56 replies to this topic

[Lt. T]

hey guys and girls
iv own my '5 for a few months and thought i best get a thread up and going.

i bought my '5 in december and its the best thing choice of car iv made yet, when i bought my mx5 it was completely standard and with me having plenty of inspiration i knew what i was looking for.

its a 1.8 1999 mk2 silver mx5 with 61k on the clock.

heres how my '5 looked when i bought her.

*ignore the dirt*






the first thing i needed to do was give it a good wash, wax and polish as who ever had own it before obviuously hadnt heard of wax and polish.

I set about with my detailing polishes and waxes. my choice for this is poorboys products.
i highly recommend these products to anyone. Iv been using white diamond, polish with sealant and wheel sealant plus a whole load of elbow grease.
As well as cleaning the car I also cleaned the engine bay, task an hour on its own!! 12 years of dirt to clean off, took me 4 hours just to clean the engine bay metal work and a quick clean of pipes, hoses etc.

The first thing to buy was a new roof, although there was no rips or tears after 12 years the roof had shrunk every so slightly but when it was a heavy rain it was leak in from around the window seals.

The second buy was wheels. This took a few weeks as i wanted some thing different to start with. I found a set a rare alloys on ebay and managed to get them for a bargin price.

Brock B2's 4x100 7j



next thing was to try them on, albeit cold and snowy i did it any way like a trooper.



i then bought a set of uniroyal rainsports 2 195/50/15

i set about then buying coilovers, with money being tight at the time i researched and asked about which bugdet ones were the best. I settled with raceland coilovers and to be honest for bugdet £189 coilovers there really not that bad.

raceland coilovers came with two C spanners:



I then set about getting them fitted with a friend who owns a garage, My plan was to go low unfortunatly my job as a careworker and my drive way didnt permit this. The results were this,

lowered on standard wheels,



unfortunatly my drive has a lip to get up, and this is how close it is at the lowered height i have now,




This is how she stands at the moment,

Iv left the camber as is it after installing the coilovers, ready for the arches to be rolled and then space the rear wheels






After a mini wash, wax and polish yesterday using these products:



This is the finished state.





i have a few things in mind that i want to do when money permits such as:

oem side skirts
front splitter - gv or nk tuning
rear mud gaurds
roll arches
space rear wheels or im toying with the idea of buying some new wider wheels
smooth front bumper and relocate number plate
roll cage
exhaust.


Interested to hear what people think, positive or negitive.

cheers

[ScORTED]

The suspension setup wouldn't be my choice, but the car looks a good base for modifying

[V6Hughes]

Looks a tidy motor

[JonnyFive]

I like it man.

You've got some good plans too

[Lt. T]

cheers guys. ill keep you up to date.
@jonnyfive did you get my pm dude, iv had a look at what you said and get confused lol

[Taffylude]

A nice tidy looking Mk2 you have there . You seem to have a good idea in mind of how you want it to look, so good luck with the mods. I can personally recommend the N.K Tuning front lip BTW, I've had mine fitted for over 18 months now, and no issues whatsoever.

[Lt. T]

Cheers taffylude, ye theres. Few bits of rust coming through on the rear sills which I need to cure but shouldn't be too much hassle. Ye I'm toying between the nk tuning or gv, huge price difference between the both but both will change the look in its own way. Are the nk tuning easy to fit?

[Taffylude]

Cheers taffylude, ye theres. Few bits of rust coming through on the rear sills which I need to cure but shouldn't be too much hassle. Ye I'm toying between the nk tuning or gv, huge price difference between the both but both will change the look in its own way. Are the nk tuning easy to fit?

Apparently not unfortunately, as they don't come with any fixing bits. I just handed it to my local bodyshop, and they Tigerbonded it to the front bumper, filled/smoothed the numberplate holes & painted it in one go. Never had any issues with it though, and it's a good fit

[ox5]

the lad i got my hoops from yesterday had silver looked a good colour,for the mx,these cars are very addictive.

[Lt. T]

I like it, only problem is, is that it doesn't shine as much as a dark coloured car no matter how much wax and polish you put on, but I'm happy with it

[Lt. T]

bit of an update.

i had a few parcels drop through the door this morning, wish brightened up my day:

two new stickers
and a trs tow strap, although i have no idea how to fit so guidance would be appeciated.



and i managed to beg and plead with the parents to let me have their mud flaps from their mk 2.5 as they have just sold to upgrade.
they need a respray but no bad for free =D

[Lt. T]

This sunday whilst the weather was nice i decided to do a few things to my '5

iv removed the front grille and fitted my trs tow strap, and iv also removed the horrible black number plate surround
and screwed my plate back on. its left a few marks the surround has that will be sorted out later.
I also gave her a good polish and wax.




next thing i did, which was well overdue might i add was clean the engine bay.
In total it took me just under 3 hours to clean 13 years worth of crap just off the metal work, bonnet and pipes etc, i havnt even started on the engine block its self. But it looks loads better been able to see a silver bulkhead and not a dirty grimmy bulkhead.

[drift boi]

Mr tickle your mx5 is nice and much much better than the saxo

do you still have the truimph

[Lt. T]

Cheers pal, do I know you?

[Lt. T]

It's been a while since iv updated this and a few things have been purchased.

First off I took my car to blink Motorsport for a full geometry setup as it was all over the place after fitting the coilovers. I had a full geo done plus ride height to ensure that everything was flat and correct, and my god what a difference it has made to the drive and handling. I'm really impressed and puts an even bigger smile on my face.

Secondly iv purchased a set of brand new oem Sideskirts off eBay from the guy from Stevenage, very impressed and got them at a excellent price which I'm pleased with just need spraying.

Then the dreaded sight that all mx5 owners know, I can only describe this as some form of rusty cancer coming through on both sills. I knew there was a little bit of surface rust on the arches and a few bubbles on the sills when I bought. So I set about rust proofing but to no avail that didn't stop it.
So it's now booking in to the bodywork shop at the beginning of August to under major surgery, im also having the Sideskirts and mud flaps sprayed, also having the skirts fitting whilst it's in there. Which to say is going to cost me an arm and a leg but is all worth it.

I'll get some photos uploaded later this afternoon when iv fixed my laptop.

[Lt. T]

to continue with whats been written above here are the photos. you'll have to excuse the qualtiy of the photos and how big the post is. i really should update it more often. any hoo:

I managed to get a few snaps from trentham car show a couple of weeks ago.







since them photos were taken i took my car to blink motorsport to get the road warrior setup, i cant recommend them enough great bunch of guys and had a good laugh when i was there.

Before:



After:



hugh difference and can really see from the photos how much a change of suspension throws it out, look at all that red!




now for the part thats costing me an arm and leg but cant wait to get it sorted. when i bought the car i was stupid enough to not do any research on mx5's and didnt know about the rust problems, when i first bought the car it had a tiny little patch of rust on the sill but thought nothing of it. Well its now turned in to and looks like some form of hanging cancer =(





its the same on both sides. so as of this monday its booked in to the body shop to get them all sorted whilst im away up scotland.

so i thought well im paying enough for the sills so might aswell get some other things sprayed whilst its in there. so im having a pair of rear mud flaps sprayed and a pair of oem side sills sprayed and properly fitted.



which to be honest im gutted about because the colour is gorgous! and if the sills didnt need doing id respray the car in the colour.

i think thats it for now. I'll take photos of the car when i get it back from the body shop.

[RyanT]

Good job on the alignment, was it a massively different drive afterwards?

[Lt. T]

Yea it was. It completely changed the drive, made it enjoyable again instead of fighting with it in corners.

[Lt. T]

Forgot to mention as well, an looking at buying some spacers for the rear, will this alter the geo settings?

[tigracat]

Loving them wheels, personally I would not touch wheel spacers with a barge pole, had a left rear wheel overtake me on the motorway after all four wheel nuts had sheared, garage put it down to the wheel spacers saying the car is just not designed for wheel spacers.





Mike