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

visibleman said:
Personally, i would strongly recommend Bilstein B6 Sports as a PRHT OEM replacement given the issues with Mazda's own Bilstein's, ie - it's a Mazda designed shock built by Bilstein that has a known weeping fault (both Mazda and Bilstein wouldn't comment if they had fixed the design when i emailed them), only Mazda stock them and they charge accordingly.
I only know this as i went through the whole rigmarole with my PRHT a few years back (had weeping all around) and after a few weeks, chatting to a load of other PRHT owners and a few MX5 specialists, they all pointed me towards the B6's which offer near-enough the same ride height (i think there's a mm in it on the back) yet feel exactly the same but are only ~£100 a corner and not the ~£320+VAT Mazda wanted to charge me.

As @Janesy B says, once you get over £6/700, you're in the coilover game and £1000+ gets you a pretty decent set of them.


Bilstein's with the Eibach springs is the usual setup if you're not wanting to go down the coilover route, which results in a 30mm drop. Pair it with a really good alignment (ie - not Mazda's standard setup which isn't great) and it'll be a great setup for road use.
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Have you got any links to the OEM weeping issue that you were talking about? I've been fairly active on the mx5/Miata forums for a fair few years and haven't seen anything relating to a known problem, though to be honest I didn't try to find out if there was one.

My order is yet to be dispatched because a few parts are on backorder, so I could probably cancel.
 
visibleman said:
Alignment makes a huge difference, even with bog-standard suspension; just requires finding a decent place that offer decent setups (that aren't Mazda's standard guff).

If you're near Chesham then alignment at Protyre is supposedly still ran by one of the ex-Wheels Inmotion guys (Joe) in the same building. I haven't used them since they were Wheels Inmotion and Tony Bones was still about but they developed a 'fast road' setup that was always/is decent for daily road use (the setup is mentioned on a number of forums, so it probably could be replicated elsewhere).
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Sadly not near me, its on my list to find somewhere that does more than you standard kwik fit alignment
 
bainbridge said:
Have you got any links to the OEM weeping issue that you were talking about? I've been fairly active on the mx5/Miata forums for a fair few years and haven't seen anything relating to a known problem, though to be honest I didn't try to find out if there was one.
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IIRC, there were a few posts on the OC, Miata and Nutz forums but I haven't got any saved links. It was specifically a valving issue, you can get them revalved, which then resulted in weeping/fluid leakage. Supposedly the design was updated but i never found anything to confirm that, other than the odd random forum post, and as said, Mazda nor Bilstein would confirm it themselves.

Being honest, cost did play a big part as i couldn't justify what Mazda was after (at the time, late 2020/early 2021, they had shortages on parts and long lead times; same with MX5Parts) vs £470 from Demon Tweeks for a complete set of B6's (i don't doubt they're more expensive now though).
 
I was a little worried they wouldn't be wide enough to fill the arches as they're only ET45 vs ET55 and 7.5J vs 7J stock but it looks spot on. I weighed them and each corner comes in at 250g a corner heavier, which isn't bad for a set of reps. That difference could even be down to the tyres.


 
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Quick pose before leaving our workshop today (yard is a mess!)
 
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Right guys, i need to refurb my alloys as they're shocking due to the previous owner liking curbs (will need repairing before paint/powder).

Has anyone recently gone through the process on their MX5 and if so, did you opt for getting them painted or powder coated?

Just that i've read a good few handfuls of forums posts that suggest powder coating Mazda alloys can cause internal fractures and corrosion and potentially leading to failure - like this (few others around on the MX5OC forums). Just that i'm not sure if it's something i should be worried about if getting them powder coated :confused:
 
visibleman said:
Right guys, i need to refurb my alloys as they're shocking due to the previous owner liking curbs (will need repairing before paint/powder).

Has anyone recently gone through the process on their MX5 and if so, did you opt for getting them painted or powder coated?

Just that i've read a good few handfuls of forums posts that suggest powder coating Mazda alloys can cause internal fractures and corrosion and potentially leading to failure - like this (few others around on the MX5OC forums). Just that i'm not sure if it's something i should be worried about if getting them powder coated :confused:
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The stock wheels on mine were powder coated, I'm still here.
 
I somewhat miss my MX-5, NC 2.0.

It did get me addicted to RWD tho. Which got me into the M140i, RWD and the B58… with M340i within a few years hopes!

Id love another NC eventually tho, but hardtop… the soft top killed me.

Will post a pic later, was a lovely car!
 
My NC is going in for MOT this morning. There's definitely a couple of worn suspension bushes which I didn't get around to doing.

Quite a few creaks and groans since the last Nurburgring trip!

Let's wait and see.
 
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