Oh cock, not another MX-5!

After being awake for 22 hour and driven 1000km in Saturday, a friend of mine, who was also with me on the 1000km trip, woke me up on Sunday morning after 6 hours of sleep by calling me and saying "Look at the weather, let's go to Schwarzwald!". And why not, because of the bad weather I haven't done more than 1500km in almost three months with the MX-5.

Mountain roads suit the car nicely. Light weight and small size means good agility and more space to place the car on the curves. We tried to take some video, which meant I had to drive the same 800m or so probably five times. In the couple of last runs I could remember all the curves and I could drive properly quick (when there was enough visibility to do it safely, of course) first time ever with the MX-5.

And then I found out one thing I thought was impossible on dry tarmac in narrow road.

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Sadly the road marker was on a bad place...

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Open diff meant I had to use some weight transfer tricks, but I'm amazed by the controllability of the MX-5. It really comes alive when driving spiritedly, but still stays really easy to control.
 
They are very easy to place even for a relative novice as I was when I got mine. A few degrees of wheel or a few millimetres of throttle travel are all that's required to balance the car in a bend and place the weight exactly where you want it.

Excellent pics. Looks like you were having some great "Wheee!"
 
Awesome! "Whee" indeed. :D
 
After all the Whee and TA-DAA! photoshops I'm starting to think about letting the ride height stay as it is, and forget buying the front lip :D Oh yeah, and driving with pop-ups on all the time too.

But I do need the largest anti-gay bar ever.
 
You already have a pic of the largest road marker ever :p
 
..and now I do have a really nice sticker!

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Thanks to public who sent it to ze Germany and ashspet to sending it to public!
 
hahaha that is awesome :D
 
Hey miata buddy! :) (and apperantly fellow goon)

Im holding off on my finalgear sticker until i decide if a rollbar is possible/safe for a 6' 1'' driver. (185 cm in eurobabble) without cracking my head open in a minor accident. I dont want ricery bucket seats because that just looks dumb on a car that doesnt see track use daily.
 
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Yeah, I'd also like to try another example with the rollbar before I order mine. I'm 175cm in real units :)P) so it shouldn't be a problem, but it'd be quite bad to find out when I've paid about 500 euros (over $800) for rollbar and shipment.

On the other news, I think I managed to fix leaky roof with 5 euros on the other day. 2 euros for some fabric pieces (made to fix kids clothes) and 3 euros for glue. It was raining pretty heavily today and any water didn't get in. :) Also the rain rail seems to work much better than it looks like. Now I just hope the warm and dry weather we had last week will continue, so I don't have to care about working roof :)
 
Damn, I hadn't thought about that. Actually it could have worked :D
 
For the last couple of months the cam cover seal has been leaking a bit of oil, so I had to replace the it. The seller assured me it's got a new cambelt when I bought the car. I didn't believe him at first, but then oil started to come slowly through the cam cover seal, which usually leaks when you open the cover to reach the cambelt, but don't replace the seal when putting everything back to gether.

Luckily IL Motorsports had a free shipping day couple of weeks ago, so I could get the new seal for 13 euros.

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I guess the red-brown color is caused by somebody running a bit shitty oil? Luckily there wasn't any wear you could see on the cams or other important bits, so I guess there's no worry. Also no oil had gone inside cambelt cover, so I guess the camshaft seals hold fine.

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Soon everything was back together in the Mazda's engine bay, and when silicone sealant used around the cams dryes I can start testing and hoping to see no more oil.
 
Mmm, I'd love to get some cute Jinba Ittai sticker :D
 
I've never been a huge fan of the 14" "Daisy" wheels, apart from their light weight. Tyre choices for 14" wheels are also pretty limited. I started to search used 15" wheels without tyres, because most of the time wheels with tyres had mixed rubber and in pretty worn condition. Available wheels were also pretty limited, because I didn't want super heavy cast-lead wheels. Luckily there are quite a lot of 100x4 BBSs in Germany and wheels from Golfs have ET around 36-45 which should fit the MX-5 pretty well. I was mostly looking for 80s wheels, but then last week I found set of BBSs from late mk3 Golf with 2000km driven Toyo T1Rs for sale. Of course they're not the proper two or three peace aweomeness BBS has made, but for this price I can't complain. Exactly one hour later the wheels were in the trunk of my 406.

But can I fit the Volkswagen-wheels to MX5? Bolt pattern and ET match and hub diameter in MX5 is smaller, but VAGs have spherical seat lug bolts and MX5 uses nuts. After bit of googling I found out Honda nuts have the same spherical seat as VW bolts. Today Honda nuts (DIN 74361 M12x1.5 apparently, I'm not 100% sure) and hubcentric rings arrived!

Well, I had failed with the hub rings. Wheels have larger bore diameter than VW standard hubs, and they should have rings even with Golfs, so my rings where too small. Anyway, they should work without the rings as well, if I just tighten the nuts carefully so that they do the centering.

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You know you should NEVER go under the car when it's only supported by a jack? Luckily I follow that rule. Unluckily I was a bit lazy and lifted the rear from the diff with the standard Mazda jack, which isn't very stable. I knew it but did it anyway. The result? Probably the most hellaflush fitment ever.

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I had good luck. I didn't get hurt. Not that important was, that the car didin't get hurt either. Lower wishbone took the load and the wheel didn't bent the arch. And when the car rolled about 10cm to the right, there was still 5cm between concrete pillar and passanger door. Pfew, I had good luck. Now, don't ever lift the car from the diff (or from the U-bar in front of the oil pan) with the stock jack. And I repeat: never go under the car when it's supported by a jack. This is the second time car has dropped from the jack when I'm changing tyres, but the first one was caused by Ford Mondeo jack just turning into surrender monkey and shredding its thread.

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Anyway, I'm pretty pleased how the wheels look. Offset is pretty perfect as well.



Yeah I know. It should be called CX-5 with that ground clearance. I'm gonna lower it, but I don't know when I've enough money, and anti-gay bar is number 1 priority.



I think they work pretty well, huh? Especially when the whole set was much cheaper than new set of T1Rs...
 
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