Jewfro's NA Miata

[JewFro]

Its been a while since I've been on here. Between work keeping me on the road all the time and moving to a new place things have been hectic. Time for a brief update though!

Moved out of my shit hole starter apartment into a nice condo with a garage. Plenty of room for projects and toys

Finally had a chance to pick up the Miata from NY while visiting my family two weeks ago and the CEL promptly came on. Mazda gone VW? Ended up being the upstream O2 sensor so no big deal but after 16 years of heat cycling it was a PITA to get out.

Once jack handle and crows foot later it was out

My dad maintained it very well and has kept extremely detailed records but despite that the entire cooling system is original as is the timing belt and tensioner. Its definitely time for a refresh before any track usage.

There is quite the pile of parts in the garage but its pretty much all maintenance. Belts, hoses, gaskets, t-belt, water pump, radiator etc.. Since the car will be seeing track use and likely a turbo build this winter I went with a dual core Mishimoto, slim fans, and shroud.

The Gti is feeling neglected

Finally had a chance to organize my garage on Memorial day too. Got the shelving unit, put up the bike racks, and organized everything. Next up is paint and sealing the floor.

Also picked up this little guy a few weeks ago dirt cheap and got it running over the weekend after around 30 years of sitting. 1965 CB160

 

[JewFro]

*Mods* If you don't think this belongs on the forum let me know but it seems like no one has cared so far.

Its been a few minutes since I've been active here but work has kept my out of the country and swamped with work.

During that time I've been confusing my roommate with the absurd number of car parts showing up at the house :lol: He is conditioned now and just adds them to the pile if I'm out of town.

So the GTI still gets love in terms of regular cleaning but its been demoted to DD status for the rest of the season.

Today was "maintenance mania" for the Miata and things were going oh so smoothly but then the whole day turned to crap.

The short list of maintenance was:

T-belt
Water pump
Accessory belts
T-stat
Cam and Front Crank gaksets
Valve cover gasket and all sorts of other gaskets
PCV valve
Idler pulley
T-belt tensioner
9 coolant hoes (yes...9)
New intake camshaft. Basically another exhaust camshaft with the cam sensor tang cut off and another cam sprocket degreed to work properly. Good for 12+whp
14* of timing
CAS o-ring
Heater core o-rings

So in the midst of swapping the cam one of the cam bearing cap bolts snapped while reassembling. No reason to panic right? Got out the cobalt drill bit set, drilled out the bolt, and used an ez-out which promptly snapped off....Shit.... These things are made in Mordor, cast in volcanic heat, and then cursed with a magic spell that means no cobalt or carbide bit does much to drill through the damned thing. After 4 ruined bits I gave up and spoke with my neighbor who is a machinist. He gave it a shot and couldn't fix it with a hand drill so tomorrow night my roommate and I are pulling the head and my neighbor is taking it to work with him to fix the busted bolt, shave the head, and port/polish the ports (Krimes machine shop for those of you in PA). It should work nicely with the new cam

At that point I said "F-it, might as well bump up the build plans" and am going for the gusto this season.

Parts that are either already here or ordered are:

DDM Works intake
Racing Beat resonated mid-pipe
Racing Beat axle-back
Enthuza ceramic cat
Raceland header
Flyin Miata Sway bars
Spherical sway end links
Flyin Miata exclusive Vmaxx XXtremes with track spring rates
Hard Dog Hard Core double diagonal roll bar with harness bar
949 Racing 15x9 6UL wheels
225/45/15 Hankook RS3's

How it sits as of a few hours ago. Just a few more things and the head is ready to come off. Poorly depicted thanks to my phone

A little tight with all the bikes

One from the other day

 

[Papele]

Loving the Miata. Sick potential for a track car. Cant wait to see it unfold.

 

[JewFro]

Head is off Dropping the head off at the machinists Thursday, off to Mexico for a week, and then hopefully upon my return the head is done and most of my parts are here for reassembly.

The coilovers might take a while. They're Fortune Auto 500's and they build each Miata set to order.

Everything looks good as you'd expect with only 51k miles. Just typical buildup after 16 years. I can't imagine what the buildup would look like on our cars after that much time.

 

[project92raddoslc]

Build just got a little more wild. I like that you're taking the opportunity to make it into something positive.

 

[JewFro]

Build just got a little more wild. I like that you're taking the opportunity to make it into something positive.

Gracias

The only problem with Miatas is there are so many of them out there that someone has done exactly the same thing before many times. The only thing "outside the box" is my coilovers because the budget of most people on clubroadster.net is about $.02.

Shikah at FatCatMotorsports has an interactive suspension calculator that lets you input any data imaginable to calculate the theoretical handling balance of your car before buying suspension. After a few days researching and playing around with the a spread sheet I've settled on spring rates and sway bars.

I'm only home for one or two weekends at a time so it'll be a mad dash to install parts when I'm home. All the other times work has me on the road which makes building a car a bit difficult Miata parts seem to be notoriously backordered so who knows when it'll actually be 100% done. The roll bar is on group buy, the wheels are on pre-order until late July, and the Hankooks are on backorder until late July too.

I'm kicking myself for not dynoing it stock but it should've been around 110whp on a Dynojet. After all the work it should be around 145-150whp and ITB's bring it up another 10-12. With extremely hot cams and a high compression bottom end 190-200whp is possible with natural aspiration. As it is the idle will be fairly lopey.

 

[project92raddoslc]

It will feel better than christmas coming home to a room full of parts. That was my favorite part about building my corrado--I made pretty good friends with the UPS and FEDEX man ha. 190-200 in that car would feel pretty awesome. For the price of serious cams and built bottom end, could you do an intercooled turbo kit? Or is that out of the budget/direction that you want to head?

 

[JewFro]

A full DIY turbo kit with all the trimmings (clutch and PNP Mega Squirt) would run around 2500 and a built bottom end with ITB's would run a lot more than that. The cam I'm running is just another exhaust cam modified to work in place of the intake cam and is good for 10-12whp along with that lopey idle we all love. Its boost friendly too and the built head will only help things down the road since boost is in the long term plans.

You can run 250whp for years on a stock bottom end thanks to factory oil squirters. Heck, there is even a oil feed port on the side of the block, you just need an AN fitting.

 

[JewFro]

Most of the big parts are back ordered through mid/late August

Now that the entire car is apart its going to stay that way until parts start flowing in.

Coilovers are apparently being built and should ship next week
Racing beat cat-back was on back order and should ship in a week or so
Intake is on back order to god knows when
Header is on back order until 3rd week of August
Sway bar is on back order
Roll bar shipped this week
GV front lip is here

There are other miscellaneous bits that will get done in the next month or so too and then wheels before H2O. Chances are I'll bring the Miata to H2O (omg the horror!) instead of the GTI.

So as parts show up and between work travel it'll slowly get put back together. The cylinder head is done from the machine shop and will get put back on this weekend.

 

[project92raddoslc]

There are other miscellaneous bits that will get done in the next month or so too and then wheels before H2O. Chances are I'll bring the Miata to H2O (omg the horror!) instead of the GTI.

Gotta check it out down there. Take the miata, you'll get more looks for sure, even at a "vw only" show.

 

[JewFro]

Gotta check it out down there. Take the miata, you'll get more looks for sure, even at a "vw only" show.

Definitely man, we'll all have to get together for sure.


Back from Mexico today and got right to work. Swapped the intake cam, put the head on, and changed out most of the coolant hoses hidden down by the block. Come to find out two of the lifters are stuck in their bores which is a common Miata problem. Who knows how long they've been like that but they aren't noisy so they won't get changed anytime soon.

Shitty low light cell phone pics continue. Didn't pause much to take pictures since this is the boring stuff anyways.

Garage Vary replica lip

 

[JewFro]

It fuggin runs again! Shit a brick at first because it wouldn't fire, not even a hint. Ended up having the feed/return lines reversed and then it fired right up.

The new idle is...interesting. Its hard to hear the lope with the stock exhaust but it vibrates the entire car :laugh:

The radiator is WAY too big, it has to go. Someone with a turbo or strict track car will want it but the fan shroud already hits the stock sway bar and will take quite a bit of trimming for the much larger Racing Beat bar. Might go for a new stock rad or find a 35mm Koyo instead of this 55mm one.

200 Cell ceramic cat for what its worth

All the Racing Beat parts shipped yesterday and will be here next Tuesday and now that my main focus isn't getting it running I'll spend a lot of time cleaning things up.

 

[project92raddoslc]

sick intake

 

[JewFro]

sick intake

Haha that picture was from last night before the fuel system and air box were in

The picture I took tonight came out super blurry, mostly wanted to show the radiator. Its not much to look at right now, just wanted to fire it up and get it timed and check for leaks. The t-stat housing leaks so that'll need a bit of silicone otherwise it runs well.

 

[dsm1983]

build belongs elsewhere. like in the General Car News and Discussions forum.