Project Slowboi

[Bilbo]

Yo.

So after 5+ years on MX-5 forums I decided I needed to find another place to post my car related stuff, now being an IS owner.

Had a couple of mk2 5s in the past, then had a Eunos, which was my favourite of the bunch.

Got it looking pretty good at one point, had HSD DualTechs, JBW Superlight 13s, stainless exhaust, decat, Sparco Sprint, side mounts, dished wheel, Randall Cowl intake, and a Speeduino standalone ECU:

After all that I decided to go lifted:

Yeah, bit weird but was fun and could go over mini roundabouts at 40, which was a laugh. Pretty shortlived, stripped it back to fairly standard and sold on.



Great car, but anyway after years of just owning 5s I decided I need some cheap 4 door vibes. So in late October I ended up with an IS200:

Picked it up pretty cheap, and while it had 152,000 miles everything works pretty well with just a few bits needing sorting for MOT in late Jan.

 

[Bilbo]

A week after buying the radiator decided to go pop, so grabbed a new one for 50 quid off Ebay and got it sorted in a multistory with a mate:

Job done.

The car was basically silent, so went down to local Powerflow and got a straight pipe backbox made up:

Looks a bit nicer with the new shiny tip (giggidy), but with pre-cats, main cat, and centre silencer it's still a really subtle sound, so I'll be sorting that soon.

I then got some cheap interior LEDs from Ebay and fitted in the footwell:

I do have a bit of a soft spot for all things neon to be honest! #2001called


So anyway main thing we all know other than how slow these are, is how crap those rear lights look these days, very dated!

Bit of masking:

Bit of tint spray:

Half done:

Sorted:

Much better!


That's about it so far, sorted a couple of other bits, it had some horrible HID lights in the non-projector IS200 housings which are both shit and illegal in equal measure, plus you get flashed constantly at night on country roads, so I ripped those out and refitted halogens, set of Osram Nightbreakers. Much better.

Quite a few plans for it, just need to get it through MOT this month, only thing I can see is an exhaust blow, so fingers crossed will pass after that.

Plans are as follows:

Change number plates, currently on pressed German style aluminium plates, not really my thing. Bought some replacement import square plates but annoyingly ordered wrong size, so still waiting on those.
Coilovers (currently on 30mm springs fitted by PO but not a fan of springs and the drop isn't all that)
Decat (either manifold pre-cats, or main cat, not sure which yet)
Wheels (R33 GTR wheels look decent, or something else Japanese)
Fit Sparco Sprint

After that I'll just see where it goes based on budget, decent car so far though!

 

[jay-young]

I liked the Eunos. I've literally just picked on up and will be throwing it on 13s. Were they 13x7 et-7 yeh?

 

[Bilbo]

I liked the Eunos. I've literally just picked on up and will be throwing it on 13s. Were they 13x7 et-7 yeh?

Cheers man, was a good car! Yeah they were JBW Superlight 13x7 ET -7 with 185/60/14 Falken ZE914. Can't fault that setup, I think the wheels were 5.4kg without tyres, not really light, but still fairly light compared to some other aftermarket wheels. You have to run quite low to pull it off, but 13s on a mk1 look amazing.

Is yours a 1.6? I only ask as you'll struggle fitting 13s over 1.8 brakes.

 

[jay-young]

Nah it's a 1.8, but a guy I skid with has the exact setup and it's fine, maybe a 5mm slip on. He has run that set up for ages and I think the only issue was the calliper needed a slight shave once new pads were put on.

 

[Bilbo]

Nah it's a 1.8, but a guy I skid with has the exact setup and it's fine, maybe a 5mm slip on. He has run that set up for ages and I think the only issue was the calliper needed a slight shave once new pads were put on.

Ah fair, depends on the wheel used as well. Some 13s do fit 1.8s, but I know some styles you'd struggle. Just make sure the wheel weights aren't stacked too high haha. I had about 5mm gap to caliper on mine with 1.6 brakes.

 

[jay-young]

1.8 import 13x7 et-7 wheels the same as yours. Fits spot on!

 

[Bilbo]

1.8 import 13x7 et-7 wheels the same as yours. Fits spot on!View attachment 290235

Well I never would have thought they would fit, but fair play! Also fair play for drifting on 13s, you have to be really quite low to achieve a good look with them.

 

[jay-young]

Neither did I, but he has run them for years now with no problem. I guess it's just internet rubbish - a pair of 13s didn't fit for one guy so now everyone avoids 13s.

 

[Bilbo]

Long time no update. Some things have occurred.

Got an import rear plate, didn't fit. Got a smaller import rear plate, fits lovely:

Got some Heko wind deflectors, really like them. Didn't take long to fit once I worked out how, thanks Youtube!

Then it went and passed MOT with just one advisory for rear tyre. Massive result! Very happy.

Got a Japspeed decat downpipe and fitted it. What a total bitch of a job that was.

Didn't have a new manifold or midpipe so had to keep the flanges undamaged. Took ages and some very careful grinder work with a couple of mates. 150,000 mile old bolts are not fun to remove. Got it done eventually. Was scared it was going to blow even with new gaskets, so I may have gone overboard with the amount of exhaust paste used all in and around the flanges haha:

Doesn't seem to be blowing at all, and I ragged the hell out of it this afternoon, so that's good

So the exhaust system is now:

Standard manifold with precats
Decat downpipe
Standard midpipe with resonator
Straightpipe backbox section.

Now I thought still having precats and resonator in there would mean it wasn't too mental. Not the case. It's absolutely ASBO, might need to put some kind of backbox on to dull the rasp just a little bit. Low down in revs it's really meaty, but 3 - 4.5k it gets proper raspy, which I'm not a huge fan of. Video doesn't do it justice but here's the sound:



Note how slow it is. Please feel free to leave your slow mocking comments below.


Also the oil leak has got real bad now so I need to get my act together and get that sorted! Other than that it's running lovely still, and slowly getting there. Hopefully coilovers and wheels soon.

 

[Bu11et]

slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

 

[Bilbo]

slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Hahaha, I know man. Pathetic really! Wouldn't mind getting a turbo kit for it at some point.

 

[Bu11et]

Hahaha, I know man. Pathetic really! Wouldn't mind getting a turbo kit for it at some point.

If you're learning to drift - keep it NA and learn to use it to its full potential first

 

[Bilbo]

If you're learning to drift - keep it NA and learn to use it to its full potential first

Very good point actually, and probably most likely what I will end up doing. Just got to get some coilovers on there and sort the diff. Honestly the open diff is worse than the one I had on my mk2 MX-5 haha.

 

[Bilbo]

Had a bit of creaking on front left. Thought it was a brake heatshield or arch liner or something. Then found it was likely a lower ball joint. Not good, when those fail it's bad times all around.

So I got a Moog replacement, seems a decent quality part:

Check out the difference:

Ok, I did go at the old one a bit with a ball joint splitter fork, but still. It was pretty much ready to fail.


This thing was an amazing purchase (fiver from Amazon lol). Had both sides of the ball joint out in seconds.

This was more emergency work than anything. Will be ordering the other side and sorting it soon, as well as the upper ball joints as these also look a bit past their best as well!

Also rear left shock/spring has started squeaking like mad so that's another thing to sort, coilovers will be bought as soon as funds allow. Moving house will have to take priority for now though unfortunately.


Obligatory snow photo:

 

[Bilbo]

Long time no post. Progress has been slow, but got some bits sorted recently.

The straight pipe backbox was brutal with the decat, so I fitted a universal Ebay can on the back and it's so much nicer now.

Finally decided to get some coilovers as well, and luckily a set of unused HSD DualTechs came up on Ebay at a great price, so went and picked those up on the weekend:

Got cracking:

All done. Took a few hours and still letting them settle, but happy with the height for now:

Pleased with the handling, alignment badly needed, but way less body roll than the KYB shocks and lowering springs it came on. Got a pair of Buddy Club P1s with some fat R888s arriving soon, so that will be interesting trying to squeeze those under the front.

Guess I need to get a welded diff in there next!

 

[ShaunV90]

I've always had a soft spot for these. The V8 swaps are getting more common now with the MCL Autoworx conversion kits.

 

[lowanslow]

r33 wheels look the boy on these. would recommend

 

[Bilbo]

I've always had a soft spot for these. The V8 swaps are getting more common now with the MCL Autoworx conversion kits.

Yeah man, 1UZ conversions seem to be common now. Great engines. Also for the IS300 there's a manual conversion adapter plate available to chuck the 6 speed out of the 200 in. So you get an n/a 2J with a manual box. Not exactly mad power, but bet it'd still be decent.

r33 wheels look the boy on these. would recommend

Yes! They really do. Going to get the Buddy Clubs on and see if I can get them to fit on the front. Kind of tempted by a set of Eurolines, or I'd love some Viennas if budget would allow. However if some good price R33 wheels came up I'd be all over them!

 

[ax53]

Lookin good. I like the sound from the decat