I don't have much to show here, but I thought I would start my build thread before I get too far into things so I can get advice and avoid some mistakes along the way. The car is a 97 in that ultra-rare red color that you hardly ever see. I picked the car up for what I think was a decent deal on craigslist with 190k on the clock. It runs well and doesn't have an unusual amount of rust so I'm not worried about the high miles, especially since I'm going to tear everything apart anyway.

The plan is to turbo the car with a built 1.8 sitting under the 99-00 head running megasquirt. I still haven't decided on a turbo, but I would like to be in the 300-350whp range(I know 200hp is more than enough). Right now I'm sorting out all of my suspension so that I can start dd'ing the miata and sell my turbo civic to fund this project. I guess this is where I start showing pictures?





This is what it looked like when I bought it. Since then I managed to slide off the road on some loose gravel and bent the passenger side lower control arm, so I bit the bullet and ordered up an Energy Suspension master kit.




I've been wire wheeling all my suspension bits and then coating them with truck bed liner to clean things up while I wait for my bushings to come in.



The previous owner had the wrong size rotors on the front, oops. I replaced them with the correct size for obvious reasons.



The front suspension is almost done, still have to tackle everything on the back though :/




I also decided to dig out the rocker rust while I have the car in the shop, I do have to give the guy credit for covering it up pretty well though.

That's pretty much where I'm sitting at right now, feel free to fire away with any comments/questions/insults.

 

its always nice to see people who clean the suspension components. i did that with my old *** ae86.

 

300rwhp or nothing

 

Dropped the rear subframe, hit everything with a wire wheel, then gave it a nice coat of truck bed liner to fight off this Indiana rust. I went ahead and put the subframe and diff back in since I'm not using the energy diff bushings (I hear they transmit a decent amount of vibration from the motor). Still waiting on my parts :/

 

oh what i would give for a lift to use when i wanted...

 

If I didn't have access to a full shop I wouldn't have even tried this.

 

I know a lot of people consider this a step in the wrong direction, but I'm installing two 8" subs in the rear deck while I have it in the shop.

 

There should be a rollbar there, but subs do sound good when mounted there. I ditched mine for a rollbar and am glad I did. The benefits and vast improvements in rigidity outweighed the hit I took in audio quality.

 

That sub money is money that could have been used for boost. I am ashamed of you.

Also, 200hp is definitely not enough. 300hp is not enough either and I assume 400hp will not be as well. I will stop going for more power when adding more hp won't get me going faster in a straight line.

 

Yeah, what he said. 300rwhp ain't much anymore.

 

Haha the subs were $21 shipped on ebay and the amp was free, that won't dip too far into the turbo funding.

Maybe you guys can help me with an issue I'm having. The rear of my car sits too low, and it's even worse now that I have the ES bushings that aren't preloaded like the stock ones. Here's some pictures to clarify:


This is the rear, it actually sits a little lower than that but I had just lifted the car and it hasn't settled down all the way in this picture.


This is the front of the car, it sits noticeably higher.


When I lift the car it travels smoothly through the whole range.


When I set the car back down it stays here until I cycle the suspension.


The car has tokico blues, which I've heard should be close to stock ride height?

The blues are supposed to be semi-new according to the previous owner, is it possible that the springs are already shot? I don't mind the front, but I almost have to roll my fenders in the rear, which isn't right at all.

 

I fit both.

If you drive the car enough to give a **** about the sound quality then adding the subs was definitely worth it. I added a **** ton of dynamat at the same time so the car sounds pretty much perfect to me. So glad I did it.

I like the truck bed liner under there. When I get mine down to the shop I might have to take a day and do the same.

 

I need to go back and dynamat, but I did take the time to totally isolate the trunk from the cabin, which probably helps the sound.

 

Yeah I did that as well. I used styrofoam squares to block the majority of the space and went around thew edges with spray foam. I tested it both ways before and after. Sealing off the trunk is night and day difference.

 

So you blocked the tunnels going to the trunk? I only sealed up all the air gaps between the cabin and the trunk.

 

Here's some pics from my build thread. Took me a minute to find what page they were on. lol

 

Wow, thanks. So the foam blocks made a pretty substantial difference then?

 

Night and day. As I was installing all the stereo related stuff I was testing it through each stage. When all was said and done I could honestly say it sounds better than any other car I've been in. With the doors closed you can barely hear anything, open them and its like whoa.

 

My ride height on Tokico HP combo (Tokico Blues + Tokico Springs), with original OEM bushings:



They are terrible, by the way. Too low, undersprung, and underdamped.

 

Spring or top hat spacers are you option, unless you go for a whole new setup.

top hat spacer:
http://www.flyinmiata.com/index.php?...umber=13-59000
Spring spacer, more or less:
http://fatcatmotorsports.com/igaller...spacer_top.JPG

I say more or less because the ones I had went below the spring.