Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

I’ve still got mine! I was talking about a previous MX5 I sold that was supercharged.

My red one saw a dyno not long after I first bought it, it made 170 bhp I think, but it had a very old kit that was originally imported and fitted 7 years before I bought the car, one of the first Jackson Racing kits fitted in the UK to my understanding. The JR kit used an M45 supercharger, Bipes ACU, and rising rate fuel pressure regulator. It also had a reduced pulley fitted a couple of years after that, and PWR (Pace) chargecooler at the same time.

Before I sold it, the cylinder head cracked, but not block side, it was where the supercharger mounted to the head. I’m pretty certain this will happen to all JRSC cars eventually, it’s a design fault. I decided to choose to go with an upgraded cylinder head instead of just buying a normal 2nd hand head, so I got Blink Motorsport to build a beautiful head for me.

Like an idiot instead of paying to transport my car up north, I decided to go and pick the head up in a borrowed car, then take it to this local guy who was also an MX5 “specialist”. I knew of him because my uncle also used to import cheap and shit Roadsters from Japan and get uk parts from breakers to fix them up and sell them for profit. He said he’d replace the head at a good cash price, and I also got him to rebuild the front of the engine at the same time so cambelt, water pump, cam seals and front crank seal.

When I went to pick it up, the supercharger belt squealed, the inside of the car was a mess, and it smoked a bit. As I drove it more, it smoked more and leaked, and made steam, and I was pretty fucked off so I took it back. He kept it for a weekend and supposedly “fixed” all the problems. He said “it probably smokes because the valve guides won’t have been done as part of the head rebuild so when you’re stationary, oil leaks past the valves and then when you pull away it burns that oil causing smoke.” That tallied with my experience so I chalked it up to experience, it no longer leaked or made steam so off I went but that smoke was nagging me.

I spoke to Blink who said that the valve guides had definitely been done, so I decided to go see Skuzzle Motorsport who were keen to help. I didn’t want to pay to remove the head entirely again, but as it turned out the “specialist” had threaded the water pump hence the leak and steam and his “fix” was a bodge involving sealant, and the cam and crank seals hadn’t been replaced.

So I spent even more money having the front of the engine rebuilt again, actually this time, plus the RMS as they identified that as a visible oil leak causing some smoke.

They said they weren’t sure about the valve guides, they didn’t think the smokiness exhibited were symptomatic of valve guides, more of oil control rings, so off I went.

The car was fast. Much faster than it had ever been, but because it wasn’t on a standalone ECU it didn’t need tuning, so I didn’t pay to put it on the dyno but the rebuilt and reworked head had definitely made it feel more urgent and definitely a bit louder.

I matched a Mini GP on a rolling head to head on multiple attempts who was making about 225bhp at the fly so with the weight differential I reckoned I was making 180-185bhp with the new head.

However I never gelled with the car after all that, it drank more oil than it ever had done before and it was definitely smokier and I chopped it because I was worried that it would need a bottom end rebuild too soon after I’d maxed out credit cards getting it fixed the first and then second times.