Mk1 Mazda Eunos
Discussion
After my partners car failed it's MOT quite badly last week, we decided best to sell it as spares and repairs and find something else. We share both of our cars to keep the mileage down on my lease car and I was getting sick of he KA. Further, we're half way through restoring a house, so we had to find something cheap.
The search criteria were;
Cheap,
Not too big (she won't drive anything bigger than a focus)
Reliable
Obviously, I was on the lookout for something fun too. I'd always fancied trying an MX5, mainly because of all the hype surrounding them but most within our budget seemed to be a bit shabby.
After a little while, I stumbled upon an imported 1.6 manual Eunos with about 110,000 miles on the clock. It looked remarkably solid and with a nice spec (LSD, rollbar, powder coated wheels). When I visited the car, it was a solid as I hoped but it did still have a couple of issues. In the end, we agreed on a price of £900, which I thought was pretty reasonable.
I've had quite a few cars, but this is my first real drivers' car (RWD, 2 seats, manual) and by the time I'd got it home, I could understand all the hype!! It's pretty tail happy and direct, but not daunting or too powerful that you need to always be careful.
As mentioned; there's a few things which need sorting on the car and I have a few other performance upgrades planned too, so I've started this thread so that I can keep a track of it all. Here's what needs doing;
Engine/Drivetrain:
-There's a rattle from the exhaust at around 2500rpm, this could be a loose heat shield or a catalytic converter about to give up. This will need fixing.
-I would like to add a bit more power, no turbocharging or anything just yet, but I'll be looking at ways to help the engine breathe first of all. Perhaps a better exhaust and an air filter.
-Service.
Chassis:
-I'm not bowled over by the brakes. They appear to work fine, but a bit better bite would be nice. I'm going to consider fitting the brakes from the 1.8 model.
-The suspension seems absolutely fine and already gives plenty of feel, but I may replace bushes with poly bushes as I go along.
-I do like the 'lower' look, but I don't want to ruin the car. Just something to consider for now.
Other:
-The passenger window doesn't work and the drivers is slow. A quick google shows this to be fairly common and requires cleaning of the mechanism.
-The door locks are stiff. Again, this is apparently quite common and requires a spring to be replaced in the latch. I'll do this when I do the windows; but it's not urgent as the car has remote central locking.
Cosmetics:
-The interior is a bit dull. I'm considering getting the dash pod or centre console flocked or wrapped to make it a bit more interesting.
-I want to fit an adhesive front number plate to clean up the lines of the car
-One of the wing mirrors has a slight scuff, I was going to wrap both in gloss black
-There's a minor rust bubble on the front wing. Silver is a really hard colour to match, but I may try and repair this.
As I said, we're refurbishing a house (read:I'm doing all the work) so progress updates will be slow.
Thanks for reading, comments, suggestions, help welcome! Pics to follow.
The search criteria were;
Cheap,
Not too big (she won't drive anything bigger than a focus)
Reliable
Obviously, I was on the lookout for something fun too. I'd always fancied trying an MX5, mainly because of all the hype surrounding them but most within our budget seemed to be a bit shabby.
After a little while, I stumbled upon an imported 1.6 manual Eunos with about 110,000 miles on the clock. It looked remarkably solid and with a nice spec (LSD, rollbar, powder coated wheels). When I visited the car, it was a solid as I hoped but it did still have a couple of issues. In the end, we agreed on a price of £900, which I thought was pretty reasonable.
I've had quite a few cars, but this is my first real drivers' car (RWD, 2 seats, manual) and by the time I'd got it home, I could understand all the hype!! It's pretty tail happy and direct, but not daunting or too powerful that you need to always be careful.
As mentioned; there's a few things which need sorting on the car and I have a few other performance upgrades planned too, so I've started this thread so that I can keep a track of it all. Here's what needs doing;
Engine/Drivetrain:
-There's a rattle from the exhaust at around 2500rpm, this could be a loose heat shield or a catalytic converter about to give up. This will need fixing.
-I would like to add a bit more power, no turbocharging or anything just yet, but I'll be looking at ways to help the engine breathe first of all. Perhaps a better exhaust and an air filter.
-Service.
Chassis:
-I'm not bowled over by the brakes. They appear to work fine, but a bit better bite would be nice. I'm going to consider fitting the brakes from the 1.8 model.
-The suspension seems absolutely fine and already gives plenty of feel, but I may replace bushes with poly bushes as I go along.
-I do like the 'lower' look, but I don't want to ruin the car. Just something to consider for now.
Other:
-The passenger window doesn't work and the drivers is slow. A quick google shows this to be fairly common and requires cleaning of the mechanism.
-The door locks are stiff. Again, this is apparently quite common and requires a spring to be replaced in the latch. I'll do this when I do the windows; but it's not urgent as the car has remote central locking.
Cosmetics:
-The interior is a bit dull. I'm considering getting the dash pod or centre console flocked or wrapped to make it a bit more interesting.
-I want to fit an adhesive front number plate to clean up the lines of the car
-One of the wing mirrors has a slight scuff, I was going to wrap both in gloss black
-There's a minor rust bubble on the front wing. Silver is a really hard colour to match, but I may try and repair this.
As I said, we're refurbishing a house (read:I'm doing all the work) so progress updates will be slow.
Thanks for reading, comments, suggestions, help welcome! Pics to follow.
Brakes - you don't need to fit the 1.8 'brakes' as such - the callipers are the same, just buy the bigger discs and pads and swap them out. Dirt cheap parts. But do a fluid change and bleed too.
Window not working - this will be a snapped cable, pain in the arse job to do, give it a google/youtube.
Suspension - do not fit cheap coil overs, no matter how much people say they're worth it. They're not, they ruin the car.
Window not working - this will be a snapped cable, pain in the arse job to do, give it a google/youtube.
Suspension - do not fit cheap coil overs, no matter how much people say they're worth it. They're not, they ruin the car.
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