1996 VR Limited: Combination A - Story of a Bargain
Discussion
Afternoon chaps and chappettes.
I've done this write up on my Reader's Ride thread about my prep for the 'Ring in September (originally started off with a 1990 1.6 Eunos Roadster - Link) but thought some of you might be interested to hear my story of a bargain. Also, I can't figure out how to make the pics bigger, anyone know?
Anyway, the morning of the collection of my new ‘Ring (not so much, as it turns out) Nail. It started waking up with a severe hangover having attended a work’s party with a free bar the night before. Craig (Superchickenn) picked me and Mick (Wunderbolf) up and we headed to Bristol to collect my new machine.
The advert for this car was quite endearing – entitled “Selling my beloved MX5” and mentions of “spares or repair” and “make a good donor vehicle”. The pictures were poor, that of the car strapped to a recovery truck and no other identifying features. The symptoms weren’t looking good. But I’d previously gone to look at it and determined that it was good enough to take a punt. Especially given the price and that it came with a hard top, my thoughts were I could break it and make my money back if worst came to worse.
In between placing a deposit and collecting the car, it was playing on my mind that this car had a few different features to the 3 MX5s I’d owned previously. Being the first 1.8 I’d looked at, I put it down to that. First thing I noticed on one of the advert pictures was the green “Roadster” badge on the rear. Having had either red or black ones, I looked it up and discovered it had the Series 2 1.8 engine installed, which came with OBD2, a lightened flywheel and some other updated electronics. Good news. After that, I came across a very good document on the MX5OC forum outlining all of the MX5 models, including special/limited edition. That’s where my eyes lit up. It turned out, the car I was picking up was a VR Limited: Combination B – only 800 were made in Japan. It included things like; 1.8 Series 2 engine, front engine brace, rear cabin brace, Enkei wheels, Excellent Green Mica pain (British Racing Green but metallic), Green vinyl hood, leather tombstone seats with “Roadster” embroidery, ally speaker covers/door cards, ally gear surround, ally handbrake handle, Momo steering wheel, Bilstein suspension (which this one was missing, unfortunately), Torsen diff with 4.1 ratio final drive and a few other little gems.
As you can imagine, for the price I was paying (which I’ll get onto later), I was chuffed as chips. Researching more and more.
I’ve digressed, back to the collection. We rocked up and unloaded the car, hooked it up to the A Frame and I resumed my front-seat hungover-passenger position for the journey back to South Wales. After a stop off to Gordano services for a hopeful cure to my hangover, a Feast ice lolly!
We arrived back home and, with my head feeling slightly less like a backfired cannon, the tear down began. But not before I managed to take some god awful pictures on my iPotato Spudphone.
Good god these pics are awful! Sorry guys!
It’s not overly difficult job to do the timing on an MX5. As they’re non-interference engines, the pistons and valves don’t occupy the same space, as such, never the twain shall meet. This somewhat takes the risk out of getting the timing slightly wring on the first attempt. To reset the timing, align the crank to TDC. There is a handy little arrow on the block which aligns with a handy little notch on the crank pulley. Thank you Mazda, you Japanese marvels of engineering, you! Once this is lined up, it’s a case of lining up the marks on the crank pulleys to marks on the head, slap a belt on, set the tensioner and away you go! We cranked the engine over on the starter for a few revolutions to check the timing hadn’t shifted and all appeared to be well. Unfortunately, I didn’t take many pictures of this process. Mainly because a) my IPotato Spudphone has all the megapixels of an 80s Polaroid and b) well, I forgot. In my excitement. Craig did manage to get a video if it firing after refitting the belt, so may link to it on YouTube. Depends on how much of a d
head I look in the video.
Here is the offending article – it has stripped half its teeth on the crank end and left remnants of teeth jammed up in the crank pulley and in the cam pulleys:
All stripped down (bar the crank pulley)
Final stages of putting the car back together, I got some old bottles from the boot of my daily to fill with water (my garage isn’t next to my house
) and to top up the radiator. After 3 bottles worth of water, I wondered why the radiator was bubbling like a bloody Jacuzzi filled with Radox. Then it dawned on me. Those old bottles, once held (not a bitter ale, for any Max Boyce fans) screenwash for my daily! fk! Cue me running back and forth the house 23123 times with one, clean bottle trying to flush the remnants if screenwash out of the system! What an absolute bellend I am sometimes! Anyway, it all disappeared after depleting Wales of all its water reserves, and she ran to temp like a champ.
Once it was all put back together, I slapped some classic car insurance on her and we went for a spin
. Took her for about 60 miles, whilst not “sparing the horses”, shall we say. She didn’t skip a beat. Pulled well through all the gears, handled very well. The Torsen diff is really excellent, compared to the Viscous Limited Slip Diffs I’d had on previous MX5s. It would absolutely benefit from a 4 wheel laser alignment, so will get something booked in to get all 4 wheels pointing in vaguely the right direction. But overall, it will be a pleasure to treat this little gem with some well overdue TLC. I do think she has been somewhat neglected over the years!
So, summary specs of the new Mighty MX5 ‘Ring not-so-nail:
Timing belt kit - £30
Driving through the Welsh roads – Priceless
Back to the ‘Ring, obviously I won’t be treating this one to the same weight saving techniques you’ve read previously. However, I will be fitting a GC Fabrications Roll bar, my Sparco seat and Harnesses as well as addressing the brakes (potentially some EBC Yellow stuff pads) and try and get some decent suspension. I would like to find the original Bilsteins it would have been fitted with, but that may be a push.
More to come, thanks for reading my escapades so far!
I've done this write up on my Reader's Ride thread about my prep for the 'Ring in September (originally started off with a 1990 1.6 Eunos Roadster - Link) but thought some of you might be interested to hear my story of a bargain. Also, I can't figure out how to make the pics bigger, anyone know?
Anyway, the morning of the collection of my new ‘Ring (not so much, as it turns out) Nail. It started waking up with a severe hangover having attended a work’s party with a free bar the night before. Craig (Superchickenn) picked me and Mick (Wunderbolf) up and we headed to Bristol to collect my new machine.
The advert for this car was quite endearing – entitled “Selling my beloved MX5” and mentions of “spares or repair” and “make a good donor vehicle”. The pictures were poor, that of the car strapped to a recovery truck and no other identifying features. The symptoms weren’t looking good. But I’d previously gone to look at it and determined that it was good enough to take a punt. Especially given the price and that it came with a hard top, my thoughts were I could break it and make my money back if worst came to worse.
In between placing a deposit and collecting the car, it was playing on my mind that this car had a few different features to the 3 MX5s I’d owned previously. Being the first 1.8 I’d looked at, I put it down to that. First thing I noticed on one of the advert pictures was the green “Roadster” badge on the rear. Having had either red or black ones, I looked it up and discovered it had the Series 2 1.8 engine installed, which came with OBD2, a lightened flywheel and some other updated electronics. Good news. After that, I came across a very good document on the MX5OC forum outlining all of the MX5 models, including special/limited edition. That’s where my eyes lit up. It turned out, the car I was picking up was a VR Limited: Combination B – only 800 were made in Japan. It included things like; 1.8 Series 2 engine, front engine brace, rear cabin brace, Enkei wheels, Excellent Green Mica pain (British Racing Green but metallic), Green vinyl hood, leather tombstone seats with “Roadster” embroidery, ally speaker covers/door cards, ally gear surround, ally handbrake handle, Momo steering wheel, Bilstein suspension (which this one was missing, unfortunately), Torsen diff with 4.1 ratio final drive and a few other little gems.
As you can imagine, for the price I was paying (which I’ll get onto later), I was chuffed as chips. Researching more and more.
I’ve digressed, back to the collection. We rocked up and unloaded the car, hooked it up to the A Frame and I resumed my front-seat hungover-passenger position for the journey back to South Wales. After a stop off to Gordano services for a hopeful cure to my hangover, a Feast ice lolly!
We arrived back home and, with my head feeling slightly less like a backfired cannon, the tear down began. But not before I managed to take some god awful pictures on my iPotato Spudphone.
Good god these pics are awful! Sorry guys!
It’s not overly difficult job to do the timing on an MX5. As they’re non-interference engines, the pistons and valves don’t occupy the same space, as such, never the twain shall meet. This somewhat takes the risk out of getting the timing slightly wring on the first attempt. To reset the timing, align the crank to TDC. There is a handy little arrow on the block which aligns with a handy little notch on the crank pulley. Thank you Mazda, you Japanese marvels of engineering, you! Once this is lined up, it’s a case of lining up the marks on the crank pulleys to marks on the head, slap a belt on, set the tensioner and away you go! We cranked the engine over on the starter for a few revolutions to check the timing hadn’t shifted and all appeared to be well. Unfortunately, I didn’t take many pictures of this process. Mainly because a) my IPotato Spudphone has all the megapixels of an 80s Polaroid and b) well, I forgot. In my excitement. Craig did manage to get a video if it firing after refitting the belt, so may link to it on YouTube. Depends on how much of a d
head I look in the video. Here is the offending article – it has stripped half its teeth on the crank end and left remnants of teeth jammed up in the crank pulley and in the cam pulleys:
All stripped down (bar the crank pulley)
Final stages of putting the car back together, I got some old bottles from the boot of my daily to fill with water (my garage isn’t next to my house
) and to top up the radiator. After 3 bottles worth of water, I wondered why the radiator was bubbling like a bloody Jacuzzi filled with Radox. Then it dawned on me. Those old bottles, once held (not a bitter ale, for any Max Boyce fans) screenwash for my daily! fk! Cue me running back and forth the house 23123 times with one, clean bottle trying to flush the remnants if screenwash out of the system! What an absolute bellend I am sometimes! Anyway, it all disappeared after depleting Wales of all its water reserves, and she ran to temp like a champ. Once it was all put back together, I slapped some classic car insurance on her and we went for a spin
. Took her for about 60 miles, whilst not “sparing the horses”, shall we say. She didn’t skip a beat. Pulled well through all the gears, handled very well. The Torsen diff is really excellent, compared to the Viscous Limited Slip Diffs I’d had on previous MX5s. It would absolutely benefit from a 4 wheel laser alignment, so will get something booked in to get all 4 wheels pointing in vaguely the right direction. But overall, it will be a pleasure to treat this little gem with some well overdue TLC. I do think she has been somewhat neglected over the years! So, summary specs of the new Mighty MX5 ‘Ring not-so-nail:
- Imported in 1999, 2 UK owners since
- Comprehensive Service History (including some Japanese), albeit missing a crucial and, evidently, needed timing belt change
- 1 of only 800 cars ever made
- Complete with matching Hardtop (with heated rear screen)
- 99k kms (about 60k miles)
Timing belt kit - £30
Driving through the Welsh roads – Priceless
Back to the ‘Ring, obviously I won’t be treating this one to the same weight saving techniques you’ve read previously. However, I will be fitting a GC Fabrications Roll bar, my Sparco seat and Harnesses as well as addressing the brakes (potentially some EBC Yellow stuff pads) and try and get some decent suspension. I would like to find the original Bilsteins it would have been fitted with, but that may be a push.
More to come, thanks for reading my escapades so far!
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