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Drunk drivers that cause hit and run accidents suck serious dong. I'll let this picture do the talking. Car did its job in protecting me and my passenger as we walked off without injury, but the V was not so lucky. Part out began. More details to follow
While figuring out V details, my suede obsession continued... Kick panels..
April 9, 2018
V part out was well underway. Pretty much all of my free time was stuck pulling parts from this car and the miata was on DD duty.
April 28, 2018
Got the miata back into summer mode with the Jongbloed's, aero, and a nice wash. Hard to beat black.
Still debating how to make this happen... because streetcar
May 5, 2018
Never really cared for the 3 vent design on the NB singular hood vents. The 2 side vents always seemed a bit small if left alone too. Call me picky, whatever, but my solution was to use a 2006 STI Singular Hood Vent kit.
Measuring about a million times.
Cutting maybe a little extra on the hood bracing than needed.
Happy with the results
May 28, 2018
Got to ride in one of these to bed brake pads in and log the Ford Performance Tune. I now officially hate every car I will ever own.
My windshield frame trim was all scratched up and looked like hell.
My solution? You probably guessed it. Suede!
Made a suede blockoff pad for the sun visor delete as well. Simple touches.
Seat belt pillar trim also needed to be installed and cut to fit. It was scratched up and ugly as well, so I did magical soft touch things.
June 13, 2018
V was stripped of everything of value. Time to junk the shell and get my garage stall back.
To say I'd be tempted to put the LSA in the miata would be an understatement... maybe for a different miata.. current intention is to sell the full LSA longblock with accessories. Haven't found the right buyer yet.
June 16, 2018
Got a deal on an NA6 dash, tombstone, and console setup. Had been looking for a while for the right deal and stumbled upon a local one. Easy way to drop a few pounds off the NB1 setup and I like the look better. Wrapped the dash pad in suede to tie the interior together whenever i get time to install it.
The previous owner even left a wonderful note in the glovebox!
June 19, 2018
Now that the V was gone and the situation taken care of, I needed a replacement for the miata to relieve it of its DD duties. Needed something more utilitarian and comfortable with some semblance of economy. The only solution to me was a truck. Shopped a long while for used market pickups and found that it didn't make a lot of sense to me given the crazy incentives GM has been offering on new pickups. Ended up walking out with a brand new 2018. Z71, 4x4, Crew Cab, LT2, Heated Black Cloth Bench Seat Interior, Trailer Brake Package, Tow Package, 5.3 w/ 6 speed trans. Absolutely love this truck. Will work great for future miata tow rig needs.
Further proving it's utility, literally the day after i bought it I went to go snag a hardtop that Cameron helped me find. 8 hour round trip later averaging a tick over 20 mpg in the truck at 80mph, and the miata is sitting pretty in the garage with a OEM black top with defrost. Need to pull the soft top once i get to the rest of the interior.
So thats all i have for updates so far. Its going to be a big push to get the car where I want it for MATG, but hopefully it'll be ready!
Sucks about the V, glad no bodily harm though. Super jelly on the truck and excited to see you do the kswap!
That suede looks pretty legit..... is it expensive at all? Rather, do you think it would be less expensive to do black suede on say tan interior vs buying black interior pieces to replace tan pieces?
Sucks about the V, glad no bodily harm though. Super jelly on the truck and excited to see you do the kswap!
That suede looks pretty legit..... is it expensive at all? Rather, do you think it would be less expensive to do black suede on say tan interior vs buying black interior pieces to replace tan pieces?
Counting my blessings on the situation. It sucks but with the partout I'll likely end up making ok profit on the car if I ignore my labor rate for 2 months of disassembly.
I got the suede on a special online. it was something like $75 for like 40 square feet of it. After you toss in adhesive, I'll be in the neighborhood of about $100 total for all the suede throughout the car. I'd say it is far less expensive doing the suede route instead of buying black interior pieces that are in perfect shape, plus it looks far better imo. The only real downside is the time involved to do all of the wrapping.
Originally Posted by Stealth97
Nice truck. My V6 tacoma doesnt even get 20mpg, lol
Thanks! Yeah I'm happy with it for being a full size pickup. Maybe if I drive like a reasonable adult I can see a bit more MPG out of it, but after being used to the V this thing is phenomenal on fuel lol
7/8/18
Went to Shawano USAIR for an AutoX. Its probably my favorite place to run AutoX at due to elevation changes. It was the first time I had this car at this track, and I finished 9th out of 104. Finished 1st in class (CSP) out of the 3 cars. I coned away what would've been a 6th place overall run and after reviewing the video I really feel I could've had a 4th place (low 67.xx) run in the car. Overall, extremely happy with getting the car dialed in. I haven't touched a single powertrain component on the car and I'm up competing with cars with well over twice the power.
Unfortunately on the way back home, the head gasket let go. This didn't come as a huge surprise as I had symptoms of a HG letting go for multiple months, but for it to let go right before MATG sucks.
MATG Crunch time. Current status as of late last week
Figured out the hard way that NB and NA A-Pillars are different. Had the option of tossing the NB pillars that I already spent time wrapping in suede, or trimming the NA dash to fit. I chose option 2 and it worked alright.
Made a shorty console out of a trashed NA6 center console. Made a quick and dirty delete panel out of HDPE material I had laying around. Not perfect, but decent enough to get by. Not sure I'll have time to wire in custom window switches. I don't have time to buy a double din adapter for the radio either, so its just ghetto-fixed into position.
Black NA6 swapped interior is finally coming together though! Car looks goofy with carpet back in it.
Holy hell did last night suck. Got the head on, water pump, etc. Just finishing final details, filled up with coolant and it comes pouring out the timing cover. New gasket on the water pump got pinched.Had to tear it all back down, redo that gasket, re-time it, then put it back together again. Good news is it fired right up at 1:30 this morning
Interior is pretty much buttoned up
Borrowed a set of NB2 seats from a buddy so the interior looks decent for MATG instead of having tan torn NB1 disasters
I must say, I'm a fan of the NA6 dash and flat doorcards. Do want.
Thanks! Short of just looking better imo, the amount of leg space compared to a OEM NB1 interior is ridiculous. Definitely makes the car feel a lot roomier inside while dropping a few lbs. Win-Win
I wanted to get LRB Hyrbid (uses NA upper bumper) door cards for my MSM, but they only do hybrid for NB1. You've got me thinking the full flat door card is actually quite nice, and much better than something I could craft myself. Man I want that extra room for my knee!
I wanted to get LRB Hyrbid (uses NA upper bumper) door cards for my MSM, but they only do hybrid for NB1. You've got me thinking the full flat door card is actually quite nice, and much better than something I could craft myself. Man I want that extra room for my knee!
You could likely ask them to make a hybrid panel for an NB2 and they would help you out. I'd be surprised if they even charged you any more to do it. LRB was very responsive and great to work with when I needed some custom tweaks to my panels. That said, the full flat panel is very nice as long as you wrap it with something padded IMO. I was going to do the hybrid panels but was struggling to find a set of decent NA upper door pads for fair price, so I settled here. I can fit my knee comfortably between the steering wheel and door panel now if I'm cruising around, so definitely no regrets in the full flat panel decision.
Originally Posted by paNX2K&SE-R
Nice progress! Did you do any debriding of the airbag harness while you were in there?
I did not go through the whole process of properly pulling out all the airbag harness wiring at this time. For now, the airbag system is just completely unplugged. I more or less just needed to get the car slapped together as quickly as possible to make MATG. I didn't want to rush through a harness and accidentally snip a wire I wasn't suppose to in my rush then be scrambling to diagnose a wiring issue. There is A LOT of wiring that will be redone on this car in the next year or so with the plans I have, so it's on the long term list to go through and simplify the harness. I'm dreading pulling off all the electrical tape already (insert sore fingers from full NA6 wire tuck done a few years back here). In addition to the airbag system, I deleted the Bose system, cruise control system, and power mirror system, so there are many extra dash harness wires still in the loom. I don't have the NA6 interior lights on the dash hooked up and I need to get new toggle switches for window motors tossed into the shorty console, so that's all on the list of small projects that I just skipped over for now just to have a functional driving car at MATG in a week.
1 day left until MATG. Got it outside for the first time in nearly 3 weeks. Need to pull the bumper cover and load it up on the trailer tomorrow, then do a final fluid check. Got the hardtop installed and reinforced the bfw wing with painted fender washers for the time being. Not perfect, but good enough I say!
Got the truck all loaded up. Made use of the quick release bumper/splitter setup to easily load it onto the U-Haul trailer. Bumper cover and splitter fit conveniently under the tonneau cover I just installed.
GF was doing GF things and making sandwiches in mobile headquarters on the drive down to NC.
#truckstuff. Trans cooler included in the Z71 package was proving its worth while towing through the mountains
Got the Miata unloaded and tossed the bumper cover and splitter back on in the Cabana parking lot.
Got the car out for its first true test drive since all the work done in July getting it ready for MATG. No issues to report!
The common sight of seeing people surrounded around your car was a funny sight. Some of the comments I got included:
"Is that a stock airbox? Why didn't you spend any money making it fast?"
"[looks in disgust] is that plywood? Does it work" NOOO, I'm putting plywood on my car for show!
"Did you buy stock in BFW?" lololol
Stereotypical crossroads photo
Found these 2 guys with 2000 SE's to cruise with and do hoodrat things. They are alright I guess.
Favorite shot of the weekend. Amazing how a good camera and edit can make a haggard pile look like a show car
Local friend ran into issues with his alternator on his 1.8 VVT swapped NA6, so I tore mine off after I loaded the car onto the trailer and let him borrow it in order to get home. I honestly haven't touched my car since as its been sitting in the garage. Laundry list of details to get through on it and ambition levels after the July extravaganza to get it ready for MATG has me a bit burnt out. We will see how progress for the rest of the season goes before the deep sleep of winter kicks in again.
06-27-2018, 12:35 AM
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