Alex's white NA8 build.

[Alex 2550]

So I forgot a little project I knocked over,
Some of you may recall I got a shifter rebuild kit from Moss with a 5X Racing bronze bush and Jass Performance upgraded upper shift boot

Now my shifter felt pretty good with minimal play but I wouldn’t say it felt as amazing as others have said over the years, actually my FC RX7 was better.

I decided to rebuild the shifter because my upper and lower boots were ripped and figured I should just knock over the whole thing while in there.
So this is the upper boot and lower boot still on the shifter as I removed it to give you all an idea of condition.




I then cast this aside to remove the lower cup type bush in the turret, looking inside there was a filthy dark mess that was once oil and I would say most likely not changed since the car left Hiroshima.
Anyway I popped the bush out and first thing I notice is the wave washer is non existent, there is a small piece sitting on the lip under the bush but that’s it, out comes the handy magnet and I went turret fishing, this was the catch of the day.



I then removed the dark filth from inside the turret and wiped it out as best I could.
This is what was in there.


The lower shifter bush was actually in very good condition really but the side locating bush was badly worn.
Here is the shifter rebuilt ready for its new home, I have the lower turret bush and bronze shifter bush on just for illustration purposes. These are fitted before the shifter is fitted.
Notice how much beefier the Moss lower boot is compared to Mazda’s.


I refilled the turret with AW10 antiwear additive and gearbox oil. AW10 has been described as “more slippery than a banana peal on a boat ramp” so I thought I would drop some in, I run it in all my vehicles oils except LSDs.

With the shifter back in place and bolted up I dropped on the Jass upgraded shifter boot.
This is a fibreglass construction with a heavy duty boot and very thick insulation with a heat reflecting material underneath. It’s actually quite a nice thing for what it is.



Now with it all back together I fired the car up and rowed through the gears in the garage.......
SO THIS IS THE SHIFTER EVERYONE RAVES ABOUT!!
the shifts are so precise and smooth now and dare I say better than my RX7, I guess it was worse than I thought.
When my arm comes good I’m looking forward to getting the car out and enjoying this.


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[Alex 2550]

If anyone was wondering what the weight was of the complete Ogura single plate and flywheel its 8.9KG.
Internet research says stock is 13.9kg so approximately 5kg off the clutch and flywheel assembly.




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[93_Clubman]

looking inside there was a filthy dark mess that was once oil

Alex, good to hear you're doing a bit on the car while recovering - hope a drive is in your near future.
When I bought my NA8 in 2004 the GB turret oil was very similar, indeed when test driving it noticed the shifter wouldn't always self centre. Drain, clean & new oil sorted it completely. Btw, IIRC one of the MX5 factory manuals mentions using grease in the turret - not something I've tried. Again IIRC, hks_kansei first posted about it on here - saved the reference which was a scan or screenshot of the factory manual page, but it's on the offline archive puter so I can't immediately repost it here.

[Alex 2550]

So having one working arm has slowed me up a little.
In saying that I have done a little work to the MX.
A while back I mentioned that I got a Zoom engineering tombstone extension and that the fitment was very ordinary for a Japanese made product.
In short it sat about 10mm off the tombstones face. Imagine a 10mm gap from the metal plate to the plastic, if you look closely at the photo I put up with it sitting in place you can see it.
This drove me crazy, if you put the metal against tombstone you ended up with a gap between metal plate and glass surround.
So with no word of a lie I sanded, fitted, sanded, fitted, let go choice words, fitted sanded, repeat for I would guess a good 15 hours.
Due to the shape every part of the glass surround needed sanding and because it contours to the dash it’s quite a complex shape and I didn’t want excessive gaps.
The next problem is the glass is only a couple mm thick and all this stuffing around put stress fractures in the gel coat.
Once fitting was good, I sprayed the whole thing with high build, sanded the whole thing smooth and shot it in satin black. The same as the DIY console I did, matched the factory gauge hood plastic. The anodised black plate matches my black Jass gauges.
The VDO clock, oil temp and water temp are all wired up including illumination with the dash lights, wiring for boost gauge is also done and tucked up for the day it is needed to be fitted.
I also put on the CarbonMiata quilted trans tunnel covers.
All up the interior is becoming quite a nice place to be.
The Radio/CD player is going to be swapped out for something more fitting around September as it’s really annoying me now.
As it sits now.

When I bought it

[PaulF]

Quite the transformation! Nice work.

[Alex 2550]

Quite the transformation! Nice work.

Thanks mate


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[Lokiel]

I love the interior real-chrome and stitched-black interior look, it looks and feels so "quality retro".

Revlimiter's Sharka does this very well and I described it as "Pure 70's porn" on one forum (he got a kick out of that).

[Alex 2550]

Thanks very much,
As you can see I have a fair collection of bits from Adam, sharka was the inspiration.
Sharka was why I got an NA and not an NB8B.


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[Blesif]

Enjoying this thread. Went past your place a couple of times a week ago (visiting Bega friends - I grew up there). Would it be okay if I called in next time? Would like to see your car and have a chat. Neil

[Alex 2550]

Enjoying this thread. Went past your place a couple of times a week ago (visiting Bega friends - I grew up there). Would it be okay if I called in next time? Would like to see your car and have a chat. Neil

Yer, no problems Neil.
Just give me a heads up. I’ll PM you my number.
Depending on when you come through the car may be in pieces getting ready for the body shop but you are welcome to have a look and I’m always up for a chat.
I am doing house renovations at the minute so that’s keeping the car in one piece. Hahahahaha


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[Alex 2550]

WOW!!! A year with no posts on this!
What a crazy year it has been for everyone,
I hope you are all well.
So as a life update before getting on to the car.

The arm has healed but less strength than before and I lost a fair amount of muscle, it’s slowly getting better and really I can’t complain.

Work has been busy but I now only work the one full time job, the dairy I worked on sold to a larger dairy, it was sad seeing the cows go and being that I live next door it’s strange not hearing them.
The new owners are just cutting feed off the property now. I don’t miss the 2.30am starts.

The renovations we started are almost finished, we gutted the house and replaced everything.
just have flooring and a little painting left to do which is awesome, plaster dust is created by the devil!.

The wife’s CX5 decided to let go the motor, head failure. but credit to Mazda they replaced the entire engine assembly under good will.
Due to the pandemic parts took ages to arrive from Japan and we needed a car so I sold my other car, this patrol. The “green machine”.


So many fantastic memories travelling all over Australia made it very hard to see this one go.
However it hurt a little less replacing it with this.
Everyone say hi to “stormy”.
We have fitted the front bar, lights, winch, drawer system, a lithium second battery with Bluetooth monitoring, redarc charging both DC-DC and solar, camp lights in the rear and of course a pacemaker exhaust so we can hear the 5.6L V8.
Due to its size and long wheelbase it needs a lift and bigger tyres but it will come in time.

This is with magnetic panel protection from bush barriers.


I also sold my dirt bike, more on that later but it was a hard choice but needed to happen.
I had it setup pretty nicely for adventure riding.



So I think that’s a life update, now stay tuned for our regular MX5 content.


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[Alex 2550]

Well I’m not sure where I should start.
The body work and panels are still boxed up in the garage with exception to the GV lip and vented headlight cover.
The cover I just fitted to see what it fits like and it’s not bad, the actual duct needs a little cleaning up on the opening and I want the mesh to be black instead of silver. It’s just white gel coat currently and hasn’t been painted.

The front lip required quite a bit of sanding on mould lines, this wouldn’t bother many people but i couldn’t stand it.


Once smooth I flexi primed it and shot it in gloss black.
So the car now looks like this, sorry not the best photo and car isn’t washed but just a quick snap I took.

More updates coming.


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[lucmor444]

That front bumper greatly improves the looks of the Patrol.

[Alex 2550]

This is going to be a big post.
So I mentioned that I would be turbocharging this car, I really liked the offerings from NitroDann but as we all know that’s no longer an option.
My second choice was the gear offered by Kraken.


Mike from Kraken has said several times that he doesn’t think he will keep his business going long term for basically all the same reasons as Dann did, it’s time consuming for a one man band and if worked out on an hourly rate not brilliant.

Because of this and not wanting to miss out on another good suppliers product we come to the reason I sold the dirt bike.

I have ordered the following.
Kraken Top mount Manifold, due to me keeping A/C and P/S it’s the easier option, it doesn’t flow as well as the low mount up in the higher HP range (400hp) but I won’t be going there.


3 inch turbo back exhaust with twin exit rear muffler, because I have a bumper cut I think this will look pretty good.
Dump pipe not shown.

Kraken intercooler kit.

Pulsar GTX2860 Gen 2. .64A/R

The reason I went the Pulsar turbo is mainly due to price, this “Churbo” is made start to finish by pulsar in house and not rebadged.
I spoke with the Australian distributor and he was very honest about everything and the Chinese construction.
I read heaps of reviews and they appear to be a really good thing for the money.
For what it’s worth Pulsar turbos have a huge following from the XR6T crowd.

This is all going to be controlled by an MSLABS MS3 Basic. This is due any day now!!.


Along with these I have grabbed a wideband gauge to confirm that the MS is reading the correct AFR, I will mount this in the glovebox because it doesn’t go with the retro theme and I’ll use it mostly for tuning and the odd check over.
I got the just race parts gauge and for the price the quality is awesome. They sell it to go with the Spartan wideband that I already have.


To eliminate any surprises popping up I have grabbed a Walbro 190HP pump and fitting kit, I’m unsure how old the pump is in the car and this will ensure I’m getting plenty of fuel under boost, I have flow force 640 EV14 injectors.

I plan to run a dedicated power supply to the pump from the battery using the original power supply as the trigger for the new relay.
Some have said that aftermarket pumps can overwhelm the stock wiring, causing voltage and relay issues.

I know the Walbro will be a little noisy compared to other makes but they are reliable.

To help put the power down I am having picked up tomorrow a 3.6 Torsen 2 and axles, I don’t know if this is from an SE but I’ll measure the axles and let you know. I now have 2 x 3.6 diffs now, one is open.
I need to find a 6 speed when possible but this isn’t a priority at the minute.
More to come.


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[Alex 2550]

That front bumper greatly improves the looks of the Patrol.

it sure does and improves approach off road.