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