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Adian's
Toys!
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Adian's Mazda MX-5 NA8C
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Adian's
Toys!
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Self-Purchased
Birthday Gift for turning 33 in 2006!! Specifications: Yes, this was my wife's car, a 1994 Mazda NA8 MX-5 Miata 1.8 liter. I didn't actually intend to buy it over, since as we know I had my on-going Volvo 240-1JZ project drift car coming along. But as more and more $$$ and time was sunk into the Volvo Project, and it didn't seem to be any nearer to it's intended specification and finish after a year of being patient and - more importantly - not actively getting and drifting practise, the MX-5 Miata looked more and more tempting. It was, after all, a well looked after car. I knew it's history. It was recently re-painted. It was fun to drive, even tho it did look a bit sissy from certain angles.. but I could take care of that pretty easy if I wanted to! So by the time Kiki bought her S15, I made up my mind that I'd buy over her MX-5 Miata. We'd been trying to sell it unsuccessfully for the past 2 months, so what the heck. The sad bit was that in anticipation of getting the most $$$ out of selling the car, we'd let the Desmond Regamaster Evo wheels go (yes, yes, it was a STUPID thing to do!!), and sold off the Hotbits coilovers. So, first thing was buy another set of HotBits Coilovers. But this time, they'd made some advancements in their development, and let me try a 2-way adjustable (bump-rebound) remote reservoir setup. This time round I specified 5kgmm spring all around, not because I am suicidal but simply because I hate understeer! I maintained the alignment settings of Toe F:R 0:0, camber -1.5deg all around, and front caster 4.5deg. Handling is now even dafter (is there such a word?) than it was before, with the car going around ALL the corners at the Sepang F1 Circuit with at last 1 turn of opposite lock cranked in, even when I'm not trying! The most fun is the switchback Turn 5 and Turn 6: 4th gear 130kmh, flat on the throttle, turn the wheel the left, immediately apply opposite lock to the right, hold it, lift off and let the steering wheel fly through your hands to full left opposite lock, and hold it to the exit. And I'm not exagerrating ok! I
bought a Jasma 4-2-1 exhaust manifold and had it installed. The build
quality of the Japanese parts really is something else! Retuning the
SAFCII on the dyno showed a 5hp increase, which is pretty good and
shows that the Jasma matches the fastroad Neal Lowe 252 cams really
well. Power is now 135hp at the wheels, which is still pretty pathetic
from a 1.8 litre if you ask me. Well, gotta save up more $$$ first! |
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Splashing around a wet driftland circuit at AFOS Tsuiso Terror event, May 06 at Sepang Circuit carpark. |
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The LSD is so tight that I was better off running hardened 4yr old Pirellis on the original 14inch wheels! |
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UPDATE AUGUST 2006: A whole lot of further improvements! I bought a set of 14x6.5 inch with 14.5mm offset Watanabe wheels off Yahoo Auction Japan. Stuff there is incredibly affordable, you just need a good contact that can arrange the complicated delivery and shipping process.. but I have a good friend that now does it! D1 Motorsports buy and ship a container of parts every month from Japan, if there's anything you need they're the guys - Ask for Haris :) I also
bought (from Yahoo Japan) and installed an aluminium style bar,
which cost me almost nothing. A Garage Vary front lip from PU was
also bought new.. made the car look awesome! A finally, to complement
the cams, I installed and tuned a GReddy E-Manage piggyback ECU.
Final power at the wheels was about 126hp. Not bad! |
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TSUCHIYA'S OFFICIAL COURSE SETUP CAR: If you didn't already know, I have been lucky enough to work closely with the one-and-only Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya! The D1GP Championship Malaysia is 5 rounds, and which Tsuchiya attends and judges. Being one of the proponents of drifting in Malaysia, I have been his Assistant Judge during the events. And, everytime we set-up a new course for each round, he'll jump into my "roe-do-sue-tar" as he calls it, and will whack a few laps to confirm the layout. So here's a pic of the Drift King with my Miata!!
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Some pictures of the MX5...
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UPDATE
OCTOBER 2006: Aaahhh... no one was surprised when I broke the
news that we decided to sell the MX5 to invest in some landed property
for the future of the kids! It's just one of those things with The
Yeins: the past few years we've been buying and selling cars and
bikes more often than a whore goes for an HIV checkup! But, all
good things must come to an end they say. For both Kiki and I, the
MX5 was one of the best things we've ever owned!
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