Battery & battery tray

I had to decide what battery to get and so what system to use for the battery tray. The battery that had come with the MX-5 had been commandeered by my father-in-law for his caravan motor mover (I think that was a fair price for dismantling the MX-5 on his driveway over several months!)

The kit comes with a long thin aluminium tray for the battery supplied from Westfield:


Here are all the components for the battery tray that come out of the MX-5:


and here is how they fit together (with help from my James Bond DVD collection). The far side hook clips onto a slot in the bodywork on the side of the MX-5. I used the "L" shaped bracket from the picture above to hold it in place. It's "real" use is to hold the tray in place:




I took both trays down to the local Halfords and checked out the batteries available.
The "official" replacement battery for my MX-5 NA model was a 400 Amp battery. They recommended a 360 Amp battery for the NB 1.6 models which was £10 cheaper. The only battery I could find to fit the Westfield tray was 265 Amp which I felt was too low.

So I settled for the 360 Amp battery and using the MX-5 tray.