italian tune up

[covmutley]

bought my '92 mx5 4 weeks ago. Its done 85k miles. The 200 mile drive to get it home really loosened it up nicely. Since then I have replaced the coolant and done an oil change to fully synth and its running even better now, with the tappety noise now gone.

I now have one problem...me. My every day driver is a 2.2 diesel with lots of torque so a different driving style, and the neurotic part of my brain tells me that the engine will most likely explode if i get anywhere near that red bit on the rev counter!

My confidence in the reliability of the car is growing and i guess the rev limiter is there for a reason. Also assume that it is probably good to hit the rev limiter (when fully warm) at least once in a while, hopefully more. Convince me it wont go pop please....!!!

[Herman Toothrot]

My 1.8 the limiters been raised to 7400rpm from 7250rpm and it regularly sees around the 7250 mark and on the odd occasion hits the 7400 mark, all while producing 130bhp over standard. Tough little engines. If the car was n/a still it'd hit the limiter every gear change

[bluetone]

The engine was originally designed to take a turbo (Mazda 323 IIRC) and the reliability of the lower-output MX5 version is legendary, so give it some

[roverspeed]

Mine gets redlined on pretty much each and every journey i go on. (once fully warmed up)

And it loves it and asks for more. ( i do about 15k miles a year in it)

Although my diff did explode. :-(

[bluetone]

roverspeed said:

my diff did explode. :-(

I wonder why? LOL..

[skinny]

as long as the oil is properly warm, no probs at all. i try to give mine a good 2nd, 3rd, 4th full revs accel at least once per long journey just to clear its throat.

[franv8]

bluetone said:

The engine was originally designed to take a turbo (Mazda 323 IIRC) and the reliability of the lower-output MX5 version is legendary, so give it some

It may have been 'based' on the 323 design, but it was not designed for FI. For a start compression ratio is higher on the MX5 lump, and it doesn't boast things like forged pistons which I believe the 323 Turbo lump does.

[randomman]

Give it some! My daily hack was a derv, had to to overcome the same problem when I hopped back into a petrol a few weeks ago.

Very rewarding though!

[SunDiver]

Don't worry - hitting the rev limiter on a well-maintained M1 MX-5 occasionally won't do any harm. I had a M1 MX-5 from new - turboed it (around 240hp) from two years old. I hit the rev limiter many many times while tuning it via laptop. Tough engines to say the least.

While the same engine in OEM turbo applications had changes - compression ratio, flywheel and stronger rods, the fact remains that the stock NA M1 engine is over-engineered. There are thousands of them reliably running superchargers and turbos but admittedly well-tuned forced induction doesn't stress out internals quite as much as you expect. See the following for more details of the stock internals...

http://www.solomiata.com/Mx5Engine.html

Edited by SunDiver on Wednesday 11th March 17:22