Banga

Any tips for a fabricator who would be willing to remake a brake pedal for me to meet cert requirements? Have tried a couple locally (Rotorua) and they’re not super keen to take it on.

Definitely appreciate the sharing of previous pain! Bottom hose is the bleed. This is what I’m following, https://www.retroford.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/MX5-Gearbox-Technical-Guide.pdf and your right about the hose not being great - I’ll have another go to see if I can make that better. Picture doesn’t have the box in the right orientation, will rotated further clockwise so should give me space in the gearbox tunnel.

Need to keep an eye on this thread too. Thanks! I’m just following the set up guide/pics from Retroford with those- do you think it will give me issues?

I won’t give up my day job but pretty bloody stoked with how my first go at painting went!

Exciting arrival yesterday. Looks pretty good but will need to have the brake pedal remade to meet cert requirements- which wasn’t a surprise. Second to last major piece to arrive- just waiting on the surge tank now.

Mk2 cortina, from what I can see it didn’t have a breather or vent for the tank originally but I’ll be one for efi. So I was just going to take one off the filler neck.

Fuel system question. just finalising my set up, decided to go with an under floor surge tank solution so that I didn’t need to seal off the boot area. Am I interpreting the requirements correctly that I can have a breather line off the filler neck in the boot routed outside without needing to seal of the boot?

Then it was onto actually fitting stuff - hopefully for the last time. Diff head was treated to new bearings and an LSD. New oversized axles and new bearings fitted. New brake hardware and new shoes fitted after stripping and tidying up the cylinders. Test fit shininess.

Masked up and sprayed a couple of new coats of stone chip in the wheels wells. looks a heap better in there now.

Another productive week plodding away on things. Attacked the gearbox with an angle grinder to make space for the starter motor, did some more cutting to fit the release bearing and made up the hoses to suit.

Making good progress. Pedal box ordered this week after discussions with LVVTA and my certifier- will need to get the brake pedal remade but otherwise should be good. Seats are in, new seat guides in the trans tunnel made. Just need to make doubler plates for under the floor now. Spent some more time on the engine, new oil pick up, sump and dipstick assembly fitted, new cambelt and water pump fitted and painted the cam cover. Spent some time sanding and polishing the exhaust manifold too. Also added the accessory drive assembly. The Retroford stuff isn’t cheap but you get what you pay for, everything fits nicely and is really well made. Have also seam sealed and painted the floor pan, in hind sight probably should have sprayed it but not too many people will see it.

Thanks - that saves me pulling the rear housing off! looks like I can go with one of these as plan B so no big drama after all https://www.summitracing.com/parts/dak-sen4165

Not sure about a drive gear, will need to pull the tail shaft housing off to take a look I guess! This is a 5 speed box, so pretty rare outside of Europe it seems. Will have a look at lying miata!

Hoping someone one might be able to help or point me in the right direction. I’m hoping I can add a Vehicle speed sensor to my box so that I can sort out the speedo on my cortina. I bought a Speedhut speed box which will take out from a VSS and turn it into a mechanical output which will mate up to the standard Cortina speedo. I assumed the NC MX5 5 speed box would have a VSS… but assumption is the mother of all fuck ups it seems! It looks like the tail shaft housing has the casting marks/pattern for a VSS so I’m wondering if I can just modify my housing using those marks and add a VSS? https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/mazda,2007,mx-5+miata,2.0l+l4,2002662,electrical,speed+sensor,10634 Any thoughts out there?

A good few days progress, hard work in a black shed with 29 degree days. Tunnel is all closed up again, biggest welding job I’ve done so plenty to learn. Finished off the two driveshaft hoops as well, front one was straight forward but the rear one needed a little more thought/work. Fitted crush tubes for the new gearbox mount. Have done more cleaning on the engine and painted the block too. Back to work tomorrow so progress will slow down again.

Slowly chipping away at this- hopefully some more free hours coming up shortly. Didn’t have to cut to much out of the tunnel to get the MX5 gearbox to fit, just some massaging and patching to tidy up with now. Drive shaft and exhaust fitted- exhaust tucks up nice and close to the floor. have modified the handbrake cable routing a little to make it all fit and tacked up the first drive shaft hoop. I think I have found a pedal box solution which is essentially a modified MK2 set which retains the original box/mounting for classic racing racing requirements. Just waiting to hear back on whether the brake pedal is one piece to meet cert requirements- even if it isn’t I’ll probably still go with it and have a new pedal made down here.

Further progress. Need to work out a new solution now. Standard master cylinders are a no go with ITBs especially if I want to run any kind of air filter.

Successful trip to Auckland today- mocked up for now but plenty of cleaning/painting to do!

New set up involves going away from a column change box which means I can drag out some Cortina GT seats which have been in storage for 20 odd years. They were looking pretty sorry for themselves but Ross from Autosport was able to recover them in the same vinyl he did the my bench seats with back in 2014. Pretty happy with how they came out!

Mostly picture less update So I think I had a kind of a mid life crisis at the beginning of the year and suddenly had a hankering for something a bit quicker- a B7 Audi RS4 wagon was top of the list but being a risk manager I started looking at ongoing running costs and the prices jumping about $10k in the space of a couple of months so back to the drawing board. Started to look more closely at upgrading the Cortina and giving myself a bit of an project. Im an office worker not a fabricator but I do have plenty of experience with Lego- so started looking into options that fit that niche and very quickly stumbled upon Retroford in the UK- and then promptly got carried away ordering a huge chunk of their catalogue - after being scammed trying to buy an engine in NZ they even sourced an engine and gearbox for me. I paid my money and waited and waited and waited - thanks COVID! My pallet was on the dock in Singapore for so long I was wondering if it needed a Visa. But it’s finally here in NZ and I should get it before Christmas - not quite the winter project I was planning but it’s here, well in Auckland. Will hopefully have more regular updates in the coming months (years?)

Crikey! 6 years between updates and all my previous photos are bung! Will have to see if I can update them I guess. The mk2 was on the road for the majority of that time and generally just ticked along without too much in the way of changes/updates. We left Wellington and headed up to Rotorua and I spent a bit of time working across in Melbourne but COVID put an end to that regular commute so back to a full time NZ job again now. One thing I did manage to get my hands on during that period was a set of Simmons V4s in an offset to suit a Cortina, I’ve pined for a set of these since I was a teenager with a Mk2 - not cheap but don’t come up too often either! This was after a quick polish up and with 20 year old rock hard tyres that didn’t hold air. They are 7” front and 8” inch. Managed to get some centre caps and threw them on. Already have a set of wheels with dark grey centre’s so… Now have all new hardware and new inner rear barrels to make them 7” all round. I haven’t yet got them on the car for reasons that will become apparent shortly.

The link Cletus posted on the previous page covers it pretty much - https://lvvta.org.nz/documents/standards/LVVTA_STD_Exhaust_Gas_Emissions.pdf 2.3(1) is the section to look into.

So venting into the enclosed filer assembly is good enough? I don’t necessarily have to tap into the manifold/runners?

Pretty sure it has to be recirculated into the engine to get a cert?