I was reading the mx5cartalk forum and it has been claimed that Jay Leno quite likes the Mazda MX5 and has used a supercharged one as his daily driver.
In the same thread was a link to a James May article where he suggests putting an Alfa V6 into one.
My DIYPNP engine management kit arrived today. I haven’t had a chance to do much with it yet but I hope to regularly post updates of my progress.
As you can imagine I have a fair bit of work ahead of me. A workmate has given me a challenge of getting the ECU running and tuned in my MX5 by mid December. We’ll see how I go.
When I purchased my Mazda MX5 it came fitted with Koni Sport shocks which were set to their lowest setting. These particular shock absorbers have three different adjustments for height based on a sliding spring seat and a circlip. Whilst they are a very popular replacement shock absorber for many different vehicles the best guides I’ve seen for adjusting the suspension height refer to ‘compress the spring and then move the circlip to the next slotted position but without any photographs describing exactly what that is.
I thought having recently raised my MX5 from the lowest setting to the middle setting I would give back to the Koni Sport owning community with some photos of exactly what the circlip system looks like.
First step is to compress the spring to take the load off the spring seat.
I purchased the spring compressors from a generic autoparts store locally. They were pretty cheaply made but more than adequate for the job. Unfortunately they seem to have an extremely long thread which made them awkward to work with in the small space available to me around the MX5 rear suspension. I have considered cutting them down but I managed to get it to work ok.
Lifting the spring seat to show the next circlip slot.
Once the spring tension has been eased you can lift the spring seat up to expose the middle circlip slot. I just used a flatbladed screwdriver to lift the circlip from the low slot and slide it up into the middle position. After I had ensured that the circlip was securely placed I lowered the seat and released the spring tension.
The circlip and seat in the middle position.
This last weekend I have been helping a friend to paint their car. Well I’ve been getting them to do all the sanding and surface preparation and I’m silly enough to do the paint spraying (and inhaling). This weekend we got an undercoat layer on the outside of the panels and did a coat of colour on the inside of the panels just to seal them off. Next weekend we’ll do the final outer coats.
The unfortunate thing of spraypainting with just a dust mask for protection is you’re really without much protection. Fortunately I’m not spraying two pack but I’m still not feeling the best after the experience of spraying in a comfined space. Before I do any more I’ll be buying a proper breathing mask that can supply an external air supply.
Wet and dry sanding of the door.
The undercoat was looking so good my friend said he was tempted to paint his whole car that colour.
Inside of drivers door painted.
Inside of front guard painted.
Pallet used to hold panels whilst painting.
The wooden pallet and wire hook method of holding the automotive panels proved to be a very effective way to suspend the panels whilst painting whilst keeping them very solidly mounted.
I’ll try to post an update on our progress next week but it will depend on whether the weather is suitable for painting.
I am in the process of undertaking a DIYPNP project for my 1991 MX5. This new kit is based on the Megasquirt II design and won’t work with the existing Megasquirt I baseline maps.
I may try to use the 1.8L MX5 DIYPNP maps but I plan to double check these settings against the known base settings for the 1990-1993 B6 engine.
| B6 (MSPNP) | BP (DIYPNP) | |
| Standard Constants | ||
| Required Fuel | 13.4ms | 13.0ms |
| Injector Opening Time | 1ms | 1ms |
| Battery Voltage Correction | 0.10ms/v | 0.20ms/v |
| PWM Current limit | 100% | 75% |
| PWM Time | 25.4ms | 25.6ms |
| Fast Idle Threshhold | 80.0F | 140F |
| Barometric Correction | ON | ON |
| Control Algorithm | Speed Density | Speed Density |
| Squirts per Engine Cycle | 2 | 2 |
| Injector Staging | Alternating | Alternating |
| Engine Stroke | 4-stroke | 4-stroke |
| Number of Cylinders | 4 | 4 |
| Number of Injectors | 4 | 4 |
| MAP type | 400kPa | 400kPa |
| Engine Type | Even fire | Even fire |
| EGO Control | ||
| EGO Sensor type | Narrow Band | |
| EGO Switch point | 0.510 | |
| Ignition Events | 72 | |
| Controller step size | 1% | |
| Controller authority | 5% | |
| Active above coolant temp | 160F | |
| Active above RPM | 1500RPM | |
| EGO Correction Counter | Ign Pulses | |
| Idle valve frequency | 62 | |
Went out to pick up some 2nd hand racing tyres & found no less than 5 nails though the casing.
I instead came home with a perfect dasboard & heater box.
The MX5 club of Queensland is held a sprint track day at Queensland Raceway today. I recorded some video and photos of the action.
My NA6 ready for some track day fun.
This was my first time around Queensland Raceway and I completed 16 laps of the Sprint circuit and 23 laps of the Clubman. I even managed to do a alternator/waterpump belt change between sessions – I only made the next session by the skin of my teeth and was the last car out of the pits.
My best times of the day: Sprint 1.09.4168 and Clubman 1.11.5856
After a bit of trial and error I took this picture by holding the camera outside of the car. Of all the people I’ve shown the picture to only one person commented (it was a positive comment) about the photo. I thought it was something different but then I am getting the impression that people are getting sick of all my car pictures and car related blog posts.Here is the photo anyhow.
I picked up my motorbike on Saturday. It sounds very different to before, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing…
They had listed on the job card “$500.00 in ‘honda parts’”… I quizzed them on this and they said that the parts list was a mile long and they just summed it up in one line so it wasn’t pages and pages of invoice. I asked to see the parts list and they refused me. They claimed it was a lucky co-incidence that it came to exactly $500 in parts which seems rather unlikely to me but the bike is running again which is a HUGE improvement from before.
I also seem to have fixed the MX5 electrical problems. I fixed it by returning the $220 Federal battery to the shop I bought it from and putting back in the old dodgy cheapo battery that is of much lower capacity. Car runs fine now and hasn’t had any issues with electricity after driving all over town.
Battery shop said they needed to send the Federal away for testing because the problem could be caused by my car.
After a night on the charger I checked out my $200 Federal battery and found it was only 11.53 volts. Straight after a full charge in my experience lead acid batteries hover around 13 volts.
I called up about my motorbike yesterday afternoon and was told that it would now be put off another day because they were waiting upon a gasket, (for the third day in a row) and it would deffinately be finished (for the third day in a row) by the followingafternoon.
I’m sitting in my cubicle cube by myself today. Everyone else has called in sick apparently. After a whole rash of work prior to 10am it’s been relatively quiet today and I’m just biding my time until lunch.
Nothing makes the day go slower than a slow day in the office but I can live in hope that there will be a heap more work later this afternoon to make the time fly by.
Last night I saw an iphone in the flesh for the first time and it was better than I imagined. I was particularly impressed with the graphical interface for displaying sms messages whereby messages from the same contact are displayed in speech bubbles down the screen like a chat program so you can read it like a conversation. It was a simple thing but it was an interface feature that made the device feel welcoming and of a high quality.
I’m sure the iPhone is still big news for most of the world but they’re still not officially for sale in Australia and whilst I know of people who have them I hadn’t had the opportunity to see one firsthand.
If I do end up going to europe I may consider buying one over there, but it would depend on how long I planned to spend there.
This was a big week. I hope to make something of myself at this new company.
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