HSV MX5

brownie · Post by **brownie** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 9:36 pm

Nice !!,Guess i can stop looking at work for you

.
Wasn't having any luck finding anything at all for you

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 7:52 am

Have managed to get a pair of Jamex Seats and harnesses. Not FIA approved, but good enough to hold my skinny white butt in the seat when taking it around the track. Last time out when the car was running, had to brace myself in with one knee up against the door, and the other knee against the centre console.

Not a good look, and a few bruises afterwards.

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 10:39 am

Well I just got the invoice from Fedex for the dial cluster that I got from Canada, and just had a heart attack. $500 for them to send it over, holy shit!!!

Looks like their policy is to ship everything priority unless you ask for it be just normal freight. Everything else I have got from overseas, the supplier has arranged the shipping thru Fedex, and it is been less than $100 for larger and heavier items, so I made the assumption that if I arranged the freight via them that it would be much the same, maybe a little bit more as I am not dealing with them as much, boy was I ever wrong. Can now see where they get never assume anything as you make an ASS (arse) of U and ME.

Let my mistake be a warning to everyone else when dealing with this guys, make sure they aren't doing priority shipping.

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Fri Oct 07, 2011 1:02 pm

Another visit to the chop shop last week, expecting to see not much happened, and well what do you know, there is a little MX-5 with a big bit of alloy sitting in the engine bay. And a diff mounted in the rear subframe as well. And axles and drive shaft almost done.

OMG, OMG, OMG, starting to get excited again, like a giddy little school girl.

ETA for being on the road is before end of November.

Header have to be HPC, engine bay needs to be sprayed, radiator fabricated, and wiring done, otherwise, almost there. Oh, and apparently the boot space is going to be filled up with swirl tank etc for fuel. Guess nothing is going to be going in the boot anymore.

punkoutnz · Post by **punkoutnz** » Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:24 pm

Now that's a sight to behold!

SLYDIT · Post by **SLYDIT** » Fri Oct 07, 2011 6:19 pm

I LOVE GOOD OLD FASHIONED ENGINEERING!
the LS swaps on here are just great... i bet Mr Mazda never imagined such a beast in 1989!

see if you can get them to fab the swirl tank along side the main tank just in front of the strutt tops...that way you won't lose boot space.
i am talking about that space that hides behind the cover panel that houses the jack handle etc...

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:52 am

Just to add to the mungrelness of the car, have decided to swap out the rear standard callipers (cause they looked so little compaired to the large disks) and put in a set of 2 pot Nissan units from a Skyline GTS25T. Down side of this (other than having Nissan scribbled down the side of them) is that they don't have a handbrake cable attachment, so have to setup a hydraulic handbrake.

So, we have a Mazda body, Holden running gear, Nissan brakes, and a Subaru diff mount. What other manufacturers can I shove in there.

Guess at some stage, going to have to grind that name off the callipers, and get them re-coated.

punkoutnz · Post by **punkoutnz** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 10:27 am

Pull out the centre console and put a bench seat from an old Falcon in there? Haha. Sounds good though mate! Nothing like a Japanese parts bin to keep things interesting.

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 10:41 am

Hmmm, thought about it, but turns out they are too wide, oh well, just going to have to find some other Ford part to shove in there

sprsta · Post by **sprsta** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 1:38 pm

could add garrett to the list of manufacturers

biff · Post by **biff** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 3:54 pm

Or Vortech

-----Original Message-----
From: sprsta [mailto:mx5talk@mx5forum.co.nz]
Sent: Thursday, 27 October 2011 1:38 p.m.
To: mx5talk@mx5forum.co.nz
Subject: [MX5] Re: HSV MX5

could add garrett to the list of manufacturers

---------------------------------------------

Sent from an mx5forum.co.nz topic here:
http://www.mx5forum.co.nz/viewtopic.php?p=46980#46980

---------------------------------------------

[Posted via external email]

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 10:17 pm

Been a while since I posted anything on this subject and the build. Have been bum up and head down trying to do as much work to pay for this as possible.

Intention was to have this on the road 1st December, well, that date has been and gone, so poos to that.

Haven't seen the car for a little while now, the last time was when I went down to pick up the Jamex seats, as they wouldn't fit. Apparently the larger size do, not the ones with the narrow bum. The medium size seat is 10mm bigger in the bum, but 30mm narrower in the shoulder, go figure. The problem that I now have, is because the transmission tunnel is wider to take the T56, that the movement of the seat forward is going be restricted, so no short arses will be driving it.

Have also ditched the plan of putting the Nissan 2pots on the rear, as they were going to require a hydraulic handbrake, and in the interest of costs and less stuffing around and getting the car on the road, they have been shelved for the moment, so just will have to look dorky for a little while with the 6pots on the front and the tiny little standard brakes on the back only covering half the rotor.

Will try and dig out the last set of photos that I took

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 10:26 pm

Well, it at least has a radiator. Have had to order intake kit from Flynin Miata, as bonnet wouldn't shut with any of the hoses that we tried using, bum.

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 10:29 pm

Now this is what I call a real short shift kit

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 10:32 pm

And this is what is underneath that very short shifter

fleet1 · Post by **fleet1** » Sat Dec 31, 2011 2:53 pm

Someone else has done it, 6.5 litre and 6 speed, NZ car, and it can fly!

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:58 pm

fleet1 wrote:Someone else has done it, 6.5 litre and 6 speed, NZ car, and it can fly!

It's actually a 6.2 LS3, and you can read a bit more about it in a previous post of mine (link below), plus that post has a link to a US forum site with the full build process in it.

At last time I read about it, it still had the original MX5 diff/axles etc, and this will be where mine is different, that it will have the HSV LSD diff and axles, so will be build more to drive in anger on the track.

http://www.mx5forum.co.nz/viewtopic.php ... sc&start=0

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:08 pm

did another trip to the garage to see how things are progressing. Drive shaft is made up and in, and fuel system partially setup.

Apparently the traction control is going to be hooked up as well, so maybe won't be a complete handful in the wet all the time. Have told them to put the switch in for turning it off.

Anyway, biggest hurdle now is wiring loom for the LS1 engine and figuring out what wire does what. I anyone knows of where I can find a diagram for a 2004 HSV LS1 would be greatly appreciated. Have asked a mate in the HSV club to see whether he knows of anyone with one or not.

SLYDIT · Post by **SLYDIT** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:44 pm

maybe do search for Pontiac GTO (monaro)wiring looms??

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 9:11 pm

That's right, forgot the Monaro was sold in the US at the Pontiac. I was searching on Vauxhall GTO since that was the name it was sold in the UK as.

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 1:34 pm

have been on the blower to the mechanic, ECU ended up going off to Torque Performance to get redone, and all the codes removed for things that are no longer there (like ABS, Airbags, Immobilisers, all that sort of non essential stuff). So there goes another wade of cash on that, sigh.

Apparently the ECU is back down there, and just about all wired up. They reckon it is just about finished, so I am going to try and get down there to have a look either this week or next and see where it actually is up to.

Mad Kiwi · Post by **Mad Kiwi** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:03 am

Sweet, can't wait to see and hear it running!!!!!

Then you can tell us all how to do it on the cheap

(as cheap goes for a v8 conversion

)

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:38 am

Want cheap for a V8 conversion, go with a Lexus engine, with a celica gearbox. There is no cheap when using the Holden stuff, the running gear alone without even touching it will set you back close to $10K for second hand, and $20-$25K for new.

For the $10K using the Toyota stuff, I would guess be about what is would cost you all up for the conversion, plus the cost of the car.

So then the question has to be why I went with the Holden running gear, and believe me I ask myself the same questions everytime I have to pay for something on this, but it comes down to a couple of things, firstly the complete running gear is built around something that weighs 1800KG, so in something weight just over a 1000kg (or under if I can find some bits to loose weight in the engine bay) nothing is really going to be under stress, and will handle the punishment of track use without hopefully having a major breakage (well, that's the theory anyway). And the second is pretty simple really, POOOOOWWWEEEEEERRRRR. 180KW for the Lexus, 285KW for the HSV, and then they are so easy to extract way more power out of them if I can figure how to put it to the ground without wrecking a set of tires every 10m.

The other cheap way of doing a V8 conversion, is buy one that someone else has already done, you'll never build one for cheaper yourself.

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:39 am

Went down to the TRON just the Friday gone, and, well not a lot has happened. Maybe a bit of wiring, maybe, maybe not.

So the list stands Headers to be HPC coated, engine bay to be painted, engine to be fired up (hope after all this, the engine/gearbox is ok, as these have never been running), HSV axles to be shortened, airbox made up, interior to be all put back in.

3 weeks is the time frame given, so that puts me to 6th April, however they never said when that 3 weeks starts from, could be in a months time.

One problem that I have and not sure why is the air intake pipe is squeeshed between the bonnet and the place where it sits. All the photos that I have seen of the conversion, the bonnet looks stock, and the pipe hasn't been squashed down. Someone mentioned that they thought the bulge in the bonnet goes further down on a NA8C compaired to the NA6C, but I have never noticed anything. Some of the ribs have been cut out on the underside of the bonnet to fit it better, but still squashed.

Mad Kiwi · Post by **Mad Kiwi** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 12:44 pm

Donavan, can you contact me either PM or 021 757772. re car parts.

Cheers
Mark.

HSV MX5

HSV MX5

MX 5 V8

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