oregonmon

Thanks Josh. Hope this is not overload of primping and polishing as it's not nearly as AWESOME as the work Josh has put in. Hope you will be happy with it Mike.
Here's the gist of today.
Started with a wash and clay bar. Here's the contaminants off the trunk.


Plenty of swirl marks and haze.


Went back and forth between Chemical Guys and Griots Garage to find the best cutting polish.


Josh and I weren't sure if the mirrors were actually body color or flat black.

After.


Tried to get rid of some of the scratches in the sweet kick plates and door jams.


The metallic flake starts to show through a bit more.


Threw some paint on the faded wiper arms. Side Note Mike, I clay'd and polished the windshield but it's really pitted and marred. A replacement may save your eyes with incoming sunlight through that thing.


Took it down the street to a shady spot in a park for a couple photos.






Josh's REAL MAN work.
Wilwood BBK.


Engine compartment. Makes glorious sounds!




Intercooler.


FM Exhaust, subtle and throaty.




Would have loved to taken some photos with the Blackbird rollbar installed. I guess that's going in on Thursday, Josh?

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

That is amazing what you can do with that. I will be sending you pictures, and maybe my car very soon.

This car has made a complete U-turn in a better of weeks.

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

Looks awesome Ryan. Props, great work.

curly

iTrader: (25)

Amazing work as always Ryan, thank you again!

Roll bar Thursday, yup. List is dwindling, but I still have a little less than a dozen things to do, some small like align the FM exhaust, small bigger like wheel studs and roll bar. The owner should be reunited with this black beauty Friday, so time to get cracking!

Mobius

iTrader: (2)

Great job Ryan and Josh!

Jeffbucc

That was a serious reversal guys. Bringing a piece of **** back from the dead is one of my favorite things.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Fantastic job, everyone.
What a glorious recovery.

Josh, have you begun to tune the diy ebc? I'm about to start plumbing/wiring in mine tomorrow and will likely have questions.

Car looks amazing, and the before/after pics of the paint are just crazy. Good job oregonmon.

oregonmon

Thanks guys.
Josh got the ARP extended wheel lugs installed and brake lines bled today.

mikev

Oregonmon, I am truly humbled by your near magical power to bring back the beauty that is a Black MSM.

I've tried to do this kind of work on my own cars and in every case the car looked better, but was not even close to the full makeover you've done here.

I once talked to Keith Tanner about a black MSM that was for sale on the FM site. He said that he wasn't familiar with that particular car, but in his opinion a black MSM was the best looking Miata Mazda ever made. I agree, especially after seeing what you've done for me and this car.

Thank you! --mike v

Truly incredible work. I thank you

Chiburbian

iTrader: (1)

I will be doing the same project soon. What did you settle on? I see foam pads as opposed to microfiber. What exact pad/polish combination did you use, if you don't mind?

I bought a DA polisher last year and started building a collection but I have yet to actually touch the polisher to my car. I am both scared and excited to see how it turns out. (I don't want to **** it up)

Girz0r

iTrader: (1)

I've worked as a porter before at a dealership and THAT is quality work!

Digging the photos... makes me want to repaint my ti gray msm to the stock msm black just for this reason!

oregonmon

Thanks everyone for the kind words. Give me another day or so to respond to the products used on the car.
Mike, hopefully I didn't edit the photos too much. I have to say though, your signature couldn't be more true about having only 1 Miata.

Josh, if you don't mind me updating with a couple photos....
He brought the rollbar over to do the install since his garage was full, I'm still not sure how he gets so much done in a small 1 car garage. But he's got some space at my place, Josh is so fast compared to my slow ***, he yells at me and I do my best to keep up. I'm like the old guy sweeping up dirt in the corner.
The bar's color really pops good choice Josh, it's quite beefy as well.









Mike, since half the interior was out, including seats, we also spent a little time cleaning up the interior surfaces. It's so easy to do when everything is pulled out.



After having the car around for a couple days I was hooked, it looked great next to my white NA. It's really a great car, congrats!





I'll be standing by to hear what sort of dyno numbers you get tomorrow.

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

That last photo is totally beautiful. Fantastic work.

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

Damn it. Every time I see a bf gt3 rollbar it makes me regret getting the hard dog.

curly

iTrader: (25)

Don't forget how long Hard Dog has been serving the Miata community, they make a great product and fully support it. They're outdated website is only a reminder that they've been making their bars since before the internet was invented.

The Blackbird Fabworx bar is pretty and incredibly functional, but did not go in without it's complications. There were small issues, like one of the holes directly lining up with where the ABS sensor wiring comes through the chassis and plugs into the harness, on both sides. Saved me drilling a hole, but I did need to drill a new hole for the wiring when I was all done. Also, despite it being even to a number of chassis points on both sides, the passenger side rear backing plate would not line up, and I had to cut 1/4" off the edge of the beautifully powder coated edge so it would sit up against the outside of the frame rail. I could have dremeled out the holes, but cutting one straight line seemed like the easier fix.

These are all install issues, nothing to do with how much Mike is going to love it, there were just some dark works spoken during install. As new as Blackbird Fabworx is, I'm sure Moti is constantly improving his product, as he should. I'll share my experience and he'll hopefully learn something from it, that's how it generally works.

codrus

Yeah, rollbar installs are like that, even the Bethania products occasionally have weirdo things like that. The major problem is that Miatas aren't all the same, not when you get down to the quarter inch.

--Ian

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

I have no real issues with my roll bar, and its totally functional. But the built in harness bar, guessets, and everything just make that bar appeal more to me.

Bethania is awesome and so are their roll bars. But in my eyes BF is more awesomer.

Blackbird

Thanks for sending a link to the thread, that car looks beautiful!
I agree with Keith, Black MSMs are some of the nicest Miatas ever made.

Not to be a dick or anything, but did you guys work with the installation manual?
I'm asking because at least in the case of the ABS wiring, it is spelled out in the instructions (step #21) that the ABS wiring needs to be relocated, along with suggestion on where to locate it to, etc..
As they say in the software world - this isn't a bug, it's a feature. And though it's normally referred to as a joke in the software world, in this case it is indeed the reality.

This location was not an oversight on our part when designing the bar either, it's the opposite.
This is as close as you can get to the rear shock towers while still allowing the NB soft top to fold down and for the rear window to lay flat, all while stiffening the chassis where the loads of the suspension are being fed to it.

As for the backing plate alignment issue, after _many_ installations I can think of a number of reasons as to the why and how.
TBH, it's a bit of a bummer to read about it on a forum after the fact because a quick phone call could have saved the time spent and dark words from being spoken
I can only speak for myself, but I bet any vendor that respects themselves would much rather spend a minute on the phone with you on resolving an issue than reading about it on the interwebz after everything is said and done and there's nothing I can do about it at this point.
Not that I am not sorry that you ran into an issue with your installation, just saying that it would have been more productive to give me a chance to help you with it

At any rate, while this is not the solution I would've suggested, it sounds like the issue was resolved.

I'm always looking to improve the products and the roll bars have certainly seen a number of revisions and improvements over the few years that we've been producing them.
Your input is certainly appreciated and it sounds like we need to check the production jig for alignment. It's unlikely, but we have welded hundreds of bars in the jig I'd definitely want to make sure that there's no warping after all that time.
Another poster did mention this as an option, but I can assure you that there are differences between one chassis to the next.
Some of it is production tolerances, some of it is simply aging and fatigue - we see that a lot with the earlier NAs.

Last note - this is probably the first time that someone told me that the bar is packed too well
I'll take it.

Again, thanks for the input, enjoy the bar, car looks great!

Moti

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

Instructions? We may own miatas but we're not women.

curly

iTrader: (25)

**** giant response deleted. **** **** ****.

We did not use instructions, no. I figured I had installed a few HDs, how different could it be, sorry I missed the ABS note. Your reasoning makes sense, so thanks for the explanation!

But I like cursing!

I'll make the call to you next time with any concerns, I was under a serious time crunch and didn't want even a few minute delay.

Yup I saw an easy solution and executed it, again, sorry for not calling.


As for dyno results, final numbers were 211hp and 226ft/lbs, dyno graph will come later. Peak boost was 15 briefly before tapering to 13.5 for a bit, then tapering to 12.5 by 7k. I could have tried a little harder to keep boost up with EBC, but there were serious losses in torque above 4500, needs 3" exhaust

Low boost numbers, which is just running off the wastegate, was 175hp and 170ish ft/lbs. Both power and torque curves follow Laz's graph pretty consistently, Laz is about 10-20ft/lbs higher until 4000, and has about 10hp over this car above 6000rpm. Laz also has no cat and a VICS manifold, so differences are to be expected. Plus I'm always going to tune more aggressively with Laz vs. a car like this. Maybe next time I'll really give it the beans