Because this car is a limited edition, with only 250 in Australia, I want to keep it as original as possible. The only initial change twas to trim and remount the ugly front number plate bracket. Any other changes will need to be easily reversible... More recent mods have been the Eibach springs (May 2006) and Rays wheels (January 2007)
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My search for some lightweight aftermarket rims turned out
to be a bit of a saga, but I eventually got some great help from Jake at
Tire Rack. One of the deal makers was their use of economical air
freight - DHL had the rims here in under a week, for a mere US$213.
One other wheel vendor quoted me US$580! Another set of rims that I tried cost me US$200 for surface mail, that took four months, and then only 3 rims arrived... |
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 Eibach ProKit springs transform the car's appearance and handling - It's a bit annoying that they come with no fitting instructions, but the equivalent product from MazdaSpeed (allegedly the same springs) come with useful instructions. |
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The original number plate bracket was pretty horrible, shame about the two holes in the front bumper! I trimmed the bracket, and relocated it higher, tidied up the front a little |
Had the Eibach springs fitted professionally. The top pic is
before the spring change, the middle one is after they were fitted,
but the front bolts had been tensioned prematurely. The final picture is
after I loosened the bolts, drove the car up the street, then retightened
them. The car has been transformed, much more planted, less body roll and
nose dive under brakes.
Since the last photo was taken, I noticed that the rear was sitting higher
than Eibach equipped cars shown on one of the
MX-5 forums that I frequent. SO, I loosened off a couple of bolts, took
the car for a drive, torqued everything back up,
and all is well with both ends.