I wrote this ages ago for mx50c, I can’t seem to find it on the new forums though. I know it’s not 100% up to date, but it should still prove fairly informative for the interested. I’ve hosted it elswhere on it’s own to prevent it from vanishing altogether - as it was quite a bit of work putting it together.
Thanks for taking the time do do this - very useful.
You might want to consider updating the Mini-charger section though. It is definitely do-able. Barry Spiers has made drawings available for the additional parts that need to be fabricated. At one time one of the Nutz forum members (Mr Fast) was fabricating and selling kits of these parts made from the drawings. Mr Fast is no longer producing the kits but another Nutz forum member (Chris-Imp) has commissioned a small engineering firm to produce an initial limited run of the kits.
Also I’d be happy if you merged any comments I made in to the main body of the text and dropped the references to me - it would scan better.
It seems wrong that I sent you a few lines of text and get mentioned all the time when you did so much work.
That would be this post in the FAQ
Ahhh… You’ve hidden it! Glad to see it’s still knocking about on here!
I’ll have to see about editing in these reccomendations - not sure if I have permission to edit the forum post as it was transferred from the old forum by someone else. As it happens I’m still feeling a bit Spanish - ala Carlos [Car-less.] I’ve got my Ford Ranger, Diesel super-cab, works vehicle, and I can borrow my wifes ‘turbo’ [Renault Scenic Turbo Diesel] from time to time, but it’s all a bit disappointing.
If I ever actually make it back into a position where I’m financially able to support a car again, a ‘supercharged MX5’ is on the ‘to drive’ list, along with a Mk2 Clio V6, and an Elise 111R (The Toyota Engined one.) or an Elise with the Honda Type R engine conversion. Depending on where in the budget I end up. At the moment, a Mk1 1.6 Eunos Roadster with a hundred thousand miles and rusteed away sills and sub-frane would be a luxury I can’t afford.
I was thinking about this the other day, I find myself going off the idea somewhat. let’s say I picked up a Mk 2.5 and slapped an MP62 on it for 240 BHP, it’s gong to accelerate alot better, but the top speed isn’t going to be any better, at around, what ? 135? And the fairly slim tyres will mean the 0 - 60 is going to be a bit restrictive anyway… Sure you could widen the track and perhaps do something with the gearbox, but… We’re talking serious money.
Maybe it’s nearly 2 years without driving a 5, I guess if I get back into car-ownership viable financial status I ought to drive a ‘charged’ one, but I’m finding myself desiring something rarer and mid-engined.
There is room in the rear arches for 225/45R16 tyres, which would increase traction and gearing, making your 240bhp luanch much quicker and increasing your 135mph top speed to 143. It may be you could fit (Exige sized) 225/45R17 tyres in the arches, with maybe some arch rolling depending on ride height, which would give you near as dammit 150mph top speed. Not that top speed is in any way important.
Widening the track might increase cornering grip a smidge and can be done for just the cost of the wheel spacer, like Porsche use on their production cars with the “wide track” option. Or you could do it properly using wheels with the right offset, or even more properly with some fabricated front wishbones to get the steering geometry right. Doable for a few hundred pounds plus some design time.
Although I have to say that given the choice between a much tweated FI MX5 and something mid-engined and exotic, like an S1 Sport 160 Elise, I’d go for the Elise every time. Well, not every time, because they are both good fun, but if I had to go back to just one car the Mazda would go.
Well, top speed isn’t that important, but if I was going ‘tracking’ in europe, well the Nurburgring has several long straights where you can hit top speed in much faster cars, so being choked at 135 would represent a disadvantage vs cars that were designed for a higher top speed. Plus if you want to the Circ de la Sarthe, the Mulsanne straight is easily a top speed hitter.
Small advantage, fun in the corners is always more of a priority - but it’s about considering cost vs finished product compared to what you could buy off the shelf.
I suppose if I was thinking of going back down the MX5 route, a cost effective and interesting option would be to go for a more track-focused Mk1 1.8. I’ve seen these knocking about for £1200 here and there, which with £3300 odd for a Moss Europe MP62 kit would make the cost about £4500.
I realise the powercard isn’t the best fuelling option - but it would be a cheap entry into FI and almost affordable…
The fear is what sort of 1.8i Mk1 can I get for £1200? And is sticking an intercooled MP62 on a tired old 110,000 mile engine just going to blow it up? I know a bloke who is quite capable of stripping down and rebuilding engines - but if i was going to that trouble, I’d be thinking about replacing worn parts with uprated parts, I have no idea where you would get these or what you should buy - and I can imagine it could get expensive…
I guess ultimately the basic fact is there is a limit to what you can get for a few quid, and beyond a boggo standard high miler MX5 - there’s no such thing as cheap fun.
I’ve read Barry’s thread on Nutz for the Mini Charger - sounds interesting… Sounds quite tricky too though - still if it’s do-able for £800… Can’t be bad.
I’ve referenced it in the FAQ in a minor update, and I’ve thrown a little link to here and to MX5 nutz on too.
Grrrr… You’ve got me thinking again! I can’t afford to be thinking about building car! I really need to finish my landscaping and build a garage first!
However, going on what you’re saying, once that IS done - a very tempting proposition, would be buy a cheap 1.8 Mk1 stuff it in the garage, strip it out, sort the body-work out. Roll the arches and fit bigger wheels as you suggested to get a better top speed and more traction… Then follow Barry Spiers advice on fitting a mini Eaton M45. I don’t have arch-rollers, so I’d have to probably borrow some from somewhere, and I’d probably fit a roll cage while it was stripped out- and add strut braces, firmer suspension, lower springs, vented and grooved discs… Stainless exhaust, lightweight racing seats… 4 point harnesses - go for the whole ‘road legal track car’ deal.
Replace the worn out bits on the engine and fit the M45…
If you could get the car for £1200 and the charger fitted for £800… Hmmm, could you get the rest of the bits for sub £3000? If you were doing it yourself I mean? I’d rather pay someone else to paint it - even if I sorted out the bodywork myself… I think the scariest aspect of the project is the fitting of the ECU and tuning. It’s partly what put me off doing this to my 1.6i, that and the fact that fitting kits to 1.6i Mk2 were few and far between… I ought to build a garage first having said that - there’s probably 12 months work in what I’ve just described given the limit amount of time I would be able to commit to it per week… And there’s nothing more frustrating than having an unfinished project in the garage for 12 months…
My track MX5 has everything on your list: bigger wheels, rolled and flaired arches, roll cage, strut braces, coil-over suspension, bigger brakes, stainless exhaust, racing seats, 4 point harnesses. Plus quite a few things not on your list. Total build cost including the car has been well under £4k. Plan ahead, buy cheap secondhand parts as they come up and make any parts you can.
The only downside to my cunning plan is that my seats don’t match - the black one was £40, the blue one was £100.
At no point did my car have to be off the road for more than a couple of days.
Well my first port of call is a garage, and sorting out the drive. It’s kind of funny how the house is - the entrance is off a dirt track, just a pedestrian entrance at the moment, then a drive at the back. I want to point the garage away from the rear of the house and move the drive entrance up into the field. I was looking at pre-fab concrete job’s for quickness, but my father-in-law says they’re expensive for what they are and can suffer from condensation problems.
Once that’s sorted I’ll have a start - the trouble is, because of the battle we had with the planning office to get the house plans through, they took away our permitted development. So I need to apply for planning permission.
When you did your’s did you make a list at the start and just start ticking things off in a particular order? Or did you just buy and install things when you saw something you wanted without any planning? Did you install and tune the ECU yourself? Which one did you use?
How about rolling and flaring the arches? Did you do that yourself? Are there any gallery pictures of the car? Guides on how to do it to take the sort of wheels we’re talking about? I presume, when you roll and flare the archhes - it screws the paintwork up, so you need to budget for at least a partial re-spray after doing this?
What I did was to inspect the car when I got it to make a list of work needed to fix any existing problems. Then I took it to a track day at Barkston Heath for a shake down, and made a list of things I wanted to change (like a knee pad in the transmission tunnel, and a better place for the handbrake).
When I decided I wanted to compete I got the competition regulations and walked round the car, making a list of stuff I had to do to pass scrutineering. Then later I decided more torque was needed and the turbo went on - leading to some related mods (IC, new bumper, bigger flywheel and clutch).
Some of the jobs kick start other jobs - for example fitting some nearly free 195/50R16 Yokohama A048 tyres meant rolling the arches a bit (using the scaffold pole method), which worked on the road but not on the track, so I made new wings out of carbon and let the tyres chew their own clearance. More hassle than fitting sticky tyre should have been, but all done for less than the price of a single new tyre the right size.
My turbo install has no ECU change, just retarded ignition and an AFPR. It will pull from 30mph in 5th, makes useful boost by 3000rpm and is just enough to let me do the things the car needs to do, like hold it sideways at 70mph around long corners. Have a google for videos under “Captain Muppet BDC” and the first three hits should give you an idea of what the car is capable of.
There is a build thread here:
http://www.driftworks.com/forum/drift-car-projects-builds/52376-camouflaged-learning-mx5-na-driftshed.html
Driftworks can be a bit sweary, and the thread wanders off the point at times, but it’ll give you an idea of how the car has evolved over the last four years.
A partial re-spray for me is less than £10 because I cunningly decided on satin black paint - the car gets a lot of damage as even if you avoid hitting anything a tyre delaminating will take off a lot of paint.
Hmmm, I’d like to start doing trackdays again - but I can’t see myself even trying to get a race licence let alone competing… Scaffold pole technique?! that sounds bizarre! I’m sort of thinking, going down this road I would end up waaaaay out of my depth in no time at all.
I did see this thread on Nutz : - http://www.mx5nutz.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=61085&st=0&gopid=781978&#entry781978
Now I don’t have the money at the moment, but I’m owed about £15k for the sale of a business. I need most of it to finish the house and garage and for savings, but I could spare a bit.
That would seem like a decent starting point - I wouldn’t need a garage and I could improve the suspension, brakes interior etc later on. What do you think?
You can roll and flair wheel arches by rolling a suitably sized tube between the tyre and the arch. Have a google.
Maybe you should start your todo list earlier than mine. I wanted a reliable track car that I could use for national level drift competitions for the absolute minimum cost. It sounds like you don’t really know what you want your car to do.
Modifying cars cost money, and it’s money you don’t get back when you sell it. If you don’t have a clear idea of what you actually want you may end up with disappointment.
If there is something else you’d really like then just buy that. An Elise, CLK, Boxster, M3 or RX7 are all close to various aspects of an MX5, but no amount of tweaking an MX5 is ever going to stop me wanting the cars on that list that I really want.
I looked up rolling and flaring arches. Havent found any guides I’d be comfortable following mind, particularly on a 12 year old car that might have bits of rot and rust and car-parking dings on the wings.
I notice there are companie’s that do this and it’s not that expensive. It’s a pity there wasn’t a kit for sorting out the front wheels to take the biggest possible size, 245?
As for what I want, I don’t want to compete, I like supercharger technology, I just find how it works interesting somehow and so less common that turbo’s these days… At the same time, I loved my old Mk2 1.6i, but it never had enough go - handling was great, but it just need more ‘zoom zoom’.
Now I suppose I’d be tempted to start out by either buying a cheapy and charging it - or buying a reasonably priced done one, then rolling and flaring the arches and fitting the biggest wheel and off-set, lowering and firming the suspension and driving it for a bit.
I suppose technically you should roll and flare before you paint, and if I wanted a roll-bar/cage that should go in before paint too. It’s difficult to sort out the right order sometimes isn’t it?
I’d be thinking of getting fairly quickly to a state where the power was 175 BHP plus, the suspension was firmer and lower, and the biggest possible wheels were on. Anything else would be a do when time/money allows and I was bored. With a long time view being, a stripped out, road legal track car - if I ever felt like it…
I’m interested in the Satin Black paint idea - did you get it done professionally or rattle-can it yourself? I only ask because we use satin black at work in rattle cans from time to time. It gives a decent finish - but tends to be very prone to knocking and flaking, you have to be quite careful with the products because the pain scuffs easily. Do you have this issue and just keep a rattle-can or two handy for touch ups? Or is it a tougher, harder paint?
Yep, body work mods before painting. If you have a bolt in cage you can do that after painting, although it’s easy enough to paint a cage when it’s inside the car.
I’ve painted several cars satin black, using both rattle cans and professional equipment. Rattle cans are cheaper, and if you’re careful give similar results. Paint flaking off is down to surface preparation.
I take no care at all of my paint, and often sit on the rear wing when filling it up with petrol without paint damage. If it’s dirty and someone writes in the dust it does scratch the paint, which is annoying. I do keep a few cans of satin around, but mostly because when a tyre goes pop bits can flail around like a 1 metre long wire brush.
I just spotted this : - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Arch-Roller-Wheel-Arch-Puller-Rolling-Tool-Hire-Rent-/320602892951?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM
Might be a compromise between paying over the odds, and having to try and do a difficult DIY job with makeshift tools?
When you paint a car satin black do you go down to metal and re-prime or just sand, clean tacky wipe and paint? How much would you say it costs and what brand of spray-can do you use? How many coats do you put on?
I’m sure I saw a thread on Nutz about someone having an arch roller they lent/rented out.
You key the surface with 800 grit, wipe and paint. Five big cans from Halfords will do an MX5 (much cheaper with a trade card). If you’re careful you only need one coat. Satin black does make the car very, very dificult to sell on later.