From the ashes... What did you do to your roadster today?

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Wed May 28, 2014 2:35 am

BRM wrote:Hammering the stock seat?

I'm keen to see how this turns out

Yup, I did a test to see if my butt actually fitted in the indent at the bottom...and it did. So I've hammered out the scooped bit so that it's a bit wider and stretched it downwards so that it's level with the carpet. Sitting in it I'm now literally sitting on the floorpan. I'm about 190cm (6'3") and it feels like i've got at least 15cm+ of headroom sitting on the floor like that.

Sheet metal doesn't sound like much fun to sit on for any length of time though so i've put some 10mm thick closed cell foam on the bottom and bevelled the edges of it to match the contour of the scoop/bottom of the seat. I wanted to keep the stock bolsters, so I've done a foamectomy so extreme I think it deserves a new name.

I call it a foampocolypse:

Because the bottom of the seat is so much lower, the seat cover won't really work without modifying/cutting it up. I didn't want to ruin mine if the seat turns out to be un-liveable or uncomfortable like this, so I've made a really rough/quick seat cover out of an old bean-bag that was going to be thrown out so that I can test out the seat to see if it's comfortable/liveable for a while. If it works out I'll try modify the stock cover to fit so it matches the passenger seat.

Angreal · Post by **Angreal** » Wed May 28, 2014 7:18 am

That is cool. When I skimmed through the photos initially I thought I was looking at a cake until I saw the second photo

4A-GE · Post by **4A-GE** » Wed May 28, 2014 9:03 am

Cake-ectomy.

Got from pakuranga to albany. When I left, the fuel gauge was on the E line. Still not sure where empty really is, because that was 33kms.

warrior · Post by **warrior** » Wed May 28, 2014 10:13 am

Empty is when you are on the side of the road not going anywhere.

Angreal · Post by **Angreal** » Wed May 28, 2014 10:48 am

I think I saw once upon a time a custom face guage that had the volume of fuel that was supposed to be left in the tank at each point. From memory the bottom line they put 4L although I have no idea how accurate they were or the gauges are.
Best thing to do is fill it to the brim and see how much fuel you manage to squeeze in and then work out how close to true empty you were

Otherwise just keep driving until it cuts out

GRUVBB · Post by **GRUVBB** » Wed May 28, 2014 11:02 am

E stands for....Dont call us..we'll call you!

Skilfil · Post by **Skilfil** » Wed May 28, 2014 12:27 pm

Yeah used to run my MX5 a little low sometimes out of laziness (cbf stopping anywhere to get petrol) and it would go a long while on E.

Not doing that in the turbo one though, chances are I'd hit boost and thats the tank emptied out in one go.

CordedBowl · Post by **CordedBowl** » Wed May 28, 2014 4:47 pm

Hey Junkwhale, I dunno if the 10mm closed cell foam would be enough for your butt, it might be fine for short drives but over a distance it'd get annoying, I have offcuts (many meters) of closed cell foam that could be layered up that's yours if you want to come pick it up, but I seem to remember you're at the other end of the country (can't see location of that I've started typing this!)

The next best thing I could recommend is the foam used in sound deadening/camping mattresses, it's about 30mm thick and can be had for cheap, just turn it upside down so the knobbly bits aren't poking your butt (although on this forum, whatever floats your boat!)

Awesome diy though.

Edit: in regards to the E on the gauge, it's very close to the middle horizontal mark on E, quite beneath the last tick. Ask me how I know

4A-GE · Post by **4A-GE** » Thu May 29, 2014 10:04 am

I had 2.21 litres left.

Dumped figures into an online calculator; taking into consideration that I don't run it that low all the time, I'm doing about 8.5L/100km. I'm ok with this, but I'm not averse to making it run that wee bit leaner I've read about to save moar.

marcellarius · Post by **marcellarius** » Thu May 29, 2014 4:39 pm

Junkwhale: you must be narrower than me

I started doing an aggressive foamectomy but found past a certain point I was just sitting on top of the bolsters and the seat back hinge/adjuster was going to get annoying if I cut it any lower

4A-GE · Post by **4A-GE** » Thu May 29, 2014 8:22 pm

Drove it to subway after working on a toyota tercel all day, which seems to have a penchant for pissing water everywhere.
I'm laying blame on the brown radiator of death.

4A-GE · Post by **4A-GE** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 12:38 pm

Changed fuel filter today; added rubber plumbing washers to the speaker screws instead of foam. Worked a tread. Also pulled more insulation out because racecar, etc.

warrior · Post by **warrior** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 12:51 pm

Well done mate...new fuel filter = 25hp

4A-GE · Post by **4A-GE** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 5:49 pm

Radiator gap cover thing = 25hp also? Managed to find one of them locally.
All this after dealing to mums car yesterday (which hadn't been touched in an optimistic 20,000kms) - I feel so accomplished.

warrior · Post by **warrior** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 6:54 pm

Nah mate now you are just being silly. The radiator cover is only worth 18hp

evel · Post by **evel** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 10:57 pm

did my left rear control arm bushes. Everything smells of burning rubber.

evel · Post by **evel** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 11:08 pm

and did more test fitting

BRM · Post by **BRM** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 11:15 pm

Junkwhale wrote:

Update?

Angreal · Post by **Angreal** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 12:57 am

warrior wrote:Nah mate now you are just being silly. The radiator cover is only worth 18hp

I dunno... Google points towards 25hp :p

Mad Kiwi · Post by **Mad Kiwi** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 8:27 am

Google also averages in the club roadster factor so on a dynapro it really is only 7hp....5.7hp on any other dyno.....

This is proven on many other sites except Miata Turbo where they say it actually loses 3.6 Hp and turns you in to a some sort of weird deviate with a penchant for parts of the male anatomy and a major aversion to Noobs who always post intelligent questions on their first few posts.......YMMV....JMHO.

Skilfil · Post by **Skilfil** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 10:00 am

Haha Mad Kiwi you sound well versed in tip toeing the minefields of MiataTurbo, they can be pretty ruthless on the newbies.

warrior · Post by **warrior** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 12:35 pm

There is one word that describes 90% of the people on Miata turbo forum. WANKER,S yep that's it.

warrior · Post by **warrior** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 12:36 pm

Evel, how far do your flares stick out?

Angreal · Post by **Angreal** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 2:50 pm

warrior wrote:There is one word that describes 90% of the people on Miata turbo forum. WANKER,S yep that's it.

98%

warrior · Post by **warrior** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 4:03 pm

Sorry, you are correct. I was never good at math.

From the ashes... What did you do to your roadster today?

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