Joel's Kyusha inspired Laguna Blue na8

[Joelioooo]

No update in a while, my MK IIs came back from Pine Engineering and as usual they did a fantastic job but when fitted to my car I wasn't convinced. It was too wide and with the 14kg springs and 60mm from sil ride height it just wasn't enjoyable at all anymore.



Ontop of that I finally cracked my TRAP lip quite badly and honestly I just wanted to sell up and move on to something else, I took off the TRAP lip, sold the MK IIs, removed things like my 300mm steering wheel and awkward gear knob and extension, replaced those with factory pieces, raised the ride height a little and put on a set of Daisys. It was all ready to sell and had it listed for two weeks all while driving it as a daily again.



During that time of dailying it again I realized that a number of modifications I had on limited what the roadster could really be. It was fun again, shifted well, rode fairly nicely, had a great soundtrack (thanks to the Corn*s exhaust) and best of all I didn't have to worry about smashing the TRAP lip, getting stuck, a tyre debeading and mainly cops hassling me.
So after two weeks of selling I decided I'm going to just make the car fun again by my own standards.

First that meant getting another set of wheels, my first brand new set actually, they should be here by the end of February I hope.
The TRAP lip is being retired indefinitely so I also purchased a second hand Dcuatro bumper to change up the look completely, I'm a big fan of body modification to set your car apart from others.



The wheels and bumper are the only major changes I have planned for this car this year (as most of my money will be going towards a trip to Japan in June) but will be refreshing a lot of pieces like clutch, spark leads and plugs, various boots and seals and things of that nature.

[speedypenguin]

The new wheels are going to look great!

[MikeA]

Keen to see the new rims. Did you get the Dcuatro bumper locally?

[— Madaboutmx5s —]

Nice one Joel. I know what you mean sometimes about low cars. Good luck with the changes and enjoy Japan.

[Greasemonkey2000]

Glad your love has been rekindled! Look forward to the "new direction".


I think far too many people conclude it is the cars fault instead of the parts they chose to put on it that made it that way(created issues, taken away from the joy of ownership, etc) and instead of realizing this and correcting it they decide to "get out of the game" as they usually put it, didn' , and sell.

Even at 12"F/12.5"R i get frustrated from ground clearance issues but it hasn't taken away from my love at this point at least.

[Joelioooo]

Cheers guys,

Mike, I did get it locally through MX5Mart.

Greasemonkey, definitely agree with what you're saying.

[Joelioooo]

So my new wheels finally came in a couple days ago.
It's a little surreal to actually have these as I've been through plenty of different wheels but none have ever been new or even close to mint, anyway, here is the unboxing of them

The boxes



Support timeless designs!



Free Watanabe goodie bag, had no idea this would be included



Inside was a set of Watanabe Falcon lug nuts, a small hand/sweat towel and stickers! Thank you Watanabe!



Finally the wheel brand new in box!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/rB00468.jpg[/img

So up front we have 14x8j -6



Rear we have 14x9j -19



Obviously a pretty aggressive setup but actually not as outrageous as wheels before. Actually this will be my most tame of my last 3 sets so I was looking forward to running some wider tyres on these as past setups used a 165 wide tyre.

So up front we have a 185/55 Bridgestone RE01



Rear we have a 185/55 Bridgestone Playz.



Despite the amount of stretch, a 185 on a 9j has been proven to be fairly safe at regular tyre pressures but I keep mine at 40psi just to be safe

[Joelioooo]

Here is the somewhat finished product! Just some paint on the bumper and lights to be wired.

[Greasemonkey2000]

Jealous of the wheels, they look fantastic!!

[— Hammerhead —]

Joelioooo - I tried to reply to your PM, but your Inbox is full...

sorry but would you happen to have any pictures of how the lights are mounted too? Mine seem super odd and I know the lights I have aren't the same as the ones they come with from DCuartro

I couldn't get a pic of the lights mounts, because the OEM bumper obscures the view, but as I recall the bumper has a mounting point at the bottom center of the lamp opening and I just used the existing bracket on my PIAA lamps to bolt to them.

Here is a pic of how I secured the Dcuatro bumper to the OEM one. PLease note the gap - there wasn't one when I installed it. This occurred after I hit a curb.

[Joelioooo]

Jealous of the wheels, they look fantastic!!

Ah thank you!

----

Many thanks for the picture Hammerhead, I got a little impatient and mounted it before I saw this but I'm glad that I understood your description enough in the previous PMs to mount it the same way.

[MikeA]

Wheels look real good Joel.

[funky]

I have similar wheels as you had some time ago...but I have a problem with fitting them to my MX-5 - Advan A3As 14 inch. I have 18mm adapters, but problem is with original studs that collide with wheel. That means wheel cant be fit on adapter (its like 2mm collision). Did you change your studs or shorten them?

Thanks in advance for your response. I think you are the only one who put them on a Miata ;)

[Joelioooo]

I have similar wheels as you had some time ago...but I have a problem with fitting them to my MX-5 - Advan A3As 14 inch. I have 18mm adapters, but problem is with original studs that collide with wheel. That means wheel cant be fit on adapter (its like 2mm collision). Did you change your studs or shorten them?

Thanks in advance for your response. I think you are the only one who put them on a Miata ;)

There have been a couple miatas in the US that have run A3As, actually. My adapters were 15mm, so I actually cut my studs down, when I moved back to 100pcd wheels i obviously had to replace them all.

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Since my last update I've added a few extra pieces to the car, most important of the bunch was the Hardtop, since buying the roadster I was always a strong believer in the main reason for having a ROADSTER was being able to enjoy roofless driving but when a friend purchased a Laguna Blue parts car with a H/T it was funny how quickly i changed my mind. Overall I don't really see any benefits such as less vibration or a stiffer chassis (this could be due to the fact the Cusco rollbar did that job already) but I have to admit that the silhouette of a roadster with the Hardtop is definitely more appealing.
In addition to the hardtop I decided to go back to a black interior, as much as I loved the Blue Potato (my original inspiration) my influences shifted and tan was more of an eyesore than anything else, the Yellow rollbar, black wheels, blue body was just not appealing. So i sold off the tan interior for a good price and bought black for much less with that extra money I was finally able to paint my DCuatro bumper so now it matches. Here's how the car looks now




After that (around about Aprilish) I didn't really spend any money on the car and instead focuses solely on my then upcoming trip to Japan.
Long story short, it was incredible, I got to meet some American and English members of an international roadster group I am apart of called RDB (see sticker on dash board below) and we visited most of the major Roadster tuners and shops, Car Make Corn*s, JoyFast, RS Aizawa and Jetstream. Jetstream and JoyFast were easily my favourites, extremely welcoming and very cool shops to visit and I will definitely try to see them again when I go


Photo of us plus Shota from Jetstream @ Jetstream


@ JoyFast

Another major highlight was meeting ハナマルレーシング (Hanamaru Racing), these are a group of Roadster owners who style their cars similar to how I try to style mine, old car modifications. I was invited by them along with an RDB team member (@nathanwohlander on Instagram) to go see a Roadster meeting being held in Aichi, this was around 3 hours from where we were staying in Tokyo but we made the journey anyway. The meeting was very inspirational, all different kinds of styles being executed and all to a high level. This is turning into story time with my trip lol, anyway i'll cut out all the gushing of the experience.


6 out of 8 Hanamaru Racing team members @ Aichi

Nathan on the left, myself on the right w/ hanamaru

The biggest inspiration was definitely the Hanamaru Racing "Boss", Mochizuki-san. He's a friendly guy, in his late 40s, with the craziest Roadster i've ever seen. The car is extremely low, with extremely wide wheels (13x10) with a fully built Toda engine, twin 38 SOLEX carbs, 2-way LSD, 6-speed swapped in, it's quick and sounds amazing.



Seriously, the best Roadster ever in my opinion

ANYWAY, during the trip I did come home with a few parts
My first purchase was a 265mm Leather steering wheel made by Kaido Racer Factory Mizuno Works, there aren't many manufactures that well wheels this small without being super deepcorn so this was my only option. The leather on it feels fantastic and the quality is very high, but, you would hope it would be since it costs around the same as a Leather/Wood deepcorn Nardi wheel!



Second was JoyFast tall shift knob, the Revlimiter review of these does it justice, these feel amazing to shift with.

Third was a pair of 14x7.5j SSR Longchamp XR4 in 4x100, pretty rare and although they are beat up got them for a good price and they will be widened anyway.

I have my eyes set on another pair in New Zealand

Lastly is a pair of SEV Marchal headlights. From my knowledge Marchal is an old French headlight company that went defunct but a few years ago it was revived by the Japanese. They are very often used in old cars and motorcycles in Japan so it fit my style perfectly. I haven't driven at night with them yet but shining them on my fence the light output appears to be similar to the original Kioto lamps. Either way they were purchased for their look rather than their function (as is with most of the parts on this car)

Cute lil cat emblem


Currently interior state

[Joelioooo]

Had a pair of aluminium door cards made up for the roadster. Wanted a very simple style and opted for no speaker hole, arm rest or door pull.



Added a little touch to the driver side



I also managed to get a friend to sell me his pair of 14x6.5j Longchamp XR4s to help me complete my set. Super happy to have them and considering the rarity of longchamps in 4x100 since these are about as hard to find as Colin Starsharks in 4x100, I didn't think i would find another pair so quickly nor at a reasonable price!



They are in pretty bad shape but that's not a problem since the plan has been to widen them and use them as summer time wheels.
Had to test fit the 6.5j on the Roadster, even though the wheels are very sunken in it still sort of looks cool. Cleaning them up and installing new lips would do wonders though.