2006 MX-5 2.0 Option Pack
Discussion
JoeMk1 said:
I have the Cobalt back box (rest of system standard). Sound is subtle, nice burble on the overrun. However, can't recommend it as the tail pipes have started to go rusty after only a few months.
Out of interest, did you disconnect the battery to 'reset' the ECU when you changed the manifold? I have a manifold to go on at some point and was wondering if it was necessary.
That's interesting, but probably not that surprising on the Cobalt backbox given the cost. The ILM has done similar, particularly on the welds.Out of interest, did you disconnect the battery to 'reset' the ECU when you changed the manifold? I have a manifold to go on at some point and was wondering if it was necessary.
I didn't disconnect the battery, but only because I didn't want to set my head unit up again. I hadn't really considered if it would be worth resetting after changing the manifold. I would assume that the primary sensor will report back and everything will be adjusted as needed, but maybe resetting would have sped that process up.
Jimmy Recard said:
Nice work OP! I feel like I should go looking for a new manifold.
Talking of manifolds, I still need to work out how to get the inlet manifold off
Thanks! Talking of manifolds, I still need to work out how to get the inlet manifold off
Do it, I doubt you'll regret it.I wish I'd done the manifold and remap to mine, I believe the remap removes the torque limits in 1st and 2nd (maybe 3rd) from the factory so should be more lively off the line. Cobalt is louder than the mx5parts from my experience, not sure what other brands there are.
Cars looking good, glad to seeing it's getting some track use!
Cars looking good, glad to seeing it's getting some track use!
BigTrak79 said:
Good to see an isofix and rear facing seat in a mx5, i'll be showing that to my wife as she's loathe to let me take our littl'un out in mine.
Mine was surprisingly relaxed about it. I wouldn't take him too far in it, but he seems to love the short journeys we've done. I'm looking forward to his reaction when I take the hardtop off for the first time.I've recently bought a larger seat for him which also has Isofix, but uses 'top tether' rather than a leg at the front of the base. The NC doesn't have a loop for the top tether so I won't be able to take him out in it soon. Unless I fashion something suitable
or just use the seatbelt to retain the seat.Sko77y said:
I wish I'd done the manifold and remap to mine, I believe the remap removes the torque limits in 1st and 2nd (maybe 3rd) from the factory so should be more lively off the line.
I raised this with Blink Motorsport (who will be remapping it in a few weeks)...The lower power in the lower gears is a myth - there are torque limiters' to protect the transmission - we keep these as they are an excellent safety feature but we re-map the throttle to give a far better response.
Accelebrate said:
I raised this with Blink Motorsport (who will be remapping it in a few weeks)...
The lower power in the lower gears is a myth - there are torque limiters' to protect the transmission - we keep these as they are an excellent safety feature but we re-map the throttle to give a far better response.
Same thing no, didn't know they kept them in though. Worthwhile regardless, wish I'd kept mine and gotten it done.The lower power in the lower gears is a myth - there are torque limiters' to protect the transmission - we keep these as they are an excellent safety feature but we re-map the throttle to give a far better response.
Had a slight incident yesterday morning when I encountered a large paint spillage across two lanes of dual carriageway. I thought it looked a bit wet and then forgot all about it until I got out of the car at work...
Thankfully, it looks like it was emulsion and most of it came off with Tesco's jetwash.
I've been stocking up on brake pads. I'm on my second set of Stoptech 'Sport' front pads and I've been very happy with them. No judder or fade, fine when cold on the road, quiet, cheap. I was previously purchasing them from TarmacSportz who mostly sell 350z parts for around £60-70 for a set of front pads. They no longer appear to sell them and I struggled to find another UK retailer. Teigwa list them, but want over £100.
I then discovered that Amazon US will ship them to the UK and the shipping and prepaid import fees are quite reasonable. I ordered both fronts and rears this time which came in at about £110 all in. They arrived in two shipments in under a week from California and Florida.
Here are the links if anyone wants a set:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003K2KORY/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004HEF9XI/
The fronts are 309.11790 the rears are 309.11800. The product titles are confusing, and StopTech seem to have altered some of their product names and dropped the 'Sport' name in some places recently but anything that starts 309. is their most aggressive compound.
Thankfully, it looks like it was emulsion and most of it came off with Tesco's jetwash.
I've been stocking up on brake pads. I'm on my second set of Stoptech 'Sport' front pads and I've been very happy with them. No judder or fade, fine when cold on the road, quiet, cheap. I was previously purchasing them from TarmacSportz who mostly sell 350z parts for around £60-70 for a set of front pads. They no longer appear to sell them and I struggled to find another UK retailer. Teigwa list them, but want over £100.
I then discovered that Amazon US will ship them to the UK and the shipping and prepaid import fees are quite reasonable. I ordered both fronts and rears this time which came in at about £110 all in. They arrived in two shipments in under a week from California and Florida.
Here are the links if anyone wants a set:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003K2KORY/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004HEF9XI/
The fronts are 309.11790 the rears are 309.11800. The product titles are confusing, and StopTech seem to have altered some of their product names and dropped the 'Sport' name in some places recently but anything that starts 309. is their most aggressive compound.
Edited by Accelebrate on Wednesday 26th February 18:04
Brilliant, thanks for the links!
I'm currently using CL5+ which are brilliant but cost £250 for the front set, got some PBS pads on the Christmas deal but heard mixed reviews so will keep them as backup pads.
Are the Stoptech's really that good for track?
I'm currently using CL5+ which are brilliant but cost £250 for the front set, got some PBS pads on the Christmas deal but heard mixed reviews so will keep them as backup pads.
Are the Stoptech's really that good for track?
Edited by kin quick on Sunday 1st March 21:20
Without having tested more exotic options on the same car I couldn't really form any direct comparisons. I've been very happy with them, I have at times stayed out on track for longer than I probably should and haven't yet found their limits, but I guess everyone has different requirements and driving styles.
I was poking around in my wheel arches cleaning off the rest of the paint that I'd driven through. I'd also recently purchased some Bilt Hamber cavity wax and was intending to treat everything I could get to.
From the factory the underside and rear arch liners on the NC are covered in a thick layer of rubber underseal. It's sneaky stuff as visually it looked perfect, but when I tried to remove a plastic bung in the nearside rear arch to insert the cavity wax lance it became clear that there was nothing left but underseal. I got a flapwheel out to assess how far it had gone...
Bother. Not good.
Part of me really wanted to do what any sane person would and hand it over to a garage. However, some of the fun of owning a cheap car is being able to have a go at repairing stuff without worrying about making any expensive mistakes along the way. If it's already full of holes then a few more won't hurt, and I might learn something along the way... So I ordered a MIG welder.
Cutting back the arch liner revealed that it had also spread to a small section of the floor.
After some more cutting I was happy I'd gone back to solid metal. I tried to retain as much as I could to give me plenty of room to cut away more and start again if the welding went badly.
On the hunt for some steel sheet and too impatient to use eBay I visited T P Steelwork in Banbury. I showed them some pictures of what I was tackling and they gave me plenty of sheet offcuts in various thicknesses and some welding tips - a proper fabrication shop and they couldn't have been more helpful.
I spent a long time trying to make my patch panels accurate, assuming it would be easier to weld thin sheet without a big gap to make up.
I ran a few test beads on some scrap bits of sheet metal and watched a lot of YouTube videos. I should have spent longer practicing but I was impatient so I quickly moved onto the real thing.
My first few welds were far from pretty, and I blew a few holes in places. But I went back and got them filled in, I also had the luxury of being able to weld this section from both sides, so I'm fairly confident that it penetrated ok. I found that clamping a thicker piece of steel behind my weld gave the heat somewhere to go.
I covered it all in zinc primer and seam sealer. As AvE would say - "A grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't"
I then moved onto the easier of the two arch liner panels. The factory sheet is only about 0.5mm thick on these panels. I'd bought a cheap gasless MIG with limited voltage control, and I think flux core wire tends to run quite hot so I knew this would be tricky. I ended up plug welding a strip of 1mm sheet to the back of the existing panel, my logic being that this would give the heat somewhere to go and stop me from constantly blowing holes.
This approach seemed to work. Far from perfect, but not terrible...
This left the tricky corner piece. There wasn't much left of the section that I'd cut out so I made a template using a cereal box (Jordans Country Crisp).
It took me a while to form the replacement patch, but it was oddly therapeutic. Steel is such a forgiving material. Here's the backside of it after a coat of zinc:
I found these welds tricky. My welding helmet made it hard to get inside the wheelarch to see what I was doing, and I was effectively bending back on myself. I also briefly set my hair alight, which didn't help.
Once again, I hid my efforts with plenty of primer and seam sealer. I tried to seal up every join to hopefully keep moisture out.
I then did what I originally set out to do and sprayed cavity wax everywhere. The lance that's included with S-50 seems to work really well.
I covered up my repair with a couple of coats of underseal. Once that's dry it will be covered by the factory fabric(?) arch liner. I also found a section of the floorpan where the factory underseal was loose and corrosion was starting to spread. I removed it, treated it with a rust converter and then primed and undersealed it.
Oddly, the offside of the car in the same areas appears to still be solid. I think the nearside tends to go first as it's driving in the gutter. It's very reassuring to know that I can now hopefully fix whatever goes next.
From the factory the underside and rear arch liners on the NC are covered in a thick layer of rubber underseal. It's sneaky stuff as visually it looked perfect, but when I tried to remove a plastic bung in the nearside rear arch to insert the cavity wax lance it became clear that there was nothing left but underseal. I got a flapwheel out to assess how far it had gone...
Bother. Not good.
Part of me really wanted to do what any sane person would and hand it over to a garage. However, some of the fun of owning a cheap car is being able to have a go at repairing stuff without worrying about making any expensive mistakes along the way. If it's already full of holes then a few more won't hurt, and I might learn something along the way... So I ordered a MIG welder.
Cutting back the arch liner revealed that it had also spread to a small section of the floor.
After some more cutting I was happy I'd gone back to solid metal. I tried to retain as much as I could to give me plenty of room to cut away more and start again if the welding went badly.
On the hunt for some steel sheet and too impatient to use eBay I visited T P Steelwork in Banbury. I showed them some pictures of what I was tackling and they gave me plenty of sheet offcuts in various thicknesses and some welding tips - a proper fabrication shop and they couldn't have been more helpful.
I spent a long time trying to make my patch panels accurate, assuming it would be easier to weld thin sheet without a big gap to make up.
I ran a few test beads on some scrap bits of sheet metal and watched a lot of YouTube videos. I should have spent longer practicing but I was impatient so I quickly moved onto the real thing.
My first few welds were far from pretty, and I blew a few holes in places. But I went back and got them filled in, I also had the luxury of being able to weld this section from both sides, so I'm fairly confident that it penetrated ok. I found that clamping a thicker piece of steel behind my weld gave the heat somewhere to go.
I covered it all in zinc primer and seam sealer. As AvE would say - "A grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't"
I then moved onto the easier of the two arch liner panels. The factory sheet is only about 0.5mm thick on these panels. I'd bought a cheap gasless MIG with limited voltage control, and I think flux core wire tends to run quite hot so I knew this would be tricky. I ended up plug welding a strip of 1mm sheet to the back of the existing panel, my logic being that this would give the heat somewhere to go and stop me from constantly blowing holes.
This approach seemed to work. Far from perfect, but not terrible...
This left the tricky corner piece. There wasn't much left of the section that I'd cut out so I made a template using a cereal box (Jordans Country Crisp).
It took me a while to form the replacement patch, but it was oddly therapeutic. Steel is such a forgiving material. Here's the backside of it after a coat of zinc:
I found these welds tricky. My welding helmet made it hard to get inside the wheelarch to see what I was doing, and I was effectively bending back on myself. I also briefly set my hair alight, which didn't help.
Once again, I hid my efforts with plenty of primer and seam sealer. I tried to seal up every join to hopefully keep moisture out.
I then did what I originally set out to do and sprayed cavity wax everywhere. The lance that's included with S-50 seems to work really well.
I covered up my repair with a couple of coats of underseal. Once that's dry it will be covered by the factory fabric(?) arch liner. I also found a section of the floorpan where the factory underseal was loose and corrosion was starting to spread. I removed it, treated it with a rust converter and then primed and undersealed it.
Oddly, the offside of the car in the same areas appears to still be solid. I think the nearside tends to go first as it's driving in the gutter. It's very reassuring to know that I can now hopefully fix whatever goes next.
shalmaneser said:
Always great to see an AvE reference.
Well done for taking this on yourself, I'm sure you've done a better job there than 95% of MOT patch repairs!
^ WHS Well done for taking this on yourself, I'm sure you've done a better job there than 95% of MOT patch repairs!
Excellent work from a gas-less welder (Horrible stuff that flux cored wire) hope the welder can be converted (upgraded to gas) you'd really do nice work with a bit of gas
shalmaneser said:
Always great to see an AvE reference.
and thank you!B'stard Child said:
Excellent work from a gas-less welder (Horrible stuff that flux cored wire) hope the welder can be converted (upgraded to gas) you'd really do nice work with a bit of gas
Thank you. I dithered around which welder to buy. Welding forums are full of opinion and the more I read the more the required budget increased until I would have been spending more than I felt comfortable investing in something that I might have been terrible at.In the end I cheaped-out and ordered this little Stanley gasless MIG:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stanley-MIKROMAG-Welding-...
My logic being that if it was truly awful Amazon would probably take it back without any hassle. I've seen some of the cheaper Sealey MIGs and wasn't too impressed with them. The Stanley appealed because it's made in Italy by Awelco and seems to be a little less shoddy than anything else at that price point.
I've got a few more non-MX5 welding projects lined up (welding on a bench will seen like a luxury) if I continue to enjoy it I'll buy something bigger and better with gas once I've got a better idea of what to actually look for. I'll also keep an eye on local classifieds and see if anything good crops up. I think the little Stanley will still come in handy as it's so portable, it's also more than paid for itself even if I only end up doing this repair with it.
drgoatboy said:
Fantastic effort! Do seem to be a weak spot on NC and looks like you caught it nice and early.
Out of interest what did you use to form the piece you welded in? Looks very professional!!
Thank you! It was a bit depressing finding rot, but having seen some photos of others I think it could have been worse:Out of interest what did you use to form the piece you welded in? Looks very professional!!
https://www.facebook.com/1401920660101327/posts/17...
I formed the patch by hand using a bench vice for the tighter folds and then a ball-peen hammer against a usefully shaped block of wood for the curvier bits. I had to snip a section of the curved bit out and then weld it back together as there would have been too much material there. I also found it could be manipulated into shape for the final fit much easier once positioned in the hole in the car that it was going to fill.
Nearly every MX5 tuning company around offers some variant of an entry-level tuning package which consists of a manifold and a remap, with a claimed output of around 180bhp, a 23bhp lift over the standard 157bhp.
I'd completed part one of this process by fitting the Racing Beat manifold that I purchased used from BBR. For part two most tuners use tuning software provided by EcuTek, which seems well regarded but requires a pricey license that's linked to each ECU/VIN. BBR charge £600 for an EcuTek remap with other tuners being around the same price. To me this has always felt a little pricey for a remap.
I'd spotted a few alternative options around. There's a long running thread on miata.net for the development of an open source flashing toolkit:
https://github.com/speepsio/romdrop
I'd looked into it a few times, but I don't really know enough about tuning to feel confident making my own changes and I'm not sure I'd feel confident in an off the shelf map from a guy on a forum.
A more interesting option was a remote tuning kit from American MX5 specialist Fab9:
https://fab9tuning.com/versatuner-n1-tune-mx-5-nc/
I'd emailed Fab9 about the kit when it first launched, they were more than happy to ship to the UK and the prices were very reasonable. Some time had passed since then so I created a post on a European NC group asking if anyone now had any experience with it. BLiNK Motorsport in Cheshire replied suggesting that they could provide a non-EcuTek based 'flash remap' for a similar price.
I contacted BLiNK and asked for some more detail about the differences between an EcuTek map and a 'flash map', they were very helpful...
As a result, and before the world went too crazy, I found myself in Cheshire...
BLiNK have a heavy focus on motorsport and have prepared and supported a lot of the cup series cars. I had a nose around one whilst trying not to get too many ideas of racing into my head...
They have some cool equipment, including a hub-based dyno which removes the interface between tyre and rollers from the equation.
The cup-series cars are restricted to a standardised power output that results in 140HP on BLiNKs dyno, BLiNK use a multiple of 1.3 to convert hub HP figures from their dyno into bhp so the cup cars are running around 182bhp. My car did a little better, the results were described as 'strong'. The dotted line is pre-remap, but obviously after fitting the manifold:
That's nominally a 187bhp result. This was the second time I've had my car on a dyno, it previously ran on Skuzzle's dyno whilst almost stock and produced 133HP. Skuzzle add 20% to their dyno readings to give a supposed bhp result, comparing results between different dynos is arguably pointless, but it's interesting to see the figures change as parts were added:
Stock - 157bhp
Stock + Backbox - 159bhp
Backbox + Manifold - 167bhp
Backbox + Manifold + Remap - 187bhp
Interestingly, looking at the results of a manifold + EcuTek tune that BLiNK recently carried out on another NC that made a little less than my car at 119.49lbft and 143.81HP, so it would appear that power-wise there's not really anything to differentiate between the two remap options.
To drive it's more of the same when compared with the manifold swap. A bit more power and more useful torque in places it never previously really had any. The exhaust now consistently pops on upshifts, I guess it's probably running a little richer. It's a nice amount of power on the road, it's still a car that you can rev out and not find yourself doing anything silly, but it doesn't feel like you're trying to coax a slightly underpowered engine into doing something it wasn't really designed to do. It will be interesting to see how it feels on track, hopefully the next day that I've booked in May isn't cancelled.
It ticked over 120k on the way home, it's encouraging to see that after plenty of miles and quite a few track days it's still producing good dyno results.
In total I've spent about £600 on the manifold and remap, about half the price of most drive in packages that offer the same sort of thing. It has required quite a bit of my time for fitting and travel, but I've enjoyed the process. If I hadn't found the secondhand manifold I probably would have purchased an ILM manifold from MX5Parts, from memory if you wait for one of their regular Valentines/Bank Holiday/Black Friday sales they're about £360 delivered.
I'd completed part one of this process by fitting the Racing Beat manifold that I purchased used from BBR. For part two most tuners use tuning software provided by EcuTek, which seems well regarded but requires a pricey license that's linked to each ECU/VIN. BBR charge £600 for an EcuTek remap with other tuners being around the same price. To me this has always felt a little pricey for a remap.
I'd spotted a few alternative options around. There's a long running thread on miata.net for the development of an open source flashing toolkit:
https://github.com/speepsio/romdrop
I'd looked into it a few times, but I don't really know enough about tuning to feel confident making my own changes and I'm not sure I'd feel confident in an off the shelf map from a guy on a forum.
A more interesting option was a remote tuning kit from American MX5 specialist Fab9:
https://fab9tuning.com/versatuner-n1-tune-mx-5-nc/
I'd emailed Fab9 about the kit when it first launched, they were more than happy to ship to the UK and the prices were very reasonable. Some time had passed since then so I created a post on a European NC group asking if anyone now had any experience with it. BLiNK Motorsport in Cheshire replied suggesting that they could provide a non-EcuTek based 'flash remap' for a similar price.
I contacted BLiNK and asked for some more detail about the differences between an EcuTek map and a 'flash map', they were very helpful...
BLiNK said:
ECUTek Remap:
We advise this route if you are planning further tuning of your car such as the camshaft package or supercharger. The cost is split into two; there is the licence (£200 + vat) and the mapping fee (£250 + vat). Once the licence has been purchased there is no need to purchase again for any future maps, it would just be the cost of the mapping session. The ECUTek allows access to all the maps on the ECU (around 43) and we can change the way the car is actually mapped to suit more extreme modifications like the cams and supercharger. The map is fully optimized for each individual car so the very best performance is obtained for your car. It also has a 'RaceRom' package to allow flat floor shifting, auto blipping, launch control etc.
Flash Remap:
This gives almost as good performance as the ECUTek on a pretty standard car and will also suit a manifold/exhaust change. We do not have access to all the maps so can not tune cams/supercharger with it. The remap is generic and the Mazda ECU sorts out the minor differences between manufacturing variances between the cars - I can assure you that you would not feel any difference in performance between this and the ECUTek! (It's a couple of horsepower).
If you were to later decide on further tuning you would have to go for the ECUTek and would then forfiet the money spent on the flash remap; purchasing an ECUTek licence and remap for £450 + vat.
We also can't implement a RaceRom feature on the flash map but can delete the lambda error you may well get when fitting an aftermarket manifold.
This sounded perfect for my needs. The RaceRom features are a bit of a gimmick and not particularly useful on an early NC as they can't be disabled without the cruise control module. I'm unlikely to ever want to pursue more naturally aspirated power as the gains from cams are minimal for the expense required, and at the moment the forced induction options for NCs are pricey enough that I'd probably look at alternative cars rather than go down that route. BLiNK charge £200 or £250 + vat depending on if you want a before/after dyno run.We advise this route if you are planning further tuning of your car such as the camshaft package or supercharger. The cost is split into two; there is the licence (£200 + vat) and the mapping fee (£250 + vat). Once the licence has been purchased there is no need to purchase again for any future maps, it would just be the cost of the mapping session. The ECUTek allows access to all the maps on the ECU (around 43) and we can change the way the car is actually mapped to suit more extreme modifications like the cams and supercharger. The map is fully optimized for each individual car so the very best performance is obtained for your car. It also has a 'RaceRom' package to allow flat floor shifting, auto blipping, launch control etc.
Flash Remap:
This gives almost as good performance as the ECUTek on a pretty standard car and will also suit a manifold/exhaust change. We do not have access to all the maps so can not tune cams/supercharger with it. The remap is generic and the Mazda ECU sorts out the minor differences between manufacturing variances between the cars - I can assure you that you would not feel any difference in performance between this and the ECUTek! (It's a couple of horsepower).
If you were to later decide on further tuning you would have to go for the ECUTek and would then forfiet the money spent on the flash remap; purchasing an ECUTek licence and remap for £450 + vat.
We also can't implement a RaceRom feature on the flash map but can delete the lambda error you may well get when fitting an aftermarket manifold.
As a result, and before the world went too crazy, I found myself in Cheshire...
BLiNK have a heavy focus on motorsport and have prepared and supported a lot of the cup series cars. I had a nose around one whilst trying not to get too many ideas of racing into my head...
They have some cool equipment, including a hub-based dyno which removes the interface between tyre and rollers from the equation.
The cup-series cars are restricted to a standardised power output that results in 140HP on BLiNKs dyno, BLiNK use a multiple of 1.3 to convert hub HP figures from their dyno into bhp so the cup cars are running around 182bhp. My car did a little better, the results were described as 'strong'. The dotted line is pre-remap, but obviously after fitting the manifold:
That's nominally a 187bhp result. This was the second time I've had my car on a dyno, it previously ran on Skuzzle's dyno whilst almost stock and produced 133HP. Skuzzle add 20% to their dyno readings to give a supposed bhp result, comparing results between different dynos is arguably pointless, but it's interesting to see the figures change as parts were added:
Stock - 157bhp
Stock + Backbox - 159bhp
Backbox + Manifold - 167bhp
Backbox + Manifold + Remap - 187bhp
Interestingly, looking at the results of a manifold + EcuTek tune that BLiNK recently carried out on another NC that made a little less than my car at 119.49lbft and 143.81HP, so it would appear that power-wise there's not really anything to differentiate between the two remap options.
To drive it's more of the same when compared with the manifold swap. A bit more power and more useful torque in places it never previously really had any. The exhaust now consistently pops on upshifts, I guess it's probably running a little richer. It's a nice amount of power on the road, it's still a car that you can rev out and not find yourself doing anything silly, but it doesn't feel like you're trying to coax a slightly underpowered engine into doing something it wasn't really designed to do. It will be interesting to see how it feels on track, hopefully the next day that I've booked in May isn't cancelled.
It ticked over 120k on the way home, it's encouraging to see that after plenty of miles and quite a few track days it's still producing good dyno results.
In total I've spent about £600 on the manifold and remap, about half the price of most drive in packages that offer the same sort of thing. It has required quite a bit of my time for fitting and travel, but I've enjoyed the process. If I hadn't found the secondhand manifold I probably would have purchased an ILM manifold from MX5Parts, from memory if you wait for one of their regular Valentines/Bank Holiday/Black Friday sales they're about £360 delivered.
Seen as we've all got plenty of time confined to our homes I figured I might as well make the most of it and start another welding project. The hose for my air compressor has been an untidy tripping hazard for a while...
The set of 17" diamond cut wheels that I purchased a couple of years ago came with a spare unused wheel without a tyre fitted. After a while I noticed that one of the used wheels was very slightly buckled so I had the tyre moved onto the brand new rim. This left me with a spare wheel that's been sat in my loft for a while now.
I scavenged and ordered some materials. A 200x200mm piece of 4mm sheet steel, a 200mm length of 50x50x3mm box (I chopped a bit off this), a laser cut 150x3mm disc, some wheel nuts and some M12x1.5x30mm bolts.
I found a great OpenSCAD wheel spacer generator on Thingiverse - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:451176 and used this to print a 150x1mm spacer with 2mm holes in the correct PCD to help me accurately mark where the bolts in my 'hub' should go. I printed another to get the box section centred, with hindsight I should have combined these into one print.
The hole drilling guide worked perfectly...
This is what I was left with after drilling and chopping down the down section a little to match the width of the wheel...
The usual flux-core spatter, but I don't think this was too terrible for my second attempt at MIG welding.
I tacked the bolts in place and gave it a quick coat of paint.
I'm quite pleased with how it came out, a nice bit of recycling that's doing something useful and I also think it looks quite cool in my garage.
The set of 17" diamond cut wheels that I purchased a couple of years ago came with a spare unused wheel without a tyre fitted. After a while I noticed that one of the used wheels was very slightly buckled so I had the tyre moved onto the brand new rim. This left me with a spare wheel that's been sat in my loft for a while now.
I scavenged and ordered some materials. A 200x200mm piece of 4mm sheet steel, a 200mm length of 50x50x3mm box (I chopped a bit off this), a laser cut 150x3mm disc, some wheel nuts and some M12x1.5x30mm bolts.
I found a great OpenSCAD wheel spacer generator on Thingiverse - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:451176 and used this to print a 150x1mm spacer with 2mm holes in the correct PCD to help me accurately mark where the bolts in my 'hub' should go. I printed another to get the box section centred, with hindsight I should have combined these into one print.
The hole drilling guide worked perfectly...
This is what I was left with after drilling and chopping down the down section a little to match the width of the wheel...
The usual flux-core spatter, but I don't think this was too terrible for my second attempt at MIG welding.
I tacked the bolts in place and gave it a quick coat of paint.
I'm quite pleased with how it came out, a nice bit of recycling that's doing something useful and I also think it looks quite cool in my garage.
I was thinking of something similar the other day as a neat way to store spare wheels. 4 of them spaced up a walk would keep wheels out of the way. Im a bit gutted I havnt got my garage built yet. It would have been a great opportunity to get some stuff done. Ill be similar to you and teaching my self to weld for little projects like this, although its a nice to dream do projects like Colin Furze.
B'stard Child said:
Nice work
I would have coiled the hose round it a little looser - it'll be a pain to get the hose off when you need the full length
Thanks, good tip, I'll see how it works out when in use.I would have coiled the hose round it a little looser - it'll be a pain to get the hose off when you need the full length
gazzarose said:
I was thinking of something similar the other day as a neat way to store spare wheels. 4 of them spaced up a walk would keep wheels out of the way. Im a bit gutted I havnt got my garage built yet. It would have been a great opportunity to get some stuff done. Ill be similar to you and teaching my self to weld for little projects like this, although its a nice to dream do projects like Colin Furze.
An underground bunker seems quite appealing at the moment!Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff