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

Soldato
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try por15, the stuff is great! when I treat the underside of mky mk3 I will be using that, it drys to a hard almost ceramic like finish and is meant to be a lot better than waxoyl (My brother's used it on his car and I've heard really good things about it from others)
 
Man of Honour
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Great thread this, reading through the many, many pages.

Downsizing my car and no longer doing much commuting, looking for something fun for around £6000-£8000, think an MX5 is probably the thing that fits the bill the closest!
 
Soldato
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8,570
Great thread this, reading through the many, many pages.

Downsizing my car and no longer doing much commuting, looking for something fun for around £6000-£8000, think an MX5 is probably the thing that fits the bill the closest!
Assuming you want the best/newest you can get I'd recommend what I have which is a MK3.5 Sport Tech (hard top). Alternatively, buy a MK1 or 2 and turbo it ;)
 
Man of Honour
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I've had my mk2.5 Arizona 1.8 for 2 months now. Took it to MX5 Restorers in Eastbourne on Sat to give it a good looking over on Sat.
Very nice chaps there, and clearly a specialist as the only non-MX5 either in the workshop or car park was my sister's SLK, who'd come there to meet me.

Either way, they gave it one of their free sanity checks, which looks at the brakes, suspension, electrics and most importantly for me, rust. They took a very good look over the car whilst it was up on ramps. Seems that the chassis rails are good for another 2-3 years and the sills probably another year on top of that. Otherwise, apparently it's straight and no significant issues.
Big sigh of relief from myself. Whilst it looked good to me whilst buying it, I'm certainly not an expert.
More importantly, the outcome was going to be the decider as part of the question of "move it on, or keep it and save it". My preference is very much the latter, as it seems to be in great condition and very much has the specification I wanted. However, if it needed a LOT of cash, then I'd have been moving it on.

In short, nothing critical right now.
For all that, I'm going to be giving it some pro-active maintenance and will be taking it back to them in a couple of months to have the underneath of the car cleaned off and then fully undersealed. Cost is apparently £360 all in, which to me seems reasonable. Sure, the underseal is probably dirt cheap. However, there's going to be a lot of work to fully clean it down and do it.

Big thumbs up to the chaps at MX5 Restorers, recommended from me.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Jul 2013
Posts
8,570
I've had my mk2.5 Arizona 1.8 for 2 months now. Took it to MX5 Restorers in Eastbourne on Sat to give it a good looking over on Sat.
Very nice chaps there, and clearly a specialist as the only non-MX5 either in the workshop or car park was my sister's SLK, who'd come there to meet me.

Either way, they gave it one of their free sanity checks, which looks at the brakes, suspension, electrics and most importantly for me, rust. They took a very good look over the car whilst it was up on ramps. Seems that the chassis rails are good for another 2-3 years and the sills probably another year on top of that. Otherwise, apparently it's straight and no significant issues.
Big sigh of relief from myself. Whilst it looked good to me whilst buying it, I'm certainly not an expert.
More importantly, the outcome was going to be the decider as part of the question of "move it on, or keep it and save it". My preference is very much the latter, as it seems to be in great condition and very much has the specification I wanted. However, if it needed a LOT of cash, then I'd have been moving it on.

In short, nothing critical right now.
For all that, I'm going to be giving it some pro-active maintenance and will be taking it back to them in a couple of months to have the underneath of the car cleaned off and then fully undersealed. Cost is apparently £360 all in, which to me seems reasonable. Sure, the underseal is probably dirt cheap. However, there's going to be a lot of work to fully clean it down and do it.

Big thumbs up to the chaps at MX5 Restorers, recommended from me.
Glad you had a good experience, I've used them ever since I got mine 18 months ago and have been great. The only downside is that they don't have a courtesy car so that whenever I get work done I have to drag a friend with me (half hour drive) to bring me home/take me.

Are they in their new premises now?
 
Man of Honour
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My sister lives really close by. So whilst I'm 90 mins away, I can make it a day out.
Yep, they're in their new premises, which is why I'd waited until now to have the car checked by them. IIRC, they have something like 5 lifts and a very clean and tidy garage. Good bunch by the look of it.
 
Associate
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31 Aug 2017
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2,209
Coming soon to a miata ... er of mine..
Yup quads...Twins are nice but why not go totally overboard and double that up.
Just looking for a manifold and front section (decat) now to go with the rear pipe and back box.

mazda-mx5-nd-cobra-sport-dual-catback-mz11.jpg
 
Soldato
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8,570
Not sure I'm on board with idea of quads on an mx5, but I must say they do look good. The standard twins on the nd look out of place to me, the NC does the exhausts much better imo
 
Associate
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813
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London
try por15, the stuff is great! when I treat the underside of mky mk3 I will be using that, it drys to a hard almost ceramic like finish and is meant to be a lot better than waxoyl (My brother's used it on his car and I've heard really good things about it from others)

Haven't used it but heard that Dinitrol is also better than Waxoyl but don't know how it compares to Por15
 
Soldato
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Wiltshire / Winchester
Thought I had the ME221 and AEM wideband all setup and running fine on basemap, then this week the AFR decides to stick high 17-18 on steady throttle at any speed...! Can't think of anything I have changed other than updating the ecu firmware, and have since then reloaded the basemap and it's still doing it, didn't have time to do some proper diagnosis so will plug the laptop in this weekend and have a look whats going on....
The supercharger install will have to wait until this is sorted.
 
Man of Honour
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Northampton
Thought I had the ME221 and AEM wideband all setup and running fine on basemap, then this week the AFR decides to stick high 17-18 on steady throttle at any speed...! Can't think of anything I have changed other than updating the ecu firmware, and have since then reloaded the basemap and it's still doing it, didn't have time to do some proper diagnosis so will plug the laptop in this weekend and have a look whats going on....
The supercharger install will have to wait until this is sorted.


Where's the Lamda sensor mounted?

Still idling stable or surging?

If the idle is stable, and you've got the sensor mounted any closer than 2 foot from the cylinder head the sensor has probably cooked itself due to heat
 
Soldato
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Where's the Lamda sensor mounted?

Still idling stable or surging?

If the idle is stable, and you've got the sensor mounted any closer than 2 foot from the cylinder head the sensor has probably cooked itself due to heat

:( it's only been on 2 weeks lol

Idle seems fine, standard location Mk1 1.8, so yeah thats closer than 2ft....

Nothing about the distance in the ME221 AEM Wideband installation, just install in stock location :/
 
Man of Honour
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:( it's only been on 2 weeks lol

Idle seems fine, standard location Mk1 1.8, so yeah thats closer than 2ft....

Nothing about the distance in the ME221 AEM Wideband installation, just install in stock location :/

I had the same issue with my Innovate wideband in the stock location on my MK2 after a couple of months, it got moved much further downstream after the turbo install and that sensor is still absolutely fine 2 years later
 
Soldato
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Wiltshire / Winchester
I had the same issue with my Innovate wideband in the stock location on my MK2 after a couple of months, it got moved much further downstream after the turbo install and that sensor is still absolutely fine 2 years later

Good to know thanks! done some googling, seems some downpipes have a bung further down by the cat, will have a look, if not I will look into getting a bung welded on, and another £70-80 sensor purchased...!
 
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