping it up with your buddy in the matching car. It's always a hoot going out with a buddy in a well matched car, much more fun than even a way more capable car by yourself.

Excited to see where you go with this thing. The NC is a great platform.

 

FWIW I've been on the Whiteline bushings for a little over a year now. No complaints here. Squeak free without adding any grease. Probably a bit under 10k miles on them now.

The set I got came with offset FUCA bushings to get more camber, which I believe I've seen for the NC as well. Not sure if it's necessary, but maybe something to look into.

 

Welcome to the PRHT club! Good suspension, tires and an alignment really transforms the NC.

The PRHT is a great street car, but the lack of easy rollbar options is a drawback for the track.

 

Oh yeah its a blast!
Cool, appreciate the info. No squeaks with low maintenance is certainly what I am looking for. I know the NC kits can have offset options in the front as well which I will probably do. I couldn't hit the -2.5* that SM specs for their dual duty alignment with my stock bushings. I was maxed out at 2* in the front.
Yeah that is one of the main downsides. I did a lot of looking and thinking about PRHT vs softtop before buying this car and with it being a true dual duty street car the benefits out weighed the cons. It seems Harddog, Cybul, and GCFabrication are the main choices for PRHT roll bars. Just from pictures the harddog one seems lower than the others for some reason but maybe that is just a visual thing. If anyone has personal experience with any of the PRHT bars I would love any feedback to aid in my decision.

 

Well the upside of the rain at Pitt is I got this sick af pic of the NC haha



Also small update, after talking to Ed he said because of the multi-link design on the NC they don't benefit as much from poly as the NA/NB and their recommendation was mostly stick to OEM unless you are doing the full jump to spherical. Based on that I just ordered the front offset bushings to help me gain some more camber and that will be it for now. As I go through the car if I find worn/cracked bushings I will just replace with OEM unless I can get offset bushings or the like to gain alignment advantages.

I got an android auto head unit installed which is nice (minus the mic being quite as hell for calls...) and while I had the center console out I thought I may as well do the turret fluid. I'm glad I did as there wasn't much in there and the little but that was looked like muddy water hahaha. Sucked the little bit of shitty fluid out and refilled it with some fresh 75w90.




I rolled the fenders in hopes of getting my new to me wheels on but as I suspected they aren't going to fit. For whatever reason the previous owner (an auto-x'er) put 255s on a 17x8. This puts me squarely in the "invalid wheel/tire combo" section of the "will they fit?" chart haha... I rolled anyway as I assume I will still need to even once I go down to 225/235 but I still hoped that maybe there was a chance...



Yeah thats a no...


Sucks because these things are going to look rad as hell.


Some extra camber from those offset bushings will probably help but at the end of the day 255s on 17x8 is dumb and will probably have a bunch of sidewall flex and feel like ****. Just gotta suck it up and grab some 225/235s and hope someone will want a nice set of 255 RT660s....

 

Welp as usual I have completely neglected my thread for months on end lol. Considering the driving season is all but over up here in Ohio this felt like a good time to recap the last couple months.

Starting off I wanted to get a basic maintenance item done and replace the coolant expansion tank. I debated about the OEM vs aluminum aftermarket but after reading about some people having issues with the aluminum ones leaking I just bought a new OEM one. I paid ~$100 for the OEM one and the Moroso one is ~$300. The one in my car lasted almost 15 years before needing replacement so it would take 45 years of replacing the OEM one every 15 years for the Moroso to be cheaper so thats my logic haha.



Next I pull the front bumper so I could properly clean the lenses on the headlights and also paint the chrome trim around the grill. I'm still undecided on if I want to go to an NC2 Sport grill, CarbonMiata Spyder grill, or a whole NC3 bumper. Getting rid of the chrome trim definitely made me enjoy the front of the NC2 a lot more than I did before so the grill/bumper upgrade can wait for now. The whole process was pretty straight forward and just takes time to not break any plastic clips when removing the different trim pieces.



I also got some new tires that actually fit on the car with the RPF1s. I went with the Potenza Race which I didn't really know much about but was on sale on TireRack since I think they are discontinuing that tire in the size I got (More on this tire later). I ended up on 225s instead of 245s just for ease of fitment. I have since driven one of my buddies NCs on track with 245s and the extra front end grip is nice... so maybe 245s in the future . Here is the car on the RPF1s with the blacked out grill trim and cleaned up headlights. I was really starting to enjoy how the car looked at this point.



I was getting tired of my car sounding sad and being quiet so I had ordered a catless header, high flow catted midpipe, and a new axleback. I went with the Malian header and midpipe and the cobalt single exit axleback. The header install definitely took longer than I anticipated as getting the stock header out is kinda a pain in the ***. The cat is just massively in the way to pull it out... But still got it all done and am mostly happy with everything. The car sounds great imo for being a stock motor/stock cams/etc. The Malian header has given me no issues so far but the midpipe has already developed a rattle from the resonator after only a few months. I'm talking with them currently and we will see what they say. Also their positioning for the post-cat O2 is..... pretty dumb. It hasn't broken an O2 yet which is kinda surprising but it does smack into the heat shield which has caused the metal to separate from the insulation backing on my car after about a month.





Next upgrade was inspired by a write-up over on Mazdaspeedy.com. He found out that 997 GT3 front brake ducts (deflectors?) fit pretty easily onto the NC with only minor modification. I wasn't having any brake fade but I do like trying things out and with a buddy who worked at Porsche who could order them for me at cost... I had to give them a try. 99734148392 and 99734148492 are the part numbers for anyone else interested. Even retail price from like FCP Euro they are ~$60 for both which is still much cheaper than any "actual" brake duct setup, plus you get to keep your fog lights . You basically just have to trim out a section of the plastic to clear the lower strut bolt and thats about it. The piece has some plastic tabs that kinda clip onto the control arm and I added some zip ties as well. These have been on the car for multiple track days now and even contacted the asphalt with one after going two wheels off and its still there and in one piece. Personally would recommend for a dual duty car that you don't want to run full ducts on.




Next up was a track day at Pitt (RIP) and was going to be my first outing on the new Potenza Race and of course, I picked up a screw in the tire in the paddock. Luckily it didn't penetrate all the way through and I ran the whole day no issues. This was back in early August and it sucks that we all didn't know at the time that this was going to be out last nice weather track day at Pitt ever.... I certainly enjoyed it as I always enjoyed Pitt but I do wish I took it all in more looking back.




Alright I am gonna cut it here for now since this has been a long one.

 

Alright so back where we left off.

So the Potenza Race had very good pace, very similar to a RE-71RS imo. They felt very good also even if they weren't very audibly communicative. But my biggest issue was after only TWO track days the tires looked like this:




The outer half of the tires are completely toast. After 6 maybe 7 sessions total. On a car with -3* of camber. And lots of delaminations on top of that (I thought I bought Potenzas not RT660s lmao). Maybe its me and I was just over driving them but that much wear and delaminations after so little track time is crazy to me. I also did not have this issue with the Extreme Contact Forces I picked up after these... I know these aren't really a common or popular tire for our kind of cars anyways but if for some reason you are considering them I would personally recommend against them.

I also had a track day at Mid-O lined up for a few days later so this really threw a wrench into my plans for that. I ended up ordering a set of Continental Extreme Contact Force and just hoping they would be here in time (they weren't lol). After this experience of ruining a brand new set of tires in two track days I swung back the other way and got an endurance biased 200tw with the ECF. Some of the local guys here have been running them in Champ Car with good things to say so I wanted to try them out. They were claimed to be kinda a middle ground between the RS-4 and the RT660 and I have so far found that to be accurate. I have never personally liked the RS-4 as I have found them to feel pretty "wooden". They definitely do have great wear but yeah I just didn't love them. RT660s were the plan but with people saying these are only a few tenths slower with more wear life I was game. I have done two track days on the ECF so car and they still have plenty of life left. Pace wise I do find my self struggling to follow 100% pace with my buddies on RT660s but its close.

The car looked so lame back on stock wheels haha (that banner doe)


That Mid-O event was also bitter sweet as it was the last track day for one of the main organizers out here in the Mid-West called Autointerests. I've been running with them since 2015 and they have been my favorite HPDE group. Their events are always extremely well run and everyone is very respectful. The owners just had other businesses they wanted to focus on so they were going to be selling the business. As of writing this there has not been any confirmed buyer unfortunately. If no one buys it and continues it then this event at Mid-O will be the last one they ever ran. Not a great year for tracks and organizers as I would soon find out.

Next up I made a trip down to Tail of the Dragon with a few NC homies for a long weekend. Last time I was down there I has my turbo NA and I will say it was really nice to have the NC this time. The NC is just such a better CAR for doing car things like driving on the highway for 10 hours haha. Had a great time and good weather and even met a super nice fellow NC owner with an extremely clean 2.5 swap. He ripped around with us for awhile on some of the side roads and even was gracious enough to let us take his car for a quick spin to feel out a 2.5 and man is it GOOD. The extra torque in the mid range is very noticeable and it still feels rev happy like the 2.0. I'm thinking this is something that will be in my NCs future...

Also we had an absolute Fab9 moment where one of our buddies with the new Fab9 intake manifold killed his throttle body the first day we were down there. I think it had only been on the car for a few weeks.... We swapped back to the stock throttle body in a parking lot and the car has been running great since but it does suck to be back to the stock size tb. I will say after driving that car that the induction noise from that intake manifold is CRAZY though haha.

Fab9 throttle body woes


NC Squad




Man I really enjoy this car... These things don't deserve the hate they get.


Car did great for the whole trip, zero issues. We had the final TNiA at Pitt a few days after we got back from the trip so I just threw on a fresh set of pads and did a nut/bolt check and it was good to go.

Gotta use every last drop lol. I didn't realize one of my rear inner pads was this low. Glad I swapped everything before Pitt.


Finally probably the saddest day I have had at a racetrack. I assume most of you guys on here have heard about what is happening to Pitt Race but the TLDR if you don't is it is one of the nicest track facilities in the country honestly and out of no where the owners decided to sell the whole facility with 2025 being the final season for the track. The rumors in AWS/Cisco came in with a crazy big offer and the owners took it. Probably to build a data center. Unfortunately there hasn't been any clear communications so a lot of it is speculation. Check out SavePittRace if you are interested in more info. Basically this caused everyone to scramble to get a ticket to the very few track sessions left and luckily I and the NC homies got one on the last track night ever at Pitt. As much as I would have loved it to be a warm, dry day to really set some good last laps, it was a fitting cold, wet, and raining.

RIP Pitt Race





And that about sums up the last couple months of the NC! The car has been great to me and I am going to continue to track it and upgrade it next year. We will see what I do with the car if anything over winter as the NA may or may not get revived for next year....

 

Car is looking good!

It's a real shame about Pitt Race... My wife wants to go home to see family next summer (north central PA), and I was just starting to think about hauling our race car back there on the trip to spend a day or two at Pitt when the news dropped. What a bummer.

 

Holy actual hell, dude. I missed your callout at the beginning of this thread and am just now coming across it hahaha. Even funnier because I've been seeing your progress on the car on IG and thought "I wonder if he's got a build thread or something going on MT..."

Have the 997 brake ducts been making a notable difference in pad life for you? Funny enough, I grabbed a set myself and started installing them a few weeks ago, but went a different direction and ended up rigging up some C6 Z06 ducts instead.



I'm subbed now. Hope to see more future updates!

 

Welcome to the thread! Haha

Honestly I can't remember noticing a huge difference with the brake ducts but I also put them on relatively early into having this car so I just don't have that much data to compare to. Mainly I ran across the idea on Mazdaspeedy and asked my Porsche buddy what they would cost for him to order, and with how cheap they were it was kinda just a why not. I am still on the first set of HP Plus' that I got for the car. Once I swap sometime this year I can see if the second set that would have had the ducts on for their whole life last any longer then the first set that only had ducts for some of their life.

I will get back to the thread once it gets nice out. Its been a cold and snowy winter here in Ohio so the car has just been sitting for months. I have a non-insulated, unheated garage so its hard to be motivated to get any work done when its 15* outside lol. Would really like to get an actual rollbar in the car this year but the options are pretty limited with the PRHT. Still it always sits in the back of my mind that I'm on stock roll hoops...

Its been nice following your build as it keeps me motivated through the winter weather sadness with all your great weather out there haha. You do keep getting more extreme with the car though (It looks sick btw) which always makes me want to just part out the NA and full commit to the NC lol. A rotrex 2.5 NC sounds pretty cool.....