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

Mind u I think it because everything sounds pony compared to these.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWQyd0IaWmo

Mx-5 looking awesome. Nice one!

@NurseHolliday yeah looking great, serious ITB lust. In MX-5 news engine bay looking a lot cleaner than it did when it arrived a few weeks back.

Are they the DMack Track Day tyre?

I'd be interested to see what you think of them, probably going to put them on my rally car for running it in and a few track test days

Looking fresh.

You've got the right balance. Nice and tidy without trying too hard.

Out of curiosity do you think the brace has made a difference?

Might just be the revs it's operating at but that sounds like a lorry, and not in a good way.

Yes you should! 911 rally cars sound amazing.

Looks good! That brown rad is a thing to get changed though. I've only recently learned that they're not supposed to be brown, that's a telltale sign it's really degraded.

Yeah they are, I really like them on track, they're progressive, they give you masses of grip, I'd say a midge less than the A048R, but you can have more fun with the DMacks. You can get right to the limit and start messing about with no worries of the grip falling off a cliff and the car snapping mid corner. In the MX5 that was enormous fun because I was able to get the back end wagging around as much as I wanted it to.

The only time I had a big breakaway that required quick hands was when I fluffed a downshift and in the progress I got distracted and messed up my trail braking and in the process of jumping off the brake the back end came round really quickly, which was interesting considering I only had one hand on the wheel, but I did catch it!

@hugo7 Thanks, it's hard to know when to stop. Excuse the red breather filter, did order silver but red turned up - the extra bhp is cool though. A front and rear brace is standard for my model, but recently I've driven without either whilst doing maintenance and can't tell the difference with daily driving. I would hope I could feel the difference if pushing the car but don't have any first hand experience sorry.

I did consider relocating the washer bottle to clean up the bay but think that's a bridge too far, in order to do this the new new one looks smaller so when functionality is compromised for looks I'm out.

@NurseHolliday Good to know, I'll account for getting this changed soonish then. The AC condenser that sat in front of it, now that was brittle. After seeing that I'm definitely getting a grille to protect a brand new rad for example.

If you do want to spend some money on shiny things (other than the rad), DaveFab sell a very nice washer bottle relocation:

https://davefab.com/shop/washer-bottle-relocation-kit-mx5-mk122-5/

A brand called Fast5 were selling alloy rads but they're on hiatus I think at the moment. Mine's from Skuzzle Motorsport, not sure who their supplier is but it's a good quality item.

DaveFab option looks a lot better than the Suzuki Cappuccino bottle. If coilovers don't happen before Christmas may have to be on my list. Will take a look at Fast5 too cheers!

When you replace the rad, it's worth replacing all the hoses too, black silicon is a good option.

You don't have to do all of them, but the ones that are important are the heater hoses, the Cam Angle Sensor seal (CAS o ring) perishes over time and results in oil weeping onto the heater hoses and eventually causing a failure which gushes your coolant all over the engine causing huge clouds of steam, which is what happened to me.

If your CAS o ring isn't weeping now, it will at some point. The inevitable failure of your heater hoses can be prevented by upgrading those hoses to silicon if not the remaining. You can check, yours might have been done already if the previous owner was aware of this issue.

i thought the radiator cover was mahogony!

Just seen on the MX5 forum that Dan @ Fast5 is still going, and his rads are £129 delivered which is a good price!

Much appreciated for all this, will take a look today and either way get this done. Looking at some guides seems very doable too. Learnt a lot working on the car already and still amazed how easy it is to work on. Touch wood it'll continue like this with no disasters!

No problem, it's quite an easy job, I did mine after the failure. If you fancy getting a bit more involved then you can preemptively replace the CAS o ring as well, it's quite fiddly without taking the cam cover off, but it's doable. If you want to do the cam cover gasket as well then it makes life easier but costs more money as you need a £30 cam cover gasket and a £5 tube of sealant. MX5 Parts sell all these bits, genuine Mazda parts.

It's worth checking any history and receipts you have with the car though, because if the CAS o ring has been done in the last 50,000 miles then you don't need to do it again.

Should I insure the car for business use if the closest I get to that is driving to the airport a couple of times per month? I am flying on business.

I'd ask the insurer.

The lower class of business use (to cover cases like that or occasional visits to client sites) is often pretty cheap to add to a policy.

[EDIT] Thread on pistonheads seems to suggest Class 1 business use is required for driving to airport for a work trip: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=10&t=800822&i=20

Turns out that business use is costing me £7.50 per car, so I left it on.
£839.54 per year is the total for both cars, so £420/car, which strikes me as being ok.

Postie just turned up with some Italian goodness. The cars seems to be going in an OEM+ direction so decided to swap the wheel for one similar to stock but nicer, plus being a touch wider means I can now see the fuel level & engine temp. Winning. If anyone's interested in the silver Nardi Deep Corn 330 wheel just let me know.

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Nice OEM+ moccasins

Nice OEM+ + moccasins

lmftfy