1) dismount tires

2) sell tires

3) buy 255 plus size tires

4) have loads of grip!

^ +1


It will look stupid otherwise. Such a nice build, why not keep it top notch?

I have to agree, the stretch tires kinda kill it for me.. But thats just me, to each his own.

i can't wait to see this thing done, its gonna be sick, btw I'm very jealous of the CF trunk lid, i want one so bad but i can't justify 700 on it lol

or I can just burn them off. ;) I'm not changing them right now. Eventually yes, but I just want to drive the car. The tires are on, they are staying for the time being. I bought this car early June of last year and have yet to drive it. Swapping tires is just going to slow me down even more. If you want to swap them for me, by all means, go right ahead :)

sweet rims =)

I finally have an update! Got a lot done the past few weekends, even though I haven't had as much time to work on the car as I would have liked.

Installed my new front tow hook so when it's back on all 4s we have something to pull from so we can get it back on the trailer
Attachment 212361

Willwood big brake kit- 11" rotors, Flyin' Miata stainless lines front/rear (not shown in the pic), Porterfield R4S pads front/rear. I didn't take a pic of the rears, as they aren't on at this time...
Attachment 212362

another shot of the motor, it's slowly coming together, although I really haven't spent much time up here...
Attachment 212363

On to the rear end!

test fitting of the TII diff. I installed Mazdaspeed diff mounts, but didn't take a pic of them (we all know what diff mounts look like )
Attachment 212364

clearances are tight
Attachment 212365

diff more or less level
Attachment 212366

shot from under the tranny looking back
Attachment 212367

From here, I took the entire rear end out of the car, wire-brushed every piece of it, primed it with rustoleum rusty metal primer, and then hit all the control arms and the sub frame with rustoleum gloss black.

Finished product drying
Attachment 212368

I made a mixture of black and gray to get this nice dark gray color, and I painted the axles, diff, diff mounts, and the rear sway bar and end links gray- finished product came out perfect.

diff
Attachment 212369

control arms, rear swap bar, the hard coolant lines, and the hard line coming off the brake booster
Attachment 212368

Here's a shot of the old control arms before paint- they needed it!
Attachment 212351

shot of the subframe:
Attachment 212352

rear RX7 axles
Attachment 212353

I found a guy over on roadster drift (forum name is Dhaark for those interested- great guy) who was offering his services for custom miata/RX7 hubs, so I took him up on his offer. What he did was machine down RX7 hubs to fit onto a miata spindle, which allows me to use stock RX7 axles.

Here's the old crappy, rusty, wimpy miata hubs
Attachment 212354

and another off the car:
Attachment 212355

new hubs as I received them:
Attachment 212356

Attachment 212357

Attachment 212356

well now I have these awesome hubs, but they look like crap, so I wirebrushed them and painted them with the same black/grey paint scheme. I also cut slots in the curved portion of the dust shield and bent it all out flat so it would clear the 11" rotors out back:

finished product ready for install
Attachment 212359

Here are the diff mounts all painted up and my Flyin miata intake elbow, with an adapter I made out of some scrap 3/16" steel welded to it. This will serve as a mounting point for my apexi bov. I drilled a bunch of holes in it as I want the option on mounting it, plus I think it looks neat, and it saves oh about 2 ounces ;)

Attachment 212360

I cut up my rear bumper and the rear bumper support so i can run a left exit exhaust. I followed the contour of the original exhaust cutout and transfered it to the opposite side.

sorry for the crappy pics

rear bumper support
Attachment 212341

I also lopped off the tow point on the left (driver's) side so that it doesn't interfere with the exhaust at all.
Attachment 212342

bumper
Attachment 212343

Attachment 212344

I also painted the interior with primer and will be hitting it with a coat or 2 of the same black at some point.

Attachment 212345

Attachment 212346

I took out the access panels in the rear deck, and the center console mount and primed and painted them, but never took a pic. Oops.

Sorry for jumping around, but now on to the meat and potatoes of getting the rear end into the miata- making the bracket.

We used a piece of 5/16" steel and bent it to follow the contour of the diff, and then butt-welded another piece of 5/16" to the bottom portion of it and drilled out the 3 holes

Attachment 212347

next, I cut out a section of the subframe so that the bracket can sit flush with the top of the subframe, which allowed us to weld the bracket on 3 sides

pic of the cut I made:
Attachment 212348

here's a shot of the bracket all burned in, waiting for paint. I also cut off the backside edge of the bracket to match the same angle on the front. Not only does it look much better, but it saves some weight. 5/16" sure is heavy, but I'm not taking any chances.
Attachment 212349

Attachment 212350

Attachment 212338

One thing is for sure: This bracket certainly isn't going to break!
Attachment 212339

Got this in the mail 2 weeks ago too. It's an ETD Racing shorty tubular manifold with a Tial 44mm wastegate.
Attachment 212340

Pretty soon I'll get around to getting the motor stuff all buttoned up. That's it for now, I'm beat.

damn nigguh.

tires or not, thats awesome. Nice welding job!

Do you see any problem with solid mounting the front of the diff? I was just thinking with rubber bushings on the back, the back will move around and maybe crack the solid front mount.

Nice Manifold :)

I thought about that for a while, but all the other swaps I have seen did it this way except for 1 guy who used the stock mount. I'm going to try it and see. If it doesn't work out well, I can always bore out the holes and put in some rubber/poly bushings, but I think it will work out just fine. I have the mazdaspeed diff mounts in there, which are stiffer than stock, so we shall see.

Not going to lie, I'm still not impressed with the manifold. I called ETD to complain about it as soon as it arrived as the collector has pretty significant gaps between all the joints, the edges inside are very rough, there are metal "slivers" hanging off a couple of the joints, and the coating is already flaking off on the inside. They emailed me back and told me it was fine the way it was (I sent them pics), but it does not look like a "finished" piece to me, esp. considering how perfect the outside of it looks and the price it cost.

nice work MM... will you reveal the build cost? :D

I'll give a ballpark figure when it's all done. Let's just say I won't be selling it anytime soon :bigtu:

I definitely think it would be beneficial to anybody considering something like this. And it would probably reveal the difference between what you might think it costs and what it really costs. But for a hardcore build like this, it would definitely be interesting. My guess is in the end you will have the deal of century for what you're going to get in performance and durability when you compare the costs to others.

Very nice work MM.
-Tim

Oh I don't doubt it. I'm taking my time and making sure not to cut corners and doing as much as I can by myself to keep costs down. It certainly is not cheap by any means, but then again, if I were to buy all this stuff outright and shell out for someone to put it all together it would easily double my build cost. I've been steadily working on the car since last June. My goal is to have it driving and tuned by the end of the summer. I already have a long list of things to do this winter- painting the engine bay and a wire tuck seem to stand out the most.