mx5cartalk.com

After a recent drive of a modded NB8A, I was very surprised, and disconcerted, at how light the steering was.
I've dríven a fair few power & non-power NAs, a couple other NB8As, a couple of early NCs, and a couple of SEs, and none of them made me comment on how light the steering was.
I don't think I've dríven NB8Bs or Cs.

The car in question is well-sorted re suspension, alignment, and wheel&tyre package. The car was aligned late last year.
I initially thought the tyres were over-inflated (205/50 R15), but they were sitting on 31-33psi.

Although there was good-enough feedback, I felt rather uncomfortable and my thoughts went straight to that guy who recently crashed his car in an attempt to avoid hitting a dog, ie. I can imagine in a panic moment, you can reef the wheel and you end up turning it alot more than what you intend it to.

So for those who've dríven a fair number of MX-5's, my question is do some early NBs have very light steering compared to others?

Could be due to the caster angle. That affects the feel a lot

It is lighter than the Power Steering in an NA, but not hugely.

If I compare it to Pam's car I'd say maybe 10-15% lighter to put a number on it?
Granted, Pam's car has a smaller steering wheel (300 or 330mm roughly)


Pam and my car have similar alignment settings, only differences (apart from NA and NB) are that she has 195/50/15 on a 15x6.5, and I run 205/50/15 on a 15x7

I'd agree with that. My car was quite twitchy and I didn't like the feel until I had another alignment done at Spinning Wheels and Stu changed the caster angles.

I haven't dríven a lot of MX5s, and not back to back. But my NB8A is clearly ligther than the 2005 NC LE I drove back-to-back.

I agree with zephyrus17, castor will afffect the lightness of the steering. Get the alignment checked by a reputable aligner.