History

Mary and I got our first MX-5 back in 1991, just a few days before we got married and ran it while on honeymoon. We loved the car from the word go, but as we'd previously had a Toyota Celica we did miss the power. As we had to sell the MX-5 after two years due to Mary being very pregnant I never got around to doing anything to the car and in those days I don't even think I owned a socket set.

Once our daughter Rebecca had got past the serious equipment stage we decided it was time to get rid of our stop-gap Mazda 626, so we traded it against a beautiful 1992 Black SE. We paid too much for it, but when you fall in love there's no stopping you. The brilliant black paint-work, those low-profile wheels, ABS, power (nearly) everything, it was just all too much for us. Fortunately this time around we didn't have to lease or anything and the car is out of warranty so we could do what we wanted.

The main thing I wanted was a bit more get up and go. My car (the MX-5 is Mary's - remember that!) has a 4.2l V8 and is therefore pretty nippy and when driving the MX-5 I was always exasperated at how long it took to pick up speed.

I started making serious supercharger enquiries after Billing 1998 where I saw some of the chrome and testosterone wonders on show. The lengthy motorway drive there and back also re-enforced the limitations for the 115bhp 1.6. But there was bad news. Everyone said that the Sebring supercharger wouldn't fit on a RHD car with ABS. But then someone else said that it would with some brake pipe bending. It all got a bit confusing.

Fortunately a couple of things happened at once. We had a good year at work so I got a pretty good bonus and I had a chance to closely examine a supercharger install. It didn't look too bad. The 180-degree metal elbow between the throttle body on the supercharger and the airflow meter looked like it might just clear the ABS servo unit. Just. Maybe.

Buying

Then Moss announced a VAT free day at the NEC classic car show. It was all too much for me and I drove down to the show and ordered the supercharger and a MSD boost timing controller. So then I just had to wait for it to be delivered.

I waited. And then waited some more. And then started calling Moss a whole load. Nothing.

It seems there were manifold related production problems and it took over three months for the stuff to arrive, but fortunately it arrived a week before Billing 99.