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Hi guys - thought I'd create a Reader's Rides thread for our new project. My awesome wife has very kindly given her old daily to me and Meltedcheese to turn into a track day car! We've never done a track day before - the closest I've got to driving on the track (apart from drag racing) is driving across the track at Mallory Park for the PPC show! We're both well excited about this project and have some grand plans, spreadsheets ahoy! It's a 1.6 model that's standard bar the timing mod, a free flow filter and proper lowering springs. It has pretty poor paint with laquer peel developing here and there, some scabs on the rear arches and could do with some new sills but it's solid underneath and still mot'd. It's going to be a rolling project so we can test drive any mods, drive it to the track and generally have it as a spare car. We're going halves on everything from tax to tyres so it should be a fun cheap entry into amateur motorsport and we can't wait! We'll update this thread as we go, so as to document the project and subsequent track day adventures. Here she is when the paint hasn't been polished for a while:    And after a good AutoGleaming!     Shiny! Shiny doesn't last long though! As soon as the keys were in our possession the first purchase was made:  |
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Got back home from work the other day and before I'd gone in the house I couldn't resist taking the plate housing and badge off, ready to prep for the sticky plate.  Boom....  Damn it! I knew the front bumper was the wrong shade, but the lazy sod hadn't even unscrewed the plate housing (2 screws) or popped the badge off! Who does that?!  Not exactly the debadged smooth look we were after. But it confirmed that we are both after it looking pretty tidy. So, the bumpers gonna be painted before the plate goes on and we're gonna try and generally tidy up the bodywork a bit. Cool looking thing minus the badge and plate if you squint so the colours match!   The list of things we're definitely going to do before taking it on the track include a new clutch, cambelt, full service, roll cage and partial interior strip down. Other bits we're thinking about are wider rims, bucket seats and a cheeky turbo amongst lots of other cool ideas... Bring it on! |
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lewis
Part of things
Posts: 82
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Good choice, lots of fun to be had on track, even in a stock MX5!
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Are you sure that the front bumper has been sprayed around the badge and plinth? If there is no lip on the paint to suggest a resprayed bumper, id say that its just the rest of the paint has faded, an the 'new' paint you see just has far less UV damage.
Front bumpers on MX5's never matched from the factory. My mx5 is the same colour as yours and doesn't match either.
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There seems to be a lip around the plate mount but not the badge, strangely? Do you happen to know what colour it is? I'd like to sort some paint out for it asap so we can get stuck in
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The paint code is HU which will be under either Neo Green or British Racing Green (same colour). The lip around the plate mount could just be where it has been pushed into the bumper on a few occasions (hence the scratch marks). Here's a picture of mine!  It no longer has that horrible MOT patch on the sill. I made up new inner, centre and outer sills, an then sprayed the whole quarter. |
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Gonna be watching this one. Bookmarked.
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MiataMark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,971
Club RR Member Number: 29
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The list of things we're definitely going to do before taking it on the track include a new clutch, cambelt, full service, roll cage and partial interior strip down. I'm going down a similar path to you with my MX5. For a roll cage I'd thoroughly recommend TR Lane, I got the GPV bar and it certainly inspires confidence. If you're close to Gloucestershire get them to fit it as well, they did a service for me as well. Mark |
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1990 Mazda MX-52012 BMW 118i (170bhp) - white appliance 2011 Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 2003 Land Rover Discovery II TD52007 Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon JTDm
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Fellow 5er here good car to start with...
If you are going to change out the clutch a good mod is to get an 1800 clutch and flywheel,get the flywheel lightened and balanced,it has bigger surface area so should take the turbo power easily enough unless you are going really stupid with power.
You can get bigger brakes cheaply by swapping out the carriers and disks off an 1800 (re use 1600 calipers) i run these on my car and have never run out of brakes.
As mark says the TRL bars are good and don't intrude into the cabin so you can get the seat back unlike some bars.
There are some good write ups on Mx5 nuts about what you can and cant take off to get down to fighting weight.
As its a later car one thing you might want to check is what BHP model you have, if its the 90 hp one the engine is a bit different internally so it might need cams from an earlier 115hp car before you inflict a turbo on it.
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Ginetta G15 BMW K1100 conversion Sold
Mk1 Mx5 on ITB'S Sold
TVR Chimaera 400 supercharged
MR2 Red Roadster 2ZZ
Bee*R 324 Skyline
95 Cherokee Jeep
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Awesome, thanks guys - looks like we're gonna get some good advice from the parish!
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I have a set of 115 cams you can have for the postage by the way......as i am running HKS cams in mine.......and throttle bodies.....and a kia sportage diff......and a megasquirt........and a crapengineering tubular subframe.........did i mention i have been bitten by the 5 bug quite badly?
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Ginetta G15 BMW K1100 conversion Sold
Mk1 Mx5 on ITB'S Sold
TVR Chimaera 400 supercharged
MR2 Red Roadster 2ZZ
Bee*R 324 Skyline
95 Cherokee Jeep
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Haha! What's the benefit of the Kia diff? Is it just shorter gearing? And how do we know if it's 115 or 90hp? I presumed it's 115 as it's a pre '94 import but I'm no expert! Also, the old MX5 we had want as low but on a wet roundabout it was quote clear it had an lsd. This one is a bit snappier when wet which makes me think it might not? I know it's not the sort that you can jack up one side and spin a wheel to check - are there any visual clues?
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Kia diff is 4.77 which means it comes out the corners like a scolded cat but loses a bit on the top end perfect for me as its a hillclimb car.
If its a pre 94 i reckon you are ok, if the white stickers is still in the door jamb you can use that to decipher what you have If not it might be a case of google is your friend.
1600 normally came with a VLSD which generally fails and then becomes an open diff,basically there is a ring in the diff that falls apart changing it from a slip to an open diff( i have a functioning one you can have if you really want it) but you might have got lucky and have got a torsen equipped car, just google mx5 diff spotters guide and that will give you an idea.if you are changing out from a 1600 to a torsen you might need new prop and drive shafts.
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Ginetta G15 BMW K1100 conversion Sold
Mk1 Mx5 on ITB'S Sold
TVR Chimaera 400 supercharged
MR2 Red Roadster 2ZZ
Bee*R 324 Skyline
95 Cherokee Jeep
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MiataMark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,971
Club RR Member Number: 29
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1600 normally came with a VLSD which generally fails and then becomes an open diff,basically there is a ring in the diff that falls apart changing it from a slip to an open diff( i have a functioning one you can have if you really want it) but you might have got lucky and have got a torsen equipped car, just google mx5 diff spotters guide and that will give you an idea.if you are changing out from a 1600 to a torsen you might need new prop and drive shafts. I tried the dump the clutch and see if you get two black lines approach (I did)  but I'll be checking to see what I've actually got. |
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1990 Mazda MX-52012 BMW 118i (170bhp) - white appliance 2011 Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 2003 Land Rover Discovery II TD52007 Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon JTDm
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Today was a successful and satisfying first day properly tinkering with the track car. We started by taking out the seats:    Nice! Not a bad haul!  We took all of the carpets and trim out, but decided to leave the dash, door panels and centre console in place. Carpet was a bit of a ballache under the dash but it came out eventually!  |
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May 10, 2015 17:34:01 GMT
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Had a small roadtrip today to collect an eBay bargain: £50 for a pair of OMP Eco bucket seats and 4 point harnesses   Just need a good clean, some small rips patching and a can of black dye and they'll be sweet. Google tells us they're a decent bucket seat and it means we can start measuring for the custom cage. Need to mount them first, going to try to fit the mazda subframes to them. Then we'll have to weld in some pads for the 4 point harnesses. It's coming together! |
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Dan P
Part of things
Posts: 169 
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May 10, 2015 17:57:21 GMT
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liking the look of this so far! them seats were a bargain aswell
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meltedcheese
Part of things
Please, Don't Sqeeze the Volvo!
Posts: 403
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May 10, 2015 21:36:41 GMT
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A month or so and I think we will be looking at a different beast, that's the hope anyway!
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Sept 25, 2015 20:23:51 GMT
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Time for a quick update to the track Eunos thread! The budget is going well, the spreadsheet is doing the trick and we're making progress  We've purchased all of the steel to make the rollbar, the seat frames to fit the bucket seats and the flat bar to make adapters for them. We have some tow loops, a decent kill switch, bonnet pins and boot straps all waiting for our next bit of free time for us to fit them. And speaking of purchases and free time... we bought a badass ducktail spoiler and had a little time to fit it last weekend.. I'm afraid i forgot the before and most of the during pics, but scroll up for before, and imagine it with no spoiler for the during! We used rivets and waterproof adhesive/sealant to fit it. It's left a hole from the original (now for sale) spoiler, but that's ok, as we'll just fill it with weld when we're repairing the body soon      Unfortunately, it's not quite the right shape, so we had a little fun trying not to crack it with the rivets. We used some washers to spread the pressure slightly at the edges. The sides aren't perfect but I'll rectify that when we start on the bodywork. Next plan... well, we've got some pretty cool ideas for the rear bumper. Apparently, the design of the bumper acts like a big parachute at speed, catching air and causing a lot of drag. This makes a lot of sense, but I've never really thought about it before. We're going to take a big section of the bumper off to help remedy this. A nice by product of this means it'll expose the exhaust system and the rear subframe and give it a bit of a hardcore edge, too. Either that or it'll look like we've taken the bumper off! I'll update when we next have a play |
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but I'll be checking to see what I've actually got.
