subikid

Hey all,

Some of you may have seen my recent "24 hour turbo build," which fancied some, though some hoped to find humor in my illiteracy to the turbo world. I ended up deciding that catering to the former would be a bit of a better decision for my beat up old miata. So here's the project thread, hope it's in the right place.

CAR: 1990 1.6l, stock everything when I bought it for 1400. Car was red with a ripped-up interior:


First mod was removal of car bra and front side markers, followed shortly by a custom made exhaust and home made intake.



Bad quality video, just intake and exhaust:



So, after school was over (April 26th), I began the project I call my car. I looked at the car, made a vision for it, and hit the drawing boards. My vision was to create a car that resembles an old school rat rod/track shelby mixed with a new, import look as the secondary characteristic. It should also be known that I am a college student with a very limited budget, so as a necessity and a bit of a novelty, I decided to do everything physically possible on my own. The only thing I have help on is welding, and that's not always true, as the shop up the street allows me to use their equipment once in a while.

First up was to make the car fast. I cannot justify doing the cool looking things before performance. So, in order:

1) Redid my exhaust. My first custom job was 2.5'' piping, cutout, magnaflow can. I decided I wanted a dual-tipped exhaust that I can later make a 4-2 exhaust out of, so I used a 350z/g35 exhaust and replaced my magnaflow can with that muffler, along with having to make a bumper cutout for the new tip.

Before the bumper cutting, don't have an after pic yet. Looks normal and uniform, so there's not much to look at.


2) Then I did my rollbar. Pretty standard except it's red! and wouldn't be allowed by scca lol. Along with the rollbar, I cut up my hood... vents and some wierd lookin' thing I randomly did with my dremel. Bad idea to be dremel happy, but it turned out looking alright IMO. See pics below.

3) THEN came the terdblow. pretty standard... td04h, fmic, vortec fmu, 1.8 injectors (thank you endlessly to Stein on these boards for supplying me with these), eBay manifold and DP. I finished in less than 24 hours, it was more like 15 including exhaust/IC work at the exhaust shop.

4) Most recently was the completion of the first, second, and third steps of my home made paint job. Sanding took about 30 hours, priming took an hour, first coat of paint took about 1.5 hours.

That's where I'm at now. Coming up in the next 2 weeks:

1) Fix my exhaust manifold. I thought it was the gasket, after replacing, now I believe that the manifold itself is warped. It's leaking really bad and leaking a lot of potential boost.

1.5) CLUTCH! Can't hold 10lbs, just blows right thru the gear if I don't feather the GAS lol. Never heard of that while racing... but yep, I have to do it until I get a heavy-duty clutch.

2) Finish my paint job. I still have the rear bumper, door jams, etc to do. Then I have to do 3-4 more coats.

3) Rims. I gotta find some 14-15'' deep set, higher spoke rims and some thick rear tires. 185's ain't cuttin it with boost.

4) Hard top time. I really want to go with the z4 roadster hardtop look.

5) Turbo upgrades.... that's far in the future.

Anyways, here's the current shape of the car... first rough coat of paint. Rough video, but it's all I got.





Lot's more work to do, but I figured I'd post it up.

Thanks!
Kevin

1stproject

iTrader: (4)

Got more pics of the mani/turbo/ and DP? Nice car & good build so far.

p51hellfire

iTrader: (28)

yeeeehhh my pathatic stocker was in the first pic lol

subikid

haha good times at tbell.

I don't have a camera other then my cell right now, but a super fast update b/c I've spent well over 350 hours on my car this summer (lots of all nighters).

1) All turbo "stuffs" have been touched up. Got my clutch, ems, switched to a 10lb iwg, replaced all exhaust/turbo flanges, changed all water/oil lines, started running straight 30 mobile 1, made a bunch of stuff haha (exhaust stuff, engine bay prettifying, etc), finished my 350 rebuild/build, began fabbing the subframe reinforcements, had a driveshaft cut and balanced for the chevy 3sp AT i have, changed the 350 over to carb'd from TBi, and now I'm working in hyperfastsupermode to get the car's aesthetics finished. Interior is being completely reupholstered by my self, I'm finally learning how to fiberglass from my best friend ryan so we made a mold of his WS6 hood minus the split in the middle (so it's just going to be a muscle car type cowl), and today (after working all night on the interior) will be beginning of body and spray process. Body is getting (all fiberglass or overlay): Small front lip, small side skirts (side pipes kinda look out of place), and rear bumper lip AND diffusers (the two exhaust bumper cut outs are empty now

350 completely ready to go in and all plans finished by December, got school coming up soon :(

BUT I TURN 21 TOMORROW!!! WooOOtt

Thanks!
Kev