After trawling websites, calling breakers, looking at donor cars and generally becoming aufait with the entire UK supply of 1UZ engines, I found a chap in Banbury who sells 1UZ engines as “kit engines” which have been extracted from the donor cars complete with ECU, wiring, all sensors, pulleys, pumps, starter, alternator, the works.
This is ideal for my application and far easier than the offers I got from breakers for bare engines which would require me to source all the other parts and ancillaries needed to get it going. Even better, the chap had some business over in this end of the country so offered to deliver it directly which made life much easier.
The engine arrived as described, complete with automatic gearbox which was soon removed and the engine now resides on the engine stand, ready to be stripped back, cleaned, checked and all redundant components removed. One feature of this engine is that it has arrived with the air conditioning pump still attached. Air con was an option on the MX5 but not one my car came with, so I am considering the possibility of sourcing the air con components for the MX5 and using the pump on the engine. It’s just an idea for now, but if it can be made to work, it would be silly not to use it and would make the serpentine belt routing easier if all that remained stock.
It’s certainly a big old lump, but once on the stand and with the gearbox removed, it’s quite possible to imagine it in that engine bay.
Now I need to consider what gearbox to use, as the ratios for the stock box, not to mention the additional torque from the 1UZ just don’t work.