mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

I have no idea when the work itself will actually begin, but I figure why let that stop me from having my own build thread. We just moved so there's plenty of unpacking to be done first (and extra costs), but some of the easier stuff may get done once it warms up a little.

The car in question, as it sits. Completely stock except for: Refurbed stock radio w/ Sony CD and aux-in, Max-5 HR speakers and Infinity Kappa door speakers, Tokico HP springs/shocks (I know, I know), an NB Nardi wheel w/ Mazda 3 airbag, and a Voodoo textured black shift ****. Woot.

Oh yeah, no soft top currently either...original was jacked up so I yanked the whole frame until I can install a new top. Decided on a tan top with the red, we'll see how it looks.

Also, next to the Miata, you can see what I've been driving for the past couple weeks while we move...stupid fun. It is absolutely as badass as it looks.



The Saab in my new carport. I was hoping for an enclosed garage, but the deal on this house made it worth it. Won't be too hard to enclose it down the road, but for now at least I'll have a covered and relatively clean place to work on the car. It beats the apartment parking lot by a long shot.



One half of the storage room off the carport. In this shot, you can see:

Autozone jackstands
Harbor Freight jack I got for Christmas
4 boxes with Team Dynamics Pro Race Ones
4 boxes with OEM MB 190E 2.6 wheels...I can't give these things away
Exedy replacement clutch
R-speed economy soft top
and tucked away next to the bicycles.....a big box with the BEGi setup in it!



And the other half of the storage room. In this shot, you can see:

Kirk Racing roll bar w/ door bars
The Tokico box with the original springs/shocks in it
H&R coilovers
and a very sweet chrome trunk bar that I'll trade for damn near anything.



And somewhere in there are my NB tophats and Boundary Engineering frame rails too.

I'm planning on building a tall, shallow workbench to fit the storage room, so I'll have a work surface in there. Lots of pegboard should make for relatively easy storage. Still need to buy another set of jackstands, a rolling tool cabinet, and a few other odds and ends. Oh, and a lawnmower.

gospeed81

iTrader: (51)

Awesome...congrats on the new house!

What are your goals with the S3...and what are you doing about engine management?

Also, Infinity Kappas rock. I had a set that I sold early this year and regret it. Most sound per watt I ever got with any head unit in the Miata. Completely unscientific...but they sound great, amplified or not.

I wanna know what you think about the door bars. Any chance of installing them before roll bar and frame rails in the name of science?

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Thanks! It's pretty exciting after 6 years of apartment living.

200-220 WHP, eventually. Gonna have Braineack build me a standalone MS, still trying to decide if MS2 is worth the extra cost or not.

Still need a WBO2 and injectors.

Yeah, I'm pretty pleased with the sound given the limitations. Still doesn't get quite as loud as I'd like (mostly for talk radio/podcasts), but it's not bad.

I could install them with the roll bar before the frame rails go on, but not by themselves. These aren't like the HD bars that bolt in at both ends -- the rear mount on these attaches to the bottom of the roll bar. Actually, if you look at the pic with the roll bar, you can see near the bottom of the front leg, it has a 6" stem w/ a smaller diameter that the door bars slide on.

gospeed81

iTrader: (51)

Yeah, home ownership is great. Despite taxes, neighbors, repairs and all that other jazz it's still nice to have a place to call home.




I forget what all the MS2 does, but I remember looking at it and almost wishing I had done it or contemplating an upgrade.

Either way getting Brainy to build it is the way to go. I'd probably build my own next time around...but only because I've got a working one already to copy, test with, or use as a backup.


I love my LC-1. I wired it up properly and it's never given me a single problem.

For your power range I don't know that I'd want to spring for high dollar injectors. My RX7 junkyarders work great, and I'm not close enough to the limit to need perfect matching flow, and not making enough power to need anything bigger than OEM stuff.



I think that would pretty much accomplish what I'm looking to see. My rollbar isn't coming out...and I'd like to know how much the door bars are better than the frame rails. Maybe install roll bar first and acclimate, then try door bars, then frame rails, then both. I have a feeling you would notice the frame rails by themselves, but hardly so in addition to the door bars. I'm basically asking you to help justify a purchase before I beg the wife for more car parts.


Good luck with build...will be watchin'.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Snagged an MS2 daughterboard off m.net for $45 shipped. More shitty pics in the meantime.







Also, the remains of the security lug nut I busted the hell out of trying to remove it.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Parts continue to roll in. Got a braided steel clutch line from Advance Autosports in the mail yesterday, since I'm tired of the half-assed clutch bleeding process with the damned loop-de-loop in the line. And today I pulled the trigger on a set of 195500-2010 RX-7 460cc injectors on eBay for $84 shipped.

GeneSplicer

iTrader: (14)

Dam, I suck... still have to send out you the Flywheel! NICE miata Mark! A lot better than the Saab! Also, congrats on the house. I talked with the guy who built the Kirk bar and he said he doesn't think the side lock-down latches will work on the hard top. My bad, when you came and got it, I didn't even realize that there were lock down latches!? Still learning... time to start my uild thread now! See ya sometime.. you might have to visit for a Barber's weekend, my wife really enjoyed meeting your wife... they can hang out while we tearup the asphalt!

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Thanks for hand-delivering the flywheel and for the 1.8 brakes...I owe you one.

What's wrong with the Saab? It's a fine example of Swedish American German cobbled-together engineering.

Hoping that tomorrow I'll be buying a pickup, which means the work on the Miata can start....

budget racer

iTrader: (1)

i sold my saab about a year and a half ago.....i still have a set of oe wheels. the same vikings that yours is pictured with. they could probably use a refinishing (and couple need straightening). PM me if you are interested in them. i'll give you a hell of a deal since they are taking up precious garage space right now.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Nah, I'll sell this car before I ever have to replace the wheels. And I've still got an old set of OEM Mercedes wheels that I can't give away taking up space.

I will say, however, that these are the best damn wheels when it comes time to wash the car. Never had a set of alloys, OEM or aftermarket, that cleaned off as easily as this design.

budget racer

iTrader: (1)

qft

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Last night I drove to Monroe, LA and bought a 1997 Toyota Tacoma with some jacked up paint and 220k miles. Extended cab, 2wd, 3.4l V6, stick shift, and mechanically it's still pretty tight. 190 hp in a 2wd compact pickup reminded me how frickin' anemic my Miata is. Gas mileage will suffer a little over the 4-cyl Toyota's, but the plus side is that I have enough power to tow a Miata on a dolly (or possibly even a trailer).

Now, if the weather will just ease over 50 degrees for a day or two, I'll be able to start working on the Miata. Gonna start with the soft-top first so it'll be ready for sunny weather, then roll bar.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Accomplished a few things this weekend. I got a head start on the soft top install earlier this week, wife let me use the (old) kitchen table to do the swap. How every good project starts:



And what your back window will look like if you leave it uncovered underneath the hardtop window for 10+ years.



Saturday started with my wife driving me to my workplace so I could retrieve the Tacoma which stranded me Friday evening after work. Damned alarm system went off...I didn't get a clicker when I bought it, didn't even know I could arm the system without the clicker. Somehow it was armed, killed the ignition, then started blaring the horn when I reopened the door. I disconnected the battery and had my wife pick me up. Went back Saturday morning, traced the wire from the red LED back to an alarm brain underneath the driver's side kick panel. Pulled the brain, reconnected the battery, and it started right up.

Went home, finished installing the soft top on the frame. Had a brief moment of "oh ****" when I realized that I had just drilled through a hole to fit my rivets....and it wasn't a riveted piece -- it used screws. Thought a moment, riveted it anyway, and it worked out fine. Some pics just after putting the frame back in (but before reinstalling the carpet and trim). Car is really, really dirty.







Wanted to wash the car, but started losing the light so I just decided to clean out the front fender wells. HOLY SMOKES there was a bunch of crap in there. It was like an archeological dig. Loose top layer of pine needles and leaves, then a middle layer of crushed dry leaves, then a bottom layer of solid, compacted dirt and organic material. Got almost all of it out with the shop vac.

Going to figure out where to strip and paint the roll bar this week, then tackle that next Saturday I hope. In-laws are visiting us for 2 weeks (!), so projects might go on a brief hiatus.

EDIT: Just remembered that I also swapped in my Bosch headlights from the FM group buy on Saturday. Huge difference in light output. Well worth it, if you don't have them yet, do it.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

2 weeks with the in-laws...didn't get much done on the car. I did manage to replace the CAS o-ring last weekend. Holy crap, do people really do that job without removing the valve cover? I tried for 15 minutes to realign the CAS rotor and decided that was a waste of time. I yanked the valve cover, put the CAS back on, cleaned out the inside of the valve cover, and reinstalled it in another 15 minutes (minus the time I took to drive the truck over to O'Reilly's for a tube of RTV sealant since I couldn't find my tube).

Also installed a FIAMM Freeway Blaster low tone, but the damn thing isn't grounding properly and is squawking instead of blowing clearly. Got tired of fiddling with it, I've got to go back and scrape a good clear spot to ground it.

Tonight I decided to start preparing for the H&R coilover installation, so I unboxed the set of used NB tophats I bought and spread everything out. The perches themselves have some rust so I'm going to sand them and respray with some rustproofing primer. Also need to order a set of the shock mount gaskets from Rosenthal, possibly a set of the upper spring seats as well.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Cleaned up the NB tophats today. Thought about just forging ahead with the suspension swap, but I'm waiting on some extra shock mount gaskets from Rosenthal. So instead I just took my time dremeling down the rusty spots on the tophats, then priming and respraying them. Prepped, primered, and then painted. In the last pic you can see all the crap that the wind blew across my driveway today while I was painting...I'll have to figure out a cleaner spot to paint when I do the rollbar.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Got my suspension swap done today! Finally got everything lined up and ready to go, still had to make a couple trips out (one to Lowe's that turned into a combined trip with the wife to get soil, manure, rat traps, a bathroom grout repair kit...*sigh*, then another trip to Advance for a socket I was missing), but got everything done pretty quickly.

First step was the rinse the car off. If you live somewhere with no pin oaks, be thankful. Everything down here is coated in a layer of nasty yellow pollen right now:





I rinsed the car off and was happy to find no leaks around the windows or rain rail after my soft top installation. We'll see what happens in the first hard rain.



Started on the front passenger side, got the Tokico HP setup out and just about to start putting the H&R coilover in. I've never done a suspension swap before, and honestly getting that first shock/spring OUT took about as long as getting the rest of the 3 corners combined. Big thanks to gospeed81 for passing me his super-simple installation process. I had read waaaay too many suspension threads, all the debates about long-bolt vs. San Diego, the excess detail and "tips" from dozens of different people...he boiled it down the absolute basic, essential steps and it made a big difference.





The H&R coilover, ready to go in. I never figured out what the little bracket on the bottom of the front shock body was. The Tokico's didn't have them, didn't see any use for them.



And it's in! gospeed81's instructions followed the long-bolt method, and it couldn't have been easier.



Contrary to most people's experience, I had a harder time with the rear corners than the fronts. For one thing, I could barely push the lower control arms down far enough to remove the old shocks and put the new coilovers in. I'm guessing the rubber suspension bushings were providing the resistance? The upper bolts on the spindles were stupid tight. Had to use my special high-torque ratchet to break them loose.



Finished things up, decided to leave the car on the jackstands...thinking about tackling the Boundary Eng. frame rails tomorrow.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

No pics at the moment, but the final parts are coming together. Brain's got my order for an MS2, I just picked up a used ACT HD clutch from Gospeed81, and I snagged an open 1.8 diff plus axles and driveshaft off the mx5atlanta forum for $275.

The H&R coilovers have made a huge difference in my driving enjoyment. I can't compare them to the high dollar setups (or even to the mid-budget known setups like Illuminas + FM springs, etc), but I can definitely say they are a massive difference over the old Tokico HP combos that were previously on the car. No longer do I feel the need to scan ahead for every minor crack in the pavement so that I don't rattle to death. I'm hoping with the installation of the 6 point rollbar and frame rails, the ride and handling will improve even more.

On that note -- on Saturday, I sanded down the rusty spots and cracked paint, rustproofed/primed, and then repainted the roll bar and door bars. I realized yesterday when I pulled out the hardware that the backing plates were all quite rusty, so I scuffed them down to bare metal and primed them as well. Ran out of sunlight before I could spray the final coat, but I'll do that tonight and hopefully be ready for the install on Saturday. I might start the install one of these evenings if I get bored, but I still have to take the bolts/nuts to the hardware store to get some extras.

TurboRoach

iTrader: (3)

Nice progress.

The tab on the shock is for cars with ABS.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

A little progress with the roll bar. Interior is partially stripped, rear deck is cut (more than needed, but oh well), and roll bar is mocked up. Fingers crossed to get it done this weekend.

Door bars will go in once the roll bar is solidly in place. Am I being stupid for thinking about drilling straight through the carpet and just bolting them in on top? I can't decide if it would look worse to have the base of the door bars exposed, or to have lumpy, possibly poorly trimmed carpet around the base.

gospeed81

iTrader: (51)

I didn't know I was still subscribed to this paint drying competition, let me go fix that...