[mazdachris]

I thought I'd share some details about my latest '5. I've been out of the loop for quite a while since having a daughter about five years ago but decided to get back into it as I was missing my old cars and the fun of driving.

My preference was really for a Mk1, and I had a decent enough budget to buy something in very nice condition. But this Mk2 came up very locally and I was blown away by the condition of it so decided to pull the trigger.

The headline really is that the car was garaged and off the road for a very long time as a previous owner had a health condition which prevented them from driving it. Consequently this 21 year old MX-5 has just over 19,000 miles on the clock and is, in many ways, one of the most perfect original condition cars you'll find these days.

So, obviously, I'm going to take this lovely original condition car and.... ruin it...

It's had a small amount of rus one one sill repaired to a very good standard, and the front bumper repainted to fix a few scrapes, but otherwise it's in great condition.

That said, a bit of a detail and machine polish has really made the paint pop

Obviously having stood for a long while the brakes needed sorting so I've replaced the front calipers as well as fitting some HEL Performance braided brake hoses all round, and a full set of Rodders brake pads. I've also replaced the brake and clutch fluids which were not in great shape, and that's given a great feel to both pedals and brought back some of the decent braking performance these cars should have.

With the braking sorted I decided to replace the 9 year old tyres. They were decent Michelins and had lots of tread left, but the compound was getting a bit hard so I decided to upgrade with a set of Yokohama Advan AD08-RS rubber.

 

[Shadowraven]

Rodders pads, semi slicks... I wonder where this is going lol

 

[mazdachris]

With the tyres and brakes sorted, that brought back the enjoyment of driving it. I felt like the sound from the engine and the standard exhaust was not particularly exciting though. I know one small change which can make a big difference to the noise is to switch to a cone filter from the standard airbox, but I'm not keen on paying £100+ for a filter and a couple of bits of pipe. So one £15 universal filter and a little bit of DIY later...

The not-very-high tech bracket is a temporary arrangement until I design something to be laser cut. But it's really improved the noise of the car which is what I wanted, as well as neatening up the engine bay a little. When I design a proper bracket I'll also incorporate a heat shield and maybe some ducting to get cool air to the filter. In the future I may also replace the crossover pipe.

And lastly, I felt like the exterior was being let down by the ugly billboard style numberplate plinth, so I swapped that out for a square offset plate with a JASS Performance bracket. A small change but quite a big impact visually.

So that's how things are at the moment. The car has come a long way in the short time I've had it, but clearly there's plenty still to do. In particular there's quite a lot of corrosion to the rear wishbones and the rubber bushes are pretty much perished all round. The shocks and springs are in decent condition but ultimately I'll be looking to replace with some decent coilovers, likely MeisterR ones. I'll also be replacing the wishbones with reconditioned ones, and adding poly bushes all round. It's a long term project, obviously, but at the moment I'm just really stoked to have another proper MX-5 which I can enjoy driving.

 

[mazdachris]

Rodders pads, semi slicks... I wonder where this is going lol

Well, quite. There's also a rollbar somewhere in its future as well as some bucket seats.

Although I don't want an all-out track car which is only good when you're driving absolutely 100% - I still want it to be a nice place to sit, and something I can enjoy on the road as well.

My absolute all time favourite NB is the Slip Angle Miata - it's probably a little on the extreme end in terms of engine tuning and I don't think it'd be that great on the road, but the general approach is exactly what I'm thinking.

 

[Shadowraven]

If you are going anywhere near a track at all, even only once or twice a year, get the Clubrace coilovers, I honestly cant sing their praises enough. Not only are they really good on track (CRDs get overwhelmed IMO) but the damping on them is really good and more than adequate to comfortably handle poor roads. I have them on my track car and I'll be putting them on my weekend car as well.

 

[mazdachris]

Thanks, that sounds like a good shout. That's pretty much what I'd been looking at. I previously had HSD monopros on a MK1 and I felt like they were a little too harsh, and particularly lacked travel on the rear shocks, making the rear extremely crashy and unsettled over bumps. I've been leaning towards the MeisterRs because I've seen people say that they don't have that issue.

That's a little way down the line anyway; for the moment I think refreshing the rubber parts like bushes, engine mounts, etc, is going to give a solid foundation that'll let me take full advantage of the new shocks when I get them. The thing I remember very clearly about my Mk1, which had poly bushes, coilovers, uprated ARBs, and R888s, is that the steering response was absolutely instant and incredibly positive. I really want that level of front end response wiht this NB.

 

[Shadowraven]

Yeh they did. I think the newer ones have more travel and the Meisters are specifically designed with this in mind.

You'll get it, the NBs are really good, the subframe geometry is better and allows more caster which will help with response as well.

 

[BEN99W]

Its always nice to bag one of these which hasn't had much use. I got mine with 18000 on the clock although Ive added 20k to that now. Its a lot easier to keep on top of the condition.

Did you by any chance buy that in Little Baddow?

Ben

 

[mazdachris]

No, I bought it in Milton Keynes. You're right, getting something which is already good and keeping it that way is much easier than restoring something that's on its last legs. Despite it having very low mileage there's still a lot f areas where things are rusty or perished, particularly around the rear subframe, so there's a lot of scope for improvement. Main thing for me is that the engine is really solid, as is the body. Most other things are simple enough to sort.

Speaking of which, since the last post I've treated it to the following:

Duraflex fast road engine mounts
Delrin door bushes
SuperPro polyurethane diff mount void fillers

The added stiffness is really very noticeable, although one unfortunate side effect is a kind of resonance from the exhaust at around 3500rpm which makes quite a drone in the cabin.

I'm a long way from being able to afford coilovers and for the moment I'm contemplating lowering springs, just to sort out the aesthetics a bit and also stop it rolling and pitching quite so hard when driving fast.

Edit - Oh and I also changed out the ancient, very orange looking headlight bulbs for some bright new Phillips ones.

 

[mazdachris]

Well I've rather neglected this thread. Thankfully I've not been neglecting the car itself, and it recently made it to Le Mans and back without missing a beat.

Done quite a few bits recently, mostly cosmetic things, making the engine bay look a bit nicer. I've replaced the stock crossover pipe with a silicon elbow which has removed the need for that 'bracket' above. I've also cleaned up a lot of bits and painted the cam cover, replaced some bolts, and so on. It's dirty in this picture as I've not cleaned the bay since Le Mans, but the paint can come up brilliantly. There's a little bit of rust on the right hand side which I plan on tackling this weekend. And I've also got a breather filter going on this weekend rather than just having the loose hose.

Also done the evap cannister removal.

I'd like to carry on cleaning up the engine bay, replace the expansion tank and washer bottle with the obligatory DaveFab ones, get some more silicon hoses, and so on.

Outside of the engine bay I've also replaced the exhaust from the downpipe back with a stainless mid-pipe and the trusty mx5parts rear box.

Otherwise I've been concentrating on a few bits of maintenance so replacing seals and doing a rebuild of the shifter.

Overall the car is a lot better to drive than when I got it. The big job really at the moment comes from the fact that basically all of the rubber parts in wishbones etc are perished and cracked. I'd like to go poly, but obviously the cost is quite prohibitive and I'll likely be tackling that in stages.

I've also been giving a little bit of thought to the interior. It's pretty bland in there at the moment, and I've been thinking about the 'OEM plus' style, taking inspiration from cars with lots of different materials like metal, leather, carbon, and so on. I'd love to go for a more high-end look while retaining functionality and not going too extreme. If you've got an NB and you've done something similar, I'd love to see some picture.

Cheers folks

 

[mazdachris]

Been a while since I updated this. I've mostly been enjoying the car while also sorting out a bunch of little maintenance items. Most significantly the clutch slave cylinder stuck - I knew it was likely on its way out anyway since no amount of replacing fluid would give decent pedal feel and the fluid would always turn black almost immediately after a change. The bite point got lower and lower until finally it wouldn't even engage a gear. One rebuild of the cylinder later and it's good as new. I also replaced the OEM clutch lines with a single braided line direct from the master to the slave cylinder while I was at it.

Enjoyed a nice day out at Brands Hatch where the car performed really well all day, other than the brakes losing a bit of feel when hot, and showing a lot of firewall flex. Something to be addressed in the future.

Although the car performed well, the trackday really highlighted a lot of the weaknesses in the footwork of the car, which is still running it's completely original suspension and bushes. The car was very understeery, and wouldn't rotate at all on the throttle, just pushed the nose wide. You could feel the bushes all flexing and overall the car just didn't really feel responsive or communicative like it should.

So I've had my credit card out and dropped a frankly eye-watering amount on:

All brand new wishbones
Poly bushes
MeisterR coilovers
Whiteline ARBs with adjustable droplinks and brace blocks
A GC Fabrications rear rollbar

I've also got a bucket seat for the driver's side (passengers can slide around, that's not my problem..), although I fitted this last year and couldn't get it into a comfortable driving position so I've reverted to the standard seat for the time being.

Once I've fitted everything I'm going to get it all aligned to my specs to hopefully give the kind of neutral-to-oversteer characteristic I'd like; sharp turn-in, balanced mid-corner, with a tendency to rotate slightly on the throttle or on trail braking.

Expect lots of boring pictures to come!

 

[guitaristanime]

Welcome back. Nice looking weapon you have.