HFS's Cars

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homeforsummer
Plastic. Apparently they can be kept in great shape if the previous owner unzipps them and lays them flat before dropping the roof. Obviously, most people don't bother so they get creased.
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Yep. Unzipping them is a must - along with not dropping the roof while it's still wet or cold outside (vinyl roof/plastic window is a bugger for this, mohair/glass less so). If/when you replace the roof, you can get a glass window in either vinyl or mohair and I suggest you do so, whatever material the roof is.

Though you have plenty of time for alterations ahead of you. I can loan you an MX-5parts catalogue if you like :D
 
Heh, I'm sure I'll get hold of a catalogue myself at some point anyway! As for the roof, I'm quite happy with the current one despite the rear screen, as the hood itself seems to be in great condition, definitely the best of any I'd been to look at.
 
A better picture, taken the other day:

dm2.jpg

I've seen some OEM wheels for sale which I'm keeping an eye on. Part of me doesn't want to get rid of the wheels on it at the moment as they do look really good, but I suspect my backside and the car will thank me for getting ones with more sympathetic dimensions...
 
Instead of getting new wheels why don't you see if you can get some bigger tyres instead?
 
Bigger tires aren't the answer... they'll just add more weight... softer tires might be.

Mhmmm... tasty... priorities, HFS... rollbar first! Nothing else Miatas!
 
Gah that looks too awesome.

I'd give it a sliiiiight drop and a hardtop. Then add a wee bit of power and call it a day.
 
Slight drop can't be made without making the car stiffer.. and HFS is already complaining how stiff it is. Naturally it feels stiff after soggy mom-spec Siesta, but.. stiffer is better.
 
Leonidae
Slight drop can't be made without making the car stiffer.. and HFS is already complaining how stiff it is. Naturally it feels stiff after soggy mom-spec Siesta, but.. stiffer is better.
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I know this.

I'd take the loss in ride quality if it meant it was massively improved aesthetically and somewhat in terms of performance :p
 
I don 't think that it needs a drop.. but I agree about the hard top, preferably in white. then it will be pretty.
 
Seriously, I think giving it tyres with a bit more sidewall will be the best thing to do. I'm going to lose very little, if anything in handling as far as day-to-day and even pressing-on driving is concerned, but the car will ride the bloody awful roads we have around here a lot better.

The fact it feels stiff doesn't bother me at all. What bothers me is that it really crashes through bumps much more than it needs to. I would consider actually keeping the bigger wheels should I ever want to change back, but then I also have a few ideas about aftermarket wheels that I'm keeping at the back of my mind until I have more disposable income.

I'm also considering something along the line of these as apparently they stiffen up the shell quite nicely and it'll cut down on the scuttle shake a bit.

MXV1123X.jpg


Wheels/tyres/tracking/service/chassis bracing will come before hardtop. Mainly for budget reasons.
 
It crashes because it's a Miata. It's basically an open-topped box, so it has no stiffness. Hell... my friend drives with his hardtop on all the time because it actually makes the car handle better!

You need one of these:

dscn3727s.jpg


But seriously... roooooollbar... I've seen some three point ones that actually tie the front and rear ends together.
 
Those in the pic are expensive (as are roll bars). Well, expensive for my budget anyway. I can get front and rear chassis braces for about £75 and perhaps a brace that goes just behind the seats for not a lot either. Probably all three for £100.

Driving with a hard top on all the time? What a wuss :lol: I have plenty of awful weather if I want the top up, the idea in the UK is to see how bad the weather gets before you have to put it up. It's why convertibles sell better here than they do in the rest of Europe...

On that note, it's sunny outside so I'm off for a drive :)
 
Wuss? He's hardcore! He wants maximum traction at all times! And he simply can't stand the scuttle shake! :lol:

I'm just waiting for him to get sick of it. He bought his NA mint with just 30,000 kilometers (yes... kilometers) on the clock, but he's too sissy-boy for the lack of sound insulation, the small cabin and the fact that he's eye-to-eye with the lugnuts on a city bus. Once he gives up on it, I'm hoping he'll sell it to me on IOU. :lol:
 
MX-5s are stiff enough to stay in shape if you roll one... They're not like most convertibles - they're designed to be that shape.

He'd achieve the same effect with a proper roll bar (rather than a style bar) - the hardtop only clips onto the Frankenstein bolts. And then he wouldn't look like such a big woofter with a roof on his MX-5.
 
Famine
MX-5s are stiff enough to stay in shape if you roll one... They're not like most convertibles - they're designed to be that shape.

He'd achieve the same effect with a proper roll bar (rather than a style bar) - the hardtop only clips onto the Frankenstein bolts. And then he wouldn't look like such a big woofter with a roof on his MX-5.
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Not all of us are waterproof, you know. And it doesn't pay to come to the office smelling like rain and diesel exhaust.

I've been looking and I can't find it online. I saw one that's actually tied to the transmission tunnel between driver and passenger... is that one commercial or probably bespoke?
 
Rain? How much rain can you possibly get in the Philippines?






:lol:

Anyway, it could be either. There's so many MX-5 modifications it's tough to say for sure, and people often adapt designs for their own purposes too.
 
I know you're joking, but:

6933_141737092143_526117143_2773755_6995014_n.jpg


(ignore narration)

Not that a hardtop would help that much with that... :lol:

Funny thing is... said friend lives just a few miles from there... maybe I don't want to buy that car off of him, anymore...

You Brits... always complaining about the weather... :lol:
 
Hey, plenty of Rain in the spring helps the Corn Grow 'round here. Humid summer, too. ;3

*is so stereotypically midwestern in that post it's not funny.*

Question, HFS: How good are you with a welder? If we're looking at cages, why not build one yourself?
 
I'm "good with a welder" in the same way that Hitler was "good with minority groups".

(Actually, I've never tried to weld but I suspect my pride and joy is not the best place on which to practice my skills...)

Anyway, I'm not that interested in having a cage. It's my daily driver, something I'll be driving no matter how crappy the weather gets, so I want it to retain at least a modicum of usability and comfort.
 
I can weld. Really badly.

There's roll bars you can buy for buttons which will enhance the torsional rigidity. Even style bars will do a job. Incidentally, chrome goes lovely with white.
 
Famine
There's roll bars you can buy for buttons which will enhance the torsional rigidity.
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That's why I'm considering two of those simple under-body bars that go at the front and back of the transmission tunnel. Probably cost around £70, which I can stretch to for something that I'll be able to appreciate every day.

Another pic from today:

dm5.jpg

And something that I appreciated when I drove to the coast today with my girlfriend: I was in traffic on a main road and waiting at a junction was a Eunos V-Spec. He had his hood up, and after taking a look at my car immediately dropped it :lol: I let him out of the junction when the traffic began moving again and I got a genuine smile and a thumbs up.

I am now driving a car which brings out cameraderie from others in similar cars. It's quite a nice feeling after over six years driving a pretty anonymous hatch. I can think of a handful of other cars that'd get the same reaction - anything fairly rare or classics, old Minis, Smarts... probably not many others.

Minor update:

I think I've decided to keep the wheels it has. Just been out to have a good look at them which changed my mind. Firstly, they do look damn good on the car. On closer inspection they're Enkei 15" rims, so I'm presuming they're of reasonable quality. I'm not sure exactly what type - I tried a bit of internet research and although they're similar to RP-01s, they aren't them as the RPs have a small lip and these ones don't, the spokes go all the way to the edge.

By not changing I'm basically just saving a bit of money in the meantime. At some point, the wheels could probably do with re-furbishing as the laquer is peeling and bubbling in places so up-close they look a bit grim. I might even do all that myself when I have a bit of time off over Christmas.

What it does need are new brakes. They're stopping the car perfectly well at the moment but they're a bit scored and corroded and given that I've got a bit of money put aside and that the car is for all intents and purposes a "keeper", I might as well have them done to save me the hassle down the line. I also need new tyres, so I'm going to look into what 195/50 R15 tyres would be best, especially as we're getting towards Winter.

Finally, it's getting a full service as and when I book one. It's only had an MOT literally a month ago so there shouldn't be much amiss, but as with the brakes, I may as well start with everything in tip-top shape.

First post updated with a "to do" list.
 
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Congrats homeforsummer, you've bought the RHD version of our Miata that's given us fun'n'sun for the last 4 years. A beauty in Chaste White and the raw-est of all MXs as a first-gen, for all-round thrashability and driving fun. Welcome to the top-down forever club!
 
Thanks for the comments guys 👍 Top won't be down today, it's raining again!

Tyre question time:

Basically, my car needs new tyres. It's wearing 195/50 R15 tyres, which are more or less spot on diameter-wise as they're within 2mm of the 185/60 R14s it would have had as standard. You'd expect this, as the wheels are Enkei 15"s that Mazda actually supplied themselves for a while. At the moment though, I have three different makes of tyres and the two from the same make aren't on the same axle. Nice. I've not driven it hard yet or in particularly bad weather and I'm not intending to until it's got the same rubber all the way around!

I've been having a look at a few different places and what some new tyres would cost. A local garage I'd used before quote £156 + VAT for tyres and fitting but I don't know what they'd be using. The local "Nationwide Autocentre" would cost me £185 for the same (think this includes VAT though) for some Firestones. There's also a garage called Revolution near me that are offering some Toyo Proxes 4s for £70 per pair which seems like a pretty good deal. The same place also seems to do some fairly good rates on fitting.

I'm not looking to spend too much (between £140 and £180 all-in if possible) but at the same time I'd prefer not to have any old crap so I've avoided looking at no-name brands which are obviously cheaper.

The Toyo PX4s seem best at the mo. They get mixed reviews but anything is better than a different tyre on virtually every corner.

Also - nitrogen inflation - placebo effect or actually worth it?
 
What ever tyres you choose, check out www.tyre-shopper.co.uk. When i needed a tyre for the Forester, i'd phoned around a few places locally and the cheapest was Nationwide. They had just one of the tyres i wanted in stock, and could fit it for £94. I thought i'd better have a quick look online first to see if the price was competitive, and happened upon this website. I searched for the same tyre and found they could do it for £73. Not only that, but what they do is use a network of national tyre fitting centres to do the work on their behalf. All you do is state where you live and they find the nearest fitting centre to you. You pay online, get a reference number and arrange a time and date for fitting. When you get there, give them the reference number and they do the work. Turns out, the centre specified nearest to me was the same Nationwide fitters that i'd phoned just before hand. So in the end i got the exact same tyre fitted at the same place for £20 less!
 
Don't bother with the Proxes 4s. Get the Proxes T1-Rs. Or Goodyear Eagle F1 GSD3s.

There's a reason why every member of the MX5OC ER has either of these on their MX-5.
 
Having nitrogen filled tires in the past I can't tell the difference at all. If they do it for free when you get the tires I'd say go for it but if you have to pay actual money for them to do it, I'd probably pass. Tires have been filled with normal compressed air for how many years? There never seemed to ever be an issue with it.
 
Same... tried it... nothing... didn't bother again... Nitrogen-filled tires seem to keep pressure a little longer, but they still lose pressure, anyway.

And you still won't have 100% (or close to) nitro inside unless your wheel has a double-valve so you can purge the "regular" air while filling with Nitro... like these awesome ones:
kosei_k1ts_s_ci3_l.jpg

(was drooling over these before... but after a bout of aftermarket mag buying... I'm back with stock wheels... I just spend my money on sticky rubber).

Only place where nitro makes a discernible difference in ride comfort and performance on-road is in really tall truck tires... and even there it's debatable whether you can actually feel the difference.
 
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