MX5 turbo on the road again.......

[Curt]

That's awesome mate! Glad you got the idle problem sorted out. Was Reverant helpful enough with getting it sorted?

Sounds sweet, wideband looks really good there too. Exciting stuff!

[Fozzy]

Yeah he was a little slower than his normal instant reply, but his suggestion worked. I wasn't sure whether to up the ve tables but his response was simply just add 5 across the whole table till it idles at 14.7

I had to pull all the gauges out to make its own separate earth as i though that was part of the problem as E9 error kept showing just as i started.

[Poodle]

Awesome dude, love that noise!

[Fozzy]

I wish i had got the popping exhaust videoed too, i wasn't expecting it, and when enclosed in the shed it sounded epic.

[Fozzy]

Early christmas present for the 5:





And finally stripped down to what i'm after.....



I did have a little issue with the drive shafts they are well and truly seized, and with limited tools at my new place i cant pull them out.

[Poodle]

I may be able to help there...

[Fozzy]

Why do I get the feeling you're going to turn up with a very large hammer to get the shafts out haha

[Poodle]

Can't imagine.

[Fozzy]

Well last night i set my alarm for 5am as car still had plenty to put together and i had booked an MOT for 10am. needless to say i didnt finish putting it back together.

Things i didn't get to sort:

Loose battery,
Ive also lost my numberplate bracket.
The washer bottle hasn't got a home yet as its right behind the turbo and i don't have a heat shield.

Short vid that i was messing about with on the phone:



Anyway at around 9.55 i drove to the Garage, that was a fun drive turns out the windscreen wipers didnt want to work in the rain, but other than that its drove no problem (i didn't push it).

I turn up and the mechanics took one look and told me it wont fit on the pit as the front too low, so i drove back home removed the splitter and then it cleared it easily, all is well. I leave the garage head home to get warm after being drenched removing the splitter in the rain.

about 50mins later i get a call ' your car just threw oil down the pit' oooops. 'don't worry just bring some oil back with you and you can limp it home'

Well long story short, oil feed pipe is leaking majorly. And the car failed but not badly which im really happy about.

And the fail sheet:





At the moment the car is outside draining the last of its oil on the drive ...........

[Fozzy]

Found the oil leak, the oil feed was ribbing on the chassis such a stupid thing to miss.

[Piggy]

At least you got a nice list of to do's now!

[Fozzy]

yeah thats why the mot was timed just before the christmas so i have something to do although i wont be able to get the oil feed in that time

But the rest of the list should be nice and easy bar the emissions.

[Poodle]

A bit of time tweaking the map should sort the emissions, the rest isn't bad at all. Getting close to having this on the road now, exciting man!

[Fozzy]

Yeah i hope the map sorts it but im no tuner........ it idle perfect though hehe, why can't it just be an idle test.

all the others should take too long to sort, although i do need to actually bolt the bumper on, at the moment its just held on by loads of cable ties

[Ruan]

Jesus that's rich!!!!!

It must almost be blowing black stuff to get a reading like that on HC...

[Niall]

Yeah i hope the map sorts it but im no tuner........ it idle perfect though hehe, why can't it just be an idle test.

all the others should take too long to sort, although i do need to actually bolt the bumper on, at the moment its just held on by loads of cable ties

Even if it was just an idle test, the fact still remains that its over fuelling when driving which won't do it any good at all!
Looking good though man and i bet this is going to be a right laugh when all the niggling bits are sorted

[Fozzy]

Jesus that's rich!!!!!

It must almost be blowing black stuff to get a reading like that on HC...

i did notice a lot of soot in the downpipe when i fitted the gaskets but i didn't think much of it. doesn't seem that sooty but then again the only time ive driven it was to and from the mot and it was pouring down.

Yeah i hope the map sorts it but im no tuner........ it idle perfect though hehe, why can't it just be an idle test.

all the others should take too long to sort, although i do need to actually bolt the bumper on, at the moment its just held on by loads of cable ties

Even if it was just an idle test, the fact still remains that its over fuelling when driving which won't do it any good at all!
Looking good though man and i bet this is going to be a right laugh when all the niggling bits are sorted

yeah my mpg may somewhat suffer but i want to get it to skuzzle motorsport to get it mapped on a rolling road, as i don't think i will get the most out of it.

yeah it should be good fun when finished, hopefully we will have some sun this summer

[Dum-Dum]

Awesome news mate, most of the problems are easy fixes

[Fozzy]

Being so far away from the MX5 has been a major issue in finishing this project so i decided enough was enough so i gave up and started something a little easier.........










Its hard work, but at least i can build it inside where its warm and dry.


I wasn't sure what to do with the real car, but beings as it finally went and passed its MOT i thought it was about time we lost some of that back pressure.

Time for some 'fabrication'





Plenty of room under the car without that pesky cat and silencer. Still wasn't quite ready for its first real drive. I have no pictures of this part as i was too busy whimpering as i killed the arches with the roller. But heres some of the end result.





That last one is more proof i drove it somewhere.

Although the excitement was short lived as after about 30miles of 'testing' the car the gasket between the manifold and adaptor plate blew through. I know have to remove the turbo and weld the plate to the manifold then i'm good to go.

[Tom]

Long time no see, looks good though! No mention of brown trouser moments though...

[gavxud]

Cracking wee project ...im itching to get my mk2 mx5 back on the road after it suffered crank nose failure ...miss it (black mk2 mx5 on coilovers and cwspellowes old borbet reps off the meatwagon)

[Fozzy]

I thought it was only the early mk1 short nose that suffered from crank failure?

You must have had to roll the arch's a lot for those borbets

[powerandtorque]

Crank nose problems aren't unheard of on the later engines and will happen eventually if the crank bolt isn't torqued up so all the pulley load is going through the woodruff key, but yes the early Mk1 1.6 short nose cranks were especially intolerant of bad workmanship and gained the notorious reputation for failing.

The early cranks were fine providing that you followed Mazda's procedures to the letter - I had one in my early Mk1 Eunos (1989 registered) and it never gave me any problems. Still miss that car and I can only imagine how much of a giggle a 'boosted one must be

[Curt]

Exhaust looks sweet! Can't wait to see/hear it/you to take me for a spin

[Fozzy]

not long now curt, just about to order some new gaskets, will keep one in the glove box, not that i have one anymore.

also the plan is to make some minor adjustments to my manifold adaptor which should prevent gasket failure again

---

Crank nose problems aren't unheard of on the later engines and will happen eventually if the crank bolt isn't torqued up so all the pulley load is going through the woodruff key, but yes the early Mk1 1.6 short nose cranks were especially intolerant of bad workmanship and gained the notorious reputation for failing.

The early cranks were fine providing that you followed Mazda's procedures to the letter - I had one in my early Mk1 Eunos (1989 registered) and it never gave me any problems. Still miss that car and I can only imagine how much of a giggle a 'boosted one must be

oh really well i'm sure curt will be happy to hear that as he's got one of the early mk1's

[Curt]

Sounds good man think it's inevitable with something like this that you'll have something causing you trouble! At least it's not too bad.

Yeah that sounds more promising than the horror stories you hear! Although haven't really been too worried... Worst case I'll just get another engine cheap haha.

[Seid']

damn. there the MOT guys dont kidding on job lol
put every single shit on the page ahah

[Fozzy]

Well car is back on the road with hopefully a better gasket and a new downpipe flange.

The old gasket was a little worn out .......



Free gasket with manifold clearly a pile of crap. And couldn't handle an hour of emmisions tests. Well I hope that's what killed it.

Now just guna see how long this one lasts and if it doesn't looks like I will be rethinking my manifold adapter.

[Fozzy]

Well I feel its time for a long overdue update. The miracle is the car is still running. Not quite sure how. Lots of parts have been changed and more added.
 
This will mainly be a photo update with small captions to keep it quick.

So after the car being reliable and on the road i decided to add some unnecessary weight in the form of rear flares and some side shelves.





Rattle canned the hardtop so it would match the car, looks much smarter.






Quick video to show some tiny flames, unfortunately only filming one tip there were flames from both.

(still uploading)

Oil cooler installed although i need to sort some better ducting to it, probably in the form of cutting the bumper which i really didn't want to do.




Well after a lot of spirited driving over a few months the cheap cast manifold cracked :





Well that means i will have to buy some shiny things in the form of new manifold and downpipe.





Also cut out a slam panel cover and undertray to try force the air into the coolers, what you cant see is there are also vertical fins to stop air traveling around the sides.






A little diy to make a mastercylinder stop, cost me nothing as used parts that i have lying around the shed.



Trip down to Goodwood where i met up with Curt and his MX5 which he has now sadly sold



Finally after well over a year of driving this i have had it mapped on a rolling road by Skuzzle Motorsport.






The difference in driving is amazing. Even though it made 224bhp at the wheels i drive it on low boost at 8psi as its more fun which i know shouldn't make sense. But there really is no where to push it around here. So its running about 180bhp.

There are no more pops and bangs no cutting out its so much more fun.

Top down fun



So now i've got the engine almost there i have started focusing on the inside. I have music finally not that i need it really. As i removed the headunit i have gone for speakers powered by and amp in the boot connected to ipod/iphone with a potentiometer inline for volume  control.





There is more but thats enough for now. Im sure there are many gramtical errors and spelling mistakes, sorry about that.

---

Video finally uploaded

[Jonny81191]

I love this car. Always looks clean and loved, goes like stink. Makes me want one everytime I see it