2006 MX-5 2.0 Option Pack
Discussion
I've used the Mazda for a series of inappropriate journeys recently.
The first was my first trip into my office this year. A 60-mile blast cross-country that I did a few times a week for about 7 years in a variety of vehicles including the Mazda. If the traffic is kind it's a good drive in a fun car. The Mazda seemed a lot more eager than I ever remember it feeling, I mostly forget about the manifold and remap as these sorts of changes quickly become your new mental benchmark, but some overly familiar roads made it very apparent how much more torque the car has now. I had both fitted just before we went into the first lockdown, my job became fully remote not long after that so I've never commuted with the car in this format.
I'd reserved a toy tractor for my son's birthday in a store near work. The box was a little larger than I was expecting! With hindsight, I maybe should have taken one of the two estate cars sat at home, but where's the fun in that?
With a ratchet strap onto the rollbar, my cargo made it home just fine, if somewhat noisily and bug splattered.
A couple of weeks later I had a work thing where I needed to be in Chelsea before 9am. Spending the best part of an hour on the tube on a 30c+ day didn't seem too appealing after a similar length of train journey so a plan was hatched to drive.
A long stint down the motorway followed by a queue into London isn't really the ideal remit for an MX5, but I’m keen to put some boring miles on it to check if there’s anything I need to address before the drive to Germany in October.
I had an uneventful run down the M40 and onto the A40. London seemed quiet. Petrol pricing is weird at the moment, fuel at an Esso in Chelsea was quite a bit cheaper than back at home in Oxfordshire.
Quite the size difference...
Like most garages around London there were a number of nice cars being stored for overseas owners...
A valet saw me taking that photo and popped over for a chat, before long he was whipping off car covers to show off what they'd got in stock.
I hadn't seen a Ford GT up close until now, it's quite striking in the flesh, I love the way the cabin forms a teardrop shape with buttresses out to the extremities.
The journey back was hot, I wimped out and put the roof up. The aircon that I had regassed in 2019 seemed to struggle to keep up whilst I was crawling in traffic (I suspect having a thin and hot canvas roof sealing the car does it no favours), but once moving on the M40 it did a good job.
The bucket seat isn't totally silent, but adding the Delrin washers between the side mounts and seat recently has definitely removed the most annoying of the squeaks it was making, anything else is quiet enough that it's drowned out by road noise. I've also cured some noise that was coming from behind the aftermarket headunit surround by applying some fabric tape. I did notice that there seems to be a bit of a clunk coming from the nearside rear suspension over bumps, I'm hoping this is just an ARB bush.
Back near home, I had some errands to run and found a space behind a very immaculate Z-Sport...
The first was my first trip into my office this year. A 60-mile blast cross-country that I did a few times a week for about 7 years in a variety of vehicles including the Mazda. If the traffic is kind it's a good drive in a fun car. The Mazda seemed a lot more eager than I ever remember it feeling, I mostly forget about the manifold and remap as these sorts of changes quickly become your new mental benchmark, but some overly familiar roads made it very apparent how much more torque the car has now. I had both fitted just before we went into the first lockdown, my job became fully remote not long after that so I've never commuted with the car in this format.
I'd reserved a toy tractor for my son's birthday in a store near work. The box was a little larger than I was expecting! With hindsight, I maybe should have taken one of the two estate cars sat at home, but where's the fun in that?
With a ratchet strap onto the rollbar, my cargo made it home just fine, if somewhat noisily and bug splattered.
A couple of weeks later I had a work thing where I needed to be in Chelsea before 9am. Spending the best part of an hour on the tube on a 30c+ day didn't seem too appealing after a similar length of train journey so a plan was hatched to drive.
A long stint down the motorway followed by a queue into London isn't really the ideal remit for an MX5, but I’m keen to put some boring miles on it to check if there’s anything I need to address before the drive to Germany in October.
I had an uneventful run down the M40 and onto the A40. London seemed quiet. Petrol pricing is weird at the moment, fuel at an Esso in Chelsea was quite a bit cheaper than back at home in Oxfordshire.
Quite the size difference...
Like most garages around London there were a number of nice cars being stored for overseas owners...
A valet saw me taking that photo and popped over for a chat, before long he was whipping off car covers to show off what they'd got in stock.
I hadn't seen a Ford GT up close until now, it's quite striking in the flesh, I love the way the cabin forms a teardrop shape with buttresses out to the extremities.
The journey back was hot, I wimped out and put the roof up. The aircon that I had regassed in 2019 seemed to struggle to keep up whilst I was crawling in traffic (I suspect having a thin and hot canvas roof sealing the car does it no favours), but once moving on the M40 it did a good job.
The bucket seat isn't totally silent, but adding the Delrin washers between the side mounts and seat recently has definitely removed the most annoying of the squeaks it was making, anything else is quiet enough that it's drowned out by road noise. I've also cured some noise that was coming from behind the aftermarket headunit surround by applying some fabric tape. I did notice that there seems to be a bit of a clunk coming from the nearside rear suspension over bumps, I'm hoping this is just an ARB bush.
Back near home, I had some errands to run and found a space behind a very immaculate Z-Sport...
I mentioned a slight clunk over bumps from the NSR in my last post. I thought I'd start my investigation by replacing the rear ARB bushes.
Long-term readers of this thread might remember that I replaced the standard ARBs with a thicker set from an RX8 a number of years ago. At the time I replaced the bushes with poly, only to then lose one of the rear bushes whilst lapping the Nurburgring. Back at home, I refitted the used rubber bushes that came with the rear ARB telling myself that I'd order some replacement poly when I got a moment. That was back in 2018!
I opted for SuperPro bushes, I fitted some to Roshan's 350z a few years ago and they seemed to be a nicer product than other brands. They were also half the price of Powerflex who wanted £50 for two small ARB bushes.
These are 16mm RX8 bushes...
Unlike other polybushes, SuperPro put some nice knurling inside, I presume this texture maybe helps the grease to be retained.
I haven't had chance to see if the knock has disappeared. The Febi droplinks are now 5y/o and seemed to have a small amount of play, they might be next in line for a refresh.
Long-term readers of this thread might remember that I replaced the standard ARBs with a thicker set from an RX8 a number of years ago. At the time I replaced the bushes with poly, only to then lose one of the rear bushes whilst lapping the Nurburgring. Back at home, I refitted the used rubber bushes that came with the rear ARB telling myself that I'd order some replacement poly when I got a moment. That was back in 2018!
I opted for SuperPro bushes, I fitted some to Roshan's 350z a few years ago and they seemed to be a nicer product than other brands. They were also half the price of Powerflex who wanted £50 for two small ARB bushes.
These are 16mm RX8 bushes...
Unlike other polybushes, SuperPro put some nice knurling inside, I presume this texture maybe helps the grease to be retained.
I haven't had chance to see if the knock has disappeared. The Febi droplinks are now 5y/o and seemed to have a small amount of play, they might be next in line for a refresh.
SuperPro bushes are a decent upgrade tbh, but I always worry they're maybe a little soft if you're regularly tracking. Can't fault the quality of them at all though.
This thread keeps me going, because every time I read it I remember the myriad of parts sat in my garage still to be fitted...
This thread keeps me going, because every time I read it I remember the myriad of parts sat in my garage still to be fitted...
TroubledSoul said:
SuperPro bushes are a decent upgrade tbh, but I always worry they're maybe a little soft if you're regularly tracking. Can't fault the quality of them at all though.
Possibly, they are quite supple, although in this application I didn't notice any obvious difference whilst swapping between poly, back to OE rubber and then back to poly again.Having taken the car for a spin to collect a curry last night the clunk that I could hear appears to be resolved, so that was a good guess.
The same supplier has also got a set of eccentric front wishbone bushes for a decent price. I'm tempted as I've never been too happy with the cheap polybushes I fitted to my wishbones, and I think the grease has mostly dried out in them as the front has started to twitter a little. A little more negative camber wouldn't hurt either.
Thread readers with a good memory will remember that I purchased a set of 25mm Eibach spacers, only to find that they rubbed the rear arches slightly when using a 205/50/16 Yokohama AD08R. They worked fine with the much skinnier 205/45/16 Nankang NS2R and would probably have been fine with a road tyre in a 50 profile, but the Yokohamas do come up quite wide.
I went for 25mm spacers to avoid having to cut down the studs on my hubs, but looking at the factory facelift 16" wheels they have a really deep cutout between stud holes, easily over 10mm deep.
I'm driving to Germany next week and want to use the Yokohamas as the car is impractically low for the road on 45 profile tyres. The car now looks a bit weird without spacers fitted, having lowered it and added negative camber on all corners the original wheels look very 'lost' within the arches. I was planning to order another set of Eibach spacers, 20mm this time, from Autodoc, but I dithered and left it too late.
Instead, I ordered a set from 'FreakyParts'. The owner is quite active in the MX5 community, I believe he manufactures the Exocet kit car that uses an MX5 as a donor. They arrived quickly. They produce these in-house by CNC'ing down lumps of aluminium.
https://freakyparts.co.uk/collections/mazda-mx5-mk...
I'm a bit disappointed by the design. The online product description and images only shows the spacers in their assembled state, I assumed they would be a similar construction to the Eibach spacers and others and use a steel wheel stud inserted through a hole from the back of the spacer. Instead, you have to thread individual chopped-down studs into holes threaded in the aluminium from the front, using threadlocker to hopefully stop the whole stud from winding out when the wheel nuts are removed.
Here's the back of the Eibachs for comparison...
Some brief instructions were included on the invoice advising that wheel bolts shouldn't be torqued beyond 70lb/ft (about 95Nm). Presumably, because you're now threading into soft aluminium. I know it's the hub portion that sits inside the wheel that ultimately takes most of the strain whilst driving, but torquing my wheels down to a lower-than-factory torque setting doesn't feel great.
I'm a bit confused by this design, given that both sides of the spacer have been machined I would have thought it would be easier just to drill a hole and machine a pocket and insert a regular wheel stud from behind. This seems less labour-intensive than tapping threads into five holes on each spacer.
Here's the protrusion of the factory hub studs, this was no problem for the 16" factory wheels, I don't believe you'd be so lucky with the 17" OE wheels...
The stud threading process is a fiddle. Not helped by a lot of the holes still containing burrs that needed to be removed to stand any chance of threading these by hand. The studs appear to have been cut from a length of all-thread and hand-finished, a couple wouldn't thread until I'd run a nut across them from the other end, not ideal when you've got threadlock curing on other threads.
No issues with fitment on the 16" wheels...
A quick test drive confirmed the lack of rubbing on the rear arch lips. They visually look about the same as the 25mm spacers did with the smaller tyres, maybe fractionally inboard. To me this looks right.
I went for 25mm spacers to avoid having to cut down the studs on my hubs, but looking at the factory facelift 16" wheels they have a really deep cutout between stud holes, easily over 10mm deep.
I'm driving to Germany next week and want to use the Yokohamas as the car is impractically low for the road on 45 profile tyres. The car now looks a bit weird without spacers fitted, having lowered it and added negative camber on all corners the original wheels look very 'lost' within the arches. I was planning to order another set of Eibach spacers, 20mm this time, from Autodoc, but I dithered and left it too late.
Instead, I ordered a set from 'FreakyParts'. The owner is quite active in the MX5 community, I believe he manufactures the Exocet kit car that uses an MX5 as a donor. They arrived quickly. They produce these in-house by CNC'ing down lumps of aluminium.
https://freakyparts.co.uk/collections/mazda-mx5-mk...
I'm a bit disappointed by the design. The online product description and images only shows the spacers in their assembled state, I assumed they would be a similar construction to the Eibach spacers and others and use a steel wheel stud inserted through a hole from the back of the spacer. Instead, you have to thread individual chopped-down studs into holes threaded in the aluminium from the front, using threadlocker to hopefully stop the whole stud from winding out when the wheel nuts are removed.
Here's the back of the Eibachs for comparison...
Some brief instructions were included on the invoice advising that wheel bolts shouldn't be torqued beyond 70lb/ft (about 95Nm). Presumably, because you're now threading into soft aluminium. I know it's the hub portion that sits inside the wheel that ultimately takes most of the strain whilst driving, but torquing my wheels down to a lower-than-factory torque setting doesn't feel great.
I'm a bit confused by this design, given that both sides of the spacer have been machined I would have thought it would be easier just to drill a hole and machine a pocket and insert a regular wheel stud from behind. This seems less labour-intensive than tapping threads into five holes on each spacer.
Here's the protrusion of the factory hub studs, this was no problem for the 16" factory wheels, I don't believe you'd be so lucky with the 17" OE wheels...
The stud threading process is a fiddle. Not helped by a lot of the holes still containing burrs that needed to be removed to stand any chance of threading these by hand. The studs appear to have been cut from a length of all-thread and hand-finished, a couple wouldn't thread until I'd run a nut across them from the other end, not ideal when you've got threadlock curing on other threads.
No issues with fitment on the 16" wheels...
A quick test drive confirmed the lack of rubbing on the rear arch lips. They visually look about the same as the 25mm spacers did with the smaller tyres, maybe fractionally inboard. To me this looks right.
Kaveney said:
Any more track days planed this year / Nurburgring trip ?
The arrival of child 2 in March has meant it's been a light year for track days. Hoping to improve on that next year. I'm off to the Ring next week for the Circuit Days event and I might try and book a winter day on an airfield or at Bedford.
Accelebrate said:
The arrival of child 2 in March has meant it's been a light year for track days. Hoping to improve on that next year. I'm off to the Ring next week for the Circuit Days event and I might try and book a winter day on an airfield or at Bedford.
Nice I look forward to reading on how you get on at the ring as it's been 3 years since i was last there and God do i miss that place need to book up for next year .alex98uk said:
Good, off to the ring as Ian said next week.
We'll have to arrange a track day next year to see your Megane. I think we're keen for Oulton Park sometime!
Ok that sounds like a plan would be good to see the Fiesta and the MX5 and Oulton park is a track that i have not done yet .We'll have to arrange a track day next year to see your Megane. I think we're keen for Oulton Park sometime!
Good luck with the ring trip im sure it will be great fun as all ways .
Kev_Mk3 said:
Freaky parts have always worried me about "quality" as in the swift world they always try to poach sales from others. That's proved I shall stay clear they look crap & I wouldn't want to trust that.
Enjoy the ring I'm off in a few weeks but only as a visit before 2 days at Spa.
I waited until we were back to respond to this. I found that the blue thread lock I'd used did nothing to keep the studs retained once the wheel nuts were removed, most of them still unscrewed by hand. I ordered some expensive 'permanent' red Loctite and redid them, that seemed to work. I re-torqued the nuts multiple times during our trip as I was a little nervous - they'd never backed off. The wheels didn't fall off halfway around the carousel, so I guess Freaky aren't selling complete rubbish, but I still hate the design.Enjoy the ring I'm off in a few weeks but only as a visit before 2 days at Spa.
Hope you enjoy Spa - it's on my list of places to drive one day.
Accelebrate said:
Kev_Mk3 said:
Freaky parts have always worried me about "quality" as in the swift world they always try to poach sales from others. That's proved I shall stay clear they look crap & I wouldn't want to trust that.
Enjoy the ring I'm off in a few weeks but only as a visit before 2 days at Spa.
I waited until we were back to respond to this. I found that the blue thread lock I'd used did nothing to keep the studs retained once the wheel nuts were removed, most of them still unscrewed by hand. I ordered some expensive 'permanent' red Loctite and redid them, that seemed to work. I re-torqued the nuts multiple times during our trip as I was a little nervous - they'd never backed off. The wheels didn't fall off halfway around the carousel, so I guess Freaky aren't selling complete rubbish, but I still hate the design.Enjoy the ring I'm off in a few weeks but only as a visit before 2 days at Spa.
Hope you enjoy Spa - it's on my list of places to drive one day.
Spa is a must. I was meant to do Zandvoort the other year but we got moved to Spa so did it in the swift. Long straights but fun in the twisty sections in the wet.
This time with double the bhp i wont be going as hard but can test the daily lol
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