I'm localish to you and will happily help you fit another engine to your MX5.

As for what to replace it with, I'd go for a VX220 - you would be suprised how much you can stuff in there for a week away, the build quality is better than the Elise, and they can be easily tweaked to produce big power
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Mk2a RioCar 120Gb - now sold to the owner of my old car
Rio Karma - now on ebay...