mx5cartalk.com

Hello All,

First time poster here, and new to MX5 ownership too.

I`ve been wanting to build a car for the occasional track day and to have some fun driving around over the weekend. Always had the idea in mind, but my ‘itch’ got worse after selling the Subaru BRZ I had before..!

The eligibility criteria were:

· Since this is purely for entertainment purposes, the car had to be cheap to buy and maintain.
· I am a big fan of well-balanced light weight cars. They are great fun to drive within legal speed limits, and cheap to maintain after been thrashed around in a race track.
· Manual transmission and RWD is a must.

Other choices/contenders were:
· BMW e30, preferably a 325i
· Toyota Ae86/85/Sprinter Trueno
· Westfied clubman/Lotus 7/Caterham 7
· Toyota M2 W20

For various reasons, the MX-5 came up top in my list and picked this car up a couple of months ago.

I hope to document my journey with the car here, as the little MX-5 evolves over time..!

The following pics were taken on the day I bought her home.

Rear view - with soft-top on:



Rear view - with hard-top on:



Front view - look at those eyes, happy as F#*k..!

Just continuing with the story on the purchase…

I am certainly new to MX5 ownership, but I had specific requirements on the car I wanted:

• First of all, it needed to be an NA. I love the classic looks and the mechanical simplicity of an NA.
• I preferred an NA8 manufactured towards the end of the life cycle (i.e. NA8C), as they tend to be loaded up with good gear from factory.
• A hard-top is a must, preferably a genuine factory fitted top.
• It is to be used as a project car, so a pristine low mileage example was not a necessity. I don’t mind getting minor things fixed/worked on, but didn’t really want a modified/hacked example either. Something in-between with just enough Km`s on the clock and average condition to keep the costs down would be fine.

So when this particular car came up for sale (in a local classifieds site) on a Saturday evening, it pretty much ticked all the boxes. I jumped on it straight away and bought it Sunday morning.

The car is made in 1996 and it had 154,371 km`s on the clock. The previous owner hasn’t really thrashed it, but it wasn’t a pampered show piece either. To my surprise, this car was a JDM import, bought in to the country in year 2000..!

I knew that it was a JDM when I bought it home, but nothing more. A couple of days later noticed a sticker on the driver side door jamb, which read ‘VR Ltd Com B’. Did some further research and realized that I’ve picked up a bit of a Unicorn..! It is a JDM Limited Edition made in 1996. Specifically, named “VR-Limited Combination B” and limited to 800 examples..!

From what I gather, this limited run came out with the following. You MX5 experts, please correct me if this list is wrong:

· British Racing Green color with color matched genuine hard-top
· Lightweight Aluminum Alloys – 15 X 6 (made by Enkei ??)
· Koni shocks and springs all round – adjustable dampening in front
· Front strut bar from factory. Brace bar behind seats
· Black interior with leather seats
· Some JDM bling inside – aluminium shift knob, aluminium parking brake leaver cover, brushed aluminium speaker surrounds, polished ‘Roadster’ scuff plates, etc..
· MOMO 3 spoke steering wheel
· JDM yellow fog lights
· Color-coded ‘Eunos’ and ‘Roadster’ badging here and there
· Torsen LSD and perhaps a shorter (4.3:1) final drive??

Nice pickup. Looks like you have a green soft top as well!

congrats, nice find, very rare model!

The colour on the VR Limited is called 'Excellent Green Mica' and is slightly different to the BRG (Neo Green), yours looks like it's darker and metallic.

Yes Lightweight Enkei Wheels 15x6 (6.6kgs or thereabouts).

I think the Koni's would've been aftermarket, as this model came with Bilsteins in Japan.

The rest of your bling bits in the interior is std to that edition.

I can't confirm whether it you have an LSD or not, but I think it's safe to say you do, as most editions in JP with billies did come with an LSD.

Welcome to the life!

luzinit wrote:Nice pickup. Looks like you have a green soft top as well!

Thanks luzinit.. yes, looks like the soft-top is original and probably is not replaced.

91BRG wrote:congrats, nice find, very rare model!

The colour on the VR Limited is called 'Excellent Green Mica' and is slightly different to the BRG (Neo Green), yours looks like it's darker and metallic.

Yes Lightweight Enkei Wheels 15x6 (6.6kgs or thereabouts).

I think the Koni's would've been aftermarket, as this model came with Bilsteins in Japan.

The rest of your bling bits in the interior is std to that edition.

I can't confirm whether it you have an LSD or not, but I think it's safe to say you do, as most editions in JP with billies did come with an LSD.

Welcome to the life!

Thanks for the clarifications 91BRG.!

You are right on the color, found this article which confirms that it is in fact “Excellent Green Mica”. This is especially helpful as I need to find/order some touch-up paint soon : http://www.miata.net/gallery/na.html

It sure does feel like a LSD, the way that the inner wheel slips-and-grips when cornering hard. The diff casing has got cooling fins; this is an indication of a LSD as well, from what I read online.

All 1.8 diffs have cooling fins, whether open diff or lsd.

The no fin rule only Really applies to the NA6


There should be a tag in the door jam that lists items on the car at factory, see if lsd has a tick.

Alternatively, put one wheel on gravel/grass and the other on bitumen and accelerate hard, see if both wheels spin.

hks_kansei wrote:All 1.8 diffs have cooling fins, whether open diff or lsd.

The no fin rule only Really applies to the NA6


There should be a tag in the door jam that lists items on the car at factory, see if lsd has a tick.

Alternatively, put one wheel on gravel/grass and the other on bitumen and accelerate hard, see if both wheels spin.

Ok, will try that soon.. the suspense is killing me now..

Being a Japanese import its most likely a torsen1 if it's not open.

Of course, a previous owner may have had a different centre all together installed.

An open diff will spin one wheel.
a clutch diff will lock both wheels to the same speed under power.
A torsen will kind of spin one wheel and shuffle power to the other side. They're a great diff, but really hard to explain.

Just continuing with the story.. soon after purchase...

Car was quite dirty, inside and out. Also, the engine had a leak or two from somewhere. The previous owner said that it`s the crank shaft (front) oil seal, but I had to make sure. So we decided to take the fenders and front bumper off to inspect. Inside, the seats and center console were taken off.

We started off by de-greasing the engine and undercarriage. The undercarriage suspension components were pressure washed and scrubbed.

Here are some pics taken during the process.

Front, with the bumper off:



Sump and steering rack:



Front, driver`s side:



Front passenger side:



Interior, passenger side:



Bumper components and front lip spoiler getting pressure washed:




After cleaning everything, I also treated surface rust (only minor spots, where panels are bolted together for example) with POR-15 and top coated as necessary.

hks_kansei wrote:Being a Japanese import its most likely a torsen1 if it's not open.

Of course, a previous owner may have had a different centre all together installed.

An open diff will spin one wheel.
a clutch diff will lock both wheels to the same speed under power.
A torsen will kind of spin one wheel and shuffle power to the other side. They're a great diff, but really hard to explain.

Yeah true, my BRZ had a tosen. Both cars kind of behave the same (rear end traction) when putting power down under cornering, so i am hopeful that it is an LSD.

After hours of cleaning, got years worth of human slime, pubes and pet hair (quoting Moog here ) off the carpets. Cleaned the rest of the interior and both sot-top and the hard top-too..

Looking clean! I gotta do the same with my SE. Was on the to do list to rip the seats out and give the interior a good vacuum after I first bought the car. New car ownership enthusiasm has since ran out and I've been too lazy ever since. Your thread just motivated me a little!

Was that surface rust under the side door scuff plates?

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luzinit wrote:Looking clean! I gotta do the same with my SE. Was on the to do list to rip the seats out and give the interior a good vacuum after I first bought the car. New car ownership enthusiasm has since ran out and I've been too lazy ever since. Your thread just motivated me a little!

Was that surface rust under the side door scuff plates?

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I am a sucker for car detailing mate; a ‘normal’ person won’t usually mind a bit of dirt here and there.

But you can do the carpets in half a day I reckon. Console is 6 screws to remove and seats are 5 bolts each from memory.

Was going to hire an upholstery cleaner (i.e. Rug Doctor), but then figured that it’ll be overkill for such a small car (plus, the seats cannot be wet vacuumed as they are not fabric). So I just used carpet cleaning foam instead.

I`ve never owned a convertible before; it actually changes your perspective on things when the roof is down. I mean, being able to reach the dashboard (vacuum) from the top, while standing, is great..!

No rust under the scuff plates fortunately, just bulldust like thing. The previous owner is from a semi-rural area and looks like he had some great fun on gravel roads.

Congrats on the purchase

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