Brap-Brap

Update time!

So college started and hit me pretty hard but i've had some mods in the pipeline for a while and every weekend I make sure to wake up early to get some mods and maintenance done before I go to work.



First up were these bad boys. Hella Sharp tones. They sound more melodic than the Super tones and they're very loud. I was tired of getting cut off by rich suburban moms in their BMW X5s and Audi Q7s on the freeway. I thought for just a second "Straight pipes or new horns" and then I realized how much I like general living in the car and so I bought the horns. $25 on amazon.



My fender-side soldering setup. I used crimping for some connections but I prefer splicing by soldering. Its my trusty Trak Power TK-950 that I bought when I got serious into electronics. 850 degrees Frankenstein baby.



Splicing into the stock horn wire to run it to the new replay. Using automatic strippers makes this a heck of a lot easier as you just let the tool move the insulation away instead of pulling and flexing with basic strippers. I like to splice and wrap a really long part to make sure it's a solid connection. I also like to use lots of flux to make sure everything gets a good flow of solder. Like paint, prep in soldering makes all the difference.



So my car didn't come with ABS so I had an un-used fuse location. So I stretched out a .250" female spade connector to fit the fuse tab in the fuse box. It was already powered with 12v and this allowed me to run it under the fuse box for a super clean look. I then ran it through some grommets in the firewall and through the wiper cowl. Red wire coming off is the power wire before I hid it.



So the proper way to wire in the 2 horns to prevent burning your car to the ground is to power the new relay with a fused 12v source and trigger it with the stock horn wire. Green wire goes to the new horns, red is power, yellow is trigger and black is ground. really easy stuff.



Hidden in the stock horn locations. Mine came with only 1 on the right side, but a quick run with a tap into the left hole cleared out the rust and revealed nice threads that I could use. I also hit the support with a wire wheel on a dremel to ensure a good ground for each of the horns.



She also DESPERATELY needed a upper and lower shift boot. The upper was non-existent, the lower barely hanging on by a sliver of rubber. I ordered this from Moss back in July but they were getting new ones in stock.

Let me take a sec to give some love to the guys at Moss Miata, I got a notification that the shifter rebuild kit shipped and it was at my doorstep the next day.

I also got the upgraded one with the 5X Racing shifter bushing.

While I was in the turret I changed the fluid and I changed the transmission fluid too. In went some Motorcraft XT-M5-QS magic unicorn tears sauce. While I can say I feel a difference, the most obvious one is in cold shifts. So much smoother. And doing freeway on-ramp pulls the syncros just seem to pull it into gear.



Also got washer nozzles that spray instead of squirt. Easy $10 on amazon for both.



Quick comparison. Easy 5 minute install.



Got one of those 3rd brake light flashers and a 3rd brake light LED bulb. I was cruising with some buddies and he had one of the flashers and the moment he hit the brakes I was like "WHOAAAA" it caught my eye. Labor day sale on SuperBrightLEDs meant 15% off, I figured why not it's $5 and the bulb is like $12. They sent the wrong bulb though so i'm waiting on the new one before I install. The old one is out but I just used the trunk light for now. Its a 921 for the 3rd brake light but a 194 fits.



Carbon Miata speaker covers also came in.



Mmmmmm more vintage looking ish. Looks so clean and nice. I went to ace and bought all new M4 stainless hardware to mount it up too.

Until next time guys!

Joseph Conley

Have you installed the washer nozzles yet? I want to replace mine because they suck and the rubber seal at the bottom is dead. OEM ones are like 20 a piece locally around me.

rleete

iTrader: (21)

Washer nozzles (from the Tribute, I think) are fairly cheap on ebay. Makes a world of difference, and they snap right in. Replace the tubing and connectors while you're at it, as they get old and crack apart.

Brap-Brap

Just use the part number on the package for them. The old ones have the silver ring around the hole and the new ones have the square hole. It makes a huge difference. Mine came with new rubbers and they dropped in perfectly.

Brap-Brap

Another update time!

Some quick and easy things to keep her running and happy... and make my life a little easier.



Since my dipstick handle was broken (like most Miatas out there) I have been living with it for a bit. I saw this pop up in my eBay recommended and its cheap and super easy to install. Its 3D printed.



Shoutout to Greg Parts on eBay for 3D printing a ton of cool stuff for the NA Miata. He also sells shift *****, sun visor blanking plates, antenna plugs and various other little knick-knacks that you didn't realize you needed.



My 3rd brake light bulb was out so I bought an LED from Superbright LED's and they sent me the wrong one. The one listed most places is an 1157 but my car took a 921. I also installed the 3rd brake light flasher.



Here's a pic of my rolled fenders. I trimmed the fender liner back a bit and made a little rubber bumper type thing on the top to keep larger debris out of it. I have tons of clearance all around so even in hard cornering I have zero rubbing. It was super easy.



Beauty shots because she got washed and looked really nice in the sun...





Doesn't this pic just make you wanna go for a drive? That open door is so inviting.

Brap-Brap

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

It's the last day of break for me and I decided to hustle up and get some mods done on Molly before winter rolls around.

I found this and laughed for quite a while:





This was taken by my good friend Matt Mchugh at the last Cars and Coffee of the season. Check him out on Facebook:
Tell him Alec with the red Miata sent you.

I was also in the OSU Alumni Parade and I learned that roll bars are quite handy for hanging banners and or T-shirts for parades.





And I wired her up to wink during the parade

I did a few little mods just to keep things working.



The clip for the interior door handle kept popping out, so I just used a die and cut some M4 threads and used a locknut to keep it secured. Now it shouldn't pop off anymore forcing me to roll my window down and open it from the outside.



Also put in a Garage Star radiator panel. My hood cable ended up breaking and so I ordered the latchless panel. The hood pins work just fine by themselves.

And for anyone wondering, yes I do have a new Yonaka radiator waiting to go in. My old radiator is looking really crusty and is not long for this world.



Also got these "Crystal Clear" turn signals from eBay, really cleans up the look of the car. I also took advantage of Black Friday deals and ordered all new exterior LED's to brighten things up and make it safer. Diode Dynamics ran a 20% off Everything sale.



Also got this sweet plate frame from a friend in Japan. He ended up sending me like 20 for my whole group to rep.

And he threw in this...



A proper JDM Suichuuka. I took some 5K grit paper to the shifter stalk to polish it up and it make it look a little nicer because of the gap. Ended up looking really shiny.



Seeing how good the 5k looked I cut a strip and re-did the indicator and wiper stalks to a higher level of shine. Also got chrome gauge rings to really tie everything together.



I also found this little $10 speaker amp on Amazon. It's listed as a Kinter 12v amp, and it takes a little 12v banana plug. I had an old 12v speaker power brick around and I just chopped the plug off. I used an wiring harness from the old broken radio and tapped it into 12v, grounded it to the metal frame and connected the speakers to it. The little box on the right is a ground loop isolator that gets rid of the noise and humming. There's a little ring around the volume **** that's lit by an RGB LED while its on. It's not the greatest in terms of quality and power but its quite nice and gets reasonably loud. Took less than an hour to install.

Thats it for now guys, but there's a massive update coming soon...



Take a guess as what those are...

LittleCarBigFun

Is that a TRE Motorsports ST seat!? I've been waiting for someone to put one of these in! I'm the same height as you and even with my Sparco Sprint with PCI bracket I'm still hitting my knee on my 280mm Momo wheel.

Brap-Brap

No but you're close. Its from a British manufacturer.

Did you mount it straight to the bracket or are you on sliders? I'm either going to mount it with a custom bracket on the stock seat mounting holes or just bolt it straight to the floorpan. Stock seat with a foamectamy and I clear the broomstick test, if I take out the sliders and the rear seat posts i'll be really low. Also thinking about shaving the seat bottom depending on how much foam there is.

LittleCarBigFun

Oh I mounted it straight to the bracket. PCI just has a one piece mount that just goes straight on the floor. But man I can't wait to see that mounted! I'd want to try to mount it on sliders or something. Unfortunately here in Northern Florida I'd have to take it to fab shop to do the mounts properly.

Brap-Brap

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FOR-89-97-M...RaAfQg&vxp=mtr

Take the back seat posts out with an angle grinder, buy two pairs of these mounts and then bend it up to fit the new angles and then mount your seat. Thats what i'm about to do.

Or better yet remove both the front and rear seat posts and mount the side-mounts through the floor pan. Just use 3x3 steel plates under the floor pan to prevent it from pulling out in a crash.

LittleCarBigFun

That could most definitely do it! I'm looking at three options now for my seats. Either get a TRE ST seat and bolt it to the floor, get a set of lotus seats with ryokurob brackets, or my third option is the new Marrad TS2 seat.

Brap-Brap

The Marrad TS2 seat looks like the best option for you since its drop-in, and removing the foam drops you 3 inches lower than stock (In an NB, idk about an NA, probably lower due to the way NA/NB's are.) The only thing I don't like is the price. $779 for one seat? Hell no.

I'm hoping what i'm going with is going to get me pretty low. The write-up on the TS2 seat is in an NB miata, and NB seats are already pretty low. Like stock NB seats put me at the same height as foamectamy NA seats, foamectamy NB seats put me nice and low and i'm hoping with no sliders, bottom mounts only and no rear humps will put me properly low.

LittleCarBigFun

Oh yeah, but both the NA and NB mounts are the same. I'm definitely hoping the TS2 will get as low as I want. Because even the sprint won't get me low enough

Brap-Brap

The sprint is still too high for you? Side-mount seats will always be higher than bottom mount, unless you just bolt the side mounts straight to the floor pan. The seating space/ geometry is different from the NA to the NB, for some reason stock NB seats sit lower in an NA than stock NA seats. I do not know what the exact difference is, just that NB seats sit lower in an NA. Just remember with the TS2's because its side mount you're going to lose an inch due to the bracket design. Cobra (hint) Bottom-mount seats seem to be the most popular across the pond and they seem to sit the lowest for a lot of people. I still can't swallow $779 for a single seat and mounting hardware...

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

clitchemobile.

Brap-Brap

Original ideas are overrated anyway.

LittleCarBigFun

I hear ya on the prices. But I don't know what it is with me. I've got the seat as low as possible, but the bracket is not the one for tall people. Unfortunately FAB9 only sells the normal one. May just order the tall people one from PCI themselves to see about getting further back and lower. Who knows, it may work. But damn, I really want to see that seat in there, and now that you dropped the hint I'm guessing a Cobra Classic!

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

I think you'd do better at clubrodster.

ridethecliche

iTrader: (2)

What did I do wrong now?

Brap-Brap

They don't appreciate the fact that I "Autocross a show car."

Or the fact that I chase 10ths on track with a "car you obviously built for show and scene points, not laptimes."