have yet to see one mounted on an M03.

but one of the Tamiya employees has been running a light-blue painted body on the M05 and it looks awesome!!

aw. you dont say :) it was nice until, :cough: Fred slid it 10 feet on its roof...

Here you go:
 

Box stock M03
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...ilds/mx5_1.jpg


Front sitting right as low as it will go on the chassis (box stock height)
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...ilds/mx5_2.jpg


Pressed the chassis till it hit the ground
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...ilds/mx5_3.jpg

EricP - body looks great. How did you achieve that semi-matte appearance on the canvas? :)

Thanks... this was one of two I did. The other is the blue one Osherman was talking.

Unfortunately for the general consumer, the roof was done with the (DISCONTINUED) Tamiya PS-55 Flat Clear.

Nice. :D But sorry to hear about the blue one's roof! :sweat:

Thanks for the info on the roof. I suppose we could plasti-dip the roof black then? :confused:

Ha! Thanks... I'd imagine plasti-dip would work, but its thick and textured and might have some weight to it... but hey, give it a shot.

Okay, I know some of us might be concerned about TCS rules, but... Shouldn't a Miata have the top down, and a beautiful blonde driving it?

M03 Stock Mini Challenge
 

M03 Stock Mini Challenge:
I decided to take up Ivan’s M03 Stock Mini Challenge using an old car and spare parts from mine and Adam's parts collections. I was given an old, well used M03S to work with. It had:
-bearings
-M03 C-Hubs
-M05 Aluminum Steering Blocks
-CVD axels
-Aluminum Yeah Racing shocks (that were built wrong)
-half worn S-Grip fronts with CA edges and M-Grip rears
-used Poche 911 short wheel base body.
Everything else was stock.

Modifications:
-M05 plastic C-Hubs on the car to make the suspension work. I didn’t have M03 Steering Blocks so might as well use the aluminum parts.
-Rebuilt the shocks with 3 hole pistons, 35W red front, and 30 blue rear all 57mm. This was the shortest I could go with the misc spacers I had. Was going for 55mm overall length.
-Dropped the ride height as far as I could. Its around 5mm-ish.
-Don't know the weight yet.
-I added 2 shims to the diff, MR Style.
-Added the WCICS Orca 2200kV and Hobbywing Justock ESC. Speed control got shoved in the tail section.
-Front toe is about 1.5. Didn't measure it though.
-Used a 2800mah round pack that the Paige boys lent me (Thanks Nick!)

Things to be fixed:
The stock servo saver is toast and is giving me huge deflection (10-15degress)so I was wandering down the straight. Also, the shock caps were cracked so the shocks kept popping off the ball. Usually pushed past the ball so I could keep racing. Going to replace those broken parts this week. Going to put a $10metal gear servo in it that was given to me.

Results:
I qualified 6th out of 23 at our club race. I was pretty happy with that and could have done better with a few less board taps. I ran my M05VII for the last qualifier and moved up to 4th and finished 3rd in the main.

My Assessment:
For an average racer with a couple seasons under their belt, a pimped out M05VII will be faster. On our track with 10s lap times, that equated to about 0.3s/lap for me which is not huge considering the cost difference of the cars and the 10s-13s/lap spread in the field. Put that M03S in the hands of a really, really, good driver and the difference will be less for sure. You can buy speed with upgraded diffs, lower CG’s, adjustable roll center, Aluminum shocks, lighter overall weigh, etc only if you can handle the car.

However, a basic car with a drivable set up can get you into the A Main with good driving. You probably can’t outdrive a very well setup and driven M05VII, but you might be surprised.

Verdict:
Either way, the key is controlling the car you have. Not chasing down setup perfection. Without spending a ton of money, a new racer can take a ready to run car, add bearings, two shims, S-Grips, oil dampers and let their skill dictate their finish, not their equipment.

I did this because I wanted to see how a newer racer could do with an old car and spare parts. We don't all have 10/15+ years behind the radio either. It was fun and I'm looking forward to racing it again next week with a fixed servo saver and shock caps.

Very cool to see this, Trevor. Did you try driving Ivan's bouncy clown car? (No damping at all!) I love watching that thing corner.

EDIT: If you eliminate the CVDs and the oil filled shocks, then you'll be on about equal ground with Ivan's car. Pretty sure we can scrounge up the right parts between all of us.

Thanks.
I'm not trying be on equal ground with Ivan. I wanted to see how I could do as a novice/intermediate with a similar car. I do want to get the CVA clear dampers though.

Good for you for experimenting and having fun doing so. I would still say try the Friction Dampers and Dogbones and see how that compares to what you have just tried.

For me, my mini is fun like crazy cause it's close racing with almost anyone yet frustrating as hell cause the timing to turn in a corner is completely different due to the massive understeer as the weight transfer from rear to front and vice versa is crap. I miss time a corner and I overshoot it like crazy and watch the car I'm racing with drive out of the corner and take off in front of me. Sucks but really forcing me to work on my push braking as I come up to a corner. Oil shocks would solve this problem but what's the fun in that other than making up 0.2 secs to 0.4 secs for around a 10 second lap. :D

Still a caution on the clear dampers. Fragile to say the least....mostly not from crashing into the boards but from someone t-boning you and snapping that top cap. Epoxy works. Have fun with that.

Ivan

It proves a great point, in any case. With minimal hop ups, any mini can compete. A few items for performance and a few for durability and you're ready to go.

If you want to run plastic shocks, I've got a set of the black plastic super mini CVAs. Run side by side with regular shocks, there's no difference. Then again, it's hard to tell with only a few mm of travel. Threaded shocks are a lot more convenient. That's the big difference.

Mx5 on M03
 

Rats, thanks Eric, unfortunately I got a here a bit late and missed the pics so still clueless - did it work?

Cheers
Dave

[QUOTE=EricP;14353089]Box stock M0

Front sitting right as low as it will go on the chassis (box stock height)

Pressed the chassis till it hit the ground

Low shells on M03
 

I also ended up with TL01 or TB01 posts at the rear, to fit the Blue Groove Audi TT. With the Tamiya Alfa and HPI Mazda it was the steering servo mount that fouled and had to be butchered.

Much tut tutting about a FWD Alfa GTV but it did give me my first provincial TQ - till the mob found how easy it was to spin with a gentle tap from the rear ;-)

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...TQ1forblog.jpg

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...ue2publish.jpg