Oh cock, not another MX-5!

What he said. Mountains + roadster =:burnrubber: :dance::driving::woot:
 
Today I tested something witch is even more fun. A friend of mine flew to Stuttgart yesterday and today we drove to the Nordschleife to see the VLN-race which was pretty good fun, and after that we did two laps on the 'ring which was today open with VLN configuration, so "sprint" version of the GP track and then Nordschleife. Of course without rollbars and helmets we had to be pretty careful, but it was still epic fun.

GP-track was actually much more fun than I thought. Because it's wide as hell with huge safety areas I was expecting something really boring, but because there was no one around so I could kick the tail out with the biggest lift-off oversteers I've ever done. On Nordschleife I had to be much more careful and to drive with the same attitude as on the open road, except using the full width of the track. T1Rs had pretty nice grip when they warmed up and brakes were perfect except fluids started to warm up a bit around Adenau. I don't have a clue of the age or brand of the brake fluid and it's the next thing on the to-do list anyway.

All in all, the Mazda seems to be pretty much perfect for the thing I bought it: to learn performance driving.
 


Mazda and some of the Stuttgart's finest in Porsche Museum. Second red car from the right is actually 959 and the grey one in the background is indeed 911 Sports Classic.
 

"I appear to have made a wrong turn...I'll be leaving now..." :p

You need to get a GoPro next time you take it to the 'Ring!
 
Yeah, I'd love to get a GoPro! Sadly taking video from the lap is forbidden, but that doesn't make it impossible. Actually I took some videos from the roadtrip with an old Sony T9 point-and-disappoint zip-tied to the rear view mirror and that worked suprisingly well. I might post some clips if I bother to edit them. I was thinking doing the same thing on the 'ring, but I forgot to take that camera with me.
 
Haha, yeah petrol is cheap and the roads are just amazing. And it's also really comforting to park the car in Swiss after surviving France and Italy.

But to be honest, paying 10 euros for a basic pizza reminds me of Finland and I've gotten used to German price level :D

The petrol is cheap, the roads are great and you stay slim. - What more do you want? :D
 
A bit less catastrophic results If you happen to get flashed by a speed camera and cheaper food? :p But cheap petrol is always great! :)
 
Some Epic photos in this thread.

Love the roadster (though I might be biased). Great job on picking out those wheels.

Happy toppless driving!

..
 
Haha, thanks! I had really good luck with the wheels, I was browsing old BBS from German eBay without tires, mostly because they came with mixed sets or with some extremely crappy manufacturers, but then I found these wheels with almost new T1Rs for a price less than set of T1Rs themselves, so I can't complain. I'd have bought Hankook RS3 probably if I had had the chance to choose, but so far I've been satisfied with the T1Rs, even though many have complained.

I'm still hoping to get 15x8 6ULs or Volk TE37s someday, but these work great until that day comes.
 
I'm not huge fan of cars covered in stickers, but somehow I ended up having couple of them.

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Save the Ring sticker is ugly as hell, but the cause is so important that I don't care. However, I do regret the angle which I failed to stick it. :/ Here you can also see bubbling paint in the rear wheel arches, and it gets much worse around the area with black stone chip coating. There is some work to do when I put the car to winter storage.

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Here you can see how well my 50/1.8 lens does focus. I locked the focus to the point where GP-track and Nordschleife meet...
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Save the Ring sticker is not really in such a sloped angle, but because the panel is curved it looks even worse than it is. And of course I had to glue some Finnish flags to the wings before I did the roadtrip!

Other news: Constant hesitation around 2000rpm got so bad that I changed the spark plugs and ignition leads. It was a good move, because now it pulls as smoothly as 1.6 MX-5 engine ever can!
 
I need this in my life. NAO.

Took a ride to the Sportscar Breakfast Club with MXM in his 7. I also had a chance to throw Lastsoul's MX-5 (fresh from Germania) around on some twisties. And I loved every second. It really is the perfect Finalgearer's car. I gotta get me one of these. :D
 
Haha :D Good to know you liked it, and sorry for possible economical problems :D But get a one with better condition than mine from Germany during autum and you get 100% sure profit if you want to sell it in Finland later, the prices seem to be really high here and taxes are low by Finnish standards.
 
Yey, the car passed the Finnish registration without problems. I almost needed to order expensive (150-300 eur) paper from Mazda or from T?V in Germany that proves the emission level, because my German Fahrzeugbrief used standards not supported by Finnish system (Schadstoffarm E2, and our system doesn't know what it means. In these things Finland is crap), but the guy doing the work was extremely nice and just googled it. Normally you need 110% official words stamped on gold to prove that.

They also had to do a mechanical inspection despite my T?V inspection is valid for 1,5 years, but good thing they did, lower balljoint on driver's side front was Kaput, almost 2mm play... Luckily it's cheap and easy to change! :)


Another update is that the car is now a true Spyder. I spend yesterday midday drying the interior after rain so I just decided to remove the roof while I wait new one to be delivered. It's driving totally topless or with a hard top until that.
 
Great car. It's been jamesmayed where it counts, and for the money it's just so much fun. Also, it seems like it's just as useable as a 323F is, if you only really ever drive with one passenger and need to transport just your ordinary Alko shopping. :p

I recognized a lot of feeling in it, it's got a lot of things familiar with the 323F. Of course it's that much more capable as a sports car, but I'm glad to say the 323F isn't that far behind in steering feel and town beatability. But to have the top down in Saturday Helsinki traffic in nice weather, with the palm-sized, short-throw gearshift in your hand... Unbeatable.
 
Haha, yeah the weather was great! (I'm not sure if our californian members would agree: 19?C/66? Fahrenheit...)

By the way: jamesmayed where it counts = only under the bonnet? :D
 
My track day seasong of 2011 is starting a bit late with one event tomorrow and second the day after that. To make slowing down less exciting I changed the brake fluids to Motul RBF600 which should have boiling point way above the DOT4 standard (300+ something ?C). At least it kept the brakes of the significantly heavier 406 in perfect working order even when approaching Adenau on Nordschleife, so in the MX5 it shouldn't be a challenge at all. And since the old fluids were changed by the previous owner I didn't have a clue about their ager or quality.

While the car was up and wheels removed I also decided to replace the clutch oil. Yes, oil. Apparently the PO had also changed the clutch fluid and missed the "ONLY DOT3 or compatible" sign on the reservoir cover and used hydraulic oil instead. Well, the clutch was pretty fine even with that, but it might have been a reason for the gearbox crunching on extremely over-quick shifts, as if the old fluid was a bit compressable or maybe there was a tiny bit of air in the system. I don't know, but the clutch felt a little quicker to disengage with the new proper fluids.
 
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