Category Archives: Car

Picked up this spacer on the weekend from MX5plus in Brisbane, Australia. This allows the thermostat to be moved from the front of the engine to the rear to allow for a more complete coolant distribution. The original configuration meant the cylinder closest to the firewall flowed out only through the heater core which is insufficient to keep temperatures even across the head. You will also need a Kia thermostat cover with the part number: 0K24715172A Thread detailing a similar installation from miataturbo.net And another from Australia.  

Interesting forum thread on increasing idle for air conditioning activation.

I was reading the mx5cartalk forum and it has been claimed that Jay Leno quite likes the Mazda MX5 and has used a supercharged one as his daily driver. In the same thread was a link to a James May article where he suggests putting an Alfa V6 into one.

My DIYPNP engine management kit arrived today. I haven’t had a chance to do much with it yet but I hope to regularly post updates of my progress. As you can imagine I have a fair bit of work ahead of me. A workmate has given me a challenge of getting the ECU running and tuned in my MX5 by mid December. We’ll see how I go.

When I purchased my Mazda MX5 it came fitted with Koni Sport shocks which were set to their lowest setting. These particular shock absorbers have three different adjustments for height based on a sliding spring seat and a circlip. Whilst they are a very popular replacement shock absorber for many different vehicles the best guides I’ve seen for adjusting the suspension height refer to ‘compress the spring and then move the circlip to the next slotted position but without any photographs describing exactly what that is. I thought having recently raised my MX5 from the lowest setting to the middle setting I would give back to the Koni Sport owning community with some photos of exactly what the circlip system looks like. I purchased the spring compressors from a generic autoparts store locally. They were pretty cheaply made but more … Continue reading →