New Car (Hint: Suitably Gay) - and probably ongoing tinkerings too.

[Gaijin]

Well hello.

I has a new car. One with Irish plates this time.

Main purposes/requirements of the car:

• Be fun to drive
• Cheap to buy
• Good value for money
• Easy to work on
• Cheap parts

The idea of this car, was that it is to never see a garage in its life if at all possible. This was for a couple of reasons: to continue to develop my ventures as a bedroom mechanic and to keep maintenance costs down. No practicality or fuel economy requirements.

So the obvious choice?

A Mazda MX5

I originally was looking for a reasonably decent Mk1 or a slightly jaded Mk2 but what you have to appreciate in Ireland, is that the market is ridiculous. Look for MX5's on UK sites such as autotrader, pistonheads etc and you will find hundreds of MX5s for sale across the country - even at this time of year. Look on the various sites in Ireland and you will find about 70 in total acorss the board.

Without trying to generalise too much, the other problem here is that comparatively/generally no-one gives a **** about their cars. From what I've seen, sticking to service schedules let alone main dealer ones is rare.

Subsequently the typical car advert here would drive most of your to suicide. An example: "Classic Mazda convertible. Good condition for age. Runs well. No NCT hence price."

Anyways at risk of TLDR'ing it, there were no good examples of a Mk1 or Mk2 that I liked. Except a turbo cheap Mk1 VR-Limited I missed out on and an R-Limited which was my backup choice but was down in Cork (but had sold only to come back on the market after I'd bought this). I stumbled across a slightly out of budget but cheap JDM Mk2.5 1.8 that was just around the corner of work. Bodywork was immaculate corrosion wise and the condition was great. Later identified by Westy as a JDM RS which means (from memory) it has/should have

• 1.8 VVT Engine (has)
• Slightly different cams (Not sure)
• Bilstein Suspension (has)
• 6 Speed Gearbox (has)
• Bose Stereo (has)
• 16" Alloys (has)
• LSD (How could I forget - thank you Westy )
• Larger Sports Brakes (Need to measure them, but apparently the rest of spec and presence of the larger alloys seems to corroborate)
• Air Con

So time to shut up and post pics:

And of course the best part is a very out of date, super special JDM flare:

Problems:

Unfortunate it wasn't all a fairy tale, and whereas I did check as much as you can in an underground car park, the car had a leak. Just in time for an utterly shocking spell of irish weather of non stop wind and rain for 2 weeks. Cue me ripping out the interior and carpet insulation and trying to dry it all out. It's stopped now, after tightening the roof latches, unblocking the drains, and a **** load of duct tape

It was also due a cambelt service which I knew and am doing myself:

It's losing brake/clutch fluid and the slave cylinder is the suspect - will probably swap this out soon.

Done:

• Fix leaks temporarily and dry car out
• Remove horrible headlight covers

To do (short term):

• Remove horrible rear cluster covers
• Finish Cambelt Service (Oil seals done, need to fit new water pump and belts)
• Replace insulation
• Change Gearbox and Diff Oil
• Fit new roof (en route)
• Get an alarm
• Swap out slave cylinder
• Headlamp refurb

To do (Long term):

• Lower the car and sort Geo
• Change brake fluid and pads (pads are fine but want some better than OEM)
• Buy and fit some sort of roll hoop
• Take it around Mondello

Mentally big props to the MX5 krew past and present (Westy, Howard, DRZ, Freefaller) for their (ongoing advice).

Bitch away bitches.

 

[Gaijin]

Looks good if you can get it back to mint.

Whats going on with those rear lights though?

As per post. Horrible stick on covers. Only applied via an adhesive and the front ones were even worse when they were on. However, I didn't remove the rears when I removed the fronts because:

1. My wife's hairdryer is crap
2. I realised the horrible irony of using a hairdryer on the MX5 and what it must look like to the neighbours
3. I got caught hairdryeriserfying by the wife for non-cosmetic purposes and got told off

Where are your curling tongs?

In the boot, only a total imbecile would leave their GHD's on display over here.

Don't forget the Torsen diff

Right you are, don't know how I forgot that

 

[Gaijin]

Attack those front lights with some polish asap!

On the list - had good results on the Evo with the Meguiars kit.

Ahh, the well known wooden spoon mod. +12hp

15bhp on the VVT model I'll have you know

 

[Gaijin]

So, a bit of an necro/update for anyone who cares:

Nearly been a year now and here's what I've done so far:

• Awful rear cluster covers removed
• Headlights polished to remove haze
• Finished drying the car out after it's leaking issues
• Finished cambelt service (water pump, camshaft end seals, crank end seals, replaced oil)
• Re-tensioned cambelt approximately 100 times.
• Changed gearbox oil and diff oil with Millers CRX 75w90
• Replaced roof with a mohair job with heated rear window (fun times - not)
• Replaced slave cylinder. Really don't recommend the pattern replacement from MX5 parts - doesn't fit well at all.
• Re-lubed the windows as they were making a racket and taking ages to go down.
• Replaced upper (DoctorMX5) and lower (OEM) shift boots as they were mullered.
• Replaced two tyres with Federal RSR's

Some fun stuff:

I had an issue where when I was sat at lights, if I put the car into gear with the clutch down, it would raise the RPM by 1000. Nothing mega but it irritated me.

Some investigation resulted in discovering that the clutch switch was disconnected - reconnecting it solved the problem. However, whilst fixing that, I removed the steering column cover and found this bunch of loveliness:

Essentially a poor attempt at a kill switch and some other mess. Further investigation and tracing some of the spaghetti discovered this:

Essentially a fob-based cat 2 immobiliser wired by someone rather incompetent. I was never given any fobs so it obviously wasn't working.

I left this for a while, deciding to sort it out later, but then the car started to do some odd things - namely, randomly not starting and eventually the windows and wipers failed. I suspect that I disturbed the wiring somehow and it decided to come back to life occasionally. Essentially my hand was forced and so I had to get stuck in.

Less than an hour later and it was out.

Still baffled as to what the installers mindset was and I really hope no money had changed hands. Everything was local to the harness, easily identifiable, poorly spliced/insulated, poorly mounted and easy to remove - I had never worked on car security before this and so I imagine any thief would be able to get around this very quickly.

Anyways, onto some more properly fun stuff - picked up some very cheap Koni coilovers for the car from Larkspeed over the summer.

Didn't take any pics of them in the box but here's a press shot:

Now, these are supposed to retail for between £900-£1100. Anyone who pays that is an imbecile for reasons I'll go into.

I took a bit of a punt with these, bit of an impulse buy as well as Larkspeed had them on clearance. Koni have a good rep so what could go wrong? Well, a few bits:

The springs are progressive and have a reputation for being a bit on the soft side. Not essentially a bother for me - irish roads are awful at the best of times. This will have a negative impact on the track though, so it's a bit of a compromise.

What is rather more irritating is that these coilovers were obviously an earlier design and don't have independent ride height and preload adjustment. I didn't realise at the time - bit disappointing but more on that later.

What was the biggest pain in the back side, was that they did not come with top mounts, you either have to use your originals or buy new ones. Pretty shocking for a coilover set that is allegedly selling for a grand.

I left these in a box over the summer as I had a lot going on, but Autumn arrived and I figured that I should get these fitted as I didn't fancy doing them at -3 degrees with no light in the winter (Lesson learned from the clutch change on the Evo).

Had a bit of grief with the ball joints and ended up going with the "long bolt" method to get the struts in and out. Much easier.

Here's where the lack of top mounts was a pain - I essentially had to disassemble the original Bilstein struts and re-assemble the Koni's with the top mounts, which aside from busting my hands and arms with spring compressors, added about 2 hours to the install.

Some pics:

Strut removal and disassembly:

Rebuilding the new one:

New one installed:

How the car currently sits:

Despite the negativity above, the ride is actually lovely. Firmed up a good degree from the OEM Bilstein's, removed the roll and lessened the ducking under cornering and braking, and the grip level is higher despite the fact I haven't done the geo yet.

I'm actually really pleased and a bit surprised although I still think it will suffer on the track. My friend has bought a MK1 and has bought Meister R's, so it will be interesting to compare.

Still to do:

• Get geo done
• Re-align PPF and Gearbox (Getting a lashy noise on overrun)
• Change brake fluid and pads (pads are fine but want some better than OEM)
• Buy and fit roll bar
• Preventative rust treatment
• Take it around Mondello

TLDR: Did stuff - still gay

 

[Gaijin]

What about the car?

What car?

I wish you had taken pictures of you in shot fixing the car, then I would really have to have a cold bath.

Epic gay thread, I'm in.

<3

I'll PM some pics later buttercup Meanwhile, there's half a leg and a boot in picture 7 to get hot and bothered over.

 

[Gaijin]

Single seater? YOLO

Ha, can't believe you're the first to notice

Believe it or not it wasn't out for "mental weight savings blud" - as mentioned on the OP the interior got drenched due to a leaking roof and I was drying it all out. Hence why there is similarly no carpet on the parcel shelf etc.

What method did you say you used to lower the lower arm? On the mk1 you just separate the bottom of the hub upright from the lower arm and then you can stand on it and get it down far enough to get the struts in. Pretty simple and I guess it's all the same on the mk2.

Not sure where you mean Howard? I loosened the lower arm pivot bolts but it wouldn't even come close to being enough clearance

The long bolt method was ridiculously simple though. Remove ARB saddle bracket and remove the long bolt through the top wishbone pivot. Drops the lot instantly as you can see in one of the pics.

 

[Gaijin]

Do you mean the bolt near the lower brown component?

 

[Gaijin]

Ah I see - that I didn't try. I'll pass that on to my mate putting the Meister's on his MK1 - thanks.

Also, whilst I have your attention Howard:

 

[Gaijin]

Tax must be a real killer on that!

edit: 1.8 not 2.0 still tis a hefty whack at 636 euros.

Yep, it costs three times more than my Evo to tax which is crazy to say the least.

Look at all that space!!

Yeah, one of the wonderful things about this car - that said, there's obviously no radiator, fans or pipework in that pic. Access is still very good with the rad and fans in though.

 

[Gaijin]

Unknown. Should have been a torque wrench in hindsight.