Author Archives: Maxime Lacroix

Nakamae Shop Car at Karuizawa Meeting 2016

Here is a post about Nakamae’s latest products shown at Karuizawa Meeting. Nakamae-san wanted to bring some ND products to the market for this year and totally delivered!

After asking the owner personally at least 20 times in the past year, he finally unveiled its ND Quilted Seat Covers (Black Leather & Red Stitching):

The seat covers were finished just a few days ago and Nakamae told us that the bottom piece would fit better (deeper) once the driver has driven the car with these seats for a few weeks. The stitching color was 100% perfect matching with Mazda OEM one.
He also showed me the ND Sport Seat covers (Black Leather & Red Stitching) that was a nice reminder of the pattern used in the original NA Roadster V-Special seats. It has a very nice look and will sure improve the interior of anyone running fabric seats!

As you can see, the airbag portion of the seat cover is not covered at all. This is a unique feature that Nakamae is really proud of and guarantees absolutely no interference with the airbag.

He also tried to keep the “hole” feature of the OEM seats by covering it with a nice fabric mesh:

Lastly, Nakamae showed me a comfort feature for the fourth generation Roadster, the ND Armrest Pad. It’s available in both matching Sport version as well as the Quilted version (shown in Alcantara here). It’s a very nice touch that makes the arm rest much more comfortable.

We hope you enjoyed this feature on Nakamae’s latest ND products! We also took a quick shot of his personal NA car featuring the Type-GT Seats, Gate Console, 430D Leather Shift Knob, Round Handbrake Handle, Old Fashioned Handbrake Boot, Door Panels Type-2, DIY Aluminum Door Handles & Seatbelt Covers!

Karuizawa 2016 Meeting : Jet Stream

I begin the coverage of demo cars from Karuizawa Meeting 2016 with Jet Stream as, in my opinion, they released the craziest demo car in the whole meeting this year. It was actually a VERY QUICK build that needed a lot of time, sweat, tears and patience. I met with the Jet Stream team in the morning at 4:00 AM and their demo car was not even close to be completed. That reminds me of all those car building shows we see at Discovery Channel, but it was in real life. What a thrill! Now, enough talk and let’s look at what they showed for Karuizawa:

They made a really unique NA this year, with full Jet Stream NA22C Wide Body Kit as well as their Jet Stream Hardtop Extension. It is called NA22C, because it’s inspired from the old school RX-7 that had chassis name of SA22C. The kit consist in a Front Bumper (+ Front Lip), Fender Flares & Side Steps.

It is pretty nice seeing that they relocated the OEM headlights onto their front bumper, but also did relocate the fender turn signals out there, too!

The car was rocking some extremely wide Work Meister S1 in 15×9 paired with spacers to give it some really low offset!

The Jet Stream Hardtop Extension was one pretty awesome and unique design. It’s hard to see, but it’s made out of 3 pieces : 2 side pieces and 1 trunk extension. You basically keep your OEM hardtop and put these extensions on top of it to totally change the look of your NA!

The car was also rocking a SUPER WIDE Jet Stream Rear Spoiler that was designed specially for their Hardtop Extension .

Not only the build was inside on the outside, but the engine bay was also SUPER neat.

And not to mention the super simplistic interior.

Here is the team behind this crazy build:

And here’s what it looked like at the end of the day… don’t forget that they worked pretty much non-stop for the past 48 hours and were already working at 2:00 AM that morning…

This is the legend behind all the crazy Jet Stream parts, my friend Akio:

And just for a final laugh, Engrish never gets old;

I hope you enjoyed this blog post as more of them are coming for our Karuizawa Meeting 2016 Coverage!

Karuizawa Roadster Meeting 2016 Introduction

This year, I’ve attended Karuizawa Meeting (biggest Roadster/Miata/MX-5 meeting in the WORLD). This is my 3^rd time to personally attend this meeting and I’m always impressed by the quality and uniqueness of the Roadsters that are exposing at the meeting. This year, we’ve beat the record of the most Roadsters at the same place (for Karuizawa) and we’ve had over 1300 cars!

Statistics of the event:

NA: 555 units (41%)

NB: 324 units (24%)

NC: 237 units (17%)

ND: 247 units (18%)

It’s pretty crazy to see that after 1 year of being released in Japan, the ND owners/tuners already are surpassing the NC owners! This is also the reason why there are so many ND parts released recently.

Here are some pictures of the parking that I took, to give you an idea of how big it is (and this shows just 1/3 of the show area):

During the show, Mazda Japan also unveiled the MX-5 RF which is going for sale during next week (and it’s also the first time we’ll see the 2.0L engine in Japan):

During this legendary day, I’ve had the chance to sign the 1 millionth Roadster ever produced (and catch one hell of a sunburn…)! I’ve also heard that Mazda will ship the car to Australia, Europe and North America so other enthusiasts can also sign this very iconic car!

In the following days, we’ll make blog posts about the shop cars that exposed at Karuizawa Meeting as well as some awesome cars we saw in the parking area! Check out this video I took and posted live, 2 weeks ago, on our Facebook Page:

JDM Floor Mats for 2016+ ND MX-5 Miata in LHD & RHD!

Did you know that floor mats can be part of your interior styling. We now have left hand drive and right hand drive checkered/diamond pattern available for the new generation Roadster! These floor mats are the best quality you’ll ever see. They clip using the OEM plastic rings and have grip underside to make 100% sure they will not slip. They also are available with an optional heel pad to make sure they will not age prematurely. Let’s see what’s available!

Zero (Big Square) Checkered Floor Mats

These floor mats have a big square checkered pattern. It will look great in most cars and it’s really a matter of personal taste to choose between this and the example that follows. It’s available in 6 colors and 2 of them (beige or brown) will look really nice into a Tan Leather interior! Available here.

Zero (Small Square) Checkered Floor Mats

These floor mats have a smaller checkered pattern than the previous example, but are also available in different colors. There are 10 different color choice for anyone that want to follow Mazda’s red stitching accents or move to a totally different color tone. Available here.

Zero Diamond (X) Pattern Floor Mats

This is a new style floor mats that is now very popular because it’s subtle and elegant. I would totally see a red diamond pattern into a stock interior with red stitching, as it would complement it very nicely. Other colors like silver or black would sure be a nice and subtle change to the OEM floor mats. Available here.

All of these floor mats are made by a manufacturer in Japan called Zero and really are the best quality floor mats we ever saw on the market. The price is also much better than the $300 Mazda OEM floor mats! If you would like to get similar floor mats for a different application than the ND, please contact us at info@rev9autosport.com for more details.

How to adjust headlights on the ND (2016+) MX-5 Miata?

You’ve lowered your ND Roadster and now you’re wondering why the headlights are pointing towards the ground? That’s because they need to be adjusted. To do so, you need to buy a Headlight Levelizer Adjustment Rod (available either from Cusco or RS*R). If you want to know how it works, read this blog post. Don’t worry, installation is SUPER easy!

First, you need to remove your rear left wheel to find the OEM headlight leveling sensor:

Second, you need to remove both 10mm nuts that are holding the levelized in place:

Tip : If the nuts don’t want to loosen, use a wrench and hold the area behind the nut steady as shown in these pictures:

Lastly, replace the OEM levelizer with your Cusco or RS*R one and you’re done!

What is the Automatic Levelizer Adjustment Rod?

Have you ever heard of Cusco’s Headlight Self Levelizer Adjuster Rod? It’s a very simpe product that everyone who puts coilovers on a car with adjusting headlights should use (seriously).

Before we get started, let’s talk a little about the operation of the auto levelizer.

Nowadays, tons of newer model cars are equipped with LED or HID lighting. When there is a load in the rear of the vehicle, the angle of the beam is angled upwards. To counteract this, a part is in place on the vehicle that counters this change and keeps the angle unchanged. This part is the auto levelizer.

So, when the vehicle is lowered, the auto levelizer senses the change in height or angle and will point the headlights toward the ground.

The result? You have significantly less visibility. (see this awesome infographic showing a Japanese creature):

Having said that, this is why we made the auto levelizer adjuster rod. By replacing the OEM rod link and installing our adjustable rod, it is now possible to restore the normal detection of changes in vehicle angle, thereby restoring normal function of the levelizer.

We hope you enjoyed this little read. We also made an Installation Instruction post. You can buy the following Automatic Levelizer Adjustment Rods at our web shop:

Cusco Headlight Levelizer Adjustment Rod

RS*R Self Levelizer Link Rod

The New Wheel Models (4×100) from TAS2016

Here’s our final and last post about Tokyo Auto Salon 2016. This one is dedicated on the new model of wheels that would most likely fit NA, NB and/or ND applications (4×100) made by Enkei, 326POWER, Work Wheels, RAYS, Advan, Leon Hardiritt & Aimgain. We skipped the NC as the 5×114.3 wheels are very common and there are TONS of choices. Sorry NC owners, but you can always drop us a line and we’ll send you the nicest racing wheels for your application.

Let’s start with Enkei Racing Wheels. They released their RPF1RS (15×8+28) in the beautiful SBC color, Flat Black and Silver. At only 11.3 lbs, it’s one really nice and budget friendly wheel!

Enkei RPF1RS

Then, we walked at the 326POWER booth to see their newly released Yabaking Mesh Wheels as well as the Yabaking Spoke Wheels. They are 3 pieces wheels available in 16” and 17” size and widths from 6” to 10.5” with virtually any possible offset!

326POWER Yabaking Mesh 16×9 -19 with 326POWER 70MM Lug Nuts

326POWER Yabaking Mesh 16×9.5 -23 with 326POWER 50MM Lug Nuts

326POWER Yabaking Spoke 16×9 -19 with 326POWER 50MM Lug Nuts & Spike Caps

326POWER Yabaking Spoke (unknown size with reverse face) with 326POWER 50MM Lug Nuts & Spike Caps

As you can see, they also offer customization on wheels such as the spike bolts for their wheels, now that must be expensive to do, but it’s pretty impressive!

We also really enjoyed the wheels that Work Wheels released for 2016! On the first wall, you can see various wheels such as the Work Emotion CR Ultimate, Work Seeker GX, Work Seeker NX and the beautiful Work Rizaltado Mesh.

Here’s a close-up of the concavity of the Work Emotion CR Ultimate 15×8 +20 and some color variations.

We also visited the RAYS (Volk Racing) booth with some very nice lightweight and forged wheels.

Rays 57motorsport G07MI6 17×7 +42

Rays Volk Racing TE37v SL Limited 2016 15”

Rays Gram Lights 57Transcend 15×8 +28

Rays Gram Lights 57Transcend 17×8.5 +40

Next was the Advan Racing booth. They are some of our favorite lightweight wheels and really offer some cool models. Unfortunately, they didn’t have many new models for the Miata this year.

Advan Racing RZ-II 17”

Advan Racing RZ-II 16”

Another cool wheel manufacturer we visited that offered some nice 16” and 17” wheels in 4×100 bolt pattern was Leon Hardiritt (Superstar Wheel).

Leon Hardiritt Reise 17”

The last wheel manufacturer we visited was Aimgain. They showed us their beautiful 2 pieces GIIM 2 pieces mesh wheels! Available in plenty of colors and 16”/17” size with tons of offsets and widths to choose from.

Aimgain G II M 17” 2 Pieces Mesh Wheels

Hope you enjoyed this little showcase of the the 2016 model wheels at Tokyo Auto Salon! If you are interested in any of the parts shown, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@rev9autosport.com !

The other MX-5 Shop Cars at TAS2016

Due to restrictions in picture areas, I’ve compiled into 1 blog post the shop cars from Acre Brakes, Bride, Blitz & Sabulive.

Let’s start with Acre Brakes ND Demo Car! This beautiful Ceramic Metallic MX-5 with Garage Vary ND Front Lip, neat vinyl graphics all over the car (and cool ones around the headlights) and 18” Enkei RSM9 Wheels. We cannot see it well on the picture, but the car also has some nice ND Brembo Big Brake Kit based on Ferrari F360 calipers! The car is sitting on Japan-made Spirit Coilover System.

The car is also featuring their original ND Titanium Tip Exhaust System:

Now, let’s check Bride Seats ND Shop Car rocking their classy Edirb Leather & Fabric ND Racing Seats and some nice Bride ND Floor Mats! For those who haven’t noticed, Edirb is Bride spelled backward. It’s their new luxury division of racing seats.

Here is the super aggressive Blitz ND Shop Car that’s rocking their newly released ND Turbo Kit, ND Front Bumper with LED Lights & ND Side Skirts. The car is also rocking some 17×7 Enkei RPF1 Wheels with 25mm spacers to be flush with fenders.

The car also features their ND Low Rear Wing, ND Rear Bumper Skirt & ND Quad-Tip Exhaust System.

And here’s the Sabulive ND Demo Car. I never heard of Sabulive before seeing it at this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon. The exterior of the car looked pretty much stock…

Then, I asked the shop manager if he could show me the engine bay of the car… and it was AMAZING. It was featuring their ND Turbo Kit (pushing over 200hp from the 1.5L engine) and their ND Turbo Funnel:

Not only the engine bay was amazing to look at, but they wanted to keep the car’s weight at its minimum, so they made some pretty insane ND Carbon Fiber Racing Seats:

Hope you enjoyed this little showcase of the Acre Brakes, Bride, Blitz & Sabulive ND Shop Car at Tokyo Auto Salon! If you are interested in any of the parts shown, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@rev9autosport.com !

Knight Sports ND MX-5 Demo Car at TAS2016

Knight Sports is a very famous Rotary Engine tuner, but has also been tuning the NA Miata in the past. Since there are no more RX vehicles in Mazda lineup, they decided to switch their sports car division to work on the ND Roadster! It’s also important to mention that they tune a lot of CX-3 & CX-5, so they have a lot of experience in Skyactiv vehicles. Car is running some beautiful Advan RZ-II Wheels in 17”.

Their demo car had their ND Front Lip & Diffuser installed as well as their ND Front Tow Hook to give a neat racing look to the vehicle. The Front Lip is HUGE as it integrates a front diffuser and goes at least 20 inches under the front bumper.

The back of the vehicle was very classy. It was running their ND Titanium Exhaust, ND Rear Diffuser (which is also as huge as the front one), ND Rear Tow Hook and their ND Rear Spoiler!

(Their ND Rear Spoiler had a small space between the trunk and the emblem which they claim to be their way to be unique).

They also had their ND Turbo Gauge… probably a hint to what’s coming soon for their vehicle!

I did not take pictures of them, but they also just released their ND Big Brake Kit as well as their ND Lightweight Flywheel (only confirmed to fit 1.5L at the moment) which gives a big difference when driving the car!

Hope you enjoyed this little showcase of the Knight Sports ND Shop Car at Tokyo Auto Salon! If you are interested in any of the parts shown, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@rev9autosport.com !

Fujimura Auto ND MX-5 Shop Car at TAS2016

Fujimura Auto has been tuning vehicles for a while. They want their vehicles to stand out from the crowd and they really did an awesome job at doing that with their ND Demo Car!

Their shop car was showing their ND Original Front Bumper with Carbon Fiber Lips, but most importantly, their ND Rotrex Supercharger Kit!

They also had their ND Side Steps in beautiful Carbon Fiber installed on their car. The beautiful Rays ZE40 17” Wheels really complimented the car as well!

They ran some racing seats that used their ND Harness Mounting Points for running racing harnesses with super easy installation process.

The car also was running their new ND Titanium Exit Dual Sound Muffler as well as their ND Rear Diffuser in Carbon Fiber finish (sorry for the bad pictures, but it was a tight spot)!

Hope you enjoyed this little showcase of the Fujimura Auto ND Shop Car at Tokyo Auto Salon! If you are interested in any of the parts shown, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@rev9autosport.com !

REV9 Blog

Showing the latest and nicest Mazda MX-5 Miata parts!