Ptotherice

Very nice build! I actually live in Murfreesboro myself near campus and would love to come see this beauty in person! Let me know if you ever need any help with anything!

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Sure. I'm on the north side of the county line. Right now I'm just tearing down another parts car, so let me know if you need anything. If everything sells quickly I'll be getting TSE brake kit to install.

Ptotherice

I actually saw your parts car and am quite sad that I don't have enough cash to pick up your 1.8 right now! I'm going to shoot you a PM with my number and we can hang out sometime. I just picked up my first Miata last weekend, very excited!

EDIT! Just kidding... I can't PM yet. Shoot me an email at ptotherice@gmail.com.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

I took my car to Atlanta Motorsports Park back in March to run with the Music City Mustang Club. I had a blast chasing down cars with nearly triple the horsepower (in one case six time), but AMP is definitely a handling course. My best friend brought out his 2011 Mustang GT Brembo Pack. I never had to turn a wrench on my car besides some adjustments and tuning. We had to rig an axle catch can on his car using a Gatorade bottle.



I was hoping my best friend would have uploaded his GoPro footage by now. Maybe I'll just buy my own.

The AMP trip was also the last towing trip for my trusty '97 F150 5.4L. She's been sold to someone else to tow their weekends toys. I picked up a new tow vehicle.

I comes with two turbos to replace the one I removed from my Miata




2014 F150 FX4 w/ 3.5 EcoBoost V6. Damn near fully loaded just to get the towing package I wanted, but its far more comfortable and quiet compared to my '97. Plus a 36 gallon tank means my bladder goes shorter than my gas tank.

All clean and ready for the next track day:


Now to resist the urge to fall back into my drifting days...

curly

iTrader: (25)

36??? Jesus. What's the supposed range with the ecoboost?

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

My wife had the same reaction. Not towing, the computer starts at 650 miles. I've been averaging a little over 19 mpg on my daily commute. I only fill it every two weeks or so.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

My dad's 09 that we tow the racecar with with has a 35. Range between fill ups while towing at 75mph on the highway is about 500 miles with the 3V 4.6 and 6 speed tranny.

trailrun

great work on the paint job!

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Been some time since an update. It was a busy summer for me, but I was finally able to make another track day. I finally made it to Road Atlanta after almost 10 years (and 3 different cars) of saying I was going to.

I decided to do an event with Chin Motorsports because I've never really had an instructor for a track day. I knew I had a lot to learn and auto-x habits to unlearn. The week before was a thrash to get the car ready with the in-laws in town and just getting back from a week in Denmark on business.

The instructor was very helpful. I wish I had a lap timer to see where I improved. By the end of the weekend I was able to tickle the rev limiter in 4th going into the turn 1 consistently (5 speed and 4.30 final). I was also able to get everything down to just two shifts. Turn's 1 and 7 took me the longest to figure out (over driving the braking points) and turn 12 is a blast when you get it right.

My best friend came along to take some photos.

Turn 10a: The Camaro ahead of me was all over the place and never on a line that made sense.


Turn 12


My favorite:


The only problem of the weekend was that oil consumption/loss. All the evidence points to the rings letting go. As evident by the picture, I was smoking pretty good going from high vacuum (lift) to on throttle.


Good part is that it survived the weekend and didn't need the deck winch to get back on the trailer.


I'm going to pull the motor next weekend and tear it down to see what caused the failure. All the seals in the head were replaced, so hopefully I can just get away with truing the sealing surface up and honing the cylinders. If I have to bore it, I'll go up to 11:1 pistons and rods (budget allowing).

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

Nice! Car looks awesome. Chin is a great outfit.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Winter position has been assumed. 3rd year in a row that the car is parked for the winter. I started pulling the motor but I got distracted by a the wife's IS300. 209k on the clock and it is getting its 3rd timing belt, water pump, and front seal set. I'm so glad this modern car has a motor that can still be maintained by a shade tree mechanic. Now I want to find a 5spd model for my daily driver and swap in a 2JZ-GTE from an Aristo for a street sleeper.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Got the motor out yesterday and torn it down today. I'm going to wait to tear down the long block until I can take it over to a friend's who has some measuring tools.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

I went over to a friend of mine with a lot of experience in tearing down and inspecting motors. We found that the motor got some water into while sitting and there was some corrosion in the bores. It also looks like I might have installed the valve seals incorrectly last winter. The corrosion on the cylinder walls scored the pistons pretty bad, so I'll be ordering new pistons. Probably going to 84mm 11:1's.

The only head scratcher we run into was a some odd wear on both of the cams. I've started another thread to see what could be causing this. The tip of the cams have some brown/tan areas. Some have grey areas inside the tan area that when you look at under a manginifying glass, you can see what looks like galling of the top layer. There also appears to be some "chattering" on the back side of the ramp.

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

Looks like the cams had some corrosion too, but they seem to be holding up just fine. I get those "brown/tan" areas even on brand new cams. They are low spots in the grind. The "gray areas" are where you probably had some corrosion from the same water that hurt your cylinder walls.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

I was looking at the photos I took of the head and I can see that the tan discoloration was there last year. Unfortunately all my pictures are low res because I took them with an old point-shoot camera so I can't tell if the grey patches are there. I'll take with the machine shop and see what their thoughts are. I've decided on the 84mm 11:1 pistons, so hopefully I'll have everything to them next week. I might even talk to them about doing an offset bore, but I have to do a little research on it first.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

I sent some pictures of my cams out for a second opinion and they came back bad as well. However, thanks to the change in Spec Miata rules regarding the cylinder head and the short radius, I'm picking up a brand new "formerly legal" head for 60% of what it would have cost a few months ago. 25cfm increase in flow which the seller states its was worth about 8-10hp on their motors.

Greasemonkey2000

iTrader: (3)

2JZ swaps are always cool, IMO, look forward to the progress! I really like the grey paint, is it like "battleship grey" or?

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Toyota/Scion "Cement" from the tC's and FJs

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Sold a Miata I'd picked up a few months ago to flip and a few parts as well. Hopefully I'll be dropping off the block at the machine shop next week to get it fitted for these beauties. 84mm, 11:1 Supertechs.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

I got the block and crank back from the machine shop. Everything looked good so a friend and I go busy putting the short block together. He's got all the fancy tools for checking clearances and bolt stretch. I added a set of Manley rods to the build for good measure too. Just needs a fresh coat of paint and once the ARP head studs come in, on goes the head.