Glad you had a good day 
Oulton is indeed mega and Druids is indeed a key corner! Did a little work with some guys racing NCs once, and we chopped 2s off lap time within one session by carrying more speed there.
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I absolutely adore this car! So many great touches
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Cheers. I’ve got a new (used) rear diff to go on next. Shorter final drive. Was one of the better mods I did on ny ep3 civic.
If the final drive swap did not require a remap like your EP3, I would have done the same to my ND2 much earlier. Can I ask who will be doing your remap, please?
Ep3 didnt need mapping as it was all good old cable throttle and no cruise etc.
@AdamR28 successor Maurici in Crewe will be doing the ecu tweaks to the mx5. Booking the diff in with Paul Sheard near me for fitting.
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Got another day at Curborough sprint this coming Friday. Same group as last time so it’s going to be a brilliant mix of cars.
Will be interesting to see how the nd gets on, this time.
I’ve splurged out on a tasty bolt on (sort of) upgrade.
3.58 final drive and versatune to suit.
The rear differential unit is a straight swap from an Abarth spider but they’re like rocking horse ■■■■ it seems. Found this one from a breaker and it was close enough to collect, so took the punt.
Mx5 nd is 2.88 oem, the abarth spider manual is 3.46 and the automatic is 3.58 (only abarth have the lsd, not the fiat 124 spider). I’ve gone for the 3.58 out of the auto, so it works out to be approximately a 25% torque increase, ish. I was a little worried I’d ruin it for the motorway, but on the drive back it is still absolutely fine at 70 mph. 3.4k revs I think it was and mpg has dropped only a tiny bit as a result (still averages 42/43 mpg on a 70 mph run).
Due to the way these skyactive engines and ecu work, to get it working properly I needed to get it tweaked. The dash gear indicator was reading incorrectly, the cruise control wasn’t working as it should and also the torque tables for the engine/throttle requests weren’t correctly calibrated.
Drove down to see Maurici from Clear motorsport (partners with Adam Read who’s done some work on this car previously) and had the 3.58 data loaded for the cruise, gear indicator and torque tables. While it was there he gave the map itself some tweaks based on a load of testing they’d been doing with the nd platform. Base 99 map, followed by some on road data logging and final tweaks.
Car drives spot on now, very much oem+.
No jerkiness in traffic, no flat spots, mid to top end revs feels much stronger (before it felt like the last 1k revs were a waste of time to be honest). Throttle lag has pretty much gone and the rev limit is raised to 7800. Together with the final drive the car has much more punch through the gears, transition between gears is slicker and it feels much more k20 like with the stronger upper revs. Whilst still feeling oem which is brilliant. No dyno obviously, but they’re able to calculate an approximate hp. Last time @AdamR28 did logging it was around 192, completely stock bar the backbox and kn panel. Now, with the map tweak it is estimating just shy of 200. Have asked for the data and charts etc as it’s too complicated for me to grasp the theory behind it all.
Will see what it feels like at Curborough on Friday, expecting it to be shaving a notable chunk of time, off of a lap.
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Really do love this car and all the thought behind it
Learnt the hard way with previous cars. Gone too aftermarket/cheap parts or overly hardcore and quickly ruined the drive of a couple of cars.
Key for me these days, is oem+, reliability/turn key cars and easily reversible upgrades.
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Awesome mate, glad you like the changes. This is how the car should have come from the factory IMO 
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Yeah definitely. Maurici says you have gone 4.1? No wonder you were flying at Oulton, i was baffled. Which car is that from?
Yeah it is, perhaps a touch short for all round or daily duties (3500rpm in 6th is 60mph) but its great fun ripping through the gears, both up and down.
I also now uses 3-4-5 on track rather than 2-3-4 on the OEM ratio, which feels much more natural - as with all cars, a spirited downshift from 3-2 always feels a bit clunky.
My gearset is from a JDM 1.5 Automatic, but you can get the CWP sets separately too. Makes such a difference - from the data I have, straight line pace up to about 80mph is very similar on my car (1.5 ND1, map, manifold, short diff) to a standard ND2 2L. Its all about weight and how the power is delivered IMO 
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I really hope the ND3 ECU is cracked in the next couple of years. I have one and I’d love to switch up the final drive in the future once I’ve got some other mods out of the way.
what a DIFFerence the final drive swap/map make. 3rd gear for almost the entire lap and there was power in the entire rev range. The reduced gearbox wear will surely pay off the mod! man maths.
Really has brought this car to life, I’m chuffed with it. Roll on my next Oulton day for a proper acid test.
Hot day at Curborough but as ever, a brilliant bunch and mix of cars.
Had to call it day earlier than I’d have liked to (lap after the one I got round to videoing, below) as I had a front end knock. Checked today and turned out to just be a worn out drop link, so all good.
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Surprised they let you run with your arms not covered.
Knew someone would say it! They did say we had to. I’m just a (sunburnt) rebel
They have the rule for a reason. It is a poor show that the start marshal let you run. A poor show all round.
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Thanks so much dude for Mentioning our services, and doing a bit of a review of how we do. Every little helps. Saw the video and the car looks to be running spot on!!
Have fun!
Maurici.
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Ali express wireless android auto unit put in today. Straight swap and works a treat. Uses USB C to charge now so hopefully actually does charge the phone up when needed too.
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The charge is 17 watts with usb c. Usb a is 2 watts.
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