soooo the long awaited "build" update.

Over the last few years, I've always been one to humbly brag about how reliable the car has been and how I have had no issues with driving it across the country to MATG, or to HPDE events, or to AutoX events, or even to work for commutes. All of that still holds true and it hasn't given me notable issues. However, there's always a little devil on my shoulder whispering in my ear "...but what if something happened?" during an event weekend. I'm not naïve and know driver mistakes by myself or others can happen and parts can fail. It has never been super confidence inspiring (or very comfortable) to count on your completely molested dual duty track vehicle being your only way home, many times while hours away from home. I also would like the opportunity to take the family out to events with the car, and not all of us can fit in a single two-seater.

So starting for reasons noted above that anyone with a track driven car can understand, I wanted a trailer...
...and I didn't have space to put one anywhere on my small property

I also had quickly ran out of garage space while working on side gig projects and also letting the wife keep her parking stall...
...and I didn't have space to expand the garage on my small property

And most recently, the twins quickly filled the bedrooms and closets and the living room and the kitchen
...and I didn't have space to expand the house on my small property

So it quickly became apparent that the small property was the main reason for a lot of my first world problems and that it wasn't going to work for forever without becoming a lifestyle restriction. The wife and I started by laying out a game plan for how to address it. The hot housing market, high[er] (but historically average) interest rates, and general inflationary economy sure as hell didn't make any of this easier, but thanks to a lot sacrifice towards what Dave Ramsey would label as a "incredibly financially stupid" automotive hobby that we all enjoy (aka, this build thread) and with some solid career progressions, the day has finally come. We said goodbye to our starter home and hello to the new-to-us Left Lane Designs HQ.




We still don't have a trailer, but now I have space for one in the future on the 40'x40' driveway pad or along the house...
We went from a 22'x22' 2-stall finished attached garage on a measly 20a breaker to a 46'x24' 4-stall finished attached garage with 220v installed for EV charging and future welder uses...
We went from 0.2 acres with city restrictions to 2.5 acres of non-HOA bliss that would allow for a future detached shop space...
We went from struggling to justify owning an ATV, UTV, or pit bike in the city to already talking about getting one because all the roads around us and going into town are all UTV/ATV legal...
We went from living in what seemed like a retirement community on a busy city street to a quiet cul-du-sac with other similar-in-age growing families where in the matter of a week our 10yo has already made neighborhood friends...
...and we managed to find all this before the school year started for the 10yo, find a new childcare solution for the twins, and find a location with only a minor commute increase to our existing jobs. Some would say... JACKPOT!

To say we are stoked across the board is the understatement of the decade, but god damn am I exhausted after this 2 month fiasco of prepping for a sale, selling, shopping, buying, packing, moving, and unpacking. This move eliminates essentially all the lifestyle restrictions the old home had. Long term, it opens so many doors that were previously locked shut (including the stupid trailer that started this whole thing...)

With big yard comes big responsibilities that I didn't have before though, so I have began my "lawn dad" phase of life by picking up a lightly used Gravely ZT HD52 mower. Have been pretty happy with being able to mow the entire yard in just over an hour (only ~20mins more than it took me to push mow my 0.2 acres before).



...and just because no post to MT can go without something gasoline related AND irresponsible. My wife and I made a lighthearted bet before trying for kids that "for every kid we have, I get to own a toy". Neither of us were expecting twins to arrive, so I joked that I was at a 2 toy deficit at the moment of births. We picked up the snowmobile that I mentioned here in early 2024, which brought the deficit to 1, and without much convincing at all my wife told me to eliminate the deficit alltogether and add a second toy deal into the "house closing costs" as a small way to celebrate.



So say hi to my new-to-me 2003 Kawasaki ZX-6R (636) with a well loved 28,000 miles.

One of my best local friends (a long time miata nutcase and MT member) was looking to get rid of it after owning it for the last 15+ years. If you had a sharp eye, you could see glimpses of it in photos shared in this thread as I was storing it and helping prep it for sale the last couple of months. When I mentioned it was time for it to go because of my incoming housing situation, he gave me a bottom dollar price that I simply couldn't sell it to a stranger for. Instead, I now get to be THAT Harley-Davidson employee that cruises to work on a Japanese sport bike; a badge that I'll wear with zero shame.

Like you could expect for a bike previously owned by a miata guy. It's got some nice bits on it already related to handling and power delivery improvements
2003 ZX-6RR forks
2009 ZX-6R rear shock and dog bone
2009 ZX-6R radial master cylinder
2009 ZX-14 calipers
+3F/0R sprockets
Stainless brake lines
Two Brothers slip on with a quite rare carbon kevlar twill.
Power Commander III with custom map

The tires are old and it still needs a little body panel love from an unfortunate tip-over event during transport, but slowly modifying it to an OEM+ appearance while enjoying it as a work commuter will be the goal. It will be nice to get back on 2 wheels again with something I can make my own as I haven't owned a bike since 2017. Thanks to the new garage, I have the space to justify keeping it.

So there you have it... not much for miata updates in today's post, but you'll see a much bigger garage in future build posts and now know why. Until then, I have more unpacking to do.... FML....

 

Congrats!!

We're going into our 2nd year in our 'dream' setup, and it's fantastic to be living your own dream. Enjoy it. Maintaining acreage is no joke, though. I spent two hours this morning pulling a sprayer trailer around behind our yard tractor/mower...

On another note, an '03 636 was my first dedicated track bike waaaay back in the day. It may not be the latest/greatest, but it's a very capable platform.

 

Congrats man. Living the American dream! I also dig the bike, any plans to track it?

I have a track bike that I bought (couldn't pass up the price) and have yet to track as well...

 

Be careful... tracking bikes is about as addicting as tracking cars. And far less expensive for the speed (terror!) you can achieve.

It does, however, take a higher level of committment to go fast, and has a higher potential to hurt a lot more. I never had a big crash, but I had enough little ones to realize the older I got, the more it hurt, and the longer it took to heal. Which I why I'm perfectly happy in a caged car. I would like to take my Interceptor on track one of these days, but I will be touring around in one of the lower groups just having fun.

 

No plans to track the 636 (or any bike for that matter). I have the much more risk averse kmiata for the track purposes that I'm eagerly awaiting to drive more often once life calms down a bit.

For how common the 03-04 636's were (and still are) in the stunting community, it's honestly quite rare to find one of them in good shape that isn't completely molested, blown up, or being parted out. It's kind of like finding a stock-ish NA/NB miata. If you have a stock one, it's more valuable to keep it that way. I'm considering this bike more of a simple investment that I can enjoy commuting on during fair weather days. I take the Kmiata on questionable days where rain may be in forecast. After doing some basic cleanup, repairs, and maintenance, I could easily see the 636 being worth over twice what I paid for it during prime summer riding season if I ever got to that point (which was part of why picking this bike over something else). If I had my choice of any bike and more funds available to burn on the hobby, I'd probably be picking a 3rd gen Yamaha FZ/MT10 to keep the lightweight and playful street bike feel with a torquier midrange, host of ride mode / safety functions, and more upright ergonomics for comfort... Maybe one day, but for now I've got some miles to enjoy on the new-to-me 636

 

Makes sense! I haven't seen a 636 that clean in many years. I had a buddy with one in highschool, it was a fun bike. Enjoy!!!!!

 

In for riding mower aero.

Looks amazing. I'm just starting to look at getting a place of my own. The idea of having my own garage, organized the way I want is enough to make me drool.

 

Need real tractor. Garages? Kids stuff - real men have sheds ... with hoists.
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Looks great, look forward to hearing about the improvements.

Mowing is the easy bit, as Roda said spraying is a pain in the ****, especially spot spraying, and fencing (especially if the neighbors have stock), but after having lived on acreage for the last 40+ years I can say with some envy and confidence that 2.5 acres would be much easier than 20 (or 40 as it was at the start).

Enjoy!

 

My advice for the shop space, go bigger. Bigger than you think you’ll need.

this is from someone who has moved four times, each with a bigger shed each time and the current 36000 cubic feet of shed is still not big enough..

”gee I wish my shed wasn’t so big” said no man ever!!

 

I grew up in a pretty rural area of Wisconsin working on dairy farms, so I received the whole stereotypical "farm kid" upbringing.... One of my many jobs as a kid was doing the landscaping/lawncare side of things, so this 2.5 acres reminds me of some of that but on a very toned down level. In my current location nearer to the "big city" where I now work, land is becoming an increasingly hot commodity for developers (residential and commercial). We considered building a home, but purchasing JUST the undeveloped land gets to be a pretty hard financial pill to swallow if you want more than a 1 acre lot without HOA's to deal with... so in short, we are happy we found what we did.

No need for fencing here as the 2 dogs we have (who are obsessed over the extra space) are well trained on e-collars and already have figured out property lines quite well. Assuming you are referring to weeds, there really isn't much need for spraying either as the previous owners of the home did a good job at making probably 98% of the property easy to cut with the zero turn mower. A few key areas will need occasional line trimming, but I'm not complaining.

As far as shop goes, I'm not thinking too far into that one yet, but it's great knowing we have the room for a sizable one. Over doubling the attached garage space has been a nice enough upgrade for me for now! It'll be a ways down the road before we can consider building a shop as we need to get through the expensive child care phase of life first. Staying optimistic, that just gives me plenty of time to plan it out!

 

Damn... It's the middle of November already. Time is flyin' with the new house as we continue to settle in with family, friends, and the new "more rural" lifestyle. I've still got a bit more garage organizing to do, but we are getting close!

I've been putting a lot of effort into and enjoying the 3D scanning side of things lately (as noted in the link below), instead of activities directly related to my car. I feel like I've reached a tipping point in my NB where I either am going to tear into it extremely deep (again) OR just enjoy and drive it as the extremely fun car that it is. I've never owned a car long enough to ever say "I think I'm happy with it and will just maintain/drive it" so I'm in uncharted car guy territory here for myself.
https://www.miataturbo.net/general-m...esigns-109143/

On a related, I've had a lot of people ask me about NA scans... without having a car in my garage to work with, it's always been harder to get those. So, one thing led to another and I "convinced" a friend (without much effort) to let me store his NA this winter to support scanning activities. It's sure nice having enough extra garage space to store a friend's car without much of a thought. As an added bonus, I've got some LLD product ideas that have been brewing in my head for far to long. Now that I have an NA, an NB, and a 3D scanning all under one roof, I'm hoping that I can finally bring these concepts to life far more quickly than ever before.

 

Man, that NA is a beauty. A clean stock body NA/NB is such a work of art, sometimes it's a shame we mess them up with track prep and aero . That's why I had to get a 2nd one (NB) to keep near-stock. I can appreciate a clean stock car just as much as a highly modified racecar.

Excited to see what you come out with for the community! I'd love to support, so staying tuned.

 

I have to admit, while I love my completely molested track car that I make strong efforts to keep as clean/straight as possible, there is something wonderful about a nearly untouched OEM+ style build... and I'm a sucker for Laguna Blue....

 

Laguna blue is just such a fantastic color. I'm glad I finally got an NA back in my garage, but they're not as clean as those two. I'd waste a lot of time standing and staring if I were there!

If you're scanning things and have permission to do some light parts removal, those shorty rear mudflaps your friends car has are unobtanium. The ones still available all go up onto the quarter panel. A printable 3d model could get good sales.

 

Alight... let's talk more about this NB "tipping point" that I referred to above.


I'm a little embarrassed to see that I've been sitting in this build lull for almost 2 years now, starting with this post here. I guess I shouldn't be so hard on myself though as I launched a heavily integrated OEM cooling system to production, finalized home improvements on my old home, had/have twins, got promoted, and moved to a new home in that timeframe so I've not exactly been lazy......

So what's developed in the last 2 years!? Well, I'm glad you didn't ask, because I'm going to tell you anyways.

Cost issues aside (which I'll get to), the next biggest holdup in actually pulling the trigger on the next phase of this build is patiently waiting to see others win (or fail) in the kswap transmission space. The transmission IS the Achilles heel to this kswap build in my firm opinion. Wingman actually runs through a pretty nice list of options here, so I won't retype what he's already said. I will say that advancements have been occurring in the 8HP space. I would have been a very early adopter to the 8HP transmission 2 years ago, and boy am I glad that I waited. I'm not here to bad mouth any specific company, so I won't, but I've received an overwhelmingly positive feel about a majority of the recent 8HP builds using the CANTCU transmission controller for road course duty types of applications. It just works like you'd want it to work with customer support you'd expect while not requiring you to dig into the electronics on the transmission itself. Just to put numbers behind this, I believe that by time I sell all of my K24-Mazda adapter plate, clutch, and OE trans hardware and buy the DBW throttle body, CANTCU, TCU harness, driveshaft, trans etc I'd likely be into an 8HP for very close to $4k out the door. Fun example of 8HP50 turbo K24 NC running on CANTCU here:

As previously mentioned 2 years ago, the issue of swapping to that 8HP trans starts snowballing though based on where my car is at today. The $4k trans upgrade turns into a $2k diff upgrade, a $5k wiring/ECU/ABS upgrade, and $5k pile of parts to add boost to the car. In total, I'm estimating about $16k MORE into this car to get it to the 500whp goal of 8speeds of boosted and "somewhat reliable" dual duty miata fury.... and so now we get to the very fun to consider "tipping point" that I started this wall of text with... I know I could put the same 8HP transmission behind a moderately built n/a 6.2L LS to make the same 500whp goal for cheaper than $16k out of pocket if I sold out of the Kswap life completely.


There's no hiding that the kswap cost isn't the best bang for your buck in the HP/$ category. I still love the car with the kswap and don't fault myself for why I did it, but in the search for the most robust and reliable way to make 500whp, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to consider boosting a 4cylinder to the moon as a more reliable option than 6.2L of murica that does that with relative ease at atmospheric pressure... and so now you understand my conundrum. Building the car to be a boosted K and tearing it down to put an LS in are both very extensive tear-ups that will require me to toss the car on jack stands for a while (likely 1-2 years). I've been in deep discussion with Bronson to understand the tradeoffs that may come with V8 life and how that compares to the tradeoffs I know that I live with on the Kswap.. All things as equal as they can be, I'm convinced the v8 will add about 100lbs overall compared to a boosted K, but it will do so with many less points of failure and less niche "KPI-type" of products which I really appreciate from the reliability perspective. As the kswaps become more popular/common, I am starting to see less and less folks reliably hold 500whp on track with a stock bottom end K24 and more of them do piston/rod/stud builds to keep them together. I could do the same, but then the price gap turns even more to the "...just put a SBE v8 in it" side of the equation.

I guess now that I have the space to tear the car down again with the bigger garage, I've got to do some soul searching to decide what path to head down (if I head down one at all). I could just leave the car as-is and enjoy because it fits perfectly in ClubTR, but I've really been itching to get into a wrenching project again, which you guys can all understand I'm sure as mentally twisted "car guys".

TLDR; building a 500whp NB is expensive. I'm conflicted on whether to add boost or cylinders, just leave it alone and continue enjoying it as it sits, or start a second build on another vehicle to get my wrenching "fix" in. First world problems....

 

Haha.. nice post, and a well reasoned one. I gave some thought to the K swap route, but opted for the turbo BP route because it's "cheaper" and makes more power (I'm hoping it can be reliable). I think the most practical choice is to simply stick to a reasonable power level and simply drive it/have fun. The OEM 6 speed seems to be ok <250whp on track and seemingly holds up. After seeing Zak (Z_WAAAAZ) deal with the nightmare of his tranny swap, I'm even more ingrained in this opinion.

On that note a v8 does sound very interesting. The only "problem" I see with a v8 is simply that the torque curve will make the car an absolute wild stallion even moreso than a turbo K. I've never driven an LS miata so maybe I'm just talking out my ***, but the instant torque down low and light/short wheelbase have to be a handful to say the least. With that said, I think there's simply no comparison reliability wise for a v8 making 500whp to a 4 banger making 500whp. The load is spread out over 4 more cylinders and 500whp is barely breaking a sweat for a v8. I'll be interested to see what you decide and path you take. Ultimately if you got a good/solid reliable/fun car, I'd think twice about going even further down the rabbit hole and thinking the grass is greener. Maybe getting another miata for an LS swap wouldn't be a bad idea?

 

His experience unfortunately isn't super uncommon with that transmission kit from when I've dug online. It would be one thing to deal with that if the ZF was "cost-effective" but given it's just as (if not more) expensive, why would I sign myself up for that struggle? I've pretty much written off the KPI ZF kit as an option that I want for that reason...

I have driven one, but it was closer to the 400whp range. It's more controllable than you think (at least in my experiences)... Yes, the torque is instant, but the torque delivery is VERY linear to the pedal position. Traction control strategies can help make up the rest when you are really at the limit, and I'd need to take advantage of those with a v8 or boosted 4cyl I'd fully expect.

Just starting from a clean slate on something else while keeping the NB as-is isn't off the table, but I'll leave that side-tracked discussion for a different day. There are so many things I could consider on this topic...

 

It's probably a lot easier to keep a 500hp engine cool on track if it doesn't have an intercooler.

There's something to be said for the longevity of less-stressed components, too.

 

To me, the entire appeal of the K swap is that a factory spec K20/24 is right at the sweet spot of what the rest of the Miata driveline can reliably handle to get you a reliable naturally aspirated track car. Once you give that up, I just don't see the logic. You're looking at building a long block to mate to a different manufacturers transmission, to a different manufacturers differential, using a bunch of custom parts, and running aftermarket engine and transmission management. I'd rather start with something that was closer to the target HP in the first place. I know, not very hot rodder of me. Just seems like a lot of places for things to go wrong.

Admittedly I haven't done a lot of research into LSx swaps, but isn't most of the weight gain from the T56 and 8.8? Torque is torque, and it's not like turbo equipment is zero mass.

 

We've had this conversation before, but I'll put the sparknotes version of it out in public:

If I knew where my car was heading 5 years ago and what I would want out of it, I would have LS swapped it.
That being said, I love me some 4 cylinder turbo noises. I'm not *unhappy* with my choice to boost, blow up, build, and reboost a revvy 4 cylinder motor, but a LOT of things would have been easier and more HP/$$ had I gone V8 instead of K.