have been offered a 1.6 mx5 engine and box has any one out there any advice and/or experience of fitting carbs or throttle bodies to one as it has only the coil pack fitted and i would prefer to keep it simple and at resonable cost but with out the hassel of scrap yard hunting for looms and mazda ecu,s

It's a cracking engine. Check out my photo archive for pictures of it installed. I have the standard injection system running on mine and it works great.

There's loads of people out there with bits and pieces and lots of useful support on the owners club websites.

Check it's got compression and that the gearbox works and changes Ok and you'll be fine. Both are pretty bulletproof.

U2U or email me if you want specific details etc...

There was a guy running a jap import that arrived with bike carbs fitted, so it can easily be done.

If you haven't already, you might want to check on the U.S. Locostbuilders site. The MX5 is a very popular build there, and there's bound to be a lot of information. There's also Keith Tanner's book which is based on a complete MX5-based build. I've read the book, and it's the best I've read on Locost builds (not just for Miata based builds, either!)