The Christmas Crawl

Not much activity or happenings with the car of late. Had a lot on my mind on what to do, but do not have the resources to pursue them. All the same, the car is currently doing alright for me, so I guess this will stay that way for a long time.

Anyway, met up with some miata folks over the weekend for an early Christmas dinner, so here are some pics of the event.

 Here's where we all gathered, at the Lotus showroom on the western part of the island.

 Not a lot of us, but a decent turnout nevertheless.

Good distribution of all 3 generations. An Elise snuck in somehow...

 One of the members graciously offered us a showroom tour. It was the first time for me to see the Evora in the flesh. Its an awe-inspiring car. Price point puts it right in contention with the Cayman S. Also tried getting in and out of the Exige. I looked like a fat pig while doing it though.

 One of the members' NA. Cool door mod. Probably the only pink one out there.

 One of only 3 NCs present for the first Round. Hanafi's car is relatively stock, but I'm sure that'll change in time .

 The yellow NC belongs to Vincent. Probably the only yellow pre-facelifted one in town.

Here's a closer look. Really bling rims. I wished I had taken better pictures.

All 3 generations side by side.

James' NC. Pretty much decked out in all things Autoexe. 

Here's a look inside.

 Some of the members went on to other rides, but still took time to turn up.

 Start of the short convoy to our dinner destination.

 Kinda hard to take a picture while driving.

 Our dinner destination

 Food wasn't too bad, so was service. Too bad about the selection, of which we did not have much say.

 Planning for round 2.

 A few of us went too fast and got separated from the main convoy, so we had to stop for a bit. Here is me attempting to do a tilt-shift effect on this picture. Not sure if it came out right, but looks ok to me.

 Back shot of my car

 Cruise down Orchard Road taking in the Christmas sights, although we were going at around 10km/h most of the time. For some reason, the traffic was horrendous, even though it was way after 10pm.

Happy father and son combo.

It was a good outing. Had some fun and talking to people who share the same interest was enjoyable. There was mention about a track outing sometime next month, so I might just go for that. We'll see.

Washed!

Weather's been really unpredictable of late, so I did not see the need to wash the car. However, it has got to a point where I just could not bear the thought of a dirty car parked for all to see. So, off I go to clean it up! Here's some pictures that I just saw myself in the mood to take.

First some hi-fi pics. These are all I'm using for the sound as of now. I did mentioned in a previous post that I'm getting a subwoofer in the mix as well. That will be on the left side of the setup. Hopefully, it won't be take up too much space.

Cute huh?

All shiny and cleaned up!

I'm rather liking how it is now, and I don't expect too much aesthetic changes anytime soon. And here's some interior shots. Not much has changed here as well.

Trusty voodoo knob still nice to hold.

Blitz R-VIT still looks interesting.

Sub

Had a minor problem the other day after I returned from my overseas trip. I had forgotten to close the boot securely and this cathode tube that I had rigged to turn on with the boot light totally drained the battery. I was out for close to 2 weeks but I got a feeling it didn't take that long for the battery to die. In any case, changed to a maintenance free one now and all's good. Bit of a hassle though, being unable to drive the car after I've been deprived of it for 2 weeks.

In any case, first mod of the year! I've gotten myself a new subwoofer. Previously, I was apprehensive about putting a sub in the car because it would simply take up way too much space. Well, its still going to take up space, but hopefully, with this new shallow sub I've gotten from SB Acoustics, hopefully, it would not be as much as I thought.

Here are some pictures of the sub that came in via Fedex. Quick processing from Madisound, order shipped the next working day after my payment, and I got the package within 3 days.

The sub came in a big box so I was quite surprised at the weight. Its lighter than I thought.

I might just possibly be the first person on my tiny island to use this subwoofer in a car.

I gotten the 4 ohm version as I'm not sure if I can find an amplifier with enough juice to power the 8ohm one up, and yet fit with the limited space I have.

Here's a side profile of the subwoofer. It is relatively low-profile. Judging from the specs and from online feedback, it'll need probably about 0.2 to 0.3 cu. ft of volume to sound nice. 

The required volume was a big 0_0 to me as typically, normal subwoofers require anything from 1 cu.ft to 1.5 cu.ft to sound good and thats mostly the volumes I had for my previous rides. So essentially, I only need less than half the space for this sub. I'm going to get the installer to make a fibreglass enclosure thats about 0.4 cu.ft, just to be on the safe side.

As for power, it is tough, since my plan is for the amplifer to go under the navigator seat. Currently, only the Alpine PDX 1.600 and the Rockford Fosgate T400.2 are whats readily available to me, and fits that requirement. I'm not particular about amps since its going to be in mono anyway, so I'll just go for the one thats cheaper. The install will probably happen next month, as thats the only time I can spare some downtime for the car.

新年おめでとうございます!

Happy new year! It has been a long while since the last update. I guess I can blame it on the lack of time and money. Since the last post, my coilovers have been in use for close to half a year now, and except for one time when I had to bring it back to the dealer's because of some squeaking noise, it has been problem-free so far. Since this is the start of the year, I figured some new year resolutions regarding the MX5 are in order, more specifically, what do I expect in this coming year.

Since my objective is street-oriented rather than track, there are quite a lot of mods that I am not considering, as they're probably overkill, stuff like roll-cages, full underbody bracing, brake ducting, straight through exhausts and so on. I've got the ride height and stiffness down pat, so the next natural progression would be front and rear sways, and that will probably be it for the suspension/bracing department. I'll probably get the used ones off the RX8s or this one from mx5parts. Its going for slightly less than US$280 for both front and rear, which I figured is quite a good deal. I'm not going for a front strut bar since I don't have the mounting bracket for it and getting both of them is not exactly cost-efficient in my opinion.

Next up will probably be brakes. To be honest, this is a "want" mod more than a "need" mod. I think I need the sways to make this a better car, but I want the brakes more for the looks than the performance, since the stock brakes are already plenty decent. I've not narrowed down any brands yet, but I do know I will probably go for a mid-sized 4pot(brembo?), or if the finances permit, a decent sized 6 piston kit(project μ?) for the front. I don't think I will change the rear.

And that wraps up the entire modlist for the whole of 2010(I hope!). Just two items. I am not ruling anything out but I figured thats about all I need; any more modifications will probably detract from what I intended the car to be. But then again, you never know....=)

 In the meantime, here are some overdue pictures. I have just gotten a new digital camera(Panasonic LX3), so I'm still adjusting to it. Pictures aren't exactly top-rate but I'll be posting better pics now and then.

Here's one thats showing the blacktop I had done way back in May last year. Still holding up!

Here's how the stance looks like. Its not exactly slammed but I guess this is good enough for me. We have numerous humps and slopes in this tiny country to make lowering anymore impractical.

Here's a profile shot.

Here's how much frontlip clearance I have off the ground.

Here are some pictures of the car at night, those LEDs done close to one year ago are still looking the stuff!

one from further away

I like this shot below although you can't really see much of the car.

In any case, I had relocated the Blitz Powermeter up from to the vent nearer the steering wheel. I think this is closer to eye level and easier to see when I'm on the road.

And now for two "arty-farty" shots. Was trying to create a bokeh effect with the words. Turns out wasn't too well done, since you can't exactly make out the first letter(its "Prodrive" by the way).

One year on and still shiny as ever.

Alignment.

Well, had a wheel alignment done the last couple of days, and I must say, it made a big difference. Now the ride is even better than before. I did asked the mech to drop the front just a wee bit so it'll look nicer. The only issue I have now would be the creaking roof. The hardtop creaks unbelievably frequently these days. Almost every bend or hump gets the roof creaking. I have read threads about this exact same problem and most recommend tightening the latch mechanism on the top, although for most of the affected users, they didn't get it in the first place by changing to coilovers. I've downloaded the service bulletin for tightening the latch and it seems simple enough. I'll probably get down to it the next week and see if that solves the problem. Meanwhile, its topdown whenever I can!

Its too high

Here's a picture of the current ride height. I'm on the BC coilover for a little over a week now.

The ride is noticeably firmer than stock and I'm enjoying the ride. It feels so much better that I am now taking "longcuts" to get home everyday. I've still not went for any alignment yet. That will probably happen sometime next week, when I can get around to it. I don't think its a big deal though, seeing I don't have ridiculous tire wear, but I guess these things aren't very visible in the short run. I'm going to have to lower the front some more and probably stiffen the damping up a bit.

Suspension is up!

Well, due to some unforeseen circumstances, I had to cancel the order for the KW Variant 3. This is due in no part to any problems I foresee with the suspension itself. The decision was purely because I was tired of waiting around for it and the garage I was dealing with doesn't seem that customer-oriented to follow up with me. I had to call them up for updates every now and then and was always rewarded with no-answers. Even refunding me my deposit after cancelling the order took them a week. Quite simply, one of the worst garages around that I have had to deal with.

Anyway, now that the deal was off, I had to look around for something else. Not much out there, Tein, HKS, JIC, that was it. I couldn't afford the Zeal, Ohlins as well as the Motons, so those were out. Just as it looked like I was gonna join the green camp, one of my mates was talking to me about BC Racing. Now, Taiwanese brands aren't really renowned in the tuning circuit around these parts, so I was a bit apprehensive. Searching online seems to suggest the same as well. The only glowing reviews about this coilover seems to be from the subaru camp. Everyone else seems to slam it as ghetto crap and not worth the money.

For the uninitiated(like me), they have a website here. The version I eventually got was the BC BR Type RA damper. Yes, it is quite a mouthful. Here's a fancy picture from its UK website.

Not too bad, monotube, 30 level damping adjustments, etc. You can read the full writeup of the coilover here.

Well, I figured at this pricepoint(around USD 1k), there isn't much to lose. So I ordered it through the local distro. Placed the order on Tuesday, coilovers arrived from Taiwan on Thursday.

Talk about efficiency. I was really surprised when I got a call almost the next day asking me to fix a day to install the coilover.

First thing that made me 0_0 was the spring rates. 7/5. I have never seen a coilover with a spring rate like this. I'm not a suspension techie, but I normally see spring rates for coilovers thats like 8/6 at least, with the track people always opting for something like 12/10. I was thinking this might be too soft and I'll probably need to push the damping almost up to the max. Here's a picture of the coilovers out of the box.

Well, on first impression, the build quality is good. nice anodising. Some more pictures of the coilovers installed.

Here's one of the rear

And here's some pictures of the stock suspension! I've noticed there isn't much pictures of these available online. Everyone always seems to enjoy talking shots of "nice" aftermarket suspensions more than the plain stock dampers.

Back in the box!

I had the car set to a somewhat stock height to start off, as I have a front lip kit, and our roads, although mostly well-laid, have some nasty speed bumps as well as some notorious underground carparks. Damping was left at around the stock level(10 clicks out of 32). I was apprehensive of this rate as I felt it would probably be too soft, but I figured it should be fine to drive for a week or so, before I get the car aligned.

Here's a picture of the ride height of the car. I will take more pictures in the coming days, when the suspension has "settled" in.

Driving Impression: In about the 100kms that I have driven the car since it was installed, I can feel the bodyroll reduced significantly. Car feels a lot better on turns and I was surprised at how "firm" it handles at highway speeds. Just outside the workshop was one speedbump and on going over it, I can feel the difference in damping being noticeably stiffer than stock(although I would prefer it to be stiffer still). The front also seems to be a wee bit stiffer than the rear. I would probably finetune this when I bring the car in for alignment.

One minor gripe is I do notice the hardtop creaking more often if I make hard corners or when going over some bad roads. This of course, is not an issue when the top is down. Overall, I'm satisfied with this coilover. Not as bone jarring as I would have though, but firm enough. Hopefully, it'll get better.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of my next mod. I'm not saying anything, but you can pretty much make an educated guess from the teaser=)