Let's just say that a static proof of concept works. There will need to be some serious track testing to back up the concept...something that I happily have volunteered to undertake.

 

I got the wheels, braille battery, muffler, hood latches, headlight surrounds and various other small items today. Unfortunately the powder coater is backed up and won't be able to deliver the frame until mid-next week.

So as it stands, with about two weeks left until SEMA, the frame is gone and the rest of the car looks like a garage sale--it's spread out all over the floor.

There's nothing like a little stress to keep you awake at night.

 

And it will be sitting all day tomorrow, waiting to be worked on Monday. The guys at Electro-Tech in San Marcos had pity on me when I called Friday, and managed to get the frame blasted and coated. It's sitting in the shop, right next to the 1977 Chevy Blazer that will be towing it to track days.

To put it in perspective, the frame you see there can be picked up by one person and easily carried around by two. It replaces the Miata's entire unibody.

It certainly will get heavier, especially with an aluminum bottom, aluminum sub-floor and aluminum interior, but we're still shedding lots of weight and adding lots of torsional rigidity.

Things you'll notice:

--the "hooks" at the top of the shock towers locate and brace the bodywork. They make it extremely easy to install the large (but light) side panels. --There are also Dzus tabs all over for mounting the interior panels. There's more Dzus tabbing to come.
--Side wings. These locate side braces inside the bodywork and help with firewall duties.
--clip mount--you can see a 3-bolt flange at the front of the frame that mounts the front clip. The front clip also locates the radiator and nose.


Two weeks to go before SEMA, and tomorrow's a no-work day. The pressure's on...

 

Could have gotten a lot of the electrics sorted out so they are ready to be mounted.

 

Electro-tech seems like a good shop. I've used them occasionally for ceramic-coating of exhaust parts, and they've always been nice to me, even though I'm just one random guy as compared to the run-rate stuff that seems to be the majority of their business.

 

Offset on those 17x9's?

I like the idea of 5x114.3 , and I love white wheels.

 

Let's see--answer all the questions at once:

Electro-Tech seems to be a good shop, although they do have a lot of institutional stuff go through there.

The electronics are sorted, and the stock harness has been winnowed down. I'd like to make a custom harness for the car from new, but that's big bucks and takes time. Maybe later.

The inset for the rims is 22. This means heavier than normal steering in the parking lot, but the car is lighter than normal. We'll see. And the white wheels are turning RED before the show. The car is turning WHITE, just like the rendering.

We had some good progress today, but not exactly as far as we wanted to get.

--CRB Alumifab set up flush-mounted Dzus fasteners on our bottom panels for access to the driveline. The holes for one side of the panel needed to be re-set. This is a four hour job for most shops, but took CRB about 30 minutes.
--the rear suspension assembly and differential was set in place
--the engine and transmission were mounted
--the driveline was installed...from the top.
--everything was cross-aligned by plumb-line and tightened.

The plan for tomorrow is to install the new 5 lug hubs and get started on the wiring, fuel and brake lines. It should be an eventful day from the start, as my everyday car decided to crack a coolant line today and had to be towed back to San Clemente. I'll probably be driving to the Catfish in a Toyota Yaris rental tomorrow.

As I left the shop, it was a somewhat sad picture. different vehicles were in a state of unfinished nakedness. It was like the island of forgotten toys, except this was the shop of unfinished cars. Please God don't let the Catfish become a permanent resident.

 

Oh you do that too? I hang my miata chassis on the wall all the time.

 

I have hung a hood and trunk lid on the wall for a while, can I hang out too?

 

You're on the "home stretch"....This is getting so exciting. Nothing like a 2 week (less now) deadline to an extremely important event to light a fire under people's ***. Lovin the updates please don't be shy with the pictures

 

Looking good! You will get there I am sure!!!

 

Holy crap there's a lot to do. R&D and assembly still happening. It's funny how the firewall panels that installed easily yesterday--sans engine--don't fit today.

with 17x9 +22 inset rims in back, and the wheel installed on the hub (no rotor), there was quite a bit of room at full compression for a bigger rear rim.

The diffuser needs to be cut back a bit, but really finishes off the flat floor nicely.

Rear hubs on today. Still wrestling with rotor sizes. A game plan for wiring and fluid lines has been made.

 

So I finally had a chance to stop by the shop yesterday and be a pest for a few minutes while the gang were all scrambling furiously. Thanks again for showing me around.

I gotta say- the car looks every bit as good in person as it does in the pictures. The quality of the welds, the tube-bending and the sheet-metal fab is just stellar.



It's almost a shame that this is going to get covered up by the body. If I were an Autocrosser, I think I'd just throw a seat in it and drive it as-is.



Cord showed me the super-secret-thing and made me promise not to blab about it, so I won't. But it's pretty neat, and I was surprised by the simplicity of it. (Also, I like the original setup with the four things in the black thing, better than Martin's idea about the one thing in the middle, even if it is "wrong-way-round." With the four things, you are absolutely, 100% guaranteed that the big thing isn't going to do the thing that it isn't supposed to do. That's why the factory does it the way they do it.)



Fun fact: This is what happens when you take a Miata and then remove all of the things that aren't directly related to the task of making it go:

 

BTW, averaging three hours of sleep a night for the past three nights. I've got Roman Maguinez down here from LA with "the Davids", which are his two crew members who help him out. I think you can guess their names. David is also my main fabricator for the Catfish, so we have three David's hovering over the car at any given moment.

We went home last night after the car fired up for the first time in the new frame. We hope to make it a roller today.

 

wow, this is looking absolutely amazing

 

Gorgeous work. The only thing that surprises me is that the original water routing was maintained on the motor. Is there a heater core to facilitate cooling the rear of the engine?

 

There are things we're doing before SEMA, and things we're doing after. We've got several other engines that could have gone in the car, but I felt that the original 177k short nose engine that hasn't been opened is the proper one for the first car. We'll hot up the performance later.

I'm frankly focusing on what people are going to see on the outside of the car at the show. The 5 lug hubs will be on the car, but proper testing hasn't taken place. The new exhaust will be on the car, but it's pretty damned loud. Not all the bolts are new, yada yada.

I think the interior may even outshine the exterior. And for all that talk of different seats (Kirkey, Sparco, Tillet, etc.), we decided original Miata was the clue we'd give to show people what the car is based on.

 

I should have said "heater core circuit or bypass". You could just run a bypass to keep it safe.

 

do you plan to release a price at Sema or will that come later?

 

Right now the focus is getting the car done. We did some major wiring harness work last night, and confirmed the work by starting the car at 11pm. It started. We went home.

I'll sit down at SEMA with my spreadsheet and come out with a starting price, but the final cost is really going to depend on the buyer. All new parts, turbo, set up for serious racing and you're talking about a very spendy car with no creature comforts. However, if you drop the Catfish onto your existing Miata, add wheels/tires and can paint yourself, you could have one of the lowest priced performance per dollar vehicle available.

Personally, half the fun of owning a sports car--Catfish or Miata--is improving the car over time. It will always be a work in progress.