Mike’s new whip
The morning of the collection of my new ‘Ring (not so much, as it turns out) Nail. It started waking up with a severe hangover having attended a work’s party with a free bar the night before. Craig picked me and Mick up and we headed to Bristol to collect my new machine.
The advert for this car was quite endearing – entitled “Selling my beloved MX5” and mentions of “spares or repair” and “make a good donor vehicle”. The pictures were poor, that of the car strapped to a recovery truck and no other identifying features. The symptoms weren’t looking good. But I’d previously gone to look at it and determined that it was good enough to take a punt. Especially given the price and that it came with a hard top, my thoughts were I could break it and make my money back if worst came to worse.
In between placing a deposit and collecting the car, it was playing on my mind that this car had a few different features to the 3 MX5s I’d owned previously. Being the first 1.8 I’d looked at, I put it down to that. First thing I noticed on one of the advert pictures was the green “Roadster” badge on the rear. Having had either red or black ones, I looked it up and discovered it had the Series 2 1.8 engine installed, which came with OBD2, a lightened flywheel and some other updated electronics. Good news. After that, I came across a very good document on the MX5OC forum outlining all of the MX5 models, including special/limited edition. That’s where my eyes lit up. It turned out, the car I was picking up was a VR Limited: Combination B – only 800 were made in Japan. It included things like; 1.8 Series 2 engine, front engine brace, rear cabin brace, Enkei wheels, Excellent Green Mica pain (British Racing Green but metallic), Green vinyl hood, leather tombstone seats with “Roadster” embroidery, ally speaker covers/door cards, ally gear surround, ally handbrake handle, Momo steering wheel, Bilstein suspension (which this one was missing, unfortunately), Torsen diff with 4.1 ratio final drive and a few other little gems.
As you can imagine, for the price I was paying (which I’ll get onto later), I was chuffed as chips. Researching more and more.
I’ve digressed, back to the collection. We rocked up and unloaded the car, hooked it up to the A Frame and I resumed my front-seat hungover-passenger position for the journey back to South Wales. After a stop off to Gordano services for a hopeful cure to my hangover, a Feast ice lolly!
We arrived back home and, with my head feeling slightly less like a backfired cannon, the tear down began. But not before I managed to take some god awful pictures on my iPotato Spudphone.
Good god these pics are awful! Sorry guys!
It’s not overly difficult job to do the timing on an MX5. As they’re non-interference engines, the pistons and valves don’t occupy the same space, as such, never the twain shall meet. This somewhat takes the risk out of getting the timing slightly wring on the first attempt. To reset the timing, align the crank to TDC. There is a handy little arrow on the block which aligns with a handy little notch on the crank pulley. Thank you Mazda, you Japanese marvels of engineering, you! Once this is lined up, it’s a case of lining up the marks on the crank pulleys to marks on the head, slap a belt on, set the tensioner and away you go! We cranked the engine over on the starter for a few revolutions to check the timing hadn’t shifted and all appeared to be well. Unfortunately, I didn’t take many pictures of this process. Mainly because a) my IPotato Spudphone has all the megapixels of an 80s Polaroid and b) well, I forgot. In my excitement. Craig did manage to get a video if it firing after refitting the belt, so may link to it on YouTube. Depends on how much of a d
head I look in the video.
Here is the offending article – it has stripped half its teeth on the crank end and left remnants of teeth jammed up in the crank pulley and in the cam pulleys:
All stripped down (bar the crank pulley)
Final stages of putting the car back together, I got some old bottles from the boot of my daily to fill with water (my garage isn’t next to my house
) and to top up the radiator. After 3 bottles worth of water, I wondered why the radiator was bubbling like a bloody Jacuzzi filled with Radox. Then it dawned on me. Those old bottles, once held (not a bitter ale, for any Max Boyce fans) screenwash for my daily! f
k! Cue me running back and forth the house 23123 times with one, clean bottle trying to flush the remnants if screenwash out of the system! What an absolute bellend I am sometimes! Anyway, it all disappeared after depleting Wales of all its water reserves, and she ran to temp like a champ.
Once it was all put back together, I slapped some classic car insurance on her and we went for a spin
. Took her for about 60 miles, whilst not “sparing the horses”, shall we say. She didn’t skip a beat. Pulled well through all the gears, handled very well. The Torsen diff is really excellent, compared to the Viscous Limited Slip Diffs I’d had on previous MX5s. It would absolutely benefit from a 4 wheel laser alignment, so will get something booked in to get all 4 wheels pointing in vaguely the right direction. But overall, it will be a pleasure to treat this little gem with some well overdue TLC. I do think she has been somewhat neglected over the years!
So, summary specs of the new Mighty MX5 ‘Ring not-so-nail:
Imported in 1999, 2 UK owners since
Comprehensive Service History (including some Japanese), albeit missing a crucial and, evidently, needed timing belt change
1 of only 800 cars ever made
Complete with matching Hardtop (with heated rear screen)
99k kms (about 60k miles)
Cost of purchase – £550 Timing belt kit – £30 Driving through the Welsh roads – Priceless
Back to the ‘Ring, obviously I won’t be treating this one to the same weight saving techniques you’ve read previously. However, I will be fitting a GC Fabrications Roll bar, my Sparco seat and Harnesses as well as addressing the brakes (potentially some EBC Yellow stuff pads) and try and get some decent suspension. I would like to find the original Bilsteins it would have been fitted with, but that may be a push.
More to come, thanks for reading my escapades so far!
Work, work and more work. Oh, and money…
Update since getting the VR Ltd up and running, both a lot and not-a-lot has happened in the last month or so.
My last update I mentioned what it was like driving through the blizzard of bugs. Well, this was my lights the morning after. Mass murderer of midges!
I also mentioned my super cheap de-cat that I’d bought new second-hand
Well, in my infinite wisdom and after my usual level of research which involves reading google like Johnny 5, it inevitably didn’t bloody fit. It’s a 440mm decat and all JDM MX5s were fitted with the 370mm until after 1997. Excellent. So, after encountering a rounded bolt and having to resort to a spark maker to get the cat off, I was left with a shiny stainless system that I couldn’t use because there was no cat or decat. I did have a decat on the red nail, so I removed that and set about trying to plug the 206870510 tiny leaks it had from my woeful welding skills.
One rounded bolt led me straight to the power tools:
Anyway, I got the colander style decat fitted with copious amounts of chemical weld and hoped for the best. It appeared I didn’t hope hard enough as the car gods blessed me with a a car that sounded like a novelty fart machine. Great. No pictures of this through sheer embarrassment. I hope to address it properly with a 421 manifold but that’s way down my priority list, but for now, it seems quiet with no leaks, so out of sight and out of mind.
After getting myself covered in chemical metal, I fancied doing something a little cleaner. The stereo in the car was old and s
t. And old. Oh, and s
t. It was the star of the noughties that was the Sony Xplod. I’d thought this was the reason that the headrest speakers didn’t work. So I started to swap it out and what greeted me was the sight of nightmares. Scotch locks. Whoever invented these little f
kers needs to be tortured by attaching their own invention to their knob and and a car battery. After spending what seemed like an entire lifetime and wearing my fingers down to my elbows, I’d unpicked the scotch lock “loom” and got to see the standard loom. Interestingly, the ISO connector for the rear headrests was tucked away. This will explain why they’re not working. Or so I thought. Once I’d installed a mechless JVC bluetooth unit I had lying around, they still didn’t work. A quick unzip of the rear headrests revealed a disappointing void where they should have been. The connector under the seat remained. Unconnected. Looking lost. I had planned at that stage to retrofit the units from the red nail. But as I’ll be fitting my Sparco seat for the ring, it’d be largely pointless. So I left it with just the 2 front speakers for now.
The noughties special Sony Xplod at the helm:
THE HORROR!!
Better. The one thing about the VR Ltd is that the Stereo surround (aka the tombstone) was fitted with standard DIN sized hole. Which means a standard stereo will sit flush. In earlier/other models, the opening is slightly smalled to fit the standard stereo Mazda fitted. Which meant an up to date stereo wouldn’t sit flush and would stick out by a few cm.
A couple of weekends ago, I struck a deal wih a very nice chap on Facebook selling a GC Fabrications GC1 roll cage. I was going to get one of these anyway, new. But there is a 2-4 week lead time on them and they’re £300 delivered. I’d manage to find one for sale, second hand, but brand new and never fitted, still in the box for £200. Only “issue” was it was in Portsmouth and I live in South Wales. Cue a subtle recommendation to the OH that we should take the kids away for the day. There’s a really good Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth and I’ve just found a really good Groupon deal to go and see it. Oh and while we’re there I might as well shoehorn this roll cage in the boot, yeah?
All in all, it was a lovely day visiting HMS Victory and HMS Warrior and the kiddos loved it. Got the cage back and it’s awaiting fitting.
I’d been driving it fairly regularly and noticed in the hot weather that the clutch was starting to slip when giving it a good seeing to. The pedal was also fairly high and I’d budgeted for an IL Motorsport clutch from MX5 parts at about £100. Luckily, I found someone selling their sub 1k mile LUK clutch on Facebook as they were upgrading following boosting their 5. £30 later and the clutch was on its way to me. I’d also dome some research on replacing the spigot bearing. MX5 Parts wanted about £9 for one. Well, absolutely not. That’s Alan Sugar money! So I found out the spec of the bearing and went to SimplyBearings. Delivered next day for £3. Excellent. This is a budget trip, don’t forget
.
I’d been running the standard airbox with a K&N panel filter and, while no dount, the performance was probably improved. I was missing the induction noise. So, being the sensible, performance orientated motor enthusiast I am, proceeded to purchase a £5 second hand cheapo cone filter I could find (actually, I bought 2 as they were both 5 mins away from my house). Mick (Wunderbolf) will be having one for extra VTEC Yo! on his Accord.
I was accutely aware, after the previous owner of my red nail had decided to attach the cone filter directly to the exhaust manifold, that this would suffer from drawing in hot air. So I thought I would fabricate (using that word in the loosest possible fashion) a heat shield from an old metal shed door. What else would one use?
So, decided on positioning and used a cherished Frosties box as a template.
Then started to build from the sheet metal I had:
Using a combination of rivets and chemical weld (because I ran out of rivets)
Positioning and fine tuning:
All that’s left is to spray it in some high temp paint, cut the hole for the filter and to fit some mounting brackets. Should work a treat. Probably won’t.
I also treated the front to a nice new number plate to replace the UK spec one and a Jass Performance Ally side mount, with some funky green anodised mounting washers:
Also fitted a green OMP (probably isn’t OMP) tow strap. Front end starting to come together:
I’d also previously mentioned the car did try and shake my bones out my arse at about 70. I thought (and was hoping) it was down to the wheels, so swapped them for the wheels from the red nail. Luckily, this did the trick. Shame as I liked the wheels as they were specific the VR Ltd range. I do plan to get some decent rubber for the ‘Ring, so may wrap the correct wheels in new rubber. My worry is they’re buckled or not true so will have to wait and see.
How she currently stands, with the red nail enviously peering out:
Lastly, I swapped the Momo wheel which is also specific to special edition versions with the ATC one from the red nail. The standard wheel was nice to touch, but it was far too big. Even at my modest 5’9″ stature, I was catching my hands on my legs when steering. The ATC wheel is a nicer size, but is no good as it’s sat too close to the wiper and indicator stalks meaning a catch my hands on those instead. I’ll be keeping an eye out for a cheap dished wheel. Preferably a 320-330mm one. Instead, I fitted some shiny new stainless bolts to fit it:
Old wheel:
New wheel with old bolts. I’m not really a fan of this wheel. Just the size:
New wheel, new bolts:
[Columbo mode] Oh there is…. just…. one more….. thing [/Columbo mode]
I’ve forgotten a few things. Maybe more has happened than I thought in the last month. Or maybe I’ve still got so much to do it pales into insignificant. I’d leaning towards the latter.
The red nail has some nice chunky red HT leads, so I swapped them onto the VR Ltd as the existing ones were looking a little crusty. I plan to change the plugs also so that should see to the ignition being nice and fresh:
The VR Ltd was specced from the factory with a hardtop, so it was fitted with non-folding sun visors. Which, in a first-world-problem kinda way is bloody annoying as you have to put the visor down to get to the folding roof clamps. So, I invested some time (about 9.36985 minutes) in swapping the folding ones from the red nail. Much better now and no annoyance when putting the roof up or down:
Whilst rummaging around in the plethora of old MX5 bits I have lying around, I found an original JDM flare. For those that might not know, it’s law in Japan for cars to be fitted with an emergency flare. Having one in your import scores you at least a bloidsabillion JDM scene points Yo!
The mounting brackets were their ready to receive the JDM Scene winner:
I’d also managed to get my hands on some very high quality, top of the range nameless coilovers for the princely sum of £80. They were new and unused so I had some high hopes of replacing my mismatched, leaking shocks with some cheap lows. I was under no illusion that the ride quality would be awful and it probably wouldn’t give me any advantage of a stock set up. But, they looked pretty and my shocks were on their way anyway. Disappointingly, the VR Ltd would have been fitted with Bilstein shocks and springs from the factory. I guess somewhere in its 22 year lifespan, they were knackered and someone replaced them with the cheapest possible units, one by one.
I successfully fitted one side on the rear. Old shock out. This is a Sachs unit, so not awful quality.
New one alongside:
New one to go in here:
Fitted and lowered back onto the wheel:
Oh – just a reminder, check your axle stands kids! Luckily this happened when I removed it from the car!
After I’d jacked the other side up and taken the wheel off, but before I’d disassembled the strut, I thought I’d get the other rear strut out in readiness. I was greeted with a lovely looking strut that appeared to be well lubricated… in its own f
king oil.
Cheapo coilover leaking oil SHOCKKKKKK! I was very frustrated, but cracked on with the fronts. As of today, the seller has maintained good communication and is trying to source me a replacement.
So, onto the fronts, these were a little more difficult as it requires you to remove the long, upper wishbone bolt which is about 25cm long. I was very nervous about this step after hearing stories of snapped and/or seized bolts. After much application of lubrication, it was onto the liberation. Luckily, both sides came of relatively easy. Phew!
Front disassembled
Old vs New:
Fitted
As I’d had to remove the ARB bushes, I used the opportunity to replace with the polybush kit I had lying about from the red nail:
And back on its wheels. Albeit a little dog-legged as the one side on the rear is still on a standard strut. It’s standing similar to how most teens pose for pictures on the balcony in Marbella babezzzz.
Next steps for me now include:
Get and fit a replacement coilover on the rear
Fit the roll cage
Find a dished steering wheel
Decent pads and possibly discs, although they look ok
Decent rubber (tyres, that is)
Fit replacement clutch and spigot bearing
Service (engine and box fluids, oil and fuel filters, plugs etc.)
Loads of other stuff I’ll no doubt decide to do
Minor update.
I’d managed to fight off the temptation to splurge hundreds of quids on a nice set of Meister R’s or similar and sourced a replacement Coilover for the cheapo eBay special that vomited it’s internals all over my drive. Luckily, the replacement, although second hand, was exactly the same make/model as the broken one. This was a result as not only would it have driven me insane knowing there were different components on the same axle, but now it ensures that both sides are the same, shocking (bahahah) quality
After getting home from work, I got the car up on the air and started removing bits:
25 minutes after this photo, I’d removed the old strut, adjusted the new coilover to the same height as the other side (the lowest it would go, to start off with) and fitted it. Progress!
Back on the deck and after a quick test drive:
First impressions are, well, it’s ok. It’s low. Probably too low. The colander-esque decat (which is still fecking leaking btw) scraped over the smalled of speed bumps, of which there are many on my estate! So I think I will need to raise the back by about 20mm to make some room. Especially if we’re going to try and get these things on a ferry!
Handling wise, it’s definitely better than the standard, aftermarket, tired items that were on there previously. It’s a bit washy on the front end, resulting in understeer but considering this will be the first time on the ‘Ring, I’m happy with a bit more of a forgiving set up. Although I might change my mind on the basis that, if I’m going to stack it, do I want to see it coming?
This weekend will hopefully see the fitting of the Roll Bar
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