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

Housey said:
Well I've collected the car and run a couple of heat cycles through the brakes, far too early to make a judgement call on their quality. Brake feel is that of a car with brakes that need bedding in. Have another longer journey this afternoon so hopefully I will be closer to bedded in brakes then and can make a judgement. Discs look good though.

Question.

I have the car booked into Centre Gravity next month (soonest he could fit it in!) for a full realignment as the garage felt that was out. I didn't want the factory settings on the car which they offered to put on as these are not as good as those I had. I am considering getting the car tightened up and lowered to remove the gaps above the wheels. What are peoples view on the best suspension for a Mk3.5 MX5? I am happy to pay proper money but I'd like to get dampers and springs replaced as we are keeping the car, hand them to Chris Franklin, fitted and then set up for road use.

Wife really loves the car so having decided to keep it I am getting stuff refreshed. I am also going to get the engine breathed on soon, but not going turbo, rather a more powerful NA engine with higher rev limit, with the associated rebuild and strengthening.
Click to expand...

Engine build sounds interesting! Be intrigued to see which way you go with that...

Best suspension, I'd go for the Ohlins Road and track coilover setup, the spring rates are pretty Road friendly. Speak to BLiNK again as they were doing a deal on supply and fit, 1400 plus vat for a full install with cornerweighting and alignment.

Lots of people rave about the Meister R offerings for the mk3, definitely the most popular option but the low speed ride is pretty crashy (these are what I have on my car), if I had to choose again I'd spend the extra and go for the Ohlins which ride better. The Meister R are simply okay I feel.

If you definitely don't want a coilover then see if bbr will let you drive a car running their custom spec koni damper and custom wound spring setup, less faff with getting them installed than any coilover and about a grand plus vat fully fitted.
 
Frankly I am enjoying playing with the race and road MX5's as it's all cheap stuff relatively and I am getting enjoyment from seeing how the modifications feel. I was looking at Ohlins and KW who also do a couple of sets for the MX5. Both are priced high by MX5 standards, but if I am going to change the standard set up (the car is now over 60K miles and will be slightly tired) I don't want to compromise the ride too much. The MX5 does have a lot of roll as anyone who owns one knows. That isn't a problem as it still has that great handling and balance, but it is quite soft. I was sitting in the garage in my BM waiting for my wife to move her MX5. When she got in I noticed, even for someone small, how much impact her getting in hand on the ride heigh to the right hand side, it was really surprising.

If I do it then I will do it right, with high quality components and most importantly a full set up with corner weighting. I am aware it will always be a compromise, but if I could keep 90% of the road damping and stiffen it up significantly and lower it somewhat that would be great. I also want to explore how I can remove more of the MX5 wobble, something that has always annoyed me where I get a little scuttle shake noticeably through the steering column so am looking at options to fix that. My view is small changes 1 at a time is the right way to go. Hence why I did brakes first and will do suspension next. Engine can wait as for me getting the handling right is the most important thing, power comes with composure.
 
Come and have a go in my car if you like, I have the following bracing on mine...

IL motorsport rear lower 'butterfly' suspension brace
IL motorsport mid lower X chassis brace
IL motorsport front lower cross brace
Auto exe single piece upper strut brace

For what it's worth the butterfly brace at the rear is the one that makes the biggest difference. Agree with you over the steering column shake, but the lot above sure helps.

Also has coilovers and uprated ARBs.
 
Will said:
Best suspension, I'd go for the Ohlins Road and track coilover setup, the spring rates are pretty Road friendly. Speak to BLiNK again as they were doing a deal on supply and fit, 1400 plus vat for a full install with cornerweighting and alignment.

Lots of people rave about the Meister R offerings for the mk3, definitely the most popular option but the low speed ride is pretty crashy (these are what I have on my car), if I had to choose again I'd spend the extra and go for the Ohlins which ride better. The Meister R are simply okay I feel.

If you definitely don't want a coilover then see if bbr will let you drive a car running their custom spec koni damper and custom wound spring setup, less faff with getting them installed than any coilover and about a grand plus vat fully fitted.
Click to expand...

There are other Meister offerings beyond Zeta R and S for Mk3, I sampled the GT1 (similarly dual valved like the Ohlins) a few weeks back and was quite impressed so have opted for those, I had decided to go for Ohlins but Blink had a supply issue and couldn't provide me with them.

Both similar pricey bits of kit, but having the Dual valve stuff on my daily I appreciate the mix of road and track manners, I'm yet to use them in Anger on my Mk3, but will be at Abingdon on Friday with it so I will see.

I'll be quite honest though, I was quite happy with my mk3 on Eibach springs alone, seemed to work well, a lot of roll, but good feel for what the car was doing, my dampers were just a bit slow to respond to some stuff, no doubt due to age, leading to a lot of cross car bobbing which wasn't nice when trying to balance after a crest etc for braking. A good set of dampers on its own would probably have made all the difference.
 
Last edited:
My Sport Tech MK3.5 is up for sale... A Scirocco R replaces it on Tuesday.

Does £8400 seem a reasonable price for a near mint 2009 with 44,000 miles?
 
I went today with my dad for a service to Saab specialist over in our town and saw these beauties which are engined swapped. Red one has 2.3T 9-5 Aero Engine which will be tuned to 300hp along with some modifications to the chassis. The Blue MX5 is getting the same treatment, its a track car with race cage, antirollbars, bucket seats etc.

Sorry for the potato quality... I'll get some better pictures on Friday!

lCVHFGQl.jpg
EOPtiJPl.jpg
PWHhq1Cl.jpg
hqJrUizl.jpg
 
Frozennova said:
Using those engines seem like a strange solution. The MX5 bottom end is good for 250bhp on standard internals.
Click to expand...

Not a clue, that blue MX5 engine had 200bhp or something around that, but the guy who owns it said that its not enough. The red MX5 will be a daily, but it'll have exactly the same engine... I bet it'll shock a lot of people. :p

Edit

According to those guys who only specialise in Saab's, they don't touch other makes when it comes to mechanical work. They said 300hp for that engine is safe on standard internals, when you start going that one extra step you can go even higher. But that'll cost a lot of £££'s. :p
 
Last edited:
Clarkey said:
Yes and the Saab units are good for about 500 and are pocket change to buy.
Click to expand...

The engines might be pocket change but you've then got the time/cost of actually fitting the engine and drive train or mating up to the existing gearbox and prop. Then you've got the management side of things to deal with along with the custom exhaust parts needed.

And then you've got the fact that the MX5 chassis is going to be next to useless for 500bhp unless you want to drive it in a straight line
 
500 sounds a bit extreme for MX5, even with 300 I would imagine this car will have traction issues? The blue MX5 for track will be pushed more than the red mx5, but they both will have the same engine. The blue MX5 also has wider tyres, it was pitch black outside the workshop, so I'll do some more pictures on Friday when our Saab will be left for service.
 
Last edited:
Clarkey said:
No different to engine swapping any other car, why so negative about it?
Click to expand...

I'm not against engine swaps by any stretch of imagination, there's plenty of ways to skin a cat, but in this case it seems like a technical exercise for the sake of it rather than the gains you see with engine swaps in other cars.

I want more power in my mx5 hence going turbo, I could have swapped in a different engine nut ultimately would say an SR20DET give me anything doing a turbo swap would, probably not. But if I wanted a 200+bhp rev monster would I build a Mx5 engine for that, no I'd swap in an F20C like somebody else has done
 
Got my HSD Dualtechs and Whistlers on recently.

12243233_1199650946717350_2275942251519707429_n.jpg



also one next to my wee brothers ;)

12088173_10153138597351129_4720376032429493845_n.jpg
 
Went to pick the car up from BBR today, bolting on the supercharger got it to 183bhp, mapping it took it to 219bhp.

Just need to learn how to drive a stage 3 clutch equipped car without launching it every time I pull away or kangarooing and stalling...
 
5o9cCZ7.jpg


woke up to this. godamnit. SSuppose I will be replacing the wing on this car too!

Assuming this is far too much for any of the paintless dent removal people, am I right?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom