Engine Identification for IVA

[callymans]

Hi,

This is my second post here despite using this forum for some pointers during the build of my Exocet during the COVID lockdown.

I have been through the engine number location and sanding down issues and have an engine number BP398469.  It is a replacement 1.8i engine which the previous owner informed me of, so the engine number does not match the V5C.

For the IVA preparation, I contacted Madza hoping to pay a small fee for them to confirm the year of manufacture.  Despite being very helpful, they emailed to confirm only that they work off the original VIN and could not confirm the age or year of manufacture from an engine number.

I then emailed DVSA to explain and find out what advise they would offer.  Apparently the IVA tester would "will need definite proof of the age of the engine and the photos you suggest would not be suitable, you could try contacting MX5 owners’ groups or clubs."  On further questioning, they suggested "The clubs/groups may know of a way of aging the engine from the engine number (you would need evidence of this e.g., email trail)"

Has anyone else been through this experience and now knows of some method of aging the engine/capacity from the engine number?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.  IVA test application has been done, expecting the test sometime in May...

[Stewart]

It might be worth contacting the MX5 Owners Club UK to see if they're able to provide more details

[callymans]

Stewart, thanks for your reply. I passed the IVA on second attempt today! I did contact various people, the most helpful was Paul at MX5 city who emailed various screenshots of specifications from 1998 donor cars of the same year. Coupled with some forum print outs to show engine changes over the years helped to prove the engine age and the inspector at Kidderminster (2 hours drive away from me :-)) accepted that.

For the record, on the first test I failed on a reward vision, likely due to not installing seat sliders but passed this with 4 aluminium spaces to lift the seat height a touch. Apart from a few minor things, the other significant fail was too much play in the steering column. The splines were all good with no "play" so I welded a rose joint to the subframe to remove the apparent slack. The inspector remarked that he thought it was a good solution but had not seen it before. The idea came from the use of rose joints on hot rods, where the steering columns can be quite "interesting".