How to install an electric aerial into a NA6 MX5

This is what the manual aerial should look like before anything is touched. Note the bracket holding the aerial in place at the bottom.

This picture is looking up at the second skin just underneath the outside skin on the top of the boot. It will need to be enlarged to fit the electric aerial in.

You will need to cut around the bottom of the bracket and take the whole thing off. How you do this is up to you but I bodged mine up a little as can be seen in the pic below. It should look something like this.

Next you will have to enlarge the inner hole in the top for the aerial to go through. The outside hole is fine but the inner hole has to be enlarged to accomodate the electric motor and the antenna plug. Again use whatever you feel comfortable with and once again I managed to bodge mine up but it does the job. It should look something like this.

Drill a hole in the bottom of the bracket that you just cut off so that you can screw the bottom of the aerial in there to support it then whack it in and see how it fits.

If all is good fitment wise then it is time to move onto the wiring section. NA8 aerials are needlessly complicated in my opinion and it took me a while to suss out the wiring but it is relatively simple once you know what hooks up to what. Here goes.... Looking at the plug coming off the aerial you will see a connector with 4 wires going in to it. Green/White, Blue/White, Blue/Red, and Black/Yellow.

The Green/White wire connects up to the radio signal wire. Looking behind your stereo you should see a blue wire coming out of it labled radio/amplifier trigger wire. Sometimes these are seperate, sometimes they are the one wire. Hook it up to this. If you have a factory system still installed then I don't believe they have this wire in which case you can hook it up to your cigarette lighter power wire to trigger the aerial.

The Blue/White wire connects up to the cigar fuse which is basically 12v power when the key is in the acc position. This is reasonably easy to find behind the stereo or the cigarette lighter.

The Blue/Red wire connects up to permanent 12v power. So in other words straight to the battery. Easy this one but it is recommended to use a fuse inline with this connection.

The Black/Yellow wire connects up to the meter fuse which is basically 12v power when the key is in the on position. This one is a little tricky and I got the feed for this straight from after the fuse box. Use the wire coming from the meter fuse. This involves alot of sticking your head under the dashboard with a torch in your mouth so have fun. I think it was a Yellow/Black wire or a Black/Yellow wire but please please double check this as it was a while ago and I can't remember.

That should complete your wiring. The aerial is grounded through the body of the aerial and the screw you have holding it in the bottom so please make sure this is forming a good ground. Run all your wires neatly into the back of the boot, hook it all up, and Bob's your Uncle. No more looking like a radio controlled car. The aerial is factory so it doesn't look out of place, is retracted out of harms way when not in use, and isn't too long when it is in use. Beautiful!!!

Page 1 - General pics and info
Page 2 - Work done so far
Page 3 - How to install an electric aerial into a NA6 MX5