I thought i would buy a complete car to use for track days untill the NB is finished, (now a long term project - due to house reno's taking priority). Since i didn't fix my old turbo NA6 that hit a wall at winton, i had no car to drive. So i kept a look out for a suitable replacement that didn't need much work, time or money spent on it to get it ready for track use. This car came up for sale unregisted, but with a full spool diff, half cage and a set of 15" wheels. It was in brisbane, but my wife had a conference that we where all going up for anyway. So that worked out good. I had a friend pick it up with a trade plate and drove it back to his house where i could work on it, and get it ready. I flew up on wednesday night, saw it for the first time, and it was better than i thought it would be. So first thing in the morning we took it down for a r.w.c and he wanted the car raised, cage out, exhaust fixed, bonnet squirters, tyres, remove tint from taillights and front blinkers, new wiper arm, and put in a new handbrake lever. So we took it straight down to the muffler shop, had a magnaflow muffler installed straight out the back. Then we installed my b.c coilovers from my old car. Not an easy job as the guy had put in 33mm bolts on the lower bolt hole for the coilovers, so we had to machine up some stepped washers so we could put the proper sized bolt back in. Then we took it down for a new set of toyo r1r's 195/50/15, but hit another drama. One rear wheel nut wouldn't come off, the guys hit a smaller socket on, then went down to another smaller socket, still no luck. So we started at it with some drill bits, removing as much metal as we could, and hitting it with a cold chisel and a punch to try and split the nut.. Took about an hour but we got it off. They where the smallest nuts i have ever seen, only about 10mm long. So now we had the tyres, suspension and exhaust done, and managed to do the other things along the way. We took it back to get the r.w.c on friday morning, it passed. Then we had to get 3rd party insurance, while waiting for the fax to come through we took the opportunity to take it to the brake shop where they flushed the system and put in rbf600 brake fluid, machined the discs and put in ebc red pads. Got the paper work and went to qld transport, payed the rego, got the plates and picked up the car from the brake shop. By this time it was after 2.30pm. I had to take the rental car back to the city, so i left him with the car. He changed the oil and filter and packed his stuff in the car and picked me in the city at about 5.30 p.m. We had to meet some guys to drop something off and they had a new flasher to pu in as the binkers wouldn't blink all the time. So finally we where off to winton about 6.30p.m qld time, i wanted to leave at 4.00p.m. The car is went well, only lacking a little in horsepower. Massive difference to the old car. Trip went well enough, we made good time, the g.p.s said we would get there at 2.00p.m vic time. We got there at 10.20 vic time, so picked up a good 3.5 hrs along the way by not stopping and doing about 117 average the whole way.
Got to winton with no sleep, unpacked the car, put all the stickers on, scrutineered, and took it on the track for the first time. I was surprised how quick it felt considering it has next to no power. I pulled back into the pits as it starting getting hot. The alternator was loose, and the same belt does the water pump, sooo.... fixed it. And the steering wheel almost fell apart in my hands, must be made out of old coke cans as it is so flimsy. It was all bent out of shape and cracked at all the allenkey bolt holes. I was happy how it went as i was expecting understeer due to the full spool diff. I did a 1:52 just bedding in the brakes and tyres. When i checked the tyre pressures they where all up at 46-48psi. So i think it would easily do under 1:50 at winton dríven 100%. We had a few more issues with the alternator coming loose, but we eventually fixed it with some help from owen, bruce and some one else whose name i can't remember. So we had to drive to shep another 70km's each way to get a new steering wheel. We didn't get a good guage to nominate a time for sunday so we just went conserative with a 1:56 for me, and 1:58 for johnny. I broke out on the day with 1:54's-1:55's, should have nominated a 1:54. We left there early and drove straight to the airport, dropped off johnny and finally made it home. It made it all the way from brisbane to winton, did a couple of hours racing and made it home. What more could you ask from an old mx5?? Here is a pic.
NA8B - P.I 1:50.1 Wntn1:38.0 Sand1:27.6 Wntn S1:08 Bfrd1:06.9 Cldr1:08.5 Wak1:10.4
"SE" - P.I 1:43.8 Wntn1:32.9 Sand1:22.0 Bfrd1:05.3
