Nah, I bought the car like that. Just haven't got around to painting the car. Figured boost is more important than paint lol

 

Likely story. I am going to have to contact Brain to look into the matter.

Anyways, what's next on the agenda for the car?

 

It is currently getting an exhaust made. That should be done Saturday. Then it'll be continued saving and gathering of parts for my TII swap as well as some dyno time for more tuning.

Also, desperately need wheels and tires.

Here's a pic of the car on the lift at my friend's place where its getting the exhaust made

 

Just noticed that Tirerack sells the new Advanti's. You could get a ready-to-mount wheel+tire combo from them in 15x9 with 225 Rivals/Gen 2 RS-3s for sub-$1K. The Advanti's are less than 12.5#s in 15x9. Amazing.

 

That's the wheel and tire setup I'd like to get, but realistically with how I've been spending money on the car just to get it out, the new wheels and tires are a month or two away.

 

Exhaust is built and installed. Love the sound of it. Videos are currently uploading, I'll link them here tomorrow. For now though, pics!

Miata and turbo LS fc project in the garage






New flex pipe with custom flanges to go from 2.5" DP to 3" exhaust


Will get some pics of it on the ground in proper lighting tomorrow. All the pics from tonight didn't turn out well since it was too dark.

 

Looks great.

Is that YOUR garage? Green with envy here.

 

I wish! It's my friend's place

 

Videos!

 

Dude, thanks for taking videos and sharing. Looks like she is running really strong, i can only imagine it at 15+psi. It sounds almost exactly like my car Hows the new trans feel?

 

It's running pretty well right now but I can't wait to get EBC setup, having to manually turn down the boost on cooler nights is annoying. You can hear in the videos I hit boost cut a couple times.

The new trans seems to be doing well for the time being but I really need to source more TII stuff so I'm not so scared to get on it more frequently, since if you guys can't tell, that's how the car gets treated when its out. So yea, bulletproof-ish drivetrain is needed lol.

I might have the opportunity to move into a full-time salary position at work now that I'm done school which will help out a lot with building the car in comparison to the part-time student wages I'm on right now.

 

row row row your miata gently down the interstate,
Easy easy easy now, 6 speeds are just a dream.

 

Yeah I've done some homework on the swap and I'm uninterested in the TII thus far.

I just dropped my 6-speed to be rebuilt and I'm expecting relatively good news. I don't think my troubles were related to weak parts, I think something is just misaligned or one of the selector rods has been gunked up or bent.

Based on the picture of your PPF above I'm guessing you have a 5 speed in now? Maybe you should get more feedback from 6 speed owners before you start gathering parts? Just looking out for you sir. Overbuilding is never a bad thing but there are a handful of negative trade offs when considering the TII.

 

Yes I do have a 5speed in right now. I know TII will be able to hold more power than a 6speed. Also, TII I'll trap in 4th gear rather than 5th if I had a 6speed. Less shifting in the 1/4 is a good thing.

Solid diff and trans mounts of the TII should also help eliminate wheel hop, which the PPF doesn't really help with at all.

What are negative trade offs you see for the swap?

 

Just a couple of things.. Slave mounts upside down (from what I've seen). Notching for the starter. Increased cabin noise from having to mount the trans and diff independently. Custom driveshaft. Harder overall to service... They all seem like "no-big-deal" items, but it adds up quickly.

Again this is just my opinion. I've already given up trying to 1/4 mile my car. It's an expensive marketing tool at this point. If you just make yourself aware of what you're getting into then the trade off could be very beneficial for you.

 

Yea, I've done a lot of reading up on it and all those things you listed really don't seem like that big of a deal to me, especially when you look at the benefits of the swap.

 

Sounds like a good route to take then sir. I'll keep an eye on how things progress. Might be a project I take on at the end of the summer, or sooner if things explode.

 

 

That is still one of my favorite videos

Remind me to keep an oar in my Miata. Although, with half the HP, I may not be able to be as smug as that fellow.

 

So I thought I'd try figuring out my TPS issue from last fall today with the help of a friend. I was always getting a lot of noise in the TPS signal which made me run the car on MAPdot.

What we did was run a shielded wire from the TPS all the way to the ECU, soldering in the connections to the TPS wires from this pinout diagram:


It is grounded at the ecu connector as well. In slot "2D" of that diagram.

Continuity was checked that all those wires before splicing in the new connections to make sure we got the right ones.

Now with the shielded wire we are still getting a little bit of noise, and sometimes the tps signal doesn't work at all. Tried repinning the connector but that didn't solve it.

Also, this is an essentially brand new Miata TPS that I bought from Autozone last fall.

Really not sure what else to try. Maybe an all new connector since it seemed a little finicky? Any other suggestions?