Page 2 of 20 FirstFirst 12345678912 ... LastLast
Results 16 to 30 of 299

Thread: Vindi Roadsters

  1. #16
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Quote Originally Posted by WASABI View Post
    Russell, thank you for sharing your build. I have admired your car, and your duck tail spoiler for some time now. I think your car is amazing. Well done!

    -Cheers,

    Jim
    Cheers Jim, Its certainly been an interesting journey. I'm going to try to get it all put up today... problem is there are 4 or 5 separate build threads across a few forums, so I'll keep editing it all in until I think its in the right order!!

    Russell.

  2. #17
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Oh yes, while I was working on the car a while back I heard a tapping sound under the bonnet... look what I found!



    Well, its one way of checking the clearance between bonnet and engine I suppose ... cheers Steve!!

    Russell.

  3. #18
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Winter 2010 / Spring 2011 - The Wataru...

    So I bought a crash damaged Wataru-01 on ebay. Its kind of similar to a Pitcrew, if anything the nose is a bit lower... not that you can tell that from mine!







    So it may need a bit of cosmetic work!

    I can't believe the delivery guy made it, after dark and in the snow sliding his way up the road in his clapped out truck (front wheel drive rubbish!!)



    I had spent the hour before this clearing all the snow off my drive and up to the garage otherwise it wouldn't have got close.




    In the end the guy parked his truck at the end of the street, and I drove it up the street and straight into my garage!





    Managed to take a step forward on this project... by buying a new car!!

    Mk1 S Special type 2 (my 6th) It didn't come with any wheels, but I had already bought the Watanabes for this project so its gone onto them... looks really good I think!

    So the Wataru was going to be transplanted onto this car... until I found out the chassis was twisted... not the best basis for a complete rebody!!



    So with the aid of a little helper, I pulled it apart


    That was enough for a while, so I decided to put the bodywork into storage for a bit... started by moving the front end over onto the Mazdaspeed car



    Quite a few of the mounting points were damaged in the crash, and I need to make a couple of small alterations to the chassis / engine bay to get it all to fit, but that should only be a few weekends work.

    I also removed the doors from the Wataru as they have nice mirrors, and the swage lines have been removed - something I want to retain. The bootlid came off at the same time - its all fibreglass, and really light!


    Almost everything else I wanted has already been removed from the damaged chassis, so it was loaded up and taken off to a friends unit for the back end to be cut off.


    Spot the difference a day later...


    Long term plan is to fix up the bodywork, and then transplant it onto a different car... that would probably not be any more work, and would also mean losing the CAT C status this car has.

    The aim will be Retro Race, so ally panels, either black or red leather interior, fairly stripped out and with a custom roll bar based on the diagonal that is in there...but properly tied in to the chassis.

    I'd expect this to be 2 to 3 years away really, I'll need to spend a lot of time sorting the nose and rebuilding it, then taking a mould off my construction and making a new one... so don't hold your breath!!

    Russell.
    Last edited by vindi49; 05-24-2012 at 09:20 AM.

  4. #19
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Decided as it was going to end up being a more powerful engine, I ought to replace the original rad...


    Not a difficult one to guess, this!!




    And did a quick test fit, all goes straight in... and it even comes with tnew, shiny side plates, so I can ditch the old ones. Its nice to get such high quality parts like this, every weld looks neat and everything lines up perfectly. Pretty cheap too as I got it via Ebay with a cheeky low offer from someone who was closing down!!


    At this point I was undecided as the route I would take to more power... was speaking to a guy with a complete MP62 setup in Finland, and also to Absurdflow about Turbo setups...

    Russell.

  5. #20
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Summer 2011 - Mazdaspeed!

    Realizing that it was taking a while to get the engine sorted, I had put the word out that I wanted a daily drive... still an MX5 though. Mark (Jibberingloon) came up with this ... a Mazdaspeed Spec B supercharged car. Needed work, but was cheap and had an MOT, so what could go wrong?

    Russell.

  6. #21
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Spent a while clearing things out of the way, and started stripping bits out of the car... started at the back as the boot is easy, so it now has no carpet, liners, plastics, spare wheel, etc, etc... I also fitted the Axis rear panel i got ages ago...



    Which will probably save at least 25 grammes!!

    Russell.

  7. #22
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Fitted the new exhaust.... doesn't sound that exciting, and it doesn't look half as nice as the last one...



    On the upside, it has saved 16.5 kgs as compared to the last one because its Titanium!!! It is a lot better flowing so should help release a few ponies too!! I'd managed to pick up a Fujitsubo manifold quite cheaply as well, so on it went.

    At this point, a load of other bits were being swapped over as well... out with the old Viscous diff, and in with Cusco adjustable diff, and the halfshafts etc, gearbox was swapped over for a lower mileage one, lower braces were swapped over for ally ones as well.

  8. #23
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Autumn 2011 - I fitted one of the things I made a while back... makes me smile anyway!!




    Ok, I know it's just a clock, but I like it!!

  9. #24
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    I'd been on the lookout for a set of wheels for this car. I already have the 6ULs for track days, but I really don't want to be using them all the time. I had the bronze SSR copies that I really liked, but they were 16s and I really wanted 15s... for the cheap tyres!! I have always liked Watanabes, Compomotive MLs etc and have owned a few sets, but they really look right in 14", 15 doesn't seem to work. I also know that it is a retro look, and this car is a more modern take on the Roadster so I kept looking...

    Last week these came onto my radar.. a top brand, lightweight wheels in a decent width (7") and offset (no idea actually, but the pics on the car looked great). Being on Ebay its always frustrating, hanging on hoping you're in with a shout... especially when you know they are worth more than double what you currently have to spend!

    Anyway, I got lucky and all I had to do was drive to Cambridge and get them... hold on, what? I'm sure I was only searching for wheels within 50 miles... So 2 1/2 hours later I'm just outside Cambridge talking to Steves Dad... Steve owns the wheels but is on nights, so his Dad is here to hand over the money. Good thing too, as Steves Dad (never did find out his name!) is into MX5s as well, thinks his son is an idiot for selling the wheels so cheap, and is currently spaceframing an MG Midget and putting MX5 running gear in it... do I want to have a look? Ha ha, lead me on!!!

    So an hour later (its now 11pm on sunday night) I've had 2 cups of coffee, been given the guided tour, learnt this guys "car history", given him a load of links to retro parts and some pointers on making the MX5 speedo a bit more retro looking. Home just after 1 and I never did check the condition of the tyres.... hey ho, save that for the morning!!

    Monday morning, post Reuben off to school and put Lawrence in his messy clothes... and this is what we found:




    So they are Work RSB, lovely condition and a set of Yokohama S Drive tyres in 195/45/15 with about 4mm of tread all round.

    Put them on the car and this is how they look:




    Didn't take long so I did a bit more stripping of the interior


    I was going to save the main carpet, but it was full of *** burns (not mine!) and worn bare in quite a few places, so I just cut it out.

    Oh, and then I found out I'd got another car... was bidding on this on ebay at the same time as I was after the wheels...was bidding on this mainly for the wheels... shouldn't bid on two things at the same time!!







    Russell.
    Last edited by vindi49; 05-24-2012 at 09:26 AM.

  10. #25
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Another big change... decided to send the car in for some surgery! 3 days later i get the call, she is out of surgery and in the recovery room...







    Spot the difference... not the hardest one this!



    Russell.

  11. #26
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Spring 2012 - What happened to the time? Been a year since I started the engine swap, ooooops!! To make myself feel better, I did one of those jobs that the car doesn't really need, but you just need to do!!

    Getting everything ready



    Surgery underway



    All in, and ready to go!!



    They are in the car now, and all connected up... I just need to connect up a battery and make sure all the backlights work as I think a couple were out when I took the car off the road.

    Just to make sure I did something useful,, I then tackled the boot, and did some stripping out. I've lost the carpets, sound deadening, the metal plate that covers over the fuel pipes, and I've removed the aerial and all the associated wiring...



    ... and then I moved onto the interior. I managed to take out the rest of the carpet, and remove some of the plastics that I don't need and start taking out the roll bar. Nearly out of time, so I just did a test fit of the carbon fibre bootlid skin... glad I did too!!



    Russell.

  12. #27
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Bit more progress, managed to source a head so that should open up a load more options for Cams etc, and also stop the VVT thing cluting the underside of my bonnet! Also managed to get a day off today, so headed over to Bridgenorth and picked up some bits. Not sure what to open first, the boxes or the McD



    McDs won... well it did for a bit, I was sat there looking at the box while i was eating and the box kind of accidentally opened.



    I have to say they've developed these a lot since the last set I had. They are significantly lighter, and the linkage seems a bit less Heath Robinson too.

    At this point, I had sold the Mazdaspeed and everything else apart from the Wataru... so as my track day was looming, I bought a standard Mk2 1.8iS to use as a daily driver / track day stand in!!







    It seems really nice, and the engine goes well... suspension seems to wallow round a lot, but I guess its just because its standard? Need to go round it carefully before the track day though if its going to get used.

    Managed to get an evening in the garage, got tthe old head off without too many issues, then just lay the new head in place to check the fit of the Jenveys...



    Well, they fit... but thanks to my Brake valve there is even less clearance than usual



    Its about 30mm, so I'll either have to use Socks or move the valve. I might even do both! The valve won't help airflow round there and ideally I'd want to fit an airbox to clean up the airflow into the TBs.

    Russell.
    Last edited by vindi49; 05-24-2012 at 07:30 AM.

  13. #28
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    April 2012 - Worked out that the green car wasn't going to be running in time for the track day, so I decided to bring forward another project of mine to help improve the Mk2... the retro rollbar



    The rear leg isn't ideally placed because of having to clear the glass screen, but it looks pretty cool!!

    here's a photoshop someone did for me...


    which looks pretty cool too and is a bit more wife friendly!! After the track day, I'll look into these a bit more.

    So the track day came around, and what a mad few days it was!! I had the thursday off, to fit my bucket seat and harness, paint and refit the rollbar, change the wheels and fit some different discs and track day brake pads as well as doing a general check round the car. The intention was to have a lazy friday, leaving from my house with 3 other MX5s about lunch time and cruising down through Wales via all the windiest roads we could find, and then stay overnight near to the track. It must have been about 2 in the morning friday that I was changing the rear pads and found out that I had a snapped spring. Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrggghhh!!!!

    Thanks to Steve (Raydar27) I found a replacement shock local to me, and picked it up friday morning. In between doing the family shopping and other more mundane things, I changed the shock over and just about got it done by the time Simon (Simon TCV MX5), Mike (Valentinik) and Ian (not on here yet but we're working on it!) got over to me.

    We headed off from mine at about 5.00, and about 180 miles, 3 stops and 3 hours later, via some of the best roads Wales has to offer, got to the Travel lodge at Bridgend. Not sure how to describe the drive down apart for OMG and FFS!! I narrowly managed to avoid getting a motorbike shaped bonnet ornament and I guess by the time we got there the brakes were well and truly bedded in... the car was a revelation, I'll go on about this for years probably, but didn't i say the car felt a bit wallowy? Well it still wallows a bit, but it feels right now, it rolls a lot but its controlled and progressive.
    Once at the Travelodge we met up with about 15 other people also going to the track day, made for quite a cool car park!!

    Got up fairly early and headed over to the track... signed in etc, decided to go in with the slower of the intermediate groups which turned out to be a good decision as Ian and Simon were in the same group. Ian is a better driver but with a slower car, so with luck I could try to follow him? No such luck as I was about 3 places behind him in the queue, but I was up to speed fairly quickly and passed a couple of cars in the first session.
    Started the second session at the front, and got a bit excited... span on the second corner. Note to self, cold tyres don't grip! Gathered myself up (once I'd managed to persuade the car to start!) and started off again. I went slow to clear the tyres of any mud / earth, and suddenly I was at the front again... or is that the back? Whatever, it was a blast and I could really feel the car as the tyres were getting close to letting go so was gaining in confidence. And then my mat got stuck under my brake pedal. Hey ho, in to the pit, ditched it into the boot and then out again for the last 5 minutes which was really good, passed 2 cars and was reeling in an S2000 when we ended the session.

    Went to open pit for the last half hour until lunch, but it was mostly the faster cars that went out, so we decided to break for lunch (and to get petrol) early.

    The afternoon sessions just got better and better for me, it was permanent open pit, and I did 3 runs of about 20 - 30 minutes each. I was getting faster and faster, thanks in quite a large part to a 10 minute passenger ride with Ian. His car was almost definitely the slowest there on paper (standard 1991 1.6, no modifications at all apart from a set of 17 inch wheels) but no one had told Ian that! Nice consistent lines, using all of the track (and some bits off the track where there was extra tarmac), throttle buried in the carpet just about all the time and somehow overtaking cars that really should have been going away from him.

    My last session was great, started with a frustrating time being passed by 3 cars (a Honda Civic that was just ridiculous, the aerial atom and a supercharged Mk1) but then got into the flow and passed 5 or 6 cars, the last one of which was the S2000 I was reeling in before lunch. I then got stuck behind a red Mk1, for some reason he didn't want to indicate to allow me to pass and I wasn't lots faster in the straight so I stuck behind him (about 10 feet) and waited... he eventually made a mistake and span in the Bus Stop so I went past (without collecting him, result!) I then went off, only to get a black flag 2 laps later...

    Pulled into the pits wondering what I'd done (had I been too close to the red Mk1?) and as I slowed down to the frantically waving marshall, realised there was rather a lot of smoke following me... Stop, engine off, pop the bonnet, GET OUT THE CAR!! The marshall had a fire extinguisher ready, but didn't use it and it became apparent the car wasn't on fire, it was steam... so I've blown the head? Chuffing great end to the day!

    Its about here that Valentinik (Mike) took over and dived under the bonnet (careful, its hot!!) working out what had happened. He managed to trace it fairly quickly back to a split coolant hose, and then proceeded to cut it down, refit it and then once the rad was filled up with water again, pronounced it healthy!! Can't thank Mike enough for sorting this, everyone should have a Mike with them at all times (or a Steve...)

    It was getting on, so we decided to call it a day and headed home, rather slower than the way we'd driven down. Stopped at a KFC, which by some weird twist of fate, was the KFC I stopped at on the way home from picking up my first ever MX5.

    All in all, what a few days this has been. Its really brought me on as a driver, made me rethink what I'm doing with the green car (how much more power do I really need?) and given me a huge appreciation for what Mazda have designed. My car is a totally standard 1999 1.8S and it has done 154000 miles. I've driven it hard round a track and its taken it all (almost) in its stride, and then driven me home again in comfort, with the biggest grin on my face.

    Russell.
    Last edited by vindi49; 05-24-2012 at 07:49 AM.

  14. #29
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    So thats it up to last night...

    Almost there... hopefully tonight we can get the rest of the bits fitted and maybe even start the car! There does appear to be quite a lot to fit though, and quite a few parts will need to be drilled / tapped, soldered etc...

    So we just need to chuck this little lot in the engine bay?


    Could be a long night!

    Russell.

  15. #30
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! vindi49's Avatar
    Drives
    1991 V Limited
    Location
    West Midlands, UK
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    456
    Thanks Given
    57
    Thanked 197 Times in 114 Posts
    Mike (Valentinik) and Simon (Simon TCV MX5s) came round tonight to see how much farther we could get with the car... Mike was concentrating on the wiring, and Simon and I were on mechanicals... started by putting some oil in the engine and gearbox (always useful) and then moved on to the inlet manifold. Demon Tweeks eventually came up with the goods I ordered, so I had 10 vacuum nipples to attach. 6 were easy, replacing the plastic ones in the vacuum manifold



    and the other 4 needed to be attached to the inlet manifold, so out came the drill and tap



    Slightly nervous doing it, but it seemed to come out ok. Meanwhile, Mike was doing stuff with wires...



    I think the conclusion was the AEM digital gauges are sooooooo much easier to wire in than the analogue ones... sorry mike, but all will become clear once the car is finished!!

    We then carried on and attached the Jenveys.... and then spent a while trying to work out where the vacuum block would get mounted, how to fit the fuel pipe round the clutch reservoir and how I can fit the air filters!



    Mike finished fitting the AEM gauge and tested it (yay, it lights up and apparently the engine is really lean at the moment... which makes sense I guess!), attached in the MAP sensor and did some other wiring bits on the ECU and sensors... to be honest there is so much I just don't understand about the wiring etc I'm so glad to have friends who have have pitched in and helped throughout the build!!

    We had Pizza as usual, and the most enormous bug ever decided he wanted in on the action... I caught it in a glass and put it over the fence at the bottom of the garden... 5 minutes later, it was back again!!


    Garlic Sauce pot added for scale... think its a Mayfly?

    So not as far on as I'd hoped, but loads done and the pile of parts still to fit has gone down considerably!! In theory there's not that much more to do, but each step we take needs thought as I don't want to just chuck it all on. I want it to be set up as well as it can be, and I want the wiring and pipework to look as neat as possible. So we'll keep plugging away at it and at some point I'll have a running car again!!

    Russell.

Page 2 of 20 FirstFirst 12345678912 ... LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •