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MX5 Number 4
- Thread starter JoeyD
- Start date
That's how they're supposed to be lol, chassis balance brah!
If you dont like that, good job your mate didn't get a non-sport, they properly rely on weight transfer
Homo spec mazda
What?! Chassis balance makes a car soft?
You can use the transfer of weight to your advantage. To that end, you don't have to have 10mm ground clearance and solid dampers.
I've probably got some facts wrong somewhere, yes.
But yeah, the principle is that you don't HAVE to drive around in a slammed and solid car to make for good handling, it just takes more effort in R&D, and a stiffer chassis to work with.
mmmmkay..
Mid-week update time.
I got a bit desperate and went to MX5 parts for a manifold. Not the best made thing in the world, but it meant that I could get it all sorted and then just forget about it. It also means I have a full I.L. Motorsports exhaust from the head back. Nice. I think...
I bet you can imagine how that sounded! Lame.
So onto the new one, it's meant for a UK car, which meant I had the wrong size cat, fortunately MX5Parts stock both lengths, so I've got a 440mm decat instead of my old 370mm.
Excuse the phone pics. No videos yet, I've had no real chance to drive it!
Thanks to Seb for helping out with that.
And onto the next issue. Ever since swapping the engine, I've had a mysterious coolant leak. Mysterious because coolant was escaping, but I had no idea where from - no puddles, nothing.
Some light was shed on the situation when changing the exhaust; the passenger side carpet was piss wet through. Fortunately, the ECU is still okay, but it was very wet!
I traced the water back to the heater pipes, horrible things. So today I set about replacing them - what a pain!
Dash out.
There's your problem! Fucked.
Checked the heater core and popped the new pipes on.
Put it all back together and forgot to plug the HVAC lighting in! Doh!
All seems fine anyway, I'll have to take it for a drive and keep my eye on it, fingers crossed that'll be the end of that!
Booked in for mapping on Saturday with Chris at EFi-Parts in Runcorn. Excite!
Mid-week update time.
I got a bit desperate and went to MX5 parts for a manifold. Not the best made thing in the world, but it meant that I could get it all sorted and then just forget about it. It also means I have a full I.L. Motorsports exhaust from the head back. Nice. I think...
I bet you can imagine how that sounded! Lame.
So onto the new one, it's meant for a UK car, which meant I had the wrong size cat, fortunately MX5Parts stock both lengths, so I've got a 440mm decat instead of my old 370mm.
Excuse the phone pics. No videos yet, I've had no real chance to drive it!
Thanks to Seb for helping out with that.
And onto the next issue. Ever since swapping the engine, I've had a mysterious coolant leak. Mysterious because coolant was escaping, but I had no idea where from - no puddles, nothing.
Some light was shed on the situation when changing the exhaust; the passenger side carpet was piss wet through. Fortunately, the ECU is still okay, but it was very wet!
I traced the water back to the heater pipes, horrible things. So today I set about replacing them - what a pain!
Dash out.
There's your problem! Fucked.
Checked the heater core and popped the new pipes on.
Put it all back together and forgot to plug the HVAC lighting in! Doh!
All seems fine anyway, I'll have to take it for a drive and keep my eye on it, fingers crossed that'll be the end of that!
Booked in for mapping on Saturday with Chris at EFi-Parts in Runcorn. Excite!
Lol! Not my first choice, but annoyingly RacingBeat didn't seem to know a whole lot about their product, so it kind of puts you off spending £400 odd!
Another small little update, managed to sort the throttle cable out. I think I need a spring on the other side of the throttle pulley, that way I can have the cable properly taught. It does feel much better now though.
And this arrived today, silly quick delivery from Fast5.co.uk - highly recommended. Will get it fitted as soon as it's not raining I reckon!
And this arrived today, silly quick delivery from Fast5.co.uk - highly recommended. Will get it fitted as soon as it's not raining I reckon!
Homo spec mazda
He's turned all posh so at this rate it may actually be a decent car!
Until he gives up on the false logic that sex-pest-lights MX5 are the best to work with, this isn't likely.
Until he gives up on the false logic that sex-pest-lights MX5 are the best to work with, this isn't likely.
As soon as Waitey buys this I'll be straight out to get a MK3! Shame I know he likes to pay less than no money for his cars lol!!
It still needs some rust treatment, but it's getting slightly posh. For me at least...
Last edited:
Waitey
ClioSport Club Member
Alpina D3, AC Cobra
When you want to see PM me and I'll come get it.
What a day!
Traffic on the way to EFi was horrendous thanks to countless roadworks (actually it was a lane closure due to gardening. Mental.) So I was a little bit late, but nevertheless Chris did an absolutely fantastic job; my map was not the best, ignition timing was frankly silly, and the fuel table needed a load of smoothing out. Initially, it wanted a load of fuel taking out, but I'll get to that later...
Made 151hp at 6,800rpm and 125lb-ft at 5,600rpm. More than happy with those figures! Looking at the graph it's making power high up the rev range, so I'm fairly confident I did a decent job with the exhintake cam. And it seems to love revs which is what I've been trying to achieve all along!
So that was that... until I was about 20 minutes down the road thinking "this feels a bit flat" - took a glance at the AFR gauge and it was 17.9AFR at pretty much any rev/throttle opening. Not ideal! Span round and back to Chris, we were both a little puzzled until I remembered something similar had happened in the past. An odd error where sometimes if you start the car with the laptop plugged in it reads really rich. Very strange! Anyway, since there was no point in mapping the whole thing again, we just changed the scaling on the fuel table and all was fixed thankfully! Very odd, but thankfully easy to fix.
Massive thanks to Chris who was excellent, would recommend to anyone! Seriously knows his stuff, which is more than can be said for me haha.
Traffic on the way to EFi was horrendous thanks to countless roadworks (actually it was a lane closure due to gardening. Mental.) So I was a little bit late, but nevertheless Chris did an absolutely fantastic job; my map was not the best, ignition timing was frankly silly, and the fuel table needed a load of smoothing out. Initially, it wanted a load of fuel taking out, but I'll get to that later...
Made 151hp at 6,800rpm and 125lb-ft at 5,600rpm. More than happy with those figures! Looking at the graph it's making power high up the rev range, so I'm fairly confident I did a decent job with the exhintake cam. And it seems to love revs which is what I've been trying to achieve all along!
So that was that... until I was about 20 minutes down the road thinking "this feels a bit flat" - took a glance at the AFR gauge and it was 17.9AFR at pretty much any rev/throttle opening. Not ideal! Span round and back to Chris, we were both a little puzzled until I remembered something similar had happened in the past. An odd error where sometimes if you start the car with the laptop plugged in it reads really rich. Very strange! Anyway, since there was no point in mapping the whole thing again, we just changed the scaling on the fuel table and all was fixed thankfully! Very odd, but thankfully easy to fix.
Massive thanks to Chris who was excellent, would recommend to anyone! Seriously knows his stuff, which is more than can be said for me haha.
Waitey
ClioSport Club Member
Alpina D3, AC Cobra
What a day!
Traffic on the way to EFi was horrendous thanks to countless roadworks (actually it was a lane closure due to gardening. Mental.) So I was a little bit late, but nevertheless Chris did an absolutely fantastic job; my map was not the best, ignition timing was frankly silly, and the fuel table needed a load of smoothing out. Initially, it wanted a load of fuel taking out, but I'll get to that later...
Made 151hp at 6,800rpm and 125lb-ft at 5,600rpm. More than happy with those figures! Looking at the graph it's making power high up the rev range, so I'm fairly confident I did a decent job with the exhintake cam. And it seems to love revs which is what I've been trying to achieve all along!
So that was that... until I was about 20 minutes down the road thinking "this feels a bit flat" - took a glance at the AFR gauge and it was 17.9AFR at pretty much any rev/throttle opening. Not ideal! Span round and back to Chris, we were both a little puzzled until I remembered something similar had happened in the past. An odd error where sometimes if you start the car with the laptop plugged in it reads really rich. Very strange! Anyway, since there was no point in mapping the whole thing again, we just changed the scaling on the fuel table and all was fixed thankfully! Very odd, but thankfully easy to fix.
Massive thanks to Chris who was excellent, would recommend to anyone! Seriously knows his stuff, which is more than can be said for me haha.
Sell it to me so I can charge it.....
That'd be way too fast for the road!
Waitey
ClioSport Club Member
Alpina D3, AC Cobra
My offer is now £800 f**k face.
Semi-productive day, Managed to get the big ass radiator fitted.
And also fitted a VDO water temp gauge. Looks completely OEM thanks to the green illumination. Just running out of air vents now! lol
Got a microphone for my GoPro, threw that in the engine bay:
Bring on Oulton tomorrrow!
And also fitted a VDO water temp gauge. Looks completely OEM thanks to the green illumination. Just running out of air vents now! lol
Got a microphone for my GoPro, threw that in the engine bay:
Bring on Oulton tomorrrow!
I wanted to put the mic above the exhaust, but as you can see it's absolutely soaking outside! Might get chance tomorrow, we'll see.
Radiator runs much much cooler than the old one which is excellent. Coolant re-route to the back of the block is probably next on the cards.
Radiator runs much much cooler than the old one which is excellent. Coolant re-route to the back of the block is probably next on the cards.
Off to a bad start today, lost my microphone already - properly gutted! Passed the noise test though so that's good news, just hoping I don't get black flagged throughout the day for the ITB's being too loud. Fingers crossed...
Could have sworn I put in inside my car, clearly not!
I wouldn't be surprised! Flipping useless!
Olympus ME-51s. Buy from Amazon for £30. I had a windscreen on it too to stop wind noise - looked like a hairy pair of balls lol!
Got to use a GoPro cable unfortunately, depends whether you have it plugged in on charge constantly like I do, or use the battery.
I use this one:
https://shop.gopro.com/EMEA/accessories/combo-cable/ANCBL-301.html
(A quick Google can find it ten quid cheaper)
You can get one for just the mic but like I said my battery lasts about 2 minutes now.
You'll also need a skeleton case to allow access to the cable input.
Well, bit of a mixed bag at Oulton on Friday. The day got off to a bad start when I lost my new microphone, it'll be on a road somewhere in Oldham if anyone wants to go look.
Anyway, the weather was quite kind to us really; rain held off right until 3:30pm when the place became flooded and they shut the track. The morning was a little sketchy, the track was still damp and the car wasn't providing me with much confidence. Gradually a dry line appeared as the day went on, but I still didn't trust the car through fast corners - I really didn't feel comfortable pushing it. No idea what this is down to, I'm guessing bushes as it felt quite vague - I didn't have a great idea of what the car was doing beneath me, it felt rather strange to be honest. Perhaps I need to get rid of my vagina and find a pair of balls... Meh.
On the plus side, the car didn't put a foot wrong all day and I didn't crash, spin or have any 'moments' whatsoever. Coolant temps stayed just above 90 degrees throughout the day - very impressed with the Fast5 radiator! Wilwoods were fantastic - no signs of any fade whatsoever, although they're quite noisy and theres a lot of vibration through the pedal, though I understand this is just the nature of the pads. Brake fluid was absolutely guff, to be expected of cheap Halfords stuff I guess. Tyres were great; really rate the Federals over the Nangkangs Donato was running.
The main area I was severely disappointed with was the engine. It appears to be dying on its arse - chuffing blue smoke out every time I get on the throttle at high revs... Yup, piston rings. FFS (Hi @Waitey ) . It used about 2 and a half litres of oil, so while it's not fatal at the moment I'm definitely going to have to sort it sooner rather than later. And while it made 151hp right up at 6800rpm it really doesn't like to be revved. It just feels so coarse and even with the throttle bodies it doesn't make a pleasant sound. So I'm thinking of sacking off all the N/A stuff in favour of either boost or a different engine altogether. I don't know - I'll give it some thought over winter.
Anyway, I got a few videos using Sebs microphone - unfortunately despite it costing well over three times as much as my mic, it was absolutely crap - half of my footage is unusable due to the sound.. or lack of. Never mind!
Only managed a few clear laps all day - it was quite busy and there was a lot of crap driving out there, main flavour of the day was pulling over to let you past but then staying flat out. Infuriating, especially when you're in a slow car.
Got some footage of me chasing Seb in his MK4. Very impressed with this for a nearly stock car. Only mods are brake pads, remap and a BBR back-box. (check out the body roll!)
And some footage of Donato in his MK2.5, fairly stock - just coilovers, sticky tyres and a roll bar.
Anyway, the weather was quite kind to us really; rain held off right until 3:30pm when the place became flooded and they shut the track. The morning was a little sketchy, the track was still damp and the car wasn't providing me with much confidence. Gradually a dry line appeared as the day went on, but I still didn't trust the car through fast corners - I really didn't feel comfortable pushing it. No idea what this is down to, I'm guessing bushes as it felt quite vague - I didn't have a great idea of what the car was doing beneath me, it felt rather strange to be honest. Perhaps I need to get rid of my vagina and find a pair of balls... Meh.
On the plus side, the car didn't put a foot wrong all day and I didn't crash, spin or have any 'moments' whatsoever. Coolant temps stayed just above 90 degrees throughout the day - very impressed with the Fast5 radiator! Wilwoods were fantastic - no signs of any fade whatsoever, although they're quite noisy and theres a lot of vibration through the pedal, though I understand this is just the nature of the pads. Brake fluid was absolutely guff, to be expected of cheap Halfords stuff I guess. Tyres were great; really rate the Federals over the Nangkangs Donato was running.
The main area I was severely disappointed with was the engine. It appears to be dying on its arse - chuffing blue smoke out every time I get on the throttle at high revs... Yup, piston rings. FFS (Hi @Waitey ) . It used about 2 and a half litres of oil, so while it's not fatal at the moment I'm definitely going to have to sort it sooner rather than later. And while it made 151hp right up at 6800rpm it really doesn't like to be revved. It just feels so coarse and even with the throttle bodies it doesn't make a pleasant sound. So I'm thinking of sacking off all the N/A stuff in favour of either boost or a different engine altogether. I don't know - I'll give it some thought over winter.
Anyway, I got a few videos using Sebs microphone - unfortunately despite it costing well over three times as much as my mic, it was absolutely crap - half of my footage is unusable due to the sound.. or lack of. Never mind!
Only managed a few clear laps all day - it was quite busy and there was a lot of crap driving out there, main flavour of the day was pulling over to let you past but then staying flat out. Infuriating, especially when you're in a slow car.
Got some footage of me chasing Seb in his MK4. Very impressed with this for a nearly stock car. Only mods are brake pads, remap and a BBR back-box. (check out the body roll!)
And some footage of Donato in his MK2.5, fairly stock - just coilovers, sticky tyres and a roll bar.
And from Don's point of view - note the blue smoke ensive:
ensive:True as that is, the bodies won't quite fit on the mk2 head - the inlet is angled down more than the MK1. So I'd need to get another inlet made up, not the end of the world, but adds to cost.
I'll sort something anyway - engines are cheap as chips for these things!
I'll sort something anyway - engines are cheap as chips for these things!
SVT Engine then?
OK, it'll need another chunk of ECU, but think about the fun trying to get the timing and mapping done with the extra variable in place...
...oh, and you'd need to pressurise your fuel lines, of course.
Ultimately, be a hero, drop a V6/8 in it. Displacement y0000000000!
SVT Engine then?
OK, it'll need another chunk of ECU, but think about the fun trying to get the timing and mapping done with the extra variable in place...
...oh, and you'd need to pressurise your fuel lines, of course.
Ultimately, be a hero, drop a V6/8 in it. Displacement y0000000000!
If I had the space, time, know how and money I'd be throwing a Lexus V8 at it. But unfortunately I've none of those things at the moment!
I did have a look at a MK2.5 engine but there's so much extra hassle that goes with it for essentially an extra 5/10hp. So I think Steve's got the right idea. A healthy skim should see some decent gains, just not sure whether it'd be worth pulling the bottom end apart and rebuilding it for piece of mind - a quick Google reveals this kind of thing is becoming a little more common on MK1's...
It'll last me over winter anyway, sod faffing around with an engine swap in the wind/rain/snow/darkness
That's what you'll have with a 20yr old engine that's probably had a good kicking.
The SVT does give more flexibility in tuning, but no more than chucking verniers at it though. I asked a guy on here a while ago about head work, I cant remember exactly but I think he said £300ish for a port/polish for a Mazda head.
Thing is, all the NA/NB engines are old, wheezey bangers, throw all the NatAsp tuning at it you like but it's never going to be an S2000 :/
Doesn't mean they cant sound good though
The SVT does give more flexibility in tuning, but no more than chucking verniers at it though. I asked a guy on here a while ago about head work, I cant remember exactly but I think he said £300ish for a port/polish for a Mazda head.
Thing is, all the NA/NB engines are old, wheezey bangers, throw all the NatAsp tuning at it you like but it's never going to be an S2000 :/
Doesn't mean they cant sound good though
Waitey
ClioSport Club Member
Alpina D3, AC Cobra
That's what you'll have with a 20yr old engine that's probably had a good kicking.
The SVT does give more flexibility in tuning, but no more than chucking verniers at it though. I asked a guy on here a while ago about head work, I cant remember exactly but I think he said £300ish for a port/polish for a Mazda head.
Thing is, all the NA/NB engines are old, wheezey bangers, throw all the NatAsp tuning at it you like but it's never going to be an S2000 :/
Doesn't mean they cant sound good though
There's a company called Blink Motorsport who do MX5 heads, supposedly can get 160bhp out of a mk1 1.8 without using ITB's. But that's a £1200 kit!
Yeah they're built for boost aren't they really. Low compression ratios make them useless at NA stuff, but I'm reluctant to throw a turbo on as NA engines are a dying breed. Had a look at higher compression pistons and stuff but it just becomes silly money!
I'll get in touch with the guys who made it and see what they can do. Could even send it back and have it adjusted I imagine.
This engine will be going in the bin. Given me nothing but bad luck since I fitted it!
