Hoodedreeper's MX5 - The Purple Monster

[hoodedreeper]

Not much to update car wise. The silver daily had its yearly inspection,all was well except it needed a steering rack gaitor and the handbrake adjusting. The bodywork was advised too which i knew about. Both rear arches need replacing along with the front wings/fenders. Bumper may aswell be replaced as thats got some bad paint cracks.

I got messed around with a part that was for sale so put the money towards a hard top for the daily. Paint isn't in great condition,but the whole car will be painted eventually.

I removed the stickers today,to find how poorly the hard top spoiler had been fitted. They've bonded on 3 brackets to the glass,one side was taped on...so that needs looking at

Also noticed some scratches on the glass just below these spoiler brackets,looks like either sanding or grinding marks?

Over the past few months i've been collecting and building up a small video games collection. Today i moved into my fiance's place. I had already sorted out the man cave ready for the move in

Yes that is my Mazdaspeed boot spoiler hanging from the ceiling,storage space is limited lol

 

[hoodedreeper]

Back in April you may remember i had a photoshoot for Fast Car Magazine

Today the feature was published

As mentioned in the Magazine,a special thanks to H&S Performance, Autodoc, All-Trims, Garagestar, Auto-Genie, Rev9, J's Garage, Jass Performance, Revlimiter, BN Media, MX5Nutz and my friends/family

 

[hoodedreeper]

Today i received the photos from the magazine shoot,photos courtesy of Matt Woods Photography

There were 70 images but i've picked the best 10 (in my opinion)

 

[hoodedreeper]

The 1st September marked 4 years since my previous MX5 caught fire. On the 10th Sept it'll also be 4 years since i got the Purple MX,wow how time flies!

The weekend just gone saw the return of JAE (Japanese Auto Extravaganza), the UK's only 4 day jap show. It was also a year ago i had the running/ECU problems coming back from the same show. You'll be glad to hear i made it there and back with no issues

We went up with the club we always attend with,although attendance was very low this year,but we still had an awesome weekend. The week before the show i had one of the organizers ask for my car to be inside the hall for their Show & Shine

We stuck around till the end and watched the awards (couldnt get the car out any sooner). And to a huge surprise I ended up winning Best Mazda! Its great to finally see a reward for the work. A mag feature and trophey in one month is pretty awesome!

Monday just gone and me and the other half started to strip the daily MX. The MOT (annual inspection for those overseas) had an advisory of the passenger wing/fender due to corrosion. Managed to source a replacement along with another front bumper for a very good price. (bumper had severe paint cracking,so it made sense to change that too)

The bottom didn't look great...

Gave the inner wing and bumper fixing areas a coating of underseal before refitting

All back together along with an import plate surround and some 6mm front and 10mm rear spacers.

We also picked up a twin exhaust and silenced de-cat. The initial plan was to cut the existing bumper and eventually fit an R-Package rear lip. Then this Auto Joy/VIS Racing fibreglass bumper came up for sale locally so went with that instead

Found out the rear lights were siliconed in,which resulted in 2 snapped studs on the driver side light,luckily i had a spare pair of lights. Also swapped the broken number plate panel for my painted carbon fibre one i had on the other MX

So yeah.... we've done more to the daily MX in the last 2 weeks than we have all year lol

 

[Low Rider]

JAE wasn't packed per-se but Peterborough Arena is a huge improvement over Newark Showground.

 

[hoodedreeper]

Sorry,i meant attendance for our club stand. The show itself was pretty big,but the areas around the hall and barns felt empty

 

[hoodedreeper]

Browsing through the interweb looking at stuff when i get a notification pop up saying https://www.facebook.com/jdmpartsrupewrecht/]JDMParts.rupewrecht had posted an item. Followed the link and it was a Mazdaspeed Trap Timer.

I've only seen a handful of photos of this device and i missed out on one that Dan shared about 6 months ago. So we exchanged a few messages and had agreed for him to bid on it for me. We ended up winning it,it was expensive but who cares,you cant take money to the grave!

I spent the next few days and nights trawling through Yahoo Auctions for more stuff to buy (may aswell include more stuff in with the shipping!) After a week or so waiting for shipping they arrived on my doorstep today

Its all Mazdaspeed....i kinda got an addiction with the brand. Dan won be floor mats,horn push button and the trap timer.

Sadly no box for the Trap Timer but the original instructions were which was a bonus. A big thank you to Randy over at MazdaRoadster for the translation he posted online a few years back,they were a great help!

I also managed to score a few items here in the UK too.

Oil Cap (still waiting for delivery,but this is the actual item)

Carbon Fibre Gear Shifter (i think it's missing the shift pattern sticker on the top?)

I also got from the same seller as the shifter (thanks again Chris Horne) a 360mm steering wheel. The steering wheel had seen better days but certainly looks like its been used well.

My original plan was to strip off the old dye and re-dye it using RevLimiter's blog as a guide. Spoke to a couple of Leather Repair companies and nobody would touch it. Spoke to a local company called Moores Vehicle Trimming based 20mins away from me and they were happy to take on the task.

He quoted a very good price,so agreed and left my details thinking it was a restoration job,turns out it was a retrim.... winner! 9 days later and i receive a call to say it was ready for collection. They said they originally under estimated the duration of the job and it should have been alot more,but they stuck to their word and honoured the original price. Very happy with that and the quality of the work! Will certainly be using them again for any future work.

Here are some before and after

 

[hoodedreeper]

Some photos of it all fitted

I also got bored and painted up a spare Xbox One controller to match the livery of the car lol

 

[hoodedreeper]

An MX5Nutz member kindly sent me an original owners handbook

I also had another book arrive,this time from Japan and purchased through JDMparts Rupewrecht

The Mazdaspeed obsession continued when i stumbled across a damaged A-Spec Type 1 bumper only a couple of hours away

The middle of the bumper is paint flaking off and adhesive tape from the number plate,the damage is in the corner

It had the lower rubber lip and air damn included, the parts that are always sought after for this. Luckily the lip was there,because thats whats keeping it all together lol

Me and the other half took both cars out for a drive to a local meet,would have been rude not to take a photo together

 

[hoodedreeper]

For a month or so I've had problems with the Purple MX5 not starting and the battery going flat. I originally put it down to lack of use and the cold weather. The battery died again last weekend so I fitted a new one and it still wouldn't start. So I got the car up in the air and found the culprit

Made up a new earth strap,and after fighting with the only bloody bolt, it was back together and it fired up first time with no hesitation....winning!
Next on my to-do list was to find some decent headlight bulbs. Working at a Motor Factors I've tried most bulbs we stock/can order in and I've never found anything close to HIDs. HIDs have been ok in the past,but the high beam has always failed no matter which kit i buy.

A few friends have suggested buying LED bulbs, I've always been on the fence about them because of the 'lack of beam pattern'. So i took a chance and ordered a pair of Night Eye bulbs. The base comes apart, so the base is fitted first with the retaining clip,then you insert the bulb and twist to lock it in place. The bulb bases have a heat sink fan to draw out the heat,these are a little noisy but the supercharger and iPod its hard to hear them
I've done some comparisons to a standard halogen, Ring 150% and the Night Eye. I didn't realise till afterwards that the Night Eyes were 180* out,so were effectively on high beam.

Something I've been wanting to do for awhile was yellow tinted headlights. Lamin-X was my first option but after seeing the price and size of the tint sheet,i gave it a miss and went with a cheaper eBay equivalent

With the Night Eyes flipped round 180* so they're pointing in the correct direction, I took some photos with the tint. Not as bright, but such an improvement over what i had. As always, its hard to photograph the true light

 

[hoodedreeper]

I guess the term 'daily driver' should be used loosely now, as the car has turned into a project in itself lol
You may remember us picking up the damaged Mazdaspeed Bumper. The original intention was to have a go repairing it myself, but lack of time prevented this so I dropped it off to a local body shop. Expectations were certainly exceeded and they've done an incredible job!
Photo again when we got it....

While the bumper was being repaired we finally got the car into another bodyshop to have the rear arches repaired. The piece that joins the rear section of the sill were very bad, but its solid now

You may remember the rear bumper being replaced by a fibreglass item. I found out the bumper is a potential copy of the VIS Racing Magnum kit. After fitting it the rear corners seemed to poke out. After finding out what it was, noticed it should have matching arches. Luckily the guy i bought it from had the matching front arches but not the front bumper (which i'm not keen on anyway, hence the Mazdapseed bumper)
So with the original arches repaired the fibreglass ones were fitted and semi-blended in. While it was there I also got the VIS Racing Magnum rear bumper repaired and primed aswell as all the dings,dents and scratches filled and primed

I trial fitted some 20mm hubcentric spacers to the driver side and although it helped a little bit, the wheels are far from being flush. I then tried an additional 10mm on the front and it was better, and it'd probably suffice due to the weak specs of the Watanabes

 

[hoodedreeper]

With the dilemma of the wheels spacers, I thought it'd be best to sell the Watanabes and buy another set of wheels. As much as it pained me to advertise them, they sold within a few hours and I got the full asking price.
So I spent today playing around with wheels and seeing what would fit. Started off with the 15x9 ET0 Rota RKR from the Purple MX, knowing they'd be waay too wide for these arches.
Guess I was wrong....

This obviously wasn't a straight fit The rear coilovers were wound up 15mm and the lips of the fibreglass arches/flares were shaved. The fronts are untouched but are currently catching.
I'm hoping to cut the original front wing/fender and hope its enough clearance. I've already got a set of 195/50r15 Yokohama Parada Spec 2s sitting at work which i'll be using. Don't really want to run any more stretch and cambered front wheels look awful.
New wheels have been picked and hopefully ordered tomorrow. Will keep that a secret until they arrive.

 

[hoodedreeper]

We finally got a day off with some decent weather so got a chance to have a look at the front arches/fenders. At first glance it was quite obvious what the problem was...

The lip had folded out on itself and was cutting into the tyre. I tried to cut the original metal higher,but I couldn't get me and the grinder in with enough visibility to cut it smoothly. So I opted for cutting the lip off, flush with the fibreglass. Smoothed off the surface and gave it a coat of Zinc primer followed by black Underseal.
(photo before the zinc primer and underseal)

The new wheels arrived, Rota Grid V 15x9j ET0 and I fitted my Yokohama Pada Spec 2 195/50r15s too. It kills me to sell genuine wheels to get copies but unfortunately we don't have the money to buy 'real' wheels at the moment.

 

[hoodedreeper]

The silver MX5 was originally purchased as a daily car but also a joint mini project between me and the other half. As you can see the car has turned into a whole new project. I've now given my half of the car to the other half so its now hers. But i'll keep on updating with the build progress.
The fuel consumption isn't great and its starting to become expensive to run. Infact, the 2 weeks i drove the Purple MX to work it used less fuel than what the Silver MX currently uses!
With future plans of having a mini me some day, it was time to adult and get a suitable sensible daily. Of course i had to have a Mazda and this was for sale not far from me.
Mazda 6 Takuya
2012 (facelift)
2.2TD
68k miles
2 Owners
Its got half heated leather,dual climate control, 18" alloys, bluetooth stereo and a couple of other bits and pieces (pretty standard stuff for modern cars,but luxuries for someone whos driven MX5s for the past 6-7 years)
I was looking at the Estate version which happened to be a Sport model (had Xenon lights, Bose Audio etc) but it had sold by the time i got there. I'm happy with the Hatch,plus it looks better IMO.
I've already been looking at the Garage Vary,AutoExe and Damd parts list, luckily for my bank account they only do pre-facelift stuff No doubt i'll end up doing stuff to do,i can't leave anything stock for long

 

[hoodedreeper]

It was an early start this morning, it was time to paint the Silver MX5 (yay!) A friend lent us his unit and all his tools and equipment for the day. Progress went extremely well and we were ready to paint by lunch time.
We used Gloss Graffiti paint supplied by Illuminarty, the finish is very good IMO and we haven't flattened it. We also fitted a Project-M (aka Vindi) Bootlid with a blended in ducktail along with the Mazdaspeed front bumper. Just a few changes and a lick of paint can totally transform a car! The Bronze Rota Grid Vs contrast nicely against the blue too

 

[hoodedreeper]

Cant believe it was 1 week ago we painted the MX5! Finally had a clear evening to take some photos

 

[hoodedreeper]

Its with a heavy heart i write this, but I feel I've reached a point where it's time to move on from the Purple Monster. The project needs a lot more money spent before it's finished and unfortunately I feel reluctant to spend it.

The car will be broken in September, that way I can still enjoy it over this show season and use up the remaining Car Insurance. I have a parts price list drafted up and i'm more than happy to take deposits for parts,but they wont be removed until September.

Its time to own my dream car, the R34 Skyline (GTT), I know its very cliche, but oh well.

 

[hoodedreeper]

Some photos from recent shows/meets/outings taken by me and others

 

[hoodedreeper]

So today myself and Lu embarked on a 7hr round trip to go view a car. Turned out the car was just as clean in person as it was in the photos. After a test drive and another poke around the car i made an offer and he accepted!

Nissan Skyline R34 GTT Series 2

RB25DET

Manual

94k Miles (speedo still in Kmh)

Imported into the UK in 2016

Full respray in 2017


The car has a custom turbo back exhaust,HKS Mushroom filter and an aftermarket stereo, everything is stock!

It only made sense to grab some photos with the MX5 while i can

 

[Huggy444]

Cannot wait to see where you go with this car.
What's your initial plans?

Sent from my LG-H850 using Micra Sports Club mobile app

 

[hoodedreeper]

The time had come to start stripping the car, it went extremely smoothly and we ended up doing it all in 2 days.

My friend Matt purchased the shell, he has previously built 2x drift MX5s both 1JZ powered,S14 rear subframe,skyline diff etc etc. He's been wanting a car that had history and this was the perfect car.

The car will be staying the same Honda Amethyst Purple and will still have a BGW! This was awesome to hear

Here's a couple of photos of his first build which he'll be using as a carbon copy for the new build

So i guess thats the end of an era, MX5 ownership over the past 7 years has taught me alot whether its mechanical side of things or choosing modifications. I've met some amazing people cos of this little car, and I've been lucky to call some friends. I can't thank every single person enough who has read/viewed/liked/commented on the build threads.

Thank you all again

 

[MaxK11C]

Wow, heck of an upgrade Reeper. I trust you’ll be making a blog for the liner here, to keep us all updated?