Thanks for the clarification Mark. The 4W applied to the head and can be seen in the casting at the back of the head. The 5A designation is applied to the inlet cam which has it cast into the surface. I think I also noticed it yesterday on the exhaust heat shield on the 98 that Donovan is currently...

Kieran wrote:I have a JDM 98 and all markings say BP-4W

Heat shield on the exhaust?
ECU?
Even a sticker on the radiator header is marked BP5A on mine.

The BP-4W was only applied to the first of the NB 1.8 engines, from 98 in Japan but referred to as 99-00 in the US as there was no 98 MX5 in the US market. The 1.6 engines were all B6 and the 1.8s were BP. AFAIK, there was no BP-4W in Japan. Designation for the JDM 98-00 1.8 is BP-5A. Obvious diffe...

Thanks for replies re car painter. It seems my shock / horror at the extent of damage was somewhat premature... It looked really bad - a scrape about a foot long and 4-6 inches high, but like the old "don't worry about that - it'll cut out" joke, when I went to clean it up and look closer, it was ac...

Hope I'm not in breach of copyright hosting/posting this. If Mazda object, I'll remove it, but hopefully they'll agree it's a nice distribution of advertising material.
MX5 Jubilee Magazine - nice! (broadband warning - about 9.5mb)

http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~tmg/M ... Mag-EN.pdf

Damn Damn Damn. If you don't want the story of my grief over weekend, please skip to the question at the bottom. The family dray (97 Pulsar) failed a wof on Friday - excess oil leakage :shock: It left about a 6" puddle on the WOF shop floor. I knew that begging wasn't going to work. Oh - I knew it w...

http://codes.rennacs.com/Petrol-Engine/Japanese-Korean/Mazda-Engines.php I think investigation of the above link will show how to use the diagnostic connector with simple "bridge" between pins and an LED to read codes, with lookup of codes in their database. It's been a while since I looked, but I t...

I was offering it to Posion first,If he's not interested you can have second option on it. Poison ,Better PM me at work(parts@mazline.co.nz) and i sort some photo's out you are keen. Whoops - didn't see that ('twas late and didn't read entire thread). If poison doesn't want it, then I'm keen to hav...

Habanero666 wrote:Aisin make gearboxes for Renaults too, are they cool?

In Akaroa on Bastille Day - yep, very cool indeed.

I just fell over a Black one at work !!(Mazline),The right money will stop it going on Trade Me or accidentally falling on my red car :lol: Is it with heated rear window? Can you do a deal with frankenstein bolts / side latches? I'm local (Chch) - could drop in to have a look any time that suits yo...

Absolutely it's "pinging" - pre ignition. 50km/h in top gear is only 1500 rpm. Surprisingly hard to pinpoint the sound location, but drive alongside a concrete barrier with the hood down, and everything is much clearer. I've heard it in mine too - made me change my driving habits. Around town, drive...

Mazda in Christchurch checked the VIN and gave me a printout of options (incl diff) ex-factory. I'm not sure if your Mazda dealer would do that for VIN number on a car you were looking at, but it might be worth asking. The normal JDM NB options would have had a Torsen diff in 6 speed, open diff in 5...

In a road car like a MX5 it will last for ages,You would get away with doing oil changes one a year or more ,so even though you pay more at the time you only have to buy half as much. Most Amsoil grades are not API certified. If it's a new car, that might invalidate your warranty. If it's an old ca...

I suggest that you change your oil regulary, 8 - 10000 ks as the oil does not break down but becomes :oops: contaminated, this is why you change the oil. Any oil mineral or synthetic does become contaminated. Yes - contaminated with acids that erode metals, bearing surfaces etc. But also there is s...

This probably doesn't help, but my NB six-speed has "6 speed" marked on the tachometer dial face. As such, they clearly put a different cluster in 5 and 6 speeds and another different one as well for autos on the assembly line. So rather than just change a jumper setting somewhere on the back of a s...

kiwipete wrote:"seats 5"!!

One better than this:

I chuckled a bit when on the news last night they said that his sponsors, Nike etc, "stick behind him 100%". I'm sure they will keep saying just that - until the very moment before the contracts expire. Curious morality I know, worrying about Tiger's transgressions when you're selling shoes and garm...

Many cars use this type of plug lead and they are all prone to burning through in this area. Yep I had a Mazda 323 GTx turbo (in Laser TX3 4wd clothes) back in the early 90s. At that time nobody seemed to know this was going to be a problem, so I had all sorts of problems getting it diagnosed, you ...

But that's the thing Mark, people get so emotive about the inconvenience of wearing a helmet, because no one is expecting or intending to be in an accident, that's why it's called an accident. Based on that logic you could argue the same about wearing a seatbelt when driving down to the Dairy. Reme...

Modern pump gas contains ~10% of these aromatics (makes the fuel smell nice), toluene being a percentage of these bad boys. It wouldn't surprise me if the volume is much higher than 10%. Perhaps others recall Shell (perhaps another company) marketing petrol in NZ with "the power of methylbenzene". ...

Saved myself some damage wearing a cycle helmet! So did I. That damned hailstorm in '94 coulda concussed me! On a more serious note, I've never really had a proper car accident, but managed to fall off motorbikes on the road and track a few times at speeds up and possibly exceeding 180 km/h or so. ...

On the other hand, I could not disagree with you more with regards to bike helmets. Here's a site dedicated to the subject: http://www.cycle-helmets.com/zealand_helmets.html Not disputing the possibility or probability that a helmet saved you life or prevented serious injury. I also suspect that al...

My comments were based on the opinions of Land Transport NZ and the NZ Automobile Association (but they could both be wrong) and are in respect of our ACCIDENT rate...not injury/death rates which are influenced by a number of factors in addition to driver skill/behaviour, as I am sure you will appr...

Now, if the rest of us can get it into our heads that we are amonst the worst drivers in the developed world (proven by statistics) Which statistics are these? You can't compare NZ with say UK or USA with different population density, different "miles per person per year" driven etc etc. The US has...

The sticker says "Gasoline" and that's not really saying if it's regular or premium to me unless the colour meaning to something. Maybe prevent people pouring diesel at pump? LOL - thanks. I had a sneaking suspicion it might only say that. I'm keen to know what the Japanese NB (BP5A) should run on....