… okay not quite
It rained tonight so I went to a deserted car park, to see how tail happy the car is (open diff). Obviously the typical donut and other small scale “drifts” which rely solely on power just don’t work without a welded or limited slip diff. I don’t mind that at all since those are just unnecessary waste of rubber in my mind. With a bit of flick and weight transfer however the rear easily slides out, which is fun but needs a bit more speed. I observed that the beginning of the drift seems quite controllable but when the momentum is lost, and you try to keep it sliding with power, it just doesn’t work. (maybe clutch kicks would help). Sure one of the wheels will be spinning, rpm will be high, but you are still coming out from the corner at 0 angle, like nothing has happened a few meters ago. That is a horribly bad feeling. Same happens when you try to turn out from a street with too much gas on a slippery road…but actually not always… sometimes the back does go out. The problem is that open diffs are extremely unpredictable if you want to play around with them.
Of course I can’t blame anyone for this, the stock mx5 is just not made for this kind of fun. I’m in luck because I prefer top down cruising to revving/rubber burning/drifting, but some fun on a rainy day would be nice occasionally so my next car will most definitely include some sort of LSD.
From what I read about LSD’s. You only get any benefit from them if you do track days or autocross. On my average drive from work to Tesco’s, the LSD makes no difference.
From some threads, it seems that malfunctioning LSD’s seem more hassle than what they are worth.
Ok, you believe that 
My MK2 has a LSD my MK1 doesn’t. The LSD makes it much more predictable
yes it seems that the tochigi fuji diffs are often problematic, but some more reliable torsens would make it a much more fun car. as Richard said, predictability is key
Geographer,
30 quid (ie a year’s MX-5 OC Membership) will enable you to join in the Blyton event and then you’ll be able to experiment on our skid pan, as well as see how your car handles on-track…
Of course it will also open you up to a plethera of free tickets to many and various other events too which might tickle your fancy…
Just a thought
As to the car park drifting, I’m a firm believer in knowing the car’s (and my own) limits. Generally I reach the latter before the former and when I don’t the former taches the latter with a free trip to the gravel trap!!!
Sometimes having an LSD in a road car can be annoying, judder on turns etc, but as said, they make a slide way more predictable, and for track and race work are a necessity. We can really see the difference exiting a corner.
A rebuilt viscous unit is good, but its “always on” so no great under braking, the clutch ones are superb, and the best we have used, the torsens are great until you are on the grass, plus we cant use those in the race cars.