road race miata

im 6ft even, and all legs. im proportioned like you artos. i can flat foot every dirtbike made lol. i have to have the seat all the way back, and all the way reclined and sink down and settle into the seat just to be comfortable. if i was an inch taller, it wouldnt work.

i have totally forgot to update this thread. im juts going to run through what i can recall

blew the 5th/rev synchro, tranny would get stuck in 5th. cragslist box for $100, 3rd gear grinds something fierce. i have never been a believer in magic fluids, but GM syncromesh fixed it.
never got the wilwoods, but swapped to the larger 2nd gen, nb miata brakes on the front. we are running the cheap powerstop z16 pads with amazing success.

vmaxx suspension. 504lb front springs and 336 lb rear. stock is something like 120/85. and some fat(er) sway bars



bought a used td04 from an 04-05 wrx for $50 and rebuilt it for another $50






made a divorced down pipe flange with vands that i turned myself.






















i ported the turbo and wastegate

before


after

\



made a solid steel shift knob





some more recent video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2mviO1CgD3Q

threw a cheezy walker sound-fx muffler on it so i could hear the dam thing


tossed the rigged a/c. that is not a miata compressor, and that bracket is custom


$20 5 point thats 2 years out of cert, and its a Y, but hey whatever


i painted it, but now need to strip it to weld on a bung to relocate the wg actuator


made a pedal extender for heel toe work




more video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ezeu9-_PL-Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ssAFot-ecx0

torsen diff


cleaned


a friend of mine made this coolant reroute spacer for me


a very good run
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oMzrOIvY7IU

the start of a turbo manifold made from pipe fittings






ultrashield spec miata seat

after 2 attempts i successfully installed the seat. i machined some blocks to adapt the sliders to the seat. on the first attempt, i set the back angle to 20 degrees, and put the seat right in the middle of the sliders. turns out the sliders are about 1.5" to the drivers side, and i needed more angle. with the seat mounted like that you were noticeably to close to the door and the shifter felt far away.

attempt 1




 i was only able to get about 2 more degrees out of it by reducing the height of the rear blocks. id like more lean back, but i dont want to raise the front, so ill see how this feels once i get it on the track. had to switch to steel on the rear because of reduced thread engagement, and was able to offset them and use the same mounting holes in the seat. i had to redrill the fronts, but was able to reuse the blocks and took 2 degrees off the top to match.














i decided to remove the carpet, at least on the drivers side for now.

after scraping all the spooge and insulation off and some wire brush action


and after degreasing


scuffed it with 120, and masked off the footwell


textured trunk paint


made a sub belt bracket that uses the existing hardware from the frog frame rails to mount it.

i broke a unibit making it


i machined a pieced of round stock down to 5/8 and drilled a hole to add lightness, some 1/8" plate-


blue because it was first can of paint i saw laying around in the garage




tied off to the diagonal for now, harnes br will be next

whoa, did you want to add 50 lbs in bracket adapters!?

whoa, did you want to add 50 lbs in bracket adapters!?

id call it about 4lbs, which includes the sub belt bracket. the whole setup is still much lighter than stock. i was going to take it all back apart and drill a hole in the fronts and trim the rears but got lazy.

haha im sure its way lighter than stock but with all the attention to detail you put in on getting the geometry right, you should go through and whittle away some more material.
im very jealous of how flat your tub floor is.
my mazda has had years of POs jacking up on the floorboards....

haha im sure its way lighter than stock but with all the attention to detail you put in on getting the geometry right, you should go through and whittle away some more material.
im very jealous of how flat your tub floor is.
my mazda has had years of POs jacking up on the floorboards....

i was fortunate, especially being a 90 (fist year) that there was one small dent in the frame rail, the floors are untouched. i didnt even have to hammer much to get the frame rails on. im pretty certain your rx has a similar unibody design?

yea my rails are almost all the way crushed up to the mangled floors . its not pretty

i assembled a megasquirt




mods




stock ecu next to mega squirt. i robbed the yellow connector to make a boomslang.





like dis


removed IAC, air valve, airbox, purge can and solenoid, afm, and adapted a variable tps from a taurus iirc onto the throttle body using the old housing and connectors, looks stock. 1.6 miata use a switch, not a TPS. block off plates, real filter, etc



















lots of stuff gone




items removed






had to bend prop rod


im learning the megasquirt n/a for now. until i get all the turbo parts together, speaking of...

turbo mock up







turbo log manifold via weld els and tees




weld fixture






before milling


after 0.011" on the mill


had to reclock turbo and actuator so he chra is where it needs to be. had to add a bolt boss to the compressor housing for the WG actuator





master cylinder brace i made yesterday. these cars need it.

harness bar
i started with this piece of cold rolled and made a template.






i bent it on an iron worker and this happens




no V-braking 1/4" cold rolled i guess. switched to hot rolled.








back brace
i milled the ends of a peice of 5/16x1.5" plate to half rounds with a 1.5" end mill.


i installed holes into a plate











left over 1.5"x0.120" DOM from the harness bar and 1.25"x0.137" from a previous project




seat plate thingy


all mounted up, it really solidifies the seat




the seat sliders adjust in 10mm increments. im going to turn a 7/16" pin on the lathe and obviously couldnt drill holes every 10mm. so i drilled them 30mm apart on the inner bar, and 3, 40mm apart on the outer bar. i can now use every increment on the sliders because math.




i just need to finish weld and paint everything


i added a usb charger, volt meter, panel mount usb for the megasquirt, and some various switches to the gauge panel.



and i put some labels on crooked.

Totally dropped the ball on this one. Lots of updates. (ill get back on the truck soon I promise)

Replaced the fender my neighbor backed into, straightened out the unibody rail and made cowl braces.
















Got some sweet wheels. 15x9 and only 12lbs. they were on closeout at $110 a piece. These made a substantial difference in feel and lap times. They were good for about a second on a 1:15 course





Had to roll the fenders, and do a slight pull on the quarters. You can buy these new on ebay now for $70.


They come with awesome instructions.


I figured it out though lol.



Car is filthy


I then invented this thing

Its a spherical bearing for the rear suspension where there is major bind at one particular location in the upper arm.






Made some offset delrin bushing for all of the camber.


Installed a mega capacity rad, good for 3-400hp. The stock one easily gets overloaded at about 140hp.



Blew up wheel bearing number 4 and 5. (common issue on track miatae)


At this point I started collecting the rest of the turbo parts. I had to make these water fittings as they don't exist in the weird thread used on the Subaru TD04s. I rebuilt the turbo too.


I ordered a bunch of aluminum pipe for the front mount intercooler, and decided to make my own vise mounted bead roller.

die


"kit"




the female die had a sharp edge, so it left a ridge on the pipe. it has been fixed, but i dont have a good pic of the bead i rolled after the die was rounded off.

 heres the first one i rolled


I then picked up some hexagonal mesh to make a radiator screen out of and promptly opened myself up with it.





got revenge



I smoke autoparts store brake pads in about 1000miles on this car. I drove home after a track day and found this.



I thought this was ironic

So I think it was at this point that I had all the parts to turbo. I decided to rebuild the head as the steam seals were leaking pretty bad, and I wanted to make sure the valves and seat were good.

This was the start of a very slippery slope.

I de-carboned the pistons while the head was off. It turns out that the carbon above the top ring, was my top ring. That is to say my rings were toast, and de-carbnoning exposed them. So once I got everything back together and the turbo on, the car smoked horribly and was filling the exhaust with oil. Well come back to that later. First, the turbo and stuff I did while turboing:

Head off, carbon, etc. 155k on this motor.





I lost a lot of pics, but I made custom motor mounts that don't suck, I disassembled and cleaned all the HLAs, I redid a lot of the water piping for the coolant system to clearance the turbo and replace corroded piping. Also did whats called a coolant reroute, which correct coolant flow on a Miata engine as the factory fuked it up. Painted some shit.

One of the replacement water necks I made. Mine on the left, mazda n the right.



so now its here.


Mounted intercooler.



cold side, and BOV flange



etc, etc






block oil and water feed fittings. I had to make a banjo-barb because I couldn't find what I needed.



Drilling hole for oil drain, sketchy



After I got the car running again, this AN fitting would never seal and it got swapped for a barb. Avoid cheap ANs!!!!!!







Started fabbing the down pipe.



Vbands everywhere! finished DP with separated WG. 2.5" stepping up to 3" at the merge. Should be good for 400+hp



Then realized the divorced pipe needs a slip joint to install, unless you pull the turbo, which is stupid. So I made one.







Upgraded the clutch to handle 370 lb ft. Made a clock out of the old one, which now hangs above my lathe.




Got the midpipe done.



3" is hard to run past the diff in a Miata. It just barley clears everything nicely with a little room to move under operation, and doesn't hang below the car. Came out well.





Heat sleeve for the heater core lines, since they get so close to the turbo and DP. This stuff works.



This didn't last long due to the aforementioned oil and smoke issue. Now its all black lol. But hey it looked great for a day.



Wrapped the DP.



Doing an exhaust in the driveway suks.




details of things





Waste gate can hit hood. Oops. Have hammer, will clearance.




Turbo is all done and I start tuning the car when I realize I have an issue (the aforementioned rings). These plugs have like 5 miles on them.



I cleaned everything too well.



Oil in the exhaust port. Keep in mind the head was hot tanked and that was clean bare aluminum 5 miles earlier.



Compression test came back great, leak down... not so great. The entire thing came back apart. I was pissed and let the car sit for 2 months.

I made this meme




The weak point in the Miata engine is the rods. So when you turbo a Miata you have a choice to make. Either turbo it as is and don't go past 225-250hp because the rods snap, or replace the rods with forged ones and turbo past 250hp. I had originally decided back in 12' that I just wanted a fun cheap little car and that I wasn't going to build the engine, so I chose the turbo accordingly. This little TD04 should top out at around 250hp.

So now im faced with an engine rebuild regardless, and its asinine to pull it apart and replace the bearings and rings and not do rods while you are in there. They are only $232 with ARP hardware.

The slippery slope approaches.

So now I have rods and a motor that can handle some serious power. Ah fuk, what did I just do....

I get the motor back in and everything rebuilt, and now the motor has massive blow by. It pops the dipstick out. But holy fuk is 16psi fun. Long story short, I honed the cylinders wrong for the rings I used and it took about 600 miles for the rings to seat. Im so glad they finally seated. If I had to pull that motor and rebuild again, I was just going to kill it with fire.

While waiting for the rings to break in, I bought another motor lol. Its a 99, 1.8, which is 0.2L more and has a substantially better flowing head. They are known to spool up 1000rpm sooner than the 1.6 with the same setup.



On turbo miatae, there is no known steel threade fastener that will survive the turbo head atv the mani fo turbine flange. Aftermarket makes Inconel studs for this reason, I made my own. well... a friend did. You have to have some serious equipment to machine Inconel.





A quick side note at this point:
My stock bushings were getting bad, so I decided to make a full set of delrin for my car. Other people wanted and long story short, ive started a business around it.

sadfab.com

failing bushing










Replaced the ball joints.



I then figured out how to make the car emissions excempt and I got "declared value" insurance for it. So if it gets totaled, instead of getting $1k book value, I get the agreed $10k.... and a 5 year tag. Awesome.

Made a catch can that deals with boost, since the stock PVC wont.



stickers





I found a new old stock setrab core for stupid cheap on ebay, so I bought 2. And as far as miatae go, its huge and I should never need to upgrade.



RE: slippery slope- another weak spot in the miatas is the transmission. The stock 5 speed can only handle about 200whp on track before they start shredding teeth. The later 6 speeds that came in the 99+ Miata, is known to handle 300+.

So I found a good deal on a 6 speed.



I cleaned it and installed it. I hate the ratios with my rear end, Im told ill get used to it.



Also, the stock ignition coils start to blow out over 10-12psi. So I upgraded to GM LS2 coils which are known to handle any boost level.

My friend made a bracket to put them on Miata valve cover.



friends engine as example



upped the boost a little on day and started popping hoses off lol.



made a weighted shift knob



Made big brake brackets to run mini cooper rotors and willwood dynapros. Theyre still sitting on the shelf.



Initial spool report, I think I can get a few hundred more RPM with tuning.



More later

nice updates! I like what you're doing but your welds are distracting.
Get a better welder!

Its much more likely to be the operator than the machine. But yea TIG would have been nice to have on those.