MX5 Owners in here....bring your curling tongs

Housey · 26 Nov 2015 at 17:54

So my thoughts on the brakes....

Green stuff are not as good as yellow stuffs, but more than adequate. Where they differ is cold performance, they need more heat to work at their best and they don't offer the crispness of bite of the yellow ones. Fact is an MX5 is light, it's got superb brakes out the box and if they are as good as standard then they are more than enough. Less dust is the bonus of greens over yellow but I have not tracked it hard so can;t comment on that, but on a fast road run they seem to cope well.

Rainagul · 26 Nov 2015 at 20:33

Frozennova said:
1.8s all have a VTPS

Thanks for the info

Vigoro · 26 Nov 2015 at 20:35

Took the MX5 to Skuzzle Motorsport for mapping today. Car seems to be running much better now, power delivery is smoother, and fuel has been added/removed where needed, so should be more economical

sandys · 26 Nov 2015 at 21:23

Housey said:
So my thoughts on the brakes....

Green stuff are not as good as yellow stuffs, but more than adequate. Where they differ is cold performance, they need more heat to work at their best and they don't offer the crispness of bite of the yellow ones. Fact is an MX5 is light, it's got superb brakes out the box and if they are as good as standard then they are more than enough. Less dust is the bonus of greens over yellow but I have not tracked it hard so can;t comment on that, but on a fast road run they seem to cope well.

Yellows do give off a lot of dust but that is to be expected they are literally crumbling away, 2 trackdays in my Mk3 and they were done, they performed well but life was terrible. I need to find a better pad for the MX5 i've never used a pad so quick before.

Housey · 27 Nov 2015 at 09:31

sandys said:
Yellows do give off a lot of dust but that is to be expected they are literally crumbling away, 2 trackdays in my Mk3 and they were done, they performed well but life was terrible. I need to find a better pad for the MX5 i've never used a pad so quick before.

Good road pad though, dust aside, but they don't last that long which doesn't bother me because I can put new discs and pads all around on an MX5 for the cost of a set of front pads on other cars Ive had. It is also my wife's car so doesn't get that a hard a work out that often.

sovietspybob · 27 Nov 2015 at 11:36

Can you get Carbone Lorraine CL5+ pads for the MX? I loved these on my Impreza, they do squeel a bit on light braking as they're a sintered pad and they are harder on discs too but discs are fairly cheap anyway.

Frozennova · 27 Nov 2015 at 11:43

XP8s seem to get a lot of love on Nutz IIRC

Will · 28 Nov 2015 at 00:04

I was going to try rc5+ on the front of my mk3 but decided against, having read some of the bad things about how the backing plates corrode easily and the few folk that have had the pad split from the backing plate too. They don't seem to deal well with winter road conditions well from what I've read. Xp8s are meant to be good but noisier, and they cost even more. Cant help but consider them overkill for my usage too tbh...rc5+ would be friendlier for road use if it wasn't for the corrosion they suffer with.

Sonea Fifer · 3 Dec 2015 at 16:56

Well I got my car back - new LSD fitted and the bloody noise is still there. :mad:

I could see the LSD require changing as I saw the cogs / teeth / shards of metal that were stuck to the magnet on the inside in the cap when the oil was drained off the LSD. I'm also very happy with the new 4.1 ratio as it really seems to have improved torque throughout the the range.

But I've still got that strange whirring noise occurring. It doesn't affect the performance or handling in any way. It isn't clutch bearing as I can press the clutch pedal (in our out of gear) and it's still there. It isn't brakes as they were upgraded to sports performance only a few months ago. It isn't any prop bearings either as I replaced the prop shaft when I upgraded to the Quaife diff just last week.

I'm running Michelin Sports all round and they're about a year (10K in miles) old - any other MX5 owners able to advise if this could just simply be road noise?

Frozennova · 3 Dec 2015 at 17:10

Wheel bearing?

Capt Doufos · 3 Dec 2015 at 19:56

Wheel bearing seconded, I had a rear bearing go a it whines/whirs as you describe, could certainly hear it over the exhaust/engine and radio unless it was cranked up!

Sonea Fifer · 5 Dec 2015 at 19:50

Frozennova said:
Wheel bearing?

Capt Doufos said:
Wheel bearing seconded, I had a rear bearing go a it whines/whirs as you describe, could certainly hear it over the exhaust/engine and radio unless it was cranked up!

Thanks guys - I'm about 99% sure that's what the issue is too. Car is booked in for Tue to get checked over

Sonea Fifer · 9 Dec 2015 at 21:45

Picked my car back up today from the garage - no more strange noises

Many thanks to all those who offered advice. The wheel bearing comes as a hub assembly and not a simple kit so it was slightly more expensive but it's all done now and I'm just hoping for at least few hours of no rain so I can get the roof down on my extended (thanks Forth Road Bridge) trip to work

Housey · 30 Dec 2015 at 16:02

Housey said:
Wife's car goes in for a service at a local garage tomorrow, first time I've not take it to Mazda, which I am fine with, frankly, as she doesn't want to change the car. So I have arranged to have these fitted

Have had these on the wife's car for a few weeks now and have to say I am impressed. Great feel, don't seem to fade and good performance with a lot less dust than the yellow versions. Happy to recommend them, if that's worth anything.

scaza · 22 Jan 2016 at 19:34

Evening!

Due to a change of circumstances leaving me currently carless I'm now looking for a new car! Coming from an SLK350 I tried some other replacements around a similar level of car (135i,TTs), BUT, I've decided to spend much less than I initially thought and instead buy a cheaper car and pay the rest off the mortgage.

So here I am looking at a MX5, a mk3 NC model. I love the idea of cheap thrills in a small, well packaged car. Any pointers on what to look out for when viewing one and anybody with any experience of such a change of cars?

Cheers.

scaza · 6 Feb 2016 at 22:04

What's the actual battery type for a 2.0 NC. Euro car parts and the like recommend an 063 battery, but it just looks way too big compared to what's in there at the moment.

Cheers.

Sonea Fifer · 7 Feb 2016 at 00:07

scaza said:
What's the actual battery type for a 2.0 NC. Euro car parts and the like recommend an 063 battery, but it just looks way too big compared to what's in there at the moment.

Cheers.

Halfrauds are suggesting the HB053 - is there any part numbers or anything on the existing battery?

Clarkey · 7 Feb 2016 at 01:22

Will said:
I was going to try rc5+ on the front of my mk3 but decided against, having read some of the bad things about how the backing plates corrode easily and the few folk that have had the pad split from the backing plate too. They don't seem to deal well with winter road conditions well from what I've read. Xp8s are meant to be good but noisier, and they cost even more. Cant help but consider them overkill for my usage too tbh...rc5+ would be friendlier for road use if it wasn't for the corrosion they suffer with.

I don't have an MX5 or RC5+, but I do have RC6's which are along similar lines. What I would say is they are not joking at all when it says for competition use only. They are fantastic on track at a high temperature, but a total pig on the road and really not suitable. At cold temperature they are ridiculously grabby, hard to put any braking force on at all without locking the wheels, then there's the god awful noise. It's not like EBC where they make claims of super track performance when it's actually a nice road pad, these actually are hardcore.

I know you don't use your car on track (and this is an old post), so I would stand by yellowstuffs. I always found them to be a really nice pad for fast road use. They work really nicely when giving it the beans, but from cold you wouldn't know it's any different from a stock pad. They only really fall apart when you take it on track and give it a serious pasting.
Apparently Mintex 1144 are the flavour of the month though, couple of mx5 mates are running these now and claim they are nicer than EBC. I can't vouch for that though, one of them is a deathtrap and I won't get in it, the other has a fixed seat and I can't reach the pedals. I did run 1155 in my e36 though, found them much stronger and more consistent on track but quite numb and unresponsive on road, I understand 55 is quite different to 44 though?

dirtychinchilla · 8 Feb 2016 at 10:04

So how are people finding their 5s in this weather? I feel like I might die every time I leave the house...

4T5 · 8 Feb 2016 at 10:19

dirtychinchilla said:
So how are people finding their 5s in this weather? I feel like I might die every time I leave the house...

I used to Rush out when it was wet but that'll prob tell you more about me than my old MX5