Engine Clean

Today, I needed to pop to a shop that's about two miles away. I decided to take the Eunos to see what it sounded like. It seemed to drive pretty well, despite the awful noises coming from the engine bay. It still pulls really well...



Anyway, I let the car cool down a little on my return and then sprayed a liberal coating of Three-In-One Degreaser. After a few minutes, I jet washed the engine clean. I repeated a couple of times on tough areas and the engine now looks a lot cleaner. That means less oil to burn off... And the main idea was to find were oil now leaks from when I drive the car.

Let's see shall we?

Edit: I forgot to say. While down at the shop, a woman in her fifties stopped me and asked me what my car was. I said "A Japanese imported MX-5". "Oh. I just wanted to tell you it has a great sound." "Er, thanks!" -- a great sound? Really?!

Strip Out Begins

Katy and I spent a couple of hours stripping out the insides from the car, including seats and carpets. We wanted to look at the state of the body work beneath...but also, the carpet was just pretty crappy.

Removing the drivers seat:


Pulling up the carpet:


After a lot of fiddling about behind the space where the radio fits:


And some weight saved!


A boot full of bits to go back on shortly:


We found this behind the dash..

It controls the height of the lights so you can make a 'lazy eye' modification. I don't like this mod much and the device is coming out. I've already promised it to a chap from the MX5 Owners Club forum.

Smokey Joe

So, what's wrong with her? White smoke on start and lots of oil coating the engine bay. Hmm.

Project Begins

This is our blog about our MX-5 Race Car...
(Or at least it will be a race car as it is slowly and surely turned into one over the next few years.)

Initially, we're aiming to turn our MX-5 into a decent track day car. Neither Katy or I are seasoned racing drivers by any stretch of the imagination, so we'll start gently and get the car prepped for track days. Then, once we've got a few of those under our belts, we'll know what type of racing we'd like to take part in... Perhaps we'll just stay doing track days, or maybe we'll progress to something else. Who knows right now? The plan is to get the car up and running properly and see where it leads us.

So, what have we got now? For a small amount of cash, we picked up a Mk1 Eunos Roadster from eBay. We actually picked it up from Milton Keynes on my birthday, so it felt like a bit of a present! I have a feeling that the MX-5 (or Japanese import Eunos) is about to become a lot rarer. There are a lot of people breaking these cars at the moment. Because of this, parts are cheap, but the cars will become dearer as there are less and less of them in good condition.

Ours is in need of some love. She's been abused for the last couple of years, frankly. The previous owner let her overheat, causing head gasket problems. According to the eBay listing, these have 'been fixed at great expense'. I'm not convinced, and have asked for documentary evidence. The car sounds like a bag of nails, although got me back from MK to Reading ok, despite having to stop for oil! The trip home was interesting as she smokes an awful lot. When you stop at lights, she is burning off white oily smoke from beneath the bonnet. Not good really.

The car is also leaking water (through the slash in the window part of the hood.) This I can fix I'm sure - I'll get a replacement zip in part or a cheap hood. We'll see what is the cheapest way forward. To be honest, as she is going to live in a garage soon, it's not a big problem as long as we can dry her out.

First aims are:

• Strip out the carpet and seats, to discover what is beneath.
• Compression test on the engine.
• Clean the engine with gunk and jet wash, Do a few miles and see where she leaks.
• Get the engine checked out by a local garage.
• Pay what needs to be paid (either parts and/or labour) to get her fixed.
• Do a track day.

Katy has already stolen some parts for her MX-5, including the rather lovely white powder coated wheels. I'm going to get the replacement wheels (from Katy's MK1) media plasted and powder coated in yellow. A secondary concern of course, is how she looks. Engine and suspension first. Roll cage and bucket seats next and then ancillaries.

So, here she is:

And from the back, with her wheels transplanted onto Katy's Mk1: