Squiblez

Just going to copy/paste all the relevant info from my CR.net build thread to get up to date.

February 2012

bought this car.
before this car i had a red 97 with bad oil rings, rusted rocker panels, a bad top, and some other issues. i was going to fix it then i was offered this 96 montego blue car from a friend as a rolling shell and was offered a motor from another friend. long story short, i sold the red car for enough to buy this shell and motor and still have some left over for parts needed to complete the swap. mind you that before i started this build the most extensive mechanics work i had done was a timing belt water pump job on the red car.

heres the car when i picked it up



had a badge


the car came with aftermarket wheels with:
4 brand new tires on aftermarket wheels
koni yellows with eibach springs
sparco racing buckets and harnesses
style bar
and some other goodies.

Next Five or six months

I tried hard to put this car together (im an idiot, this didnt go well)

Then it worked... Kind of

Ran on 3 cylinders. No fuel to #3. it was bad wiring connection to the ECU.
But i took a picture of it.
83ced230.jpg?t=1342738415

then it broke 387 times.
53a34d75.jpg?t=1342738417

Eventually moved out of my parents place and into my own place with a garage.
6d989456.jpg?t=1342738414


Ill summarize the next 2 years in a few bullet points.
- car broke, i fixed car. did this A LOT!
- crank keyway failure (yup this is a 1.8, yupp i know its only a 1.6 problem, yes i know i suck)
- friend tried to weld the crank. that didnt work.
- bought used crank from Project G. Bought ebay rebuild kit. (im an idiot)
- Rebuilt the engine.
- Chased problems.
- Got a new car.
- Had a baby.
- moved to Wisconsin.

And there we have it.

Random picture


Oh and at some point i bought a hard top. then sold it after i moved to WI.

Squiblez

Random photos of the car

First got the motor in


Broke down on I275


Drove it to sebring for miatatoberfest?


New car

Squiblez

recent work done on the car

My at home engine rebuild was a bust. a lot of confusion and i think that the crankshaft was bad or my tolerances were not correct. Basically, once the engine was up to temp, if you turned it off it would not turn over again until the engine cooled down, almost as if it were seized up.

so the car was wasting away in storage after i moved up to Milwaukee and i wanted to get it running reliably or get rid of it. Found a guy doing a v8 swap and bought the engine out of his car. went and checked it out, tested compression, and drove the car, it all checked out so he pulled it the next day and i picked it up.

Dropped the engine in a few weeks later, was pretty straight forward, started up first try, and has been running without issue since then.

- Picked up a magnaflow high flow cat so i could pass emissions.
- Ordered an Ebay soft top/rail rail. the window ended up tearing about a 1" slit within the first month, the company set me another soft top and let me keep the defective one. I taped over the hole and put the new soft top in the basement for later so i think i lucked out there.
- Found an OEM rear r lip to go with my front one and installed them.
- Made some simple door cards


- The weekend of the indycar race at the Milwaukee Mile i had a friend come up and on saturday morning before heading to the track my car was hit twice and both times the person left without leaving any information.



Was able to bend the fender back out to an acceptable shape but still upset about the whole ordeal. but i did get to place cornhole with Stefano Coletti and some of the Andretti crew members that evening.

- Installed some bilsteins from an MSM

NB Tophats Front
2" Garage star extended top hats rear
MSM Billies
Allstar sleeves
6" 350lb Front
7" 275lb Rear
50lb Front helpers
Speedthane bumpstops

- Garage star Delrin door bushings
- Just picked up some brand new Flyin Miata frame rails that i have yet to install.