I bought my Mira in January 2020 for $500, my first car.
Picture below is how it currently looks. (Sept 2024)
January 2020: Starting things off, this is how the mira looked the day I got it.
March 2020: I knew I wanted to lower it and put some wheels on it. I looked around for lowering springs but in the end I went to the wreckers to find some different options. I found that struts from a l600 move are shorter and bolt on with some minor modifications to lower the front. For the back I went with springs from an l200 Mira and shorter shocks from a Nissan wingroad. Overall it was about 30mm lower.
(Struts from a move vs the original mira ones)
(Before lowering)
(After lowering)
I found these 14" Black Racing Watanabe reps in the corner of dad’s shed and tried them on to see if the offset would be good.
With some paint and some smaller tyres they’d be perfect. So off came the old tyres and I got to work sanding all the old paint off the wheels.
I spray painted them black and fitted some 165/55 tyres I got cheap at the wreckers and they were ready to try on the car.
I only found 3 tyres at the wreckers so I’d have to wait to put the new wheels on.
Another find at the wreckers were some seats from a sirion which are a nice upgrade from the original seats.
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April 2020: Another trip to the wreckers I came across a crashed l700 with only 70000km. The original 350k engine in my mira had bad oil leaks and sounded like an old tractor so I took the low km ejde to put in my car at some point.
July 2020: I bought two second hand tyres from a tyre shop and could finally put my wheels on.
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January 2021: Took the mira to caffeine and classics car show and a k3vet swapped mira turned up and parked alongside mine.
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March 2021: When the mira ticked over 350000 km.
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June 2021: After a year since getting the new motor, I decided it was time to do the engine swap. Old motor out and new one in in a weekend. The new one is so much smoother and quiet and goes heaps better.
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With wheels and suspension and the first lot of upgrades being the main things I wanted to share here, some other things I’ve done since include:
35% tints all round
Sirion front brakes
Cluster with rev counter from a 2002 mira
Taillights from a 2002 mira
Resprayed bonnet
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Great write up. Cool Dai. Welcome.
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I agree 100% great write up and welcome.
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October 2023: Update on my mira - not much had changed until the past couple months, been wanting something to make it more interesting and recently got the opportunity to purchase a tr bumper and a spoiler, so happy with how it looks
Also the move struts started leaking causing it to fail a warrant, spent a long time trying to find some more but couldn’t. So instead managed to find some lowering springs from Malaysia to use with the standard struts. These give the car a 40mm drop from factory height or 10mm lower than it was before with the old setup.
The interior has also had a few small improvements - sirion steering wheel, sirion handbrake cover and a new suede shift boot fitted into a sirion shift boot surround. And later on also bought some chrome sirion interior door handles
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January 2024: Picked up another set of these Black Racing Watanabes, much tidier than the other ones I had on. Good opportunity for a nice paint job in bronze. Specs on these is 14x6 +40.
June 2024: Heres some pictures from a weekend roadtrip I did with my mate Jakob. Managed to get to some snow which was the main goal. Easy 1150kms in two days. Also got myself some black plates which arrived just in time for the trip.
July 2024: Had an opportunity to buy some YMR sideskirts, didn’t turn that away as I’m always pretty keen on finding rare parts to add to the car. Painted them up myself and chucked them on, like the look alot.
August 2024: Added a rubber lip to the front to match the height of the sideskirts. And found an oem fog light switch out of a terios. So finally got the fog lights all wired up and working and looking proper.
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Nice work! May I ask which bronze paint you used? Thats the colour I want to paint the MX5 Enkei ‘Daisies’ I have, but having trouble getting the right shade.
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Heya, its Rustoleum dark bronze, heres a picture of the can
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