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This is a small project for my dad. He is the one that originally got me into cars/miatas when I was about 10 years old. He had a red 91 "garage queen" up until a few years ago after selling it. Soon after he ended up with a stock NB2, which he didn't like and had me sell it only a few months after he got it. A couple of months after that and he sent me on a search for another NB that we could set up for fun, no class or even racing as the focus. Street car nostalgia!
I found this car on this forum, actually. Made a deal for it without an engine, but came with the following.
NB1 chassis wrapped Bloo
15x8.5 Konig Hypergrams
225/45/15 RS4s (basically new)
DiY Billy setup, MSM billies, 600/400, oem top-hats
RB 1.125" front bar w/ blocks
5spd, 4.3 torsen
ebay short-shifter w/ Skunk2 ****
LRB door-cards w/ bloo pull straps
NRG wheel w/ bloo accents and bloo hub adapter
BBFW rear spoiler, ebay front lip
Picked it up in Charlotte and brought it back to my place in TN.
Bloo
Bloo
So the next step might be guessed by some........
Bloo needs engine....
And the racecar has a great running BP it doesn't need anymore.
Some neat pieces from the white car that I've moved over to Bloo.
A Stahl long-tube header, makes great torque, but kind of noisy for the street. It's manageable though.
DPtune reflashed ECU, timing is advanced and 7500 red-line. This was from the STR build, years ago.
It gets the last config I had with the BP, which was.......
-"Honda style" intake
-Square-top intake manifold
-5A intake cam
-4W head, NB1 10:1 short-block
-Stahl header
-2.5" mandrel bent cat-back w/ 18" resonator and Borla ProXS muffler
-SPM Qmax reroute
-Fidanza 7lb 1.6 flywheel
-ACT ZM2-HDG4 clutch
Swapped the 4-puck out for a full disc to help with "streetablility"
At the request of my dad I got power-steering working on the car. I had never messed with this other than removal, it's probably installed wrong...... but hey it works!
First time on the ground out of the garage..... drove it for two weeks and no leaks. I call that a success!
To help with the ride quality I sourced some inexpensive extended top-hats. I believe I'm going to modify them a bit to fit OEM bushings and prevent the metal-to-metal contact of them.
After removing the shocks I realized the front-end need some love. The chassis actually has 200k+ miles, even though it's pretty clean underneath and overall. New ball-joints top and bottom, so new bushings on the UCA was a plus for this build. Removing the OEM heat retainers up front as well. Car had autozone pads and fairly worn rear rotors so I opted for Stoptech Sport pads front/rear with new rotors. Trying to find a happy-medium balance with this car.
I spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to close the top after the first time putting it down. Thankfully, I'm a hoarder of parts and had my old latches from my white-car which were in great condition. After I swapped them it actually closed with ease.
That's it for now. We might make some additional changes later in the year..... like more power
Cleaned the Xidas up and swapped them onto Bloo last night. Took it for a drive....... I knew it was going to be a substantial difference but damn........ so much better. I've said it for years and it's still true, I'm super spoiled by Xidas on miatas that I can't have anything else.
Going to go self-isolate in the car in the middle of the mountains today. It's super nice out too.
Weather was so nice this weekend I went up Saturday and Sunday. It'll be tough giving the car up to my dad...... whenever that may be. Car is quite a bit lower with the Xidas, sitting at 4.25"-ish front and right under 4.5" rear. I attempted to get the driver's front the lowest and passenger rear the highest. Definitely too lazy to get scales and do it properly though lol.
I've tried to keep the car clean....... it takes so much effort. I don't know how all the car-show/stance guys keep their **** so clean....... maybe they just drive it a lot less?
Sooooo we're(9LR) trying a street wáng. The one pictured below is prototype #2. I plasti-dipped the mounts myself because it looks better than bare aluminum It's not better than the standard big wáng from a performance perspective. It's a low-cost option for someone wanting some rear down-force and just happens to be a very low-drag setup.
End-plate mounted, using the same mounting points as our standard big wáng kit. This makes it easier for users to upgrade later on if they want to. The foil is our standard 9.5" aluminum at 40" in width. It's mounted lower than the roofline, and far enough back to clear the trunk from opening. Well the production unit will clear the trunk, I found out this prototype that clear NA trunks does NOT clear NB trunks
We tried to style it some, Jhony referenced the NA had a LOT of 1" radius. The turn signal lights, the mirrors, the door handles, all 1" radius curves. So he put that into this design. My personal preference on the style is for the mounts to be closer to the bumper and up higher, very similar to a JGTC build. This one can either go towards a "whale-tail" or maybe a "shopping cart".
We'll see how this goes, but hopefully it could turn into something neat on the market. If not, it was a fun experiment.
Also took it to an auto-x. This particular course favored CAM for obvious reasons.........
Cleaned the Xidas up and swapped them onto Bloo last night. Took it for a drive....... I knew it was going to be a substantial difference but damn........ so much better. I've said it for years and it's still true, I'm super spoiled by Xidas on miatas that I can't have anything else.
Just did this on Turtle last week. Spent the entire weekend saying to myself "holy **** Xidas are good" all over again.
Also, +1 for JGTC not the shopping cart crap jonnie drew.
Hello hello!! yes it's me, the new owner! finally had time (and remembered lol) to register and continue the thread
The car has been wonderful on the backroads of NC, whether I've been going to work or picking up groceries for me and the roommates
@LAPDOG Maybe let the Mods know where you meant to put this. This forum has a bad feature that moves you to the end of another thread than the one you were reading.
I’ll try to find how to turn it off and let you know.
EDIT: Tap your name in upper right and go to User Control Panel. Scroll dow and find what I show below and stop Related Threads.
@LAPDOG Maybe let the Mods know where you meant to put this. This forum has a bad feature that moves you to the end of another thread than the one you were reading.
I’ll try to find how to turn it off and let you know.
EDIT: Tap your name in upper right and go to User Control Panel. Scroll dow and find what I show below and stop Related Threads.
oh my god my bad haha, good to know that happens how annnoying
Well thanks for the reminder, I'll post an update on Bloo now.
Installed a roll-bar and harness bar. Got a good deal from Alex Todd at SNS Mazda. I don't have any plans to use the harness bar currently..... it's there for a "just in case" moment
Also picked up a 78k mile 6spd from Alex..... I probably should put this one into the kmiata since it has a ~170k 6spd Also snagged a gently used Miata Roadster shifter.
Got both my OEM hard-top and a CCP fiber-glass top painted. It turned out super nice and it doesn't miss-match Bloo's hood or A-pillar too bad.
03-07-2020, 11:55 AM
"Bloo" - street car nostalgia
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