Hi, I am new here, looking to be a part of the forum and community. I picked up my 2013 Mk3.75 PRHT in February 2022 as my first dedicated track car and have been enjoying it ever since. I bought it bone stock, second owner, after one careful lady owner who only ever drove it to church and it had been to Mazda religiously since purchase. It’s hard a slightly harder life since then, but no less looked after.
Here she is not long after purchase.
I spent most of the early days doing simple quality of life improvements to make the interior a bit more pleasing (to me at least).
But it was only a matter of time before I got on to the other stuff. My first worry was rust, but I was very lucky (and relieved) to find only minimal surface rust and a few braces that needed attention. This felt like a good excuse to remove them and add some rigidity.
Not long after this photo it went to Yorkshire Care Restoration to have the surface rust removed and sealing underneath, hopefully setting me up for a number of rust free years ahead.
1 Like
Fun as they are out of the box, I found the amount of body roll a bit too much for my taste and took her to BBR GTI for a set of Ohlins coilovers and a setup.
Much to my delight this was transformative and I’ve never felt the need to adjust them or change anything setup wise since. I got her on corner weights a little while later and it’s easy to see why she felt so good.
Back on the interior, I had the seats retried in an attempt to stop sliding around on the leather under spirited driving conditions.
Then I dropped the seat rails a little to stop my helmet banging on the roof on track days, the extra inch lower makes all the difference!
I was never a fan of the OEM wheel and I decided to get something more to my taste and suitable for the track.
Much to my pleasure I managed to get something wider, so I could run a bit more tyre, but without upping the weight.
Bare wheel.
With Michelin Pilot Sport 5s.
With the new wheels fitted, it was easier to get the old ones refurb’d. They were “smart” repaired by the dealer I bought the car from and it was failing in places, which was annoying me no end. So I decided on a simple recolour in white for what was to become my winter wheels set.
P.S. Don’t ever fit white wheels, the cleaning is insane!
1 Like
This brings us more or less up to speed and onto my main reason for buying her - track action! So far we’ve been to Cadwell…
…a couple of times, Blyton several times, Anglesey three times and last year I completed a dream - a trip to drive around Spa.
Sorry for the overexposed video of my best lap, I was so excited I forgot to lock it.
Just this weekend I was at Anglesey with a fellow MX5 owner and mate with a heavily modified Mini Cooper. If you like that sort of thing, there’s a short video of us comparing lap times on the short circuit and me chasing him down on the GP circuit here.
Looking forward to posting more build stuff here. I have a few things on my to do list, seat, roll bar, harness and maybe one day, some forced induction.
3 Likes
