Nice work! Jealous of the fab work. Do you use a band saw for your cuts? That's something I've never delved into personally outside of making some simple brackets out of mild steel and borrowing a friend's MIG welder. I know fabbing stuff takes a whole lotta time.

 

Thanks!

I do use a band saw. My setup is just a HF Bauer band saw on a SWAG Offroad table. I modified the table to slide into the "receivers" I built into my fabrication bench. I used to use a cutoff saw, but the band saw is FAR superior... once I started using it I never looked back.

 

Those spintech mufflers are no joke. Occasionally they rob some power, but we also have some 3.5" units on our S54 enduro car. It's stock ECU with a sequential, so ignition cut for *****=giant fire *****. 25 hours later, it'll be ballooned a bunch, but still in one piece. They're sorta ugly and heavy, but very effective at what they're designed to do. I much prefer that over an expensive polished muffler that blows out after a track day or two.

BTW that T25 muffler stayed on and kept the car quiet for another year or two.

 

Dang, I really need to get me a bandsaw setup like that. I'm OK-ish with the 'ol angle grinder+sawzall combination, but it would make a lot of things so much easier if I didn't have to spend hours turning ugly cuts into straight ones from the get go.

 

Good progress today, got the brake hydraulics back in the car.

Back when I installed the Wilwoods and added a prop valve, I had built a quick and dirty bracket. I was never all that happy with it, but it worked fine for the last 7 years, so I've never updated it. Until now...

Old setup:



It was time to clean things up, and I wanted to move at least one of the connections outboard of the M/C to create more elbow room. Old bracket with new bracket:



I'm also adding a brake pressure sensor, so I needed to add an additional "T" fitting to the front circuit.



The "T"s mount outboard of the M/C and the prop valve inboard.





To model the brake lines, I'm using aluminum armature wire... this really helped to figure out how the lines needed to be bent before starting any bends on the actual lines, which are Ni-Cop line.





Flaring was done with an Eastwood flaring tool. This thing was a great investment!



M/C back in the car and lines installed. I was able to re-use the factory line for the rear circuit, but had to make new lines for all the connections at the M/C and for the front brakes.

 

Continuing with brakes today, I swapped out the front (rear circuit) reservoir on the M/C. A few years back, the original Wilwood reservoir for the front circuit failed at a seam and was causing an intermittent leak.



I took a while to nail down a replacement... Wilwood has a terrible online parts catalog, and their customer service was just about worthless. Since I wasn't sure the replacement was going to work, I only ordered one. It was a one piece molded reservoir, instead of a two piece 'welded' together with a seam. Turns out it worked, and I had ordered another to replace the other two-piece reservoir as a preventative measure, but never got around to installing it. Fortunately, it's an easy job.

First, I use a syringe type fluid evacuator to remove the fluid from the reservoir, and then it pops right off the M/C. Fortunately, it leaves enough fluid that re-bleeding the M/C is not necessary.





New reservoir pops on, and fill with fluid. While I was at it, I pulled the old fluid from the other circuit and replaced it as well in preparation for bleeding.





The old fluid wasn't terrible, but since I'm bleeding for the new lines, a flush isn't a bad idea.

 

The other project for today was re-installing the sway bar.



Another example of tight clearance on this swap...

 

Made some good progress today. Got the radiator and hoses, overflow tank and 'headlights' back in.



I needed the radiator and 'headlights' in to start working on the air inlet. The plan is to go into the fenderwell in front of the tire, and mount the filter behind the airdam with a dedicated inlet. As you can see, clearance is fairly tight getting past the radiator fill.



With the basic route planned, I cut the aluminum pipe to allow for a bellows connection to allow some flex for engine movement, as the filter end will be mounted to the body. Also, the IAT sensor will go in the middle aluminum section.



Next up was making a flange for the bend that goes through the sheet metal.



Finally, a couple of rivnuts in the sheet metal for mounting and easy removal down the road, and the basic fitup is done.





Tomorrow, I need to re-teach myself TIG so I can stick it together, and add the piece in the fenderwell the filter will clamp onto. That will require some practice as I haven't welding any aluminum in quite a while...

 

Finished the intake today. Not my prettiest TIG work, but nothing will be coming apart....

Topside



Underside







IAT bung added to mid section and all together (minus clamps)

 

While I was cleaning up, I noticed the brake line out of the prop valve weeping, so I went to snug it up and this happened:







I'm pretty careful when tightening brake fittings so I don't like to think I over torqued it, but even so, I've never seen the fitting fail before the threads. Never noticed it weeping before, and it wasn't removed from the prop valve when I re-did the lines... just removed the flare fitting and re-installed. This is an adapter made by Flyin' Miata for the NPT to metric flare... I ordered a new one (and a spare), not sure if there's even another source for these. Glad it didn't fail on-track!

 

Final step on the intake was making a support bracket for the end of the filter. This doesn't really take any weight, just keeps the filter from moving around due to its own flexibility.





I also re-organized the center stack, moving the CAN switch panel to the top for accessibility. This leaves the lower spot open for the camera control box. The dial in the center is the E-power steering assist adjustment.





Next, I spent a couple of hours figuring out the connections between the PDM, dash, GPS antenna and camera. AIMs documentation on this is not great... they seem to show every combination except mine. I determined I needed another part to put it all together, so I ordered that, and a bunch of 'labels' for the CAN switch panel. I finished up the day putting the front end back together (mostly). I had originally planned to replace the airdam and center ducting with updated versions, but in the interest of getting back on track this year, I decided to put that off until the summer break (at least). It's starting to look like a car again.

 

In case you've forgotten, I'm happy to help with any AiM/PDM questions, just reach out! Since you first mentioned it, I've probably installed half a dozen more of them, my love/hate relationship keeps growing, but I've figured out a lot of the issues you can have with them, and how to work around them. Swap is coming along great so far!

 

Thanks, curly!

I will definitely keep that in mind, and I'm sure to have questions!

 

Had to go on a scavenger hunt to find the Honda fuel rail spacers today, but luckily it only took a few minutes of searching.



Fuel rail and injectors are mounted, and I got a bunch of fittings in, hoping to get all of the fuel connections made over the next couple of days.



Next up was building a mounting bracket for the PDM and Link ECU. Bent up a plate out of aluminum sheet, mounted on vibration isolation mounts. I thought I took more pics of the process, but apparently I was on a roll and neglectful...







I debated the orientation of the devices, but ultimately decided accessibility trumped short wire runs.

 

Personally, I wouldn't mount electronics down low in an euduro car. If you're racing in the pouring rain, you'll be amazed at how much water can get into the floorboard. Even with the plug(s) out, you can get waves of water washing around the floorboard.

 

Not an enduro car... HPDE and TT. Also, Arizona...

I do understand your concern, though we've had one real rain day in the last 8 years, and no water accumulation in the car.

 

Ooops. I thought I read somewhere it was being built for endurance races. I'll go back in cave now.

 

No worries. Up front, the fuel lines, and the vacuum lines for the booster and fuel regulator are in. Also replaced the broken brake fitting.



In the office, I got the center stack set up, and the PDM and ECU mounted. The CAN switchpad buttons are preliminary... things may change as I figure out where I want things.

 

That's such a clean and orderly engine bay and cabin. I've got too much going on in mine.

 

Thanks!

Still making progress. Installed a DW200 fuel pump to replace the unknown that was in there. It wasn't the original, but who knows what it was.




Added another bung to the intake pipe for the IAC.



Got the fire suppression system re-oriented for the K24.



And added a sandwich plate so I could use an aftermarket oil temp gauge.



Today I tidied up the primary power wiring (battery-alternator-cutoff switches), which required a couple changes now that the Miata fuse block is gone and the starter and alternator are on the opposite side. All of the primary wire is 2 or 4 gauge welding wire. Also ran the primary power wire for the PDM.



Then I ran this little hot rod around the property for a couple hours killing weeds...