Project Tiny - my new Eunos

[Madda]

Time for my feedback, Andy and his girlfriend were an absolute pleasure to deal with. It took a while to get the deal finalised, but that was mainly down to me being unsure about letting the 5 go! It is such a great little car, and in my opinion is exactly how an Mx5 should look. I covered over 2400miles in it in the past 2 months so spent plenty of time in it recently, and never once felt bored. I only sold it because I have bought another Mx5. Those of you that missed the thread, here it is….

Supercharged mk1 Mx5

This is due to be back on the road tomorrow and only then will I know if I made the right decision. If the Mx5 lives up to my expectations the s13 will be broken (which Andy was made fully aware of), but until I have run in the engine in the 5, not a lot will be happening with Hallsy’s car. It really is a solid solid example and if the supercharged Mx5 doesn’t cut the mustard, the s13 will be turned into something epic.

It’s worth adding that Hallsy’s skills with a mop and a spray gun are very good, so I am sure he will sort out the little imperfections in the bodywork on the Mx5 very quickly and then it will be an absolutely super example!!

Best of luck with her, keep the pics coming

[Hallsy]

Cheers Madda

Shame about the transport guys mishap with the wheels I'll get the stuff in the post tomorrow

[Madda]

Any progress with her mate? Im promised mine will be back this afternoon, not counting me chickens though

[Hallsy]

I'm out there now (well, I was) giving her a good clean & clay ready to cut the paint

Lots of swirls & RDS but should be able to improve on it nicely I'll get some pics up later on

Back this afternoon - just the engine, or engine in the car?

[zeppelin101]

Any progress with her mate? Im promised mine will be back this afternoon, not counting me chickens though

Cheeky hijack but I guess you got my PM about your hoops? Still good for thursday right?

Anyway... lol

Love MX-5s to pieces, yours looks ace

[Madda]

I'm out there now (well, I was) giving her a good clean & clay ready to cut the paint

Lots of swirls & RDS but should be able to improve on it nicely I'll get some pics up later on

Back this afternoon - just the engine, or engine in the car?

Engine in car, but... (gonna start a thread in the members section)

Zep, sorry, this saga is taking over my life. Thursday shouldn't be a problem.

[zeppelin101]

Ace, shoot me a PM with an address and stuff and we'll work out a time

/hijack

[Stuffing]

Lovely looking car, looked good up the hill at the weekender also!

Seriously considering an Mx5 as my next car since my S13 is currently up for sale - economical and fun should be just right for a daily!

[Hallsy]

Well, I was hoping to give some attention to the paintwork over the weekend, although it is generally pretty good and comes up shiny, it has a lot of swirling, and some RDS. Also, the bootlid and panel just in front have been repainted before (badly), looks like passenger rear quarter has as well, but this is better quality.

So on sunday I cleaned her, clayed, cleaned again, dried off then rolled her into the garage ready to start masking up and get my DA out.

Put the car in gear (handbrake tends to stick), reached in with the keys in ignition and sent the drivers window up. Went to open the door - locked!!! The alarm that is fitted has done it's best to piss me off since I've had it, with false alarms in the middle of the night, and now..........the anti-carjack feature had caught me out!!

So here I was with no spare keys (my fault), a car half in my garage, half out, in gear, keys locked in!!! I was not amused!

I've had similar with another car of mine, but luckilly it had door pins so was reasonably easy to get back into. Not so with the little Eunos!!

I won't go into detail, but eventually I sussed a suitable method of getting in without damage, and all was good!!

Shame I only had chance to get the bootlid cut after that!! Then the missus' brother turned up in his new XKR to take us for a spin, very nice

Been busy sorting a couple of other things out on her this week as well, but will have some more pics up soon!!

[Jonny]

I won't go into detail, but eventually I sussed a suitable method of getting in without damage, and all was good!!

Wallers managed to lock his keys in his at Brands Hatch.. It took us all of 30s to get into it, no tools required...

[Si]

Nat locked hers in at the petrol station. They were in her handbag on the passenger seat

1 hour wait for the RAC man, 30s to get in
I'n the mean time, I'd driven home, turned the house upside down looking for the spare set, and gone back to the office. Turns out they were in my bag under my desk

[Hallsy]

Wallers managed to lock his keys in his at Brands Hatch.. It took us all of 30s to get into it, no tools required...

I did give a quick glance at what I thought would be the easiest method, but I wasn't convinced it would work from the outside.

Sure, I used a couple of random objects, but it only took a short while once I had them.

Feel free to PM me with details of your super fast, non-tool needing method

[Hallsy]

Well, as promised, here are a few pics of her after polishing.

As I said, the paint was pretty good in general with a few dents & marks. Under light though it was quite swirly, and in places looked like it had been washed with a brillo pad!!

This was my first proper go at detailing a full car, and in the endI had to admit defeat & only really got around 80% correction, but that's partly down to tools, time, experience - and some panels having very dubious repair quality

So, pictures speak a thousand words and that.....

I started with something like this:



Gave it a wash, then clayed (some of the rear was quite bad with surface contaminants), washed again, dryed off - then wheeled her into the garage to start compounding.

I started on the bootlid, here's a shot of what I started with:



and after a couple of hits with Menzerna PO85RD 3.02 on an SFX1 cutting pad it became apparent that the haze was easilly removed, but the rear of the car had been resprayed, quite badly at that. Runs, funny marks, scratches under the paint, etc - this meant that unless I got serious with some wet flatting and used a rottary, it probably wouldn't get much better. I'll respray the rear end at some point.

Anyway, ended up with this after a few sets:



Rear quarter, in the sun:



and a not very good 50/50 after one set:



Scouring/spillage damage on other quarter:





Again, this is quite deep so will need re-painting really.

I won't bore you with the rest of the comparison shots, this isn't Detailing World, lol!! Thy're on my flickr page if you're interested:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2526635...7622255389073/

Anyway, so after the compounding I really should have refined with a finer polish & pad, but the sun was out so it seemed a shame to waste the oppurtunities. So on with a quick coat of CG EZ Creme Glaze, and a coat of Collinite 476S wax.

Out to a random location, and some picture whoring oppurtunities











Hope you like

[Madda]

That looks incredible mate Makes me gutted I sold it.

Those pics are a credit to your skill and hard work.

Only bad thing I can say is it makes the dents in the bonnet stand out more, is there any chance they can be popped out by a dent specialist?

[Madda]

Double Post, D'oh!

[D1 RWD]

i never really liked these until seeing one at JAE last year, standard bodywork just decked on some wide split rims with flared archs and it looked the tits, im sure this is gonna end up looking sweet once youve played with it

[Hallsy]

Cheers guys

Yeah, it came up pretty good, but as you say, it unfortunately makes some of the defects stand out a little. The dents on the bonnet have the reinforcement behind them, so doubt they can be pushed out but can maybe be pulled. I'll have to get a quote from a dent guy

Oh and Madda - don't be gutted, your new one is just as nice but with extra powers & torques

[Hallsy]

Little update.

The std seats gave me back ache and also felt more like you were sitting on them rather than in them. Also, with the current rollbar, it gives a little more piece of mind if you can get yourself a little lower in the car - would help me to see the speedo as well!!

After looking around I went for the tried and tested Elise seats. Got a pair of S1 Elise seats from Phill on here. These are really light, small and low slung - ideal for the '5.

Using the original subframes and some box & flat I made a mount to get it fitted in the passenger seat (you can probably make it out in the one of the pics above). It dropped me a couple of inches maybe a touch more, but was pretty hard. This was confirmed when I took the missus out in it and she said she couldn't put up with it!!! Later Elise seats or the Probax ones are comfier, but more expensive.

So, I decided to go with a small (ish) fixed bucket. Received a pair of Sparco Sprint Jnr's today

Here's a comparison of the seats to show the difference in seating height:





You get a decent weight saving as well, weights without MX5 runners:
Std - 12.2 KG (mount onto MX5 runners)
Sprint - 8.2 KG (mount straight onto MX5 runners)
Elise - 8.6 KG (including custom frame to mount onto MX5 runners)

The Elise seats are very light, but my bracket is a maybe a little over engineered and so bumps the weight up a bit.

There isn't much between the seating position on the Sprint & Elise seats so I'm happy with that, and the Sprint's are much comfier

Trouble is, both of these seats hit the rollbar before I can get the seats far back enough. Time for a bar that mounts a little further back!

[Hallsy]

Been a bit quiet in here, but time for a little update....

Mid November I received a new rollbar from Tim Lane Fabrications, I went for the TD rollbar & harness bar but asked him if he could do me a double diagonal to try to improve rear visibility. He was happy to do so, but told me it would be a one off. He must have liked the idea as it is now listed on his site!!

I had a Cusco rollbar in there at the time. I was happy with the construction, but after toying with lower mounted seats I soon found that legroom was restricted, so I went with a rollbar that offered a little more, but still had a decent height.

The bar went in with no problems, it was well packed, and of decent build quality. The only issues I have are with the carpet from where my old Cusco rollbar was fitted, so I'll probably be on the lookout for a new carpet sooner or later.

It was only just the other day that I got around to putting the trim back & fitting the seats, but now it's all sorted. I settled on the Sparco Sprint Jnr's as they mount easilly onto the MX5 subframe, and also manage to lower you a little over the stock seats. I can now see the top of my speedo with a 320mm wheel!!

Unfortunately the seat mounting bolts had been mullered over the years, and it really wasn't helped by a previosu owner winding in a couple of M10 x 1.5 bolts into M10 x 1.25 threads. Luckilly all was saved with a M10 x 1.25 tap and a new set of bolts

So I'll cut to the chase and put up a few pics of the finished article:

















You may have noticed that I routed the seatbelt through the inside of the rollbar and through the outer harness holes (I don't intend to use harnesses on the road). Any thoughts on this? This seemed like the safest route to run it to me, and also the route that allowed it to re-coil easiest.



Oh, and a couple of pics of the Becker Mexico Pro headunit I fitted a while back (Cheers Stimpy ). A nice quality, retro headunit. I love it!! I actually had to repair it when I got it as one of the channels had some DC offset, but a new quad amp chip and it was good as new





Hope you like it!!

[Jonny]

Looking good

I've got a becker in mine too - they are awesome head units I need to support it at the back as it keeps drooping at the rear