We picked up and prepped our 2016 ND1 MX-5 Miata for a track day at Vancouver Island Motorsports Circuit with just a weeks worth of prep time. In this short amount of time, our team was able to source the following for this build:
- Advanti Storm S1 15x8 +25 with 205/50-15 Bridgeston RE-71R
- Eibach Pro-Kit Lowering Springs
- Eibach Pro-Kit Sway Bars (Front and Rear)
- EBC Yellowstuff sport brake pads (Front and Rear)
Brake clearance was tight on the 15" wheels, especially with the rear caliper. Although we did not have any issues throughout the track day, we can certainly see how some 15" wheels will not work with this platform on stock brakes. Given the smaller 23" diameter of these NA/NB sized tires, the wheel gap is still quite large but it does already look a lot better than with the stock springs.
On top of these basic modifications, we also did a bit of maintenance on this 4 year old car by flushing the engine with Amsoil Signature Series 5W-30 and flushing the brakes with Motul RBF600. We typically do the RBF660 on our heavier track cars like the Civic Type R and BMW M2, but given the pad compound and light weight of this Mazda, the RBF600 works perfectly fine. We also put Amsoil Severe Gear 75W-90 (GL5) in the rear differential and Amsoil 75W-90 Manual Transmission Gear Lube (GL4) in the transmission.
With a time of 1:27.3, we were happy with the benchmark achieved by the ND1 MX-5. We can't wait to fine tune this chassis and setup for future events. We did however encounter a clutch issue where the clutch would slip when it got hot. We have since installed an ACT heavy duty clutch and flywheel which will take more than double the stock power output.
