linearentropy

I had another vehicle a few years ago with a Megasquirt 1 powering a 1UZ.. and it ran that shit flawlessly. I certainly have nothing against the megasquirt hardware or tuning software, hell I still have a license for Tunerstudio. But when the one tuner that advertises tuning Megasquirts has tuned a good friends MX5s that blew up shortly after. It kindof puts me off. While I'll be trying to road tune it myself, I know what I don't know. And tuning for ITBs seems like quite the fuckaround, so it'd be nice to take it somewhere reputable for an hour or 2 of dyno time to sort out any issues and to make sure I don't ping the motor to death. That being said I can get a plug & play Megasquirt for the right price, I have knowledge of the tuning software, and the whole point of going down this path was to learn more about tuning a vehicle from scratch.

Thats exactly why I've ruled out Megasquirt. Theres a 'uuuuge community online of MX5 owners that run megasquirt, even people that build custom boards tailored to exactly what fellow hairdressers need. These are usually priced very competitively too. Unfortunately if you ask about them on the nz mx5 facebook pages you'll find that theres only really a couple of people in NZ that bother to tune them, and theres a lot of people with blown motors who wouldnt recommend going to said tuners after learning the hard way.

That could end up being a good thing for me. I'm a developer by trade, so I'm used to software with questionable UI. Unfortunately It'll end up costing 2000nzd + gst to get one by the look of it. Literally double the cost wiring up a Link which I find hard to justify on a MX5. Especially when its only for dorts & not power. Wish it could be me. But its unlikely unless the boss is feeling flush come bonus time, if there even is a bonus time this year.

I'd heard the name before and just assumed they were a 'second tier' ecu, for lack of a better word. Also I hadn't realised they had a plug & play. Looks like it ticks pretty much all of my boxes except alternator control, which I've just messaged them about. Unfortunately it looks like the only NZ dealer listed on their site seems to have moved on from selling their products, and I'm not overly keen on dealing with customs on a purchase that big if it can be avoided. What in your opinion makes it a superior product?

The plug & play is obviously a big selling point for me. The other being the number of inputs & outputs you seem to get on even the mid tier products. 14 user definable inputs on the Elite 1000, + 4 for trigger & map. Just realised customs would have their way with me if I bought one though. That alone is enough to give it a miss.

Had a bit of a poke around the Arduino site & documentation. Its something i've wanted to get into for years but I never had any practical use for one until now. I'll definitely take you up on that if i go down that path. Just to make my decision harder, Haltech just started a black friday sale, 15% off most of their products. Fingers crossed a Link dealer over here does the same.

I know what I'll be spending the rest of my work day researching then. I love the idea of logging anything and everything like you do on your Carina, especially if it can be done without breaking the bank.

I had a look at that a while back. I think the better option for me is to buy just the female plug & work from there. Finished up my wiring table this morning. It seems like I might need to step up to a monsoon in order to have launch control & spare inputs for the future. The atom doesn't quite have enough inputs for running everything I want, including a map sensor for before the ITBs go on. This of course brings the costs up a bit more than I would have liked, for the chance I fuck it up and cook something in the ECU or car. It makes the Haltech that little bit more tempting.

The Link PnP is only for the cars up to and including 1995, after which the plug is different.

So I'm wanting to finally setup an aftermarket ecu in my 2000 mx5 so i can have a tinker before throwing some silvertop ITBs on, but sadly Link doesn't offer a plug & play solution. There is a Megasquirt plug&play out of the states, however tuner support here seems to be quite limited and while I will attempt to get a decent road tune going myself, I still want to be able to take it to a tuner to have checked over. Haltech makes a pnp solution that seems perfect until I saw the $2000+ price tag. So I've decided to try build my own patch loom to bridge the mazda loom into the Link loom to run an G4+ Atom. I'm currently whipping up a table to map the oem pins to those on the link plug, similar to whats done here (scroll to bottom, them 99-00 to see a diagram). I've already factored in alternator control with this ebay spec board, and made sure my injectors are high impedance as required by Link. Aaaaaaand this is where I fall flat on my face. Is the any foreseeable issue in just buying a ecu plug off rsonline, buying the Link patch loom and essentially connecting the dots? Im beyond useless with circuits, so I cant make heads or tails of the things I've seen online. If I have to start adding in resistors here & transistors there I might just bite the bullet and get one wired in, but I should be capable enough to build a mini patch loom. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Well the boss went home early so I didn't let the opportunity go to waste. Got a perfectly sized off cut for the right price.

They're just 10min down the road from my work so I'll pop down when I get the chance to check out what they have.

George stocks reckon they don't stock anything similar. Autolign says the same - but will made some for a vast expense. Best idea I've been given is attacking a K-Mart white chopping board with a 44mm hole saw.

Does anyone know of a NZ company that supplied bump stop spacers, or anything polyurethane that looks somewhat like the image below. Ideally for BC coilovers but I should be able to make any other brand equivalents fit. I've been hunting around for a while and I can't seem to find anywhere that can supply them. I've been getting a fair amount of rubbing during hard cornering in on of my MX5s, particularly downhill corners. I've cut away everything I can think of that would be causing this, so the only solution i see is shortening the bump travel. Obviously raising the car isn't an option.

So after the drama with my previous MX5 around having a roll bar & stock seating at cert time, I have a WOF question relating my new mx5 for those of you with weld in halfcages in your cars. Has anyone been through certification, then had a halfcage welded in had any issues at WOF time? I feel like it'll be fine, but I tend to have shite luck with these things. Follow up question would be, if down the line I get an authority card for the vehicle would that be enough to satisfy somewhere like VTNZ?

Ahh.. So the plate would say Mazda rather than Mazda Mod under engine make? What would the threshold be then for the "mod" tag on the plate?

So despite strongly disliking convertibles, I've bought another MX5. I've also bought an ITB setup for it. Do ITBs need a cert? I want to get it certed for suspension asap, but don't want to recert down the road just for the itbs. From a quick read of the rules it seems like it should be fine, as its still naturally aspirated, fuel injected, and shouldn't be adding more than 20% power (although 100% more dorts), does that seem right, or is it worth waiting till I can afford a standalone before getting it certed?

Yeah thats what I'll be doing now. I'm in touch with a couple of people that have Lotus Elise seats they might want to get rid of. They fit perfectly into an MX5. I didn't want to go for a Sparco or what have you for the passenger side as its not exactly girlfriend friendly.

I've since had a few calls with Ken at LVVTA. He has confirmed that it should be measured from the centrepoint and will discuss it with the certifier when he's back from a holiday. However when I asked about the vagueness of the "seatback in a normal driving position" for the passenger side, he wasnt able to provide any real answer. The only solution he gave was to stop the seat from reclining, which the certifier already ruled out because its reversible as well as a potential point of failure. Again the difference the A zone contacting the roll bar or not relies on how far back the seat is reclined. Considering the cert process hasnt technically started, is it worth me finding another certifier who isnt currently on holiday to go with who can discuss it with LVVTA?

Yeah I mentioned it. He just said that in his opinion it should be measured as far back & reclined as possible, because the full range of the seat should be 900mm from the rollbar. I understand where he's coming from since he's putting his name on the safety of the occupants so to speak. Its just frustrating that due to a lack of space for the web-clamp seatbelts, the only option is a fixed back seat for both driver and passenger. Considering the roll-bar itself doesn't meet the certification thresholds it seems rough that its enough to fail a cert.

I've just had a certifier tell me he isn't even going to start the certification process on my MX5 due to the position of its welded in rollbar. Its made by a guy thats done at least 30 for mx5s, and is a MSNZ approved design. The issue is the A interior impact zone. The LVVTA standard (see attachment) and the cagemaker measure the seat from the middle of its fore & aft movement, where as the certifier has measured it from the seat right back. Is there any reason why the certifier is measuring it differently to the standards?

I'm looking to get my MX5 certed with 15x8 wheels in the coming weeks. I've been running 195/50 RE003s for a while but thats not going to cut it for the cert. Toyo UK shows that their 215/45/R15 T1Rs are approved up to an 8" wide wheel, https://www.toyo.co.uk/tire/pattern/proxes-t1-r (click specifications). Unfortunately Toyo NZ doesnt have a similar page on their website, and I was wondering whether or not this UK link would be enough for the certifier to accept the tyre being smaller than a 225?