lesac

First- Thanks to the members of Miata Turbo for most of my parts for this build and THANKS for all of the information!

Im gonna start off just by posing a bunch of pictures of the car from when I got it a couple years back, to curent. then Ill get into the curent stage.

Original craigslist photos






Bought car for $2800




cCleaned car


Got stuck in this snow


Added honda S2000 start button


Replaced badly worn steering wheel. Added snow plow.


Made a mini me


Replaced all missing interior plastic and carpet, also got a new top and top boot.




New stereo, amp, and speakers


$100 craigslist score




Made $3 door pulls


Installed Zoom fuel lid


Ordered a set of 15x8 Enkei J-Speed wheels, proceeded to monsterjam.




Added sub and amp


New suspension to fix monsterjam issue


Sold WRX DD


Purchased Evo as DD


Everyone loves big red tow hooks


Replaced valve cover gasket, painted valve cover, and added STi wing


Vinyl wrapped the hard top






Sold evo, bought cheap galant VR-4 DD and a house with a big garage!




Started acquiring parts for my turbo build


Sold galant, bought Honda pilot as new DD


Sold Pilot because I have no need for a big family vehicle at 24. In return decided if I was going to make payments, it better be on something I love. Purchased STi DD.






Steering wheel spacer, i was amazed what a difference this made


Very poorly fitting headlight doors.


My shelf of parts. MS2, Wideband, SR20 t25, RX7 injectors, ignore the intercooler, Hallman MBC, more stuff im forgetting.


Recently I have ordered flanges and weld els for my manifold which will be here this week then its off to the welder to have my manifold and exhaust made.

Right now im trying to decide what style intercooler to run, im torn between over the rad, or running the tubing through the fender.

One more picture for now

After seeing this last picture, I forgot I added group buy side skirts and a GV style Togue run front lip somewhere in that timeline.

Much more to come!

Mazduh

Wow looks promising so far! Can't wait to see what you do with it!

AlexL

Good documentation, well done. LOL at all the DD changes, and coming back to a Subaru.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Was going good til you did the stupid rising sun crap on the hardtop like a typical clubricer member.

I hope that's temporary.

Otherwise nice progress

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

Your DD progression makes me go


But ended up in a good place. Just very curious. Why did you ever buy that pilot? hahaha...

I don't love the vinyl rising sun roof, but it looks kinda cool and whatev, it's your car. Your still have normal camber on your wheels, you're building a turbo, and the STI wing was a joke. All is well.

lesac

Thanks for the input.

First off the hard top was done because I couldn't stand the flat red top on the blue car and I wanted to be cheap. Ideally I'd like to have it painted to match the rest of the car, but I'd also like to hav the whole thing repainted. It's totally reversible as it sits. Another option I've been thinking about is wrapping the top in 3m 1080 carbon vinyl. The hard top is only on the car 10% of the time anyway.

The dd progression is a strange bit yes. I owned the green forester in there somewhere too... Between the wrx and the evo. But the reason I got the pilot is I wanted a truck and the space to haul stuff, but I wanted something nice inside that did better on gas. It was also much cheaper than any truck I was looking at.

No offense to club ricer, but I feel like the $7 I spent on shelf contact paper for vinyl and taking my time made my roof turn out better than 99% of the others on that site.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Fair enough.
And yes I think black vinyl would look 100% better.

Scoobs and evo's are great, good choices there

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Bonus points for white GVR-4. That is one of those cars I look at through the rose-tinted shades of nostalgia and think I'd love to own one day.

Then I would buy it and remember why I vowed to never own another DSM again. [Edit: In before "it's not a DSM! it's built in Japan!"]

Nice score on the garage with attached house!

Fireindc

iTrader: (13)

Sweet car, glad to see a turbo build coming together. Same turbo i'll be using on my new motor, should be a torquey sob.

lesac

Mmmmmm Paaaarrts (in homer simpson voice)



My local welder friend came and picked up my flanges and weld els to get started on the manifold today. Also tax return came back and Its too hard to do the right thing, I'm going to use it to pay off a credit card, but man it would be nice to put it towards this build.

Also not pictured but came in yesterday, was my intercooler. I Went with black, not for the stealthy sleeper look, but i just think it would stick out like a sore thumb otherwise.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

As another option on intercooler routing keep an eye on my build thread. In a couple weeks I should have a 50/50 around and over setup plumbed. Best of both worlds, gets rid of the weird loopdeloops you have to do by the turbo for the over the rad setup and the 9000 bends going around the rad and connecting to the throttle body.

lesac

We had some nice weather here yesterday so I decided to go ahead and tackle the intercooler and some other little issues
I finished
-hamering out the body under the fender from a previous cavaliere incident
-delete charcoal canister
-mount intercooler
-run 80% of intercooler piping
-relocate cruise control


I took the plastic tray thing out of the grille and cut into it to have the intercooler sit inside of it. I know a lot of guys mount this a little further back, but since im keeping my AC the dryer is in the way. to get around this I moved the condesate lines up as far as possible and bent the dryer back towards the condenser as far as possible. its a tight fit, but it works well.



here is the crazy thing, It doesnt even look like there is an intercooler there at all!
the top is held in by 2 C shaped brackets I made out of some aluminum. they are just bent over and screwed into the front bumper support.




Since im keeping AC, and its pretty much in the way of everything I had to route the hot side IC piping around and inside the fender. I busted out the dremel and hammer and went to town making an opening. It comes out directly behind the headlight, under the rubber hood bushing. I think this is about the only place to put it that the tire wont rub on the pipe.


Here is a rough mockup of how the piping will sit. the other side just has a 90 off the intercooler that goes strait back, then a 90 strait up in front of the engine to the throttle body.


I need to take more pictures and could get more if it would help anybody in their own builds.

lesac

sorry double post

lesac

Decided to add a few more pictures

pipe roughly to where turbo will sit


aluminum intercooler brakets (they will be covered by bumper and radiator cooling panel)




throttle body intake (not sure i like how this sits so i may try and get a bigger 90 so it goes strait down)


Charcoal Canister and coolant overflow gone, had to take coolant tank out to fix fender fitment from accident. Id like to do a different coolant tank, not sure what yet.


blurry picture of where I relocated the cruise control to.

rhysmate

iTrader: (1)

Very nice inter cooler piping route.. nice tidy thorough and well documented build :-)

I'll be shot for this, but the rising sun cool as **** :P

lesac

Out in the garage yet again today. got a few things done but not as much as Id like. First off my friend making my manifold brought it by so far to mock it up. unfortunately the runners he had made were too long so he pretty much has to start over. good news is that it is going to be a very cool piece when done. sorry no pictures of the manifold yet.
On to pictures!

Im all about reusing parts so I took one of the hoses from the charcoal canister and cut it down the center as a grommet for the intercooler pipe to go through


After about 45 min of swearing, straining, praying, and with the help of a jack, some tow straps, a crow bar and a big effin hammer, I was able to get my OBX header out. Thank god I will never have to do that by myself again.
Bad news is that I scraped my valve cover pretty good. I guess this would be the opportunity to change colors or valve covers. I have a protege one as well and I have not decided which I want to use and what color. Im thinking either Red or Gold.


My boost gauge and pod also came today. I usually dont care for anything mounted on the A pillar but with such limited space in these little cars, I gave in and did it anyway. I havent mounted the pod to the trim yet, but just wired it up to check lighting. I know Autometer has a dimmer module that I may have to add, since this thing is bright! For those of you wondering, it is the Autometer GS series mechanical boost gauge. I like that it has a silver trim ring, and lights up green. Also I may try and find a small visor for this thing so it doesnt reflect off the windshield at night.




Thats it for now, Im yet again waiting on some more parts in the mail before I can start adding more things.

BTMiata

iTrader: (5)

you could always take it one step further with the pod and blend it in with some body filler, sand, and paint it. I do it as a side gig for subaru's and NC miatas, but it's really pretty simple to do. Just a bit time consuming lol

lesac

Ill see how uneven it is when mounted, I think it will be low enough that it wont bother me. on my evo the previous owner had a 3 gauge piller pod that was just so awkward.

yours looks good blended.

BTMiata

iTrader: (5)

Thanks! Anything more than a single looks tacky lol. Single mounted as low as possible looks pretty clean though! I'm liking your build though keep up the good work!

lesac

yay manifold. just have to go get it. will have more better pics later.
Special thanks to Glenn, (the builder of my manifold)