First fun car! (another MX5)
Discussion
So after my first 3 years of driving spent in a boring little clio 1.2 (its actually be quite a fun and surprisingly reliable 3 years with it!) Ive had a midlife crisis and went out and spent just over 1k on a 1994 uk 1.8 mk 1. Shes a beauty! 
Has done a lot of miles 118k but the sills and arches are all solid and have been welded.
Couple of little mods;
Lowered on spax adjustables (set up far too stiff at the moment, need to soften them right up I think)
VX220 seats (much nicer than standard)
First job was to try get the wheel on straight
f
ked up the sill on the left last night lowering it onto jack stands in what were seemingly not the solid bit! (any advice on where to put jack stands on them much appreciated) so was very very annoyed at myself 
Plans for future involve sorting handling out, seems a bit skittish, probably to do with geo being our, shocks being far too stiff and ste tyres on it!
Sort out the sill
Give it a good service!
Other than that keep as is and run it till the engine blows! Then hopefully have enough money to afford to turbo it
Has done a lot of miles 118k but the sills and arches are all solid and have been welded.
Couple of little mods;
Lowered on spax adjustables (set up far too stiff at the moment, need to soften them right up I think)
VX220 seats (much nicer than standard)
First job was to try get the wheel on straight
f
ked up the sill on the left last night lowering it onto jack stands in what were seemingly not the solid bit! (any advice on where to put jack stands on them much appreciated) so was very very annoyed at myself Plans for future involve sorting handling out, seems a bit skittish, probably to do with geo being our, shocks being far too stiff and s
te tyres on it! Sort out the sill
Give it a good service!
Other than that keep as is and run it till the engine blows! Then hopefully have enough money to afford to turbo it
Cheers for the comments guys, she does shine up nicely for almost 20 years old!
Managed to break the adjuster bolt on the shocks today, guess it was seized and old/brittle…. so looks like its gunna have to stay super stiff untill Ive saved a few pennies for some decent coilovers!
I guess even with a 1k car theres no such thing as cheap motoring!
Managed to break the adjuster bolt on the shocks today, guess it was seized and old/brittle…. so looks like its gunna have to stay super stiff untill Ive saved a few pennies for some decent coilovers!
I guess even with a 1k car theres no such thing as cheap motoring!
I fitted a set of Rokkor Racing shocks on my old MX5 and they really sharpened the handling up. Cheap too- About £130 a set from eBay, sounds like you might want something more upmarket though.
Geometry is DEFINITELY worth doing and makes a big difference- Use the Wheels in Motion specs and job's a goodun.
Geometry is DEFINITELY worth doing and makes a big difference- Use the Wheels in Motion specs and job's a goodun.
Yeah I thought about the cheap ebay ones to tide me over but really id like some Meisters or Gaz golds so might wait. Is the ride really hard with the ebay ones as this is my worry? Hard is great for track but the lanes round here are not the smoothest and at the moment I find it doesnt damp very well when pushing on.
As for geo, how do you go about getting the wheels in motion settings as this is what I want but they are a bit far away from me to drive down and there are local places here with the right equipment just not sure they will know how to set the car up??
As for geo, how do you go about getting the wheels in motion settings as this is what I want but they are a bit far away from me to drive down and there are local places here with the right equipment just not sure they will know how to set the car up??
Dustyw536 said:
Yeah I thought about the cheap ebay ones to tide me over but really id like some Meisters or Gaz golds so might wait. Is the ride really hard with the ebay ones as this is my worry? Hard is great for track but the lanes round here are not the smoothest and at the moment I find it doesnt damp very well when pushing on.
As for geo, how do you go about getting the wheels in motion settings as this is what I want but they are a bit far away from me to drive down and there are local places here with the right equipment just not sure they will know how to set the car up??
The eBay ones are alright, I'm not sure about the ride- Mine were very hard, but I think that might be a function of them being adjusted very low.As for geo, how do you go about getting the wheels in motion settings as this is what I want but they are a bit far away from me to drive down and there are local places here with the right equipment just not sure they will know how to set the car up??
To be honest, my MX5 was a bit of a nail. If you've got a goodun it might be worth putting decent shocks on- The eBay ones are only height adjustable, and they are fairly hard as standard.
I went to ProTyre in Bristol because WiM was a bit of a trek. They actually rang up WiM who were fine about giving them the specs over the 'phone, if not I think a few sites on the web have them.
Mastodon2 said:
Am I reading this right, you are concerned that the ride is stiff as you live round some bumpy roads, yet you want to remedy this with coilovers?
Nice Mx5 btw.
You are correct, however its not running standard suspension now, its running spax which according to reviews are known to be very stiff, not to mention they are set to stiff settings and the adjuster has seized/ snapped off so I cant set them to their softest settings.Nice Mx5 btw.
So my thoughts are to get some decent coilovers and run them on softer settings hopefully improving ride and handling.
Makes sense in my head at least haha.
carreauchompeur said:
The eBay ones are alright, I'm not sure about the ride- Mine were very hard, but I think that might be a function of them being adjusted very low.
To be honest, my MX5 was a bit of a nail. If you've got a goodun it might be worth putting decent shocks on- The eBay ones are only height adjustable, and they are fairly hard as standard.
I went to ProTyre in Bristol because WiM was a bit of a trek. They actually rang up WiM who were fine about giving them the specs over the 'phone, if not I think a few sites on the web have them.
Cheers for the advice, Bristol is abit closer to me than Chesham so maybe worth giving them a ring. Will probably drive as is till I sort the suspension out and get it all done at the same time! Hopefully transform the car into what I want in one weekend! To be honest, my MX5 was a bit of a nail. If you've got a goodun it might be worth putting decent shocks on- The eBay ones are only height adjustable, and they are fairly hard as standard.
I went to ProTyre in Bristol because WiM was a bit of a trek. They actually rang up WiM who were fine about giving them the specs over the 'phone, if not I think a few sites on the web have them.
edit: im talking out my arse Bristol it seems is 35 miles further! Maybe WIM is a reasonable distance if I cant find anywhere more local.
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