1990 Mazda MX-5, track toy work in progress.

[RobinJI]

Hey guys, as some of you may have spotted, Bruce's old MX-5, known previously as the Teenage Dirtbag, (That name will be carried on to his new MX-5) has been in my possession for about 3 weeks now, so I thought I'd best get a thread started. Bruces thread on the car can be found here.

I'll pick up from where Bruce left off then:

I picked the car up from him 3 weeks ago, and since then have pretty much just been driving around in it grinning. It's such and awesome little car to drive, and I'm amazed at how drivable it is at this ride height.

As it looked when Bruce had it:



And as it looked when I collected it. Bruce hung onto the Roll bar and steering wheel to put on his new MX-5:



I've always loved the way this things looked since Bruce first got it, and jumped at the opportunity to buy it. I've done a couple of small things to help make it my own, and I've got a few more bits planned for it in the not too distant future.

First thing was to replace the front plate with a square one (Came with the car):







Next was a pair of kit car mirrors, I've never been a fan of the shape of position of the standard ones, I'm not 100% on these, but I think they're still an improvement, and they were a massive £12:









Then as this is replacing the Scirocco as my daily, and my comute is annoyingly strait and boring I needed to sort the stereo, the speaking sounded like they were good once, but I think they were well past their best, so I stuck in my Sony headunit and a set of Edge Component speakers, cheep and cheerful, and I'm really impressed with the quality and power of them, plus the tweeters like like they were meant to be in there:





I've also given the interior a good clean and hoover.

And that brings us up to date.

Plans for now are to keep the patina, but to tidy up the wheels. I'm undecided on what to do with them at the moment. I want to roll the arch's and space them out 15-20mm to get them sitting a little more flush, but I'm not sure what to so with them colour wise. I was initially thinking about just cleaning up the spokes and polishing the lips, but with winter looming over us, I'd rather not have any polished alloy on them. So I'm now thinking about a bronze lip and gun-metal centres, still open to suggestions though.

I'll hopefully be getting a slightly smaller steering wheel to replace the standard Momo one, and a friend expressed interest in a swap, as he wants a bigger one, so that could work out rather well.

I also want to get a roll bar on there again, so I'm in the process of looking for one I like at the moment.

Over the next few months the car will also be having megasquirt installed to replace the standard ECU, this will probably only free up a few horsepower, but I'm doing it as a college project, so it will be interesting to see what gains I can get, in BHP and MPG, as well as throttle response. The main reason though is just to get my project done for college.

Talking of college, next week I'll be taking the little Mazda in and doing 4 wheel alignment and corner weighting as well as sticking it on the rolling road to see how many of the horses have run away or keeled over.

[RobinJI]

I had a bit of a drama today with the MX-5.

I went to fix the roof latch's safety catch's, and decided to move the car closer to the house, so I could keep an eye on it while the roof was down and latch-less. Dis-armed the immobiliser, put the key in, and nothing. Tried again, nothing. Got a multimeter and the battery was reading 10v. curse word. No real drama though, the battery looks a bit old and grotty anyway, so it probably wouldn't hurt to change it with cold mornings on the way. So I got on with the latch's while waiting for my mum to get home so I could jumpstart of the mazda off her car. So the drivers side roof latch is now sorted, and the passenger one is a bit better, but seems to be a bit past it really, but meh, its secure enough for now. I Went back out to fit the roof latchs back on, and thought I'd try one last key turn, and it just about found enough juice to fire up.

So I popped to work (halfords) and got a new battery. (£45 on trade compared to £73rrp ) Fitted it, and when I fired it back up, an alarm started going off! No noise, but the indicators were going mad every time you opened a door or the bonnet. The immobiliser still worked as normal, and the car drove fine, but there was definitely an alarm having a fit in there! Trouble is, I didn't realise it had a working alarm! it must have been disarmed and left, and disconnecting the battery had re-armed it. That was a problem, as I couldn't drive around with my indicators on all the time, and I have no thob for the alarm, or any idea how to dis-arm it any other way. Luckily when the alarm was fitted, the courtesy lights circuit was tapped into only about an inch away from the drivers door switch, so it was easy enough to just snip the wire from that to the alarm. I then unplugged the bonnet sensor, and the motion sensors seem to be broken anyway. So now the alarm cannot be set off by anything . Sorted.

[CIH]

Nov 5, 2010 22:16:14 GMT RobinJI said:

Talking of college, next week I'll be taking the little Mazda in and doing 4 wheel alignment and corner weighting

Good luck getting a castor swing with it that low heh (been there etc).
If you want any advice on geometry/alignment set-ups let me know as I do about a million of these things every week.
Have to say though if you want it to really handle it should come-up a bit.

[RobinJI]

Haha, yeah, I realise the handling is compromised by the ride height, but I just find it so much fun that low that it doesn't bother me, there's still more than enough grip to have a laugh, and its very nicely balanced. I'm mostly just doing the alignment because it's not going to cost me a penny, and my lecturer seemed intrigued when I mentioned that it had anti-squat built in as standard. I also don't want to throw out the rolling road figures if there's any toe on the back.

If you happened to have a rough idea of what a nice base setting would be for the car then that would be awesome.

[RobinJI]

The car is now sporting an epically nose down stance so I can get it onto the rolling road at college tomorrow morning. It'll be interesting to see what it makes.

Place your bets now!

[Mystery Machine]

110bhp.

It certainly feels like it. As in...it feels like it hasn't lost too many horses along the way. I could be wrong but I'd be very surprised if it was less than 100.

Did it take you long to wind the perches up? I seem to recall it taking an age to wind them down! Something like 1/16th turn at a time.

Glad you've fitted the side mount plate.....makes me wonder why I didn't do it before! I had the plate sitting around since about a week after buying the car but just never got around to fitting it! Looks SOOOOO much better.

Looking forward to seeing what you do next and also looking forward to the results of the RR.

[Mystery Machine]

BTW....I really miss this car!

Despite all its little quirks and flaws, it's such a hoot and always brought a smile to my face.

I'm assuming it's having the same affect on you? ;D

[RobinJI]

Cheers, yeah, the side mount did made a big difference! I just stuck it on in the end.

The rear coilovers were easy enough, I just unbolted them and adjusted them off the car, sooo much easier for the sake of 3 bolts! I've wound them up about 60/70mm, which I'm hoping will get it on the rollers. Looks quite amusing as it is! In fact you'll probably get to see it like this on Saturday morning, as I'll be going strait from the rolling road to work tomorrow, and then strait from work into town for a friends leaving do friday night. So I don't think I'll have time to wind them back down between now and then.

I think 110ish is fair really. It feels marginally quicker than the Scirocco, and that was 101bhp and a bit lighter, as well as having less drivetrain loss's. So I'd be amazed if it's under 100.

PS, yes, it is indeed having the same effect! I just wish I had a less tediously boring commute.

[CIH]

Nov 8, 2010 23:43:30 GMT RobinJI said:

If you happened to have a rough idea of what a nice base setting would be for the car then that would be awesome.

Hard to say as you'll be forced to run a lot of camber becuase of the ride height and wheels. I'd guess something like -1.30 (60mins to a drgree) camber front and -2.0 rear. Generally you want a little more camber rear as they change direction so quick.
For the rear you'll probably find you'l have to take whatever camber the car will give inorder to get some toe-in, typically about +20mins total.

For the front about +0.8mins toe-in and the best camber the car will give. Castor again whatever the adjusters will give, we tend to set a little less than stock typically about 5.30-6.00 positive, to give a sharper turn-in.

Hope that helps.

[RobinJI]

That's awesome, thanks.

Results from the rolling road were 104bhp. Not amazing, however, we managed to set the rolling road's fan up the wrong way around so it was sucking air out of the engine bay rather than blowing it into it! Massive fail on our part, meaning it should probably have been something like 108bhp if the fan had been the right way around!

I'll stick some graphs up once I get them off the college computer.

[RobinJI]

Just ordered an Inovative LC-1 Wideband as well as the bits to make a loom adaptor for the megasquirt.

The plan is to try and get it all fitted and hopefully running off a base map over the Christmas holidays, then I can map it in the first few weeks back at college next term. The loom adaptor means that I should be able to switch between the megasquirt and the standard ECU whenever I like, so I can still run the car fine until the map's complete and ready to be used.

[RobinJI]

Been a while since I've updated this, mostly because not a massive amount's been happening. I've just been using the MX-5 as a fault free daily for the moment, and it's been eating up the miles perfectly.

Last time I was up at Area52 Rich welded the bung for the LC-1's lambda sensor into the de-cat pipe and I wired it all in. I haven't put in the gauge yet, but the unit it's self seems to be working perfectly.

MiniDan also dropped down a new battered old after-market Fiberglass bumper that I got as a freebie (Massive thanks for collecting it Dan). It needs some work, but looks repairable with a bit of fibreglass. It's a fairly subtle bumper, which basically just goes strait down from the front, rather than curling in under like the standard mk1 bumper does, as well as including 2 spot lights sunk back into it.

The plan is to zip-tie it back together for now and get it on the car to see how often it makes contact with the floor. The splitter on there at the moment scrapes pretty regularly, but just springs back as it's plastic. I'm a little worried that a fibreglass one will just get smashed up, so I want to try it out before I put the effort into getting it looking nice.

The other thing I've just got back from picking up is a full roll cage. I've been after a roll bar since the day I picked the little Mazda up, and this full cage came up on here for a fair price, so I thought I might as well go for it. I'm planning to do a few track days this year, so it'll be nice to have some decent protection, and as the cage is all bolt together, I can leave just the rear hoop and supports in for day to day road use, then fit the front half as well for track days.


PS, Sorry for the lack of pictures, I'll get some of it all this weekend when I'm up at Area52.

[AshW]

I swear I've seen this parked in bridgewater college before? looked cool!

[Colonelk]

glad this is still rocking along

Did you manage to liberate that tyre from that BBS 15 in the end chap?

[RobinJI]

Jan 13, 2011 17:48:20 GMT AshW said:

I swear I've seen this parked in bridgewater college before? looked cool!

Haha, Cheers, yeah, that'd be the one, I'm studying for a Foundation Degree in Road and Race Car Technology there at the moment. Normally parked at the far end of the car-park somewhere near a yellow MG and a Polo GTI.

[RobinJI]

Jan 13, 2011 17:54:32 GMT Colonelk said:

glad this is still rocking along

Did you manage to liberate that tyre from that BBS 15 in the end chap?

Yeah, it should be sat on the top of the pile of tyres next to my mini at the moment, will you be at Area52 this weekend? I can bring it up if you want?

[Colonelk]

yeah will be there and that would be awesome thanks man

[Mark]

Isn't there some little tweak where retarding the ignition 7 degrees liberates a few more GG's? Might be worth a quick Google anyway?

[paul6266]

these are fun little cars....back end is a tad light from what I remember

[RobinJI]

Jan 13, 2011 21:38:40 GMT Mark said:

Isn't there some little tweak where retarding the ignition 7 degrees liberates a few more GG's? Might be worth a quick Google anyway?

I beleive there is, although I'm not sure if it applies to my engine or not. I've been told that it's more to re-gain the power that Mazda deliberately reduced to stop it eating in to the sales of the 1.8 litre models. As mine was made before the 1.8 came out it's not got the reduced power of the later ones. (late 1.6 is 90bhp, my age one is 114) Although I do keep meaning to check the timing.

Either way, once the new ECU is installed it will be mapped on a rolling road to get the best out of it, so if the ignition timing can be improved, it will be.


The back end can be a pretty lively in the wet if you get a bit heavy footed if it's dry and you drive properly there's just grip followed by more grip, even slammed and on budgets it handles amazingly, they really are awesome little cars to drive.