1991 Mazda MX5 Limited Edition no217 1.6 BBR Turbo (turbo fitted as optional extra when new)
Subtly modified for power, handling and comfort - with focus of a grand tourer which also feels at home on a track. 

 

She's enjoyed 98,500miles, with a renewed engine at 86,600miles. 

Power output is ~200bhp currently, there is room for more but I've never felt the need to push it further, especially as I intended to keep the car forever!

 

Body/wheels:

Mohair hood with glass rear window (Jack Smith Trimmers, Swansea)
OEM style front splitter and front mud guards to match the rear mud guards
Borbet wheels
Original LE OZ alloys will come with the car also, but 2 wheels are slightly imbalanced
Jaz performance Stainless steel floor reinforcement rails
Underseal stripped and replaced in 2018 by GMS Bodyworks
Both rear sills stripped back and welded in replacements by GMS Bodyworks

 

Interior:

Re-upholstered tan/black leather seats with seat heaters
Racing Beat Type V heavy duty style bar with black leather cover
Original Mazda wind blocker
Rare JDM Mazda folding sun visors
Billet machined stainless steel gear knob and handbrake button 
 

Brakes & Suspension:

'95 rear subframe with Torsen 1 Limited slip Differential 
1.8 rear brake upgrade. 
'04 NB front sport brakes
Braided HEL brake hoses 
brake bias valve deleted
Full Superpro Poly bush set
Gaz Gold Pro suspension
 

Engine rebuild (2016):

New pistons (original mazda) & rings, honed cylinder bores, skimmed head, lapped valve seats, new bottom end bearings and seals, cambelt. Machining by Pete Willis Engineering 

Engine management, turbo. Supporting mods:

Heavy duty welded Sturovo replacement turbo manifold
Megasquirt II PNP
Yellow RX8 injectors (Genuine denso/mazda)
Innovate LC1 wideband O2 sensor
high capacity narrow Civic rad (to allow cold air access to BBR intercooler)
Coolant reroute kit
All reinforced silicone hoses
Exedy stage 2 clutch (1.8) 
lightened 1.8 OEM flywheel.
Orginal BBR Garrett T25 - bearings replaced and serviced by BBR in 2015
Electronic Boost controller (switch in cubby for switching on/off boost)
Toyota COPs (Coil Over Plug)
K&N panel filter fitted in OEM airbox
Custom undertray 
Wire-tucked and resprayed engine bay, painted cam cover and intake manifold. 
Tuned using autotune on the road, and on dyno by SRD Engines

 

Electronics:

Replaced seized central locking for aftermarket replacement with remote
Boot popper
12V cigarette lighter socket in centre cubby
BBR cubby 95/98 fuel switch converted to control boost on/off
USB power where original cigarette lighter socket was fitted
Extra fuse box fitted under dash
Re-designed battery tray and fitted smaller 'racing' battery

 

Our Story:

October 2011 - Purchased the car from a retired couple in Somerset, they were the second owners from new. They had used it a weekend car and had made a couple of trips to france in it. 

 

2012
MX-5 Owners Club Spring Rally, Falmouth. Amanda and I were keen OC members, and attended a few runs and shows. 

The car was completely original, but I had ideas for improvement...

The first big job. Swapping the rear subframe from my old (newer) 1995 Eunos, which was cleaner underneath, had a Torsen diff and 1.8 spec brakes. I also swapped the front brakes for the bigger 1.8 units. Later I replaced the front brakes with the Big Sport brakes from an NB 2004 Nevada edition. While I was at it I brushed off and repainted the underside, all suspension parts etc, and treated her to a set of Superpro bushes.

I swapped the catalytic converter (not needed for this age car) for a stainless steel silenced decat. And the orignal cat-back exhaust for Stainless system from IL motorsport.  

Later I added some Gaz Gold Pros to replace the leaky original shocks... This all made a massive difference to the ride quality and huge improvement to the way she handles in the corners. It really was remarkable the difference  quality modern shock absorbers made. 

        
I had improved the handling, the car was way flatter in the corners, the ride was improved as it no longer crashed over bumps and potholes, just glided over them like a modern car should. But I still had a problem with it on boost - since I had bought the car the overboost protection kicked in whenever the turbo spools right up. I discovered that for some reason it was overboosting, boost creeping higher than the 5.5PSI limit set by the BBR ECU. I tried adjusting the wastegate actuator to no avail, I couldn't find any other obvious problem so I started taking things apart.

The first thing I found was a cracked exhaust manifold, this is the original BBR cast iron manifold - these were notorious for cracking, probably because they didn't leave any gaps in the manifold plate to allow for heat expansion. The design was later improved to tackle this problem, whereas some (like mine) had an attempted repair using weld... I had my local welder repair mine and I cut some expansion gaps in the manifold mating plate.

 

...but this didn't work, so I contacted a guy called Stuvoro on the MX5Nutz Forum who at the time was well known for making custom manifolds, I sent him the dimensions of the BBR manifold and he agreed to make me one using welded 'boiler steel' which would also include the mounting studs so I could still use the original BBR manifold with it. Here's another picture of the old manifold, it shows just how extensive the previous repairs had been, it had cracked around the middle divide as well as along the bottom of cylinder 1/2 exhaust ports.

And here's the new manifold. If any BBR owners would like the dimensions of this manifold let me know, I still have them in a file.

2013
While I was waiting for the manifold to be made, I got a bit, erm, carried away.... I bought a Megasquirt II PnP! I know some purists will cringe about this, but I thought well why not make some improvements while I had the car apart, especially as I hadn't yet found the cause of the overboost problem... and I was quite keen to learn about tuning! What followed was a steep learning experience and a rush to finish getting the car back together for the spring.

2014
After some issues getting her started, I managed to get her out of the shed and onto the road for some tuning, I was astonished at how much difference it made being able to add a couple of Lb of boost! I soon had to swap the clutch out as the 1.8 clutch and flywheel I had already upgrade to was already slipping. I ended up buying an Exedy Stage 2 clutch.

I only just managed to get the car back on the road a week or so before my wedding, which was imperative because we were taking the car on our honeymoon for a road trip all around western Europe! 

Note I had also fitted a cheap cone filter, removed the standard radiator and replaced with one from a Honda Civic. I did this because the BBR manifold was located behind the standard rad, so now it would actually act as a 'front mount' intercooler, rather than an interwarmer! I also did a quick DIY coolant reroute, but this pic was taken just before.

While Barbara was off the road I also ripped out the old central locking and alarm which had not worked for a long time, I replaced it with an aftermarket remote kit. I replaced her stereo and speakers, and rewired the rear speakers straight to the head unit. These LE's came with rear parcel shelf speakers as well as the standard door speakers. They are very good quality speakers and were powered by a small amp mounted up under the dash but this no longer worked so I removed it and wired them straight to the head unit. 

I treated her to some new leather, the original tan leather was torn badly on the driver's bolster so I had someone make me new covers, which I fitted to the original seats with new hogrings, I always felt the full tan look was a bit much so I opted for black/tan design which I think works really well. The new seat upholstery was amazing quality and fits the seats so well. They really are better than OEM:

Ready just in time for the wedding!

So onto the honeymoon, all was well on our way to Germany until we reached traffic jams on the Brussels ring road, Barbara overheated! A quick roadside diagnostic showed the reading from the main engine temp sensor giving an erratic reading, so the ECU wasn't sending a signal to turn the radiator fan on. So I switched off the warmup enrichment so the ECU wasn't putting too much fuel into the engine and wired up the radiator to so it would stay on, luckily I was able to pinch some wires from under the dash that would have otherwise been powering our mini fridge!
We arrived at our accommodation near the Nurburgring and the next morning I woke up at 5 to get an early start fixing the temp sensor, which because I had hurriedly relocated during the coolant reroute, was fouling on the firewall and shorting itself out... this was soon 'fixed' with some electrical tape so we could set off and enjoy the 'Ring...

Another thing I had added was an OEM style front lip/splitter.

After a few exhilarating but careful laps being overtaken by mostly German cars, we headed south to Switzerland via the Black Forest, not before losing the wastegate actuator arm on the Autobahn! which we managed to fix somehow... I can't remember exactly how, but we were back on boost! That was thankfully the end of our mechanical problems, apart from a worrying drive nearly running out of fuel over the Furka Pass, several hours behind schedule, in the dark, fog and snow trying to find our accommodation.

After the honeymoon there were a couple of years of tweaking, including having the wheels reburbished by a local restoration specialist, as they were looking pretty corroded in places...

And I added a Racing Beat Type V heavy duty style bar, which I really like, and although not a proper roll bar, it's thick enough to provide some protection if the car were to roll over!

Also added front mud guards...

2015
Our next big trip was to the MX5 OC trackday at Blyton in 2015. Where Barbara developed a smokey exhaust. Suspecting a problem I kept the boost low and was gentle with her, and we managed to enjoy the track as well as a nice tour back home through wales, even stopping at Swansea to have a new mohair roof fitted. 

Then I took her off the road again to investigate the problem. First the turbo came off and sent it to BBR to be refurbished, they installed new bearings and compressor wheel etc. I refitted the blower but it was still smokey, so I removed the head to inspect and replace the stem seals...

2016

This was all new to me, having never stripped down an engine before it was all good learning! 

The stem seals seemed fine so while I had the head off I had it reskimmed and cleaned everything up, re-lapped the valves & seats etc. Everything seemed fine so I set about pulling the engine to be dissasembled... (yes that is baler cord!) 

I stripped down the block, the cylinders seemed fine but I had them re-honed by my local engine guy anyway. I also had him lighten my flywheel at the same time by skimming off the weighted ring around the outside of the clutch mating surface.

While I was removing the pistons, I found the culprit, piston 3 was broken! I was amazed this hadn't damaged the cylinder, but not a scratch could be seen, the broken ring-land fragments were just floating about between the rings.
So I bought a set of pistons from Autolink, fitted a new set of rings to all pistons and also fitted new engine bearings also. 

While the engine was out I removed everything, set about rubbing down the engine bay ready for a respray and preparing the wiring loom and simplifying it so I could tuck the wires out of sight, either under the intake manifold or into the wings...

Rattle-can respray for the engine bay, and a freshly resprayed engine with VHT engine enamel...

Started to come back together...

And she lives! This was a very nervous first time start! But she worked first time, lots of smoke while the assembly grease and oil burned off, but she soon settled down while I ran her in for 20 minutes or so. Notice I have re-fitted the factory airbox, despite the modifications I wanted her to look 'original, but subtly better'

I drove the car for a couple of months and the engine started knocking. This was rather upsetting as I'm sure you can imagine... so I begrudgingly started removing the engine again, dissasembled it almost completely, and very carefully... only to find I had fitted a thrust washer the wrong way around, this meant the grooves that the oil seeps through to lubricate the crank were on the wrong side, therefore the bearing was not being lubricating, causing the bearing to quickly wear down and deform. This was rectified with a new bearing & crank and I put all back together again - sigh.

Since then it's all been fine, I made a new top intercooler bracket using a blade from an old fertiliser spreader, lovely bit of stainless steel...

 

2017

MX-5 Owners Club Spring Rally, Bristol

My LE wheels were starting to get chipped again (probably stones flicking up from our farm drive) so I bought some Borbets which now stay on the car most of the time, thus saving the OZ's for special occasions.

 

I took her  taken her for a proper tuning session on a Dyno as I was unable to tune the ignition timing properly on the road. It turned out the timing was a little too advanced and potentially would have done some damage if I had turned up the boost. But now she's running sweet and very fast with about 10PSI of boost with an electronic boost controller, which I can turn on and off using the original BBR fuel switch in the centre cubby 

2018

The last MOT had unfortunately condemned at least one of the OZ wheels as it had become distorted, and one other was also getting bad, presumably due to hitting a few too many pot-holes. This was gutting, but not unheard of, as other LE owners have found that the beautiful wheels are unfortunately not very robust. Also some rust was working it's way through the paintwork on one of the sills, and a tiny hole on the other. This is a tell-tale sign of internal corrosion for mx5s, so I booked her in to our local bodywork restorer, who is known for doing proper restoration jobs rather than quick MOT fixes. I intended to keep this car forever so I wanted it done properly.

They did a great job, it looked brand new, the contours, stonechip coating and the final respray of affected panels was 1st class. I also had them strip the underbody and give her a new coat of underseal. 

2019
Wadebridge Wheels 2019

It was time for Barbara's next big adventure! Amanda and I had competed in two European charity banger rallies Vegas or Bust 2016 (3rd place) and Gib or Bust 2018 (1st place) in another vehicle:

So with the 2019 rally 'Pompeii or Bust' approaching we wanted to do our victory rally not in a banger but in the comfort and joys of our beloved Barbara.

The MX-5 was mostly mechanically ready and just needed an service, and the shocks needed a service as two were weeping fluid slightly. So I send them back to Gaz to be re-gassed and serviced. The HT leads were due replacement and were crazy expensive for decent 'hot' leads. So I instead I took the opportunity to perform an ignition coil upgrade. Fitting more modern Coil Over Plugs are a common and fairly easy upgrade which help provide a stronger spark - great for turbo engines, and negates the need for HT leads altogether. The only problem with this upgrade is that I did not complete the wiring, the Tachometer is not working now. I believe I need to add a new output from the ECU to the dash, I just having got around to it yet. Otherwise though, the car runs extremely well.

So we prepared the car with a beautiful bovine livery and enjoyed a trip all the way to Italy and back, as the official photographers for the rally. The car was amazing, only problems we had was navigating Italian roads and trying to avoid upsetting European traffic enforcements! 

2020

MOT time again. I had put the OZ wheels back on, both definitely showing distortion as they turned on the tester's rollers, so they ended up back in storage again. It's just as well as they need another refurb anyway!

I removed the rally livery, unfortunately when removing the vinyl from the nosecone, the stickers took some paint with them. This is yet to be repaired.

We had our first child this year. The MX5 went away in the garage and has only come out for a service and occasionally a run up the lane and back to get her warm and keep her moving. 

2023

I've put Barbara back on the road with the intention of selling her. Now that we have two children, realistically it's just not sensible to keep her, she just isn't getting used. So it's time for someone else to enjoy her. Preferably someone who appreciates her individuality, not to mention her rare lineage. She is one of just 3 known LE BBR turbos in existence.

 

The Problems: 

Her flaws are as follows:

Tacho currently not working - needs wiring up to ECU output. Hopefully I'll fix this before sale.
Front nosecone needs respray
Rear bumper needs respray (cracked paint due to bumper being bumped)
Cam cover, Intake manifold, rad and intercooler could benefit from respray
Rear number plate plinth has a small crack. I already have a replacement ready to be fitted. This should be done while the rear bumper is being resprayed. 
Slight crack in the filler where the small rust hole was repaired above near-side sill 
ECU cuts out for slight moment several times while car is idle warming up, and sometimes when idle and warm. I've never found why, but it doesn't stop the car running or effect driving at all. 

The Price:

In 2018 a fellow LE owner sold his almost mint-condition original non-turbo example for £8,500.  With this in mind if this example were mint-condition and original (with BBR turbo) I'd expect it to sell for over £10K. But realistically with the work needed to make it mint, and of course the economic climate. I am willing to sell for £8,000 or very near offer. This car has quadrupled in value since I bought it (for £2500 in 2011) and it of course will continue to appreciate in value if well cared for. 

I've priced her to sell, with her flaws in mind.

I welcome serious viewings, and I am happy to take a serious buyer for a drive to demonstrate the car to the best of my ability.  I will ONLY allow anyone else to drive the car if they can provide proof of insurance to drive someone else's car with fully comprehensive cover to the  agreed value of the car. This, and contact details of your insurer will need to be provided in advance of test driving.  Interes

In

Interested?

If you'd like to know more and you have a serious interest in being Barbara's next owner. Feel free to pop me an email/text/whatsapp on 07879643109 or john@forcelebrations.co.uk then we can arrange a call. 
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