Supercharged Mx5 Vs. Elise.........

[Furyous]

Having driven a number of Elise variants lately, I have to say, I do like the chassis and the performance of the car.

However,not being of sufficient wealth, means an Elise would have to be a K motored S1, which I know the afficianados claim to be the better car.
However, it frightens me as along term proposition for various reliabilty problems.

Has anyone driven either BOTH Elise and Mx or a good blown Mx ?

Given a budget of say, £8k max, which would you go for and why ?

Ta.

F

[Furyous]

OOPS, Mods, please move this to the Mx Forum, didnt see that earlier !

TA.

[Davey S2]

Although Elses are getting cheap now £8K is still at the bottom end of the price range and for that you are looking at a standard S1 with 118 bhp which will obviously not have anywhere near the grunt of a turbo'd MX5 (up to 245 bhp IIRC)

Drive them both.

[pikeyboy]

superchaged mx5 rather than a cheap elise any day, infact rather have one of those than an expesnive elise.

Easier to drive when close to the limit and pretty quick actually, my friends supercharged car surprises lots of things and quite easilly goes round to the p in mph on the speedo, yes i know MX5's arent about doing it in a straight line. supercharged mx5 gives you get a load more power, you can still rev the nuts off it and its still ever so balanced and delicate through the corners.

[phatmanace]

I have a turbo'd 5, and my mate had an elise

Elise is more track focused but I'd rather have my '5 as a day to day car. don't get me wrong though, the 5 is now seriously rapid....

my only advice would be to buy one with the bits you want already done - you'd probably get a decent one for 4->5K, which I don't think that you can get an elise for.

the way i did it was dumb - buy a "stock" mx5 and get the bits done. I paid 3.5K for car and then 2.7K for turbo + suspension + exhaust...

-ace

[Furyous]

What made you go Turbo over S/C ? Future plans or the preference of a Turbo ?

[Raify]

I've driven 3/4 different Elises, and own a 1.8 na Eunos. They're very different cars, but going on budget alone, I'd have to recommend the Maxda.

£8k gets you to the very bottom rung of Elise ownership with no room for a contingency fund / servicing etc. Why not wait until you can spend £12k and get a sorted S1 135? In the meantime enjoy mazdas....

[kambites]

I wouldn't be considering an eight grand Elise, the K-series will be the least of your problems at that kind of price. If I was in your position I'd be looking at early N/A VX220s, MX-5s and maybe MR2s.

[phatmanace]

Furyous said:

What made you go Turbo over S/C ? Future plans or the preference of a Turbo ?

mx5mad - (the place that did the work) mentioned that super or turbo was about the same price and about the same BHP increase as installed ( i.e with no tweaking) , but the differentiator was that the turbo setup was more tweakable if I wanted to spank some more cash on it in the future.

also - [saw a later post in the thread] I did consider selling the mx and buying and MR2 turbo - but a combination of PH advice, and me still wanting a proper drop top put me off.

for your budget - go with the '5'

-ace

[juzzyp]

Elises are very good cars, have a chat to the SELOC who also hang around here, I've flirted with the idea of an Elise but I'm scared by that engine and the various buying guides about build quality and 90,000 point checklist you have to look at before buying one.

I own a boosted 5 (selling up in fact) and it's great, it ain't a powermonger but it'll see of most standard Elises although I think it would struggle against a 111R (but that ain't bottom the pile is it really)

I would go for a supercharged 5, have a chat to MX-5 Lazza who owns a supercharged 5 and tracks it a lot, he's surprised many Elise trackboys with his 215bhp supercharged monster.

There are various supercharged 5's for sale at the moment, have a look around the classifieds or pop over to http://www.mx5nutz.com/forum and have a chat, they are supercharger mad!