MX5 M-Tech Turbo 210 track/fast road/race car and £16,000 worth of the right mods

2004 MX5 Arctic Special Edition with 99,000 miles.  The £16,000 of mods mentioned in the title doesn't include maybe £2,000 of further labour.

The car is currently in preparation in my mechanics’ workshop.  In other words it’s in bits.  It's taken 6 weeks to get all the parts together and they're finally all at the workshop.  Some parts had to come from the States.  Expected to be finished in November.  In 15 years of making dual-use MX5s this is the first time I’ve been able to take a car off the road and to have it properly prepared as I want.  If you’re a buyer of it and don’t fancy any of the things I’ve done or am about to have done, we can talk about it, I guess.  There’s no doubt, for instance, that I could sell the Ohlins and the Enkeis if you preferred to have MeisterRs and OEM wheels (see pic) for less money.  Or if you want to take it racing I could have the roll bar removed and sell it so you can have the car cheaper and put yourself a full cage in.  Swapping those three items would reduce the price by around £1,500, for instance.

Only selling because I’ve treated myself to a Mk3 BBR stage 2 turbo, which I’ll have to spend a bunch of money on to make it track-ready*, whereas you’ll be getting the Arctic pretty much ready-to-go.

The parts below are what the previous owner, Simon, and the one before him, had done to the car (all receipts available):

2016 various performance upgrades by Cleverly Cars in Essex, including:

- MeisterR fully adjustable coilovers. 32 settings. Note from current seller – qbout to be replaced with new unused Ohlins.  The Meisters are now on my Mk1.

- Sparco R100 Race seats - recline and slide. Very comfy and supportive.

- Harness mounting points.

- Wilwood 4 pot “Big Brakes” calipers and discs that have had very little use (costing over £600). Note from current seller – they’re sold and about to be replaced with unused even bigger brakes - Clio 225/Brembo 4 pots with massive DS1.11 endurance pads and wider-still Nissan ventilated rotors.  These will make it easy to keep up with brake costs and will be lovely and consistent at every stop, even if you drive very long hard sessions on the track.

- Alloy extra large radiator with silicon hoses.

- Alloy windscreen washer re-allocated in scuttle.

- GC Fabrications SN-GCF 195 MSA (Motor Sport Association) roll bar (accepts door bars).

- Team Dynamics multi hole 7” alloy wheels. Note from current seller – gone as I won’t use multi-holes on the track, replaced with very light, used Enkei RPF1s in 15x8.

- Braided brake pipes all round and higher temp brake fluid.

- Cobalt stainless steel back box and mid section all fitted with new poly bushes.

- Cobalt stainless steel under tray.

Dec 2018 £5,000 spent on a 238bhp full turbo conversion by M-Tech Automotive in Westbury, Wiltshire including stage 2 clutch (Note from the current seller: That all this work was done in one place is a Really Good Thing, as I found out with a previous turbo car I had put together at a bunch of different places, each of which blamed each other whenever things went wrong).

* G19 EV02 cast manifold

* Motorsport Electronics CNC downpipe

* Recon TD04 13t turbo

* RX8 injectors

* Motorsport Electronics boost control kit

* MTech intercooler kit

* Me221 engine management unit - easy in-cabin access to plug in laptop - Note from current seller - now has ME442 which is more suitable for track use.

* XTD stage 2 clutch kit

* Magnaflow 200 cell sports cat

* NGK BRK7 11-e spark plugs

2019/2020 the car was maintained by Skuzzle Motorsports in Winchester with regular services, maintenance, and including a complete re-map to 250bhp in October 2019. This was all at one point in the rev range though so in 2020 it was remapped to deliver more power at lower revs but less overall to make the car far more driver friendly.

Geometry set up is by the well known Wheels in Motion in Chesham, and the car has semi-slick Nankang NS2R tyres (Nov 2019). Note from current seller - the Nankangs were too harsh for me so there are now AD08s.  New alignment will be needed because of the new bushes and suspension.  You might want R888s if you’re a serious trackist.  I’m not any more, and I happen to like the way the AD08s move around compared with the R888s being more grippy but giving up more suddenly, as I'm not that good a driver.

Car is really well balanced, fun to drive on track and completely practical on the road. No issues with the roof or any of the electrics.

Previous owners have garaged, as have I with very little use in the last year for obvious reasons!

Since 2017 the car has had over £10k spent on it (on top of the value of the original car). Note from present owner - plus what I've spent.

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Since Simon did the above ad, the items I've added or changed above (in italics) have cost £3,800 plus labour.

I have also further invested further in:

A brilliant long tall short gear shifter which is right next to your left hand so makes changes quicker (see pic).  After the pic I did fit a new top boot and put the centre console back on.

Two good but out of date harnesses.

Lowering the floorpan 3” so the great Sparco R100 seats can be kept, and heads are under the roll bar.  This also makes for a better driving position and a lower centre of gravity and is more comfortable on road and track.  Also means you can see the traffic lights better if you’re first in the queue!

Full new poly-bushing including diff.  Helical cut inserts (see pic) which hold more grease and retain it better and are said to be maintenance-free. Engine mounts are the 40% stiffer MazdaSpeed rubber ones as poly ones are just too vicious. They had to be imported from the States.  There is also an engine damper to balance out the rubber mounts being a little softer than polys.

3" brake ducts with air dams in the front bumper and custom made backing plates to send the air to the centre of the discs.  Very effective on previous cars.  

Front splitter.

New rear main bearing seal.

Renovation of inner and outer rear quarters. Removal of all old underseal and any rust. New rustproofing including injecting where needed. Painting/repainting where needed.

A 4.1 LSD for still better acceleration. Should also make 5th useable on some tracks.

Flat gloss black door panels.  They make more room for the seats and do away with you hitting your right elbow on the armrest – especially important with the lower floorpan.

To balance the fronts, the rear calipers will also be silver, and the centres of the upgraded hooked discs, with newly refurbished OEM callipers and with upgraded EBC Yellow Stuff pads.

About another £2,450 spent above.

The turbo conversion is now beautifully set up for torque (see dyno print out). It gives 210hp (50% up on a standard car) and 245lb/ft (100% up on a standard car - DOUBLE!). I’ve had way more power before but this feels “just right” as Goldilocks would say - keeping the MX5 character yet still being very quick and reliable. There’s no blow off valve so you can have horsey noises whenever you like.

Matching OEM hard top possibly available.  They're worth around £500.

Very high spec brand new Alpine head unit available.  £200 worth.

Very high quality Clearwater speakers available.  Imported from the States.  £300 worth.

It needs a replacement radio and aerial.  Electric aerials are £25 from Prestige Parts.  It's only a 15 minute job, even for a hamfisted guiy like me.

The headlights might need a polish.

There's a small cut in the hood. It has been so well repaired that I didn't notice it when I was taking the pics, otherwise I'd have taken a pic of it. It doesn't leak, so may only be through the outside layer.  The heated rear window works fine.

It no longer has the weight of air conditioning to slow it down or to hinder engine cooling.

The Sparco seats are, of course, not heated, as originally in the Artic model, but are extremely comfortable and hold you in very well. They slide and recline.  

The heater puts out 30 degrees in 20 degrees ambient. Might just need a cable adjusting? I just put the roof down (95% of the time anyway unless it's seriously p*ssing down).

The auxiliary gauges don't all work perfectly.

The odometer needs a bulb in it.

The idle sometimes drops to 500rpm - perhaps needs a tweak to the ECU?

If you're going into racing you might like to add a brake proportioning valve, maybe even one in the cabin for adjusting mid-race if the weather changes.  You might need to add different seats, in which case I can tell you the R100s are much admired and would be easy to sell, thus reducing the cost of the car for you.

More pics available if you give me an easy method of sending them to you. All questions answered.

* I'm also wondering if I should keep the Mk3 and (now supercharged) Mk1 as purely road cars, thus avoiding the need to add track upgrades to them.  But if/when this Arctic is sold that therefore leaves me without a dual use car.  So if someone came forward who wanted to buy 50% of the Arctic, we might be able to talk.  We'd need solid agreements on how and when the car is used and how we split the costs of maintenance, repairs, and damages.  If you already have a road car you're happy with then maybe we could make the Arctic entirely a track car and even more track orientated (but still driveable on the road).  For instance, in its current state of disassembly it would be easy to pull the engine and put forged rods in it to cope with lots more power.  If it's going to have a full cage and bucket seats then now would be the time to decide that