Camouflaged Learning MX5 NA DriftShed - Drifting forum

Captain Muppet · 28-02-2008, 10:56

Ok, this thread has been a long time coming – starts in 2006…
Having had enough of drifting utter piles of rubbish (either mostly broken Nissans or reliable but just plain awful E30 BMW) I decided to go straight to the top and get myself a proper D1 car, ish. Due to the huge running costs of the aforementioned Nissans and the subversive friendliness of Declan Hicks I decided an MX5 might be a sensible choice, his old competition-spec MX5 as it turned out. By the time I got my hands on it some of the goodies had gone - the turbo, roll cage, cool seats, but the welded diff, coil-overs, hydro-wand, mouldy fried egg paint job, huge wheel spacers and extra steering lock were all there, as were his highly developed geometry settings.

First mod was to leave it the hell alone and drift it. I know it was perfectly set up so any time it wasn't drifting was down to poor driving, which surprisingly helped a lot, because I stopped blaming cars and worked on technique.

Drifting done my first real job was to get rid of the paint job. Much as I loved having school kids wave at the car and police follow me home I thought that the classic satin black would perfectly match my paint spraying abilities. Having painted previous cars matte black the hard way (proper paint, proper spray booth) I thought I'd use facilities more in keeping with quality finish I demand. Rattle cans in a field it was. A day later and my car was gleaming satin black with black wheels, with a little flip up spoiler to add a bit of menace to the back end for 20 quid. I left the bonnet green and wobbly white but even now I don’t really know why, possibly because I’ve seen too many white cars with black bonnets.

Captain Muppet · 28-02-2008, 10:57

As always new paint brought bad luck and at the next practice day I put the car in to the tyre wall at Barkston Heath. Front indicators gone for ever and brand new radiator scared for life, but no damage to any of the bits that really matter. The front end of the car needed some tidying up so I refitted the bumper with cable ties, mucked about with various lights until I had tiny Nissan Micra indicators at the front and huge air intakes where the old lights once were. The missing lights provided an excellent place to put a nice sturdy tow hook straight on to the chassis rail, much needed as the car had no tow-eye at all when I bought it.
Race mirrors replaced the standard ones which randomly fell off all by themselves.
Next on the list were more spare wheels and tyres – for free I got some old JDM CRX wheels with missing centres fitted with magic 15 year old perished tyres. 40 quid also got me a seat and a harness (both a bastard job to fit in an MX5). This was the spec of the car for my assault on the 2006 SVA Challenge Cup. Sadly after a three hour drive down to Lydd the clutch went on my first lap of practice on Friday. I skipped the rest of practice to save what friction material I had left for the judged rounds on Saturday (and the trip home) and was concentrating so hard on being gentle on the clutch I forgot to use the handbrake. I was very happy to come 24th out of 29 competitors. I’d actually said when I booked it that while I didn’t care about winning not being in the bottom 5 would make me happy. Job done.

Buoyed up by my lack of success I decided to have a go at Eurodrift in 2007 - so I bolted my half cage in properly, upgraded to a new quick release harness and slapped in a fire extinguisher. I also mucked about with some different tyres – Yokohama A048 on 16" wheels on the front for 6 quid a wheel. This totally buggered the already marginal tyre clearance so off came the front wings and I made some pikey-spec carbon fibre ones, with 200 gsm carbon - thin enough and feeble enough that the tyres would chew their own clearance. Also thin enough for light to shine through from my side indicators (laziness lead to them being left behind the wings as I couldn’t be bothered to cut the holes for them).

I also got free stickers and some cash for spending all my holidays working in schools thanks to the lovely people at Camouflaged-Learning. School kids will be impressed with anything, from a BMW so shabby they are allowed to fire rockets at it to poorly painted MX5's covered in stickers. Most of them think it’s an RX7 of some kind (must be the hard top), some of them quite fairly point out that it's gay, but as none of them have cars I still win.

Captain Muppet · 28-02-2008, 10:59

First round of Eurodrift 2007 I scored a 6th place in Am class. Woohoo! Total fluke though.

The rest of the season I was, of course, totally rubbish. The MX5 has a shorter wheelbase than an AE86, and is a touch heavier, with less power. Coupled with my total lack of skill this meant piling in to corners as fast as I dared and 1 time in 3 either spinning or going so hugely off-line I may as well not bother looking where I'm going. I also had to furiously abuse my clutch continuously to keep the car sideways, even with the magic low grip perished tyres. 3000 miles per clutch!

By the end of the season I was 12th in class, please don’t ask how few people competed.

Obviously more driver training was required, but like everyone else I think I’m a driving god so I just added power instead.

I'm violently anti-turbo due to bad Nissan based experiences (I mean, like, Nissan is half French) but because of the corners I've found myself competing on (looooooong 2nd gear stuff with short run up) I needed more power as I was already on the lower limit of grip and the upper limit of bravery (mine obviously - all the people telling me to go in faster were clearly dead brave)

Anyway, my budget was cock all, but I found a 2nd hand Greddy kit for 500 quid. The oil feed adapter had stripped threads, someone had gone mad with cutting the exhaust manifold/head flange (max of 3 cuts needed, there were loads on mine) but hadn't slotted the bolt holes so it didn't fit, the downpipe fouled on the coolant pipe to the heater, there was no air filter and the turbo had been clocked for a custom intercooler pipe routing. No surprises really, exactly what I was expecting. I got a new adapter, slotted the manifold bolt holes to stop the manifold cracking and so it would fit, made a new heater hose, threw together a washer bottle heatshield, re-routed the front left brake pipe to clear the down pipe, cobbled together a FMIC out of a Ford diesel intercooler and some Saab pipes (lots of cutting and bits of silicon hose), fitted a cone filter (needed a bit of crushing to fit, but that was done in transit by the lovely delivery driver, fat handed twat) then slapped in "turbo" spark plugs from MX5parts. Fuelling is taken care of by a very shiny blue AFPR (plug and play

), timing was retarded to whatever it said in the Greddy manual. Before I ran it I used a bike pump, boost gauge and some pipe to set the waste gate to 6psi (no need to adjust red hot bits of turbo after installation

).
With no real control over spark it doesn’t run perfectly, but I don't care if it works at all below 3k rpm as I have a gearbox and know how to use it.

If the Greddy power claims are to be believed the car should be making a throbbing 155BHP in this spec. Certainly it will nearly keep up with an automatic 173bhp 1200kg Celica. Maybe 150000km of abuse have hurt the poor little Mazda engine a little.

First time out with the turbo and I lobbed it sideways in to a tyre wall at Barkston Heath while totally off my face on joy – It was finally making tyre smoke and previously undriftable corners were now easy.

After cable-tying up my ripped carbon wing I decided to leave fitting the new door until after my last drift day of 2007 at Norfolk Arena, just in case bad luck/incompetence struck again. First session out on the wet and muddy track and I started having gear selection trouble, caused by what I later discovered to be a collapsed clutch release bearing (from all that pre-turbo clutch kicking). Fearing my clutch problems were going to leave me stranded I restricted my track outings to a few passenger rides. My first session on a dry track included my first ever completely sideways lap, followed by a series of perfect laps with the car constantly sideways at a big angle with just a throttle lift and a flick of the wheel to change direction – I finally had the perfect combination of power, grip and skill. With no more damage I crawled back home for the winter rebuild which included: new driver’s door, new clutch release bearing, 1.8 flywheel with the larger diameter 1.8 clutch, new rear crank seal, new clutch slave cylinder, rear brake rebuild, new exhaust system (the centre exit one I bought for 30 quid finally rusted to bits), aftermarket front bumper (the old one was broken, this one has extra cooling vents and it was only 30 quid – can you tell I’m embarrassed about fitting any kind of kit to a car?) and a few other tweaks for the 2008 British Drift Championship rules.

Naturally the big, but second-hand, clutch slipped like a bastard, so the car had to come to pieces again for yet another new bit and all of my pre-season testing budget has gone on parts instead. Pictures of turbo installation to follow when I can recover the files…

FlikstRR · 28-02-2008, 11:18

awesome read, some bits made me laugh alot. great to see someone doing it different and sticking at it.

stop putting yourself down so much tho!

cookwibble · 28-02-2008, 11:22

awesome. i love this car and you really make the most of it. i lost my door to that wall as well!

adomz · 28-02-2008, 11:32

a really interesting and amusing piece of writeup there!!

keep up the good work man!

adam

Captain Muppet · 28-02-2008, 11:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlikstRR

awesome read, some bits made me laugh alot. great to see someone doing it different and sticking at it.

stop putting yourself down so much tho!

Cheers!

The Camouflaged-Learning bloke keeps having a go at me for putting myself down too. It's just with drifting - I'm fricking ace at everything else.

If I get a top 8 in BDC Am this year I'll stop saying I'm crap.

mazdachris · 28-02-2008, 13:01

I really like this car. Not because of the car itself, but more because of what it represents - the fact that you don't need an enormous budget to build something competent, if not competitive. That it's not necessarily about spending thousands on all the latest brand new parts, or having the most horsepower, but what's more important is having a car which works at the level of the person who is driving it. Jinba ittai indeed..

Captain Muppet · 28-02-2008, 13:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by mazdachris

...Jinba ittai indeed..

You just scored 2000 JDM points, you may now fit a square front number plate.

mazdachris · 28-02-2008, 13:41

Funny, I was only yesterday looking at a Cusco numberplate bracket thinking about how much I need some of that action in my life. It doesn't matter if your bushes are flat and dead giving enough axle tramp to snap your spine every time you spin the wheels up, so long as you look cool and JDM toite

Captain Muppet · 28-02-2008, 14:03

You need another 1500 JDM points before fitting an offset square plate.
One step at a time.

mazdachris · 28-02-2008, 14:19

I have a set of rare WedsSport wheels, Tein suspension, a green cam cover, a white three spoke steering wheel, and an 8-ball gearknob. And I only have one bucket seat (although with shame I must admit it is a Cobra not Bride)

Still, that's pretty JDM.

Sorry, I feel like I'm ruining your project thread a bit here.

Captain Muppet · 28-02-2008, 14:38

Shit, you're way more JDM than me. My intercooler is Ford FFS. It's less JDM now than it was when it came off the boat.

Project thread already ruined by lack of arch flairing, no body shop photos, no picture of me stood in empty engine bay doing thumbs up, I've forgotten to do a shopping list and there are shots of the car fully working on a track and drifting.
I'll find some pictures of an engineless S13 in a shed next to some wheels that won't fit it to put up later.

docwra · 28-02-2008, 14:53

Superb thread. Looking forward to seenig it avec FI this year - I was impressed at Kings Lynn last year

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muppet

made some pikey-spec carbon fibre ones, with 200 gsm carbon - thin enough and feeble enough that the tyres would chew their own clearance

Hawkin and Mozart would be proud of genius like that.

cptsideways · 28-02-2008, 14:55

Cool its still going strong

NikDev · 28-02-2008, 23:58

Brilliant write up! This is what drifting is about, Fun and the abuse of cars and etc etc...

MJG · 29-02-2008, 00:09

Keep at it maaan. Good project thread so far, glad to see someone realises you don't need the latest 47deg wedge of plastic bodykit and GTTDKKK06-DE"""£$$! turbo and A BIG GAY WING to compete in the UK drift scene

Captain Muppet · 03-03-2008, 11:05

Update:

New clutch is in (7 hours - a new personal best

). I've not driven it yet because I need to shuffle cars round in the barn I'm borrowing, but it can't be worse than the old one. Tonight I should be able to experience full throttle boost at last.

Fixed the Frankenstein bolt that holds my roof on, that should stop the incredibly annoying rattle. Handy tip if yours comes lose - sell the car, it was more irritating than doing up the bolts on the top of the gearbox. Why do Mazda insist on putting the fasteners in the most inaccessable place they can find?

Carpets are gone, so that's another 2kg off the car. They were tiny - smaller than the boot carpet in my 5-series.
Not really worth it as I'll be sleeping in it for round 1 at Teeside and it's going to be freezing in there with no carpet in March. I'm dreading the trip up there as it'll be like riding inside a tumble drier for 500 miles. I'd put them back in but I need more hardcore shit in the car so I get fewer kids calling me gay when I take it to schools.

I've painted the interior silver, partially to hide the scratched and rusty remains of the BRG but mostly for the smell of fresh paint so I can get off my head half way home from the barn tonight

I've also gone mad with roll cage padding as I got a bundle of it cheap - it look like I've built the whole cage out of blue foam. I hate it now, but it took ages and I can't be bothered to take the roof off again to get to it.
If anone has a full proper cage for an MX5 I'll swap it for my half cage and cash your way - PM me.

Still to do before Teeside:
* check list of rules and tick off everything on the car
* fix the water leak around the front of the engine
* take the old stickers off, including the Eurodrift windscreen banner that blocks out traffic lights (there is an old OPT Drift Club banner underneath!)
* new stickers

including the BDC ones if I can get my shit together enough to organise them.
* get some more tyres fitted.

Garrett_T25 · 03-03-2008, 18:19

Awesome thread, I wish my innovative working practices (aka bodgery) were half as genius as yours!

Mad Cas · 03-03-2008, 18:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Muppet

Project thread already ruined by lack of arch flairing, no body shop photos, no picture of me stood in empty engine bay doing thumbs up, I've forgotten to do a shopping list and there are shots of the car fully working on a track and drifting.
I'll find some pictures of an engineless S13 in a shed next to some wheels that won't fit it to put up later.

You havn't got any pictures of removing the shockingly heavy bit of foam that passes for a rear seat in an S13, or the obligatory 'chipping out of sound deadening' pics that I find fascinating and always love to look at. 'Stage 1 mods everybody!' etc.

good to see the car having actual useful stuff done to it all the time,
and plenty of testing of the useful mods.

Best of luck for the 2008 season, see you there

28-02-2008, 10:56	#1 (permalink)
Captain Muppet EuroDrift's slowest loser Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: three feet away from a tiny little turbo Posts: 1,043	Camouflaged Learning MX5 NA DriftShed Ok, this thread has been a long time coming – starts in 2006… Having had enough of drifting utter piles of rubbish (either mostly broken Nissans or reliable but just plain awful E30 BMW) I decided to go straight to the top and get myself a proper D1 car, ish. Due to the huge running costs of the aforementioned Nissans and the subversive friendliness of Declan Hicks I decided an MX5 might be a sensible choice, his old competition-spec MX5 as it turned out. By the time I got my hands on it some of the goodies had gone - the turbo, roll cage, cool seats, but the welded diff, coil-overs, hydro-wand, mouldy fried egg paint job, huge wheel spacers and extra steering lock were all there, as were his highly developed geometry settings. First mod was to leave it the hell alone and drift it. I know it was perfectly set up so any time it wasn't drifting was down to poor driving, which surprisingly helped a lot, because I stopped blaming cars and worked on technique. Drifting done my first real job was to get rid of the paint job. Much as I loved having school kids wave at the car and police follow me home I thought that the classic satin black would perfectly match my paint spraying abilities. Having painted previous cars matte black the hard way (proper paint, proper spray booth) I thought I'd use facilities more in keeping with quality finish I demand. Rattle cans in a field it was. A day later and my car was gleaming satin black with black wheels, with a little flip up spoiler to add a bit of menace to the back end for 20 quid. I left the bonnet green and wobbly white but even now I don’t really know why, possibly because I’ve seen too many white cars with black bonnets.

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

28-02-2008, 10:57	#2 (permalink)
Captain Muppet EuroDrift's slowest loser Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: three feet away from a tiny little turbo Posts: 1,043	As always new paint brought bad luck and at the next practice day I put the car in to the tyre wall at Barkston Heath. Front indicators gone for ever and brand new radiator scared for life, but no damage to any of the bits that really matter. The front end of the car needed some tidying up so I refitted the bumper with cable ties, mucked about with various lights until I had tiny Nissan Micra indicators at the front and huge air intakes where the old lights once were. The missing lights provided an excellent place to put a nice sturdy tow hook straight on to the chassis rail, much needed as the car had no tow-eye at all when I bought it. Race mirrors replaced the standard ones which randomly fell off all by themselves. Next on the list were more spare wheels and tyres – for free I got some old JDM CRX wheels with missing centres fitted with magic 15 year old perished tyres. 40 quid also got me a seat and a harness (both a bastard job to fit in an MX5). This was the spec of the car for my assault on the 2006 SVA Challenge Cup. Sadly after a three hour drive down to Lydd the clutch went on my first lap of practice on Friday. I skipped the rest of practice to save what friction material I had left for the judged rounds on Saturday (and the trip home) and was concentrating so hard on being gentle on the clutch I forgot to use the handbrake. I was very happy to come 24th out of 29 competitors. I’d actually said when I booked it that while I didn’t care about winning not being in the bottom 5 would make me happy. Job done. Buoyed up by my lack of success I decided to have a go at Eurodrift in 2007 - so I bolted my half cage in properly, upgraded to a new quick release harness and slapped in a fire extinguisher. I also mucked about with some different tyres – Yokohama A048 on 16" wheels on the front for 6 quid a wheel. This totally buggered the already marginal tyre clearance so off came the front wings and I made some pikey-spec carbon fibre ones, with 200 gsm carbon - thin enough and feeble enough that the tyres would chew their own clearance. Also thin enough for light to shine through from my side indicators (laziness lead to them being left behind the wings as I couldn’t be bothered to cut the holes for them). I also got free stickers and some cash for spending all my holidays working in schools thanks to the lovely people at Camouflaged-Learning. School kids will be impressed with anything, from a BMW so shabby they are allowed to fire rockets at it to poorly painted MX5's covered in stickers. Most of them think it’s an RX7 of some kind (must be the hard top), some of them quite fairly point out that it's gay, but as none of them have cars I still win.

28-02-2008, 10:59	#3 (permalink)
Captain Muppet EuroDrift's slowest loser Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: three feet away from a tiny little turbo Posts: 1,043	First round of Eurodrift 2007 I scored a 6th place in Am class. Woohoo! Total fluke though. The rest of the season I was, of course, totally rubbish. The MX5 has a shorter wheelbase than an AE86, and is a touch heavier, with less power. Coupled with my total lack of skill this meant piling in to corners as fast as I dared and 1 time in 3 either spinning or going so hugely off-line I may as well not bother looking where I'm going. I also had to furiously abuse my clutch continuously to keep the car sideways, even with the magic low grip perished tyres. 3000 miles per clutch! By the end of the season I was 12th in class, please don’t ask how few people competed. Obviously more driver training was required, but like everyone else I think I’m a driving god so I just added power instead. I'm violently anti-turbo due to bad Nissan based experiences (I mean, like, Nissan is half French) but because of the corners I've found myself competing on (looooooong 2nd gear stuff with short run up) I needed more power as I was already on the lower limit of grip and the upper limit of bravery (mine obviously - all the people telling me to go in faster were clearly dead brave) Anyway, my budget was cock all, but I found a 2nd hand Greddy kit for 500 quid. The oil feed adapter had stripped threads, someone had gone mad with cutting the exhaust manifold/head flange (max of 3 cuts needed, there were loads on mine) but hadn't slotted the bolt holes so it didn't fit, the downpipe fouled on the coolant pipe to the heater, there was no air filter and the turbo had been clocked for a custom intercooler pipe routing. No surprises really, exactly what I was expecting. I got a new adapter, slotted the manifold bolt holes to stop the manifold cracking and so it would fit, made a new heater hose, threw together a washer bottle heatshield, re-routed the front left brake pipe to clear the down pipe, cobbled together a FMIC out of a Ford diesel intercooler and some Saab pipes (lots of cutting and bits of silicon hose), fitted a cone filter (needed a bit of crushing to fit, but that was done in transit by the lovely delivery driver, fat handed twat) then slapped in "turbo" spark plugs from MX5parts. Fuelling is taken care of by a very shiny blue AFPR (plug and play ), timing was retarded to whatever it said in the Greddy manual. Before I ran it I used a bike pump, boost gauge and some pipe to set the waste gate to 6psi (no need to adjust red hot bits of turbo after installation ). With no real control over spark it doesn’t run perfectly, but I don't care if it works at all below 3k rpm as I have a gearbox and know how to use it. If the Greddy power claims are to be believed the car should be making a throbbing 155BHP in this spec. Certainly it will nearly keep up with an automatic 173bhp 1200kg Celica. Maybe 150000km of abuse have hurt the poor little Mazda engine a little. First time out with the turbo and I lobbed it sideways in to a tyre wall at Barkston Heath while totally off my face on joy – It was finally making tyre smoke and previously undriftable corners were now easy. After cable-tying up my ripped carbon wing I decided to leave fitting the new door until after my last drift day of 2007 at Norfolk Arena, just in case bad luck/incompetence struck again. First session out on the wet and muddy track and I started having gear selection trouble, caused by what I later discovered to be a collapsed clutch release bearing (from all that pre-turbo clutch kicking). Fearing my clutch problems were going to leave me stranded I restricted my track outings to a few passenger rides. My first session on a dry track included my first ever completely sideways lap, followed by a series of perfect laps with the car constantly sideways at a big angle with just a throttle lift and a flick of the wheel to change direction – I finally had the perfect combination of power, grip and skill. With no more damage I crawled back home for the winter rebuild which included: new driver’s door, new clutch release bearing, 1.8 flywheel with the larger diameter 1.8 clutch, new rear crank seal, new clutch slave cylinder, rear brake rebuild, new exhaust system (the centre exit one I bought for 30 quid finally rusted to bits), aftermarket front bumper (the old one was broken, this one has extra cooling vents and it was only 30 quid – can you tell I’m embarrassed about fitting any kind of kit to a car?) and a few other tweaks for the 2008 British Drift Championship rules. Naturally the big, but second-hand, clutch slipped like a bastard, so the car had to come to pieces again for yet another new bit and all of my pre-season testing budget has gone on parts instead. Pictures of turbo installation to follow when I can recover the files…

28-02-2008, 11:18	#4 (permalink)
FlikstRR dorifto kingu! Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Reading, UK Posts: 2,031	awesome read, some bits made me laugh alot. great to see someone doing it different and sticking at it. stop putting yourself down so much tho!

28-02-2008, 11:22	#5 (permalink)
cookwibble dorifto kingu! Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 5,556	awesome. i love this car and you really make the most of it. i lost my door to that wall as well!

28-02-2008, 11:32	#6 (permalink)
adomz Fixin`Repairin Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: London, Ilford, UK Posts: 1,301	a really interesting and amusing piece of writeup there!! keep up the good work man! adam

28-02-2008, 13:01	#8 (permalink)
mazdachris more cowbell Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: MK Posts: 1,801	I really like this car. Not because of the car itself, but more because of what it represents - the fact that you don't need an enormous budget to build something competent, if not competitive. That it's not necessarily about spending thousands on all the latest brand new parts, or having the most horsepower, but what's more important is having a car which works at the level of the person who is driving it. Jinba ittai indeed..

28-02-2008, 13:41	#10 (permalink)
mazdachris more cowbell Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: MK Posts: 1,801	Funny, I was only yesterday looking at a Cusco numberplate bracket thinking about how much I need some of that action in my life. It doesn't matter if your bushes are flat and dead giving enough axle tramp to snap your spine every time you spin the wheels up, so long as you look cool and JDM toite

28-02-2008, 14:03	#11 (permalink)
Captain Muppet EuroDrift's slowest loser Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: three feet away from a tiny little turbo Posts: 1,043	You need another 1500 JDM points before fitting an offset square plate. One step at a time.

28-02-2008, 14:19	#12 (permalink)
mazdachris more cowbell Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: MK Posts: 1,801	I have a set of rare WedsSport wheels, Tein suspension, a green cam cover, a white three spoke steering wheel, and an 8-ball gearknob. And I only have one bucket seat (although with shame I must admit it is a Cobra not Bride) Still, that's pretty JDM. Sorry, I feel like I'm ruining your project thread a bit here.

28-02-2008, 14:38	#13 (permalink)
Captain Muppet EuroDrift's slowest loser Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: three feet away from a tiny little turbo Posts: 1,043	Shit, you're way more JDM than me. My intercooler is Ford FFS. It's less JDM now than it was when it came off the boat. Project thread already ruined by lack of arch flairing, no body shop photos, no picture of me stood in empty engine bay doing thumbs up, I've forgotten to do a shopping list and there are shots of the car fully working on a track and drifting. I'll find some pictures of an engineless S13 in a shed next to some wheels that won't fit it to put up later.

28-02-2008, 14:55	#15 (permalink)
cptsideways Pimms O'clock Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Dorset Posts: 1,695	Cool its still going strong

28-02-2008, 23:58	#16 (permalink)
NikDev Drifts a Swede Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Norway Posts: 361	Brilliant write up! This is what drifting is about, Fun and the abuse of cars and etc etc...

29-02-2008, 00:09	#17 (permalink)
MJG e30 of Death Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Derby, England Posts: 10,490	Keep at it maaan. Good project thread so far, glad to see someone realises you don't need the latest 47deg wedge of plastic bodykit and GTTDKKK06-DE"""£$$! turbo and A BIG GAY WING to compete in the UK drift scene

03-03-2008, 11:05	#18 (permalink)
Captain Muppet EuroDrift's slowest loser Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: three feet away from a tiny little turbo Posts: 1,043	Update: New clutch is in (7 hours - a new personal best ). I've not driven it yet because I need to shuffle cars round in the barn I'm borrowing, but it can't be worse than the old one. Tonight I should be able to experience full throttle boost at last. Fixed the Frankenstein bolt that holds my roof on, that should stop the incredibly annoying rattle. Handy tip if yours comes lose - sell the car, it was more irritating than doing up the bolts on the top of the gearbox. Why do Mazda insist on putting the fasteners in the most inaccessable place they can find? Carpets are gone, so that's another 2kg off the car. They were tiny - smaller than the boot carpet in my 5-series. Not really worth it as I'll be sleeping in it for round 1 at Teeside and it's going to be freezing in there with no carpet in March. I'm dreading the trip up there as it'll be like riding inside a tumble drier for 500 miles. I'd put them back in but I need more hardcore shit in the car so I get fewer kids calling me gay when I take it to schools. I've painted the interior silver, partially to hide the scratched and rusty remains of the BRG but mostly for the smell of fresh paint so I can get off my head half way home from the barn tonight I've also gone mad with roll cage padding as I got a bundle of it cheap - it look like I've built the whole cage out of blue foam. I hate it now, but it took ages and I can't be bothered to take the roof off again to get to it. If anone has a full proper cage for an MX5 I'll swap it for my half cage and cash your way - PM me. Still to do before Teeside: * check list of rules and tick off everything on the car * fix the water leak around the front of the engine * take the old stickers off, including the Eurodrift windscreen banner that blocks out traffic lights (there is an old OPT Drift Club banner underneath!) * new stickers including the BDC ones if I can get my shit together enough to organise them. * get some more tyres fitted.

03-03-2008, 18:19	#19 (permalink)
Garrett_T25 doughnutter Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Pontefract Posts: 65	Awesome thread, I wish my innovative working practices (aka bodgery) were half as genius as yours!