Breathing

Fixed up the air intake yesterday. Took me more than an hour. Well, the actual install actually took at most 30 minutes, even for a layman like me. The reason why I went overtime was because I couldn't figure out how the heck did everyone fit the filter so nicely. Look at mine.

The filter element is a little to the left than it should be. Its not lined up with the intake hole in the bumper at all. Its kinda hard to twist the flexitube onto the mouth of the filter element. I took everything out twice, but no go. End result still looks the same. And I was sure I wasn't missing out any important steps. And the weird thing is, if you look at the spacing of the tubing leading towards the intake, it sure seems like it was meant to be in that direction. There doesn't seem to be enough wiggle space to "shift" the intake to the right.

The fitting of the silicon tubing to the MAF sensor adaptor doesn't look fantastic too. If you look closely, there is a slight gap, even though I've fastened everything tightly. But then again, it could be me doing a shoddy job. ~shrugs~

I refitted the intake again after taking these pictures, so now the filter element is a little bit closer to the intake, though not by much.

Initial impressions on driving; throttle response did seem a little bit better, though it could be a placebo effect for all I know. I've only driven about 100km or so on the new intake so I'll see how it goes once the ECU gets used to the intake. As for the sound level, I was surprised by how quiet the intake is, I was expecting something similar to the suction sound from the Apex'i cone, since the K&N element basically looks like a smaller version of the Apex'i. There isn't much induction noise from the intake, in fact, you've got to concentrate to hear the sound the intake is making, which is a good thing in my book.

More carbon

Had the eyelids fixed up yesterday. I thought I'll just go with the carbon look first and in the event I feel body-coloured is the way to go, I'll just take them off and spray them. Here's a look at the eyelids before fitment.

Looks kind of thick but that was the effect I was hoping for.

Here are some pictures of the eyelids fitted on the headlamps. Didn't occur to me to take any night shots with the HIDs on. Maybe I'll do that in a later post.

Top view.

Frontal view.

Full frontal view

Nice top-down shot. I like this shot.

These are a continuation of my interior sticker mod. I was tinkering with the idea of converting the glossy piano black trim to the same look. But on second thought, I figured it would be too "carbon overkill"

starts from the left....

all the way to the right...

Apollo

The Apollo intake is in. It took about a week, which is amazing fast, considering the billet grille I ordered previously took about 2 weeks to show up. Looks like I'll be getting stuff from mx5parts again. Anyway here are some pictures of the kit.

Quite a big box. On hindsight, it looks like a belated Christmas present to myself. The packaging was so well done that it was a pain to unwrap.

tada!

Comes with everything you see here. The colour copy of K&N's fitment instructions is rather helpful. Doesn't seem too hard to fix, I had a look through the steps and its rather straight-forward. I think a normal person would probably take about 30-45minutes to install this, a hour if you're anal about where everything holds up within the engine bay.

Here's a close-up of the filter element. Has a glossy black finish. Not too sure how long this will hold up in the engine bay but for now, it does look nice.

I also ordered some eyelids. These were more or less purchased on a whim. I'm not even sure if I'll fit them up but we'll see.

The PITA to unwrap box.

Front of the box. You can see a big I.L Motorsports right there. I can never understand why I.L's products are cheaper everywhere EXCEPT on I.L motorsport's website.

I must admit the packaging does looks rather professional. It almost seems as though they sell tons of these everyday. And yep, everything is in German.

A template is included as well, which is nice, but I don't think people actually use that. The instructions also recommends removal of the bumper for fitment, which is probably overkill as well. Mx5parts still included a translated copy of these instructions though, which is a nice touch, I suppose. I'm not sure if I should paint them in galaxy-grey, or if the 3M carbon sticker thing I had for the steering wheel would be a better idea. I'm leaning towards the latter though. Of course, that is if I do decide to fit them.

Breathe

First entry of the new year!

It has been a turbulent year for most, with the financial markets in the state they're in, and banks crashing all over the place. Its a good year to buy a car, but unfortunately, also a bad year to sell one. Almost like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Same goes for almost every other thing out there. Its literally a buyer's market these days, especially in the pre-owned market. If you're been holding it in, now's the time to splurge.

Anyway, ordered the K&N Apollo intake the last week from www.mx5parts.co.uk. Was looking at a few options, but narrowed it down to the beatrush kit posted earlier as well as the Blitz open pod. In terms of looks though, i guess the beatrush kit still looks the best.

The Blitz solution seen here doesnt seem so elegant. I don't like the idea of the filter element exposed in the engine bay. On top of the heat from the engine, the element gets dirty faster. I checked with one of the local dealers for Blitz and he wasn't sure if Blitz had a box-in version for the NC.

That was when i found the K&N Apollo kit. This seems like what I need. Coincidentally, it so happens to cost less than either of the two. And to top it off, installation seems straightforward. I can even do it myself. K&N provides some very detailed step by step instructions on their website.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the Apollo kit.

Pictures are from mx5parts.co.uk. Seems neat and unobstructive enough. I've read comments about the airflow being inadequate due to the kit's "tube within a tube" setup but I'll reserve judgement until I've fixed it up and taken the car out for a spin.

No more bouncing soon

Ordered the JIC Magic FLT TAR coilover set.

More information of the coilover can be found here. I actually had a few options in mind. Along with the JICs, I was looking at the KW Variant 3, Tein Monoflex as well as the HKS Hipermax III. Went for the JIC in the end because it was the cheapest. I don't think I'll track, so I guess the added performance I'll get with a high-end coilover would be kinda wasted on me. The KW came a close second though, I've heard fantastic reviews from a lot of people on these, but I got 2 quotes from different sources, and the price difference was about 500 bucks. I don't know, but I get a bit uncomfortable when prices fluctuate like this. No idea why though.

In any case, its going to be the new year soon, and I suppose its going to get sluggish in Japan as well. It'll probably take them a while to ship. I reckon I'll probably only be fitting the suspension in the later part of January.

I'm also getting the garage to check on this air intake kit from Beatrush.

More pictures can be found on the laile website here. Looks like a decent piece of gear. I like the Apex'i intake, but I have my doubts on how much more performance this kit has over the stock setup, seeing that its a boxed-in cone and there doesnt seem to be any heatshield or anything funneling air in through the front nose. I would actually prefer Autoexe's carbon ram air intake system. It looks really nice and it really does seem to do what its supposed to. Only problem is I can't bring myself to fork out more than 1.5k SGD for something like this. Thats almost 2.5 times the Beatrush's system!

And to top it off, I think Autoexe doesnt even use their own filters. From pictures I've seen, they seem to be using stuff from K&N. Quite a premium to pay for an OEM-look kit. Problem is, there aren't much MX5 users on these two pieces of equipment out of Japan, so its almost impossible to see/hear/feel/compare the real thing in action.

Soundup

Sent my car in for an audio tuneup the day before. The car spend about an hour with the tuner on the RTA setup. Here you see the mic in the driver's seat and the tuner looking attentively at the spectrum analyser.

After the tuning session, he mentioned that the MX5, like any other coupes, isn't really an ideal vehicular environment to do any serious sound quality setup in. I am a bit disappointed by this, but the sound did improve after the tuning session, although I will have some modifications on the door panels to rectify some of the troughs we see in the spectrum band on the RTA. I'll probably arrange another session with him come Feb next year, as both our schedules are kinda packed till then. Hopefully, I'll get closer to the sound I'm looking for.

Had a slight change to the steering wheel mod I had done previously. Now its virtually indistinguishable from a stock MX5 wheel.

Well, not exactly something to shout about, but I figured it does look unique, and its a mod that incurs minimal cost. And the best part is, I wasn't even the one who thought of it.

Lights

Its been a while since my last posting. Didn't managed to take any pictures of the HIDs since my phone decided to die on me and thats about the only digital camera I've got.
Anyway, here are some shots. I have replaced the small lights at the side with white LEDs as well, so it'll contrast nicely with the HIDs.

Here you see the side LEDs by themselves.


Frontal view.

Here's a pic with the HIDs.

Also had the silver parts of the steering wheel stickered up, as I would rather prefer the steering wheel not to have contrasting colours.

Close up of the sticker.

It looks a lot better in the flesh, Handphone camera doesnt really do the carbon stickers justice. Now I'm racking my brains as to what else I can stick next. LOL.

Tips

Went to an exhaust shop this morning to weld on bigger tips for the muffler. Its ironic really, here in Singapore, we can get our hands on every possible exhaust system from Japan with minimal lead times and the only option I have is this. No thanks to our country's policies on approved exhausts. Its a hefty fine if you're caught with one thats not homologated. Due to its low demand, there's currently NO approved exhausts for the NC, so that about limits my options to zero. No autoexe, HKS or Blitz pipes for me. =(

I was undecided about just getting bigger tips or going for some of those titanium tips with the bluetorched look. In the end, I stuck to convention.

Well, I'm kinda liking the look actually.

I also had HIDs done, though I did not took any pictures of the new lights. I'll probably post them up when I have the chance. Being a base model, my car did not come with HIDs, I was on the normal H7 halogens, so I had to look around for a HID conversion kit. The installation was tough, as anyone who had ever taken a look at the NC's engine bay would attest. Its a good thing I wasn't the one doing it!

Down Memory Lane

Was posting some pictures on photobucket when I happened to chance upon some pictures of one of my previous cars. I guess these pictures must have been in photobucket for close to 8 years. I've forgotten all about them and its nice to see them again

A friend took this picture. The intercooler is photoshopped. My car is NA.


Neons were quite the rage then. Practically (almost)everyone had them. Now I think its an extremely "ricey" thing to do.


This is a picture me and 2 other friends with identical silver imprezas took. Everyone's moved on since then.

Sadly, these are about all of what's left. I really do wished I had taken more pictures. I didn't even take any of the first car I've ever owned.

This is one of my favourite Mazda3 shots.

Rain

Took the time out to wash the car today. It has been a bad week. It's been raining sporadically and I didn't want to wash the car when it could rain any moment. Woke up in the morning and the sun was shining, turns out just a few hours after I'm done, the heavens opened up again.

Anyway, I did manage to snap some better pictures of the car before it started to rain.

Front shots



Close up shot


Side profile shots



I like this pic.

Rear views

If you look closely, you can actually see my reflection in the bumper. I took this picture without having a clear idea of where exactly I was pointing at. Good thing it didn't turn out too badly.