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My name is Paul and I bought a cheap green MX-5 with 130K km on the clock about a year ago. I live in the Netherlands and enjoy working on the car, but can only do so on the street. The main reason that I bought it is that I wanted to gain some experience on more than just changing brake pads. I also drove a Megane RS before and loved having the 2.0T but missed having rear wheel drive.
MX-5 came through because the low weight, rear wheel drive and affordable upgrades. This car was cheap because the soft top was done. That is the first thing I replaced. I bought a Revent turbo kit with a TD04-13t and the full 3 inch exhaust because this forum told me so. It also includes the ME-221 which most of you seem to hate, but it's doing what I need from it for now.
Plans are to install roll bar, coil overs, tune the engine when I get the Toyota COPS working properly and drive it to the Nurburgring.
Green 1999 MX-5 1.8
(The boat is my brother in laws, bone stock 1.8 Nismo trim)
My name is Paul and I bought a cheap green MX-5 with 130K km on the clock about a year ago. I live in the Netherlands and enjoy working on the car, but can only do so on the street. The main reason that I bought it is that I wanted to gain some experience on more than just changing brake pads. I also drove a Megane RS before and loved having the 2.0T but missed having rear wheel drive.
MX-5 came through because the low weight, rear wheel drive and affordable upgrades. This car was cheap because the soft top was done. That is the first thing I replaced. I bought a Revent turbo kit with a TD04-13t and the full 3 inch exhaust because this forum told me so.
Welcome fellow Dutch and your car looks very clean!
It also includes the ME-221 which most of you seem to hate, but it's doing what I need from it for now.
Yes, functionally the ME-221 is fine for most MX-5 builds. Reason why the company is somewhat hated on this forum is the owner of the company.
He made money counterfeiting Megasquirt ECUs and tried to promote his product by bashing the competition rather than promoting his own product.
Shady business manners in my book.
Plans are to install roll bar, coil overs, tune the engine when I get the Toyota COPS working properly and drive it to the Nurburgring.
Good to see the style bar go. The Toyota COPS are more of a reliability thing, as they do not offer that much more spark energy compared to stock coils.
I really need to go to the ring more often next year, feel free to PM me if you have plans to go and do not mind another MX-5 to join.
Thanks for the warm welcome guys! The car looks clean in the pictures, currently it does not look as nice. Good to hear that there are a few Dutch people around, could be fun to meet sometime. I personally have had no issues with Motorsports Electronics, but I understand their bad reputation. And yeah, the style bar has to go!
Now the reason I cannot tune the engine properly yet is that I currently don't have spark. I experienced spark blowout at the lowest of boosts (or so I thought) and figured the coils must be going bad. It made sense to do the COPS upgrade while I was at it. Boy was I wrong, I can't get the damn things to work properly.
With the test cycle and the spark plug out of the engine I can get spark, but it won't start when I bolt everything up. It is frustrating.
Hey Paul, this is Ramon from The Netherlands! Welcome to the forums. Nice ride. Keep us updated on your progress!
I own a green na myself. Currently building a 2004 nb2 engine for my baby. Hope you get these issues fixed asap. Definitely hmu for a date to go to the ring haha, should be fun!
Now the reason I cannot tune the engine properly yet is that I currently don't have spark. I experienced spark blowout at the lowest of boosts (or so I thought) and figured the coils must be going bad. It made sense to do the COPS upgrade while I was at it. Boy was I wrong, I can't get the damn things to work properly.
With the test cycle and the spark plug out of the engine I can get spark, but it won't start when I bolt everything up. It is frustrating.
Few things to check:
-Spark plug gap, with boost you need to gap the plugs down to something like 0.8mm from 1.1mm
-Dwell time, the Toyota COPS need way less dwell time
-Firing order
-Check if you have genuine coils, there are a lot of fakes on the market
11-19-2019, 04:10 PM
1999 MX-5 1.8 with Revent turbo kit
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Welcome to the forums. Nice ride. Keep us updated on your progress!
