snotrag

Hi guys!

(Warning MASSIVE post, one of you might read it at least!)

I'm a member on all the other forums, CR, miata.net, and the UK ones, I post on MX5nutz a lot (great UK forum if you've never seen it). 25, massive petrolhead, love the tech side of things, and I'd have a nice classic over nearly any modern car. Watch a lot of motor racing and rallying, fully fledged car geek

I bought my roadster over years ago after having 'hot hatches' (compacts!?!) for a while.

Its my daily, I flirted with having 2 cars to save the Roadster for Sunday best, but every time I was in my boring Audi I just wished I was in my Mazda. You know the feeling. Gets used every day, rain or shine, about 115k and climbing by 15+ thousand a year. Looked at a whole bunch of cars for a few months, mostly rusty, or with really horrendous 'mods', nothing grabbed me.

Its a 93/94 1.8 S special, one of the very first 1.8's, imported to the UK from Japan in 1999 by the previous owner. A lady had bought it and used it as a shopping car for years, without really knowing anything about it.
Turned out it had Ohlins Dampers, a HKS exhaust, and other nice Jap type bits - obviously owned by an enthusiast over in Japan.


It looked like this on the day I bought it -



A bit dirty, a bit tappety, poor paintwork, an interior full of crumbs and rubbish and a bit unloved... but rust free, and it needed saving - I came to its rescue.

Now a few years, a chunk of money, some choice cursing but a lot of smiles later, my car looks something like this -







I have done all sorts of work on it, I do everything myself at home. A few dramas along the way (belt tensioner failing 6 months after changing it, and changing a clutch on the driveway in the freeeeeezing cold, **** wet through, and axle stands, benchpressing the gearbox into place and dropping it on my head springs to mind!) but I love it to bits.

I have not done anything too drastic, but its well service, done all the usual jobs. Rebuilt all the brakes, done all the belts, cooling system all rebuilt, get the geo setup regularly, lots of life giving synthetic oil every few months keeps it sweet, etc etc.

I've put a lot of effort into keeping the chassis good too - it was in very condition for the year when I bought it (Rust is a huge problem over here in the damp cold UK, where we also Salt our roads), the whole underside and chassis has all been treated with Dinitrol products and it remains shiny, black, clean and generally rust free all over the body and subframes, wishbones etc. This one is worth saving.

Ohlins dampers are off for a rebuild at the moment, so it has Mazdaspeed shocks, Cone filter, uprated leads, that sort of stuff. Came with a really nice Fujitsubo Giken manifold, and i changed out the tatty HKS Superdrager for the common MX5parts s/s exhaust and decat, so it sounds nice and LOUD like it should do. White Enkei wheels were a spot buy but I love them now - factory fit and I'm known as 'Simon, you know with the white wheels', which is cool - I really like the look.

The car also has a factory Mazdaspeed A-spec (or was it B-spec?) front nose - its tatty but looks different, rare, and one day ill fibreglass all those cracks and get it painted.

Shiny Chrome brace/style bar, uprated sounds, foamectomy (best.mod.ever!) and the rest. Its now a cheap, but thoroughly freaking AWESOME little car and I love it to bits.

We meet up with some local guys quite often for a bomb about the Yorkshire Dales, I go to lots of shows and meets, and am also a keen member on pistonheads, met a lot of friends through the internet and car clubs.

I'm more interested in driving the car shows, and luckily so are some of my friends - nothing more fun than getting up at stupid O'clock on a Sunday morning for a run out, in the cold, roof down, empty roads, through the English countryside -



Good times.


I've joined here to find more info (initially) about megasquirt - Its something I've been interested in for a while. I'm a design engineer/product designer by profession, hence my love of the technical side of car ownership and tinkering. I've recently been building up a few little kits like my home-brew AFR meter, getting my soldering and electronic skills back up to scratch. Half the reason for doing it us purely something to do, its interesting and if I get the hang of it I'll also be able to help my mate get his Westfield Se running with a Ford Zetec and EFI (Carbs, lets face it, awesome 10% of the time, but the other 90% of they time they suck big billy ***** - especially the ***** ones he has fitted to a X-flow right now!).

Seems to me a lot of people sometimes get a bit credit card happy buying intercoolers, turbos, pipework etc, then run out of money and/or get stuck when it comes to proper management.

So I'm fancying buying, building, and tuning a Megasquirt system and getting my car running well on the system, Naturally aspirated.

THEN next spring/summer I will be looking at Super/Turbo options - the DIY supercharger kits are really taking off over here (Mini Cooper Eaton Chargers), so it would hopefully be more a case of collecting/fabricating all the required hardware, bolting up and as I would hopefully by then be a MS expert - and easier transition to a working, tuned, quickish (200 fly bhp?) roadster.

Usefully I have a 3axis CNC miller/router, lathe, drillpress etc to use in my dads workshop - somewhat handy when doing projects like this!

I've often consider buying a different car all sorts from an MR2 Turbo to a TVR S to a Starion a Supra or a 944, but all told I just cannot bear to sell my Roadster. I love the car, I love the accessibility, the club scene, and the great forums like this one. Until I'm considerably richer - nothing comes close. And even if I won the lottery - my Mazda would retain pride of place in my 15 car exotic garage as a reminder of where I came from


Looking forward to finding out even more useful stuff here!

Simon.

dustinb

Welcome to the board. Need more turbo.