92sunburst

I just wanted to say that all of you inspired me to build my car to the point its at today. Its far from done but I think its pretty close. The one thing I regret is not starting a build thread when I first got my car now I have to back track haha

so I got my car alittle over a year ago... completly stock from an older lady in my town. I had no idea the yellow color it was painted was called sunburst nor that there were only 1500 ever made, all I knew was that I loved it and I wanted it. I sold 2 of my POS winter beaters in 1 week to buy this car the lady was very nice to wait a week on me and she was very sad to see her car go.



I was always online on a few different forums, this being one of them and eventualy i stumbled upon a group called BAMD a local group of miata enthusiasts I regestered and was greated by a welcome message and an invite to an upcoming event. I attended.... and the seed had been sown....



This is my girlfriend an I at our first BAMD event. it was awsome, after seeing the awsomeness of all the cars there I needed to do something to my car!

I didnt have much knowlede or money so I did little things at first a bunch of stuff I didnt take pictures of... I installed a trunk light hahah it made me alot faster haha I made alluminum door panels...



and a bunch of other aluminum stuff...

at this point I was happy I did enough to my car that it stood out from the rest.



and I also purchased a Raceland header I loved it haha

THen!!!! An awsome deal popped up in the BAMD classified section a set of very clean JIC Coilovers
I new i had to have them they were the coolest thing since sliced bread.





After pulling some strings to gather money I purchased the coilovers and the seller graciously offered to help with the instal, it went flawlessly and I couldnt have been happier :-)



Then I purchased a roll bar from Harddog but no pictures of the instal :-( its the harddog hardcore X-brace I love it and highly recomend it to anyone looking for a roll bar.

ok so this is where the pictures slow down alittle...

In my free time i purchased an extra rack and pinion and i depowered it the FM method with alittle bit of 949 racing sprinkled in, so I depowered it and had the 2 piece pinion shaft welded solid its awsome probably one of the best things ive done to the car.

I also found a great deal on a hardtop quickly swiped that up the catch was that it had no window. so a friend and i pulled an allnighter installing a custom cut lexan one in and honestly im very happy with it. ill have to get some pictures of it.

THEN!!!

My birthday came up which happens to be right around christmas so I worked all the angles and somehow ended up with a set of 949 racing 6ULs 15x9 from my Girlfriend and my Parents as a birthday/christmas gift :-) it was my 21st haha



but i had to get the tires and accesories so they sat in my room and taunted me for a few weeks but every once in a while id treat them to a preview of there future home :-)



So I finaly got some tires and lugs and other stuff I went with hankook rs-3 225/45/15

Then... my car started leaking, and if anyone knows me they know i hate leaking cars... it was the water pump and i had to fix it before school started so i could have a reliable car to drive.
my dad was going to be oout of town for a week or two so i took the oppertunity to fix my car, cause i could drive his car while mine was down.

welll.... what started as a simple oil change.... haha i basicaly decided to use the leaking water pump as an excuse to do a 1.8 swap haha I know im horrible... a friend of mine ordered me a JDM engine straight from japan and i received it in about 2 days haha ok well it had been in an importers whearhouse for a few years in sacramento im sure hahah

I pulled the engine and cleaned the bay up alittle bit while I was waiting for the FM swap kit to arrive i also did a mild wire tuck in the process.





I was glad to see that I was not infact driving around on an original clutch the PO had had it replaced with a new one an exedy oem substitute. I decided to keep that and also transfer my flywheel over to the new engine





then we attached the engine to the tranny and lowered it in! did some wrenching..



and some more...



then it was finaly in!!

sat down to start it up... it cranked over beutifuly... thats all it did haha got out to see why it wasnt firing up, it wasnt getting spark, I realized in about 30 seconds that I had pulled a fuse out for some reason earlier so I found it and replaced it with the quickness, jumped back in my car and it roared to life!! i mean literaly roar it was an open header good thing it was only 2 AM haha

been driving it for about a week now and no problem it pulls quite a bit harder im happy with it and now its ready for boost...

The saga continues...

As she sits right now...

curly

iTrader: (25)

Stop saying haha!

18psi

iTrader: (76)

nice progress so far haha

92sunburst

Ill try to cut down on the amount of hahas in my posts. (Insert laughter here) is that better?

curly

iTrader: (25)

How about a period, that's what the rest of us end our sentences with. <- See?

Oh, and welcome.

92sunburst

Will do sir thanks for the for the welcome.

turotufas

iTrader: (7)

Nice car dood.

You work at HF?

92sunburst

No I don't work at harbor freight, is that what you meant? I do have a jack from there and jackstands though.

Golferluke

Car looked good but then graduated to pure secks with the 6uls on. Keep up the good work!

curly

iTrader: (25)

Is that a Home Depot Motorsports front lip?

92sunburst

That it is Curly I did it alittle differently then its normaly done I think it looks alot better then the single piece version. I used 2 pieces, bottom of L to bottom of L so one is rightside up and goes above the bottom edge of the bumper and the other is upside down and extends below it, idk if that makes sense ill grab a picture of it sometime. Its very sturdy but flexes at the same time I've pushed it over a parking block and back over and it was only scuffed.

Thanks Golfer!

underdog

iTrader: (6)

Love the build! Good luck with it and you'll definitely love the boost, especialy with the 1.8. You've probably seen my sunburst build, but in case you haven't you'll get a kick out of it.

92sunburst

I've definatly seen you build underdog its pretty awsome I've been following it for a while now. Hopefully my build will be as cool.

underdog

iTrader: (6)

Ah, good deal and thanks! Those 15x9s look mean on there too. Oh, and the turbo bug bites pretty hard in these cars. The additional power just transforms them into a completely different car. Have fun!

92sunburst

Ya I hear when the bug bites its bites hard my plan is to pretty much follow your build but go with a MS php instead of the dsm stuff your running. Which totaly blows my mind by the way. Im probably gonna go with a chinacharger t3, get it to the point where I understand every part of the system and then probably swap parts out for better ones as they break. I guess we will see how that aproach goes.

pdexta

iTrader: (17)

Nice build so far, the car looks great.

miatacross

iTrader: (1)

Your first post would sound like a Speed Racer commercial haha...(lol jp)

Nice car and welcome!

92sunburst

Ok so last weekend I swapped a torsen diff into my car, the guy selling it also threw in the 1.8 bigger brakes that were on his car, we basicaly traded rear ends and brakes front and rear it took about 12 hours but we did some other stuff durring the day so it wasnt to bad heres some pictures.

Prepping my car for the surgury


my rear end pulled out




sometime in the middle of all the work


my old rear end


my new rear end



All in all no part of the swap was difficult it was however tedious the rear ends are tiny but they are heavy. I have noticed improvents in gas mileage and a slight decrease in acceleration due to going to a 4.10 from a 4.30 but the impovment in grip is definatly worth it.

chokeasphyxia

iTrader: (8)

Original yellow, nice work.

Fireindc

iTrader: (13)

Looks nice. Any plans for boost?