Yes I suppose I do although the ILMotorsport braces only come as red! There are more red accents to come!
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I believe the engine shield is the same but the IL Motorsport brace pictured is only available for manual transmission. Believe me when I say I’ve hunted for a suitable brace all over for that position but there are no manufacturers I know of that make that brace for autos.
As a result I can only assume the shape required and mounting points for the cooling scoop are different as well. But without purchasing one and holding it up I couldn’t say by how much.
good write up. Do you have any more info on replacing the central storage? I did some research and believe that two parts are required, storage unit and blanking plate although could you let me know if you have any further info. The part no’s I collected from Mazda were N243684G202 and N2436884302.
Also would love to know how you sourced the brace and any shipping, taxes. Did you notice any difference to brake pedal feel as a result of the master brake cylinder stopper, that’s combined with the brace?
I got my cubby from Flyin’ Miata.
I did get the part numbers off the images on their website (if you enlarge the images you can see them embossed on there, although you appear to have found longer numbers which may have worked) and go to my local Mazda dealership but they were next to useless. The part numbers weren’t in their system and they basically refused to look at any parts schematics to try and figure it out.
For orders under $200 you would have to use a 3rd party shipping service which obviously adds to the total cost. I’ve used MyUS for a number of years now and find they’re fairly quick dispatching stuff. Obviously you’ve got 20% customs charges to add on top of the total (inc shipping), so it really depends on how much you want it.
I just added other stuff on to the order, that I knew I’d use in the future, to total more than $200
Fitting wise it’s easy enough, just time consuming as you need to pull apart the entire trim on the rear of the cabin to expose the old cubby and access the screws for removing the cd player.
The strut brace I sourced from Rev9 along with the AutoExe bushings.
I really have nothing but positive words regarding their customer service. Fast responses to my questions on bushings, and recently have been very helpful responding to questions I’ve had on some underbody chassis bracing.
The strut brace was made to order so took a while to be delivered (about 2mths in total) but I was made aware of this delay very quickly after placing the order and given a number of options as to how I wanted to proceed with the rest of the order.
If I remember rightly for the brace and bushings set, the shipping was about $140. Obvs with customs on top on arrival in the UK as well.
Regarding brake feel, I’ve only had the chance to take it out once since fitting. And that was only for about 30-40mi. Enough for me to be properly amazed at the difference in handling now (I do think tying the struts together rather than just taking them back to the bulkhead really helps), but not enough for me to really push things so that I’d need to brake hard enough to experience any benefit.
As I said, I’m not keen on pushing things too hard right now whilst I’ve got these damaged rims on. I’m sure they would be ok, they’re not that bad, it’s just that when it comes to brakes and wheels/tyres I’m super super careful and always err on the side of caution.
I’ve found the strut brace does help with handling and the brake stopper stops any movement of the mounting under hard breaking.
thanks for the additional info regarding the storage ( Increase your storage capacity. – Flyin' Miata ). That gives me confidence to go ahead and add that to the list of changes.
It’s a shame you had a poor experience with the parts dept. I found they can be a bit hit and miss, my local one wanting me to buy everything in that area as one at over £600 before seeing sense and pulling up the diagrams showing the component parts. btw today I came across this great site for a list of parts (https://www.amayama.com/en/genuine-catalogs/epc/mazda-general/mx-5/AENA11/interior/6840AA) and you can go back to the main page for all parts (just check it’s for your model).
It turns out my that when I told my wife about the planned upgrades she was not keen on me spending money on the Girl Friend, I mean MX-5 so I’ll have to wait a bit longer with everything else in mind, but it’s on the list now.
thanks for letting me know. I’m also inspired by your gearbox cooling scoop but cannot seem to find any more for sale from the original chap that I believe did these, or anything else this side of the pond at a reasonable price. My nephew is a fabricator so may ask him to tackle this for me.