Pat's fruity two seater beater
03-23-2012, 08:34 PM
#23
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Montana
Posts: 137
Total Cats: 0
Welp it's almost time for race season and that means it's time to prep the car for the action ahead. I spent some time in the garage today working on the coilovers and they're about halfway done now.
The story behind them:
Being a college student, I've always made my decisions with the idea of building a quality, budget race car. Last year I found a set of cheap Tein HA coilovers on the east coast via sccaforums.com. With the little money I had in my paypal, I made it happen. The seller was very honest about their condition and was a great source of info about autocross (fellow miata auto crosser running CSP with the big boys.) After receiving the coilovers, the seller agreed to purchase a new set of seat locks for them since the old ones came in a bare finish and wore out over the years. After going back and forth with a Tein distributor, I wound up being sent the wrong seat locks. Because of this, I wound up just running the racelands last season. After a conversation with a very helpful guy at Tein USA, I was able to track down the right seat locks and have begun the restoration process on the coilovers themselves.
They were in rough shape when they got here, lots of surface rust, not pretty. I actually had to break the old seat locks off.
After some time with the wire wheel, a rust remover, a couple different steel brushes and a lot of patience, success. I was able to clear off the surface rust and the threads are still very much useable after some chasing.
I ground off all the old nasty paint and surface rust and refinished the dampers in a Rustoleum hammered finish to give them some nice durability and combat any further rust. I'm pretty chuffed with how they came out.
Now just the fronts to go and they'll be ready to go on the car!
The story behind them:
Being a college student, I've always made my decisions with the idea of building a quality, budget race car. Last year I found a set of cheap Tein HA coilovers on the east coast via sccaforums.com. With the little money I had in my paypal, I made it happen. The seller was very honest about their condition and was a great source of info about autocross (fellow miata auto crosser running CSP with the big boys.) After receiving the coilovers, the seller agreed to purchase a new set of seat locks for them since the old ones came in a bare finish and wore out over the years. After going back and forth with a Tein distributor, I wound up being sent the wrong seat locks. Because of this, I wound up just running the racelands last season. After a conversation with a very helpful guy at Tein USA, I was able to track down the right seat locks and have begun the restoration process on the coilovers themselves.
They were in rough shape when they got here, lots of surface rust, not pretty. I actually had to break the old seat locks off.
After some time with the wire wheel, a rust remover, a couple different steel brushes and a lot of patience, success. I was able to clear off the surface rust and the threads are still very much useable after some chasing.
I ground off all the old nasty paint and surface rust and refinished the dampers in a Rustoleum hammered finish to give them some nice durability and combat any further rust. I'm pretty chuffed with how they came out.
Now just the fronts to go and they'll be ready to go on the car!
Reply
0
0
03-24-2012, 12:27 AM
#24
You are correct, those are likely the most haggard set of teins in existence. That said, I respect a guy that will spend little carefully and invest labor to improve that small investment. You sound a lot like me when I was your age.
Hell, you sound like me now and I turned 45 yesterday!
BTW, if you say "wow, you are older than my dad!" I'll never post in your thread again.
Hell, you sound like me now and I turned 45 yesterday!
BTW, if you say "wow, you are older than my dad!" I'll never post in your thread again.
Reply
0
0
03-24-2012, 03:52 PM
#26
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Montana
Posts: 137
Total Cats: 0
Thanks guys! Yeah the Teins are a bit rough but I've always wanted a set and it's far more worth it to me to sacrifice my labor and time than money, since I don't have much haha. These are really just a temporary solution until I can afford something more proper like a set of Koni Races with higher rates.
I love my slicks! If it helps, mine fit without any rubbing with just a light roll in the rear, stock fronts. I can't remember what my ride height was but it was fairly low.
I just can't wait to get out and run the car again!
I love my slicks! If it helps, mine fit without any rubbing with just a light roll in the rear, stock fronts. I can't remember what my ride height was but it was fairly low.
I just can't wait to get out and run the car again!
Reply
0
0
04-24-2012, 12:33 PM
#30
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Montana
Posts: 137
Total Cats: 0
Falcon, I drove like a baws 
Jokes. I had a good day behind the wheel I suppose, or everyone else just had a bad one.
Finished cleaning up the Teins and installed them. Wound up having a hell of a weekend! I spent a ton of time setting things up and preparing to autocross for the first event this year only to have an alignment shop snap off one of my rear camber bolts. I dropped the car off with a friend at another tire/alignment shop and he modified a camber bolt from a ford focus to work with my car and I was driving at the test n tune a few hours later! Gotta love having friends in the car world.
Sunday's autocross was great. I wound up running the Hoosiers for fun, which meant I had to be in D Prepared class, essentially throwing out any PAX result. No biggie, I wanted to see if I could compete with a certain A Stock corvette with brand new A6's as well as a turbo Porsche Cayman putting down 390 wheel horsepower and 476 lb-ft of torque. Wound up just edging out one corvette driver (co driven car) by just over a tenth and losing to the other by about three seconds (driver has placed at nationals driving an f mod). I got the Porsche by almost two seconds!
Here's a video of my quickest run of the morning. I ran 4 tenths quicker in the afternoon.
Something to keep in mind with results from my region: An average autocross for us is like 30 cars. This weekend was "huge" with 50 something registered drivers. So me running close to the top happens solely because there isn't much else out there to compete with. I'm fully aware that I'd get eaten alive at any national level competition in a prepared class and most likely also in STS where I normally run the car.
Results can be found on the race results tab on our site: http://www.bigskyregion.org/index.html
Jokes. I had a good day behind the wheel I suppose, or everyone else just had a bad one.Finished cleaning up the Teins and installed them. Wound up having a hell of a weekend! I spent a ton of time setting things up and preparing to autocross for the first event this year only to have an alignment shop snap off one of my rear camber bolts. I dropped the car off with a friend at another tire/alignment shop and he modified a camber bolt from a ford focus to work with my car and I was driving at the test n tune a few hours later! Gotta love having friends in the car world.
Sunday's autocross was great. I wound up running the Hoosiers for fun, which meant I had to be in D Prepared class, essentially throwing out any PAX result. No biggie, I wanted to see if I could compete with a certain A Stock corvette with brand new A6's as well as a turbo Porsche Cayman putting down 390 wheel horsepower and 476 lb-ft of torque. Wound up just edging out one corvette driver (co driven car) by just over a tenth and losing to the other by about three seconds (driver has placed at nationals driving an f mod). I got the Porsche by almost two seconds!
Here's a video of my quickest run of the morning. I ran 4 tenths quicker in the afternoon.
Something to keep in mind with results from my region: An average autocross for us is like 30 cars. This weekend was "huge" with 50 something registered drivers. So me running close to the top happens solely because there isn't much else out there to compete with. I'm fully aware that I'd get eaten alive at any national level competition in a prepared class and most likely also in STS where I normally run the car.
Results can be found on the race results tab on our site: http://www.bigskyregion.org/index.html
Last edited by Braineack; 04-24-2012 at 12:45 PM.
Reply
0
0
03-01-2013, 08:50 PM
#32
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Montana
Posts: 137
Total Cats: 0
Wow, haven't updated this in a while! I recently picked up a 240sx coupe and have been busy replacing the engine on that for the past while (don't get excited, it's just a KA24DE). Since it's winter and I have the 240 to daily now, the Miata has been in the garage. I began teardown for the offseason refresh and got some frightening results.
Resto1 by Pat Gentilli, on Flickr
RUST CITY!
Resto3 by Pat Gentilli, on Flickr
Resto2 by Pat Gentilli, on Flickr
The PPF bolts are so stuck in the diff that I wasn't even able to punch them out. I got the top spline locked threaded portions out, but the bolts just spin in place. After trying to punch them out, the spacer piece between the diff and the PPF cracked and broke. The power of rust is insane.
The subframe is out now too and will get blasted and powdercoated next week.
Ohhhh projects....
Resto1 by Pat Gentilli, on Flickr
RUST CITY!
Resto3 by Pat Gentilli, on Flickr
Resto2 by Pat Gentilli, on Flickr
The PPF bolts are so stuck in the diff that I wasn't even able to punch them out. I got the top spline locked threaded portions out, but the bolts just spin in place. After trying to punch them out, the spacer piece between the diff and the PPF cracked and broke. The power of rust is insane.
The subframe is out now too and will get blasted and powdercoated next week.
Ohhhh projects....
Reply
0
0
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
