I think the difference is that the Sprinter actually gets dríven
I put the MX5 in storage in 2013 because I bought my brother's EP3 Civic Type R after someone smashed a window and threw firelighters into it (I'm pretty sure it would have been one of his neighbours, with a pod filter and a basically straight-through exhaust it was ridiculously loud, if I lived near him I would have burnt it too) with the intention to put the driveline into a locally delivered 5 door EU1 (which I still have yet to do, probably should get around to it really...) and I needed space for that at home.
A year later dad asked if he could use the 5 for the 6 hour regularity relay at Mallala because he'd been asked to help make up numbers in one of the MX5 club's teams so I ordered some new 195/50/15 Achilles ATR Sports and got them fitted, then we got new plates and better quality bolts and fitted the BD bar properly, fiddled with the bonnet latch and the back edge of the front bar until everything sat properly again and generally got it looking presentable.
It looked really good out on the track in the first session, the ATR Sports definitely didn't look quite as grippy as some of the other MX5s which appeared to be on proper semis but it was cornering at decent speeds through turn 1, skating sideways a bit in the transition to turn 2 then hooking in to that, so it looked like it was running quite nicely... Until he came in early, the temperature gauge had shot right up, then we discovered that the top radiator hose had split at one end. I drove to Gawler and bought a new hose, then we fitted that and put it out again for a couple of gentle laps to see if the temperature would stabilise but it started overheating again, then we noticed that the heater hoses were looking pretty sketchy which was kind of disappointing, all the heater and radiator hoses were from a group buy on here for what were supposed to be decent hoses, and I'd fitted them when the engine went in so they'd only done maybe a thousand kms. Luckily one of the MX5 club guys was gracious enough to offer to tow it back to Adelaide.
A few weeks later I organised for .............. damn I've forgotten his name and his businesses name, but he was a really nice dude.... to pick it up and pull the head off, get that skimmed and rebuilt and get it running again. I had to cut the front lip off to get it onto his trailer, I didn't think the car was that low haha
The same week I had someone show interest in my SSR Mk2's so I sold them, pretty much all of it went towards the head. Since getting it back from there I've had my brother look after it (partially because he has a shed, and partially because I figured if he drove it he might want to buy it, no luck on that front, well, not enough for him to put money down, he did have a big grin the first time he drove it) and I've replaced all the hoses with genuine ones, and then I went through and replaced all the fuel hoses in the engine bay with new hose, but at some point the collet that injector 2 sits in seems to have broken and it started making a weird whooshing noise but there was no smell of fuel so it took a while to spot the problem. I've got another collet from my old engine but I also need to replace the injector because it looks like it wasn't sitting right after the collet broke and part of the green plastic at the tip is gone, I do have a bag of injectors that I think originally came with this motor but they look pretty grimy and I'm not sure that fitting one that could possibly have unknown flow issues is a good idea so I think its time to get some bigger injectors. Aside from the noise it was running perfectly, in fact I think the idle was the best its ever been, I'm guessing it was blowing pressurised intake air out past the injector when the valve was closed
