Recently purchased a J-Limited MK1 Japanese import. The speedometer clearly states that speed and distance in km/h (see attached picture)
I drove the car to the MX5 restorer (East Sussex) last weekend to have a full inspection to see if any work was needed. The good news is that they said “one of the cleanest Mk1s we have ever seen”.
The bad news is that today I received a speeding ticket from Sussex police saying I was doing 80mph in a 70mph. I struggling to work out how this happened as that would mean the speedometer showing me doing 128kmh which it never did. The most it ever showed was 110kmh.
Does anyone know if there is anyway that when the car was imported the speedometer is adjusted to MPH against a KMH speedometer?
Now i’m concerned that I may get another ticket for doing 110MPH when I thought I was doing 110kmh as that is what it showed on the speedometer. Also do I have a case to appeal the fine?
Hi, I have a 1992 eunos, with mph speedo, but I was just curious what your engine RPM was approximately when you thought you were doing 70 mph. Mine’s about 3500.
Surprised you were pulled at 80 in a 70, just 1mph over the usual minimum which is speed limit + 10% + 2.
To be honest I would say you were going a lot faster that you thought.
My advice is not to argue, do a speed awareness course if offered it and put this down to another of lifes unpleasant learning experiences - that is what I did.
Contesting these things will not get any sympathy and will cost you more - advice from a policeman friend and yes they get prosecuted for speeding too.
Just looked at Lockwood’s standard conversion dial for the Eunos and those KPH markings on yours do match up so 180KPH is at about 4.30 on the clock face.
110kph is under 70mph and speedos are normally conservative so about 65mph.
I would check with a sat nav and assuming our results are correct take a photo to prove.
May be worth asking what evidence there is against you ie camera, radar gun, etc.
You would normally be aware of such speeds in an MX5 unlike some other modern cars that can creep up to high speed unnoticed
70 Mph = 112.654 Kph. The RAC recently announced that most motorway police would no longer give any allowance on speeds over the limit, so 71 mph will get a ticket. Now you and I know why most cars are doing 65/68 mph on motorways. (Though that’s been going on for several years now.) You can’t trust the speedo, so check it against a sat nav - with a passenger doing the comparison, for safety.
Comparison with other owners will give you false figures, it all depends on gearbox ratios and final drive (diff gearing) and actual wheel size, so knowing what true speed you are doing in any gear via the Tacho reading is more valuable than speedo readings - IMHO.
I remember a court case many years ago - before MX5 days, when an engineer was given a speeding ticket, and he proved in court that his tacho (which he used to gauge speed) and drive gearing - clearly showed that he was innocent, the cop giving evidence had no similar evidence to offer, so the case was dismissed. The cop was using his speedo readings as evidence, and speedo’s are not reliable. Mine reads 10% high in any gear, the tacho is dead on. I drove for at least five miles on the A50, with my mate telling me what speed I was doing, while I checked those readings against speedo and Tacho. Fortunately, a quiet day, so we started at 30 mph and went up to 70, when we called it a day. An exercise worth it’s weight in gold, if true speed comes to the crunch point.
I too have a Eunos import and the speed shows MPH while distance travelled is still in Km. I have checked my speedo and at 70 mph it is showing about 3 mph less on the sat Nav. I have just recently bought a dash camera and I don’t know if it shows mph but will check it out sometime soon. By the way a dash camera is great at capturing what other drivers do and sometimes my self.
I have a mk 1 Eunos too, with Speedo in mph and odometer in km.
My speedo over reads over about 30mph so I have Waze set up on my phone in a holder on the dash to use as a second Speedo, until I work out how to fix it.
As others have said, checking against a satnav would be a good test.
I’m not sure of the specifics of the conversion for the Eunos Roadster, but generally, conversions take one of two forms:
Either the face of the speedo is changed to have MPH figures in the correct positions
A simple change to the electronics is made (something as simple as a suitable resistor I believe) so that the needle still points at the right number without changing the face (although the face is usually changed as well).
Both my Eunos Roadster and my MR-S (import MR2) was changed using method 1 but it [i]could[/i] be that yours was changed with method 2 without changing the front plate of the dial. If that is the case, the legend on it might say kph but the numbers being pointed at would be in mph.
However, from memory, I think UK speedos are supposed to show mph and kph. I don’t think it’s an MOT point, but it might be a legal one. The odometer showing km is fine I believe.
[edit] Got to say, I love the colour of your car (I assume your avatar is your car). I think the MX5 looks great in Yellow. [/edit]
1.Fit a UK spec speedo, straight swap
2. Fit a calibrated face, usually calibrated to 110 or 120mph, rather than factory 140mph
3. Add sticker marks to the speedo, this was the old school approach. If you didnb’t know your kms, you couldn’t read the speed at night. Technically not a MOT failure because there is no need for a mph speedo
4. Fit a geared mechanical converter incline to the speedo cable.
No such thing as an electronic conversion of the Eunos Roadster as the speedo was purely mchanical.
Not that it’s desperately important but my roadster had been converted with a complete dial face that showed mph around the outside and kmh on the inside (i.e. typical UK speedo layout). However, the new face had just been stuck on top of the JDM one. So, at night, almost no light got through because the bright bits on the two faces had very little in common. I fixed it by replacing all my dials with a set of new faces (from MX5 Parts if I remember correctly). They looked much nicer and I could see them at night too.
If the speedo is over reading by a set amount (eg, over reading by 5 mph at 30 and at 60 mph for example) it could be the needle has be taken off and replaced in the wrong position.
If it’s over reading in unequal amounts like Mk1’s a couple of posts ago it could be what I had a couple of years ago.
I’m guessing a previous owner had greased the speedo cable and the excess had worked it’s way up into the speedo head. When dismantled there was a puddle of oil like you’d find when old grease has separated in an old tin of grease. It was acting like a fluid flywheel as the oil would grip the drum and drag it round further than intended.
I was going to clean it all out but as I had a spare head I used parts of that replace the oily parts.
If you are thinking of changing the complete cluster assembly, be aware !
I tried fitting the clocks from a 1995 Eunos in my 1998 Mk1, as I live in France and the dial on the Eunos spedo is much easier to read in Km than the Uk car.
All the connections looked the same and fitted it with no problems.
However when I started the car, I had smoke from the rear of the cluster. This in turn fried the alternator.
Upon closer inspection ( after I replaced the original cluster AND alternator ), I found that the circuit board on the rear of the two clusters was very different indeed. Perhaps this was because the Eunos was an automatic and the UK car a manual ???
Anyway, just a word of warning, compare the two closely before fitting if this ends up being your chosen route.
Thanks Enjay. Yes my avatar is my car. Thinking about selling it if you know anyone who may be interested. I also have a mk3.5 powershift and dont have the garage space for them both.
